Publisher's Weekly Review
All California-born Rei Shimura really wants is to lead her quiet life in Tokyo as an antiques dealer while learning more about her Japanese relatives, but Massey, of course, has other plans for her in this absorbing cross-cultural puzzle, the sixth in the series (after 2001's The Bride's Kimono). On her way home from Washington, D.C., Rei stops in San Francisco to spend Christmas with her parents and do some research on Japanese decorative objects, including some belonging to her family. Her Scottish boyfriend, lawyer Hugh Glendinning, is involved in a reparation case for victims who were used as slave labor by corporations during WWII. Holiday festivities take on an edge when the woman Hugh is in town to question is murdered, Rei uncovers some potentially disturbing information about her own family's role in the war and a young Japanese medical student boarding with the family disappears. All trails seem to lead to Tokyo, where Rei returns to her beloved apartment and her relatives hoping for resolution. She and Hugh, however, soon find themselves embroiled in some very nasty business leading to her deportation back to San Francisco. Massey poses some deeply resonating questions about guilt and responsibility, while Rei faces some universal truths about families, loyalty and dealing with the past no matter how unpleasant it may be. Hugh's Christmas proposal guarantees intriguing complications ahead. Agent, Ellen Geiger. (Mar. 7) FYI: Massey has won Agatha and Macavity awards. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Catastrophe magnet Rei Shimura (The Bride's Kimono, 2001, etc.) once again attracts trouble, this time while working on something as seemingly innocent as documenting her family's history. When the American-born, Tokyo-based antiques buyer flies home to San Francisco to interview her father Toshiro, a psychiatrist, she finds that he and her shopaholic mother Catherine have graciously taken in a shy medical student, Manami Okada. Toshiro is loathe to discuss a scroll he sold from the Emperor to a forebear, and the ultraconservative Manami is upset when Rei's almost-fiancÉ, international lawyer Hugh Glendinning, who is mounting a class-action suit seeking reparations from deep-pocketed Japanese companies for the Asians they forced into slave labor and prostitution during WWII, is housed in the bedroom next to her. Then one of Hugh's contacts, former "comfort woman" Rosa Munoz, is murdered; Manami vanishes; and Hugh and Rei must hie back to Tokyo to find the connection. Scarcely one plane behind are greedy lawyer Charles Sharp and his smarmy translator Eric Gan. When Rei's suspicions lead her to burgle their hotel rooms, she's arrested and deported. Back in San Francisco, she puts her antiques savvy to good use in unraveling some of the motives and relationships key to the puzzle as she contemplates her new life as a deportee. For all the densely woven texture, there are a few too many dangling threads. Regrettably, the most interesting of them, the geopolitical ramifications of war reparations, gets short-changed in the end. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
After briefly veering off course with The Bride's Kimono (2001), Massey is squarely back on track with this sixth, and possibly best, entry in her series starring young Japanese American Rei Shimura. This time the action takes place both in San Francisco, where Rei's parents reside, and in Rei's home city of Tokyo. Deciding to take a brief sabbatical from her antiques business, Rei is researching Shimura family history, in particular, how the family lived before dramatic modernization in the 1960s. Rei's boyfriend, Scottish attorney Hugh Glendinning, is researching a lawsuit that also involves Japanese history: restitution for Asian women forced into prostitution by large Japanese companies during World War II. The couple's blissful time together is soon shattered when one of Hugh's clients is killed and another seriously wounded. To make matters worse, both Rei and Hugh's projects initiate several confrontations with Rei's Japanese father. Massey deftly weaves fascinating historical and cultural detail into a suspenseful plot. A cliffhanger ending leaves the door open for the series to chart more new territory. Jenny McLarin
Library Journal Review
In her sixth appearance after The Bride's Kimono, Rei Shimura, a Japanese American antiques dealer and amateur sleuth, contends with Japanese nationalism and the problems it presents. Lawyer Hugh Glendinning, Rei's on-again, off-again lover, who finally convinces her to accept his marriage proposal, is working on a class-action suit on behalf of Asians who were used as slave laborers by Japanese companies during World War II. Meanwhile, Rei, preparing a Shimura family history, discovers that her great-grandfather not only tutored the young Emperor Hirohito in history and political theory but also wrote textbooks that could have presaged the attack on Pearl Harbor. When a potential plaintiff dies shortly after Hugh interviews her and another former slave laborer is attacked, Rei's sleuthing goes beyond the law, forcing her to put principle and family honor above personal shame in a turn of events that ultimately proves fortuitous. Though this is less light-hearted than earlier entries in Massey's award-winning series, the characters and details of Japanese culture and history are as appealing as ever, and fans will relish this while awaiting the next one. For all mystery collections.-Michele Leber, formerly with Fairfax Cty. P.L., VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
