It's an interesting, but ultimately condescending and stereotypical mystery set partly in the Japanese Alps, and partly in Tokyo. The main character, Rei Shimura, comes from a wealthy Japanese-American family, and for reasons I couldn't really comprehend, leads a pretty miserable life in Tokyo as an ELT. She can speak fairly good Japanese, but can't read, and she doesn't like the culture at all save for its material manifestations (her mother deals in antiques, so Rei buys old Japanese curios for her).The plot is as follows: she goes to a small town deep in the mountains to spend her New Year vacation, and there encounters a mixed group of salarymen and tourists. One of the salarymen has with him a trophy wife, whom he treats as badly as she treats others. It's the wife who gets murdered, and all of a sudden Rei begins to investigate the murder. The mystery is all right I guess (I rarely read mysteries only if I'm interested in the setting), but the characters, maybe with an exception of Rei's roommate, Richard, are kinda underdeveloped, all the Japanese are painfully stereotyped (salarymen are gods and their wives are oppressed and boring), and Rei is more like a convenient mannequin than a compelling and interesting person. She gets involved with the murder even though there was a mutual antipathy between her and the victim, she gets involved with the guy who's a suspect even though he's a foreigner and she doesn't like foreigners. She lives in a (supposedly) seedy neighborhood, even though her family is rich and she could afford to move out. She complains about Japanese men whom she has to teach, even though she was stupid enough to climb the table and let them photograph her under the shirt (this is the lamest story I've ever heard). So, basically, it's a book which says: "Look how weird this Japan country is, they are all creepy and rude, but I happen to know something about it. Groping on the train! Hostess bars! Tabloids! Yakuza! Xenophobia! Clueless white people! American bases! Let me lecture you on all this stuff, you'll like it!"Rei seems to be always discriminated and distrusted as a foreigner, but that may be because of her own attitude: she always suspects the Japanese of the worst, and at the same time she disdains other foreigners. There is an unpleasant mention of her telling her friend who wants to introduce her to some foreign guys: "I don't do gaijin". Now, I know that lots of expats refer to themselves by this word, and it's universally accepted as meaning "a white foreigner in Japan", but it doesn't change the fact that it's a derogatory term, and even Japanese children are well aware of it. I cringe every time I hear a foreigner use this word, which is usually either when 1) they don't know Japanese well enough, 2) they want to be accepted by the Japanese whatever the cost, 3) both. I think it's number one with the author. Some Japanese she uses is all right, but some is, well, strange, like the word "kareisa" intended to mean "beauty", but it's more like "magnificence, splendor". Also, she writes the (rather outdated) word "konketsuji" 混血児 (a multiracial/biracial person) as "konketsujin", which is a mistake. Oh well. I liked it because it was a fast read and about Japan, which the author didn't worship, so points for that, but on the other hand I'm not sure what kind of reaction she wanted to get from me, and the stereotyping was a bit too much. I don't know. Would like to give two and a half stars but can't. Hmm.
In recent years, I've been consciously on the look-out for female writers of mystery/thriller/detective/whatever novels featuring female investigators (whether professional or amateur) in settings that depart from what so often seems the norm - modern day big-city America. To this end, I have just tried out the first novel of another new writer - Sujata Massey. What intrigued me about the writer is that she is the British-born daughter of parents from Germany and Japan, living in the U.S. And writing about an American-born daughter of American and Japanese parents living in Japan. This struck me as a very interesting assemblage of influences and choices.Overall, I enjoyed The Salaryman's Wife - it is a decent mystery novel, with a fair amount of action, although I must admit that the killer was obvious from quite early on, as the pertinent clues were made quite visible. This may be due to this being Massey's first novel, and one hopes that future novels will be less easy to solve. But that wasn't all that much of an issue for me, because I enjoyed watching the character growth of protagonist Rei Shimura. Shimura begins the book as a young woman feeling out of place and uncomfortable - as a half-Japanese woman who speaks the language well but is still learning kanji, who is an expert on Japanese art and antiques but does not assimilate well into the culture, particularly in terms of significant differences between Japanese and American gender roles - and this shows in a certain awkward combination of insecurity and bravado. Over the course of the novel, she becomes more confident and secure within herself, and I am quite interested in seeing how this growth alters the way she is presented in the next novel. I also enjoyed the window that the novel creates into Japanese culture - in business, in media, in personal relationships. My main gripe is the romantic element. She falls rather rapidly in lust with a blond Scottish lawyer working in Japan who is initially one of the prime suspects in the murder, without there being much rhyme or reason for the attraction, at least in my opinion. I prefer that if there is going to be romance in a novel, that it be based on mutual respect and some degree of commonality in interests, worldviews, and the like. At my age, I've learned that while lust can be short-term fun (and I'd never suggest that a protagonist refrain from responsible sex-play), if you're going to frame a sexual relationship as a romance, please give us more than lust and the heightened arousal that comes from a shared intense experience to ground it in.But that's rather hard to find. So I'll just breeze over that bit and enjoy Rei and her relationships with parents, relatives and friends, all of which have much more depth in the novel.
What do You think about The Salaryman's Wife (2000)?
Young Rei Simura, a half-Japanese, half-white American, decides to try to "make it" in Japan as an English teacher. She becomes entangled in a murder mystery when she discovers the body of a high-profile company executive, and finds herself on the front page of the japanese tabloids. It's a fun mystery, but the characterization is awkward, to say the least, and there are some odd generalizations and conclusions drawn about Japan and the Japanese language that I would disagree with (being half-Japanese myself and having spent a fair amount of time in the country). Also, somehow the protagonist attracts quite a bit of attention and sympathy from people though she is rather curmudgeonly and kind of bitchy (in the guise of being feminist).
—Anne Pinckard
What was most interesting about this book was the Japanese setting. The murder and resolution of the murder made sense, but Rei Shimura, a Japanese-American ex patriot language teacher was a bit obtuse. She is adamant about staying in Japan, but no explanation of why, she takes off in one direction investigating the murder, but no explanation of why she is so certain that is the right direction. In a 400 page book, I figured out the murderer and motive on page 300. Also, the book needed to be better edited.
—Debbie
I was excited about the concept of this book to begin with. The idea of a slightly obscure Japanese mystery-fiction book intrigued me(especially since I happened upon the title, referred to as a gateway book from the Alexander McCall Smith "Sunday Philosophy Club" series. Unfortunately it was pretty disappointing. The characters were obvious. The plot wasn't very exciting and the author could have used the Japanese culture much more to her advantage in order to liven up this pretty average and predictable mystery novel.
—Ruth Devery
