Out by Natsuo Kirino (Kodansha)

Out is a gruesome murder mystery centering on the relationship of four women who work the graveyard-shift in a boxed-lunch factory. The book was first published in 1997 and won the Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Best Novel that year. It is Natsuo Kirino’s first novel to be translated into English and was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Novel in 2004. 

The four women are Yayoi Yamamoto, Yoshie Azuma, Kuniko Jonouchi, and Masako Katori. Yayoi is the youngest of the four and is married and has two children. Yoshie, who the other three call the Skipper, is a widower in her late fifties, who also cares for her bedridden mother-in-law. Kuniko is an overweight woman who enjoys living beyond her means and is trying to keep one step ahead of a loan shark. Masako is a married woman who is estranged from her husband and teenage son. 

Yayoi’s husband is a good-for-nothing gambler, womanizer, and wife-beater. He has dwindled the family account to nearly zero. He is also stalking a hostess named Anna who works as a hostess at a club called Mika in Shinjuku’s Kabukicho District. Anna is the girlfriend of the club owner who also runs an illegal gambling casino called Kunimatsu in the same building.

The club owner’s name is Satake. Satake has a dark history of his own. He once killed a woman in a most violent fashion and spent seven years in prison for the crime. Satake is convinced he needs to keep a low profile in his businesses due to his prison record. Currently, Satake must deal with a problem customer at both of his establishments who happens to be Yayoi’s husband. 

Yayoi is looking at her bruised body caused by her husband’s violence and she’s overcome by a very powerful emotion - hatred. The following evening Yayoi has another argument with her husband. When he says, “Can’t you be nice once in a while?”, it enrages her and she strangles her husband to death with her belt. Yayoi sits and looks at her dead husband and says out loud, “Couldn't you have been nice once in a while?”

What is Yayoi to do? She confides in Masako who recruits the Skipper and Kuniko to help dispose of the husband’s body by cutting it up and throwing the bagged body parts away in different areas of the city. Unfortunately, the police have found some of the bags and now they are investigating the murder. 

Their number one suspect is Satake, as the police have found Yayoi’s husband’s coat at the casino and have witnesses who saw Satake and Yayoi’s husband fighting.  Satake is arrested and confined for nearly a month but is released due to a lack of evidence. During his incarceration, he loses both businesses and now he’s out for revenge. 

Kirino draws the reader into the seedier side of Japan. The story is set in a modern Japan that few foreigners see. A city full of host clubs, Yakuza, and loan sharks.The story will appeal to fans of suspense-thrillers and true crime.  I couldn’t put the book down. Will the women get away with murder? Will Satake find them and take his revenge? Or, will the police solve the crime before there is another death? ~Ernie Hoyt