In the Miso Soup

My first Murakami, and I'll never forget it.

What would you do if you were confronted with a serial killer? Go to the police? Are you sure?

This short 180-page novella is perfect for quick reads between whatever you have going. Dead on in its characterization of both American and Japanese characters, its vivid scenery, its execution, and its portrayal of the Japanese society at this current point in time.

It's a realistic, grisly read that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end.

This book's rating was only due to Murakami's excellent descriptions of terror/fear, and the book's potential. 2 stars otherwise.
The gist of the plot is that an American tourist hires a guide to walk him through Tokyo's red-light district - and the guide realizes that his client is not all he is cracked up to be, and he might be the serial killer terrorizing the city. What follows are ruminations on Japanese society à la Fight Club, and a threadbare plot about everything and nothing that is surprisingly banal despite its rather gory descriptions.
Murakami tries hard, he really does. The descriptions of Tokyo are vivid, and some tangents on why Japanese society is the way it is does manage to grab you - but the pacing is all over the place ( extremely frenetic in some parts and slow as molasses in the others), and the length was too short, making the last quarter of the book seem like Murakami's attempt to cram a full book's worth of material in those pages, which unsurprisingly doesn't work.
If you can handle uneven pacing and gruesome digressions on morality, then go for it - it's worth the read. Not worth the time in any other case.