Flower Master [Turtleback]

Sujata Massey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2001

Agatha Award-winning author Sujata Massey makes her hardcover debut with The flower Master, the third entry in her wonderfully successful mystery series featuring a savvy young Japanese-American woman in modern-day Tokyo.

Rei Shimura, a twentysomething part-California girl, part-Japanese antiques dealer, can't quite find her place in Tokyo society. Lately Rei's love life has fallen off the radar screen, and despite all her efforts, her new business isn't doing much better.

At her aunt's insistence, Rei enrolls in a course in ikebana, the famous Japanese art of flower arranging. Little does she realize what a cutthroat class it will be; she's hardly completed a lesson before her instructor is murdered.

Rei is ready to track down the killer, but suddenly the case hits close to home. She and her aunt are battered by waves of police questioning, press attention, and mysterious warnings. Skeletons are rattling in her family's closet, and Rei must open the door to a dangerous secret.

Rei's in for the excitement she's been missing as her search for the truth takes her through twisting new corridors of intrigue, romance, and murder. It's up to Rei, the black sheep, to keep her family name clear-and her own life safe-from an enemy with an unknown agenda.

The Flower Master is a scintillating mystery as fresh, cutting-edge, and uniquely appealing as its in-over-her-head-but-hanging-on sleuth.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Rei Shimura, a twentysomething Japanese American antiques dealer, returns for a third outing in Sujata Massey's series set in Japan (Zen Attitude, The Salaryman's Wife). In The Flower Master, Rei's former boyfriend has left Japan, and her antiques business is only slightly more successful than her love life. Then she's dragooned by her aunt Norie into enrolling at a famous Tokyo ikebana school. Rei's not a natural at the ancient art of flower arranging, but she has a talent for sleuthing, which comes in handy when the head teacher at the Kayama School is found dead--with a pair of flower shears exactly like the ones Norie gave her lodged in her neck.

Rei's efforts to find the killer and unravel the secrets entwining her Tokyo family with the Kayamas move the action along, but the real mystery is whether the budding romance between the California girl who can't quite find her place in the tradition-bound society of modern Japan and the handsome environmental activist slated to take over as iemoto (headmaster) of the school will flower into lasting love. Intrigue and multiple murders spice the romance, along with a fascinating explication of ikebana's enduring history. Rei is a lively protagonist who brings the reader along for an entertaining and subtle lesson in Japanese culture as well as in the dangers involved in digging up buried family skeletons. --Jane Adams --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

A volatile yet harmonious mix of ancient Eastern traditions, modern American chutzpah and some inexplicable violence characterizes Massey's hardcover debut (after the mass market The Salaryman's Wife and Zen Attitude). Rei Shimura, 28 and a San Francisco transplant, is a Tokyo antiques buyer who is taking a flower-arranging course at a prestigious ikebana school run by the Kayama family. Of mixed American and Japanese parentage, Rei is constantly upbraided by her staid aunt Norie for her less-than-perfect conduct. But when an instructor at the school, Sakura, is killed, apparently with Norie's gardening shears, it takes Rei's Western impudence and grit and her entire store of charm to get to the bottom of the caseAwhich grows more complex as Rei finds out about Mr. Kayama's unsavory past and her aunt's surprising relationship with him. What's more, Mr. Kayama's son, the heir apparent to the school's directorship, is inexplicably linked to an extremist environmental group trying to shut down the school. The narrative is enhanced greatly by the richly detailed Tokyo setting, from ancient tea houses to arcane rituals involving the cherry blossom festival. With such a gratifying background and such an appealing sleuth, it scarcely matters that an overly melodramatic finale mars the novel's resolution. Agents, Ellen Geiger and Dave Barbor at Curtis Brown. (May) FYI: The Salaryman's Wife won the 1998 Agatha Award for Best First Novel.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Turtleback
• Publisher: Demco Media (July 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0606218408
• ISBN-13: 978-0606218405
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Sujata Banerjee Massey was born in England to parents from India and Germany. She grew up mostly in the United States (California, Pennsylvania and Minnesota) and earned her BA from the Johns Hopkins University's Writing Seminars program. She then worked as a reporter at the Baltimore Evening Sun before marrying and moving to Japan. The area where she lived, an hour south of Tokyo, forms most of the settings of her Rei Shimura mysteries. The series featuring a young Asian-American woman sleuth has collected many mystery award nominations, including the Edgar and Anthony, and won the Agatha and Macavity awards. The ten Rei Shimura mysteries are published in 18 countries.
Sujata also has short stories published in several mystery anthologies, most recent of which are POLITICS NOIR and ONCE UPON A CRIME.

Sujata lives with her family in Minneapolis and is currently writing a new standalone novel with the working title THE SLEEPING DICTIONARY. It's a historical thriller that tells the story of India's struggle for independence through a young Bengali woman's point of view. It's the book she's been waiting to write all her life, as it combines her family background and her fascination with colonial life.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good read but I much prefered her earlier books., July 17, 2000

By 

Hank Schwartz "banjo & SciFi" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Flower Master (Mass Market Paperback)

I very much like Sujata Massey's style, and I am quite taken with her main character Rea Shimura. I also like the views that Massey gives us of Japanese life through the eyes of a Westerner.

I felt that this, her third novel, was another pleasureable romp, following Rea as she gets unwillingly involved in and solves yet another mystery.

I found, however, that this tale did not fire my interest as her others had. I enjoyed meeting her friends again and watching a new man enter that circle. I liked the insights into Ikebana culture.

I only gave it three stars, however, because I felt that the the lengthy build-up led to a surprising but not particularly exciting resolution. As I finally closed the book my feeling was - Okay, hmmm. Nowhere near a Wow!

I have no doubt that other readers who, like me, anticipate the latest Massey story will want to read this one. I am just hoping that the next is more gripping, intriquing, moving....

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It's always a pleasure to see another book from Ms. Massey., June 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Flower Master (Hardcover)

Beyond the mysteries in Sujata Massey's books, which are always intriguing, it's wonderful to learn more about Japan through Rei's eyes. It's particularly amusing for me to get Rei's perspective--Rei, who's a Japanese-American woman living in Japan--on Westerners who come to work/visit Japan and can't even be bothered to learn to say the simplest of Japanese words. Loved the "gardener" and hope to see more. Readers for whom The Flower Master is their introduction to Ms. Massey should not miss The Salaryman's Wife and Zen Attitude.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read. Japan comes alive in Massey's hands, March 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Flower Master (Hardcover)

Half Japanese and half American, Rei Shimina grew up in California, but now calls Japan home. Though she struggles to adapt to the culture of her father's relatives, she has carved out a profession as a successful antiques' buyer. Without asking, her Aunt Norrie enrolls Rei in the prestigious Kayama School to study ikebana (flower arranging). To show respect to her aunt, Rei attends the classes.

At school, Rei quickly learns that the powerful Sakira Sato loathes Norrie. Not too long after classes start, Norrie finds a dead Sakira, an apparent victim of a pair of ikebana scissors. The police suspect Norrie. She found the body, shared a known grudge with the victim, and owned the murderer weapon. Rei begins to investigate who actually killed Sakira.

Masterful storyteller Sujata Massey paints a vivid portrait of modern Japan that brings to life the people and the clashing cultures. The story line flows rapidly along a journey in which anything can and does occur. Rei is an extremely likable protagonist whose trek for self awareness has traveled much afar from where she was in her previous tale. THE FLOWER MASTER is a master of a tale that fans of Japanes mysteries will relish until the next book in the series appears.

Harriet Klausner