1Q84
Haruki Murakami
 The events of 1Q84 take place in Tokyo during a fictionalized 1984, with the first volume set between April and June, the second between July and September, and the third between October and December. The book opens with Aomame as she catches a taxi in Tokyo on her way to a work assignment, noticing Janáček's Sinfonietta playing on the radio. When the taxi gets stuck in a traffic jam, the driver suggests that she get out of the car and climb down an emergency escape in order to make her important meeting, though he warns her that doing so might change the very nature of reality. Aomame makes her way to a hotel in Shibuya, where she poses as a hotel attendant to kill a hotel guest. She performs the murder with a tool that leaves almost no trace on its victim, leading investigators to conclude that he died a natural death from a heart failure. Aomame starts to have bizarre experiences, noticing new details about the world that are subtly different. For example, she notices that the Tokyo policemen are carrying semiautomatic pistols now, and she always remembered them carrying revolvers. Aomame checks her memories against the archives of major newspapers and finds that there were several recent major news stories of which she has no recollection. One of these stories concerned a group of extremists who were engaged in a standoff with police in the mountains of Yamanashi Prefecture. Upon reading these articles, she concludes that she must be living in an alternate reality, which she calls "1Q84," and suspects that she entered it about the time she heard Sinfonietta on the taxi radio. The character of Tengo is introduced, whose editor and mentor Komatsu asks him to rewrite an awkwardly written but otherwise promising manuscript that had been entered in a literary contest. Komatsu wants to submit the novel to a prestigious literary agency and promote its author as a new literary prodigy. Tengo has reservations about rewriting another author's work, especially that of a high school student. He agrees to do so only if he can meet with the original writer, who goes by the strange pen name "Fuka-Eri", and ask for her permission. Fuka-Eri, however, tells Tengo to do as he likes with the manuscript. Soon it becomes clear that Fuka-Eri, who is dyslexic, neither wrote the manuscript on her own, nor submitted it to the contest herself. Tengo's discomfort with the project deepens upon finding out other people must be involved. To address his concerns of her past, Fuka-Eri takes Tengo to meet her current guardian, a man called Professor Ebisuno-sensei (), or simply "Sensei" to Fuka-Eri. Tengo learns that Fuka-Eri's parents were members of a commune called "Takashima" (). Her father, Tamotsu Fukada () was Ebisuno's friend and colleague, but they did not see eye-to-eye on their subject. Fukada thought of Takashima as a utopia; Ebisuno described the commune as a place where people were turned into unthinking robots. Fuka-Eri, whom Ebisuno-sensei nicknames "Eri" (), was only a small child at the time. In 1974, Fukada and 30 members founded a new commune called "Sakigake" (). The young members of the commune worked hard under Fukada's leadership, but eventually disagreements split the commune into two factions, and the more radical side formed a new commune called "Akebono" (), which eventually has a gunfight with police near Lake Motosu () in Yamanashi Prefecture. One day, Fuka-Eri appears on Ebisuno-sensei's doorstep. She does not speak and will not explain what happened to her. When Ebisuno attempts to contact Fukada at Sakigake, he is told that he is unavailable. Ebisuno thereby becomes Fuka-Eri's guardian, and by the time of 1Q84s present, they have not heard from her parents for seven years, leading Ebisuno to fear the worst. It is while living with Ebisuno that Fuka-Eri composes her story, Air Chrysalis (). Unable to write it herself, she tells it to Azami (), Ebisuno's blood daughter. Fuka-Eri's story is about a girl's life in a commune, where she met a group of mystical beings, whom Fuka-Eri refers to as "Little People" (). Over time, Tengo begins to suspect that the mystical events described in Fuka-Eri's novel actually happened. Meanwhile, Aomame recovers psychologically from her recent assignment to kill the hotel guest. It is revealed that she has a personal and professional relationship with an older wealthy woman referred to as "the Dowager" (). The Dowager occasionally asks Aomame to kill men who have been viciously abusive to women, and it becomes clear that both Aomame and the Dowager have personal pasts that fuel their actions. They see their organized murders as one way of fighting back against severe domestic abuse. Aomame tends to be sexually promiscuous; after the recent killing, she releases stress by going to single bars and picking up older men. During