Description: Read Now Puppet Master Vol 4 by Miyuki Miyabe, Ginny Tapley Takemori and you can download with pub, pdf, txt, doc, and more file format with free account. In volume 4 of miyuki miyabe’s blockbuster mystery, the police investigation into the serial killings focuses on identifying the women depicted in a stash of horrific photos and videos found in hiromi kurihashi’s tokyo apartment, and locating the killers’ hideout. Meanwhile, shigeko maehata’s journalistic career takes off with her in-depth reports on the serial killings.

A stroke of good fortune brings her into contact with yumiko takai as well as koichi amikawa, also known as peace, who has taken yumiko under his wing and is supporting her claims that her brother was innocent. Available in e-book format in five separate volumes, to be released through summer 2016. Other e-books in english by miyuki miyabe: apparitions: ghosts of old edo the book of heroes ico: castle in the mist brave story praise for miyabe: “a window into contemporary japanese life.”?san francisco chronicle “enormously compelling combining expert pacing and psychological nuance to ultimately haunting effect.”?publishers weekly, starred review “miyabe is a subtle observer of a country on the cusp.

Her american readers can only hope for more chances to see through her eyes.”?the los angeles times “absorbing an artful blending of puzzle-solving and social commentary.”?washington post. Description: Read Now Apparitions by Miyuki Miyabe and you can download with pub, pdf, txt, doc, and more file format with free account. In old edo, the past was never forgotten. It lived alongside the present, in dark corners, and in the shadows. In these tales, award-winning author miyuki miyabe explores the ghosts of japan, and the spaces of the living world they inhabit. Written with a journalistic eye and a fantasist’s heart apparitions bring the restless dead, and those who encounter them, to life. Description: Read Now Shadow Family by Miyuki Miyabe, Juliet Winters Carpenter and you can download with pub, pdf, txt, doc, and more file format with free account.

Reading this book with the PDF all she was worth miyuki miyabe will let you know more things. As known, adventure and experience about lesson, entertainment. Examine the life, times, and work of Miyuki Miyabe through detailed author biographies on. Document PDF. This Page Only; Entire Study. All She Was Worth.

In this compelling murder mystery focusing on the murky world of online chat rooms, veteran desk sergeant takegami finds himself investigating the double murder of a teenaged girl and a middle-aged man, who has created his own 'shadow family' on the internet. This is a murder mystery focusing on the dark world of internet chat rooms populated by people attracted by the chance to be whoever they want to be. Police investigating the murder of a middleaged office worker discover emails on the victim's computer that indicate he had been a regular participant in an internet chat room.

Description: Read Now Apparitions Ghosts Of Old Edo by Miyuki Miyabe and you can download with pub, pdf, txt, doc, and more file format with free account. In old edo, the past was never forgotten. It lived alongside the present in dark corners and in the shadows. In these tales, award-winning author miyuki miyabe explores the ghosts of early modern japan and the spaces of the living world—workplaces, families, and the human soul—that they inhabit. Written with a journalistic eye and a fantasist’s heart, apparitions brings the restless dead, and those who encounter them, to life. -- viz media.

Description: Read Now Ico Castle Of The Mist by Miyuki Miyabe and you can download with pub, pdf, txt, doc, and more file format with free account. When a boy named ico grows long curved horns overnight, his fate has been sealed—he is to be sacrificed in the castle in the mist. But in the castle, ico meets a young girl named yorda imprisoned in its halls. Alone they will die, but together ico and yorda might just be able to defy their destinies and escape the magic of the castle. Based on the video game filmmaker guillermo del toro (hellboy, pan's labyrinth) called a “masterpiece,” japan's leading fantasist miyuki miyabe has crafted a tale of magic, loss, and love that will never be forgotten.

-- viz media. Description: Read Now The Devil S Whisper by Miyuki Miyabe, Deborah Stuhr Iwabuchi and you can download with pub, pdf, txt, doc, and more file format with free account. Slowly, the answers are uncovered by sixteen-year-old mamoru, the nephew of the taxi driver currently being held by the police on charges of manslaughter for the death of the third victim. Determined to help his uncle, the enterprising young protagonist discovers that the girl killed by his uncle's taxi had participated in a devious scam. Slowly, the answers are uncovered by sixteen-year-old mamoru, the nephew of the taxi driver currently being held by the police on charges of manslaughter for the death of the third victim. Determined to help his uncle. Description: Read Now Crossfire by Miyuki Miyabe and you can download with pub, pdf, txt, doc, and more file format with free account.

Death wish meets firestarter in a provocative mystery thriller set in tokyo. Young, pretty junko aoki was born with the gift of pyrokinesis--the ability to start fires using just willpower. When the police and law courts fail, junko mobilizes her talent to bring violent criminals to justice. A chance encounter sends her on a mission to rescue a young woman abducted by a vicious gang. The trail of bodies junko leaves across tokyo attracts the unwanted attention of two very different groups: a secretive vigilante league known as the guardians and the arson squad of the tokyo metropolitan police department.

