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Murder At The Black Cat Café by Seishi Yokomizo
The Blurb On The Back:
Tokyo, 1947.
The Pink Labyrinth is one of the bomb-scarred city’s shadiest neighbourhoods. There, in the dead of night, a patrolling policeman catches a young Buddhist monk digging in the back yard of The Black Cat Cafe, a notorious brothel. In the shallow grace at his feet lie the dead body of a woman, her face disfigured beyond recognition, and the corpse of a black cat.
Who is the murdered woman, and how was she connected to the infamous establishment? And where did the dead cat come from, given that the cafe’s feline mascot seems to be alive and well? The brilliant sleuth Kosuke Kindaichi investigates, but as he draws closer to the truth, he finds himself in grave danger …
It’s 20 March 1947 in a small suburb of Tokyo.
While patrolling the suburb’s notorious pink labyrinth, Constable Hasegawa spots someone with a light in the garden of The Black Cat Cafe (a brothel that is currently standing empty after being sold). He finds a young Buddhist monk from the next-door monastery called Nitcho digging there and together they watch in horror as they uncover the naked body of a young woman, her face mutilated beyond recognition.
Detective Murai is assigned the investigation and soon uncovers the goings on of the former owners of The Black Cat Cafe - 42-year-old Daigo Itojima and his 29-year-old wife O-Shige whose tumultuous marriage was marked by mutual adultery and frequent arguments. Unable to ascertain the victim’s identity, they look into Daigo’s lover, Ayuko (who worked in a local dance hall) and O-Shige’s lover, Shunroku Kazama, the owner of a large Tokyo construction company. With no one having seen O-Shige in several weeks, Kazama is concerned enough about her safety to ask his old friend, the brilliant but eccentric private detective Kosuke Kindaichi, to help Murai and the police.
As Kindaichi digs into the case he uncovers dark plans and a twisted intelligence that ultimately puts his own life in danger …
Seishi Yokomizo’s take on the faceless corpse mystery (first published in 1973 and translated from Japanese by Bryan Karetnyk) is a clever but oddly flat read, in part because it is very short and has had to be paired with a short story Why Did The Well Wheel Crack? The characterisation never sparks off the page (including) Kindaichi who is reduced to some irritating quirks) and the resolution overly dramatic such that it never quite landed.
I picked this up because I had greatly enjoyed Yokomizo’s first crime novel featuring Kindaichi, THE HONJIN MURDERS, and wanted to read more of his adventures. Perhaps it’s because I enjoyed that book so much that I found this so disappointing.
The one thing I should say is that this is a clever take on the faceless corpse style of mystery and Yokomizo does a good job of playing with the elements to give an original resolution to the same. Certainly it kept me guessing, which is again why I may have been so disappointed with how the ending plays out, especially given how cunning the culprit was and how melodramatic they are at the end. It does not help that the way Yokomizo conveys the background facts - notably the fact that almost all of the information here is reported so that we don’t really see the main characters interacting, only how they are perceived, which makes it weirdly flat.
The big problem though for me was that unlike in THE HONJIN MURDERS, I found Kindaichi himself to be oddly unengaging. In the previous book he had an almost Columbo quality to him. Here he is a mass of tics, nervous laughter and arrogant intelligence. On the plus side, the finale does leave him shaken, which gives scope for development in later books, but I equally wondered if the two-dimensional characterisation here came from the fact that it was written over 25 years after THE HONJIN MURDERS was a sign that Yokomizo was less interested in him.
For all the cleverness of the story here, it is also slight, which is why it has been paired with a short story WHY DID THE WELL WHEEL CRACK? This also plays with identity as Kindaichi recounts his role in the case of Rie Honiden, who is found hacked to pieces in her bedroom, the solution to which delves into family rivalries and historic grievances. Again, it’s a clever and twisty story where the plot is more engaging than the characters.
Ultimately it’s not that this is a bad book, it just didn’t work for me as much as the previous one. I would continue to read books in this series and more of Yokomizo’s work but given the cover price - £10.99 - it’s a lot of money for a paperback that definitely does not punch at its weight.
The Verdict:
Seishi Yokomizo’s take on the faceless corpse mystery (first published in 1973 and translated from Japanese by Bryan Karetnyk) is a clever but oddly flat read, in part because it is very short and has had to be paired with a short story Why Did The Well Wheel Crack? The characterisation never sparks off the page (including) Kindaichi who is reduced to some irritating quirks) and the resolution overly dramatic such that it never quite landed.
