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All She Was Worth (Paperback)

~ (Author) "The rain started just as the train pulled out of Ayase Station..." (more)
Key Phrases: residence certificate, family register, consumer financing, Shoko Sekine, Kyoko Shinjo, Imai Office Machines (more...)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Recovering from a leg injury, a 43-year-old Tokyo police inspector named Shunsuke Honma realizes how out of touch he has become when a relative asks him to make some private inquiries into the disappearance of his fiancée. While he wasn't paying attention, it seems that everyone in the country but Honma has been caught up in a consumer feeding frenzy--going into heavy debt and declaring bankruptcy at a snowballing rate. This engrossing story of the search for happiness through shopping marks the first appearance in English of one of Japan's leading writers. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


From Publishers Weekly

The horror in this beautifully fashioned tale of stolen identity lies not in the cold-blooded crimes but in the motive?a desperate hunger for consumer goods. Shunsuke Honma, a widowed 43-year-old Tokyo police inspector with a 10-year-old son, is on disability leave. The boring cycle of idleness punctuated by painful physical therapy sessions comes to a halt when a nephew asks for Honma's help in finding his missing fiancee, whom he knows as Shoko Sekine. As Honma's search intensifies, he realizes the fiancee had actually assumed Sekine's identity and possibly killed her. For the American reader, the jewel in this enormously compelling novel is the portrait of working- and middle-class Japanese getting caught in a cycle of astronomical personal debt in order to enjoy the good life. Also eye-opening is Japan's elaborate registry system for keeping track of its citizenry. In order to become Shoko Sekine, the impostor had to perpetrate an ingeniously elaborate series of hoaxes and lies. Honma is tenacious, methodical, an attentive listener with a retentive memory and the ability to connect disparate bits of information. The trail takes him back through the real Sekine's history and into the life of the other woman, whose family ran afoul of vicious loan sharks. Miyabe drives her complex plot with spare prose, combining expert pacing and psychological nuance to ultimately haunting effect. (Feb.) FYI: All She Was worth was named Best Novel of the year and Best Mystery for 1992 in Japan.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Mariner Books; 1 edition (May 12, 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0395966582
  • ISBN-13: 978-0395966587
  • Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #73,955 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #23 in  Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Japanese

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Alfred Birnbaum
Alfred Birnbaum
Miyuki Miyabe
Miyuki Miyabe

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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
The rain started just as the train pulled out of Ayase Station. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
residence certificate, family register, consumer financing
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Shoko Sekine, Kyoko Shinjo, Imai Office Machines, Public Employment, Miss Sekine, Kasai Trading, New Year, Uncle Jun, Kawaguchi Co-op, National Health, Ward Office, Jun Kurisaka, Mitomo Group, Nobuko Konno, Castle Mansion Kinshicho, Akane Villa, Housing Festa, Kanae Miyata, Green Grove Mortuary, Kaoru Sudo, Osaka Field, Research Center, Suginami Ward, Tamotsu Honda, Uncle Tsuneo
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All She Was Worth
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All She Was Worth 4.1 out of 5 stars (49)
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Out: A Novel
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Out: A Novel 4.3 out of 5 stars (130)
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Grotesque (Vintage International)
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Grotesque (Vintage International) 3.4 out of 5 stars (49)
$10.20
Real World (Vintage International)
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Real World (Vintage International) 3.8 out of 5 stars (26)
$10.08
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Customer Reviews

49 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (49 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars For Want Of A Penny, June 9, 2004
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It is a shame that this single volume is the only novel of Miyuki Miyabe's that has made it into translation. In Japan, Miyabe is a highly successful writer whose novels have been adapted into 10 films as well. Here she is only barely known, represented only by a single detective story - All She Was Worth.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/common/customer-reviews/stars-5-0.gifThe novel tells the story of Shinsuke Honma, a middle-aged police detective who is off duty while recovering from a gunshot wound to his leg. The enforced inactivity has begun to wear thin on him, and a request from a distant relative to investigate the disappearance of his fiance - Shoko Sekine - tempts him into a freelance investigation that is part meticulous investigation and part social commentary. Shoko disappeared when it was revealed that she had gone through a personal bankruptcy. Honma discovers layer after layer of misdirection and subterfuge - the disappearance is only a reflection of the grim truth.

