Crime is starting to spread...
Three-year-old Makiko Kohara goes missing from the mall while shopping with her family.
When Chief Inspector Kenji Inoue of the Fujikawa police gets the call, he is playing with his own three year old son, Yuichiro.
Disturbed by the news, he goes out into the bitter cold to search for the little girl, convinced she simply wandered off, and all will be well as such crime does not exist in Japan.
But once he gets to Seatopia, the new, western style shopping complex, he discovers the disappearance is very real indeed...
Meanwhile, a neighbourhood is being terrorised by a string of cat mutilations and two rival bike gangs are causing havoc in the sleepy, small, traditional Japanese town of Fujikawa.
With so much going on, the police are finding it challenging to keep up, and local reporters are quick to point out every mistake they make.
When the little girl's body is found, all of Japan is watching and waiting.
As Inoue investigates and leads his staff, his own wife, US-born Ellie, has her own health issues.
His sister-in law Lise, who is staying with them, takes over Ellie's teaching job and meets a Brazilian-born girl named Angie, who lives with her workaholic father and distant stepmother.
Bullied at school, Lise befriends the girl, not knowing she is about to bring something evil right to her door.
Progeny is a murder mystery set against the changing world of modern Japan, a world where some are finding it hard to fit in.
Praise for Lea O'Harra
"Crime fiction, especially the more traditional type based on deductive reason, is sometimes seen as out of touch with reality...Lea O'Harra shows...the traditional form is not necessarily regressive or conservative." - Paul Johnston, author of the Alex Mavros' series .
Lea O'Harra an American by birth, has lived in Japan for over 30 years. This is her second novel and marks the second book in the Inspector Inoue series after Imperfect Strangers
