Showing results for "telephone" in Science Fiction & Fantasy

Dr. Tarak Kapoor cannot sleep. He has just taken a job as a telemedicine doctor in Texas. Garnet is two days and five airports away from his home in Mumbai. Tarak is so tired, but his body thinks it's lunchtime in India. By 2:30 a.m. he is wandering the empty streets. To his surprise, he finds a brightly lit pay telephone next to a set of broken traffic lights. Even though it's the middle of the night, people drive up one by one and make calls. Why on earth are they here at this hour? Who are they calling? The mystery deepens when Tarak retraces his steps the next day.

This novel centers on the "It's me" telephone scam - often targeting the elderly - that has escalated in Japan in recent years. Typically, the caller identifies himself only by saying, "Hey, it's me", and goes on to claim in great distress that he's been in an accident or lost some money with which he was entrusted at work, etc., and needs funds wired to his account right away. ME's narrator is a nondescript young Tokyoite named Hitoshi Nagano.