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A review by silvernfire
All She Was Worth by Miyuki Miyabe
4.0
I liked this book, but "thriller" is a misleading description: this is a quiet, sort of cerebral, mystery. Police detective Shunsuke Honma, semi-recently widowed and on medical leave, is trying to find the fiancée of his wife's cousin, who disappeared after the cousin learned of her bankruptcy. All violence takes place off-stage, and the story mainly focuses on Honma's efforts to untangle the paper trail leading to the missing woman.
All She Was Worth is set in the early 1990's. It'd be easy to get lost in the setting or have cultural references go sailing over the reader's head, but Miyabe included exposition about Japanese consumer credit, family registers, and so on. I don't know if Japanese readers found it useful or boring, but reading an English translation 25 years later, I thought it was helpful (although the explanation of credit could've been shorter!). It's also nice to read a Japanese story that has nothing to do with anime, manga, or high school (Honma is middle-aged, with a young son). This wouldn't be a good mystery for people who like a lot of action or a hero in danger, but those who like mystery novels that give you a peek into other cultures might enjoy this one.
All She Was Worth is set in the early 1990's. It'd be easy to get lost in the setting or have cultural references go sailing over the reader's head, but Miyabe included exposition about Japanese consumer credit, family registers, and so on. I don't know if Japanese readers found it useful or boring, but reading an English translation 25 years later, I thought it was helpful (although the explanation of credit could've been shorter!). It's also nice to read a Japanese story that has nothing to do with anime, manga, or high school (Honma is middle-aged, with a young son). This wouldn't be a good mystery for people who like a lot of action or a hero in danger, but those who like mystery novels that give you a peek into other cultures might enjoy this one.