Detective chikako ishizu's initial bafflement turns to surprise as she is forced to reconsider a lifetime of methodical thinking while wrestling with the growing mountain of evidence on junko's pyrokinetic skills. Hardly able to keep up with junko's killing spree, detective ishizu finds herself drawn deeper into a case that defies belief. Meanwhile, as junnko's crusade against evil gains momentum, she finds it increasingly difficult to control her power over life and death, and innocent people are getting caught in the crossfire. Description: Read Now The Gate Of Sorrows by Miyuki Miyabe and you can download with pub, pdf, txt, doc, and more file format with free account. A series of murders shocks tokyo’s shinjuku ward, but shigenori, a retired police detective, is instead obsessed with a gargoyle that seems to move.

College freshman kotaro launches a web-based investigation of the killer, and comes to find that answers may lie within an abandoned building in the center of japan’s busiest neighborhood, and beyond the gate of sorrows. In this adult sequel to miyabe’s the book of heroes, you will meet monsters from other worlds and ordinary horrors that surpass even supernatural threats. -- viz media.

Description: Read Now Puppet Master Vol 3 by Miyuki Miyabe, Ginny Tapley Takemori and you can download with pub, pdf, txt, doc, and more file format with free account. Volume 3 of miyuki miyabe’s best-selling murder mystery sees hiromi and peace respond to the criticism that they only go after defenseless women by targeting a man as their next victim, while plotting to frame kaz as their fall guy. But even master manipulator peace couldn’t predict how things would turn out... Available in e-book format in five separate volumes, to be released through spring 2016. Other e-books in english by miyuki miyabe: apparitions: ghosts of old edo the book of heroes ico: castle in the mist brave story praise for miyabe: “a window into contemporary japanese life.”?san francisco chronicle “enormously compelling combining expert pacing and psychological nuance to ultimately haunting effect.”?publishers weekly, starred review “miyabe is a subtle observer of a country on the cusp. Her american readers can only hope for more chances to see through her eyes.”?the los angeles times “absorbing an artful blending of puzzle-solving and social commentary.”?washington post.

Here is a deftly written thriller that is also a 'deep and moody' (NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW) journey through the dark side of Japan's consumer-crazed society. Ordinary people plunge into insurmountable personal debt and fall prey to dangerous webs of underground creditors-so dangerous, in fact, that murder may be the only way out. A beautiful young woman vanishes, and th Here is a deftly written thriller that is also a 'deep and moody' (NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW) journey through the dark side of Japan's consumer-crazed society. Ordinary people plunge into insurmountable personal debt and fall prey to dangerous webs of underground creditors-so dangerous, in fact, that murder may be the only way out. A beautiful young woman vanishes, and the detective quickly finds she was not whom she had claimed to be. Is she a victim, a killer, or both?

In a country that tracks its citizens at every turn, how can two women claim the same identity and then disappear without a trace? All She was Worth was billed to me as a mystery and thriller and aside from reading Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto, I've not read a lot of Japanese Literature so I was intrigued to see how this would pan out.

Would I be introduced to Japan's answer to Lisbeth Salander, Endeavour Morse or Magnum PI? None of the above. You will be introduced to Tokyo Metropolitan Police Detective Shunsuke Honma who is polite, and dogged and due to an injury at work is taking his crime solving at a mor All She was Worth was billed to me as a mystery and thriller and aside from reading Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto, I've not read a lot of Japanese Literature so I was intrigued to see how this would pan out. Would I be introduced to Japan's answer to Lisbeth Salander, Endeavour Morse or Magnum PI? None of the above. You will be introduced to Tokyo Metropolitan Police Detective Shunsuke Honma who is polite, and dogged and due to an injury at work is taking his crime solving at a more leisurely pace.

And I have to say that for an eagerly anticipated thriller, this book had about as much pace as a slug covered in treacle trying to tow a tiny slug-sized cluster of Atlas Balls. I actually had to slog (and slug) through the pages and found my attention prone to a good old wander. In fact sometimes my attention wandered so far it came back with souvenirs. To provide a sketchy plot outline all you need know is that a young girl has gone missing and in the course of trying to track her down, an identity switcheroo becomes apparent. This leads to a lot of explanations dealing with Japanese identity, the logistics of altering and stealing identity in Japan (where family identity rather than individual identity is recorded) and also a bafflingly in-depth look at the world of Japanese banking, credit cards and the murky world of money lending.

If you hold a deep seated interest in modern Japanese culture, particularly the more obscure economic facts then this is the book for you. If this last group of subjects are of no particular interest to you then, like me, you might find your attention span taking a little vacation and turning up a few hours later with a straw donkey under one arm and some duty free booze under the other. A decent police procedural this, with lots of good touches but a few flaws. On the plus side of the ledger are the sleuth, a widower with an adopted son and a gammy leg; an ingenious believable premise of stolen identity; and the completely authentic setting of the seedier side of 90s Japan trying to keep the bubble inflated on borrowed money.

