Inspector Imanishi Investigates

A wonderful book, exquisitley translated. The year is 1960 and we are in both Tokyo and small town Japan. The war is over, but memories linger. Japan is improving economically but we are yet to see the transformations of the 1970s and 1980s. New cultural ideas are starting to replace old certainties

And into this steps Inspector Imanishi. Careful, methodical, good at his job, polite and keenly aware of his status, he is in many ways an ideal policeman - for that place and time. It is worth noting that in the 1960s and still today, the vast majority of criminal cases in Japan are solved via confession. Imanishi expects to get to the bottom of his case through identifying the right suspec

But to start with, he can't even identify the body. show more A man has been beaten beyond recognition and left underneath a train. He is not local - noone is missing. No one knows anything about him, other than that he was drinking in a bar with a younger man. All Imanishi has to go on his a scrap of overheard conversation; the name Kamada and a distinctive regional accent

From these fragments Imanishi has to build a case; and his methodical yet meandering progress, is contrasted with the modern, incomprehensible culture of the new generation Nouveau Group, and the old conservative culture of rural and regional Japan. Class and status mean everything. Women are treated with casual disrespect and have little agency; some appalling things happen to female characters in this novel, to noone's great surprise. All in all, it perfectly captures a moment in time.

Highly recommended. Minus half a star because I am not sure I quite believe in the murder method, ingenious as it is. show less

I don't know how to explain how much I loved this book. I picked it up on a whim (a Japanese actor I like is in the 2011 remake/2 ep special based on the novel) and ended up falling in love with the writing, the story and the characters. There's something about Seicho Matsumoto that I find absolutely endearing and his two main characters (Imanishi and Yoshimura) are utterly charming. I'm not sure why I feel this way, this is a murder mystery, after all. But it was one of the best I've ever read. It's not necessarily a moving/emotionally charged novel, but I was gripped from the moment I got it, until the extremely satisfying conclusion. I did hazard a few guesses as to the identity of the murderer and eventually figured it, but not too show more much before Imanishi put the pieces together). I really hope there are more English translations of Seicho Matsumoto's books to come, because I want to read them all. show less

This is my idea of Japanese noir. Slow pace with lots of daily mundanities, lots of potential leads that don't pan out, lots of thinking and reading the newspapers or magazines. Time passes very suddenly in the space of a line. Sometimes the psychology of the crime can be very raw and extra messed up, but the dimly-lit homey public spaces (like Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows) and countryside farmhouses (like in Old Enough!) ground me enough. I can read a few more books of Imanishi just reading magazines for clues and travelling on trains to explore wild leads.

Published and set in the 1960s, this procedural detective novel has a convoluted plot that is only fully revealed at the end and provides an insight into Japanese life at that time.

A body turns up on a railway line, badly beaten with the police unable to identify who it is. Inspector Imanishi and a team search up and down the line in Tokyo based on snippets of conversation overheard between the man found dead and someone else. Not a lot to go on, with this being one of the features of the plot: an accent and a place. Nothing is found and so the detectives move on to other work but Imanishi and a younger colleague, Yoshimura, continue to work on the case inbetween other work and in their own time. This relationship illustrates the hard show more working detective and an eager, younger colleague willing to learn from one considered to be very good.

The case takes Ishimanshi to many places where we are also introduced to their specialities, a beautifully made abacus from Unshu or a lacquer hair clip for his wife from Shimane but sometimes these are all he brings back. The book is very good at showing us the slow, painstaking process of finding out information - letter writing to other prefectures, overnight trains and a very understanding wife.

The relationship between Imanishi and his wife is one that sits a little uncomfortably today as she waits at home to take off his coat and provide something to eat at all times of the day and night whilst he is a little surly. He even uses her savings to travel to Shimane all the while keeping Yoshimura up to date with his findings.

Introduced at an early stage is the Nouveau Group, architects, composers, poets and critics who are avant garde and the 'in people' photographed and included in magazines and newspapers. They are woven into the plot and show us some of the hypocrisy of the times - being famous and not wanting people to know where you have come from, being avant garde but marrying into money, having a hostess as a secret girlfriend. All speak of a rigid society where class is important as is ancestry.

Slowly, slowly, Imanishi makes connections between seemingly unconnected events and actions and the murderer is finally revealed although I would defy any reader to work out who it was with the clues we are provided. The novel shows us Japanese society after the war when there is great change afoot along with a detective who is a hardworking and loyal. This is not typically how detectives today are portrayed and so it is refreshing to read about one who is. It is also a reflection on the traditional Japanese view of how success is achieved.

