Shadow Family [Hardcover]

In her native Japan, Miyuki Miyabe is as much a household name as John Grisham or Stephen King. While not the avante guard genius of Haruki Murakami, she is a respected and popular author of crime fiction, with quite a few books to her credit, and some movie adaptations as well. "Shadow Family" (original Japanese title "R.P.G." ) is her second book to be translated into English, following the excellent "All She was Worth."

"Shadow Family" covers the murders of middle-aged husband and father Ryosuke Tokoroda and his college-age lover Naoko Imai. Through the course of the investigation, it is uncovered that Tokoroda had an online "family," where he role-played the loving father to a make-believe wife, daughter and son. In real life he was a cold and selfish philanderer, but online he became the loving, supportive father that every child dreams of.

Aside from a few expositionary chapters, it is a "single-room" mystery, not unlike "12 Angry Men," where all the tension takes place in a police interrogation chamber. The investigators and the suspects engage in a battle of wills, each trying to get the other to slip up and make a mistake, in a fencing match of "Who knows what." One by one Tokoroda's online "family" is called in, while his real-life daughter Kazumi watches from behind the 2-way mirror, peeling away the layers of mystery that were her father.

"Shadow Family" is not as strong a book as "All She was Worth," but is still an engrossing read and a real page-turner. The opening expositionary chapters are slow, and it takes awhile to get into the pace of the book. Once all the players are assembled in the interrogation room, however, the story takes off and the psychological fencing begins.

It is no real challenge to identify the killer, and the "Whodunnit?" joy of the book comes about 2/3 of the way in. From there, it is a pleasure to watch the pieces of the well-laid trap fall into place. Some of the characters are very interesting sketches, and I would love to see them explored in another book, where they are allowed more depth to develop. Unfortunately, at under 200 pages, "Shadow Family" does not allow for deep characters, but is more an exercise of an interesting trap.

Very enjoyable over all, and I will definitely be keeping up with future Miyabe books as they are translated.

I am of the opinion that if you entered this book's world with certain expectations (such as from the synopsis, or from having read All She Was Worth/Kasha), then you might leave this book with a perplexed "wtf?" at the end. If you enter with no such expectation, then I can guarantee that you'll not only enjoy this novel, but also marvel at the unconventional way she went at revealing the story.

Having never read her other books before, I came at Shadow Family with no real expectation (so yay for me). What I realized, is that even though Takegami and Chikako were named in the synopsis as "main characters", they are ANYTHING but! The detectives in the story are nothing more than props, and they are MEANT to be that way. They are the instigator of the revelation of the "drama" that occurred, and are mere watchers of what it might reveal. And as such, the viewers are ALSO a watcher, nothing more. This is precisely why I believe the so called "main characters" were never fleshed out. Because this story has nothing to do with Takegami and Chikako, and has everything to do with the "Shadow Family" and the ups and downs of a Japanese family that went head first into the ditch.

In any case, the majority of the real story occurs in a Police interrogation room. There is no real "action" of the traditional sense - you're not getting Takegami or Chikako running around trying to capture the villain. All the characters are already collected in that Interrogation room; everything is already in place. All that's left is the "revelation." in a more typical western mystery or thriller novel, this "revelation" come at the very end of the book, usually lasts no more than, what, 2 pages? Because at the end after the main character figures out what's going on, all that's left is for the culprit to admit it to close the story. In this case, the "revelation" IS the story, with the action taking place over the table of the Interrogation room.

Yes the book is short, yes some of the characters are (intentionally) flat, yes there are a lot of hints early book to show who the killer is, but this is not a book where the end justifies the means. You're not reading to find out who did it, but rather the path that took for the killer to come to light. And there are just enough twists and turns in the book, in particular at the end, that still makes the ending well worth the effort.

As a side note, I understand that chances are a lot were lost in translation, but I was talking to a friend who read her work in original Japanese (she's fluent), and she made the same comment as me, that Miyabe's writing is "concise and bareboned," so I'm assuming the number of pages and the writing style is relatively true to the original. Of course, maybe she was mistaken, but just a side note.

First, I'd like to correct a previous viewer. Ms. Miyabi did not write "OUT". This was written by an equally amazing author Natsuo Kirino. Funny story: I made the same mistake in purchasing Miyabi's book "All She was Worth" thinking it was by Kirino; and was pleasantly rewarding with a new favorite.

Anyway, "Shadow Family" was a great read. Equally as rewarding as her other two novels. The characters were people I could easily sympathize with, and paced to a degree that I looked forward to every page turned. While it's true, that the book could have been just as long as "Crossfire" and "All She Was Worth", as some of the characters had a history with each other that was never fully fleshed out, the roller coaster ride that was the interrogation made up for it.

Also, while it's true that the identity of the killer was revealed quite early on, I don't think that it was the point of the story. It was the revelations surrounding the online family that became slowly fleshed out....and the "super-surprise" revelation about this family at the end (I won't give it away) that was the real kicker.

All in all, I got my money's worth, and look forward to many more translations from Miyabi. They're really taking their sweet time aren't they?

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 9 reviews  3.6 out of 5 stars