Arisugawa Park, the Japanese novel I began in 2005, is nothing like how I have been describing it. I see no antecedents for this novel. I pulled John LeCarre out of the hat because his The Honorable Schoolboy was one of the few thrillers I really enjoyed as literature (no disrespect Dick Francis, Dan Brown). I do not actually read much genre stuff, except when I get into a specific author (now reading a bit of Philip K. Dick, Dashiell Hammett) or exploring movies within certain period (a current phase, film noir).
John Steinbeck because I lived in the Central Coast area he wrote about for several years and enjoy works such as Cannery Row to my bone. (Having ingloriously slaved on a fishing boat in Alaska helps). Ernest Hemingway, if only for the humanity, rhythm, and memories evoked by A Clean Well-Lit Place et al. (At age 17-18, I roamed for several months throughout Europe and along the NoCal coast with a 1951 edition of Hemingway's Collected Stories and Shakespeare's Othello.) Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Roberto Bolano, Pablo Neruda, Borges––without them, where would I be? William Shakespeare. Pynchon, Dostoeyevsky, Tolstoy. Tintin... Late 1980s Batman. Crumb. Van Gogh, Gaugin. The Mona Lisa, Murakami. Miles Davis, Satie. The North Beach poets. Jack, Bob, Sarah, Gary, The Seated Scribe. Samsara - endless suffering of all writers.
What I am really saying is do not read this site. Arisugawa Park may never see the light (and I am okay with that). Proceed to the ongoing serial novel Cowachunga, which I am publishing as I go.