The suicide of a young couple on a secluded and historically famous Japanese beach uncovers a nation-wide crime network

Points and Lines

Matsumoto, Seichō

Literature & Fiction

Kodansha USA Inc

In a police procedural by Japan's foremost master of mystery, Inspector Imanishi Eitaro, a typically Japanese detective fond of gardening and haiku, must follow a killer's trail across the social strata of Japan.

Inspector Imanishi Investigates (English and Japanese Edition)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Soho Pr Inc

In the wee hours of a 1960s Tokyo morning, a dead body is found under the rails of a train, and the victim's face is so badly damaged that police have a hard time figuring out the victim’s identity. Only two clues surface: an old man, overheard talking in a distinctive accent to a young man, and the word “kameda.” Inspector Imanishi leaves his beloved bonsai and his haiku and goes off to investigate—and runs up against a blank wall. Months pass in fruitless questioning, in following up leads, until the case is closed, unsolved. But Imanishi is dissatisfied, and a series of coincidences lead him back to the case. Why did a young woman scatter pieces of white paper out of the window of a train? Why did a bar girl leave for home right after Imanishi spoke to her? Why did an actor, on the verge of telling Imanishi something important, drop dead of a heart attack? What can a group of nouveau young artists possibly have to do with the murder of a quiet and “saintly” provincial old ex-policemen? Inspector Imanishi investigates.

Inspector Imanishi Investigates (Soho Crime)

Genre Fiction

Soho Crime

"A master crime writer . . . Seicho Matsumoto's thrillers dissect Japanese society."The New York Times Book Review "A stellar psychological thriller with a surprising and immensely satisfying resolution that flows naturally from the book’s complex characterizations. Readers will agree that Matsumoto (19091992) deserves his reputation as Japan’s Georges Simenon.-Publishers Weekly 
While on a business trip to Kobe, Tsuneo Asai receives the news that his wife Eiko has died of a heart attack. Eiko had a heart condition so the news of her death wasn’t totally unexpected. But the circumstances of her demise left Tsuneo, a softly-spoken government bureaucrat, perplexed. How did it come about that his wifewho was shy and withdrawn, and only left their house twice a week to go to haiku meetingsended up dead in a small shop in a shady Tokyo neighborhood? When Tsuneo goes to apologize to the boutique owner for the trouble caused by his wife’s death he discovers the villa Tachibana near by, a house known to be a meeting place for secret lovers. As he digs deeper into his wife's recent past, he must eventually conclude that she led a double life... 
Seicho Matsumoto was Japan's most successful thriller writer. His first detective novel, Points and Lines, sold over a million copies in Japan. Vessel of Sand, published in English as Inspector Imanishi Investigates in 1989, sold over four million copies and became a movie box-office hit.

A Quiet Place

Bitter Lemon Press

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. 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.

Point Zero

When Kiriko Yanagida first came to Otsuka's law offices, she had only a familial conviction of her brother's innocence despite his confessing to the murder. To the high-profile (and high priced) lawyer Otsuka, this small-town girl's belief was nothing more than naive hope, so he sent her away, advising her to find a local lawyer or something. Now, Kiriko plots to avenge her brother -- entirely pro bono.

Pro Bono

Vertical

TOKYO EXPRESS

PICQUIER

Matsumoto Seichō kamera kikō (Japanese Edition)

Reference

Foreign Language Study & Reference

Shinchosha

In the world of mystery fiction, the perfect crime remains very much an elusive ideal. Whether betrayed by a minor oversight or exposed by the dogged brilliance of a master sleuth, criminals are faced with the inevitable conclusion that crime does not pay This theme is echoed in these six stories by Japan's foremost detective writer, Seicho Matsumoto, as he offers us fresh glimpses into the workings of the criminal mind. What fascinates Matsumoto is not only the motives for a crime but the psychological factors that lead to it. Add to this an element of fate that can thwart the most meticulous planning and you have tales powerful in their suspense. Ironically enough, it is often the criminal himself who, by his very cautiousness, slips the noose around his own neck. 
These stories--"The Accomplice," "The Face," "The Serial," "Beyond All Suspicion," "The Voice," and "The Woman Who Wrote Haiku"--are masterpieces of dramatic setting and situational suspense. They are all the more absorbing because they concern ordinary people leading humdrum lives--a switchboard operator, a bank clerk, a bar hostess. Yet each is thrown by fate into a chance encounter with crime and violent death. As the characters reel about in a maelstrom of their own making, the reader finds himself pulled in, too, and is only released at the very last line.

The Voice and Other Stories (Japanese Mystery Writers)

History & Criticism

Kodansha Amer Inc

"As an anthologist, Ellery Queen is without peer, his taste unequalled. As a bibliographer and a collector of the detective short story, Queen is, again, a historical personage. Indeed, Ellery Queen clearly is, after Poe, the most important American in mystery fiction." -- Otto Penzler, from Detectionary: A Biographical Dictionary of Leading Characters in Mystery Fiction\nA newspaper receives a letter from a man claiming to have been murdered--it's impossible but the truth is not so simple; five strangers who share the same initials are invited to spend the night in a luxury hotel but one of them is a murderer.\nThe 12 stories in this book will lead you through dramatic twists and unexpected turns. The legendary Ellery Queen selected these stories by award-winning Japanese authors from among many thousands published in postwar Japan. Each story features an unusual crime and a complex set of clues investigated by a diverse and colorful cast of characters that includes a calculating inspector, a tenacious journalist, and a determined scientist.\nThe thrilling stories in this volume include: "Perfectly Lovely Ladies" by Kawabata Award winner Yasutaka Tsutsui: Eight women fight the high cost of living using violent means but will they get away with murder? "The Cooperative Defendant" by Akutagawa Prize winner Seicho Matsumoto: After a man confesses to a killing, he retracts his confession and accuses the detectives of coercion. But who is right? "Devil of a Boy" by Edogawa Rampo Prize winner Seiichi Morimura: A schoolboy may still be very young but he is as sinister as the most hardened of criminals…or is someone else involved? "The Kindly Blackmailer" by Mystery Writers of Japan Award winner Kyotaro Nishimura: A man involved in a fatal hit-and-run is blackmailed by a mysterious witness. Who is this enigmatic stranger? 
Ellery Queen's Japanese Mystery Stories is a collection that is sure to delight lovers of great detective and crime fiction. The book features a new foreword by Japanese detective fiction expert Satoru Saito which places the stories within the context of Japanese society and modern Japanese literature.

Ellery Queen's Japanese Mystery Stories: From Japan's Greatest Detective & Crime Writers

TSUTSUI, Yasutaka

United States

Tuttle+publishing

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