But in the minus column, a couple of pages demand to be skipped where a lawyer spouts exposition on the dangers to, and legal standing of heretofore not a A decent police procedural this, with lots of good touches but a few flaws. On the plus side of the ledger are the sleuth, a widower with an adopted son and a gammy leg; an ingenious believable premise of stolen identity; and the completely authentic setting of the seedier side of 90s Japan trying to keep the bubble inflated on borrowed money. But in the minus column, a couple of pages demand to be skipped where a lawyer spouts exposition on the dangers to, and legal standing of heretofore not aforementioned folks affected by bankruptcy and personal debt that read suspiciously like Miyabe had just discovered an online legal dictionary and the cut and paste function on her word processor. More critically, I thought the novel lacked a little tension.

At no point was our sleuth or his kid in any danger; every hunch proved to be correct; and I kept waiting for the twist which never arrived. It felt like Miyabe could have done more, tested the characters or taken the plot a little further, but had stayed comfortably in the black, instead of pushing for broke. Still, worth a read. Pertama kali melihat cover novel ini saya langsung penasaran untuk membacanya. Cover hasil karya Eduard Iwan Mangopang ini sangat menggambarkan isi dari cerita novel ini, dimana ada wajah sesosok seorang wanita dengan latar belakang kehidupan hiruk pikuk perkotaan.

Warna merah juga sangat pas karena bisa menarik perhatian para pembaca untuk melihat dan membeli novel ini. 'Mencari Jejak' juga sangat pas untuk terjemahan judulnya. Konsumerisme serta pemakaian kartu kredit secara berlebihan merupak Pertama kali melihat cover novel ini saya langsung penasaran untuk membacanya. Cover hasil karya Eduard Iwan Mangopang ini sangat menggambarkan isi dari cerita novel ini, dimana ada wajah sesosok seorang wanita dengan latar belakang kehidupan hiruk pikuk perkotaan. Warna merah juga sangat pas karena bisa menarik perhatian para pembaca untuk melihat dan membeli novel ini. 'Mencari Jejak' juga sangat pas untuk terjemahan judulnya.

Konsumerisme serta pemakaian kartu kredit secara berlebihan merupakan tema yang diangkat. Melihat begitu banyaknya masyarakat Jepang yang berperilaku sangat konsumtif, tidak heran jika tema tersebut memang layak untuk dibahas. Tahun 1980 sampai 2000 merupakan tahun dimana pemakaian kartu kredit sedang diperkenalkan kepada masyarakat Jepang. Maka banyak sekali masyarakat yang terlilit utang pada tiga tahun tersebut sebagai akibat dari dampak pemakaian kartu kredirt secara berlebihan.

Bahkan pada bab 11 sang penulis menjelaskan tentang permasalahan dan detail-detail akibat pemakaian kartu kredit yang mulai menjadi gaya hidup masyarakat Jepang. Penjelasan tersebut juga sangat membantu saya untuk memahami penyebab tokoh Shoko Sekine mengalami kebangkrutan pribadi. Sangat banyak sekali tokoh-tokoh yang terdapat didalam novel ini, sehingga membuat saya sedikit bingung untuk mengingat setiap tokohnya, ditambah lagi dengan nama-nama orang Jepang yang sulit untuk diingat.

Tokoh Shunsuke Honma juga sedikit mengingatkan saya kepada tokoh Cormoran Strike ketika Honma berjalan pincang dan mengeluhkan rasa sakit di kakinya. Menggunakan sudut pandang orang ketiga yaitu Honma, sangat membantu saya untuk memahami karakternya dan juga pemikirannya yang cerdik. Novel ini juga memiliki alur maju dari awal hingga akhir, walaupun ada sedikit alur mundur ketika dalam percakapan untuk menceritakan kehidupan Shoko Sekine dan kehidupan pelaku yang mencuri identitasnya sebelum mereka berdua menghilang. Adanya sedikit alur mundur ini juga membantu saya untuk merangkai setiap motif dan alasan dari pelaku, mengapa dia pada akhirnya memilih Shoko Sekine sebagai target untuk dicuri identitasnya. Gaya bahasa yang ditulis Miyuki Miyabe juga mudah untuk dipahami serta tidak bertele-tele dan hasil terjemahannya juga sangat baik.

Meskipun ada beberapa istilah dalam bahasa Jepang yang sulit untuk dipahami, tapi tidak terlalu mengganggu ketika membaca. Selain itu hampir tidak ada typo sama sekali yang membuat saya sangat lancar untuk membaca novel ini. Bagi sebagian orang mungkin akan merasa bosan ketika membaca novel ini karena hampir tidak ada konflik yang menarik. Walaupun konfliknya kurang, tetapi saya selalu dibuat penasaran dengan fakta-fakta yang ditemukan oleh Honma. Alasan utama kurangnya konflik didalam novel ini karena sejak awal kasusnya adalah mencari orang hilang sehingga membuat konfliknya tidak semenarik kasus pembunuhan. Kebanyakan latar tempat yang dipakai adalah Tokyo, Osaka dan Utsunomiya. Penggunaan latar kota Tokyo menurut saya sangat cocok dengan tema yang diangkat.

