A thrillingly dark novel from 'Japan's Agatha Christie' (Sunday Times) While on a business trip to Kobe, Tsuneo Asai receives the news that his wife Eiko has died of a heart attack.Eiko had a heart condition so the news of her death wasn't totally unexpected.But the circumstances of her demise left Tsuneo, a softly spoken government bureaucrat, perplexed.How did it come about that his wife, who was shy and withdrawn, and only left their house twice a week to go to haiku meetings ended up dead in a small shop in a shady Tokyo neighbourhood?When Tsuneo goes to apologize to the boutique owner for the trouble caused by his wife's death he discovers the villa Tachibana near by, a house known to be a meeting place for secret lovers.As he digs deeper into his wife's recent past, he must eventually conclude that she led a double life...