Comments for The Salaryman's Wife

The Salaryman's Wife: 03/20/14

The Salaryman's Wife by Sujata Massey is the first book in the Rei Shimuara series, featuring a San Francisco born Japanese American living in Tokyo. Oddly though the series opens with (in anime terms) an onsen episode.

Rei is on a business trip with her boyfriend and other coworkers. Their conference is at a hot springs resort. Unfortunately one of the other guests there, the wife of one of another of the businessmen (or salaryman) is found dead outside the baths.

The facts and timing of the woman's death hinges on the signage on the door to the baths. There are three possible options: men only, women only, and families. The problem though is that the local police don't want to think about the oddities of the scene. They want a simple, cut and dry solution. It's up to Rei, therefore, to figure out what really happened.

The main problem with this debut mystery is that the solution is rather obvious. I figured out the murderer and the motivation behind the murder pages and pages before Rei did.

Three stars

Comments (0)