The Snow Kimono

‘Henshaw’s prose [is] luminous and crisp, like the snowy countryside of Japan or the barren lanes of Algiers. As the stories fold inside one another like poetic Russian dolls, I’m drawn closer to the heart of it all.’—Saturday Paper

‘A superb read.’—Bookmooch

‘Complex, lucid and engrossing.’—Weekend Australian

‘Gripping...Like a Japanese puzzle, prized for their infinite solutions and depth of revelation, each chapter builds on the one before, unfolding through levels of story to unpack deeper and deeper truths.’—Guardian Australia

‘Consistently magical.’—Canberra Times

‘A work of extraordinary subtlety, excitement and intelligence...one thing is certain, The Snow Kimono stands out as an extraordinary, clever and exquisitely executed fiction.’—The Hoopla

‘The writing is beautiful: pellucid and wonderfully visual, painting memorable landscape cameos.’—Adelaide Advertiser

‘An exquisitely written puzzle.’—Australian Women's Weekly

‘Stunning and hypnotic…Henshaw has rather written a deep reflection on life, memory, love and loss…You won’t read another novel like The Snow Kimono this year, or perhaps for many to come.’—Asian Review of Books

Paris, 1989. Recently retired police inspector Auguste Jovert receives a letter from a woman who claims to be his daughter. Two days later, a stranger knocks on his door. His name is Tadashi Omura, and he is a former law professor. He tells Jovert stories about his life, and about a man named Katsuo Ikeda, whom he met when they were both children and who later became a successful writer.

Set in France, Japan, and Algeria, The Snow Kimono is a jigsaw puzzle of a novel. The stories that Jovert and Omura tell each other fit together in unpredictable ways. Each new story changes the possibilities of what might happen next. Little by little we glimpse how these men have lied to themselves and to each other. These lies are about to catch up with them.

A quarter of a century after the best-selling, multi-award-winning Out of the Line of Fire, Mark Henshaw returns with a novel that is both a psychological thriller and an unforgettable meditation on love and loss, memory and its deceptions, and the things that bind us to others.

Mark Henshaw has lived in France, Germany, Yugoslavia, and the United States. He currently lives in Canberra. His debut, Out of the Line of Fire (1988) was one of the biggest selling Australian literary novels of its decade and was published in France, Germany, and Italy.

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