Tokyo, 1960. A man’s battered body is found on the tracks at Kamata Station by railway workers. All the police have to identify him by is a final sighting of him alive in which he was heard to say the single word “Kameda” in a distinctive accent.
This is the starting point of Inspector Imanishi Investigates, a particularly puzzling case for haiku-writing senior inspector Imanishi Eitaro. One that will take him across the country to Osaka and into the orbit of the Nouveau Group, a collective of young artists with advanced ideas and connections in high places.
Imanishi rediscovery overdue
Seichō Matsumoto is one of several neglected writers of crime novels brought back to public attention by Penguin. First published in 1961, Inspector Imanishi Investigates is a novel good enough to justify comparisons of Matsumoto to his contemporaries, Agatha Christie and Georges Simenon. Its rediscovery is overdue.
The comparison with Simenon is probably the most accurate in the way he captures the down-at-heel everyday life in Tokyo that tourists never see. In Imanishi, Matsumoto created a detective who is the archetypal ‘company man.’ On the surface, he appears self-effacing to the point of invisibility, yet he possesses a quiet determination that is more than a match for those with, allegedly, sharper brains. This makes for a refreshing change from the usual run of literary detectives with their tendency towards domineering bluster or showy eccentricity.
The plot combines a genuinely original means of committing murder with some sharp observations of a highly traditional society undergoing rapid change. Old ideas may be starting to lose their purchase, yet still exert enough pull to prompt those with much to lose to take drastic action.
Seichō Matsumoto
Seichō Matsumoto was born in Fukuoka in 1909. In a 40-year career he published more than 450 works of fiction and non-fiction, but is best known as an author of crime novels. These were acclaimed for breaking new ground by dealing with the changing social norms and nihilism of post-war Japan. Several of his crime books were made into successful films. He died in Tokyo in 1992.
Inspector Imanishi Investigates is a skillfully plotted and powerfully written crime story. It is a fine example of his work and continues to engage readers more than 60 years after it was first published. Matsumoto is a writer who richly deserves to be rediscovered by a new audience.
Modern classics reissued
Penguin has republished 30 classics of the crime, thriller and espionage genres under their Modern Classics imprint. They appear with the green covers traditionally used by the publisher for its crime offerings. Speaking to The Bookseller in 2023, Simon Winder of Penguin said the books were “united by atmosphere, anxiety and a strong sense of time and place.” He added that all the titles on the list have “aged very well, gaining an additional pleasure from shifts in manners, clothes, wisecracks, politics, murder weapons and potential alibis.”
Books in the series include The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey, Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb, and Call for the Dead, one of only two detective novels written by John le Carré.
Inspector Imanishi Investigates, Seichō Matsumoto, translated by Beth Cary. Penguin Modern Classics, 2024.
