Used
Paperback
2004
$14.46
Runa is a young Japanese high school teacher leaving the country to avoid the scandal she has created by sleeping with one of her students. She steals her sister's passport and boards the ferry to Shanghai. Then, careful to impersonate her sister, she is quiet, docile and discreet...Meanwhile, on the last stretch of a fraught and tiring mission to find a wife, an Englishman also boards the ferry. Rebuffed in Tokyo, Ralph hopes that on the Chinese mainland he will meet a gentle, beautiful girl to return home with. When these two meet, suppressing at first their secrets and obsessions on this long and claustrophobic journey, we enter a desolate, emotional landscape as Runa's journey begins to turn into a surreal and terrifying nightmare.
Used
Hardcover
2003
$9.72
A gripping story of Runa, a young Japanese high school teacher, and Ralph, a British man with a dangerous past. Following a dangerous affair with one of her pupils, Runa steals her sister's passport and her identity and heads for Kobe to take the ferry to Shanghai. Meanwhile Ralph has murdered his first wife and is in Japan searching for a new Asian bride. He takes the same ferry as Runa. Runa, who has taken on the quieter and more conventional manner of her sister, is soon noticed by Ralph, who believes her to be his perfect Oriental bride. During a long and claustrophobic journey, strange events lead Runa to believe certain passengers are not necessarily who they say they are, and she soon suspects someone is watching her. As she begins to discover Ralph's motives too, events take on a terrifying new angle. Soon it appears that not only is Runa in danger from Ralph, but that Ralph too is being watched from afar.