Noir-y japanese mystery novel. Interesting view of japanese debt system. Characters felt a little shallow ( )

With wonderful insights into the day-to-day of life in Tokyo, a police inspector out on sick leave takes on a case with grave misgivings. A police procedural that slowly unravels the layers of what appears to be a case of identity theft and murder. With the help of family and people he meets along the way, the inspector untangles the many threads. Lots of diatribe re the evils of credit cards, lots of coffee consumed. ( )

Japanese crime story involves a "disappearance" and money problems. ( )

The way the investigator's boy partially knows, comes to know, and yet can't fully know the motives of the adult characters perfectly evokes the way no person can truly know another's inner world.

Inside this milieux we explore the way debt and credit create another layer of personae and motive - for people to tend, investigate, punish and escape in their encounters with one another.

A world where a person can exhibit fastidious personal habits, love and be loved, while at the same time live duplicitously and in fear because of a ruined financial reputation. This world is the world we've created and the place our children will have to navigate as they search for love, home, security, community - the author leaves us wondering if anyone can truly connect with another in this place or reconcile past with present .

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A well paced mystery in which a young woman goes missing and the harsh realities of life as an independent young woman in late 20th century Japan are encountered repeatedly as the facts behind who is missing and why are extracted by a police detective on leave and the people and resources he musters, including his own considerable intellect and flexibility. ( )