I am a big fan of Haruki Murakami's books and have read all of them at least once. I recently read After Dark for the second time. For fans it is definitely worth reading and a casual reader might also enjoy it but in some ways it is not really representative of his usual style. It is good, but not his best.

After Dark is much shorter than many of Murakami's other novels, which means that it doesn't contain as many twists, turns, flashes into other times, places and worlds as some of his other stories. Due to its brevity After Dark does not develop its characters or story in great depth. It is a simple snapshot of a few hours after midnight in Tokyo. However, it is typical of Murakami style description where he portrays people and places in a realistic, modern way including every day details such as brand names.

The reader gets a brief introduction to the main characters. Mari is a 19 year old student of Chinese who has missed the last train home and ends up spending the night talking to a musician and being drawn into an incident in a local love hotel with some colourful characters including the owner of the "love ho", a female wrestler. There is a separate strand to the story featuring Mari's sister, Eri, who has been in a prolonged deep sleep. This section is very surreal and is a stark contrast to the realistic sections out in Tokyo. The relationship between the two sisters gets more attention as morning draws closer. Each chapter is headed up by a clock, showing how time progresses throughout the book. I like the way he explores that time seems to pass slower during the night when most people are sleeping and the atmosphere he builds.

This is worth reading for the atmosphere, but if this is first Murakami you read and you are not sure what you think, I would definitely recommend trying one of his longer ones where he has more room to develop characters and story to really show off his talent.