Like her great-grandmother before her, Libby Snow is obsessed with Ullaness, a Scottish Island and the Viking Maiden Ulla whose legend gave the island its name.

Rodri Sturrock lives at Sturrock House, acting as his brother Hector’s agent regarding the upcoming excavation. In addition to Woman in the Dunes, in the West she is best known for The Face of Another (1966, also directed by Teshigahara) and Ozu's An Autumn Afternoon (1962).Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu, known to Western listeners predominantly as the man behind the music in such iconic movies as Woman in the Dunes and Ran, was an acclaimed classical composer and music theorist well before he became one of his country’s most reliably brilliant scorers of film. Maine has the uncanny ability to give such unique cues to a conversation over tea, making the characters jump off the page and into your heart. Although I enjoyed the latter two books, WOMEN OF THE DUNES is beyond brilliant from beginning to end.

In the end, this is an interesting tale of betrayal, murder, love, and redemption, shrouded in a cozy, easy-to-read, comforting historical mystery. There is clearly a parallel being drawn to the bugs being buried in the sand as well as struggling futilely in test tubes earlier in the movie.

One thing that struck me, is that most of the story happens either inside or right outside the woman’s abode, like it could have been engineered for the stage.