It's 1991. Gay American Conner has found refuge in Tokyo after a rough coming out. But a spectacular economic meltdown has crushed Japan's high-flying dreams, and now Tokyo is going sour for Conner, too. He's turned to crime to bail out an ex-boyfriend, he's alienating friends and he's started sleeping with a woman. When a crime scheme goes south, he scours Tokyo's dimly lit night scene for a solution. Conner and fellow refuge-seeker Marika, who has fled a failing suburban marriage, agree to a shady caper that may save or doom them both. As gangsters, grifters and police close in, the two must grapple with questions of crime and honesty, and to whom-and whose laws-to be loyal.

Mike's fiction, memoir and nonfiction can be found in Tin House, Foglifter, Tahoma Literary Review, Oyster River Pages and other magazines. He is the author of Criminals, a literary thriller that was a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2022 (Indie), the upbeat scifi romance Red Dot and contemporary comic novel of manners The Wealthy Whites of Williamsburg. He lives with his husband and dog in San Francisco.