Two Families

Since the beginning of the year, I have been thinking of dabbling in a bit of crime/mystery writing myself. This is absolutely not my forte, and I am far more comfortable analysing fiction than writing it myself. Regardless, I decided to take the plunge. The following long-ish, self-indulgent story is the result of my first stab at fiction-writing of any kind. I have not edited or fine-tuned it in any way, as I wanted to keep a record of the raw, unpolished version of my first story.

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On an overcast day, Peter Ramanujan intently watched a children’s game of gullee cricket unfold under a flyover.

“Bowl him out!”

It was the last over of a frenetic match. As the ball sailed over the captain’s head after his exclamation, tempers frayed even further. The next deliveries—marked by prolonged deliberations, interpretations of the game, and yelling—yielded a boundary, followed by a hattrick of wickets, and more noise. The equation came down to six runs off the final ball with a wicket remaining.

Even Peter, who was the farthest thing from an ardent cricket devotee, found himself transfixed by the spectacle. “Impossible to see such pure emotion and passion in professional sports,” he thought. Just then, the batter slogged the ball a long distance. Cue the inevitable cacophony of voices. “Four,” shouted a trio. “No, six,” erupted the opponents. A fight seemed to be brewing, but after a minute examination of the makeshift boundary line and the ‘mark’ made by the ball, the teams begrudgingly decided on a six. As the winners broke into a celebration, the other team promised to exact revenge in the next match—“we will defeat you!”

Peter moved away from the battlefield, only to turn back and hear a dull thud. Whatever was going on there had been interrupted by a steel lunch box that flew and landed close to the tower of bricks that functioned as one of the stumps. Peter instinctively looked up but could make out no one looking over the flyover. “Probably someone from a moving car … ”, he muttered. He made towards the place the box had landed, but the children had mobbed around the box by then, and were about to examine its contents. Soon, cheers rang out. “Certainly an unexpected reward for a hard-fought match, and maybe a half-day of hunger,” thought Peter, as he allowed himself the briefest of smiles.

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Peter Ramanujan continued on his way to the Brahmatalab police station in Mayanagari town. He had been invited out of the blue by his dear friend, Inspector Ashok Ghosh. “I wonder what he wants to meet me for."

Ten minutes on a straight path from the spot where he had watched the cricket match brought him to the mouth of the Brahmatalab road, locally known as the police thana road. The road was fragrant and tree-lined, but despite its peaceful environs, suffice it to say that the street and the police station on it had, over the years, gobbled up all the foul secrets and mysterious events from the neighbourhood and some other adjoining areas. “I just hope it’s not another case,” Peter mouthed, as a silent prayer escaped his lips.

His prayer was not heard. After five more minutes of walking, Peter stood in front of the station—a one-storey greyish-yellow affair that looked more like a homely cottage than an office building, with a blue-and-red board proudly spelling out BRAHMATALAB POLICE STATION in white, its address and contact details in black. The cottage was surrounded by a well-maintained garden filling the air with a fragrant, infectious smell, but Peter was not distracted by the blooms.

He found the station to be in a state of unusual activity. Several jeeps and vans stood outside the gate, and a constant stream of police personnel issued back and forth. “Excuse me, but where can I find Ashok Ghosh?” he asked, just as a khaki-clad constable rushed out of the station gates and jumped into a jeep. “Sorry, no time,” the constable yelled before the jeep rode off. “Ah, Ramanujan ji, you are just in time,” called out a voice. Peter turned around, and came face-to-face with Ramnath the sub-inspector. “I was looking for you—Ashok sir has asked me to accompany you to a crime scene.” 

“But what is the matter, Ramnath ji?”

“An accident involving some big-wig. Near the gol-chakkar (roundabout) close to the Hanuman mandir. Are you coming with me?”

There goes my day of peace, Peter cussed himself. He hadn’t even stepped inside the station, before he was ushered into a mobile van as it drove off, sirens blaring, along the same route he had come from. As they approached the junction of police thana road and the main thoroughfare, Peter was seized by a sudden desire to catch a glimpse of the children playing cricket under the flyover. He wanted to revel in the youthful exuberance of a children’s game, before the senses-numbing, almost dehumanising, demands of a morbid crime scene took over. “Can we stop somewhere for two minutes?”

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The detour led them to a scene straight out of hell. Gone were the vibrant screams of the children, and in its place was an eerie quiet unaffected by the din and noise of the passing vehicles. This unnerving silence had, in fact, heralded the sudden and uninvited appearance of death.

Peter and Ramnath could not quite believe what they were seeing. The state of shock lasted for a second, before instinct took over. Rushing out of the car, they sped to the first child lying on the ground. Within a minute, they had checked the pulses of all the children and a woman lying on the ground—to no avail. They were all dead—some clutching their stomach, others their throat; a few clawing and scratching the ground; some had fallen over to their sides or on their backs, while the woman, her head hanging limp, had tightly grasped two children to her bosom as if to protect them from some faceless enemy.

Their faces—some with eyes open, others closed—were contorted into visages of sheer, unimaginable agony which somehow still spoke volumes of their desperate attempts to cling to life. These life-like expressions of the dead would haunt Ramnath and Peter for a long time.

