num_pages: 520
description: In the Tokyo suburbs four women work the draining graveyard shift at a boxed-lunch factory. Burdened with chores and heavy debts and isolated from husbands and children, they all secretly dream of a way out of their dead-end lives.A young mother among them finally cracks and strangles her philandering, gambling husband then confesses her crime to Masako, the closest of her colleagues. For reasons of her own, Masako agrees to assist her friend and seeks the help of the other co-workers to dismember and dispose of the body. The body parts are discovered, the police start asking questions, but the women have far more dangerous enemies -a yakuza connected loan shark who discovers their secret and has a business proposition, and a ruthless nightclub owner the police are convinced is guilty of the murder. He has lost everything as a result of their crime and he is out for revenge.Out is a psychologically taut and unflinching foray into the darkest recesses of the human soul, an unsettling reminder that the desperate desire for freedom can make the most ordinary person do the unimaginable.
language: English
title: Out
titlecomplete: Out
characters: Kuniko, Masako, Yayoi, Yoshie
genres: Fiction, Asia, Mystery, Thriller, Japan, Horror, Mystery Thriller, Japanese Literature, Asian Literature, Crime
ratings_count: 37229
places: Japan, Tokyo
awards: awardedAt: 852105600000
name: Naoki Prize 直木三十五賞, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Edgar Award
category: Best Novel, awardedAt: 883641600000
name: Mystery Writers of Japan Award (日本推理作家協会賞)
category: Best Novel, awardedAt: 883641600000
name: このミステリーがすごい！
category: Best Japanese Mystery Novel of the Year
publisher: Vintage