Synopses & Reviews
Chapter One
He'd crept up behind me when a crush of skiers boarded and the tiny space I'd staked out had grown so tight I couldn't even move my arms. Packed "sushi-zume"--as tightly as rice balls in a box lunch--I began worrying about what might come next. I'd heard stories about the chemistry whiz who used a fluid to melt holes in clothing, and the gum-chewer who left a big wad in your hair as a memento. More than one man was known to express his pleasure deeply in your coat pocket. But those were cretins I'd assumed were native to the Tokyo subways and not long distance trains climbing the Japanese Alps.
The hand, which had been almost imperceptible at first, was becoming audacious. Exploring with my heel, I encountered a shin, slid my foot along its length and stomped the ankle underneath. A foot kicked back and a woman snapped at me to be more careful--for goodness sake didn't I know it was an overcrowded train? I ground out an apology. The hand stayed.
It was dark outside, turning the train door's glass into a mirror. I saw myself as I always appear: small, Japanese-American, and with the kind of cropped haircut that's perfect in San Francisco but a little too boyish for Japanese taste. I wished I'd had time to change into a butch pair of jeans instead of the skirt that hadprovided easy access for someone. I concentrated on the reflections of the three men closest to me: a young white-collar guy buried in a sports tabloid, an ancient grandpa, and a working-class tough wearing a sweatshirt with the improbable slogan "Milk Pie Club." The latter two appeared to be sleeping, but you never knew for sure. I remembered the last weapon I possessed.
""Hentai! Te o dokcte yo!"" I said it first in Japanese and then in English--"pervert, get your bands off me."
"It's the guy in black! Oh, no, you aren't getting away!"
"I have done nothing! Stop it, please!" The man's apology in Japanese did no good with his foreign attacker. The formerly drowsy passengers were tittering.
"That's enough! If you keep hitting him, you could be arrested," I warned the woman as the man twisted away from us.
"I didn't have to understand what you were saying to know what was going on," the woman grumbled as she settled into a suddenly-vacated seat. "Men are bastards. All of 'em. There oughtta be a law."
As I shifted nearer, I checked her out. This was no gray-haired feminist in a patchwork jacket and peasant trousers, the kind of soul who peered enthusiastically at Japan from wire-rimmed glasses. My rescuer wore a leopard-print parka and purple Reebok sneakers. Her hair was a shade of apricot I'd never seen before.
"So, where'd you learn your good English?" she asked.
"California." That usually brought a blush to Caucasian faces, but not this one.
"You don't look it."
"Are you going to Shiroyama?" she continued, stumbling a bit with her pronunciation.
The woman was fairly clueless about rural Japan, so I explained a little about what she should expect at a Japanese inn. By the time we were talking mineral baths, I realized she was booked into the same place, and we might as well share a taxi. My solo trip had morphed into something else. I thought ruefully about die Japanese belief that there arc no coincidences, that everything is part of a great cosmic plan. Considering how things turned out, I am inclined to agree.
My first view of Shiroyama was a jumble of oldfashioned shops and houses, tiled roofs loaded down with snow, and windows glowing with welcoming golden light. An old woman in a kimono bustled past, holding a parasol aloft to keep off the lightly falling flakes. I would have lingered had I not been playing bellhop for my new companion, rushing to flag down a cab before it made it to the taxi stand.
"Don't mind the Vuitton. It's fake from Hong Kong," she boasted as I lifted her pair of heavy cases into the trunk. "Ididn't catch your name, young lady.
"Rei Shimura," I said slowly, as I always did growing up in the United States.
"Is that Rae with an "e," or Ray with a "y?""
"Neither. It's a Japanese name that rhymes with the American ones."
Synopsis
Winner of the Agatha Award.
"Sujata Massey blasts her way into fiction with The Salaryman's Wife, a cross-cultural mystery of manners with a decidedly sexy edge."-- Janet Evanonich
Japanese-American Rei Shimura is a 27-year-old English teacher living in one of Tokyo's seediest neighborhoods. She doesn't make much money, but she wouldn't go back home to California even if she had a free ticket (which, thanks to her parents, she does.) She's determined to make it on her own. Her independence is threatened however, when a getaway to an ancient castle town is marred by murder.
Rei is the first to find the beautiful wife of a high-powered businessman, dead in the snow. Taking charge, as usual, Rei searches for clues by crashing a funeral, posing as a bar-girl, and somehow ending up pursued by police and paparazzi alike. In the meantime, she attempts to piece together a strange, ever-changing puzzle--one that is built on lies and held together by years of sex and deception.
The first installment in the Rei Shimura series, The Salaryman's Wife is a riveting tale of death, love, and sex, told in a unique cross-cultural voice.