Whilst I found the style of writing a little formal or stilted, the book was an engaging read. show less

Cumulative effects work wonderfully in this novel. And not just the amassing of clues and facts you would expect for a crime thriller such as this. It also applies to the atmosphere, the period of Japan during the early 1960s, which is why I was interested in Inspector Imanishi Investigates in the first place.

I looked into this story because I wanted something out of time and place, whose environment would be nostalgic yet exotic. Tokyo and Japan in 1961 fit the bill perfectly. At first I was disappointed. There didn't seem to be much exotic about it at all. Just a drab, colorless train yard in a big city that, if anything, seemed reflective of American hard-boiled thrillers. Then, things began to change. Slightly. The environs of Tokyo show more gave way to more descriptive settings in the mountains and countryside. And the cityscape became more interesting. All of a sudden, the novel seemed to bring to life the transition Japan was undergoing at the time. Just a few years later, in 1964, the Tokyo Olympics would herald modern postwar Japan's re-emergence as a major economic and political power. That sense of unveiling is here, too, in Inspector Imanishi Investigates.

The bleak Tokyo landscape begins to acquire a unique character. Much like Imanishi himself, whose desperate crowded bonsai garden seeks to maintain a connection with the past, so does the new Tokyo, with its freshly sprouting apartment buildings barely coexist with the diminishing number of old prewar houses, literally casting them into shadows. Imanishi, his colleagues, and his family, nonetheless, have come to terms with the times. Amidst the gargantuan and at times inhospitable and inhuman nature of all the "Newness," the warrens of teahouses, noodle shops, and old stores provide a nest for tradition.

By chance, I happened to be reading The Pillow Book while also reading Inspector Imanishi Investigates. The courtly etiquette and mannerisms of that 1000 year-old book still linger in Inspector Imanishi, with the polished rituals of letter writing, the messaging through haiku, and even the symbols of old artisan craftsmanship as exemplified through the abacus maker and the handmade lacquered specialties. All the more poignant it is made to seem when Imanishi acknowledges towards the end that it is time to make way for a younger generation.

By the end, then, the novel has provided a unique and, for the Western reader, exotic look at a Japan quickly succumbing to the modern and the new, although Imanishi has put it off for just a while yet. That is what made it so enjoyable for me. Not to mention that the crime story itself is a puzzle piece masterfully brought together at book's end. I'll be reading more of Matsumoto's work soon. show less

Miso and Murder

"The murderer had viciously battered the victim's face after death, indicating that the criminal was someone who hated the victim a great deal, or that the murderer had intended to destroy the face totally in order to prevent identification of the body. The investigation team concluded the crime had not been motivated by robbery but was a murder committed by an acquaintance of the victim acting out of hatred, perhaps a crime of passion." (p. 5)

With little to go on, other than a faceless corpse, Inspector Imanishi sets out to find a murderer. The clues are scarce, dead ends abound, yet the inspector works on. In some ways he reminded me of the Japanese version of Columbo, all rumpled trench coat and dogged patience. Except show more Imanishi wears a kimono, at least at home. He also collects miniature bonsai trees, eats miso soup and rice for breakfast, writes haikus and spends a lot of time reclining on a tatami mat, smoking cigarettes and pondering the case.

Several times I almost gave up on this book - too many strange names: train stations, prefectures, and people. Too many quiet moments. Too little drama. But page by page, it began to grow on me. I liked the way Imanishi poured green tea over his rice before he ate it. I liked the way his wife, Yoshiko, fussed over him and how he followed hunch after hunch until he solved the case.

Imanishi isn't a man given to emotion. He is quiet, determined and thorough. His search for the killer is less a roller coaster ride, and more a game of soduku - of trying different things until something fits then moving to the next step.

Seicho Matsumoto didn't start writing until he was in his forties. He went on to write 450 novels before he died at age 83. On the back of the 1989 version of this book (originally published in 1961) is a photo of the author; gray hair scraped back and hanging below his ears, horn-rimmed glasses, white shirt, thin black tie and an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. He has the stony expression and creased face of someone who's pulled a few too many all-nighters.

I love this guy.

I ended up loving this book.

I wish more of his books were in print. Amazon is releasing a title in May called Pro Bono. I will definitely be ordering a copy. show less

The translation is clunky. The writing doesn't flow well. But the story is very good. I liked the slower pace and the Japanese politeness in this unusual police procedural. I enjoyed the world and it felt very real. I did like it a lot despite its shortcomings.