All She Was Worth
A Japanese crime novel by Miyuki Miyabe, read here in English translation (the original, Kasha, appeared in 1992). A police detective on leave, Shunsuke Honma, is asked by a relative to find a young woman who has abruptly vanished, and his search opens onto a story of stolen identity, consumer debt, and personal bankruptcy in modern Japan. It works as much as a social novel as a mystery, using the case to examine how crushing credit-card debt could erase and remake a life. Methodical and character-driven rather than action-packed, it rewards readers who like a procedural with a social conscience.