Chronically underemployed Japanese-American sleuth Rei Shimura has taken
a freelance gig with a Washington, D.C., alphabet agency that just might
have ties to the CIA. Her mission, should she choose to accept it, is to
go undercover as a clerk in a big Tokyo department store. It's a risky
assignment, but it also gives Rei a store discount that allows her to
freely indulge her shopaholic tendencies.
Meanwhile, she's listening in on private conversations, crashing a
conference, and fending off the unwanted advances of a couple of the
store's executives who seem fascinated by her navel ring. When her cover
is blown, Rei is in big trouble. Suddenly she's neck-deep in something
very nasty, and it will take all her resourcefulness and unorthodox
methods to survive a determined killer.