Japanese Crime Fiction across the Centuries

As an ancient culture, Japan has plenty of scope for the imagination when it comes to crime writing. You can pick and choose among tales told from times spanning a thousand years. My forays into Japanese crime fiction began in the very recent past. I started with I. J. Parker's Sugawara Akitada mysteries. The Japanese custom is to place the surname first because it honors the family rather than the individual.

Akitada was 25 years old and a junior clerk in the Imperial Ministry of Justice. He had won this position because he was an excellent student and had come in first in the university examinations. While he was a nobleman of the famous Sugawara clan, times were tough and he was excited to be given this job.

The series begins with The Dragon Scroll, which takes place in the year 1014. Akitada's first mission was to investigate missing tax shipments from cousins in a distant province. This excited him, because this was his first journey away from the capital, Heian-kyō, modern Kyoto.

He was also fortunate to be traveling with an old family retainer, Seimei. This elderly man was Akitada's mentor and he was skilled at many things, including herbal medicines, and had deep knowledge of Confucian teachings. Traveling the Imperial Highway was unsafe at the best of times, and it wasn't long before Akitada was attacked by a couple of thugs. It was his good fortune to be rescued by Tora, an ex-thug himself, who became a permanent part of his entourage.

Akitada was never ambitious enough for his mother, but he had a knack for solving crimes and the authorities, from the emperor on down, appreciated his skill. There are 13 books in this series. Akitada is inquisitive and intelligent, and his skills are in constant use as he unravels mysteries found in peasant hovels as well as the rarefied atmosphere of the Imperial Palace. He is a decent and honest man and he maintains adherence to the strict social codes of ancient Japan.

Naturally, all of the events in the series are imaginary or fictional, but the system of law enforcement, the educational methods and the customs and tastes of 11th-century Japan bring authenticity to the stories. These books are sprinkled with beautiful illustrations that resemble Japanese woodcuts. As an extra fillip, there is at the end of each book a brief historical endnote that enlightens the reader about pertinent aspects of life at this time.

I. J. Parker is a retired professor of English and foreign languages and won the Private Eye Writers of America (PWA) Shamus Award for Best P. I. Short Story in 2000 for "Akitada's First Case."

On my TBR and not too dusty is a Laura Joh Rowland series that features Sana Ichiro, a samurai who investigates matters for the shogun. It gives a taste of what life was like for the Japanese in the 1600s.

The first book, Shinju, takes place in Edo, a city destined to become Tokyo in later years. It begins with a double death involving a commoner and a beautiful noblewoman. Is it a typical shinju, a ritual suicide, or something more? Ichiro is a reluctant investigator. He prefers teaching, but he can't let the case be hushed up.

Another reluctant sleuth who would rather be teaching is Kyosuke Kamizu, nicknamed "boy genius," an assistant professor at Tokyo University. He makes his debut in Takagi Akimitsu's The Tattoo Murder Case. This case takes place almost a century into the future, during the American Occupation in the late 1940s.

All that is found are severed limbs in a locked room. Miss Kinue Nomura survived World War II, only to be murdered in Tokyo, her severed limbs left behind. What is gone is that part of her that bore one of the most beautiful full-body tattoos created by her late father.

Kamizu doesn't wear a deerstalker hat, but his approach to solving this crime is very Sherlockian. Just as interesting about the unusual case is the description of the culture that revolved around art tattoos. Despite the fact that Japan was occupied by US troops at the time, there was only one small mention of the military, as if it didn't really impinge on the routines of the ordinary folk.

The Tattoo Murder Case was originally published in 1948, and Takagi Akimitsu followed this by many books, most of which remain untranslated. Even though Kamizu was well liked, most of the books usually feature prosecutors or police detectives.

Seicho Matsumoto wrote his series in the late 1950s and early 1960s. As in his Inspector Imanishi Investigates, the plots focus on human psychology and ordinary life rather than intricate puzzles. The central character is Inspector Imanishi Eitaro, a more typically Japanese detective, fond of gardening and haiku. A corpse felt to be from the provinces is found under the rails of a train in Tokyo Station. The subject of Imanishi's investigation is not only the crime, but also the society in which the crime was committed. Matsumoto brings up the subject of police corruption, which was a new feature of Japanese crime fiction.

