Translated by Jesse Kirkwood

For this year’s Japanese Literature Challenge (hosted by Meredith at Dolce Bellezza), I wanted to read something by an author who was new to me and decided on Suspicion by Seichō Matsumoto. It turned out to be an excellent choice!

Suspicion was originally published in Japanese in 1982 and is now available from Penguin Classics in a new English translation. It’s a short novella at 112 pages, but it’s satisfying and I didn’t feel that it needed to be any longer. Loosely based on a true crime, the plot revolves around the trial of Kumako Onizuka, a woman accused of murdering her husband. She had only been married to Shirakawa for a few months when their car plunged into the sea one rainy July evening. Onizuka, who later claimed to have been in the passenger seat, managed to escape, but Shirakawa was drowned.

The story is told mainly from the perspective of the journalist Akitani, who is covering the case for the Hokuriku Daily. Akitani believes Onizuka is guilty and has written several pieces for the newspaper making his opinion very clear. Onizuka has a shady background, having already committed two or three other crimes, and the fact that she took out a large insurance policy on her husband’s life just before his death makes the whole thing look even more suspicious. Akitani is convinced that it was Onizuka and not Shirakawa who drove the car into the sea and in his newspaper articles he draws attention to her past, her character and even her name, Oni, which is associated with demons in Japanese.

However, all the evidence against Onizuka is purely circumstantial and when her original lawyer steps down due to illness, the court appoints a new one, Takukichi Sahara, who believes he’ll be able to prove her innocence. Akitani is horrified – Onizuka has links with the Yakuza (Japan’s version of the Mafia) and if she’s freed she’s sure to want revenge on everyone who has spoken out against her.

This is such a fascinating book. On one level, it works as a detective novel, with Sahara doing the ‘detecting’, looking through the evidence, considering the witness statements and trying to determine what really happened that evening in July. Then there are all the other layers: the role of the media in influencing public opinion; the way preconceived ideas can lead us to make unfair assumptions; and how personal bias can make two people interpret a situation in completely different ways. The characters don’t have much depth – and we never even really ‘meet’ Onizuka, with our knowledge of her coming mainly from other characters’ conversations – but that didn’t bother me too much in such a short book with so many other things to interest me. There’s also a twist at the end, which leaves us to decide for ourselves what probably happened next!

I would like to read more of Matsumoto’s books. It seems that Tokyo Express is considered his masterpiece, but it’s described as a mystery revolving around train timetables and alibis and I’m not sure how I would get on with that. Should I try it or can anyone recommend another one?