NEW STUFF: Strange Pictures - Uketsu

I guess I have a problem with the "new honkaku" writers coming out of Japan.  I've always enjoyed the traditional Japanese mystery writers like Shoji Shimada when quite by chance decades ago I stumbled across The Tokyo Zodiac Murders. After reading that book I sought out all his books translated in English. Then when I serendipitously found a copy of The Inugami Clan by Seishi Yokomizo (long before Pushkin Vertigo translated/published his books) my interest was renewed.  And yet when I sampled some of the more recent Japanese writers I was always bothered by the emphasis on puzzles and the utter lack of real characters. One in particular was so poorly written with flimsy characters (The Moai Island Puzzle) I couldn't finish it and gave up after only three chapters. Like many of the mystery novels by French mystery writers (Jean Toussaint-Samat and Noël Vindry in particular) and I grew to dislike plots where characters were puppets in service of contrived incidents that all served the overarching puzzle structure. I enjoy the puzzle aspect of traditional Western mystery novels as anyone who reads my reviews knows, but I don't want the book and story to exist solely for the puzzles. Which of course brings me to today's book... 

Strange Pictures is a new book by Uketsu, a mysterious YouTube figure who writes gimmicky mysteries online and insists on dressing in an all black costume and wearing a weird mask like a villain tiptoeing out of a French silent movie. The gimmick in Uketsu's mystery stories is the use of puzzles in the form of ambiguous or encoded drawings and sketches. Strange Pictures is divided into four stories that focus on nine different drawings. Ultimately, the stories are interconnected through the characters and their actions.  The premise is certainly promising and tempting enough that I succumbed to the hype. But I was mostly underwhelmed.

 

The book opens with a foreword that sets the reader up for all that will follow. Tomiko Hagio, a "teaching psychologist", presents a simple child's drawing (see above) to her university students and proceeds to explain the hidden meaning in the picture.  It all smacks of the kind of ersatz psychology I despised in the early Gladys Mitchell mystery novels in which Mrs. Bradley pontificates on the psychology of the characters based on the most flimsy of "evidence" drawn from behavior or speech. I'll spare you Dr. Hagio's explanation of the bird in the tree and the pointy ends of the spear like branches in the tree.   But this is the sort of "solution" the reader will have to devise if he is to match wits with the "drawing detectives" in the various stories.

The first artistic puzzle related to a woman giving birth to her first child is actually rather ingenious because it relies on genuine out-of-the-box thinking in dealing with two dimensional drawings. I'll only add that those of you who live in the digital world and spend many more hours online than I do will probably catch on sooner than I did. One thing you mustn't do with this book is page through before you read. The solutions to these picture puzzles are blatantly illustrated. A few surprises were ruined when I lost my place, forgetting to put my bookmark in where I left off, then quickly flipped through the book looking for the correct page. In paging through the book I saw flashes of several altered pictures. Caveat lector!

The cleverest part of this book was the way Uketsu connects the various stories. This was really the only reason I kept reading. Eventually one character emerges from the background (originally an "invisible" role), becomes a supporting character, and then is oddly cast as the primary antagonist of the piece. The multi-layering of three seemingly separate stories and how the link up is ingeniously done and there are a handful of surprises that I truly enjoyed. But...

The further the story delves into the interconnection Uketsu begins to slather on shocking developments that escalate from melodrama to histrionics to absurdity. I can admire noir plots with their amoral characters and base motives, but these new writers don't seem to understand what works in noir is an understanding of human nature and not evil for evil's sake, or an abundance of cruelty and over-the-top gruesome violence to shock and repulse. At times I felt the evil characters were so absurd it became laughable. For instance, in the final section a man blackmails a woman into having sex with him all because he wants to traumatize the woman's child and humiliate her simultaneously. He arranges one night of sex so that the child wakes up unexpectedly and witnesses the horrible rape. Ugh!