Synopsis
Japanese-American Rei Shimura is a 27-year-old English teacher living in one of Tokyo's seediest neighborhoods. She doesn't make much money, but she wouldn't go back home to California even if she had a free ticket (which, thanks to her parents, she does.) Her independence is threatened however, when a getaway to an ancient castle town is marred by murder.
Rei is the first to find the beautiful wife of a high-powered businessman, dead in the snow. Taking charge, as usual, Rei searches for clues by crashing a funeral, posing as a bar-girl, and somehow ending up pursued by police and paparazzi alike. In the meantime, she manages to piece together a strange, ever-changing puzzle—one that is built on lies and held together by years of sex and deception.
Synopsis
Japanese-American Rei Shimura is a 27-year-old English teacher living in one of Tokyo's seediest neighborhoods. She doesn't make much money, but she wouldn't go back home to California even if she had a free ticket (which, thanks to her parents, she does.) Her independence is threatened however, when a getaway to an ancient castle town is marred by murder.
Rei is the first to find the beautiful wife of a high-powered businessman, dead in the snow. Taking charge, as usual, Rei searches for clues by crashing a funeral, posing as a bar-girl, and somehow ending up pursued by police and paparazzi alike. In the meantime, she manages to piece together a strange, ever-changing puzzle—one that is built on lies and held together by years of sex and deception.
About the Author
Sujata Massey was born in England to a father from India and a mother from Germany. During her childhood her family immigrated to the US, and she grew up in Philadelphia, PA, Berkeley, CA and St. Paul, MN. She earned a bachelor's degree in the writing seminars at Johns Hopkins University, where she took classes from such writers as John Barth and Martha Grimes. After college, Sujata worked as a features reporter at the Baltimore Evening Sun where her specialty beats included food and fashion-major emphases in the Rei Shimura mystery series that she was to write later on.
Sujata left the paper in 1991 when she married her college sweetheart, Tony Massey. She accompanied him to Japan to carry out a U.S. Navy service obligation. Almost immediately, Tony was deployed to the Persian Gulf, and Sujata began her life as a brand-new expatriate housewife -- battling Japanese realtors determined not to rent to foreigners, and bargaining for a used car from a dealership where no English speakers had gone before. Within two weeks, she had rented a traditional, unheated house in a Japanese town called Hayama about a half hour from the base. She'd also acquired a right-hand drive car and a Japanese drivers' license and signed up for her first Japanese language class.
Freed from the newsroom, Sujata plunged into daily life -- learning such rituals as flower arrangement and tofu-making from her new friends and neighbors, and studying Japanese in a challenging immersion program in nearby Yokohama. The deeper Sujata ventured into Japan, the more she wondered about the stereotyped representations of it in popular literature. Where was the Japan where housewives dutifully swept leaves from the street in front of their houses every morning, where sweet potato vendors offered their goods from portable braziers, and where schoolgirls sold their used school uniforms to grown men? To Sujata, it seemed like a world of sanctified tradition and bizarre modernity -- and time to start writing again.
After two years in the Japanese suburbs, Sujata returned with her husband to Baltimore, where she continued writing about Japan. Making trips back to Tokyo to fact-check the series, and continuing research on Japanese arts and traditions with Japan scholars in America, Sujata has kept alive the stories inspired by Japanese culture and people. Becoming the mother of her own two children has challenged her writing time, but also marked the series with a powerful emphasis on love and family. Her books continue to attract new readers and strong reviews worldwide. The Rei Shimura series is published in the USA, Australia and India by HarperCollins Publishers, and by other publishers in Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Romania and Poland.
The Salaryman's Wife, the first book, took four years to write and focused on the trials of Rei Shimura, a twentysomething, half-Japanese and half-American English teacher in Tokyo who discovers a valuable antique object, ventures into the world of host bars, acquires a glamorous Scottish boyfriend and solves the murder of a staid suburban woman with a shocking past. The book won the Agatha award for Best First Mystery of 1997 and was a nominee for the Anthony and Macavity Awards. It was also a People "Page Turner of the Week."
Zen Attitude followed and was nominated for the Edgar and Anthony awards of 1998 and was a USA Today "Summer Reading Pick."Then came The Flower Master, which won the Macavity Award for Best Mystery and was nominated for the Agatha Award; The Floating Girl, which was an Agatha nominee and a Booklist "Editor's Choice" book; The Bride's Kimono, a Booksense 76 selection and a nominee for the Agatha Award; and The Samurai's Daughter, which was an Agatha nominee in 2003. The newest book in the series, The Pearl Diver will be published in the summer of summer 2004