Translated from Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai (UK release 15.02.2024)

The similarities between Point Zero, Matsumoto’s third novel, and Tokyo Express, his debut which I reviewed last year, are many. Persons disappear after boarding trains, and bodies are found sometime later in remote areas of the coast. However, there isn’t much police presence in Point Zero, because no one initially suspects foul play. The dead, none of them Kenichi Uhara, all leave with suicide notes. Which leaves newly-married Teiko Itane trying to work out why her husband disappeared off the face of the earth just days after their honeymoon.

Prior to his arranged marriage Kenichi Uhara divided his time between Kanazawa and Tokyo. With a full-time transfer to Tokyo imminent, he has to make one last trip to Kanazawa to hand over to his successor. He never returns. At first, Teiko’s brother-in-law, Sotaro, is not worried. His brother has always had these moments off-grid as it were. But as time goes on, and Kenichi’s company is unable to track him down, Sotaro joins Teiko in Kanazawa to join in the search. Things take a sinister turn, however, when he is killed with cyanide-laced whisky. Same thing happens to Uhara’s successor who had followed a certain female, a humble receptionist, to Tokyo. But what connection is there between her and Kenichi Uhara? And what is the significance of the two photographs – one of a humble dwelling, the other of an elegant mansion – that Kenichi had hidden between the pages of a book in his Tokyo flat?

The police, of course, get involved after the murders, but Teiko’s disappearance is not the priority. With no body, there’s no crime. However, one of the aforementioned suicides was connected to the suspicious receptionist. This proves to be the tiniest of leads for Teiko … a lead into her husband’s surprising past, and into the social concerns of post-war occupied Japan, all linked to the “pan-pan girls”, women who worked as prostitutes catering to American GIs.

This aspect of the novel, which is set 10 years after the war, was fascinating. Teiko’s investigations consist mainly of her visiting locations which may or may not be linked to her husband and thinking through various hypotheses time and time again. In this respect, like Point Zero, I found the novel repetitive, but again, I’m putting this down to the requirements of serialisation. Plus I was always one step ahead of Teiko. However, in sections where she is an innocent bride, marrying a man 10 years her senior, discovering his secret past, her insecurities about his feelings towards her were all too real. And Matsumoto is clearly someone with a fine understanding of women’s intuition. Who says a man can’t write from a woman’s point-of-view?

Bitter Lemon Press is a London-based indie which has been publishing thrillers and contemporary crime novels, mostly in translation for over 20 years. They have introduced a number of celebrated crime and thriller writers whose works were not previously available in English. These include my favourites Claudia Piñeiro from Argentina, Teresa Solana from Spain and Hansjörg Schneider from Switzerland.