Product Description

‘Early this morning, several hours before my arrest, I was woken by an earth tremor. I mention the incident not to suggest that there was a connection – that somehow the fault lines in my life came crashing together in a form of a couple of policemen – for in Tokyo we have a quake like this every month. I am simply relating the sequence of events as it happened. It has been an unusual day and I would hate to forget anything . . .’

So begins The Earthquake Bird, a haunting novel set in Japan which reveals a murder on its first page and takes its readers into the mind of the chief suspect, Lucy Fly – a young, vulnerable English girl living and working in Tokyo as a translator. As Lucy is interrogated by the police she reveals her past to the reader, and it is a past which is dangerously ambiguous and compromising . . .

Why did Lucy leave England for the foreign anonymity of Japan ten years before, and what exactly had prompted her to sever all links with her family back home? She was the last person to see the murdered girl alive, so why was she not more forthcoming about the circumstances of their last meeting? As Lucy’s story unfolds, it emerges that secrets, both past and present, obsess her waking life.

A novel imbued with the chill of The Wasp Factory and the shock of The Sculptress, this is the debut of a major new talent.

‘The sentences may be lean and spare, but the murder on the first page heralds a weight and menace to this story that’s strangely chilling . . .This is a very compelling debut’ Elle

‘Fast paced and claustrophobic . . . a subtle portrait of how jealousy blooms from nothing’ The Times

‘Compulsively imaginative . . . a beautiful and compelling novel’ Colin Dexter

‘You’ll find this story still lurking in the dark corners of your mind long after you’ve put the book down’ Face

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #275118 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
While many novelists are content these days to merely sketch in a few rudimentary characteristics for their protagonists, it's refreshing to encounter a book as ambitious as Susanna Jones' remarkable thriller The Earthquake Bird, which has no truck with such cursoriness. The central character in Jones' novel, Lucy Fly, is not only realised with richness and subtlety, but the reader is even allowed to change their mind about her as the revelations of the tale unfold--a rarity indeed these days. Not only that, Jones' book (her debut novel) is concisely written, making the amount she crams into this slim volume even more striking.

Set in Japan, The Earthquake Bird begins with an earth-tremor on its first page that echoes metaphorically through the book. Lucy is a young and insecure translator straining to survive in the bustling, impersonal city of Tokyo. She becomes the principal suspect in a murder case when her best friend Lily is killed. Initially, her dealings with the police present her as vulnerable and ill at ease (she has a quirky way of talking about herself in the third person), but revelations about her past begin to pull the metaphorical rug from beneath the reader's feet.

Jones' publishers invoke Iain Banks' The Wasp Factory in promoting the book, and the comparisons are not far-fetched. Like Banks' disturbing novel, the revelations here really do take the breath away. But there's more on offer than complex storytelling. Principally, this is a study of the mysteries of human character, and the ambiguity with which Lucy is presented has all of the skill that distinguished the brilliant novels of Iris Murdoch. Tokyo, too, is evoked with intriguing detail--the perfect backdrop for the steadily unfolding narrative:

The killer had a street stand selling noodles. He also had a dead body to dispose of. In order to avoid the fingerprint problem he had hacked off the corpse's hands. He then proceeded to boil the outer layers of skin off the hands by dropping them into the hot noodle broth, on the street, under the unknowing eyes of his hungry customers.

About the Author
Susanna Jones has worked as a translator in Tokyo for several years. This is her first novel and she is currently working on a second. She now lives in Brighton and visits Japan regularly.

Customer Reviews

A gripping, haunting, psychological thriller.
Set against a surreal backdrop of present day Japan, The Earthquake Bird opens with Lucy Fly, the narrator and main character, under arrest in a Japanese police station. Lucy is an English translator who seems content and competent with her new life in the East.

We know that something terrible has happened and Lucy is the prime suspect. As she tells her story, more and more details come to light about Lucy, her friends Lily and Teiji, and the reasons why she emigrated to Japan ten years previously. We are taken back to Lucy's solitary childhood in Yorkshire and events of her old life that still haunt her. Not everything about Lucy Fly is what it seems, I found myself hating her and loving her with the turn of each page!

Susanna Jones' prose has a refreshingly urgent pace, and child-like clarity. At the end, the reader is left feeling like they have been given a guided tour of Tokyo; of its language, noodle bars, tower blocks and transport system.

The Earthquake Bird is relatively short, but narrated in exquisite detail without a superfluous word, reminiscent of Barbara Vine at her darkest.

I found myself reading 'just one more chapter' until I had reached its thrilling climax in one sitting. A must read for anyone with an interest in Japanese culture or the complexities of the human mind. Superb!

delicate, evocative thriller
This story begins with the arrest of Lucy Fly, a translator living in modern-day Japan, for the murder of a fellow English woman. It is while sitting in her police cell that she narrates this wonderful story to us. It's written beautifully, and there is not a superfluous word. It's told simply, yet powerfully and is strangely moving at times. The depiction of modern-day Tokyo is excellent, and this is another example of a wonderfully writer who is able to breathe life into their setting and really make the place LIVE.

It has touches of a Barbara Vine novel about it all, in that we never really know what truly happened, but we have ideas about what could have. All the while, the real truth is hidden, and while we may have our suspicions, the writer is still able to reveal all in a way that makes the revelation seem a great shock. The plot, matching the writing style, is simple yet engrossing, and it's told brilliantly, with a wonderful mixture of flashbacks. the narrator moves between the past and present seamlessly, telling us exactly what we want to know at exactly the right time.

I loved this book. It was refreshingly different from much that i've read, and told in a wonderful style. The setting is great, the characters also. The only thing which got to me slightly was that sometimes, in her narration, Lucy referred to herself as "I" while she would occasionally she would slip into the third person and talk about herself as "Lucy". However, my brief annoyance with it was exactly that, brief. I'd reccomend this to anyone. It certainly deserved its win of the CWA Debut dagger award.

Intense and interesting.
I don't normally enjoy the train journey from Newcastle to Kings Cross, but I read this all the way and it was ace.

Given how complex the story is I found it easy to read, probably because it's so neatly written and brilliantly plotted.

The central character Lucy Fly is a strange fish, the type you're glad is tucked up in the pages so you can get to know her without having to meet.

Since reading it I've also bought it as a birthday present and lent my copy to a mate straight away - what more recommendation can I give? I think I'll be telling people about this book for months to come.