Interesting premise for a haunted house book: an apartment building in 1980s Tokyo. It overlooks a graveyard, temple and crematorium which repels a lot of would-be residents even while to me it sounds like a great setting! I liked the family at the center of the story--Masao, Teppei and their daughter Tamao, five. Plus a finch and a brave little dog. The Kano's family is haunted non-supernaturally by their memory of Teppei's first wife who committed suicide upon having discovered his affair with Masao, but they've stayed together and have a pretty solid relationship, On one level Teppei is a selfish jerk, but as a husband and father he's actually far more likable and dependable than a lot of husbands in haunted house stories.

It's unclear exactly what is haunting the apartment building. It seems to have something to do with the underground passageway dug out for an underground shopping arcade that was abandoned under mysterious circumstances. One by one the neighbors move out until it's just the Kanos and their in-laws waiting and waiting for their own moving van...

I wouldn't say the book ever really creeped me out, but I will certainly never move into a building where you have to use an elevator to get to the basement! (To be fair, I don't know if I'd have wanted to do that anyway but cemetery view: no problem.