Sujata Massey's antique dealer and amateur sleuth, Rei Shimura, is back for another adventure in The Pearl Diver, the seventh novel in an ongoing series. Rei is half-Japanese, half-American, and this story finds her living in Washington, D.C. with her fiancé, Hugh Glendinning, after she was barred from re-entering Japan as a result of some prior shenanigans. Rei has taken her exile somewhat hard, but she's trying to make the best of it and Hugh is a pretty good consolation prize. She's planning her upcoming wedding while simultaneously attempting to resuscitate her antique business, which was originally based in Japan.

During a luncheon with her trendy, politically savvy cousin Kendall, a chance meeting with a local restauranteur affords Rei the opportunity to decorate a chic new Asian restaurant called Bento. The restaurant is located in a "transitional" area, but all signs indicate that it could - and should - be a success. On opening night, however, things get off on the wrong foot when Kendall is kidnaped from the parking lot. Only Rei's quick thinking manages to help the police locate her, and she escapes with only a few bumps and bruises. The kidnapers elude capture, leaving the police wondering why they seemingly targeted Kendall (they identified her before tossing her in the trunk of their car).

Meanwhile, Andrea, a young employee of the restaurant asks Rei for assistance: her mother was a Japanese war bride who emigrated to Virginia with her husband, a Vietnam veteran, some thirty years earlier. Andrea's mother disappeared when the girl was about two years old; police found her clothes on a riverbank, and she was declared missing, presumed dead. And Rei's aunt Norie arrives from Japan to help her niece with the wedding plans, which means that Hugh has to make himself scarce so that Norie doesn't realize that the two love birds are, as they say, "shacking up."

It is in the intersection of these various layers that Massey generates the story's sizzle. The seemingly disparate storylines involving Kendall and her supposedly successful husband, Rei's investigation of Andrea's past, and the shifting sands of her relationship with Hugh all merge in an melodic mixture of suspense, romance, and cross-cultural currents. Much like the ultra-hip "fusion" Japanese restaurant that plays so significantly into the course of the novel's action, Massey's narrative is an eclectic mixture to be sure: a jazzy blend of the modern and the ancient, the beautiful and the ugly. And much like jazz itself, the story often meanders a bit before it builds toward the final crescendo. The seemingly disconnected riffs on family issues and side trips into various other crises don't just serve to obscure the real nature of the crimes Rei is investigating. They also serve an interesting story purpose, because The Pearl Diver isn't "just" a mystery story.