Duds Hunt

Nakanishi, a young ex-delinquent grinding through a dead-end sales job under an abusive boss, is tipped off by an online acquaintance about Duds Hunt — an illegal, no-rules manhunt played in the streets, where competitors track one another with handheld "pointers" and every captured pointer is worth 100,000 yen. What starts as an outlet for his frustration pulls him into an escalating spiral of adrenaline and violence in which the line between the game and real life dissolves.

Tetsuya Tsutsui's debut, a single-volume techno-thriller first self-published online in 2002. (Original Japanese title: ダズハント.)