Natsuo Kirino's first book in English: Out

I just finished reading Natsuo Kirino's new crime novel called Out and, despite the good reviews, was not impressed. According to the inside cover, this is her first novel that appeared in English but otherwise she is a major crime story star in Japan.

Well, maybe but I did not find the novel so articulate or particularly exciting. It is about some housewifes slaving away at a fast food factory who, when one of them chokes her husband with a belt in a fit of rage, decide to help their friend dispose of the body. The "obvious" solution that comes to their mind is to chop the body up in the bathroom and then put the chunks out in the trash.

The best part of the book was when having gone through all this they began getting similar work from some yakuza connection. They started a business of disposing bodies by chopping them into pieces. I thought this was a much-needed addition into the otherwise uninteresting narrative. This part had some humor in it.

A million miles away, by Rory Gallagher (1973)

Rory Gallagher, Irish Tour

This hotel bar is full of people, the piano man is really laying it down
The old bartender is a high as a steeple, so why tonight should I wear a frown?
Million miles away, I'm a million miles away
I'm sailing like a driftwood on a windy bay
Why ask how I feel how does it look to you?
I feel hook, line and sinker, I lost my captain and my crew
I'm standing on the landing, there's no one there but me
That's where you'll find me, looking out on the deep blue sea
This hotel bar is full of people, the piano man is really laying it down
The old bartender is a high as steeple, so why tonight should I wear a frown?
The joint is jumping all around me and my mood is really not in style
Right now the blues want to surround me but I'll break out after a while
Well, I'm a million miles away, I'm a million miles away
I'm sailing like a driftwood on a windy bay
Why ask how I feel, well, how does it look to you?
I feel hook line and sinker, I lost my captain and my crew
I'm standing on the landing and there's no one there but me
That's where you'll find me, looking out on the deep blue see
There's a song on the lips of everybody, there's a smile all around the room
There's conversation overflowing, so why must I sit here in the gloom?
This hotel bar lost all its people, the piano man has caught the last bus home
The old bartender is asleep in the corner, so why must I still be here, I don't know
Well, I'm a million miles away, I'm a million miles away
I'm sailing like a driftwood on a windy bay