The central story "The Art Teacher's Final Drawing" deals with an unsolved murder dating back to 1992. An art teacher who went camping in the mountains is found stabbed and beaten to death. Three years later a young reporter discusses the case with an editor who wrote the initial newspaper stories on the murder. The young reporter decides to recreate the murder victim's trip while focusing on a strange sketch found on the victim.  It's a primitively drawn landscape (at right), one the art teacher enjoyed drawing repeatedly on his many trips to the same mountain. The reason for the sketch and how it was drawn seems clever and it's related to the horribly gruesome method of murder, described in a perverse plot twist and surprise reveal of the teacher's killer. But I found it all hard to swallow no matter how much the characters explain themselves and try to justify their unreal and absurd actions. The bizarre murder method in "The Art Teacher's Final Drawing" exists solely for the drawing to exist. In the end the whole book is constructed so that all the behaviors and puzzles can live neatly within one another like those matryoshka dolls.

I grew impatient with Uketsu's insistence on having characters engage in inner monologues where they tell us exactly what they are feeling and justify all their unbelievable actions (including multiple murder on the part of the primary antagonist). Too much "I'm feeling like this" and "I want this" and "I will kill him because I want this" kind of monologues written in simplistic declarative sentences. In fact the entire book is rather simply written. I don't blame the translator Jim Rion. He did an admirable job of translating one of the Yokomizo books for Pushkin's Vertigo imprint (The Devil's Flute Murder) and I wish he had done more of them rather than Bryan Karetnyk. Also Rion did an excellent job with Kthulhu Reich (2019) by Asamatsu Ken, a short story collection written in homage to Lovecraftian horror. Rion captured the flavor of English language pulp magazine writing style in translating those stories. I know he has a talent at translating. It must be that the original Japanese is far from complex. Strange Pictures at times reads like the work of a teenager with its lack of sophisticated understanding of human nature and the contrived machinations of puppet characters who commit amoral acts and engage in cruel violence.

Another Uketsu creation called Strange Houses is due out in the summer, early June according to the Harper Via website. And it's much shorter at only 144 pages. But even being less than half the length of Strange Pictures I may wait to take it out of the library this time.

A Year in Review (part 2)

Here is the continuation of my 2024 reading summation.  In looking over my reading log I see a predominance of newly translated Japanese detective novels, a small pile of contemporary ghost and horror novels, and sadly very few vintage mysteries. And away we go!

JULY:  I read nothing but new books this month or books that were translated into English for the first time.  The highlight this month that can be deemed vintage was surely the tour de force The Noh Mask Murder - Akimtsu Takagi (1951, new English translation 2024).  Initially I thought this tricky, rule breaking detective novel to be only run-of-the-mill. The murders were bizarre as expected but like many Japanese mystery novels is was another in a long line of decimated family murder plots.  The meta-fiction aspect (narrator is a writer and manuscripts make up much of the story) was intriguing at times, but I was underwhelmed for most of the book. Then, around the final third of the book I was literally gasping. I was utterly unprepared for the finale. Interested if anyone else has read this one.

AUGUST:  More Japanese novels!  I read two Seishi Yokomizo books featuring his eccentric detective Kosuke Kindaichi.  The Village of Eight Graves (orig 1950s, transl 2021) was less a mystery than it was a family saga novel and protracted thriller that barely passes my satisfaction rating. That it was first serialized is very apparent and I disliked that the translator hadn't the courage to remove lengthy recap passages. Overloaded with incident and extraneous characters and nothing really special.  The Little Sparrow Murders (orig 1971, transl 2024) was only slightly more of an improvement. Still another decimated family mystery plot but we get three families being attacked this time. I got a bit frustrated trying to keep them all separated in my head. Applause for Vertigo for continuing to include the vital (at least for me) cast of character list at the front of  the book.

SEPTEMBER:  Derry Down Death - Avon Curry (1960) Years ago I read and reviewed on this blog a serial killer thriller by Avon Curry (aka Jean Bowden) that while entertaining and well plotted contained an embarrassment of 1970s gay stereotypes and lots of misinformation or --more than likely-- plain ignorance. I was determined to give Bowden another chance in her "Avon  Curry" guise. If you want to try her out as a mystery writer, then Derry Down Death is definitely the book to read.  It was superior on all levels.  The plot involves the death of a musicologist who collects song lyrics and melodies of folk songs. His questions about one tune, and its lyrics in particular, seem to have led to his death. Was it murder or an accident?  And if murder, why would anyone be killed over a song? Utterly fascinating Derry Down Death is engagingly written with colorful, intelligent characters and a corker of a plot. It made my Top 10 for books I read in 2024.