Kota Tokyo merupakan ibu kota negara Jepang sehingga tidak aneh jika pemakaian kartu kredit dan perilaku konsumtif terjadi pada sebagian besar masyarakatnya dengan hadirnya berbagai macam bank dan penyedia jasa kartu kredit. Secara keseluruhan saya sangat menikmati novel ini karena berhasil membuat saya penasaran akan pelaku serta motifnya mencuri identitas orang lain. Saya juga jadi lebih mengetahui tentang kejamnya dunia peminjaman uang melalui kartu kredit yang banyak melakukan kecurangan dan penipuan kepada para penggunanya.

Ada satu hal yang sedikit mengecewakan dari novel ini adalah Miyuki Miyabe tidak memberikan kelanjutan cerita setelah pelaku ditemukan, sehingga membuat saya masih penasaran. Novel yang sangat saya rekomendasikan karena selain membaca cerita fiksi, saya juga diberikan ilmu baru tentang konsumerisme yang terjadi di Jepang.

Baca selengkapnya di. Not only well-paced but well-written, this mystery of the missing fiancee lost its momentum in only one scene, in which a Japanese businessman felt it necessary to take an hour out of his busy day to explain to another Japanese citizen the country's policy on identification cards, loans, and bankruptcy. Sure, I may not have known this information as an American and it was helpful to learm, but it was carried out so ollishly and pedantically in this translation, I wish the editors had found some Not only well-paced but well-written, this mystery of the missing fiancee lost its momentum in only one scene, in which a Japanese businessman felt it necessary to take an hour out of his busy day to explain to another Japanese citizen the country's policy on identification cards, loans, and bankruptcy. Sure, I may not have known this information as an American and it was helpful to learm, but it was carried out so ollishly and pedantically in this translation, I wish the editors had found some other way to weave it into the story, even if it meant a foreword, an appendix, or some footnotes for foreign readers. But please, o 'as you well know' scenes again. Obviously, I don't blame Miyabe in this error in international translation.

I suppose I should just be glad I got my tutorial on Japanese credit history and shut my mouth. Well, aside from that, this was an absorbing, non-stop read that doesn't lower its standards of good writing as a genre novel, unlike so many American mysteries. And for those seeking background in Japanese credit history, this is also a worthwhile find! A policeman is asked by his nephew to look for his missing fiance.

The policeman is on convalescent leave so takes the case on. What follows is a painstaking investigation that uncovers deception, murder, impersonation and dangerous links to the Japanese underworld in the former of loan sharks and yakusa enforcers. A competent crime thriller which was a real page turner, as the cop follows a trail from clue to clue.

Japan is a very different culture to my own and I enjoyed being immersed in a som A policeman is asked by his nephew to look for his missing fiance. The policeman is on convalescent leave so takes the case on. What follows is a painstaking investigation that uncovers deception, murder, impersonation and dangerous links to the Japanese underworld in the former of loan sharks and yakusa enforcers. A competent crime thriller which was a real page turner, as the cop follows a trail from clue to clue. Japan is a very different culture to my own and I enjoyed being immersed in a somewhat alien world. There is an element of crusade against the evils of excessive debt and credit which irked a little. A good three out of five, close to a four.

I was on board with this book almost entirely through, but then somewhere in the last chapter or two felt that the 'answer' was a bit less interesting than I had hoped when I went into the reading. The book is still good, particularly as insight into Japanese society and culture in the 1990s. What's especially 'fun' and interesting about this book is that it's so relevant still to today. Credit card debt. Ah, who doesn't have any of that? (Besides me, but only because I don't have one.) I'm surro I was on board with this book almost entirely through, but then somewhere in the last chapter or two felt that the 'answer' was a bit less interesting than I had hoped when I went into the reading. The book is still good, particularly as insight into Japanese society and culture in the 1990s.

What's especially 'fun' and interesting about this book is that it's so relevant still to today. Credit card debt.

Ah, who doesn't have any of that? (Besides me, but only because I don't have one.) I'm surrounded by people who are paying off debts from before I even knew them, and I know how insidious the whole debt thing can be by observation. The book brings this alive for me, and the dirty, gritty, noir-like undertones of the story lends itself well to this specific sort of thriller. The reminder that it also goes beyond credit card debt. While I've spent most of my life making sure I'm not indebted to anyone, it wasn't easy and it's not something I would recommend to anyone.

I can see how easy it is for personal debts to get out of control, and I feel for those people. And I'm still relatively young - I have my entire life ahead of me in which to fuck up. I'm careful, but I'm not rich. It's like one true emergency and I'll be out. I like these sorts of reads, and it looks like the author has similar books out there. This was the first I've seen by her, off the my beloved clearance shelf at Half Price Books. I'll be keeping an eye out for other books by her; I'm impressed by her tightly knit story and it's clear to me she has skillz in the 'pulp' department.

