The Bride's Kimono
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Antiques dealer Rei Shimura has managed to snag one of the most lucrative and prestigious jobs of her career: a renowned museum in Washington, D.C., has invited her to exhibit her kimonos and give a lecture on them. Accompanied by a gaggle of Japanese office ladies bent on a week of shopping, Rei lands in the capital. But her big break could ultimately break her. Within hours one of the kimonos is stolen, and then Rei's passport is discovered in a shopping mall dumpster—on the dead body of one of the Japanese tourists. Trouble is only beginning, though, for now Rei's parents have arrived and so has her ex-boyfriend. To track down the kimono and unmask a killer, Rei's got to do some clever juggling, fast talking, and quick sleuthing, or this trip home could be her last.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this fast, easy-to-follow story filled with fascinating information on Japanese culture from Edgar-nominee and Agatha Award-winner Massey (The Salaryman's Wife), hot-tempered, hot-blooded, Japanese-American Rei Shimura agrees to courier a priceless collection of Edo-period (1615 1857) kimono from a distinguished Tokyo museum to a temporary exhibition in the equally prestigious Museum of Asian Arts in Washington, D.C. To save money, the California-born Shimura, who lives and sells antiques in Tokyo, joins a tour group of women headed for the shopping malls of greater Washington. In the U.S., the plot thickens when someone steals a bridal kimono, uchikake, and a Japanese tourist turns up murdered. The police initially identify the victim as Shimura, but later suspect the sexy Japanese-American antiques dealer is part of a prostitution ring. Further complications arise with the arrival of Shimura's current Japanese boyfriend and her parents, as well as the re-entry into her life of her American ex-lover. Close attention to background both large (recognizable locations in Washington and northern Virginia) and small (the designer clothes the heroine receives from her mother) helps fix the novel solidly in the real world. But it is the romantic suspense and the multicultural details of customs and attitudes of East and West that will keep most readers turning the pages of this absorbing, sophisticated mystery.
