Penance

On a hot summer day in a small Japanese town, five fourth-grade girls are playing on the grounds of their school when they're approached by a stranger. The man says he's at the school to do some maintenance work and he needs some help, and four of the girls stand aside as he takes their friend Emily by the hand and leads her away. Hours later, Emily is dead. Fifteen years later, Yuka, Maki, Akiko, and Sae, now all women in their 20s, reflect on the murder of their friend, the fact that the murderer was never caught, and the impact it had on their lives.

Unless you are from Japan, you may not know that the country had a fifteen-year statute of limitations on murder until 2010. Penance takes place before the statute of limitations was lifted, so it's no coincidence that Emily's death was fresh on each of the four women‘s minds just before the 15th anniversary of her unsolved murder. Penance isn't just an emotional reflection on the trauma of having a friend murdered when you're a child, or else it wouldn't be a Kanae Minato book. It's a psychological thriller and a story of guilt and revenge.

This is the second book I've read by Kanae Minato, and if you're familiar with her other book, Confessions, then you'll know what I mean when I say the structure of Penance is very much the same. Each woman has her own chapter (about a quarter of the book) in which she talks about Emily's murder and what has happened in her life since then. Because they all talk about the day of Emily's death, there's a little repetition as some of them recall the same details, but it's interesting to see the same event from different perspectives.

Having loved Confessions, I was pretty confident I would enjoy Penance and I'm glad I was right. There's always something twisted brewing just beneath the surface of Minato's writing, and I love it so much. I love reading her books knowing something big is coming but having no idea what it is. She's written so many books but only a couple have been translated to English and I sincerely hope we get more soon!