Book Review: Shadow Family

Nothing comes close to getting your hands on a brand new, unused book from the National Library (except getting your hands on two!), and that's exactly what happened with this title. A quick search for Miyuki Miyabe's titles in the National Library catalogue shows quite clearly that her books are all available for loan. Quite unlike 'light fiction' authors like Jane Green or Marion Keyes whose books look like they've seen some major wars when you finally manage to get your hands on them, and that's just 1 month into their release! (& yes, i do read brainless fiction now and then!)

Anyway, back to the review. "Shadow Family" (Original Japanese title: R.P.G.) is Miyabe's 2nd title to be translated into English (all hail Kodansha!), and it was, I have to admit, just the cheapskate notion of getting my hands on a brand new library book that made me borrow it. Little did I expect a treatment of a detective case quite unlike "All She Was Worth", the 1st of her novels to be translated into English which I had read a few months back.

"Shadow Family" centres around the case of a double murder. Or rather, 2 separate murders that seem to be linked - one of a middle-aged salaryman and another of a highschool girl who hostessed on the sideline. The police had identified a prime suspect with motive and no alibi, but is she really the criminal? Working on a hunch, the police decide to go about investigations in another direction. They had discovered that the middle-aged salaryman was part of an internet role playing family group where he played the role of Dad. Could the real criminal be one of the members of his internet family?

Unlike "All She Was Worth", the reader is not presented with the investigator's "hypothesis" right from the beginning, with clues substantiating the hypothesis unfolding along the way. Instead, for "Shadow Family", you are left guessing about the criminal's identity right to the end. Also, a good 80% or so of the plot takes place in the interrogation room, hence there's not much of the usual action that you see in detective novels. Instead, it's suspense of a different nature.

I suppose I'm getting used to Miyabe's style; it's a sort of half-documentary style that always has some societal commentary hovering in the background. In "All She Was Worth", it was about consumerism and credit card debt. In "Shadow Family", it is about family ties. She makes an astude observation that "the unhappiness ...(of the family)... had at the core a hard fact, one never spoken about: parents and children are not always compatible, and where difference are irreconcilable, ties of blood can end up turning into heavy chains."

I'll be moving on to Miyabe's 3rd translated title soon... and I'm sure I'll be getting a kick again, not just from landing my hands on a brand new library book once again, but also from the surprises that she'll surely spring onto her reader.