It was then that Ramnath observed the weird, misshapen blotches of cherry red and pink on the mouths and skins of the deceased—telltale signs of mass cyanide poisoning. “What has happened? And why did you want to come here?” he asked. “I will explain that later. But first, you must secure the scene and gather all the evidence. The corpses also need to be transported,” Peter managed to say, despite the storm raging inside him.

A moment later, recognition seemed to dawn upon Ramnath. “Wait a minute—it was only last week that I had told these people to vacate this area. So, how come they have returned?” Peter didn’t reply, but it was not hard for him to realise that the children must have still not got over their attachment to their old haunting grounds, and had returned once the vigilance had been lifted. “And on this very day …”

For quite some time, Peter’s attention had been drawn to the steel lunch box lying in the midst of the corpses. “Wasn’t this the one that flew off the bridge?” he pondered, taking a closer look but not handling it. Its lid, neatly labelled ANIL, lay some distance apart, but the contents of the box—a dish of peas and paneer, daal, and maybe some chapattis—were nearly emptied. “Ramnath ji, please handle this box carefully. It may be poisoned,” Peter called out. When he found a moment to himself, he started crying—“the curse of the gift from the heavens” was his repeated, cryptic refrain.

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Their mourning for the 11 victims was over by the time they wrapped up their preliminary analysis of the scene of crime. Leaving three constables in charge of canvassing and securing the scene of this tragedy, and collecting the rest of the evidence, Ramnath and Peter sped off to the accident spot, with an evidence bag storing the likely-poisoned tiffin box.

Twenty minutes later, the mobile van reached the accident spot. Inspector Ashok Ghosh had completely forgotten why he had invited Peter Ramanujan in the first place. Hiding his embarrassment, however, Ashok hailed Peter the moment he stepped out of the van. 

“Oh Peter, you have arrived? Just look at the mess here. The media is going to have a field day—the city’s famous businessman, Anil Mahajan, has been critically wounded in this accident.”

“When do I ever meet you without some kind of ‘incident’ happening?” thought Peter, a tad unkindly. Aloud, he said, “What? Only that day I came to know he had received the contract to redesign the state’s municipal corporation headquarters. And today, this happens!” 

Anil Mahajan happened to be the kingpin of Mahajan Constructions, a civil construction company that invariably took over any and all major construction projects in the city, public or private. Its modus operandi involved making use of its exhaustive network of eyes to spy on the operations of all its rivals, outbidding them always at the last possible moment. It had many enemies, but sabotaging its operations was out of the question—it had already driven most of its rival businesses into bankruptcy. Mahajan and his enterprise enjoyed considerable clout in political and private circles—his mansion, the largest in the city, was a seat of power in itself where deals were forged and lives ruined before they became public knowledge, and was located in the aptly named Mahajan Hills, a sprawling privately-owned property spread over 150 acres of sparse hilly forestland. “For such a person to meet such an ignominious fate—what a fall!” wondered Peter.

“But if it is an accident, what can I do?” Peter asked Ashok. “Listen for a moment, Peter!” replied Ashok. “Arriving at the site, I too had thought that this was a normal accident. But there are witnesses who state that before the crash, they had seen Anil shouting for help, saying that the brakes were not working. Passengers in other cars at that time have also said the same thing.”

The car, it turned out, had overshot the traffic signal at the Hanuman mandir roundabout—and, instead of turning right, had gone straight, veered and then crashed into the boundary wall of the premises of the state’s Civic Works Department headquarter. “At long last, the Department will have to get something repaired by themselves,” muttered Peter to himself. After all, this department was infamous for never ever letting its tools and men repair the crumbling buildings and roads.

A man emerged from the wreckage of the car. It was sheer luck that a malfunctioning car speeding at over 80 kilometres an hour had not caused a single casualty, owing to the unusually empty road at that time. The man—a mechanic who had been called to quickly ascertain the cause of the accident—confirmed that the car’s brakes had indeed been tampered with in a manner that “driving above 60 kilometres an hour meant that he was a dead man.” “I will of course have to analyse the mechanism of tampering,” the mechanic continued. “But I also feel that an accelerant may have been mixed in the car’s fuel, ensuring that the car could never have slowed down. It was a death trap on wheels—and my guess is that it was meant for Anil Mahajan only.”

Peter and Ashok silently agreed with that last assessment. It was a well-known fact that if there was one thing Anil Mahajan took pride in apart from his construction empire, it was his fleet of seven high-end luxury cars—one for each day of the week. It was also widely known that Anil always drove the cars himself—“I could never entertain the idea of someone else driving my hard-earned cars,” he had once bluntly stated in an interview. So, it was quite a shock last week when people on the streets saw Anil’s car—the same one that was wrecked in this accident—being driven into a mechanic’s shop by Samir, his eldest son. Anil himself was nowhere to be seen, and when tabloids pushed him for an answer, “no comment” was all he would offer.

