Grotesque delves into the dark and hidden precincts of Japanese society, unraveling the lives of Tokyo prostitutes Yuriko and Kazue, who have been brutally murdered. Their deaths leave a trail of unanswered questions about their identities, their murderer, and the paths that led them to this tragic end.

The narrative unfolds ingeniously, mediated coolly by Yuriko’s older sister, taking us back to their time in a prestigious girls’ high school. Here, a strict social hierarchy determined their fates, and we follow their struggles against the rigid societal conventions.

This novel is not just a psychological investigation into the female psyche but also a work of noir fiction that confirms Natsuo Kirino’s electrifying talents. The narrative sheds light on the pressures facing Japanese women, the allure of dark desires, and the vicious ambitions that drive them.

Orphaned siblings create a macabre secret world for themselves in this “irresistibly readable” novel by the New York Times-bestselling author (The New York Review of Books).

This “powerful and disconcerting” novel by the Booker Prize-winning author of The Children Act and Atonement (The Daily Telegraph) tells the story of a dying family who live in a dying part of the city.

A father of four children decides, in an effort to make his garden easier to control, to pave it over. In the process, he has a heart attack and dies, leaving the cement garden unfinished and the children to the care of their mother. Soon after, the mother too dies and the children, fearful of being separated by social services, decide to cover up their parents’ deaths: they bury their mother in the cement garden.

The story is told from the point of view of Jack, one of the sons, who is entering adolescence with all of its attendant curiosity and appetites. Julie, the eldest, is almost a grown woman. Sue is rather bookish and observes all that goes on around her. And Tom is the youngest and the baby of the lot. The children seem to manage in this perverse setting rather well—until Julie brings home a boyfriend who threatens their secret by asking too many questions.

“[A] beautiful but disturbing novel.”—The AV Club
“McEwan’s evocative detail and perfect British prose lend a genteel decorum to the death and decay that surround the family.”—The New Yorker