James Melville's books feature Tetsuo Otani, the superintendent of the Hyōgo Prefectural Police. Otani frequently runs into people who are afraid of the police because of their history of strong-arm tactics over the previous decades. He is constantly reassuring everyone that the police are not what they were, but it's a struggle to get cooperation from the general populace in solving crimes. For the most part, these books take place in the 1970s and '80s, when murder was uncommon in Japan and was usually related to gang warfare or domestic violence.

In the first series book, The Wages of Zen, Otani is called to a murder case while he is attending a Rotary dinner. This is but one example of the western influences during these years. A body has been found in a local temple, which is apparently also a foundation for East-West understanding. This is an unusual case, where all the suspects, as well as the victim, are foreigners who had come to spend time at a local Zen Buddhist temple. Otani joined Hyogo police during the postwar American occupation, and he was aware that policing had changed more than many other things In Japan. It is amusing to read about the convoluted ceremonial courtesies governing most interactions.

Melville depicts everyday Japanese life nicely, and he describes Japanese society morphing from strict traditionalism to a relentless drive to modernization. Otani has a team of colorful and streetwise detectives who spend most of their time confronting organized crime and political duplicity. Otani himself does not speak English, and he depends on his team to help him understand the foreigners among whom there is a killer.

In Sujata Massey's series, we meet Rei Shimura, an underpaid English teacher in Tokyo in the late 1990s who wishes she was doing something better with her life. You can read about her here, here and here.

Arimasa Osawa writes another series that is very popular in Japan. These books were written in the '90s as well, but although Shinjuku Shark, the first of many, won several prizes, it wasn't translated into English until 2008.

The central character in these mysteries is a complete turnabout from the traditional detectives I've just mentioned. He is Samejima, who goes by the nickname "the Shinjuku Shark." He is a maverick detective who has no friends in the police or the main Japanese bad guys, the Yakuza (organized crime syndicates), because he refuses to turn a blind eye to corruption. This leads to increasing isolation from the police force and he usually works alone.

Osawa describes an uneasy peace between the Yakuza and the police. The Police Organized Crime Department is known as the Marubo, and it kept a close watch on the Yakuza clans. The Yakuza usually didn't go out of its way to become involved in small disputes. It is all bound up with the concept of honor among men and the result of returning favors and a give-and-take granting the other face-saving concessions.

Shinjuku District

Samejima detests the Yakuza and he dislikes the way police officers fraternize with them, so he keeps making a nuisance of himself by going after any punk, regardless of his ties. It is no surprise that Samejima's career is stalled and he is relegated to the crime-ridden streets of the Shinjuku district. His street name came from his reputation that once he gets his teeth into somebody he doesn't let go.

When an elusive sniper begins targeting police officers in his district, Samejima sets out on his own to find the man responsible, no matter who he is. This is a rapidly paced noir entry that is gritty and realistic, although it is somewhat surprising that as much as Samejima is detested, he escapes the sniper's crosshairs. Samejima is still solving crimes and chasing the Yakuza in Osawa's most recent book translated into English, The Poison Ape.

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino is a more recent Japanese crime sensation and is mentioned here.

So pour yourself some sake or grab a bottle of Ramune (a carbonated beverage of exotic flavors that comes in a tricky bottle that uses a marble as a stopper) and settle in for a trip through time. Or flip that remote to Ninja Turtles reruns and be very grateful if your children or grandchildren aren't using them as role models.

No Expiration Date

I found a gray hair. On our dog. My husband's birthday is coming up. I dragged out my mom's old iron skillet and was in the middle of making corn bread when I realized my baking powder had expired. It seems as if old age is closing in from all directions. Even my books yell "Old!" Take a look at my recent reading and you'll see characters who aren't spring chickens. Or the books themselves are middle-aged, or set in the distant past. Of course, there's no expiration date on excellence when it comes to the written word.

Becky Masterman: Rage Against the Dying (2013). There's Clarice Starling and now there's retired FBI Special Agent Brigid Quinn. Brigid is married to an ex-priest and settled in Tucson, Arizona, when she learns that the Route 66 killer, involved in the disappearance of her protégé, has been captured. But maybe not. The beginning, in which a predator sizes up his prey, nearly creeped me out but I'm glad I persevered. Brigid, at age 59, kicks ass better than she cooks dinner.