[More like 3.5 stars really] There are, I believe, two types of mystery, which differ based on their attitude to crime. The first type, the classical, sees crime as an aberration in a fundamentally healthy society. Criminals commit their crimes purely for personal reasons: there is no connection between crime and larger societal ills. Agatha Christie novels of the 20’s and 30’s, for instance, often have a Communist character, and suspicion naturally falls on him, because he’s a Communist, but he [More like 3.5 stars really] There are, I believe, two types of mystery, which differ based on their attitude to crime. The first type, the classical, sees crime as an aberration in a fundamentally healthy society. Criminals commit their crimes purely for personal reasons: there is no connection between crime and larger societal ills. Agatha Christie novels of the 20’s and 30’s, for instance, often have a Communist character, and suspicion naturally falls on him, because he’s a Communist, but he is never the criminal, not because Christie was a fellow traveler but because she refuses to admit that there could be any connection between the injustices a Communist is (at least nominally) opposing and crime, which occurs only because some people are bad.

In the classical type of mystery, the police may not be very good at their job, but even if they are idiotic bunglers their goal is to see justice done, and they work with the detective, often quite closely. Once the crime has been solved and the criminal arrested, society can return to its previous placid equilibrium, confident that everything is for the best. The second type, the noir, takes the opposite view, in which crime is the natural result of a fundamentally corrupt society. Wealth and power lead to crime, and also make it difficult for justice to be done.

The police are usually working against the detective here, even if, as is sometimes the case, he or she is one of them: sometimes they are, of course, simply corrupt, but even if honest and well-intentioned, they are inevitably compromised by their position in a corrupt power structure, the dictates of which they are forced to follow because that is, in the end, their job. (Noirs need not be ideologically left-wing, by the way: right-wing fantasies of vigilante justice can also fall under this rubric.) Even when the crime is solved in a noir, there’s no guarantee that justice will be done: the detective can discover whodunit, but, unlike in classical mysteries, sometimes that’s not enough. “All She Was Worth” falls on the noir side of the line, because it is very clear that the real culprit is the uncontrolled rise of consumer lending in Japan in the late ’80s and early ‘90s (when the book is set). However, rather than using the format to make this abstract problem more concrete by creating a crime which is directly tied to, say, an executive at a credit-card company, Miyabe chooses to leave a fair amount of distance between the social forces that gave rise to the crime and the criminal herself. This is an interesting gambit, one that is admittedly more realistic -- most credit-card company executives don't commit crimes -- but makes most of the usual elements of the noir unusable.

For instance, there is no violence in the book, not because Japan is not a very violent country — it isn’t, of course, but our detective, Shunsuke Honma, is a policeman taking a leave of absence after being shot in the leg, so clearly violence is possible — but because the powers-that-be, not being directly implicated in any crimes, have no need to send goons to beat Honma up. In fact, Honma encounters virtually no opposition to his sleuthing, which is a problem, as the noir detective usually figures out who’s responsible by finding out who’s trying to stop the investigation. Without this, it’s hard for us to connect the dots Miyabe wants us to connect, so she gives Honma a long (but entirely friendly) interview with a bankruptcy lawyer to make sure we acquire the necessary background.

Even the usual order of the investigation is disrupted, as we learn who the criminal is very soon after we learn that a crime has been committed: it’s the questions of how and why that occupy Honma for most of the book. The result is that there’s not much in the way of suspense. We know the criminal, and we know, roughly, the nature of the crime: most of the book just consists of Honma filling in the details. It’s a rather bureaucratic procedure, so it makes sense that bureaucracies also produce many of Honma’s clues: for instance, you will learn quite a bit about Japan’s family registration system. (The whole investigation is very modern [for a 1990 value of modern]: the trails that Honma follows are of paper, not footprints.) But bureaucracies are not, generally speaking, intrinsically interesting, and in the absence of suspense all that’s left to keep the reader reading is the character of Honma himself. Luckily, he is mostly up to the task, with some of the book’s best scenes being the domestic ones in which the investigation only barely figures. Honma is a widower with a 10-year-old son, who still hasn’t quite gotten over the loss of his wife and worries that his job takes him away from home too often.

Such worries are especially pronounced in this case, given that it’s not part of his job: he starts investigating as a favor to a cousin of his late wife, and keeps going after the cousin repudiates him — he didn’t like the results Honma was getting — because he’s curious. And also because he feels increasing sympathy for both the victim and the criminal: it’s this empathy that makes him in turn an easy character for the reader to empathize with. The secondary characters, many of them young women who knew either the criminal or the victim (both young women as well), are also quite well done, and serve to create a secondary theme around the paucity of options available to young women in Japan in 1992. All the young female characters are either doing some sort of essentially secretarial job, or are engaged in one form or another of sex work. Almost as much as the credit card debt, it’s this sense of limited options that seems to have trapped both the criminal and victim: and of course the two work together as well, as sex work, which pays better than the secretarial jobs, is often the only way to pay off that debt. This general feeling of walls closing in creates a sympathy for the characters that makes us want to know more about them, and it is this, rather than the usual desire to solve the mystery, that drives the book.

