Out

This sensational thriller, shockingly violent in parts, is absurdly compelling; it also paints a grim picture of the grinding daily lives of many Japanese citizens.

Yayoi, a beautiful young woman married to an abusive and philandering husband finally cracks one evening and strangles him to death. Several of her colleagues from the boxed-lunch factory where she works the night shift decide to dispose of the body for her; they take the corpse back to Masako’s house, dismember it in the bathroom, pack the parts in garbage bags and distribute them around the city.

Unfortunately, the laziest and weakest member of the team, Kuniko, dumps her share in a local park, where they, and their gruesome contents, are discovered. The four women have to fend off a police investigation, but they soon find themselves in even hotter water when a local loan shark and a night club owner accused of the crime both find out their secret. The loan shark has business ideas of his own, but the night-club owner wants revenge …

The pace of this unusual crime novel is strangely calm, but the story is so exciting that the pages fly by. Kirino sets up the unnerving premise that this group of women could efficiently dispose of a corpse, but her real triumph is the way she persuades us that this scenario is plausible.

Each of the four women is very different, but they all live essentially troubled and hopeless lives: Masako’s husband and son have retreated into shells of their own making; Yayoi wonders despondently how her happy marriage could have gone wrong; Yoshie is a poverty-stricken widow with troublesome daughters and an incontinent mother-in-law to look after; and Kuniko is a self-obsessed young woman with mounting debts. They have all, for various reasons, been forced into the demeaning and tiring life of the part-time night-shift worker.

Although, in fact, no one in this gritty and compulsive book is immune from the dehumanising effects of modern Japanese life, it is the low status of women in particular that Kirino sees as invidious. She seems to be saying that, under such pressure, any ‘ordinary’ person could be pushed into performing extraordinary acts. It is this premise, and the subtle characterisation of the protagonists that makes Out such a superb and riveting thriller.

It will make you think twice about the contents of your neighbours’ bin bags, though.

Reviewed by James Smith, Booktrust website editor