Nancy Oakes's Reviews > All She Was Worth

This story takes our fears of identity theft and raises them to a new level.

I liked this book. Aside from the translation difficulties which made it very wordy and often tedious reading, the mystery itself was good. I would recommend it for the mystery...but you'll find yourself skimming at points.

brief plot overview:

The novel tells the story of Tokyo Detective Honma, at home and on leave from his police job because he is recovering from a gunshot wound to his leg. One night he receives a strange visit from his dead wife's younger cousin Jun, a banker. It seems that Jun was getting ready to marry a young woman named Shoko Sekine and everything was going great until Jun tried to push through a credit card application at his bank for his fiancee. He gets back a report that she can't have a credit card because of some business with a lot of debt and bankruptcy. Then the next thing he knows, Shoko has disappeared. So he wants his "uncle" to find her, or at least figure out what happened to her. As he gets started, and then gets deeper into the investigation, he discovers that no matter how hard you try to disappear or to erase any trace of your existence, you leave some sort of trail. Miyabe takes the reader along on the trail as well.

Also noteworthy: the discussions of how Big Brother in Japan is much more advanced than you can think of it here.

recommended.