A Quiet Place (Paperback)

Paperback. An artfully twisty psychological mystery from Seicho Matsumoto, hailed as Japans Agatha Christie (The Sunday Times), exploring the corrosive power of jealousy, guilt, and doubtWhile on an important business trip, Tsuneo Asai receives word that his wife, Eiko, has died suddenly of a heart attack. She had long suffered from heart problems, so the news is not entirely unexpectedthough she was far too young for such an end. Shaken but restrained, Asai throws himself into his work as a government official, using routine and responsibility to keep grief at bay. Their marriage, after all, had never been especially passionate.Yet something about the circumstances of Eikos death begins to trouble him. She collapsed while walking alone on a quiet residential street in Tokyoa place where she seemed to have no reason to be. A visit to the small shop where she died raises further questions, especially when Asai notices a hotel perched at the top of the hill, unmistakably designed as a discreet rendezvous for lovers. He begins to wonder whether his gentle, haiku-loving wife may have been leading a secret life.As Asais suspicions deepen, his mental state begins to unravel, and the boundaries of normalcy slip away. In the process, Matsumoto lays bare the fraught tensions between ambition, domestic life, and emotional repression in postwar Japancrafting a haunting portrait of a man undone by what he cannot know. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.…