Tokyo, 1947.
The Pink Labyrinth is one of the bomb-scarred city’s shadiest neighbourhoods. There, in the dead of night, a patrolling policeman catches a young Buddhist monk digging in the back yard of The Black Cat Cafe, a notorious brothel. In the shallow grace at his feet lie the dead body of a woman, her face disfigured beyond recognition, and the corpse of a black cat.
Who is the murdered woman, and how was she connected to the infamous establishment? And where did the dead cat come from, given that the cafe’s feline mascot seems to be alive and well? The brilliant sleuth Kosuke Kindaichi investigates, but as he draws closer to the truth, he finds himself in grave danger …
It’s 20 March 1947 in a small suburb of Tokyo.
While patrolling the suburb’s notorious pink labyrinth, Constable Hasegawa spots someone with a light in the garden of The Black Cat Cafe (a brothel that is currently standing empty after being sold). He finds a young Buddhist monk from the next-door monastery called Nitcho digging there and together they watch in horror as they uncover the naked body of a young woman, her face mutilated beyond recognition.
Detective Murai is assigned the investigation and soon uncovers the goings on of the former owners of The Black Cat Cafe - 42-year-old Daigo Itojima and his 29-year-old wife O-Shige whose tumultuous marriage was marked by mutual adultery and frequent arguments. Unable to ascertain the victim’s identity, they look into Daigo’s lover, Ayuko (who worked in a local dance hall) and O-Shige’s lover, Shunroku Kazama, the owner of a large Tokyo construction company. With no one having seen O-Shige in several weeks, Kazama is concerned enough about her safety to ask his old friend, the brilliant but eccentric private detective Kosuke Kindaichi, to help Murai and the police.
As Kindaichi digs into the case he uncovers dark plans and a twisted intelligence that ultimately puts his own life in danger …
Seishi Yokomizo’s take on the faceless corpse mystery (first published in 1973 and translated from Japanese by Bryan Karetnyk) is a clever but oddly flat read, in part because it is very short and has had to be paired with a short story Why Did The Well Wheel Crack? The characterisation never sparks off the page (including) Kindaichi who is reduced to some irritating quirks) and the resolution overly dramatic such that it never quite landed.
I picked this up because I had greatly enjoyed Yokomizo’s first crime novel featuring Kindaichi, THE HONJIN MURDERS, and wanted to read more of his adventures. Perhaps it’s because I enjoyed that book so much that I found this so disappointing.
The one thing I should say is that this is a clever take on the faceless corpse style of mystery and Yokomizo does a good job of playing with the elements to give an original resolution to the same. Certainly it kept me guessing, which is again why I may have been so disappointed with how the ending plays out, especially given how cunning the culprit was and how melodramatic they are at the end. It does not help that the way Yokomizo conveys the background facts - notably the fact that almost all of the information here is reported so that we don’t really see the main characters interacting, only how they are perceived, which makes it weirdly flat.
The big problem though for me was that unlike in THE HONJIN MURDERS, I found Kindaichi himself to be oddly unengaging. In the previous book he had an almost Columbo quality to him. Here he is a mass of tics, nervous laughter and arrogant intelligence. On the plus side, the finale does leave him shaken, which gives scope for development in later books, but I equally wondered if the two-dimensional characterisation here came from the fact that it was written over 25 years after THE HONJIN MURDERS was a sign that Yokomizo was less interested in him.
For all the cleverness of the story here, it is also slight, which is why it has been paired with a short story WHY DID THE WELL WHEEL CRACK? This also plays with identity as Kindaichi recounts his role in the case of Rie Honiden, who is found hacked to pieces in her bedroom, the solution to which delves into family rivalries and historic grievances. Again, it’s a clever and twisty story where the plot is more engaging than the characters.
Ultimately it’s not that this is a bad book, it just didn’t work for me as much as the previous one. I would continue to read books in this series and more of Yokomizo’s work but given the cover price - £10.99 - it’s a lot of money for a paperback that definitely does not punch at its weight.
The Verdict:
Seishi Yokomizo’s take on the faceless corpse mystery (first published in 1973 and translated from Japanese by Bryan Karetnyk) is a clever but oddly flat read, in part because it is very short and has had to be paired with a short story Why Did The Well Wheel Crack? The characterisation never sparks off the page (including) Kindaichi who is reduced to some irritating quirks) and the resolution overly dramatic such that it never quite landed.