Mine is the solitary wandering pleasure of dreams.
Tokyo Express
by Seicho Matsumoto
Genre: Detective Fiction
About: When the body of a woman and man are discovered dead on the beach, the evidence points to a lover's suicide. But not everyone working on the case is satisfied. Yet as more time passes it seems impossible to gather all the facts, or that certain individuals don't want all the facts to come to light...
The Good
The atmosphere of this novella is fantastic. It has a real film noir style and feels tense throughout. Mundane details are worked on cleverly by the detectives. Their interactions with family and strangers inform their best hunches and as small as the interactions are, they have a sense of reality to them. This is a study of human nature; murder that isn't sensationalised but instead speaks to complicated relationships. There are twists but it really was the way Matsumoto keeps building up this feeling that the guilty party is just too damn smart to get caught. We feel the frustration of the detectives each time they hit a wall and I really enjoyed the sense that this case was one of many these characters will experience in their careers.
The Bad
It really is a story that focuses entirely on the case. We do get glimpses into Torigai's home life, but Mihara's is a total blank. I didn't even know he had a wife until the last page.
And while I understand that the different cities and travel time tables are absolutely crucial to this story's core, I found I couldn't retain any information about them. There are so many trains, so many names of places I don't know and the times are so precise that it felt very muddled to read for me. Perhaps the information had to be given this way, but I think it could have been less detailed. Or maybe the full time tables could have been added to the appendix so I'd have something to flick back to.
The Somewhat Iffy
I think all the details were really clever so there was nothing really iffy in my mind about the crime. The only detail that still seems strange is that orange juice was planted at the scene. The detectives remarked that it was an odd drink to chose given the weather and it very easily could have been tea or whiskey or anything that would have seemed more natural since the crime was intended to look as natural as possible.
Overall
A tense, cleverly thought out crime with two great detective characters and a solution that was very satisfying to read. Memorable and unique.
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