OCTOBER:  The Gauntlet of Alceste - Hopkins Moorhouse (1921)  While this was the only vintage mystery I read this month it is far from the best book read in October.  But it's worth mentioning for the very forgotten detective who belongs to the Inductive Detectives of the early 20th century and for the Canadian writer also most likely forgotten. However, the book takes place in New York City rather than Canada which was a bit disappointing. The detection is minimal as our hero tries to locate a stolen antique jeweled gauntlet.  By the midpoint it devolves into a Master Criminal plot that seems inspired by French detective and sensation fiction of the late 19th/early 20th century.  The detective, Addison Kent, appears in only two books. I bought the sequel The Golden Scarab (1926) and will review that one later this year. No doubt an antique jewel theft is involved.

NOVEMBER:  Zero vintage novels read!  I was addicted to watching movies online this month and read very little. Of the three contemporary novels I read in November -- The Hitchcock Hotel, The Silver Bone (both 2024) and Rouge  (2023)  -- it was most assuredly The Silver Bone by Andrei Kurkov that stood out.  In 1919 during one of the many Ukrainian revolutions the protagonist Samson Kolechko, an engineering student, is unexpectedly recruited to the police force and finds himself engrossed in multiple mysteries involving the skeletal remains of the title and a strangely tailored suit with inhuman proportions. He solves all mysteries while doing his best to fend off corrupt soldiers who have commandeered his home. If you like offbeat detective novels with a bit of fascinating history thrown in the mix look no further.  It's a quick read and well translated by Boris Dralyuk, who makes mention of his close friendship with the writer in an afterword.

DECEMBER:  I read only one vintage mystery, The Night of Fear - Moray Dalton (1931).  Selected only because it takes place at Christmas it was a lightweight mystery of the wrongfully-accused-man-on-trial school. Didn't know the bulk of the book would be a courtroom thriller. Story concerns a stabbing during a game of hide & seek at a Christmas house party.  Loathsome mystery writer, the victim, is also a blackmailer. Meh. To be honest I remember nothing of the story and took no notes. I had to read the blurb on the back and flip through the final pages to recall anything about the story. I know Curt Evans was responsible for getting all her books reprinted, but most of these merely pass the time and don't linger in the imagination. I did, however, truly enjoy the weirdness in Death in the Forest which I read in 2023. I'd recommend that Moray Dalton novel for its creepy plot with supernatural overtones and the extremely bizarre ending.

FFB: Shimada & Yokomizo: A Showdown of Narrative Styles

Two books that were eligible for Best Vintage Mystery Reprint of the Year were the first English translations of decades old Japanese mystery novel. I read both in December and while I perhaps would’ve nominated one of them (but not both) someone else beat me to the one worthy of the award. Each is an example of fantastical plotting techniques that make Japanese detective fiction both admirable and infuriating to a diehard fan.

First let me tackle Murder in the Crooked House (1982) by Soji Shimada. Shimada wrote the brazenly audacious The Tokyo Zodiac Murders which I read decades ago long before it was reprinted. It’s a perfect example of the new vein or “orthodox” Japanese murder mysteries that incorporate puzzles into detective novels. And in this case the word incorporate is literal.

But these puzzles are not baffling aspects of the case they are the entire reason the book and story exists. To the Japanese mystery writer and those who devour this very specific type of detective novel a puzzle is a puzzle is a puzzle. Nothing else really matters. The solution to The Tokyo Zodiac Murders is in fact something I came across as a teenager in a puzzle book which has nothing to do with killing or murder. It is a simple tangram puzzle. What Shimada does is both ingenious and utterly perverse in how he adapts the puzzle as part of his solution to his murder mystery.

Similarly, Murder in the Crooked House is nothing but a puzzle. While not inspired by a tangram the plot does incorporate a ridiculous idea – that someone would construct an entire house in order to obtain murderous revenge. The reader must not only suspend disbelief and enter a wholly fantastic universe, but must accept that someone would find it necessary to spend thousands of dollars (or yen, I guess) and well as investing several years of their life in carrying out this vigilante style retribution for a decades old past wrong.

