Girl in a Box (Rei Shimura Mysteries) [Paperback]

Sujata Massey (Author)

Book Description

Series: Rei Shimura Mysteries | Publication Date: October 30, 2007

Chronically underemployed Japanese-American sleuth Rei Shimura has taken a freelance gig with a Washington, D.C., alphabet agency that just might have ties to the CIA. Her mission, should she choose to accept it, is to go undercover as a clerk in a big Tokyo department store. It's a risky assignment, but it also gives Rei a store discount that allows her to freely indulge her shopaholic tendencies.

Meanwhile, she's listening in on private conversations, crashing a conference, and fending off the unwanted advances of a couple of the store's executives who seem fascinated by her navel ring. When her cover is blown, Rei is in big trouble. Suddenly she's neck-deep in something very nasty, and it will take all her resourcefulness and unorthodox methods to survive a determined killer.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Massey's winning ninth crime novel (after 2005's The Typhoon Lover), brassy Rei Shimura, now working for an elite U.S. spy agency, infiltrates a Tokyo department store whose profits are suspiciously inflated, though she wonders why this is a matter of American state security. Since it's her first covert mission, Rei has a lot to learn, including how to lie convincingly and how to be cautiously distrustful. When she overhears the store's head make a death threat, Rei's boss, Michael Hendricks, gets concerned and flies to Japan to give her backup. This causes as many problems as it solves, because Michael and Rei are forced to admit to themselves that they're falling for each other. (The hilarious scene in which they share their first kiss could easily have come across as trite or predictable in lesser hands.) Readers will find Rei's cross-cultural escapades as engrossing as the department store's shenanigans. The minor characters—a clerk with a bitchy attitude, an anxious banker from New Jersey—are as well developed as the delightful heroine.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

In the ninth Rei Shimura novel, former antiques dealer Rei is now working as a special informant (spy) for the Organization for Cultural Intelligence (OCI). Her training is cut short when the agency needs her to work undercover at the Japanese department store Mitsutan, where some financial irregularities have been reported. Using makeup and some forged records, Japanese American Rei is presented as a Japanese national in Tokyo, where she must try to fit in as a traditional Japanese woman, despite her American upbringing. She investigates while working as a salesclerk at the store until her cover is blown, and she must save herself and another member of the agency. The reader is immersed in the everyday world of the Japanese worker, from long workdays to the necessity to maintain a humble demeanor. The likable Rei, who is still getting over a failed romance, must fight a growing attraction to her boss while she tries to find her place in the world as a half-Japanese, half-American woman. An increasingly strong series mixing crime and multicultural awareness. Sue O'Brien
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (October 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060765151
• ISBN-13: 978-0060765156
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #940,640 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rei goes undercover in a Japanese department store, August 30, 2006

By 

Kinsey Millhone (California, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Girl in a Box (Hardcover)

I once heard a mystery author refer to "Jessica Fletcher Syndrome," named after the heroine of "Murder, She Wrote." She was referring to the way that amateur sleuths are constantly stumbling over dead bodies. A lot of mystery fans can just suspend their disbelief and enjoy the stories, but in some long-running series, the author acknowledges that constantly dealing with crime and murder has repercussions on their hero or heroine.

This is the ninth book in Sujata Massey's Rei Shimura series, and the young woman in her 20s making her way as an antique dealer in Japan is now 30 and working for the U.S. government as a spy. It sounds like a bit of a stretch, but two things make Rei perfect for the job: her mixed heritage, which allows her to be much less conspicuous in Japan than a Caucasian would be; and her experience investigating crimes.

In "Girl in a Box," Rei has to go undercover in a super-ritzy Japanese department store in order to discover some secrets. Her customers and co-workers think she's a simple salesgirl, but in fact, she's creeping around planting bugs and trying to overhear conversations. Naturally, her position is extremely precarious -- in fact, her predecessor died under mysterious circumstances.

People who love this series because of the cultural component will love finding out about the inner workings of a Japanese department store. It's pretty different than the American retail scene! And, of course, Rei fans will want to find out the latest about her love life. It can be read as a stand-alone but knowing everything about Rei's past as revealed in the previous books adds another layer of enjoyment.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Ms. Massey needs to rethink..., February 6, 2007

By 

M. S. Butch (Katonah, New York USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Girl in a Box (Hardcover)

I have to agree with J. Hammond. Rei working for an undercover agency -- certainly a government agency -- is not believable. But there are other objections, and some plusses.

Good Things: The story is interesting, and much less hackneyed than most mystery novels. Also, as usual, the information / culture about Japan is wonderful. I much enjoyed all the information about the department store, the needle blessing, etc.

Bad Things: I agree with Hammond: lose the labels. They make Rei seem shallow and pretentious, like a chick in bad chick lit. The occasional designer reference as appropriate to the story is OK, but the REI I know would not be plugging "comme des garcons". She'd be wearing jeans by someone normal, like JCrew, LLBean, etc.

Another bad thing: Even without the label-dropping, she is starting to seem really shallow to me. There is occasional lip service to how Hugh "broke her heart" but no real sense of missing him. Really! They were engaged! She ought to be remembering him and trying to get him to forgive her. No one gets over a REAL serious romance of long standing that fast. And she spends the book wanting to [bleep] her new boss. Come ON! This is not the Rei I used to like.

Also, she seems not to remember that SHE cheated on Hugh. No, she says He broke Her heart. A little honesty and regret would be nice.

Finally, I miss the antiques. Bring back the antiques and bring back Hugh. At least make Rei's emotional life a little more mature.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Jumped the shark, November 17, 2006

By 

J. Hammond "odanuki" (Gotha, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Girl in a Box (Hardcover)

I have read every book in this series and I think the last few have not been up to the early high standard. The plots have gotten away from the original idea of antique dealer/amateur slueth, which I really enjoyed.

I found the whole premise of Rei working for a fictional undercover agency ridiculous. I find very annoying the inclusion of the description and label of every garment Rei wears.