Salarymans Wife (Mass Market Paperback)

It also seemed that the seedy side of town was a lot nicer to her then the "upstanding" side of town. She hangs with the other rejected folks, the foreigners, gays, etc. They provide a family and support network that are fascinating to see. (It's this way here, if you don't fit in with the local environment's Barbie's and Ken's, then you drift to the rejected ones.)

It was a little sad to see her pursuing acceptance in a country that would never accept her. Their hangup: she's a mixed race, poor, short-haired, old-maid foreigner.

I've never been to Japan, but I've known (long-term) some (traditional) Japanese guys born here, that seem to reflect a lot of the attitudes that the Rei has experienced. Sorta extreme sexism, extremely spoiled, xenophobia, germ-aphobia, fat-aphobia, smell-aphobia, poor-aphobia... My sibling, hanging with foreign grad students would agree on 80% of the traditional guys.

Anyway so she's being rejected strenously by Japanese mainstream, yet getting groped on trains and getting tricked by her salary-men students to get up on desks to pose for a birthday-party picture, then the guys jab the camera under her skirt taking snapshots. Everyday's a frat party for the salarymen, they are gods.

Story line: she goes to the Japanese Alps for a vacation. She stays in a bed & breakfast and meets the other residents. One of the residents gets killed, her cretin husband is the suspect, as well as this HOT Scottish guy. Wierd things start to happen after the murder.

Overall, a good read, it made me want to visit Japan, see (if any of it exists) the Hip, bohemian nightlife, antique dealers and see the Japanese Alps.
Although, riding on the trains one might want to wear a hefty bag tied at the ankles. It would be an excellent money-maker to create a sting-operation for the rampant frat-boy behavior, taped for Pay-per-View, would be hilarious.

Ignore the reviewers that cry that this ain't the Japan they know, or this book ain't deep enough for them. It's expressing a certain style, pictures and atmosphere that the author wants to present. There's no way to present everybody's viewpoint of Japan.

As usual, in a mystery, the mystery is just the contrivance for the real story. (Everybody's fried chicken is different.) The overall story is about the people, places, things, experiences, --a nice slideshow portraying a view, mood and experience the author wants to give.
If I gave a tour of my small hometown, it'd be as unlike anybody else's viewpoint, as apples to oranges. And then it'd all change, depending on my mood, the receiver's mood, and passing time.

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During a New Years's Eve trip to a ski resort she stumbles upon the body of the beautiful wife on a high-powered businessman, who was also a guest at the family-run inn where she's staying. Rei can't help herself, she has to try and solve the murder, so she turns amateur detective, angering the police and exciting the press. She's a fast talker who is awfully suspicious, she even suspects, for a bit, the Scottish lawyer Hugh Glendenning who she has an affair with, but will she solve the crime before she becomes a victim herself?

In my opinion Rei Shimura is a perfect accidental private-eye and this is a perfect five star mystery.

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Perhaps my real problem though is a lack of good editing. While Ms. Massey's writing is excellent I found myself on more than one occassion tripping over a reference to something that had never occurred anywhere in the book. An example is that the main character, Rei, is surprised in the bath when a man walks in, not realizing it was for women only. Later on the man apologizes to her and references having learned she has been sexually assaulted and post traumatic stress disorder. My guess is this must have been a plot direction which Ms Massey later disgarded, but this particular reference didn't get deleted. It is a small error yes, but when you are caught up in a story such a reference can be jarring to the reader. I found myself going backwards to see if I'd missed something rather than going forwards.

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