Matsumoto, Seicho / Heal Kawai, Louise
A triumph by Seicho Matsumoto, the master of Japanese mystery writing. A beautifully written crime novel that takes on the taboo of Japanese prostitution catering to GIs during the American post-war occupation.
First published in Japanese in 1959, the novel abandoned the template of closed-room mysteries so popular in pre-war Japan to embrace social criticism.
In a radical departure from tradition, the novel has a female protagonist, a housewife seeking to find her missing husband. Respectful of the proprieties expected of a Japanese woman of the time, but stubborn, intrepid and a naturally intuitive sleuth.
Tokyo, 1958.Teiko marries Kenichi Uhara, ten years her senior, an advertising man recommended by a go-between. After a four-day honeymoon, Kenichi vanishes. Teiko travels to the coastal and snow-bound city of Kanazawa, where Kenichi was last seen, to investigate his disappearance. When Kenichi’s brother comes to help her, he is murdered, poisoned in his hotel room.
Soon, Teiko discovers that her husband’s disappearance is tied up with the so-called “pan-pan girls”, women who worked as prostitutes catering to American GIs after the war. Now, ten years later, as the country is recovering, there are those who are willing to take extreme measures to hide that past.
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