The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

The word "foreign" has lost of its meaning in this time when you can cross half the world in a day and teleconference with people all over the planet. In The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, David Mitchell creates the world of Japan in 1799, a society that is closed and far removed from Western life. Jacob de Zoet is a young clark starting a five year assignment in Dejima, the Dutch trading outpost in Nagasaki Harbor. Jacob's first duty is to audit all the books of the last several years to get at the bottom of the corruption rampant in the Dutch East Indies Company.

Jacob soon falls in love with Orito, a midwife and daughter of a local doctor. However he is powerless when Orito's father dies and her stepmother sells her to a nearby monastery. Orito is shocked to learn of what actually happens at the monastery, but she is torn between her horror and the knowledge that she can use her skills to save the lives of the women there.

Jacob finds himself in a moral dilemna when he must choose between his ideals and loyalty to the company, or his career and loyalty to his supervisor. The corruption that he has been trying to stamp out proves too ingrained. Yet even after his choice, there are more surprises in the story. He realizes that the translator Ogawa shares his feelings for Orito, yet neither can do anything about her servitude. A strange sort of love triangle is the result.

It is the interesting characters and captivating setting that make the story fun. The characters remind be of a good Patrick O'Brian novel. There's Marinus, the cynical doctor; the rival clark Peter Fischer; the trading chief Unico Vorstenbosch; and several Japanese translators of differing agendas. Each character is unique and compelling. Add in a mysterious secret cult, divisions among the Dutch men, economic uncertainty, and the possibility of the company failing, and there is enough intrigue to make a great story. A

The Devotion of Suspect X

The Devotion of Suspect X is a Japanese crime novel by Keigo Higashino. The crime in question is the murder of a man named Togashi by his ex-wife Yasuko. Yasuko's neighbor Ishigami hears the struggle and knocks on the door to her apartment, announcing that he can protect Yasuko and her daughter Misato if they will do exactly as he says. Ishigami proceeds to cover up the true nature of the crime and police.

With this setup, the story builds as an intellectual struggle between Ishigami and the police detectives searching for Togashi's killer. The detectives involve their friend Yakawa, a physics professor who knew Ishigami in college. Yukawa takes the opportunity to visit Ishigami and renew their friendship. Ishigami is as puzzled by the murder case as the detectives, and he begins to explore different possibilities. Every conjecture he makes is confounded by Ishigami's and Yasuko's alibis. Since the detectives have no other suspects, they work on breaking apart Yasuko's alibi. Some of the lengths they go to are quite demanding, which shows how much attention they have focused on the case.

Ishigami turns the investigation into his own mystery puzzle. He is a bit unsettled when Yukawa takes an interest in the case but he still deflects any suspicion away from himself and Yasuko. Ishigami's character is drawn well by his actions, illustrating both his intellect and his devotion to Yasuko. He is a math genius who is dissatisfied with his job as a high school teacher and tired of lazy students. Yukawa is a smart professor who encourages his students and enjoys solving mysteries. Yasuko is a stereotypical Japanese woman who is meek and has little power compared to the men in her life.

The twists in the investigation keep the detectives and Yukawa guessing, and they are surprising to the reader also. Every time they think they've found something, Ishigami has already anticipated it. Even right down to the last play, he comes up with options.

This book was better than I was expecting. While the language and characterization are a bit flat, the the developments in the plot are intriguing. Ishigami proves to be an intelligent and creative adversary. Yukawa, using his intuition, is determined to figure out what is wrong with the evidence at hand. I ended up being as surprised at some of the developments as the detectives in the story. B+