Customer Reviews

Flower Master

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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....

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.

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

It's cherry blossom time in Tokyo, a time when the residents go slightly mad in a way Westerners may not totally understand. That is why we are fortunate to have antiques dealer/sleuth Rei Shimura guide us through the customs and traditions that make her adopted home of Japan so fascinating. The Flower Master, third in this award-winning series, presents the hothouse world of competitive flower arrangers, a growing movement of environmental terrorists, and put's Rei's aunt Norie right in the middle of a murder that may come pretty close to home.

Now, I have no business reading anything since I've got a deadline looming, but I just couldn't resist. Sujata Massey's writing is so fluid, so clean, so right. I loved the charming details which illuminated the tyrannies, power-brokering, and jealousies found within Japan's foremost ikebana community. Massey creates each Tokyo neighborhood in such sensual detail, it's hard to come up for air and realize you're not living in Rei's Japan anymore. Sujata Massey is also brilliaint at finding the most enticingly exotic element in what, to others, might appear mundane daily life. As Rei gets deeper into her investigation, we learn everything from how to get our ailments diagnosed at a tea shop to what happens to a Range Rover in the narrow streets of Tokyo's older sections, to how to properly apologize, as Rei's aunt instructs both Rei and us on how to select the proper gift from the proper shop to show the proper respect. I loved this book. The Flower Master shows a superb series that is growing even stronger.

As always Sujata Massey takes us into the world of life in Japan allowing us to learn about a culture so alien to ours through the eyes of a half japanese woman named Rei Shimura. In this volume Rei is caught up in a murder in the world of ikebana - flower arranging.

The descriptions of life in Japan, the characters, the situations are all beautifully rendered in words and the book is a fantastic read. Except...

I really felt a bit disappointed by the ending. While I don't turn reading a mystery into a contest, I do like to match my wits against the writer - as many readers do. In this book, however, the identity of the murderer comes out of nowhere. There are no clues dropped, no subtle hints about their personality or motives, nothing that could make the reader even subconciously place this person in the list of suspects. And in the end the motive that is given to the killer is singularly confusing and contradictory. The killer torments one woman for years because of a perceived slight against an august family, yet turns around and steals from that same family in order to raise money. Why they want the money is never disclosed, and why they would steal from people they appear to honor and hold in high esteem is confusing.

I would have liked a crisper and better defined ending, though I did enjoy the book :)

Rei Shimura is growing up! It's a pleasure to see it. Gone are the petulent stances, the irrational moods. Not that Rei has gotten boring -far from it. But she is becoming more in tune with her Japanese heritage and her place in Japanese society. And that place in society, her antiques business, may be in jeopardy from the latest misadventure, when Rei's aunt is suspected in a flower master's murder. Massey's ability to create intriguing characters is fully in evidence here, especially the victim's son and daughter, young Japanese who, while rebelling against societal restrictions, are compelled, as Rei is (usually), to observe propriety. And that's the jist of Rei's story, too, which the author does a superb job of conveying. Rei's attempt to fit in and yet maintain her own, California-bred identity is superbly realized. And the mystery ain't bad either! You come away from this book with an increased appreciation of Rei's maturity and determination, during the murder investigation as well as "normal" life. The people who populate Sujata Massey's books are unique, vibrant characters, worthy of any reader's attention.

I keep trying to find an adjective that appropriately describes Sujata Massey's piquant and wonderful Rei Shimura series. With this third, and best, addition to the series, I think I have found one, although it hardly describes the talent of the writer: delicate.

Exquisite delicacy, akin to the ikebana arrangements described in this book, is the hallmark of Massey's wonderful mysteries. Imagine murder, mayhem, forensics, and all the rest of the usual crime-novel/mystery genre told in a setting of kimono, cherry blossoms, the aforementioned ikebana and the constant east-west conflict of the heroine, and you have a slight idea of just how different these books are--and just how delightful.

This story finds half Japanese-half American Rei Shimura thriving as an antiques dealer, despite the end of her tumultuous relationship with Scotsman Hugh Glendinning. Dragged to her aunt's ikebana school for lessons (as part of her aunt's ongoing project--making Rei comfortable with her Japanese side), Rei soon stumbles on a murder. And not just any murder. This is as bloody as any samurai killing--but in place of the sword, the fatal weapon is a pair of ikebana scissors. Who among the genteel, proper women at the school could have committed such an atrocity? And most of all, why?

As Rei sets out to solve the mystery, she is threatened by all sorts of hostile influences, from a radical pro-environmentalist organization to a sinister and unseen writer of threatening haiku--to her own treacherous heart, as she finds herself drawn to the handsome son of the school's chairman.

It all makes for a fascinating and utterly wonderful mystery. This is a series not to be missed!

In this, the third book in the Rei Shimura series that began with THE SALARYMAN'S WIFE, we attend ikebana (flower arranging) classes with Rei and her aunt and meet a lot of interesting characters. We learn a little (not enough) about ikebana, and a little (not enough) about the murder and its surrounding mystery. In fact, there were a couple of obvious points that were not followed up or explained. I enjoyed THE FLOWER MASTER, but I kept feeling that there was something left out -- not enough detail, action, whatever. I loved the first two. Maybe it's just me. Try it for yourself. It doesn't discourage me from wanting to read the next one, though. I love whatever view of the culture Massey gives us, along with her fine ability to create a sense of place.

This is the second Rei Shimura story I have read; "Zen Attitude" was the introduction to this very fine series. But the "Flower Master" is even better as our author's craft is honed with experience. In a flower-arranging class to please her Auntie, Rei is soon in a lot more than petals! An unpleasant teacher is found dead and there are suspects aplenty, twists, and surprises. But it is the characters, drawn deftly and shrewdly that make this one superior to the earlier work; the son of the owner, splendidly indulged, is a good example. He is difficult to like (one supports Rei's feeling on this one) and yet...And that sister!

Rei is from California. She's bright, independent, and wears unacceptable athletic shoes. Her Japanese aunt works hard at putting the finishing touches on her wayward niece, including lessons in flower arranging. As Rei bows deeply and tries to follow the elaborate formal rituals of polite society, she gets deeper and deeper in trouble: a corpse, an unacceptable suitor, a philandering master teacher, and several attempted murders. It's the kind of wonderful setting in which the death threats are in haiku, the flower shears are gruesome weapons, and any one of the oh-so-polite Japanese has ample reason to have killed the victim. Rei is a thoroughly likeable protagonist, the setting is evocative and finely drawn, and the plot is filled with dark passion and unexpected twists and turns. I am delighted with this book, and will read more novels by Sujata Massey.