Blog tour: Point Zero

Welcome to the blog tour for Point Zero by Seichõ Matsumoto, translated from the Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai!

More about the book…

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. When Kenichi’s brother comes to help her, he is murdered, poisoned in his hotel room.

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.

More about the author…

Seicho Matsumoto (1909-1982) was Japan's most successful mystery writer. His first detective novel, Points and Lines, sold over a million copies in Japan. Vessel of Sand, published in English as Inspector Imanishi Investigates in1989, sold over four million copies and became a movie box-office hit.

More about the translator…

Louise Heal Kawai is a translator of Japanese literature based in Yokohama. She previously translated Seicho Matsumoto’s A Quiet Place for Bitter Lemon Press. She is the translator of other works in the mystery genre, including Seishi Yokomizo’s The Honjin Murders and Death on Gokumon Island, and Seventeen and The North Light by Hideo Yokoyama.

My impressions…

This novel seems to have it all: intriguing characters, a complex mystery, beautiful settings and fascinating glimpses into Japanese society.

First published in Japanese in 1959, this is an exquisitely written crime novel featuring a female protagonist which, at the time this book was published, was something new in the author’s native Japan. Teiko and Kenichi have barely been married for a month when he goes missing on a business trip. While aware of what is expected of her as a Japanese woman of the time, she nonetheless takes it upon herself to look into her husband’s disappearance.

The author takes us on a twofold journey: one in space, from Tokyo to the evocatively described Ishikawa prefecture, and one in time, from our comfortable sofas in 2024 to the gender norms and etiquette of 1959 Japan and, further back to the years of the American post-war occupation of Japan. A fascinating reading experience that made me reach out for the kettle every time that Teiko sat down to drink a cup of tea… which was a lot!

Three words to describe it. Atmospheric. Complex. Clever.

Do I like the cover? Yes, it’s perfect for this mystery novel.

Have I read any other books by the same author? No, but I desperately want to catch up. And, based on her obvious great skills, I wouldn’t mind checking out what else Louise Heal Kawai has translated from the Japanese.