However, the nature of the mystery is such that we never meet either the criminal or the victim, so there’s a limit to the extent to which this can replace good old-fashioned suspense. “All She Was Worth” is better than you would expect a non-mysterious mystery to be, but it’s still not entirely successful.

“Maka yang sudah mati meninggalkan jejak mereka dalam diri mereka yang masih hidup, seperti pakaian yang ditanggalkan dan masih menyimpan kehangatan tubuh seseorang.” – All Was Worth ‘Melacak Jejak’, hlm. 227 Sudah hampir jam sembilan malam ketika Jun Kurisaka datang. Shunsuke Honma begitu heran, entah angin apa yang membawa keponakan mendiang istrinya melipir berkunjung. Jun yang kini berkerja sebagai seorang bankir membutuhkan jasanya untuk menyelidiki seorang wanita bernama Shoko Sekine. Perempu “Maka yang sudah mati meninggalkan jejak mereka dalam diri mereka yang masih hidup, seperti pakaian yang ditanggalkan dan masih menyimpan kehangatan tubuh seseorang.” – All Was Worth ‘Melacak Jejak’, hlm.

227 Sudah hampir jam sembilan malam ketika Jun Kurisaka datang. Shunsuke Honma begitu heran, entah angin apa yang membawa keponakan mendiang istrinya melipir berkunjung. Jun yang kini berkerja sebagai seorang bankir membutuhkan jasanya untuk menyelidiki seorang wanita bernama Shoko Sekine. Perempuan cantik itu raib tanpa jejak. Shoko seorang yatim-piatu, anak tunggal yang datang dari Utsunomiya menuju Tokyo. Dari catatan terakhir yang diketahui, Shoko bekerja di Mesin Kantor Imai dan sempat mengalami kebangkrutan sehingga menemui pengacara Mizoguchi & Takada. Jun Kurisaka tidak begitu mengenal wanita yang kelak akan menjadi calon pendampingnya.

Jun bisa saja menyatakan jika Shoko adalah seorang korban. Tetapi, dari perbincangan Honma dengan rekan sekantor Shoko di Mesin Kantor Imai dan kantor pengacara Mizoguchi & Takada, Shoko Sekine yang mereka kenal adalah dua orang yang berbeda.

“Shoko Sekine mencoba menghentikan rodanya. Ia turun dari kereta di suatu tempat. Lalu, tanpa menyadarinya, si wanita yang menjadi Shoko Sekine, naik kembali.” – All Was Worth ‘Melacak Jejak’, hlm. 148 Di sebuah negara yang mencatat data kependudukan dengan begitu cermat, bagaimana bisa ada dua orang perempuan yang memiliki identitas yang sama? Bukan mustahil jika seseorang mencuri identitas orang lain, terlebih jika orang itu terkenal pun kaya raya.

Namun, mengapa wanita itu malah mengambil identitas Shoko Sekine yang tengah mengalami kebangkrutan? Seperti kata subjudul terjemahannya, ‘melacak jejak’.

Novel terjemahan karya Miyuki Miyabe ini memang menceritakan keseluruhan plot ceritanya sebagai ajang pencarian. Bukan pencarian identitas si pembunuh, pun korban yang ikut terbunuh. Dan pembunuhan kali ini pun bukan melibatkan uang sebagai yang diperebutkan, melainkan sebuah identitas.

Namun, seperti yang dipertanyakan pada sinopsisnya, identitas si korban adalah orang yang bangkrut. Lantas, kenapa wanita tersangka satu ini malah repot-repot ingin mencuri identitasnya? Dua hipotesis yang begitu sederhana, tapi terus membuat saya terjaga untuk terus menyelesaikan novel tebal ini dengan durasi cukup lama.

Novel pertama dari Miyabe yang saya baca, tapi motifnya begitu kuat dan rill di mata saya. Miyuki Miyabe tidak mengangkat tema detektif yang populer, sebagaimana ada seorang detektif yang hebat, ditemani rekan sejawat yang banyak bicara, lantas penyelidikannya pun ikut menjadikan detektif tersebut menjadi seorang yang harus membereskan masalah tersebut.

Dalam “All She Was Worth” latar belakang yang diangkat adalah tatanan ekonomi dari sebuah kota, dan kota yang dimaksud adalah Tokyo. Yang mana Tokyo tidak dijelaskan dengan bumbu-bumbu manis nan romantis seperti pada novel populer, alih-alih sebuah kota yang gelap dan transparan dari segala jenis kejahatan. “All She Was Worth” bercerita tentang bentuk nyata dari sebuah kota metropolitan. Sebuah kota yang punya etos kerja sangat tinggi sehingga masyarakatnya pun terbiasa menggunakan barang semata-mata untuk menaikkan derajat mereka dengan bantuan kartu kredit.

Change Address Drivers License Pa Online. Dan begitulah karakter Shoko Sekine dapat terjerembab masuk ke dalam wilayah kebangkrutan lantaran terlilit hutang. Ia bekerja sebagai hostess di sebuah bar malam, lantas mendapat banyak cercaan dari rekan dan kerabatnya di Utsunomiya.

