‘Falling Leaves’ by Lea O'Harra

Published independently,
31 January 2026.
ISBN: 979-824516983-5 (PB)

November, 1983, in Japan, and 13-year-old Mei is kidnapped on her way home from school, and thrown into a boat. We share her terror and watch as her frantic family search everywhere for her. When the police are finally called, the family falls under suspicion, but there's no hint of anything wrong with them, and no ransom note is ever received. Then we follow Mei's boat journey and learn where she's arrived: North Korea. 

After that introduction, the modern-day story begins, on the fortieth anniversary of Mei's kidnapping. DI Ando and DI Kobo are called to Chief Inspector Inoue's office. They are to investigate the case of Tomoko Gammo, a pretty, kind, clever student found dead in her room at University. They soon find that other students have been bullying her because of her Korean father... 

 I was fascinated by the background of Japanese-Korean interaction that underpins this novel Mei's story illustrating the deliberate kidnap of Japanese people so that North Korea could use them to learn how Japanese people behaved and talked, so that they could spy on them more effectively.  The theses of Gammo's fellow-tutorial students, both South Korean, focus on atrocities committed by Japan when it took over Korea. We gradually learn of the links between other characters in the novel and Mei's family, and see the result that her abduction had on them: her parents and one brother caught up in a media-circus in the forlorn hope that they might get Mei returned to Japan, her uncle stuck in squalor on the family farm, her other brother running a small bicycle repair shop - and he's a friend of Gammo's.  

Chief Inspector Inoue is a great lead investigator, fair but determined, and the reader becomes increasingly concerned about his health as the novel progresses. DI Ando is recently married, and happy in his new life, but his partner DI Kobo had a run of ill-fortune which has given him a drink problem, and he's on his last warning unless he can pull himself together. The plot is a compelling read as secrets are revealed and fragmented family members try to reach out to each other, the descriptions of Japanese life are authentic and vivid, and the ending is satisfying. 

A beautifully-evoked autumnal Japan with interesting characters and a plot which takes us into less well-known parts of Japan's history, and the effects of that on its present.
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Reviewer: Marsali Taylor

Lea O’Harra.  An American by birth, did her postgraduate work in Britain – an MA in Lancaster and a doctorate at Edinburgh – and worked full-time for 36 years at a Japanese university. Since retiring in March 2020, she has spent part of each year in Lancaster and part in Takamatsu on Shikoku Island, her second home, with occasional visits to the States to see family and friends. An avid reader of crime fiction since childhood, as a university professor she wrote academic articles on it as a literary genre and then decided to try her hand at composing such stories herself, publishing the so-called ‘Inspector Inoue mystery series’ comprising four murder mysteries set in rural, contemporary Japan. She has also published two standalone crime fiction novels.

Marsali Taylor grew up near Edinburgh and came to Shetland as a newly qualified teacher. Marsali is a qualified STGA tourist-guide who is fascinated by history, and has published plays in Shetland's distinctive dialect, as well as a history of women's suffrage in Shetland. She's also a keen sailor who enjoys exploring in her own 8m yacht, and an active member of her local drama group.  She lives with her husband and two Shetland ponies.

www.marsalitaylor.co.uk