2000, Faber and Faber
Although this book was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2000, and its author has won several prizes including the Nobel Prize for Literature, it is not his best work.
In fact, I must be honest and say I don't even feel like writing about it but I'll try to eke something out!
Already, I hesitated to start reading it as I'm not a big fan of detective novels, and while this isn't really one, it has a detective as the main character. However, given the general amazingness of Ishiguro, I decided to give it a try.
It's about a famous detective in 1930s England, who was never able to solve the mystery of why his parents, expats in China when he was a young boy, disappeared never to be found. His father worked for a company who was secretly aiding the opium trade into China, which caused addiction and tragic societal consequences for the country. His mother was an activist against the company's involvement in the trade and it is assumed that she was kidnapped for her actions, possibly by the Chinese mob or groups with an interest in keeping the trade going. The father disappears too, possibly kidnapped as well, unless he ran off with his mistress.
I enjoyed learning a bit about the relationship between England and China, and the opium trade, but as the detective tries to solve the case which for some reason no one has solved before, the book becomes rather surreal and hard to grasp.
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