Other than that, while the characters have their notable differences and such, I think that it would’ve been better if they had more distinct narrative styles/tones. It’s an odd combination but I was definitely hooked by the story. As a result, I was simultaneously underwhelmed and anxious/eager to know what would be revealed next. Instead, we get confessions and recounts of Emily’s murder, the characters’ ideas of penance, how the trauma and guilt affected them, and clues scattered across recounts, etc. I also expected the story to be more…’present’ than ‘past’ (by ‘present’, I mean that the events from the murder up to the ending occurring in an active manner, not by having it recounted by the people involved).

Truthfully, I expected the entirety of the book to be told from Sae’s POV since she’s the first main character who’s introduced. This book is written in a confessional style and each chapter is told from a different character’s point of view-from the four girls who were friends with the murdered Emily, and Emily’s mother, Asako. Penance doesn’t even touch ‘chilling’ compared to them.) (Though, to be fair, when I think ‘chilling’, I think of works similar to Natsuo Kirino’s Out and Ryu Murakami’s gore-tastic descriptions. Verdict: As Japanese thrillers in translation continue to gain international acclaim – led by Keigo Higashino, Fuminori Nakamura, and Natsuo Kirino – libraries will want to provide multi-format options.While Penance is indeed a tense, fast-paced read for me, it isn’t chilling at all. That she clearly doesn’t speak Japanese further mars her presentation. Her youthful voice initially works well when the characters are still young but tends toward an immature pitch as they age. The four friends who find her corpse are expectedly traumatized – but three years later, any semblance of recovery is irreparably destroyed when Emily’s mother invites the quartet for tea and fancy cakes, only to threaten the girls: find Emily’s murderer before the 15-year-statute of limitations or risk revenge – “I’ll make you suffer far worse than Emily ever did.” Twelve years pass, the 15-year expiry looms, and the girls – now young women – reveal the horrifying penance they’ve each performed.įrom nightmare to nightmare, narrator Karissa Vacker aptly retains tight control throughout. She goes back to school in Penance (expertly rendered into English by lauded translator Philip Gabriel) in which 10-year-old Emily is raped and murdered on school grounds. What she did with deadly milk cartons in Confessions made quite the debut splash.

Kanae Minato is two for two for twisted psychological Japanese noir.

Penance minato kanae