Point Zero - Seicho Matsumoto

Point Zero by Seicho Matsumoto, translated by Louise Heal Kawai / ISBN 9781913394936 / 286-page paperback from Bitter Lemon Press

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"Do you aspire to be a connoisseur of the best international crime fiction? If so, Seicho Matsumoto’s Point Zero should be on your bedside table. Become acquainted with a crime master." Financial Times

Tokyo, 1958. Teiko marries Kenichi Uhara, ten years her senior, an advertising man recommended by a go-between. After a four-day honeymoon, Kenichi vanishes. Teiko travels to the coastal and snow-bound city of Kanazawa, where Kenichi was last seen, to investigate his disappearance.

Soon, Teiko discovers that her husband’s disappearance is tied up with the so-called “pan-pan girls”, women who worked as prostitutes catering to American GIs after the war. Now, ten years later, as the country is recovering, there are those who are willing to take extreme measures to hide that past.

“Matsumoto pushes the art of the detective story in Japan to new dimensions, depicting Japanese society with unprecedented realism.” ―Independent

"We travel on a slow-paced and absorbing journey through a Japan that fascinates but no longer exists (any more than 1958 Britain any longer exists)...to a very Japanese conclusion." ―CrimeTime

"Along with an intriguing mystery, Matsumoto gives an unobtrusive but fascinating lesson in the history and culture of the period between the Japan we know today and its immediate past.” ―Morning Star