Out, Natsuo Kirino

Now this really is out my comfort zone, in a way I didn't realise at first. I went into it excited but apprehensive and I only bought it because I was keen to complete my special collection of Japanese Literature, and when browsing the ones I was missing I was most intrigued by this storyline.

It is part of the same collection of novels  as one I have previously discussed on my site another Japanese novel, THe Makioko Sisters (which I loved. )

Although part of the same series, with a similarly beautifully illustrated cover, this book was an entirely different novel compared to that one. 

Plot 

This novel is a crime thriller, which is why I was a bit afraid to read it. I am a scardey cat and jump out my skin with fright at the slightest noise or sudden happening. Despite this I am quite into TV crime Dramas and thrillers and decided to take on this novel like one of them. The difference was my imagination, as it is brilliantly written runs a bit wild and I confess I did have one nightmare related to this book. I'm quite sure this is not the scariest crime novel out their but it was quite enough for me. 

 It is set in the late 90's and follows a group women working the night shift at a Food Factory in the suburbs of Tokyo. We are drawn in to each of their monotonous, demanding and debt-ridden lives, each background story revealing problems at home, which each of them seem responsible for fixing. All of this changes when Matsako, one of the women gets a call from the youngest of the group Yayoi, saying that Yayoi has murdered her gambling addicted husband. Instead of panicking (swear the lack of panic in this novel is sometimes the most unsettling thing in it), Matsako decides to help Yayoi dispose of her husband body.

Matsako gets the other women involved in the discarding of this Yaoyoi's husbands body. Once this is done, Matsako carries on, while the rest crumble into their existing problems, and for the first half of this book, at least it seems they have got away with it. 

The first unsettling turn of events comes from something that is on the front cover (AHHH). From this things slowly start to unravel, and as people, perhaps even worse than the police, (ex-Yakuza) members become involved, the women's carefully constructed alibi's and safety nets begin to unravel. Their, what was once seemingly boring, but safe lives become wrapped up in gruesome crimes and complete maniacs. 

Little Thoughts

Overall, whilst I tried to avoid reading this story before bed, (ha nightmares), once the first turn of events happened it was a gripping read, and hard to put down.  Like a bad accident, despite the horror of looking, it was hard to look away, and I found myself repeatedly picking up the book, to see how the women were getting on, and if they had realised yet who might be after them!

Anyway, I daren't write too much about this book, because I will take away the excitement of reading it. As I said, although it was so different from any Japanese novel i've read before, It has made me want to read more into Japanese fiction. Further this is is the first Japanese novel I have read by a women, so that was an interesting new first too!