Admittedly, the revenge plot that is years in the making is a timeworn detective novel motif. This is not what I take exception to. In mystery novels like The Tragedy of X and Thirteen Women, where a revenge plot may have been the product of monomania and taken years to plan and reach fruition the murder methods are fairly simple. It is the motive that is unknown to the reader and detectives. This is the puzzle that must be worked out.

And granted there is an entire subgenre of detective novels where the murder method is baffling to the police and this creates much of the gameplay, so to speak, as the reader tries to match wits with the detective in the story. Both are trying to figure out not so much the whodunnit aspect of the crime but the howdunnit.

In both examples the puzzle is an aspect of the crime or crimes. It does not encompass the entirety of the story, it is not the raison d’être. Murder in the Crooked House is not really a detective novel at all. It is a series of puzzles with one overarching puzzle that serves as the pièce de résistance. This is not what detective fiction is about; it is an unfortunate consequence of stressing, practically worshipping, form over substance. In the case of Murder in the Crooked House form, in all its contexts, is everything -- the architecture of the fictional house becomes the architecture of the plot. Once the reader is presented with the preposterous reasoning of the murderer and the full outline of the various murder methods, however, the house's true purpose is revealed and as a direct result, ironically, the story simply collapses. There is no satisfaction in having arrived at the end and discovering that the characters were puppets, the motive was cliché, and the house itself was one gigantic murder method dying to carry out its landlord’s diabolical wishes.

As some wise guy might say in an American pulp novel when presented with one of these absurd impossible crimes: “Pulling a trigger would’ve been faster and helluva lot easier.”

On the other hand a Japanese detective novel can present us with a puzzling murder, done in a bizarre manner and still be entertaining to read, fun to match wits with the detective, and leave the reader with a the satisfying feeling of having read a true novel populated with complex people with human emotions and understandably sound motives. The crimes may be bizarre but there is an inherent logic about why they appear bizarre or why the method had to be baroquely constructed. This is the success of The Honjin Murders (1948), a thoroughly Japanese mystery steeped in the culture and mores of pre-WW2 era Japan with characters who behave according to both their own personal code of honor as well as Japanese custom.

The added bonus is that the book is a homage to the entire detective novel genre with one character an avowed mystery novel collector and reader of the “classics”. Our mystery writer narrator (the voice of Yokomizo himself I am assuming) also reminds us of his own knowledge of Western novels like The Red House Mystery and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

This is a genuine detective novel with interesting characters, while some like the matriarch Iwoko are eventually consigned to the background and the elder daughter is entirely absent from the plot, there is never any doubt that we care about the fate of the Ichiyangi family. Kosuke Kindaichi makes his debut in The Honjin Murders shining in genius-like form as he figures out just how the newlyweds were killed in the locked room on their wedding night and who did the deed. Along the way are the added multiple mysteries of what was found in a cat’s grave, a gruesome discovery in a charcoal kiln, koto strings being plucked by invisible hands, and a katana sword found embedded in the snow-covered ground with no footprints surrounding the site.

Coincidentally, we are treated to another story in which architecture is featured in the plot. The history of the honjin, the specific architecture of an annexe house (see plan at left), the importance of sliding shutters and tatami mats and folding screens are all spelled out in fascinating detail. In truth none of this is necessary to understand how the story unfolds, why the murders took place or why the method was so complex. What is important here is the search for truth not merely the solution of puzzles. What Yokomizo does so skillfully and artfully is tell us a story of a family plagued with secrets and slowly reveals this to us.

As a debut novel The Honjin Murders is not without flaws. There is an odd Victorian Gentle Reader touch in the narrative. Some of the plot revelations are misplaced and lessen the suspense and overall effectiveness as a novel. But there is much at stake in this story and there is poignancy as well as surprise in the finale.

It should be noted that Yokomizo tells his complex and affecting story in under 200 pages while Shimada’s turgid book comes to 350 pages full of puzzles but not much mystery. Narrative economy is more attractive and often more artful.