Dan mulai saat itulah Shoko Sekinie yang sesungguhnya menghilang. Baca selengkapnya di. Miyabe, Miyuki.

ALL SHE WAS WORTH. (1992; this ed. In translation 1999). Miyabe is a very popular novelist in Japan, and this novel, her first translated into English, was voted Best Mystery and Best Novel of the Year when published there. Although it is described as a noir thriller, you will find that Japanese noir is very different from that genre from the rest of the world. Japanese crime novels are very labyrinthine in their construction and the protagonist is usually extremely tho Miyabe, Miyuki. ALL SHE WAS WORTH.

(1992; this ed. In translation 1999). Miyabe is a very popular novelist in Japan, and this novel, her first translated into English, was voted Best Mystery and Best Novel of the Year when published there. Although it is described as a noir thriller, you will find that Japanese noir is very different from that genre from the rest of the world.

Japanese crime novels are very labyrinthine in their construction and the protagonist is usually extremely thorough and thoughtful in his approach to a solution. This novel takes us through the dark side of Japan’s consumer-crazed society. A great many of young Japanese people manage to get themselves into deep debt – mostly because they found the use of credit cards to be too easy. The credit card craze began in Japan just before this novel was written, with banks and consumer outlets offering cards to anyone and everyone. Unfortunately, the Japanese education system did not provide the training system necessary for these young people to recognize the potential hazard of the use and/or misuse of credit. This novel starts out when a beautiful young woman disappears in Tokyo.

Her fiance, a young man who works at a bank, approaches his uncle (once removed) to seek help in finding her. The uncle is a police detective who is on extended sick leave because he was wounded on duty and is now going through a series of rehab programs.

The uncle agrees to take a look to see what was going on, but begins to stumble on a variety of occurences that tell him that this is more than a simple disappearence. The uncle soon learns that the young woman was not who she said she was, but was assuming the identity of someone else. The ultimate reason for this true identity theft was that the young woman was running from collectors, some of whom were from the lower depths of Japanese society. Our detective has to piece together who this woman really is, and what happened to the woman that she has replaced. This novel provides a window on the spending frenzy that was going on in Japan as they turned into a Western-like acquisitive society. The author builds slowly and relentlessly to the solution of this case, and manages to hold us off until the very last page.

This is quite readable, though I'm not entirely sure why. I found the characterisations quite distant (possibly because of the translation), the mystery not terribly mysterious (mostly focused on finding out how the crime was achieved, not why or by whom), and the ending quite abrupt.

Yet some of the book's central themes—the dangers of materialism, of the credit system and how people get caught up in it—are sadly just as relevant now as they were when this book was written in the early 90s. My This is quite readable, though I'm not entirely sure why. I found the characterisations quite distant (possibly because of the translation), the mystery not terribly mysterious (mostly focused on finding out how the crime was achieved, not why or by whom), and the ending quite abrupt. Yet some of the book's central themes—the dangers of materialism, of the credit system and how people get caught up in it—are sadly just as relevant now as they were when this book was written in the early 90s. My favourite aspect of the novel, and certainly the one which kept me reading, was Miyabe's description of Japanese society. The description of the family registers used as forms of personal identification were fascinating to me, as were the various social norms and pressures which conditioned and restricted character actions. Khas jepun sekali.

Gak perlu epilog dan penjelasan berkepanjangan. Semua hasil penyelidikan telah terpaparkan seperti keping2 puzzle. Ini pertama kalinya aku membaca kisah crimefic di mana baik si korban maupun si pembunuh sama2 dicitrakan dari pov orang lain sepenuhnya. Korban tak pernah muncul sama sekali, sdgkan si pembunuh hanya nongol di bbrp paragraf terakhir novel. Stationplaylist Studio Torrent Download there. Tp meski demikian, motif, alibi, cara bahkan latar belakang keduanya tetap jd unsur terpenting cerita Aaaakk.

Khas jepun sekali. Gak perlu epilog dan penjelasan berkepanjangan. Semua hasil penyelidikan telah terpaparkan seperti keping2 puzzle. Ini pertama kalinya aku membaca kisah crimefic di mana baik si korban maupun si pembunuh sama2 dicitrakan dari pov orang lain sepenuhnya. Korban tak pernah muncul sama sekali, sdgkan si pembunuh hanya nongol di bbrp paragraf terakhir novel. Tp meski demikian, motif, alibi, cara bahkan latar belakang keduanya tetap jd unsur terpenting cerita, dan disajikan lengkap. Dari pandangan mereka yg mengenalnya masing2.

Keren pokoknya. (sayang edisi terjemahannya gak keren dan sedikit mengecewakan) Review lengkap ada di. The blurb on the back says that All She Was Worth is an 'artful blending of puzzle-solving and social commentary,' and I suppose it does blend those two, but I'm not sure about how artfully it was done. The social commentary part was pretty heavy-handed, with more than one long-winded description of the evils of the credit industry. The thing is, those descriptions weren't even really necessary; the story got that message through without them.