Peter Steiner: The Terrorist (2010). Retired CIA Middle East expert Louis Morgon, who's living in France and dealing with cancer, is coerced by the imprisonment of a young friend into rejoining his old employer's war on terror. This is unusually character-driven espionage and also a beautifully written novel about relationships and mortality. The next book in the series, The Resistance, is reviewed by Sister Mary Murderous here.

Paul McEuen: Spiral (2011). Scientific thriller fans, make a note. Cornell physicist McEuen wrote what he knows in an exciting and thought-provoking doomsday thriller. His debut combines nanotechnology, biological engineering and Japanese WWII history. I hated to see Nobel Prize winner and Cornell Professor Emeritus Liam Connor leap off an Ithaca bridge to his death, but I enjoyed the investigators: Connor's physics department colleague Jake Sterling, his granddaughter Maggie and her nine-year-old son Dylan.

Michael Gilbert: Fear to Tread (1953). Gilbert wrote one intelligent mystery after another for decades. His best-known Inspector Hazelrigg book is probably Smallbone Deceased, but this is another good one. Wilfred Wetherall is a boys' school headmaster in post-WWII London. He carries on in good British fashion by resolutely tackling every problem, including a ring of vicious black marketeers. It's a very satisfying read.

John Mortimer: Forever Rumpole: The Best of the Rumpole Stories (2011). Let's raise a glass of Pommeroy's best plonk to the memory of Mortimer, who died in 2009, and his Old Bailey hack, Horace Rumpole. The 14 stories in this collection aren't new, but there's a new introduction by Anna Mallalieu––who knew Mortimer personally and professionally when he was Queen's Counsel––and a new piece of an unfinished novel, "Rumpole and the Brave New World." Reading Rumpole is one of the best ways to counter feeling old. Whether he's defending a member of the criminous Timson family, talking with colleagues in chambers or parrying the commands of his wife Hilda ("She Who Must Be Obeyed"), Rumpole is ageless in his optimism and enthusiasm for a good battle.

David Lawrence: The Dead Sit Round in a Ring (2004). Compelling blackest noir written under a pseudonym by acclaimed English poet David Harsent. Three elderly siblings, who must have formed a suicide pact, and an unidentified man are found dead in a London apartment. As if Det. Sgt. Stella Mooney doesn't have enough of a headache with her private life, there's this complex crime. This is the debut of a gritty English police procedural series featuring a tough and attractive female cop.

Michael Innes: A Night of Errors (1947). Over-the-top frolicking from Innes. Sir John Appleby, retired from New Scotland Yard, investigates the bizarre fireplace death of Sir Oliver Dromio, who followed family tradition by burning to a crisp. Appleby and Inspector Hyland do a full night's work, combing through the many suspects' motives. Bodies litter the landscape before it's over and the case draws to a close in this eleventh of 35 Appleby books. Very entertaining.

Laura Joh Rowland: Red Chrysanthemum (2006). A blood-soaked chrysanthemum is the only clue samurai investigator Sano Ichirō has to clear his wife Reiko of suspicion in the murder of Lord Mori. This is Rowland's eleventh book set in feudal Japan. It's wonderfully atmospheric and features her usual graceful writing and deft characterization.

Rupert Holmes: Where the Truth Lies (2003). Do you remember when Dean Martin teamed up with Jerry Lewis? If so you'll particularly enjoy this book, set in the 1970s and featuring journalist K. O'Connor, who has been asked to write about a duo obviously modeled on Martin and Lewis. Floating in their background is a murder. Holmes is a multiple award winner (Emmy, Tony, Edgar) and the snappy dialogue, show business setting and entertaining characters made it a finalist for the Nero Award.

Alana White: The Sign of the Weeping Virgin (2012). The title sounds like a Perry Mason case, but it's historical fiction set in 1480 Italy. Real-life Florentine lawyer Guid'Antonio Vespucci and his nephew Amerigo (who later explored and donated his name to the New World) have barely returned from a diplomatic mission in France before they're embroiled in Florentine politics and investigations of a kidnapping and a painted Virgin Mary that seems to be weeping. White's knowledge and wit, and the presence of the Vespuccis, Boticelli, da Vinci, the Medici family and other Renaissance figures, make this book a fun Italian trip.