Both books are available from Pushkin Vertigo (here and here) and both are translated by the gifted Louise Heal Kawai who does an admirable job of blending contemporary styled dialogue into the Japanese flavor of the narrative sections. In the case of The Honjin Murders much of the narration often reads like miniature history lessons and Kawai makes it both intriguing and easy to understand. In my case she had me eager to learn more…and I did.

HALLOWEEN SPECIAL 2: Kthulhu Reich - Asamatsu Ken

Rudolf Hess battles the elder gods. Adolf Hitler monkeying around with black magic books after he dropped out of art school. A female vampire lures Nazi soldiers to her castle and tricks them into setting in motion an apocalyptic plot. So you thought Dennis Wheatley was the only writer obsessed with Nazis and black magic? Think again.

Kthulhu Reich (2019) is a collection of bizarrely over-the-top, sometimes ludicrously entertaining, horror stories from the fertile imagination of Asamatsu Ken. The tales have been meticulously translated into English by Jim Rion, an expatriate English teacher and translator formerly of Kansas now living in Yamaguchi prefecture. Publisher Edward Lipsett of Kurodahan Press assures me that while Rion’s translations seem to be near parodies of the Weird Tales school of writing they are accurate and in the spirit of the original Japanese texts. I found them to be generously peppered with enough American vernacular and colloquialisms to give the stories a retro-pulp magazine feel. Lipsett joked that though I may think they may be too Western or “Americanized” these are German characters written by a Japanese writer who speak in Japanese in the original stories and now English in this translation. But in all accounts they should be speaking in German! No matter. They do indulge in the typical “Ja wohl, Herr Kapitän!” we are used to hearing from British accented actors who play Nazis in the old war movies of days gone by.

I didn’t really know what to make of this book before I cracked it open. I figured I should prepare myself for some kind of Dennis Wheatley/H. P. Lovecraft mash-up by way of Japanese worldview. Was I ever wrong! These stories could easily have been lifted from the pages of any of the American shudder pulps. Rion, the translator, must clearly be a fan of the kind of stories Lovecraft and all his imitators wrote back in the day. So faithful are these stories to the spirit of Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos that the entire book is annotated with scholarly footnotes that make it sound as if the creatures encountered in the pages are actually real. In addition to the detailed descriptions recounting the history of Lovecraft’s many “elder gods” that appear in the book, along with the lives of Lovecraft characters (and those created by Derleth, Bloch and Robert E. Howard) there are eye-opening footnotes on the historical facts surrounding the occult interests of Rudolf Hess and his influences on Hitler. We also learn about the members of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn who were also wrapped up with the Axis powers and German soldiers. Who knew there were magicians in wartime England sympathizing with the Nazis?

But onto the stories themselves…

Those that are modeled after Lovecraft and pay homage to his Cthulhu Mythos are by far the most entertaining. Minor stories like “The Colonel’s Self-Portrait” and “April 20, 1889” rely too much on gimmicks. The first is a shaggy dog story with an ending I should’ve seen coming from page two. The other is done as a collection of diary entries and letters. Both stories are less effective if the reader is an avid student of World War 2 history. The title of the second is a dead giveaway to the final twist and lessens the power of what might have been an eyebrow raising surprise on the last page had it been named anything else. And a warning to the fainthearted (are there any among horror fiction fans?) -- "April 20, 1889" also deals graphically with the Jack the Ripper murders and goes into disgustingly obscene detail in how the crimes were committed. Splatterpunk fans have something to look forward to there.

The most successful and effective stories of the seven in this volume are those that abandon the traditional trappings of vampires and witchcraft and go all out in depicting the wild adventures of trippy black magic obsessed Nazis.  The footnotes tell us that a lot of this stuff is based on fact. That's double the trippiness for your buck right there.

