translated from the Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood – originally published in Japanese in 1982, this is a new translation
Many writers base their novel around an actual case, and then go on to develop the story and characters, and so give it their own take.. asking perhaps “What if this happened next?” or “What if he or she did this, instead of that?”. Such is the case here.
Suspicion was based on a 1974 crime known as “the Beppu 300 million yen insurance murder.” A car crashed off a ferry dock into the sea, killing a woman and her two children. The sole survivor of the accident was the woman’s husband, an ex-convict she had only recently married. The man insisted that his wife had been driving, but suspicions arose when police learned that he had recently taken out several different insurance policies on his new wife and stepchildren. After appearing on a live television show to proclaim his innocence, he was arrested backstage and charged with murder.
Matsumoto keeps the framework, but asks, What if the one who dies in the accident is the husband? And what if the surviving wife is an attractive woman, but with a dark past? Further, he inserts an ambitious local pressman who makes a name for himself with a series of articles portraying the wife as a killer.. and that fuels the public’s hatred of the woman to the extent where even her own defence lawyers fear for careers should she be acquitted.
The writing is wonderful, taut and to the point. It’s an atmospheric noir that is an absolute pleasure to read.
My GoodReads score 4 / 5
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