 Old and new Japan meet in this addictive 1960’s classic.
At Kamata Station, in a district of Tokyo, a man’s body is found on the railroad tracks. His body is bloody and beaten, his facial features unrecognisable. Senior Inspector Imanishi Eitaro is called in to investigate. It’s a beguiling case, and Imanishi often feels like he is getting nowhere as he travels over Japan following up clues and possible leads. An occasional collaborator is Yoshimura, a detective considerably younger, but sympathetic to Imanishi’s introverted character and his doggedness in pursuing the truth. Circling around this investigation is a modernist push of young artists and writers, called the Nouveau Group. Their members turn up at odd moments, and we soon start to learn more about their movements, their hangouts and internal dynamics. When two women connected to the group, plus an actor, die in unusual circumstances, Inspector Imanishi is compelled to keep putting the pieces together, until a mixture of inspiration and persistence helps him solve the mystery. Seicho Matsumoto published Inspector Imanishi Investigates originally as a newspaper serial between 1960 and 1961. It was translated into English by Beth Cary in 1989. It’s an intricately woven story that is rich in atmosphere and mystery, and provides a compelling portrait of Japan in the early 1960s, showing the cultural shifts emerging in the arts and literature, but also referencing the horrors of the past, such as the brutal carpet bombings of World War Two that resulted in mass, indiscriminate killings. While the plot is complicated and has many strands, Seicho Matsumoto does a good job of making the many twists and turns easy to follow. The reading experience is immersive and intriguing, with uncanny aesthetic flourishes, such as the pretty young girl throwing what looks like a bag of white fluff out a moving train’s window. A novel that will hold you in its trance right up to the last page. Inspector Imanishi Investigates, by Seicho Matsumoto. Published by Penguin. $26.99 Review by Chris Saliba  A young woman in a new town makes some startling discoveries
Asa is married, and is fairly satisfied with her life, despite her lacklustre job. When her husband finds new employment, the couple must move to a country area near his parents. She quits her work, and his parents offer them free rent in a house next door to them. It’s a good deal, allowing them to save money, despite the privacy compromises inherent in the arrangement. With plenty of time now on Asa’s hands, she starts to explore the area, making short trips to the shops and checking out employment ads. On one of her countryside strolls she sees a furry black animal and decides to follow it. It leads her to a marshy riverside area, full of bugs, beetles and other creepy-crawlies. In pursuit of this mysterious furry creature Asa falls into a hole. She manages to climb out, but the creature keeps appearing, and on subsequent sightings she runs into a stranger. The stranger she learns is her husband’s older brother, an oddball who’s been kept secret by his family. Despite being a shut-in, he enjoys spending time by the river bank, where groups of freewheeling children play in an almost pagan fairyland. In some ways The Hole is a quirky take on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, and the book itself directly references this. For the most part it’s a strange and surreal story that contrasts mundane domestic details with nature’s weird, sometimes scary, underbelly. While the black creature is furry, and one presumes cute, it has white fangs that we learn can be quite dangerous. In this seemingly alternate universe there are bugs and insects that bite at flesh and riverside children, running half naked, concocting their own strange rituals, devoid of parental supervision. It’s hard to figure out what The Hole is about, beyond being a hallucinatory, mind bending trip into the wild. Despite its deliriously baffling content, every page is a winner. The Hole, by Hiroko Oyamada. Published by Granta. $27.99 Review by Chris Saliba  When a girl's pet dog goes missing, it leads to two unlikely people collaborating to solve a major crime.
When fourteen-year-old Serendipity Dahlquist finds her dog Groucho has gone missing, she reports it to the police. They show little interest, but one officer suggests she try seasoned private investigator, Leo Bloodworth. Known in crime circles as “the hound”, Bloodworth shows little interest in Serendipity's missing dog, but when his associate, Roy Kaspar, is murdered, the gears shift and the two find themselves involved in a multiple murder mystery. Their pursuit of Serendipity's dog, Groucho, and the killer, take them on a road trip up and down America's East Coast. Set in early 1980s America, Sleeping Dog was journalist Dick Lochte's debut novel and it garnered wide praise. It's a fast paced caper with a dizzying cast of eccentric characters – from Mexican gang members to a grandmother actress. The novel is alternately narrated by Serendipity and Leo. Serendipity provides the most laughs, as a wise-cracking teenager who gets around on rollerskates while Leo Bloodworth is the classic jaded, middle-aged detective, one who's seen it all, but is still as sharp as ever. The story cracks on at a rate of knots and Lochte provides a stunning portrait of America's seedy underbelly – crime rings, psychos, pornographers – you name it. It also shows an ethnically diverse America, the text sprinkled with Spanish expressions. If you like the films of David Lynch and the novels of Charles Portis and Barry Gifford, you're sure to eat up Sleeping Dog. Sleeping Dog, by Dick Locht. Published by Penguin. $22.99 Review by Chris Saliba |
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