”Shinjuku Shark”By Arimasa Osawa

Translated by Andrew Clare

Vertical Inc.

Paperback, $14.95

285 pages

Both my kids have taken four years of Japanese under “Irigashi Sensei” at White Station High School, and I sincerely hoped I would like this book, the first English translation of a series of police procedurals that are extremely popular in Japan.

I do like the characters and the story, but the translation has serious problems.

The Shinjuku Shark is the nickname of the book’s hero, Samejima, a rogue, loner cop who won’t kowtow to his go-long-to-get-along superiors in the Japanese police hierarchy.

He has a beautiful rock singer girlfriend, Sho, who seems to be poised to launch into stardom.

The plot involves a gay, sadistic maker of illegal firearms and a mysterious serial killer who targets young police officers.

It also involves an odd-ball character, “Ed,” who acts as sort of a Greek chorus for us, the readers.

These various strings of fate are intertwined nicely at the end.

The book came out as “Shinjukuzame” in Japan in 1990, so it may seem a little dated in places. The Soviet Union was in mid-collapse, and wireless phones weren’t quite so ubiquitous as they are today.

I don’t see that as a flaw; I’m just warning you not to look upon the 2007 English copyright as a clue to the story’s environment.

The book’s big flaw is the translation.

For example, it’s clear from the context that when the author refers to a “live house,” what’s meant is a night club. If the translator wanted to differentiate this type of venue from other night clubs, a footnote or glossary would have been helpful for this and a few other terms (e.g., love hotel when referring to a prostitute’s flophouse, “mama” when referring to operator of a gay bar).

Another egregious error occurred in the description of Samejima’s pistol as a “38 mm” based on a standard American model.

For those of us who are unaccustomed to the metric system, 38 mm equals almost 1.5 inches — one huge bullet! Undoubtedly, what was meant was .38 caliber.

There are other examples.

So, I won’t avoid future works by Arimasa Osawa, but I will look for other translations.