This line of thought, however, also opened the distinct and uncomfortable possibility that this incident may have been an inside job, involving immediate family member(s) or someone hired by them. Ashok therefore dispatched three officers from the scene to the Mahajans’ residence to interview them and check their stories. At that moment, Ramnath came with a report: “Anil ji has been admitted to City Heights Hospital, but his condition at the moment is touch-and-go.” 

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“Brain haemorrhage. Neck break. Rib fracture. Bleeding in lungs.” Peter and Ashok listened to the doctor in the emergency ward of City Heights Hospital list out the near-fatal diagnosis. “There are a lot of external lacerations. When he was wheeled in, he was in a state of deep shock, but he has now been sedated. He could regain consciousness in the next two or three hours, but I can’t predict anything at the moment.”

Peter and Ashok looked at the barely breathing Anil Mahajan. There was no doubt that, had he been conscious, his state and the doctor’s diagnosis would have given him a nasty shock. It was just as well, but in this state, Anil resembled a mummy somehow brought to life. Bandages were wrapped around his face, arms, and chest, almost serving as a life support. His legs, which had miraculously escaped any kind of injury, barring the odd scratch or two, were barely moving—owing, no doubt to the sedation, but also creating the illusion that the shattered upper portion of his body was where his life resided the most.

“Doctor, you also mentioned that Anil ji was muttering something?” Ashok finally asked.

“Yes, he was. Give me a second…” Hailing a passing ward boy, the doctor said, “Call Ramesh once.” As the boy ran off, the doctor added, by way of explanation, “Ramesh was the one who had heard Anil ji say something.” Accompanying the ward boy, Ramesh, the male nurse, arrived a few minutes later. Ashok repeated the question. “I can’t say for sure, but my impression was that he was repeatedly saying something like ‘they have killed me—they are all my enemies’. After a pause, I also heard the names ‘Samir, Sunil, Amar’ from him.”

Ashok and Peter nodded their heads meaningfully. The incoherent talk of a man in a delirious state did not mean anything, but Samir, Sunil, and Amar were the names of Anil’s three sons—the squabbling successors to his empire. Together, the three sons, their wives, and Anil were the very portrait of a dysfunctional family, united only by thoughts of greed and more greed. Ironically, even though they each had different visions, none of the sons showed any inclination to continue the construction business. And so, despite its stature, Mahajan Constructions’ existence seemed inextricably tied to Anil Mahajan’s.

The inspector’s phone rang. As Peter and Ramnath watched, Ashok’s face grew cloudier and grimmer. By the time the call was over, Ashok wanted to bang his face against the wall. Having decided otherwise, and after taking a long breath, he relayed what he had heard: “The team from Mahajan Hills just called. All members of the Mahajan family have been killed, no exceptions. Cyanide poisoning suspected.”

At that moment, Peter and Ramnath’s blood ran colder than it had ever done.

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Peter had no desire to visit Mahajan Hills—one scene of massacre had tormented him sufficiently. Directing Ramnath to keep watch over Anil and to report any developments, Ashok rushed over to Mahajan Hills. He drove through the gates of the stately mansion, coming to a halt in front of the portico with arched pillars. One of the constables greeted him and accompanied him to the scene of carnage, past the copiously weeping maali (gardener) standing at the doorway.

The first thing that caught one’s eye on entering the Mahajan’s mansion were the gigantic white-marble statues of gods and goddesses from the Hindu pantheon kept at various corners of the massive living space. The Mahajans liked to think of themselves as deities presiding over the lives of whoever stepped foot inside their house, and this installation of statues served to inspire awe and reverence among the visitors. This time, however, they stood as mute, omniscient witnesses refusing to say whodunnit—“as if they had run out of boons to bestow upon the family, and had instead meted out divine justice for a change.” The very next moment, he corrected his line of thought—“but, surely, murder is very much a human act.”  

Five officers were minutely analysing and scraping the room for prints, and other evidence. Ashok surveyed the scene—one of the officers was kneeling near the corpse of Amar, who had collapsed, face-forward, on the first landing of the staircase that led to the floor above. The three wives had evidently been sitting on the sofa in the sitting room, but death took different forms with them. Amar’s wife had pitched forward, nearly shattering the glass table in front of the sofa. Samir’s wife was still sitting clawing at her throat, head hung back over the sofa, eyes bulging open. Sunil’s wife, meanwhile, had fallen sideways on the floor, a trickle of blood around the portion of head that had struck the ground, mouth open with the tongue hanging out. In the kitchen adjoining the dining space, Sunil himself lay half-kneeling, head slumped, an arm trying to reach the tap in the sink. Samir lay fully on the floor, limbs in a posture that suggested wild thrashing movements before death, and a light pink foam issuing from a wide-open mouth.

Ashok fell sick to the stomach. He had already observed the same misshapen cherry red/pink blotches on the victims’ skins which Peter had observed in the children and the mother. An officer came forward to tell him that some traces of a cyanide derivative had been detected on each of the dishes and glasses in the kitchen as well as those on the dining table. “I hope no one has touched anything with bare hands? Keep yourself covered with the gloves and mask here.” Having barked out the directions, the inspector then proceeded to call one of the officers, and instructed him to have all the bodies transported to the morgue in the police headquarters [since the Brahmatalab police station itself didn’t have one]. “When will it all end today?” Ashok asked himself wearily.

