by Masako Togawa
Translated from Japanese by Simon Grove
Synopsis:
A dizzying tale of lust and murder, from one of Japan’s greatest mystery writers.
A hunter prowls the night spots of Shinjuku
But he’s the one walking into a trap…
Ichiro Honda leads a double life: by day a devoted husband and a diligent worker, by night he moves through the shadow world of Tokyo’s cabaret bars and nightclubs in search of vulnerable women to seduce and then abandon. But when a trail of bodies seems to appear in his wake, the hunter becomes the prey and Ichiro realises he has been caught in a snare. Has he left it too late to free himself before time runs out?
(cover image and synopsis lifted from Goodreads)
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
Publication date: October 2nd 2018 (first published 1963)
Source/Format: eARC/Edelweiss
Purchase links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indiebound | Book Depository
Trigger warning: suicide
My Rating: ★★★☆☆
My Thoughts:
The Lady Killer’s first point of view is that of Keiko Obana. She is recounting a night in a bar when she met a man with a velvety voice. She sang with him, drank wine with him, slept with him that night. Six months after, she is carrying his child. She hasn’t heard from him since but that one-night stand was one dear sweet memory for her and she doesn’t blame him for anything that happened. Then she jumped from a tall window and fell to her death.
Next we met Keiko’s older spinster sister, Tsuneko. She is meeting with the police investigator in charge of Keiko’s case. The police told her, but not the press, about Keiko’s pregnancy. Said police also noticed a mole on her nose. Tsuneko believes that the pregnancy is the reason of Keiko’s suicide and launches an investigation of her own to discover the identity of the man who irresponsibly seduced her sister.
Then we get to meet the man himself, Ichiro Honda. He works weekdays in Tokyo and goes to his wife in Osaka on weekends. During a work day, he works as a computer programmer. During the night, he prowls the city for women. Women are mere objects of his conquests, all recorded down his diary. He feels good about himself but not until a string of women he slept with were murdered.
What follows is an exercise of who framed Ichiro Honda played by his lawyers. Shinji, on his senior Hatanaka’s orders, gears up to meet a list of people who can shine a light on the case. All signs point to the woman with a mole on her nose.
The Lady Killer is a fairly remarkable read set in 1960’s Japan. I love the authenticity of the setting. The very Asian culture of keeping a facade that everything’s okay but really it’s not is so real in Ichiro and his marriage. Japanese workers’ strong work ethic is exhibited by Shinji and Hanaka’s commitment to cracking the case.
I find it hard to root for any of the characters though. The Obana sisters are just inciting incidents. It’s hard to feel sorry for Ichiro Honda because although the book explained the root of his actions, he’s still a real scumbag at the end of the day. The lawyers who were the only people with proper motivation aside from the killer arrived too little too late in the picture.
I liked the setting up parts with the narration from the Obana sisters and Ichiro Honda more than the falling action part narrated by Shinji the lawyer. Their stories are stories with interesting things happening while that of Shinji the lawyer is a boring procedural. Shinji’s investigation methods are so dated (I mean what would I expect, it’s the 60’s?!) with repetitive results pointing to the woman with a mole in her nose. I appreciate the writing that sparkles here and there. There is this brilliant way the book displayed the moral polarity between Ichiro and Shinji with how each feels about the scent of the city at night. The former basks in the “smell of darkness and neon” while the latter cringes at the “scent of sexual desire and immorality”.
And just when I thought that I will die of boredom from Shinji’s investigation, the final reveal surprised me with a psychological shocker. As I said, all signs point to the woman with a mole on her nose and yes she is the lady killer but nothing is quite what it seemed.
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I'd love to hear from you!
Do you read books translated from Japanese or any other languages? Which ones are favorites that you can recommend for me to check out?
Do you read books translated from Japanese or any other languages? Which ones are favorites that you can recommend for me to check out?
