The wind up bird chronicle.

Toru and Kumiko have been married for six years and have so far been childless. Toru has left his job from a law firm where he was employed as an assistant and is now at home taking care of the house. Their cat, Noboru Wataya, has gone missing and this single insignificant event precipitates a series of events that changes Toru’s life totally. He starts to receive erotic phone calls from a lady who knows lots of details about him, but refuses to reveal her name. As he searches outside his home for the absent cat, he meets May Kasahara, teenage daughter of his neighbours. He starts to meet other characters, like Malta Kano, a psychic, and her sister Creta. Through Mr Honda, and old acquaintance, he meets a old soldier who is haunted by the horrors that he witnessed during WWII, and whose stories spark an interest for Toru in the history of that war.

With little warning, Kumiko leaves him, writing to say that she had been carrying out an affair. In his melancholy he starts to sit and watch people at the local station. There he meets a lady who calls herself Nutmeg. She runs a secret business with her son offering discreet services to very wealthy clients. She sees that Toru has the same powers that she did and he joins her in business. He spends a lot of time at the bottom of a well trying to make sense of everything, and as he does so he realises that he can move to a hotel room in his sub-conscious.but it leaves a physical mark on his face, very similar to Nutmeg’s father. Slowly Toru’s fragmented mind starts to heal, and details that didn’t make sense become crystal clear.