Out is a gripping and suspenseful psychological thriller that explores the lives of four women working in a boxed-lunch factory. It delves into their desperate desire for freedom and the unimaginable things they are willing to do to achieve it. The dark, gritty setting of Tokyo's underworld, combined with the women's struggles to break free from their dead-end lives, makes for a captivating read that keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very end.

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• Naoki Prize 直木三十五賞 Nominee (1997)
• Edgar Award Nominee for Best Novel (2004)
• Mystery Writers of Japan Award (日本推理作家協会賞) for Best Novel (1998)
• このミステリーがすごい！ for Best Japanese Mystery Novel of the Year (1998)

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.

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