A guide to series fiction lists popular series, identifies novels by character, and offers guidance on the order in which to read unnumbered series.

Wisecracking reporter and reluctant detective Billy Chaka is back. His latest misadventure finds him in Osaka to accept an award for an article he'd written years before about a teenage Bunraku puppet prodigy named Tetsuo. Billy quickly learns he may have been summoned for more than the award -- Tetsuo has been expelled from Osaka's most prestigious theater company following a bloody, unexplained incident involving a fellow puppeteer. While Billy tries to unravel that mystery, an American man in the hotel room next door is found brutally murdered. Investigating the homicide and its bizarre link to the young puppeteer plunges Billy into a shadowy world where dreams and reality violently intermingle and people are never who they seem. It's a world not far removed from that of the Bunraku theater that flourished in Osaka hundreds of years ago, stylishly recast for the neon-lit urban stage with decrepit gangsters, clueless expatriates, dangerous women, and one seriously deranged hotel employee. Two parts noir and one part playful irreverence, Kinki Lullaby is a sly whodunit that unfolds with the twisted charm of a fever dream.

Every 3rd issue is a quarterly cumulation.

Searching for his missing brother in Prague, an American encounters a world of killers, gangsters, and ancient mysteries in a “satisfyingly twisted tale” (Publishers Weekly). When American collections agent Lee Holloway receives a letter from a mysterious woman named Vera concerning his missing brother Paul, curiosity takes him to Prague in search of answers. But what he finds in the historic city’s looming shadows and cobbled streets is a mind-bending world of conspiracy and danger. A world where black magic and sixteenth-century alchemy aren’t just footnotes in history books. A world where gangsters with fairy-tale names and a bloodthirsty serial killer exist alongside grim reminders of Nazi invasion. And where a priceless watch named The Rudolph Complication—commissioned by an eccentric Roman emperor—is rumored to hold the secret to eternal life. As Lee delves deeper into the question of Paul’s fate, he discovers unsettling truths about his brother . . . and himself. Now Lee must unravel the tangled threads of Paul’s last days if he wants to escape the ancient city alive. Echoing with ghosts and mythic monsters from Europe’s storied past, this is a heart-pumping thrill ride into the very heart of darkness.

Tokyo, July 2001: Hard-boiled reporter Billy Chaka is back in the neon metropolis interviewing a has-been pop singer turned pachinko fanatic for Youth in Asia magazine. Looks like an easy assignment until he witnesses a beautiful young woman suffer a seizure in the Lucky Benten pachinko hall. When she is later found dead beneath the expressway, Chaka becomes embroiled in an apparent blackmail plot involving a Ministry of Construction official, a brash nineteen-year-old girl, a shadowy entity known only as "Mr. Bojangles," and four silent figures who have a penchant for showing up uninvited inside Chaka's hotel room. As the bodies pile up and the mystery deepens, Chaka must untangle the lies, obsessions, and seemingly supernatural events that link the dead woman to a forgotten, bloody incident from the desperate closing days of World War II. Spellbinding and hilarious, Dreaming Pachinko will take you on a surreal thrill- ride through the city of the future -- a place where no one can escape the past.

Meet Billy Chaka, ace reporter for Cleveland's hottest-selling Asian teen magazine. He's brash, savvy, and prone to hair-trigger fits of karate. Billy's in Tokyo to cover the 19-and-Under Handicapped Martial Arts Championship and meet up with his friend Sato Migusion, the international renowned director of such cult film classics as Sex Up the Hotrod, Baby! But Sato never shows. Instead, the girl of Billy's dreams stumbles into a dive bar with tatooed Yakuza mobsters in hot pursuit. Then Billy will start brawls in swanky corporate sex clubs, be offered a golf club membership by a secret religious order, meet a dog trained in the ways of the Samurai, and race stolen motorcycles through the neon-choked streets of Tokyo. Packed with enough over-the-top fists action to make Jackie Chan cry, and featuring the most lovable uncool hero since Austin Powers, this hilarious send-up is a pop culture potpourri of sub-epic proportion.

This book is ideal for learners of Japanese as a second language who want to communicate more effectively and also for learners of English who know Japanese. This book lists approximately 18,000 core Japanese words with English equivalents. Main entries are in Romanized Japanese in boldface type alphabetically with Kana (Japanese alphabet) and Kanji (Chinese characters), if any. Next, in the same line, parts of speech label, and the entry’s English equivalents with stressed syllables* in boldface type followed by standard American English pronunciation. Underline is used to discern Kanji in a word contains both Kana and Kanji. [Sample] kūki 空気 [n.] air [eər] kūkino 空気の [a.] airy [eəri] kūkino yōna 空気のような [a.] ethereal [iθiəriəl] kūkio nuku 空気を抜く [v.] deflate [difleit] kukkī クッキー [n.] cookie [kuki] kyō'on 強音 [n.] accent [æksent] * Please refer to the website for more information. www.corevoca.com