The story follows the fortunes of two remarkable characters. Kafka Tamura runs away from home at fifteen, under the shadow of his father's dark prophecy. The ageing Nakata, tracker of lost cats. who never recovered from a bizarre child- hood accident, finds his pleasantly simplified life suddenly turned upside down. Their parallel odysseys - as mysterious to them as they are to the reader - are enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerising dramas. Cats converse with people; fish tumble in storms from the sky; a ghostlike pimp deploys a Hegel-spouting girl of the night; a forest harbours soldiers apparently un-aged since WWII. There is a savage killing, but the identity of both victim and killer is a riddle. Murakami's new novel is at once a classic tale of quest, but it is also a bold exploration of mythic and contemporary taboos, of patricide, of mother-love, of sister-love. Above all it is an entertainment of a very high order.