「のち恋い身に暗み生き血の血の名と血吸い貝に砂」

人に名前を尋ねられたら

旅人と

たったそれだけ答えて欲しい

それだけを

『Just Before the Sunrise』 (Rhodes)

When asked for your name

I want you to answer just this

Just a traveller

Just that

"Just Before the Sunrise" (Rhodes)

This negative relation between the height of my reading pile and the amount of posts I publish is kinda interesting. I think it is about time this absurd daily posting thing should stop though.

And yes, this is an actual review of an actual book I hadn't read before. It's been a while since the last 'normal' review. I did say that I don't have a reading pile at the moment, but the truth is that I do have a small pile of four or five unread books. It's just that those books, mostly Uchida Yasuo and Nishimura Kyoutarou novels, are not very interesting looking and I don't really mind whether I read or not, having picked them up once for almost nothing. It is more like an emergency pile, if I really want to read something and there is nothing left anymore. So yesterday I picked up up the book that seemed most alluring, which was Uchida Yasuo's Hokkokukaidou Satsujin Jiken ("The Hokkoku Kaidou Murder Case"). The text on the back of the cover caught my interest as it told me that this was a novel featuring inspector Takemura Iwao (of The Togakushi Murder Case), also known as the Columbo of Shinano, and curious of his other adventures, I decided on this novel. No, I was not really enthusiastic about this book, but I had to read something.

The Hokkoku Kaidou (normally known as the Hokurikudou) refers to both a geographical area and the main road running through it, at the northwestern edge of Honshu, the main island of Japan. The students Tajiri Fumiko and Nomura Yoshiki are having a road trip alongst this route to gather data for their graduation theses: Fumiko is writing about the monk Ryoukan (1758-1831), while Yoshiki is writing about the poet-priest Issa (1763-1827), who are both strongly related to the Hokkoku Kaidou area. During their trip, Yoshiki's camera is stolen and on that occassion meet Takemura Iwao, the star inspector of the prefectural police, who has been working on the case of the skull-less skeleton of H- University's professor Hatano found at the site of a paleolithic excavation of Lake Nojiri. It's from the two students that Takemura hears that on the same day Hatano's skeleton was found, that another university teacher, and like Hatano a Ryoukan expert, was murdered in Gogouan, the old home of Ryoukan. Not believing in such coincidences, Takemura thinks a connection must exist between the two cases.

The first half of the novel is clearly split between a narrative on Takemura's investigation and a narrative on Fumiko and Yoshiki's adventures. The latter just screams stereotypical two-hour suspense drama, with the classic tropes all making an appearance. A young, beautiful girl on a trip, who happens to see something of importance (without realizing it). The traveling and sight-seeing. The stolen camera because the duo (naturally) took a picture they should not have made. A man in sunglasses following them. The inn. The not-really-a-romance-and-a-bit-of-sexual-tension subplot with Yoshiki. It is a very easy read and you can set your brain to cruise control when reading these parts.

The Takemura narrative is a police procedural, with Takemura trying to solve the murder on Hatano, which is a bit hard because he died two or three years ago. The investigation starts out a bit boring, which is sort of logical because Takemura is in charge of the investigation and therefore has to direct his subordinates, not investigate himself.  Though not in the elite track, Takemura managed to make it to this administrative position at a young age through excellent investigative work, but it also forced him out of the scene of the crime itself. However, it does not take long before Takemura is bored and starts to do some old-fashioned investigation on his feet again. This is when the case starts to get interesting, which is reflected in the way the narratives develop. At first, when the police investigation is quite boring, more pages are dedicated to the adventures of Fumiko and Yoshiki, but the moment Takemura starts his own investigation, the balance slowly shifts to him, with Takemura dominating the latter half of the novel.

The mystery behind the dead professors is not very hard to deduce, also because Takemura has a tendency to voice his (usually) correct thoughts the moment new clues arrive at the scene. But the case never reaches points that really invite praise and reading this book almost feels like a zero-sum game. It was entertaining enough for the couple of hours it took to read this, but I am definitely going to forget about it in a couple of days.

Except for maybe the Ryoukan and Issa parts. Uchida really has a knack of presenting history and popular theories about historical persons in a very entertaining way. I knew nothing about those two poets before I read this book, but I like to think that I've learnt something interesting about them, that might come in handy one day in my studies. The focus on popular historic theory is also very entertaining and effectively introduces another -detective- storyline in the plot. Here for example, Fumiko and Yoshiki find it interesting that the two poets, despite living in the same age and geographical area and occupying similar occupations, never met (officially). They both come up with some theories which might be complete nonsense (but which Uchida no dobut based on actual existing research and theories), but amusing for people with an interest in history nonetheless.