First published in separate issues of Hayakawa S-F in 1994 and 1995 two stories make up one long novelette of recurring themes and characters. These two should be read in the order as arranged and saved for last for they are truly the cream of the crop in this nifty book. The first of this double feature "The Mask of Yoth Tlaggon" is like a Hammer horror movie on paper. Instead of Charles Gray as the evil sorcerer I'd cast the more appropriate Klaus Kinski as the evil Rudolph Hess, Hitler's Deputy Führer, bent on mastering the universe and conquering Third Reich with the help of an ancient artifact that allows the wearer to commune with powerful gods from an alternate universe.  It's a wild ride of a story that almost tops the best scenes in Dennis Wheatley's masterful occult thriller The Devils Rides Out. Hess is joined by Tatewaki Goto and Clara Haffner, two intelligence agents in disguise as diplomats. Clara is also "a runic magus" well versed in reading the language of ancient spells that will come in handy during the rousing climax, an operatic showdown of black magic and phantasmagorical visions.

"Call of Cthulhu"
(courtesy of redskullspage.tumblr.com)

The saga of the Mask of Yoth Tlaggon continues in the story immediately following “In the Wasteland of Madness” in which a young aristocratic Nazi, Major Erich von Müller, is forced to wear the mask and report what he's seen. His visions offer up clues of an impending expedition to the Antarctic where Kriegsmarine Leutnant Krenze, the brawny, blond haired "very model of a German soldier" expects to uncover the lost world of Thule, believed to be the origin of the Aryan race. What they discover there instead is more horrifying than beautiful.  Lovecraft fans will eat this one up. Once again the plethora of footnotes fills in the background on the origins of the strange creatures, the lives of the historical figures who appear or are mentioned in passing, and the litany of arcane occult texts and forbidden books created by Lovecraft and his acolytes. It's hard to believe that the Nazis genuinely were involved in explorations of the occult and black magic, but there are documented facts to reveal it is in part true. The legendary and secretive exploration of the Antarctic seems to be more anecdotal and apocryphal than factual though many people believe it did take place. What the German soldiers discovered there is left to the imagination of the true believers and writers like Asamatsu.

This is a bizarre and surreal example of mash-up of fact and fiction that delivers the goods in three of the seven stories. Reading these stories seemed like a flashback trip to the 1960s drive-ins that used to show Hammer horror movies overstocked with bloodthirsty vampires and vengeful creatures from the dark side.  I had a blast reading this book, loved the Lovecraft homage, and recommend it to  the horror hounds out there in search of something completely different.  Dennis Wheatley and Lovecraft I'm sure are smiling somewhere in the Great Beyond knowing that this book exists.

FFB: The Third Lady - Shizuko Natsuki

The paperback cover of this excellent crime novel from the "Agatha Christie of Japan" proclaims that it "recalls Stranger on a Train." That quote comes from none other than Edward Gorman, who goes by a less formal moniker these days. And while there is a slight similarity to Highsmith's novel in this very different murder by proxy tale I would say that if you were going to look for a better analogy in the Hitchcock vein it would be in the obsessive romance of the private eye in Vertigo. For in the end The Third Lady is not so much a thrilling suspense novel about murder as revenge, but rather a subtle and haunting study of the illusions of love and the folly of pursuing the fantasy of an ideal lover.

Kohei Daigo is waiting in a salon of a Parisian hotel when he is drawn to a woman. He does not see her face but hears only her hypnotically entrancing voice. He is also intoxicated by her unique perfume. They have an enigmatic conversational exchange and suddenly the lights go out throughout the entire hotel. The two are told by a passing hotel employee to remain in the room until the lights can be turned back on. And so Daigo talks with the strange woman who reveals that she is longing to revenge herself on an evil woman she knows to have murdered a dear friend.

Daigo finds himself ever more attracted to the woman – the darkness of the room, her voice and her sincerity all allow him to become far too intimate all too quickly. He also confesses to know an evil man– a professor in a chemical research lab who inadvertently used a poisonous ingredient in the manufacture of a popular brand of cookie then covered up the mistake with forged documents released to authorities. The ingredient caused cancer in several hundred children and their families. Many of the children died. Daigo admits that he would like to murder the man. The woman tells him her name and a few details about her work as a translator and after a brief moment of shared intimacy makes a quick exit. He has never seen her face throughout their brief meeting, but he is certain he has fallen deeply in love with her. What he does not realize is that he has also created a fatal bond between them that will lead to murder.

