Cbr17bingo “I”
Published in Japan in 1961, Inspector Imanishi Investigates opens with the battered, bloodied body of an unidentified 50-year-old man found on the train tracks in Tokyo. Those who had seen him earlier in the evening with another younger man indicated that both men spoke with an unusual Japanese accent. As Inspector Imanishi investigates, more unusual deaths follow amongst the very people he wanted to question. While the coroner rules those deaths natural or simply unfortunate, they seem suspicious to Imanishi. As the months pass and trails grow cold, Imanishi must move on to other cases, but he cannot let this one go, and younger detective Yoshimura feels the same.
Imanishi’s investigation over the next 7 months will take him all around Japan trying to identify both the victim and the mysterious younger man who might have been the murderer. Readers learn about Japanese nightclub “hostesses,” post-war Japan and the aftereffects of war, Japanese traditions and long-standing cultural practices, as well as contemporary culture. The “Nouveau” group is of especial importance to the story. They are a (fictional) group of young men in their 20s and early 30s who are having innovative impact on the arts (music, drama, cultural criticism) and who keep turning up both in the news and in Imanishi’s investigation. We also see a patriarchal society, where men can be emotionally and physically abusive, and where many have mistresses. Several young women in this story are on the receiving end of this treatment and it generally ends badly for them.
The “who” and “why” of the murders were actually pretty interesting but the plot did sometimes plod along. Imanishi is frustrated when his work constantly reaches what seem to be dead ends. That’s common enough in detective fiction. Often what seems promising is a red herring or is important for reasons that the detective does not initially perceive. I found it frustrating that rather than revealing clearly what Imanishi was discovering, revealing his thought processes, the reader is kept in the dark. We know he is picking up important clues and putting them together, but we don’t get a clear sense of how Imanishi is working through his information. Important clues often seem to just drop fortuitously into his lap, and at the end, we get a long exposition between Imanishi and Yoshimura explaining everything. Show me, don’t tell me! The author seems to have wanted to keep the identity of the murderer secret until the very end, but I think it would have been more interesting for us to know who it was and to get into the mind of that character a bit as Imanishi tracks them down. I also have questions about the murderer’s method of committing murder and whether or not it’s plausible. It seemed a little weird and very 1960s/Bond-villain-esque. Overall, I was a little disappointed with this one.