It's a very good place to start. It's very accessible, and the story itself is very absorbing. Some of his earlier novels are more an acquired taste, this one really grabs you fast (by the first chapter you can tell you're in for quite a ride: the woman, dressed like a business woman in a short skirt and with high heels is caught in a cab on the highway in a traffic jam. She recognizes after a few seconds a classical piece on the radio she's pretty sure she used to know nothing about. The conversation with the driver gets weirder and weirder. She needs to be downtown for an appointment soon, he tells her she needs to get out, take the earthquake emergency staircase (which is fenced - it's forbidden to use it) and go down it hundreds of meters, in high wind, to reach the other highway below and take the train to downtown. He tells her than when someone does something like this, she shouldn't be surprised if it feels like she's in a new world afterward.. Weird. So there she goes, and to climb the fence this proper-looking japanese businesswoman (with the unfortunate name of Green Bean) removes her shoes, lifts her skirt up her hips - deciding to totally ignore all the people in the cars around watching her, and she goes down... And with Murakami, you can really see all this happening before your eyes (he has a peculiar style of description, very light and economical, but very evocative). And that's really just how it begins - you get hooked really fast )

It's the Dutch translation that came out so early again? It's kind of usual, no? I suspect it's got to do with the fact many Dutch readers won't wait and pick it up in another language they can read if it's not coming out early enough in Dutch. This isn't too frequent in France, but it happens a lot in Québec (enough so that if the French publisher dithers too long to release the translation, the French bookstores here will end up offering the book in English in fear they'll lose those sales to the English bookstores).

The French translation came out only a few months ago (mid summer) and the last book is announced for March. Two years is a very long time for a Murakami to show up in France (they usually get translated about six to 9 months after the Japanese release). I bet this has something to do with the fact his French publishing deals were renegotiated in 2010 and Belfond released new, slighty revised editions (by the same translator) who did IQ84) of several of his older novels through 2010 and 2011. So I guess she was busy. IQ84 took people a bit by surprise too. I have no idea how the third one stands (but it sounds like the second book offers some sort of ending), but I know no one knew after the second one came out that there was a third one coming. It appeared all of a sudden in Japan, without much prior publicity (and in interviews Murakami is not ruling out a fourth book with the same duo of characters might eventually come out).

There was some sort of a FU with the English translation. When they saw the massive success of the books in Japan (it's the all time best selling Japanese novel) and the demand for it in the US, the publishers had the two different translators who had translated some of his novels in English before work in parralel to speed things up (they took each one of two POV characters, as I understand). They ended up with various discrepancies and needed to wait for Murakami (who lived in the US for many years) to be available to help them revise their respective work and smooth it all out. It's really not so surprising when you read the books, they are full of subtle details that need to match between the two storylines. That's why it got delayed.