A Quiet Place

A Novel

De: Seicho Matsumoto, Louise Heal Kawai - translator, Pico Iyer - introduction

An artfully twisty mystery about the psychological toll of jealousy and guilt from Seicho Matsumoto, who has been hailed as "Japan's Agatha Christie" (The Sunday Times)

While on an important business trip, Tsuneo Asai receives word that his wife, Eiko, has died of a heart attack. She has suffered from heart problems in the past, so her death isn’t a complete shock, but she was tragically young to suffer such an end. Asai is rattled and sad but devotes himself fervently to his work as a government official to distract himself from the grief. It's not like his marriage was particularly passionate.

But something about the circumstances of Eiko’s demise is bothering him. Her heart attack struck while she was walking, alone, along a residential Tokyo street where she had no particular connections or reasons to be. During a curious visit to the small shop on that street, where Eiko took her last breath, Asai notices a hotel at the top of the hill, one obviously meant as a clandestine meeting place for lovers. He begins to wonder if his soft-spoken, haiku-obsessed wife might have been leading a double life.

As Asai's discoveries cause his mental state to rapidly unravel, and normalcy becomes more and more untenable for him, the fraught relationship between career and domesticity in Japan is laid bare.