shopping cart

Access to the e-book edition is included with the paperback purchase.



Web-e-Books Home
web-e-books button
publishing button
publishing button
facebook button
facebook button
… Welcome to Richard M. Baker Jr. 's Bookshelf, on Web-e-Books®
Titles Tab
Authors Tab
Genre Tab
Bookshelf Tab

On the verge of manhood, peasant farm boy, Junichiro Inouye, is drawn into a world of brutal military intimidation and terror as a Kempei policeman and soldier enlisted in Imperial Japan's subjugation of Manchuria prior to a planned takeover of China and Southeast Asia. The untested, dutiful conscript wears both his heart and Kempeitai armband on his uniform sleeve as the startling cruelty and awesome allure of Kempei life shapes the impressionable young man's loyalties.

Written by an American from the Japanese point of view, Richard M. Baker, Jr's, The Kempei, exposes 20th century military terrorism whitewashed from Japanese history and recaptured through the uninhibited literary lens of the author.

A dynamic novel based on real events and discerning research - a story deemed fascinating but too horrifying in 1959 and withheld from publication - The Kempei depicts in graphic, intimate detail the time-locked savagery of one of history's most vicious institutions, and the devastating, fourteen year military rule that through violence and famine reportedly claimed 20 to 30 million lives throughout Japanese-occupied Asia.