The maali’s pathetic sobs could still be heard from outside the door. Still in his mask and gloves, Ashok enquired, “Are you the gardener here? Were you the first to see the dead bodies?” 

“Yes…”

“Tell me what happened here. Speak freely, and leave out no detail.”

“I was watering the plants. I was supposed to be paid today, so after I had completed watering all the plants, I rang the bell two-three times. When no one opened the doors, I went to the front-facing windows and looked inside. I immediately felt something was odd. I shouted all of their names, but no one responded. It was then that I realised something was very wrong.”

“What did you do then?”

“For some time, I had no idea what to do. Then, the milkman arrived. We tried to break open the front door, but it did not budge. We were about to call the police, when your men arrived. How can I face my master now?”

Ashok thought it prudent not to mention anything about Anil’s condition. Instead, he changed tack.

“When you were watering the plants, did you see anyone enter or leave the premises? Are there any other entry or exit points from the house?”

“No, I do not think so.”

“Okay, that’s all for now. But stay here—and do not try to leave.”

Ashok turned to join the investigator’s activities, but the maali’s voice beckoned him.

“Sir… there’s something I want to tell you.”

“Yes, go ahead?”

“I should not speak ill of the dead, but it is a fact that I did listen to the family members speak during the evening. Anil ji was not there, so they were all speaking pretty loudly. What can I say? The colour drained from my face as I listened to them.”

Ashok egged the gardener on.

“Sir, they weren’t nice people at all. Yesterday evening, they were planning to kill my master. They were saying that they would mix poison in Anil ji’s tiffin-lunch for the following day. They seemed to be excessively troubled by some will. I listened to the entire conversation, and stealthily ran away from the house, but at some distance away, I paused and stood beside the road. When Anil ji passed by the spot on the way to the house, I stopped the car. Then I told all I had heard to him. My master pledged me to secrecy, and so I have done. But this matter has now left me shaken. Is the master alright?”

The confession of the gardener hit Ashok like a thunderbolt. But it had only served to complicate matters. Who had killed the would-be murderers? And, how did Anil Mahajan become a victim of a planned accident, when the plan actually was to poison him at long distance?

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Meanwhile, back at City Heights Hospital, Ramnath received a call from the forensic analyst at the morgue in the police headquarters, confirming what they had already suspected—that cyanide had stained the fingertips and a large portion of all the victims’ bodies—from the foodpipe all the way down to the intestine. The poison was also detected in the food samples from the tiffin box—“of a dose sufficient to kill 10 elephants,” added the analyst. Anil Mahajan’s life—with his vital signs closely observed through monitors and beeps—hung in the balance.

“Now that I see it, I have completely forgotten to send the lunch box to the headquarters? Should I go to drop it off?” Ramnath’s remark broke Peter out of his reverie. 

“No, leave it be. As it is, the results have already arrived. At this moment, it is more important that we keep strict watch over Anil.” 

At around the same time, around 20 kilometres away, Ashok was racing to meet a certain Ravi Bansal, lawyer in the firm Jajwala and Sons. Ravi and Ashok had crossed paths several times before, their first encounter dating back to their childhoods. Ravi, Ashok, and Peter went to the same school where they were known to be top-class pranksters and troublemakers.

Ashok met Ravi not on the premises of Jajwala and Sons, but in Ravi’s house. As Ashok sank into the leather sofa, Ravi asked, “Ashok, what brings you here? Have you thought of a new chapter for The Book of Practical Tricks? Hey, look at this! I am working on an entire section of tricks involving water.” Ashok took the scratch pad, but its contents failed to amuse him. Seeing the cloud descend on his friend’s face, Ravi asked, “Ashok, what’s the matter? Is there something you are not telling me?”

“Have you seen the news?”

“No. I have just returned today, from my annual vacation.”

“Anil Mahajan was in a car crash today. He is in a critical condition. But, that’s not all. His entire family was murdered today. Poisoned.”

“But, I… I do not understand. What are you saying? Why, it was only last week that… ”

“Yes, Ravi?”

“What I wanted to say is that it was only last week that Anil ji changed his will in my presence and registered a new one. This was the day before I left for my leave. The new will is in the office.”

“Ravi, I am in a bit of a hurry, but could you quickly explain the differences? It could give us a motive for the incidents.”

“Why, yes, of course. It’s all pretty simple. The earlier will had divided all properties and assets equally among his three sons and their families—the divisions clearly outlined. However, since none of the sons and their families had shown any desire to continue the operations of Mahajan Constructions, he had revoked all the earlier provisions in this new will, and had instead bequeathed everything to a heritage conservation trust. Unless anything drastic happened at all, the will was to be made binding today, via an announcement.”

“Why, that’s pretty straightforward and convenient,” thought Ashok. A couple of possibilities had sprung to his mind, but only one could explain the change in modus operandi and how the would-be murderers ended up dead.

“Ravi, think carefully before answering, but did Anil have any offspring or family members other than these three? What I mean is, he may not have publicly acknowledged them, but legally, they could still have a claim to what the wills offered?

