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Possibly the most interesting story about government auditors you'll ever read...
(Review date: Jan 2013)
I picked this book up when I saw it in a Book-Off when I was in Japan recently, because it was in their display of "recent books you should read".
The book starts with a single page teaser that talks about how "all of Osaka stopped"; the meat of the book then starts with something completely different, as three national government auditors make a trip to Osaka to audit various bits of local government. Fortunately the characters are interesting and this isn't as dull as it sounds. There then follows a section of the "B plot": a middle school boy who has realised they really want to be a girl, and their supportive friend. The two plot strands then alternate for most of the book and (inevitably) turn out to be related.
The book takes a while to get to the historical conspiracy theory which is really the major story, but I definitely enjoyed it once it started to gather steam. I felt a little let down by the final section where the book's worldview was a bit on the old-fashioned cliche side wrt the differences between men and women, but overall I'd recommend it.
I'd say the book was about average difficulty for a novel of this length (500 pages or so); there are a few slightly tricky sections involving accounting terminology or historical background explanations. Also since it's set in Osaka there is some Kansai dialect in dialogue.