Combining the seductions of "Norwegian Wood" with the complex mysteries of "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, " here is Murakami at his most intriguing, mystifying, and satisfying. In an urbane Japan of jazz bars, Jack Kerouac, and the Beatles, a college student, falls in love with Summire. But her devotion to an untidy writerly life precludes any personal commitments.
Part romance, part detective story, Sputnik Sweetheart tells the story of a tangled triangle of uniquely unrequited love.

K is madly in love with his best friend, Sumire, but her devotion to a writerly life precludes her from any personal commitments. At least, that is, until she meets an older woman to whom she finds herself irresistibly drawn. When Sumire disappears from an island off the coast of Greece, K is solicited to join the search party--and finds himself drawn back into her world and beset by ominous visions. Subtle and haunting, Sputnik Sweetheart is a profound meditation on human longing.