A narrativeparticle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and BobDylan, unicorn skulls and voracious librarians, John Coltrane andLord Jim. Science fiction, detective story and post-modernmanifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel, Hard-boiledWonderland and the End of the World is the tour de force thatexpanded Haruki Murakami's international following. Tracking oneman's descent into the Kafkaesque underworld of contemporary Tokyo,Murakami unites East and West, tragedy and farce, compassion anddetachment, slang and philosophy. The result is a wildly inventivefantasy and a meditation on the many uses of the mind.