“I know what you are implying, but no. Anil ji was pretty firm on this point. And, neither have we received any such claims to this day.”

That shut the door on the possibility as soon as it had opened.

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More than four hours had passed since Anil Mahajan had been sedated. He had already been carried on a wheel stretcher to one of those private cabins in the hospital reserved for the super-rich and powerful. An attendant kept a watch on the patient, noting down the patient’s vitals and administering drugs intravenously from time to time, according to the doctor’s instructions.

Outside the room, Ashok, Peter, and Ramnath stood in deep conversation. They had already exchanged notes from the three incidents, and the fog had gradually lifted. Peter had offered an explanation that connected the three—yes, all three—incidents, but whether they could prove its veracity was a different matter altogether. At the most, they were banking on a kind of indirect confirmation, which would hold little value in a court. But, then again, none of the three present expected the case to make it to court. Which is also the reason why they had agreed to carry out an unconventional experiment.

The doctor came out of the patient’s room. “Anil ji is now conscious and awake,” the doctor said. “However, he cannot speak, as his vocal cords have received extensive damage. At the moment, he can only barely shake his head.” The three men nodded. Then, Ashok entered the room. Ramnath followed, carrying with him some items: car keys, sunglasses, a damaged leather briefcase, a pair of shoes, a blood-stained overcoat, a steel lunch box, and a plate. Peter entered the room last, standing close to the doorway.

Peter, sitting beside Anil, grasped Anil’s hands, before saying, “Anil ji, what happened to you was absolutely shocking. We are trying to get to the bottom of the matter as soon as possible. Can you please take a look at the following items and see if you can recognize them? No, no—please do not move yourself. Just nod your head to say yes, and shake for a no. Okay?”

With an almost imperceptible jerk of the head, Anil nodded yes.

“Ramnath!”

Ramnath came forward with the shoes, displaying all sides and angles to the patient. As Anil’s eyes followed the motion, he slowly shook his head once.

Next came the car keys. Anil nodded his head.

The sunglasses elicited another no.

The leather briefcase, on the other hand, was recognised.

At this moment, in came the doctor with an attendant carrying a pot full of khichdi. “I am sorry, gentlemen, but I must ask you to stop for a bit. Anil ji must have some food.” The attendant, in the meantime, poured some of the watery food into the plate, and some into the lunch box that Ramnath had earlier kept on the chair to show Anil. As the attendant slowly brought the plate before Anil’s eyes, he scooped a spoonful and brought it close to Anil’s mouth. By then, Ashok, Ramnath, and Peter had already seen the visible panic-ridden change in the patient’s movements. Eyes bulging wide, Anil frantically shook his head to the extent possible, and clenched his hands tightly. His body trembled, and he actively tried to avoid being fed the food. The doctor also observed this, and asked the attendant to stop. “Anil ji, you must have some food, otherwise you will become too weak. Or, do you want to be fed from the tiffin box?” And, thus, the same action was repeated with the lunch box. This time, Anil’s reaction was even more vehement. “Strange, I have never seen anyone react so violently to a meal of plain khichdi.” He made a note to later check if Anil had any existing food allergies, particularly to khichdi or any of its ingredients.

But, Peter, Ashok, and Ramnath had come to a different conclusion from the events that transpired. Closely watching the entire proceedings was the lid of the lunch box—the lid with the name ANIL.

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A little time later, Peter found himself alone in the hospital cabin with Anil. He had requested his good friend to grant him this time. Ashok understood immediately, particularly since it was Peter’s explanation of the entire sequence of events, which he had outlined previously, that made the most sense.

Peter took a deep breath. Followed immediately by a long sigh.

He was scared. Scared of what he was about to do. “A long day of dealing with death, non-stop, tends to do that to you … ” he tried to rationalise. But, what good, if any, were these actions going to serve?

Ever since the death of the children, there was a nagging sensation at the back of his head—the kind that makes you want to take a hatchet to your own head. A part of him had then fuelled this into a fire of righteous indignation, as news of more deaths rolled in. And now, having figured out the disparate threads of the affair, he wanted an outlet. It was selfish, petty, no doubt—and it would only serve to prolong the suffering and torment of himself and the patient. But, at this moment, no torture seemed to be greater than what he was going through, silently.

Peter slowly approached the victim. After comparing his thoughts with the inspector’s findings, a certain structure had come to his mind. Anil Mahajan must have told the family about his intentions to not leave behind a single penny, as long as they didn’t take up the mantle of Mahajan Constructions. The greedy vultures would then have given in to their murderous impulses—the first prey being Samir, who acted on his own. The tampering of the brakes and the car fuel would have been done when Samir took the car out for repairs—incidentally, the very day Anil Mahajan finalised his new will. Samir must have told no one about it; otherwise, the second attempt made no sense, especially since Anil’s driving schedule of ‘one car a day’ was fairly easy to deduce. 