these outings, she meets Ayumi, a policewoman who also has sex to relieve stress. They start to combine their efforts, which works well. Aomame's close friendship to Ayumi makes her recall an earlier friend of hers who was the victim of domestic abuse and committed suicide because of it. Aomame and Ayumi remain friends until one day when Aomame reads in the newspaper that Ayumi had been strangled to death in a hotel. The Dowager introduces Aomame to a 10-year-old girl named Tsubasa. Tsubasa and her parents have been involved with Sakigake. Tsubasa has been forcefully abused by the cult leader named only as "The Leader". As Tsubasa sleeps in the safe house owned by the Dowager, the "Little People" which are mentioned in Fuka-Eri's novel, Air Chrysalis, appear from Tsubasa's mouth and create an air chrysalis, a type of cocoon made from strands pulled straight out of the air. The Dowager had lost her own daughter to domestic abuse and now wants to adopt Tsubasa. However, Tsubasa mysteriously disappears from the safehouse, never to return. The Dowager researches Sakigake and finds that there is widespread evidence of abuse. In addition to Tsubasa, other prepubescent girls had been sexually abused there. The Dowager asks Aomame to murder the religious head of Sakigake, the Leader, who is reported to have been the abuser. Aomame meets up with Leader, who turns out to be a physically enormous person with muscle problems. He reveals that he is the father of Fuka-Eri and has special powers like telekinesis. He is also the one in Sakigake who can hear the religious voices speaking to him. Leader, knowing that Aomame was sent to him to kill him, finally strikes a deal with her: she will kill him and he will protect Tengo from harm. After a long conversation with Leader, Aomame finally kills him and goes into hiding at a prearranged location set up by the Dowager and Tamaru, her bodyguard. Aomame and Tengo's parallel worlds begin to draw ever closer. Tengo is pursued by a private investigator, Ushikawa, who was hired by Sakigake. He follows Tengo in order to gather information on Air Chrysalis. Following Leader's murder, Ushikawa is also ordered by Sakigake to determine the whereabouts of Aomame, who had arranged a therapeutic massage session with Leader only to kill him during it. The novel begins to follow Ushikawa in volume three — he was once a lawyer who made a good living representing professional criminals. He got into legal trouble and had to abandon his career. His wife and two daughters left him, and ever since he has been a detective. He's an ugly creature who repels everyone he meets, but he's intelligent and capable at gathering facts and using logic and deductive reasoning. Ushikawa focuses on Tengo, Aomame, and the Dowager as suspects in his investigation. Since the Dowager's house is guarded well and since Aomame has disappeared without a trace, Ushikawa decides to stake out Tengo's apartment to see if he can find any information related to Aomame. He rents out a room in Tengo's apartment building and sets up a camera to take pictures of the residents. He witnesses Fuka-Eri, who has been hiding out at Tengo's apartment, coming and going from the building. Fuka-Eri seems to realize Ushikawa's presence, as she leaves a note for Tengo and takes off. Ushikawa later sees Tengo return home after a visit to see his dying father. Finally, Ushikawa spots Aomame leaving the building after she herself followed Ushikawa there in order to find Tengo. After Ushikawa spots Aomame, but before he can report this to Sakigake, Tamaru sneaks into Ushikawa's room while he's asleep and interrogates the detective on his knowledge of Tengo and Aomame. Tamaru finds out that Ushikawa knows too much and is a liability to the safety of Aomame, the Dowager, and himself, and he ends up killing Ushikawa without leaving any marks or indications of how it was done. Tamaru then phones Ushikawa's contact at Sagikake and has them remove the detective's body from the apartment building. Aomame and Tengo eventually find each other via Ushikawa's investigation and with Tamaru's help. They were once childhood classmates, though they had no relationship outside of a single classroom moment where Aomame tightly grasped Tengo's hand when no other children were around. That moment signified a turning point in both Aomame's and Tengo's lives, and they retained a fundamental love for each other despite all the time that had passed. After 20 years, Aomame and Tengo meet again, both pursued by Ushikawa and Sakigake. They manage to make it out of the strange world of "1Q84", which has two visible moons, into a new reality that they assume is their original world, though there are small indications that it is not. The novel ends with them standing in a hotel room, holding hands, looking at the one bright moon in the sky.