The telling of the story reveals many of the inherent differences between Japanese and Western writing, even as it pares away at a social problem - easy credit and indebtedness - that is universal in both cultures. The telling is extremely detailed, with a strong focus not on the plot, but on the social and family milieus of the characters. The style is very naturalistic, and may irk American readers who are so used to stories that are action based and plot driven. Yet there are opportunities here for the writer to indulge of some niceties of language, many of which come through despite it being a translation.

What Miyabe has chronicled is the lives of ordinary Japanese, carrying on with their lives, not the flashy high tech or Samurai mythos face of Japan that we see most often in imported Japanese culture. This is quite eye-opening, even as we realize that quiet desperation is not just a Western phenomenon. In a sense, the plot itself isn't very important. In fact, the reader will know from fairly early in the novel what the crime is and who committed it. But the details of Honma's investigation, the bits of his family life, the fine grains of Shoko Sekine's own adventures, fit together like a puzzle, forming a compelling whole of their own. As such, this is an excellent introduction into what makes Japanese popular fiction tick.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, December 25, 2002
By Daitokuji31 (Black Glass) - See all my reviews
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This is one of the books that I have wanted to read for quite some time but for some reason or another have put it off. Well, I have finally read it, and enjoyed every minute of it. To begin with I have never read many mystery novels before, so I did not know how I would respond to this one, but it gripped me very quickly. The story is pretty simple. A detective named honma is taking it easy because he was wounded by a gunshot his nephew soon comes by and asks him to help him find his missing fiance. Bored with sitting at home Honma takes the case, but it soon changes into something completely different than simply a runaway fiance. What he finds involves a case of murder. a murder to steal someone else's identity. He enters the world of Kyoko a beautiful woman whose life had been completely destroyed by her father's financial woes.

Although it seems simple this is actually a complex read. The most complex character is Kyoko: the reader does not know whether to hate her or feel sympathy for her. I don't want to give away any details here. please read the book.

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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended, March 10, 2000
By A Customer
Wonderful Read! As a mystery, it's got all the intrigue and plot red herrings you would expect. However, if you are even remotely interested in Japanese society or just want to follow someone around Japan, this book does it well. I am left wondering how well does the translation keeps to the original since more than once I saw what I would have suspected as an English idiom crop up with a Japanese touch. Most notabably a variation on "Keeping up with the Jones". However, as an English reader, this touch only made the story more accessable as a whole. Very entertaining and leaves me wanting more!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars All great fun, plus contains highly educational information.
Something like Haruki Murakami's 'Wild Sheep Chase' meeting up with a Raymond Chandler detective story. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Alex McLaren

3.0 out of 5 stars Unsuspenseful with a disappointing end.
I picked up All She Was Worth by Miyuki Miyabe a few months ago because I liked Brave Story, a novel geared towards younger audiences. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Lu Y. Yang

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not great
The best thing about this book is the last page. A good read, but no real suspense or thrills. Economically written, and all characters (even the dog Blockhead) contribute to... Read more
Published 11 months ago by In Vino Veritas

3.0 out of 5 stars clunky
Miyabe does a good job creating Honma, the lead character, and the plot is reasonably realistic. But other than the lead the characters don't come alive and/or aren't stable or... Read more
Published 16 months ago by fairleft

4.0 out of 5 stars Usual mystery, different locale
I won't give another plot synopsis but I will say this is a very enjoyable book if you like mysteries, stories set in Japan, or both. Read more
Published 20 months ago by A. LEJEUNE

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating
I read a lot of detective fiction, but usually not contemporary thrillers because they tend to be far too gory for my taste. Read more
Published 21 months ago by J. Courtney-Bartel

4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable, absorbing mystery novel
Miyuki Miyabe fleshes out a sordidly suspenseful web of lies that start from a simple case of one woman's stolen identity. Read more
Published 21 months ago by literary bug

4.0 out of 5 stars Mesmerizing
The structure and style of this mystery is compellingly different from that of western writers. I found myself drawn into the story and into the world of the characters.
Published 24 months ago by Jan Masaoka

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Japanese Crime Novel of Manners
Miyuki Miyabe is one of Japan's leading mystery writers. This book concerns a missing person's case and follows along partly like a police procedural and partly like a private... Read more
Published on October 11, 2007 by Julian Wan

3.0 out of 5 stars disappointing
The book engaged me, but I didn't ever feel as if I cared aboot the mystery. The characters were never particularly memorable or loveable... Read more
Published on July 11, 2007 by liquidhands

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