A fierce mixed-race fighter develops a powerful attachment to the yakuza princess she’s been forced to protect in this explosive queer thriller: Kill Bill meets The Handmaiden meets Thelma and Louise. Tokyo, 1979. Yoriko Shindo, a workhorse of a woman who has been an outcast her whole life, is kidnapped and dragged to the lair of the Naiki-kai, a branch of the yakuza. After she savagely fends off a throng of henchmen in an attempt to escape, Shindo is only permitted to live under one condition: that she will become the bodyguard and driver for Shoko Naiki, the obsessively sheltered daughter of the gang’s boss. Eighteen-year-old Shoko, pretty and silent as a doll, has no friends, wears strangely old-fashioned clothes, and is naive in all matters of life. Originally disdaining her ward, Shindo soon finds herself far more invested in Shoko’s wellbeing than she ever expected. But every man around them is bloodthirsty and trigger-happy. Shindo doubts she and Shoko will survive much longer if nothing changes. Could there ever be a different life for two women like them? Akira Otani’s English-language debut moves boldly through time and across gender, stretching the definitions and possibilities of each concept. Rendered in a gorgeous translation by International Booker–shortlisted Sam Bett, this lean, mean thriller proves that bonds forged in fire are unbreakable. Praise for The Night of Baba Yaga Winner for the CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger Award Winner of the CrimeFest Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Mystery CrimeReads Best International Crime Fiction of the Year BookPage ’s Top 10 Books of the Month A BookBrowse Top Pick An ABA Indie Gift Guide Selection A Ms. Magazine Most Anticipated Feminist Book of the Year Publishers Weekly ’s Spring 2024 Preview Top 10 Mysteries & Thrillers ★ Starred Reviews from Publishers Weekly , Library Journal , Booklist , BookPage , and Foreword Reviews “An explosive thriller.” — Parade “Through a fresh lens, Otani spins a lean and mean tale of female empowerment — think Thelma & Louise vs. the yakuza . . . Translated in bursts of vivid prose by Sam Bett, this mismatched pair becomes the reader’s guide to a time-jumping outlaw tale that is both shocking in its violence and bracing in its depiction of a relationship that no one — not the yakuza’s minions, their boss or the women themselves — see coming.” —Paula Woods, Los Angeles Times “This transgressive thriller is chock-full of cinematic fight scenes and peppered with glimpses of emotional awareness and vulnerability, adding up to a page-turning, gritty, surrealist wonder.” —The Seattle Times “Joyfully aggressive and painfully tender, The Night of Baba Yaga dares to reimagine the boundaries of self within the systems of any society, boldly questioning ideas of violence, love, family and honor.” — The Japan Times “Here’s the queer yakuza thriller we’ve been waiting for! From the ferocious fights to the secret tenderness, this one will keep you on the edge of your seat.” —Ms. Magazine “Enraging, funny and exciting.” — The Times (UK) “Part kick-to-the-solar-plexus martial arts thriller and part poignant queer love story, Akira Otani’s spare, tightly plotted The Night of Baba Yaga is a violent and transgressive marvel. The two women at its center—the tough bodyguard Yoriko Shindo and Shoko, the yakuza 'princess' she’s charged with protecting—couldn’t be more different on the surface, but they awake in each other a desire to live free from the yakuza’s cruelty. I read the novel in a breathless flash and still can’t shake the sheer power of its ending.” —John Copenhaver, Lambda Award–winning author of Hall of Mirrors “Otani’s explosive debut navigates gender and time, offering a gripping, unbreakable thriller.” — Tokyo Weekender “In The Night of Baba Yaga (translated from the Japanese by Sam Bett), Akira Otani takes a familiar form and gender-bends it. A rogue agent in a yakuza gang, the eyelash-batting young girl trapped under her criminal father’s thumb, a connection that sparks and holds into a wish of escape. It’s a classic story, but Otani transports it into new, exciting dimensions.” —Chicago Review of Books “Filled with visceral action and unexpected twists, The Night of Baba Yaga manages to be both brutal and touching, and at times subtly funny. Author Akira Otani’s English-language debut is a shocking work of Japanese noir.” — Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine “This has Old Boy levels of violence and subject matter . . . but it’s also very funny and it’s a bit of a mystery . . . Extremely gory and violent but it’s also an amazing tale of a woman in a man’s world literally fighting to get free. The action whips by so fast, it will take you no time to read it.” —Liberty Hardy, Book Riot’s All the Books! “A wild ride with comic book pacing on a gritty path of surprise beginnings, middles, and e