I think that this was the first time I really felt engrossed in the sightseeing part of travel mysteries, as you don't just do spatial traveling (in this case, the Hokkoku Kaidou area and Tokyo), but also temporal traveling (the era of Ryouzan and Issa and naturally the time up until the murder in the present time) and in all four dimensions, an investigation of some kind is done. The actual case itself might not be remarkable, but I have to admit that Hokkokukaidou Satsujin Jiken was an entertaining and educating read because of the traveling.

Original Japanese title(s):  内田康夫　『北国街道殺人事件』

『鬼は夜歩く』

「しかし、そこで警部がふいに立ち止まり、右手を軽く上げながら「あ、そうそう、もうひとつだけ」といいだしたので、おれは祖教師ヶ谷警部の口から「うちのカミさん」の話が飛び出すのではないかと内心ハラハラした。コロンボの真似をしたがる警部さんは、きっと大勢いるはずだ」

『学ばない探偵たちの学園』

"The inspector suddenly stopped his steps and rose his right hand lightly. He started with "Ah, one more thing please" and I became worried whether inspector Soshigaya wasn't about to give me a story about his wife. There are probably many police inspectors who pretend to be Columbo"

"The School of the Detectives Who Don't Learn"

If you'd be visiting this blog for the first time, you'd almost think I only discuss translated novels! You might also be tempted to think that I am a very active blogger, while in reality I wrote most posts of this week in one day. Heh.

Uchida Yasuo is best known for his travel mystery series starrring Asami Mitsuhiko, an investigative freelance writer for a travel magazine. He travels across Japan writing articles on local legends and history of popular tourist spots, but he always ends up caught in some kind of murder case. The Asami Mitsuhiko stories are thus a strange mix between travel guide, history books and detective novels and quite interesting if you are into that. The detective plots are usually not very complex, but entertaining enough.

Uchida's The Togakushi Legend Murders (Original title: Togakushi Densetsu Satsujin Jiken) is not part of the Asami Mitsuhiko series however, but of the Inspector Takemura Iwao series. Takemura is known as the 'Columbo of Shinano' (because he keeps wearing the same coat) and considered the sharpest inspector of the Nagano Prefectural police. This time, he is placed in charge of the investigation of a murder commited in the town of Togakushi. The victim was the influential businessman Takeda, who was found poisoned in an area commonly known as the poison plains. Togakushi apparently was the setting of the legend of Taira no Koremochi slaying the demoness Momiji, who was planning to poison him. What bothers Takemura is the fact the murderer bothered to poison Takeda and drag the body all the way to the poison plains. Has someone taken up the role of the murdering demoness Momiji herself?

Having read several translations in a row now, it became clear quite quickly how odd this translation feels. It just doesn't feel right. It is a bit stilted and several editorial / translator's choices to render the Japanese and cultural references felt very unnatural. I do admit that part of the problem lies with Uchida's own writing style, which has a tendency to turn out very dry and pragmatic. It does fit the police procedural format of this story, but on the other hand, it does make the fact that someone is mimicking murders according to the Momiji legend a little less scary. The Asami Mitsuhiko novels actually feel quite different, with a distinct lighthearted, humorous tone to them (especially when low-ranking policemen who suspect Mitsuhiko of murder find out who his brother is). The Asami Mitsuhiko novels also seem more to be more focused on legends, providing more background information. For this release, I find it a bit disappointing no maps were provided. While probably not included in the original Japanese release, maps and a bit more background information (in footnotes?) would also have been welcome to convey the feeling of the area.

The mystery itself is not very exciting and it is almost like the investigation of the police (Takemura) was not even needed for this story. There are few suspects and the story develops at the murderer's pace until Uchida thinks it is time for the novel to end. And he does it with a rather forceful conclusion. It is not really satisfactory. Which is not to say that this is a bad novel, it just has some moments that make you think that it will be better, only to reveal that it is really nothing more than an average mystery. Which, in a way, is even more disappointing.

Which is pretty much all I have on this book. It is really just a 'meh' book and you are not missing out on anything if you choose to ignore it, but it is not a bad way to kill some time either.

Oh, and I have to admit that I find the Hannya mask on the cover truly horrifying and I always make sure it doesn't face me when I return it to the bookcase pile of books. I hope it disappears from the first page of this blog soon.

Original Japanese title(s): 内田康夫『 戸隠伝説殺人事件』