“So, what about the failed attempt, and how did the children get mixed up in this? And why did the family end up dead?” Inspector Ashok’s question came to Peter’s mind. The gardener’s account was vital to unpick the mystery here. Having learned about the family’s poisoning plans, Anil Mahajan would have been furious. That he had taken matters into his own hand should come as no surprise. He must have gotten hold of some cyanide poison after his conversation with the maali. Later, at night or very early in the morning, when the entire family was asleep, he would have tiptoed into the kitchen, smeared the poison all over the utensils, leaving no one any the wiser. Later, on the way to his destination, acting on the maali’s warnings, he had dropped the lunch box off the bridge from his speeding car. It is possible that the choice of spot was completely random, or he may have seen it empty sometime over the week—either way, this act had the horrific consequences which Peter had witnessed earlier in the day. The unfortunate Anil was unable to cheat his karma, though—unaware of his eldest son’s machinations, he ended up in this hospital cabin, struggling to hold on.

Aloud, Peter said, “Anil ji, you have killed two families today. There were children under the flyover where you dropped your lunch box. They ate from it, and are now dead. I hope you know what you have done.”

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By the time Peter left the hospital, it was night. The bright lights of the streets failed to cheer him up. Two hours later, Ashok called Peter to inform that Anil Mahajan had also passed away—from a haemorrhage caused by a stroke.

That day, two families vanished from the face of earth in the city of Mayanagari. And a god-fearing man listened to the whisperings of the devil for the first time.

California Dreamin'

During what was, perhaps, the only Dungeons & Dragons session I have ever participated in, a friend of mine made a pitch for me to jump on the science-and-fantasy fiction bandwagon. Said friend introduced me to the 'Dying Earth' subgenre, which also happens to be a common theme and setting in Dungeons & Dragons games. It has a long lineage, featuring works from Mary Shelley and H. G. Wells to those by Gene Wolfe, but my friend particularly recommended stories and novels by Jack Vance. As it turns out, the subgenre is named as a tribute to Vance and his Dying Earth series (1950–1984).

I never did explore the 'Dying Earth' subgenre or Vance's series. My loyalty and devotion to crime fiction proved to be far stronger—and a cursory dive into Vance's bibliography showed that he wrote and published a number of crime and mystery fiction works, including a few under the Ellery Queen pseudonym. Last year, on a whim, I decided to read what sounded like one of the more interesting titles in his oeuvre—The Fox Valley Murders (1966). It is safe to say that I hit the jackpot in my first encounter with Vance's works.

Lived experiences of authors loom large over books I have read (or reread) in recent years. The descriptions of numerous fictional locations (villages, towns, hotels, buildings, among others) in Agatha Christie's novels, such as Peril at End House, Evil Under the Sun, and The Body in the Library, for instance, are said to draw inspiration from her travels and stays particularly in Devon and Torquay. In Seishi Yokomizo's Kosuke Kindaichi series, on the other hand, Yokomizo's wartime experiences in the Japan's Okayama islands mould the settings, the narratives, the politics as well as the way characters act and interact with each other—particularly in works such as The Honjin Murders, Death on Gokumon Island and The Village of Eight Graves.

In The Fox Valley Murders, Vance draws upon his childhood experiences in his beloved Californian countryside in a more personal and intimate manner than Christie or Yokomizo. The result is a work where the geography and the cast of characters emerge as something resembling picture cut-outs from a photo album. It is, therefore, not surprising to note that the novel is propelled by an effective combination of nostalgia, and the use of well-defined, believable characters, crisp, entertaining, and humorous conversations, as well as vivid, evocative descriptions of locales. Employing a very American diction, The Fox Valley Murders is, in my opinion, one of the finest specimens of a 'regional mystery' I have ever encountered.

Events of the past cast long shadows—and these shadows re-emerge when Ausley Wyett ("tall and awkward, with lank brown hair, knobby knees and wrists, a good-natured, if somewhat moony, face") steps into the town of Marblestone in California's San Rodrigo county after serving a 16-year-long jail term. If there's one thing that unites Marbletown's residents otherwise divided by petty jealousies and rivalries, it's a profound hatred for Ausley ("A lot of people around here don't feel too Christian about Ausley Wyett"), who was convicted of raping and killing 13-and-half-year old Tissie McAllister (who "loved her parents and was loved in return"). Ausley maintained his innocence at the inquest, but even though the evidence leading up to the crime—a number of people having witnessed Ausley and Tissie walking together but not the crime itself—is pretty much circumstantial, Ausley's own actions after the murder ("I lost my head and did the foolishest thing I could have done”) drove a nail in his coffin. Some miles away from the town, he had been spotted, "digging a hole, with close at hand the body of Tissie McAllister." However, even a prison term fails to cure his hardheadedness, because after returning to Marblestone, the first thing he does is to send a letter to the five persons who had testified against him:

"Dear Sir:

I am now out of jail, where I have served sixteen long years. I could write a long book on the dreadful experiences I have witnessed. How do you plan to make this up to me? I await your response with great interest.

Very truly yours,
Ausley L. Wyett"

It is this letter that sets in motion the events of The Fox Valley Murders.