There were a couple parts I didn't really understand The blurb on the back says that All She Was Worth is an 'artful blending of puzzle-solving and social commentary,' and I suppose it does blend those two, but I'm not sure about how artfully it was done. The social commentary part was pretty heavy-handed, with more than one long-winded description of the evils of the credit industry. The thing is, those descriptions weren't even really necessary; the story got that message through without them. There were a couple parts I didn't really understand, and I don't know whether they are weaknesses in Miyabe's work, or in the translation.

One was how it was said at one point that the police wouldn't get involved in Kyoko's problems with the Yakuza, as long as they didn't physically harm her. But if selling her (and her mother) into prostitution isn't physical harm, I don't know what is. So it seems like her legal options for protecting herself were not exhausted before she resorted to murder. The next part that I didn't get was how her husband left her because he overheard her mumbling that she wished her father was dead. Somehow, it made him think she was evil. But he knew what she was facing, so I don't get how he could have ended up at that conclusion, particularly given that he was so in love with her that he was willing to go against his family's wishes to marry her.

Aside from that, the characterization was kind of formal and sedate; I never felt like I got in close to anyone, even though I wanted to. I didn't really understand the relevance of some sub-stories, like the one about Blockhead. And the ending felt like Miyabe was tired of telling the story.

So overall, I liked the concept and the plot, but there were just too many problems for me to recommend All She Was Worth. I picked up All She Was Worth by Miyuki Miyabe a few months ago because I liked Brave Story, a novel geared towards younger audiences. All She Was Worth was Miyabe’s first adult book that I’ve read and one of the few mystery novels I’ve read this year. All She Was Worth starts off with the disappearance of a woman and follows an on-leave detective as he tries to find her and uncover the unusual circumstances in which she disappeared. Although that’s the main mystery flowing through the book, I di I picked up All She Was Worth by Miyuki Miyabe a few months ago because I liked Brave Story, a novel geared towards younger audiences. All She Was Worth was Miyabe’s first adult book that I’ve read and one of the few mystery novels I’ve read this year.

All She Was Worth starts off with the disappearance of a woman and follows an on-leave detective as he tries to find her and uncover the unusual circumstances in which she disappeared. Although that’s the main mystery flowing through the book, I didn’t find it that engaging. I already guessed what had happened to her and the characters of the book felt so distanced. The story takes place in present-day Japan and the Miyabe does thorough albeit sometimes dull job of describing Japanese consumer culture. There were points in the book where I felt the author was being too didactic and the things the characters were saying sounded artificial. It was almost like reading a guide-book about Japanese culture.

The payoff of a good mystery book is the “aha!” moment when everything just clicks. Unfortunately, that never really happened in All She Was Worth because the reader will know exactly what happened by the first half of the book. Most of the book is proving and finding evidence of what happened. I was egged on to read the book by my curiosity concerning the motives of fugitive character. It was disappointing to see the story ending so abruptly and not answering any of the questions I had. The ending felt like a cliffhanger of a show that never got to run its next season. Well, I had high hopes for this book considering the awards it won (Japan's book of the year) and the fact that Amazon told me that people who like Murakami also liked this book.

In my case, Amazon was wrong and I'm hoping I something was lost in translation. The timing was all off on this book, which is supposed to be a murder-mystery.

I certainly learned enough about the 1980s consumer credit crisis, and the underworld of seedy loan sharks, but that's about it. There were no 'aha!' Moments whe Well, I had high hopes for this book considering the awards it won (Japan's book of the year) and the fact that Amazon told me that people who like Murakami also liked this book. In my case, Amazon was wrong and I'm hoping I something was lost in translation.

The timing was all off on this book, which is supposed to be a murder-mystery. I certainly learned enough about the 1980s consumer credit crisis, and the underworld of seedy loan sharks, but that's about it. There were no 'aha!' Moments where I felt as though I'd discovered something through careful analysis of plot extrapolation. No, it was more like, 'Hey, check it out. Another piece of the puzzle.' This book bored me to tears and even incited a bit of anger when I realized it wouldn't be redeemed by some amazing (or at least kitschy) ending.

For me, this book fell flat. I probably won't read anything else by Miyabe, needless to say. I had bought this book several years ago, and only now was able to read it.

This is not the best thriller I've ever read, but it was very interesting in the way that it keeps the tension going so you really want to know what the main characters are up to. If you know Japan and some of its customs, it is easier to follow the story; and the author presents a very good insight into the nasty practices and habits of people that get themselves in trouble by spending money that they don't have. The co I had bought this book several years ago, and only now was able to read it. This is not the best thriller I've ever read, but it was very interesting in the way that it keeps the tension going so you really want to know what the main characters are up to.

If you know Japan and some of its customs, it is easier to follow the story; and the author presents a very good insight into the nasty practices and habits of people that get themselves in trouble by spending money that they don't have. The conclusion of the book could be better, but it was just 'ok'.