The Earthquake Bird

The story opens in a Tokyo police station where 34-year-old Lucy Fly is being questioned over the murder of her friend and fellow British expatriate Lily Bridges. Lucy has been in Tokyo for 10 years, is fluent in Japanese, and employed in translating manuals into English. She is evasive in her answers to the police but recounts to the readers what led to her current situation: her estrangement from her family in England, her relationship with Teiji, an enigmatic photographer, and the recent arrival of Lily.

Through flashbacks, we learn that Lucy grew up in East Yorkshire as the youngest child and only daughter of a family of eight children. Lucy was neglected by her parents and bullied by her older brothers. During a childhood incident, her older brothers hurl objects at her while she is reading on a tree. Lucy accidentally killed one of her brothers Noah after she jumped on him, causing him to fall onto a nail. Lucy is traumatised by the incident, which only serves to estrange her further from her family. Lucy studies foreign languages including French and Japanese. Following her university studies, Lucy moves to Japan to work as a translator.

While living in Japan, Lucy befriends Teiji, who works in a noodle shop by day and photographs at night as a hobby. Over time, the two develop a romantic relationship. An American expatriate Bob introduces Lucy to fellow British expatriate Lily, who also hails from East Yorkshire. Lucy's friendship with Lily deteriorates after Lucy learns during a trip to Sado Island that Lily is involved in a love triangle with Teiji. Following a heated argument between the two women, Lily disappears and is reported missing.

Lucy is subsequently arrested and questioned by Japanese police in Lily's disappearance. She claims that she murdered Lily in a fit of jealousy. However, she is cleared after a body believed to be Lily's is identified as someone else. Fearing retribution from Teiji, whom she believes had a hand in Lily's disappearance, Lucy uproots her life in Tokyo and returns to East Yorkshire.

Reviews were generally positive :

• A. N. Wilson in The Telegraph writes "Without giving away the secret, Lucy is obsessed, sexually obsessed, by a young man called Teiji who works in a noodle bar, and who likes taking arty photographs of tall buildings reflected in the puddles of Tokyo's pavements, and of her in the nude. In its spare way, this novel, which I have now read three times, is one of the best accounts - and this is not all that it is - of female sexuality, that subject of and mystery for any male reader. It is not, very decidedly not, a book however which will reveal what 'they' feel when in love, or in bed - only what she, and a pretty distinctive she, feels."[3]
• Publishers Weekly concludes "The descriptions of Japan's landscapes, language, people and customs are delivered with fluency and intimacy, yet with the slightly detached clarity of an expat. Some readers may find Jones's intermingling of first- and third-person narration self-conscious and distracting...and the hazy ending raises more questions than it answers. But this is less a whodunit than an examination of the slippery nature of truth and memory, obsessions and betrayals, all of which Jones handles with confidence and skill"[4]

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