Suspicion by Seichō Matsumoto (#NovNov26)
An ultra-rare foray into the crime section of the library for me, borrowed because I had filled a reservation for it and the length convinced me it was worth a try.
Journalist Moichi Akitani becomes fixated on the case of Kumako Onizuka, a former Tokyo escort suspected to have murdered her older husband, Fukutarō Shirakawa, to claim his 3-million-yen life insurance policy. When Shirakawa’s car drove straight into the water at a port, he was trapped and died, while Onizuka survived. Under questioning, she swore that her husband was driving, whereas the consensus seems to be that she was lying and drove him off the pier – but had planted a spanner (wrench) in the car so that she could break the windscreen and escape. With his newspaper articles, Akitani perhaps unwittingly helps to perpetuate sexist assumptions about Onizuka and condition readers to expect a conviction.
Over four years and several defence lawyers, the case gets drawn out so much that the initial furore dies down. But for Akitani, the fascination remains. There are two details that people get hung up on: the spanner, and Shirakawa’s right shoe, which was found in the car, quite beaten up. As public opinion begins to turn, Akitani is paralysed by the realization that if Onizuka goes free, she might have her gangster acquaintances come after him.
Although I found this somewhat dull until the revelations of the final chapter and the twist ending, it’s an interesting study of obsession, preconceptions and the femme fatale stereotype. Written in the 1980s, it has an atmosphere that hearkens back to the era of classic crime by the likes of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. All in all, a pleasant entertainment that could easily be polished off in an afternoon.
Suspicion by Seichō Matsumoto (1982; 2025)
[Translated from Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood]
(Public library)
[98 pages]
Get Ready for Novellas in November! (#NovNov26)
Novellas: “all killer, no filler”
~Joe Hill
Hard to believe it’s nearly that time again. For the SEVENTH year in a row, Cathy of 746 Books and I are co-hosting Novellas in November as a month-long blogging and social media challenge celebrating the art of the short book (we include nonfiction, too). A novella technically contains 20,000 to 40,000 words, but to keep things simple we define it as any work under 200 pages.
This year’s buddy read is a 2024 novella translated from the Japanese last year:
Sympathy Tower Tokyo by Rie Qudan [translated by Jesse Kirkwood] is the author’s fourth novel and won the Akutagawa Prize. An architect named Sara Machina is assigned to design a city skyscraper meant to house criminals in comfort. While trying to navigate a middle way between compassion and recrimination – complicated by her own past victimhood – she converses with an AI chatbot. This engaging exploration of language, creativity and conformity comes with high praise from writers ranging from Helen Phillips to Bryan Washington. (134 pages)
Please join us in reading this any time between now and the end of November!
You might like to start off the month with a My Year in Novellas retrospective looking at any novellas you have read since last year’s NovNov and finish with a New to My TBR list based on what short books others have tempted you with.
It’s always a busy month in the blogging world with Nonfiction November, German Literature Month, Margaret Atwood Reading Month and SciFi Month. Why not search your shelves and/or local library for novellas that could count towards multiple challenges?
From 19 October a link-up post will be pinned at the top of my site so you can add your planning posts and book lists. Keep in touch via Bluesky (@bookishbeck.bsky.social / @cathybrown746.bsky.social) and Instagram (@bookishbeck / @cathy_746books) and feel free to use the terrific feature images Cathy has made plus our new hashtag, #NovNov26.
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