A few days later the professor is found dead in his home. He has been poisoned and a mysterious woman was seen in the vicinity of the dead man's' house. Several clues and coincidences eventually lead Daigo to believe that Fumiko, the woman he met in the hotel, is most likely responsible for the man's death. He starts to receive strange phone messages from a woman, a post card from a hotel is sent to his house and it dawns on him that all these things are related to the "evil woman" alluded to in Fumiko's conversation with him weeks ago at the hotel. Is he to track down the woman and kill her as well? He is devoted to Fumiko and vows to prove his love for her by doing just that. His life becomes increasingly complex as he adopts a variety of assumed identities, tells exaggerated lies to gather information about his intended victim, and stalks her like a predatory animal. Simultaneously he tries to locate Fumiko using clever detective work and an arsenal of alter egos.

The novel is mostly told from the point of view of Kohei Daigo. An alternating narrative is added by the halfway mark when the reader is allowed to follow a police investigation by two teams of detectives from two different cities. They begin to make amazing connections between the poisoning of the professor and a crime in the past. Slowly the police begin to suspect a conspiracy involving murder by proxy and are soon hot on the trail of Kohei Daigo.

It is not often that a crime novel packs so powerful a punch as this one does. The finale includes a gasp inducing twist that is poignant, sorrowful, and tragically inevitable. In the end this story of a frenzied obsessive love based on the slightest of contact but mostly the tortured imaginings of Daigo becomes a tale of remorse and shame that is deeply tied to the cultural mores of Japan. It is hard to imagine that this could have been written by a Westerner and turn out as believable and as moving as it is told here. If you have never read a Japanese crime novel here is the quintessential work. Cleverly plotted, imaginatively realized, beguiling and intriguing on so many levels The Third Lady transcends the genre to reveal the complexities of not only Japanese culture and Japanese philosophy but the intoxicating and mysterious power of love.

The Inugami Clan - Seishi Yokomizo

My knowledge of Japanese detective novel is limited, but if I am to believe what is written on the jacket blurbs of every Japanese mystery novel translated into English, then every Japanese mystery writer is a bestselling and extremely popular author in their homeland, a claim that seems farfetched. I have read the strange stories of Edogawa Rampo ("considered the dean of modern Japanese mystery writers") and a handful of novels by Shizuko Natsuki (dubbed "the Agatha Christie of Japan" on one of my books) who are supposed to be bestsellers. I have also read The Tattoo Murder Case ("among the most read of Japanese detective mysteries") and The Tokyo Zodiac Murders ("still one of the best selling mystery novels in Japan") by two more popular authors and two excellent spins on the locked room/impossible crime subgenre. One week ago through sheer luck I found a copy of The Inugami Clan, a book that is not only written by a best selling author, but is touted as a classic in Japanese detective fiction and the most popular title of the author’s 80 plus books. For once I agree with all the hyperbole on the jacket blurb. This is one Japanese detective novel that all devotees of the Golden Age ought to seek out. I would dare to call it iconic in the mystery and crime fiction of Japan.

Seishi Yokomizo in his final years

The author, Seishi Yokomizo, began writing detective fiction in the late 1940s. The Inugami Clan is his tenth book and was originally published serially between 1950-1951. The story itself is set in 1949 with post-World War 2 Japan fueling a major aspect of the plot. His detective Kosuke Kindaichi is practically an icon in Japanese popular culture having appeared in the movies, TV and graphic novels. The Inugami Clan was filmed twice (1976 and 2006), both times by renowned director Kon Ichikawa.  So popular was Yokomizo's detective that a spin-off character was created who is purportedly the grandson of Kindaichi. I went to YouTube and watched countless video clips from a long running TV series about Kindaichi -- none of it dubbed, all of it completely incomprehensible to me, yet fascinating all the same since I was by then familiar with the character of Kindaichi. I even watched a trailer for a video game version of The Inugami Clan which visually I did understand even if I couldn’t read any of the Japanese phrases being flashed across the screen. The illustrations and characters depicted in that video game trailer accurately and vividly depict what I read in this fascinating and grotesque mystery novel.

