The Bride's Kimono - Hardcover

Massey, Sujata

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060199334 ISBN 13: 9780060199333

Publisher: Harper, 2001

Synopsis

Antiques dealer Rei Shimura has managed to snag one of the most lucrative and prestigious freelance jobs of her career: transporting a packet of exquisitely embroidered nineteenth-century kimonos from Tokyo to Washington, D.C., for an exhibit, and to give a lecture on them.

It's been years since Rei has set foot in the land of her birth, and in that time, she's become estranged from it. On the other hand, she does not exactly fit in with the band of Japanese office ladies she's accompanied, who have traveled to the United States for a week's worth of shopping. Still, everything seems to be going well enough, until one of the kimonos is stolen from her hotel room and Rei's passport shows up in a Dumpster behind a shopping mall -- on the dead body of one of the office ladies. In the middle of this, Rei's ex-boyfriend, Hugh Glendinning, inexplicably arrives in town.

The Bride's Kimono takes us on an utterly absorbing ride as Rei tries to find the stolen kimono, uncover its significance in an ancient Japanese love triangle, decide between two men, and unmask a murderer. The Bride's Kimono is Sujata Massey's strongest novel yet -- sexy and suspenseful, deftly balancing mystery, murder, romance, and culture shock with an alluring historical subplot involving priceless kimonos.

About this title

About the Author

Sujata Massey was a reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun and spent several years in Japan teaching English and studying Japanese. She is the author of The Salaryman's Wife, Zen Attitude, The Flower Master, The Floating Girl, The Bride's Kimono, The Samurai's Daughter, The Pearl Diver, and The Typhoon Lover. She lives in Minneapolis.

Reviews

In this fast, easy-to-follow story filled with fascinating information on Japanese culture from Edgar-nominee and Agatha Award-winner Massey (The Salaryman's Wife), hot-tempered, hot-blooded, Japanese-American Rei Shimura agrees to courier a priceless collection of Edo-period (1615-1857) kimono from a distinguished Tokyo museum to a temporary exhibition in the equally prestigious Museum of Asian Arts in Washington, D.C. To save money, the California-born Shimura, who lives and sells antiques in Tokyo, joins a tour group of women headed for the shopping malls of greater Washington. In the U.S., the plot thickens when someone steals a bridal kimono, uchikake, and a Japanese tourist turns up murdered. The police initially identify the victim as Shimura, but later suspect the sexy Japanese-American antiques dealer is part of a prostitution ring. Further complications arise with the arrival of Shimura's current Japanese boyfriend and her parents, as well as the re-entry into her life of her American ex-lover. Close attention to background both large (recognizable locations in Washington and northern Virginia) and small (the designer clothes the heroine receives from her mother) helps fix the novel solidly in the real world. But it is the romantic suspense and the multicultural details of customs and attitudes of East and West that will keep most readers turning the pages of this absorbing, sophisticated mystery. Agent, Ellen Geiger.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Like Massey's previous books, this one can be praised for its astute character development and fascinating use of Japanese history. Similarities to the earlier novels, however, end there. One of the charms of Massey's heroine, Japanese American antiques dealer Rei Shimura, is her self-deprecating sense of humor, but in this surprisingly dark novel, there is no humor to be found. When Rei agrees to transport some valuable nineteenth-century kimonos from Japan to a museum in Washington, D.C., she hardly expects to be entering a nightmare. But that's what it feels like. After Rei is blamed for the theft of one of the kimonos, a young Japanese girl traveling in Rei's group is killed; when Rei attempts to figure out what's going on, she's met with nothing but hostility from everyone she encounters, from the hotel staff to the museum director. This is a good-enough thriller in the hard-edged mold, but those very edges may prove too sharp for Massey's fans, who have come to expect something much lighter (and funnier) from this series. Jenny McLarin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060199334
• ISBN 13: 9780060199333
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320