In this "poignant story of prejudice, betrayal and the search for identity" ( ), the trials and tribulations of these three remarkable characters are "at turns trenchantly funny and heartbreakingly sad" ( ). "[An] elegant and haunting debut" ( ), is a "swirl of action, a whirl of love and sex and race and politics, local and international" ( )—a "quiet literary triumph" ( ) Lisa Countryman is a woman of complex origins. Half-Japanese, adopted by African American parents, she returns to Tokyo, ostensibly to research her thesis on Japan's "sad, brutal reign of conformity." When she vanishes, Tom Hurley, who is half-Korean and half-white, is assigned to her case at the American embassy, as is local cop Kenzo Ota, who is 100 percent Japanese but deemed an outsider.