At around the same time that Ausley sets the cat among pigeons on his return to Marbletown, Joe Bain becomes the acting-sheriff of San Rodrigo county, after his predecessor Ernest Cucchinello ("Cooch") dies of pneumonia. 16 years ago, Joe had been "the tall hell-raising lad from Castle Mountain, who had run away from home and now lived in San Rodrigo where he consorted with Mexicans and fruit tramps." However, life soon served several curveballs. His wife elopes with a band's guitarist, leaving him with "his nineteen-month-old daughter Miranda standing in the play-pen, diapers dripping, milk-bottle empty, quietly philosophic about the whole sad situation." Leaving his child in the care of his mother, Joe  then joined the military, saw action in Korea, transferred to the military police, and used his GI benefits to study criminology. He then became a deputy-sheriff under Cucchinello, but the sheriff's death adds more responsibilities on Joe's shoulders. On a day-to-day basis, he also has to deal with the sly opposition of Mrs. Rostvolt, "clerk, matron, office manager and power behind the throne", who continuously undermines Joe's authority, and acts as the eyes and ears of the next likeliest sheriff candidate—Lee Gervase, "a vigorous and progressive young lawyer, formerly of San Francisco." Joe ultimately throws his name into the sheriff candidacy hat, partly on a whim, and partly to keep the old-school nature and identity of San Rodrigo county alive.

Despite his daily frustrations, Joe never lets go of his keen, wry sense of observation, and makes himself available to most of the needs and demands of the residents:

"Charley Blankenship never seemed to change. He was a tall, pale, horse-faced old man with long arms and legs, soft gray hair, watery blue eyes, a pendulous pink mouth. He lived the life of a gentleman farmer, with a forty-acre cherry orchard and a white two-story house on Destin Road, south of Marblestone. Joe Bain had known him for as long as he could remember. During May, a favorite recreation among the local young people was stealing Blankenship cherries. Joe retained a vivid recollection of Charley Blankenship’s pallid face peering down the rows. He often carried a shotgun loaded with rock salt, and on one occasion had shot his nephew Walt Hobius. Opinion was divided on whether Charley had recognized Walt. Walt thought that he had, though Charley denied it to Walt’s mother, Dora. For the last ten years Charley leased the forty acres to a Japanese family, who during cherry season maintained a patrol even more vigilant than Charley’s had been."

Joe's common sense and troubleshooting skills are soon put to the test, as he has to balance his duties as  an acting-sheriff, as well as that of a candidate looking to win the upcoming sheriff election:

"Charley Blankenship turned him a look of more yellow malevolence than Joe would have thought possible from so rheumy and dew-lapped a face. There goes a vote, he thought in alarm. He jumped to his feet. “I’ll sure look into it, Mr. Blankenship. I believe in striking the iron before it gets hot. That way nobody gets burned."

Things do not get easier when a series of murders soon rocks Marblestone, claiming the lives of nearly all who had testified against Ausley. Former bus driver Bus Hacker dies in front of Joe, just as he opens the door to his house. Later, his house is burned down. Mushroom lover Charley Blankenship dies after eating a dish mixed with commonly known poisonous mushrooms which he picked himself. Willis Neff, another testifier, is shot dead, presumably in a hunting accident, in an open glade in a neighbouring county (warning: there is a glaring error in the timeline of death in this case, possibly due to a printing mistake). Oliver Viera falls off his ladder and plunges into a ravine while trying taking down a can of paint from the edge of the roof of his house. Towards the end, Cole Destin also has a very close shave in a traffic accident, but he survives. As Joe admirably puts it: "You feel a fool saying ‘accident’, you feel a fool claiming foul play. So what do you do?”

Investigator Joe comes across as a hardworking gumshoe, but much of his instincts are steered by his astute understanding of the residents of Marbletown and the relationship he shares with them. This same astuteness serves him well when he campaigns for votes, and it is amusing to see him switch between sleuthing and campaigning every so often:

Two elderly women came up to him. One asked in a bantering tone, “Can you be Joe Bain, the young rapscallion who was the shame of the neighborhood?”

Joe grinned. “I guess that’s me. And you’re Mrs. Mathews, my old third-grade teacher.”

“So you remember me after all these years!”

“How could I forget?”

The other lady said archly, “I don’t imagine you remember me!”

“I certainly do,” said Joe. “You’re Mrs. Beasley, at the post office. When I was ten years old I kissed your daughter. You caught me and whacked me good.”

“Think of it,” Mrs. Beasley marveled to Mrs. Mathews. “Ten years old he was, and kissing Arla bold as you please. Ten years old! And Arla pretending it was just an everyday occurrence. Oh, the little rascals. I hate to think what went on when my back was turned.”

“It goes to show that you never can tell. Arla’s married with four children, and Joe’s sheriff of the county.” Mrs. Mathews beamed roguishly at Joe. “How we used to pity your poor mother, coping with a pair like your father and you!”

“I imagine she felt sorry for herself at times,” said Joe.

The same Mrs. Beasley turns out to be a voter for Joe—and more importantly, provides a hint to the one existing, material evidence that would turn the case on its head, and indict the real criminal.

