A suburban Tokyo woman fed up with her loutish husband kills him in a fit of anger, then confesses her crime to a coworker on the night shift at the boxed-lunch factory. The coworker enlists the help of two other women at the factory to dismember and dispose of the body. Readers beware--Kirino's first mystery to be published in English (it was a best-seller in Japan) involves no madcap female bonding. The tenuous friendship between the four women, all with problems of their own even before becoming accessories to murder, begins to unravel almost immediately. Money changes hands. The body parts are discovered. The police begin asking questions, and a very bad man falsely accused of the crime is determined to find out who really deserves the punishment. The gritty neighborhoods, factories, and warehouses of Tokyo provide a perfect backdrop for this bleak tale of women who are victims of circumstance and intent on self-preservation at all costs.
I thought the book was excellent. Suspenseful writing, nice character development, extremely well-done dark atmospheres and some gore that even Stephen King would envy. Furthermore, how the dark side of the japanese culture is described in a way we don't see in anime, manga, pictures or travel magazines is clearly one of its best resources. However, if you can't stand blood and cold hearted people, this book is a no-no. I would recommend anyone interested in this culture or simply fond of suspense novels to read this, I'm sure you'll love it.
It's a shame Out is one the only books by Kirino translated to English (or Spanish in my case). Kirino is a respected suspense/thriller writer in Japan, and she has been awarded with the Grand Prix for Crime Fiction, one of the most important detective fiction awards in that country.
That looks really interesting, if I can get my hands upon it I will read it after I read my new book I just got. It is a pretty interesting book so far, and I am really looking forward to finishing it.
The book is Flight by Sherman Alexie.
Spoiler
Quote:Sherman Alexie’s first novel in ten years is the hilarious and tragic portrait of an orphaned Indian boy who travels back and forth through time in a violent search for his true identity.
Sherman Alexie is one of our most gifted and accomplished storytellers and a treasured writer of huge national stature. His first novel since Indian Killer is a powerful, fast, and timely story of a troubled foster teenager—a boy who is not a “legal” Indian because he was never claimed by his father—who learns the true meaning of terror.
The journey for this young hero begins as he’s about to commit a massive act of violence. At the moment of decision, he finds himself shot back through time and resurfaced in the body of an FBI agent during the civil rights era. Here he will be forced to see just why “Hell is Red River, Idaho, in the 1970s.” Red River is only the first stop in a shocking sojourn through moments of violence in American history. He will continue traveling back to inhabit the body of an Indian child during the battle at Little Bighorn and then ride with an Indian tracker in the nineteenth century before materializing as an airline pilot jetting through the skies today. During these frantic trips through time, his refrain grows: “Who’s to judge?” and “I don’t understand humans.” When finally, blessedly, our young warrior comes to rest again in his own contemporary body, he is mightily transformed by all he’s seen.
This is Sherman Alexie at his most brilliant—making us laugh while he’s breaking our hearts. Time Out has said that “Alexie, like his characters, is on a modern-day vision quest,” and this has never been clearer than in Flight, where he seeks nothing less than an understanding of why human beings hate. Simultaneously wrenching and deeply humorous, wholly contemporary yet steeped in American history, Flight is irrepressible, fearless, and groundbreaking Alexie.
So far it is really interesting because it makes you wonder really how bad a person's life can be and how much a young mind can be manipulated. Again, I won't really reveal much about what I have read because I don't want to spoil the plot.