Based on the other books I have read (most published in the 1970s) it appears that Seishi Yokomizo truly is the forefather of the modern Japanese detective novel. On display are all of the characteristics that you will find in any Japanese crime novel from the 1940s and onward: an intricate plot that is fairly clued, grotesque murders, family secrets, disguised individuals, false identities, an eccentric detective with wily methods, and efficient policemen clever in their own right but easily baffled by the fantastic elements that accompany the crimes. The Inugami Clan is rife with the bizarre and the grotesque, has a smattering of Japanese lore and culture, and shows more than a few nods to the detective novel tropes so well known to Western readers. The opening scenes, for example, are reminiscent of Peril at End House with a young woman who tells Kindaichi that she barely escaped three outrageous attempts on her life. Yet in its essence the novel is utterly Japanese. The motives of one of the characters make perfect sense in Japanese culture though would strain credulity in a mystery written by a European or North American.

Matsuko Inugami takes a handprint of her son Kiyo in the 2006 film remake

The basic plot is familiar to any devotee of golden Age detective fiction. A family of greedy relatives awaits the reading of the will of recently deceased Sahei Inugami, wealthy owner of a silk factory. The will turns out to have convoluted rules requiring Tamayo, a non-blood relative, to choose her husband from Sahei's three grandsons. She must do so within a required time period or risk losing her inheritance. If she chooses none of them, she forfeits the entire fortune and it reverts to the mysteriously missing Shizuma, a young man rumored to be Sahei's illegitimate son. Needless to say the will infuriates all the relatives, mostly Sahei's daughters - the mothers of the men Tamayo must consider for her husband. Soon the grandsons are being stalked by a fiendish killer who seems to be re-enacting a curse set down decades in the past.

Discovery of the decapitated head of Take Inugami in the chrysanthemum garden (2006 film version)

The story reminded me of an old Gothic sensation novel with creepy settings, frenzied characters, mutilation of dead bodies, and bizarre murder methods employed. The bodies are discovered in unusual places like the eerie garden with life sized dolls all wearing kimonos made of chrysanthemums, or submerged upside down in a frozen lake. One of the most unusual characters is Kiyo who has returned to his home horribly burnt and disfigured from the recent war and wears a life-like rubber mask that resembles the features of his face prior to his hapless service in the war. And of course there is Kindaichi himself - described as a sort of Japanese Columbo elsewhere on the internet. He is an odd man who always dresses in a traditional, albeit shabby and rumpled, Japanese kimono and wears a beaten woolen hat, and for the most part he is of unkempt appearance. He scratches his tousled hair in a fidgety manner when mulling over strange clues, and is given to excitable stammering when on the verge of solving one of the many puzzles attached to the numerous crimes.

French version of The Inugami Clan.
(The ax, the koto & the chrysanthemum are
three family heirlooms that are part of the curse)

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and if I managed to figure out many (but not all) of the puzzles in the story it is not a strike against Yokomizo as a mystery writer. He has a Christianna Brand-like plot device with several characters attempting to protect loved ones whom they suspect of being the murderer and manipulating the evidence. Consequently, the crime scenes as discovered by the police and Kindaichi may not always be a reflection of the truth. This was one of the best parts of the book to me. Yokomizo's fertile imagination and plotting make for an entertaining and satisfying read. What is most frustrating, however, are the numerous allusions to previous books in the series which tantalize an English reader like me who would love to read those other stories. Who wouldn't want to find out why the murderer in The Honjin Murders (Kindaichi's first case published in Japan in 1946) displayed the victim hung upside down from a plum tree? Or discover the horrific secret of a body found stuffed inside a temple bell in Gokumon Island (1948)?  These are only two of the six other books mentioned throughout the telling of the strange murders in The Inugami Clan. But - you guessed it - this is the only Yokomizo book to have been translated into English. I'd have better luck if I could read French - there are at least three books translated into that language that I found, perhaps more. I guess I can only hope and wait for some enterprising translator to give us more of Kosuke Kindaichi's adventures in English.

Here is the trailer for the 2006 remake from director Kon Ichikawa. One of the rare versions I found with English subtitles. Enjoy, then go find a copy of the book and read it!