Reading the several conversations Joe has in sticky situations—and the way he inevitably exploits them (and the relationships he shares with antagonistic characters) for his benefit—makes one appreciate what a master manipulator he is. For instance, Joe is almost ensnared in a cartoonishly false rape allegation by Mary Destin, wife of Cole Destin and Tissie's elder sister—something that could have had serious implications on Joe's bid to be a sheriff. However, instead of being drawn into a long-drawn battle, Joe confronts the case head-on, lays out all his cards in front of Mary, and 'convinces' Mary that the implications of this case could be even more harmful for her—all in the presence of a hostile but influential local newspaper editor who agrees to drop the sensational article that would have demonized Joe even further. 

The conversations, interactions, and rich character portraits further reveal what a closed world Marblestone really is—where, barring a few exceptions, grudges are hard to forget, and meanness comes naturally to most, and whose prettiest pictures possibly exist only in the photos of an album. No wonder then that the real culprit's motives stem from an intense psychological pettiness and hostility towards their fellow residents. It is as though the town's atmosphere invisibly influences the culprit to carry out their deeds. 

Navigating such a familiar but unfriendly terrain, Joe pulls off an impressive double act—solving a devilish case and winning the sheriff election. To achieve this, Joe is constantly on the move, across the length and breadth of Marblestone and even beyond. These travels allow readers to immerse in some picturesque descriptions of Marblestone, its environs and neighbouring counties, as well as partake in some offbeat sights and sounds in and around the town: a church fight, a farmers' market, a political rally, a clash between a religious community and city folks, and more. 

The journeys also allow Joe to travel into his past and occupy himself with reflections:

This was Slough-house, an institution at its heyday during Prohibition, when it acquired a reputation for picturesque vice which it never quite outlived. Slough-house was now relatively respectable. True, there were rooms to be rented on a casual basis; complaisant ladies could generally be found at the bar. On summer Saturday nights there was dancing at an open-air pavilion beside the slough. Some of the most fragrant memories of Joe’s youth were connected with these Saturday night dances. The orchestra played romantic old tunes like I’ll See You in My Dreams, Whispering, Three O’Clock in the Morning; the weeping willows changed color as the floodlights shifted through red, blue, green, and gold. After one such dance occurred the incident which culminated in Joe’s marriage … Joe heaved a sigh for his lost youth. A dozen cars were parked in front of the bar. Luminous medallions advertising beer winked a cheerful invitation, but Joe drove past. It might not be too good an idea to be seen here. Not till after election, anyway.

In another instance, Joe thoughts take on a level-headed, morbid tinge:

Joe drove south along Destin Road to the ruins of the Hacker house. The fence smothered in red roses still stood. Joe leaned on the gate and considered the black rubble beyond.

The sun was gone; twilight blurred the mountain slopes, lights began to sparkle up and down the valley. Joe listened. Silence except for the warm wind in the poplars. A bat flew twittering past. The ashes of the Hacker house seemed more melancholy than ever. Joe thought of Millie’s letters to Bus, written long ago when the world was young. He looked down into the rubble where the exploded glass of Millie’s jams and preserves still reflected a few sullen lights from the sky. Life was a funny thing, thought Joe. You just reached the stage where you could appreciate it when you had to start worrying about how it would end … He walked back to his car, drove into Marblestone.

It all leads to a most unusual and entertaining climax where Joe eliminates his political rival, Lee Gervase, by implicating him in the case Joe is trying to solve for witholding vital information. In the same rally, much to the glee of the audience, the high-level delegates and organizers are left with eggs on their faces when Joe proceeds to reveal the truth behind the current spree of murders, as well as the killing of Tissie McAllister. All loose ends are tied up—and, for all its darkness, the novel has a happy ending.

Where the novel does subvert the classic detective fiction mould somewhat is in its choice of Joe as the protagonist, and a further definition of his role. In the grand old game of cat-and-mouse, as seen in Christie's Poirot and Yokomizo's Kindaichi series, the great detective often participates in a case in the capacity of a visitor, where they travel to places and glean information, background, and context from often untrustworthy and unwilling locals. The result is a view of the politics and mechanics of crime from the lens of an outsider. In The Fox Valley Murders, however, we are privy to the complexities of crimes, their impact on a town's residents and politicians, and the process of solving them, through the eyes of a local: Sheriff Bain. This makes for a more realistic portrayal, in so far as Joe's mastery of a crooked game is concerned—Joe has to manipulate his way through a corrupt rival, a sly subordinate, hostile and prejudiced inhabitants of the town, as well as media-persons and political dignitaries dead set against him as a candidate for the sheriff's position.

Seen in this light, The Fox Valley Murders has more in common with Murder, She Wrote (1984–1996), that wonderful series set in (mostly) smalltown America. The series introduces writer Jessica Fletcher, hailing from Cabot Cove, Maine, in the role of a sleuth. In my opinion, Jessica straddles the insider-outsider dichotomy perfectly. In the cases set in, say, Boston or New York, she fulfils the role of an inquisitive guest or trespasser, rising above circumstantial difficulties and solving the cases while being mocked and frowned upon by the suspects in the case. However, when incidents happen in Cabot Cove, things get a bit too personal, and Jessica performs a role akin to what Joe does in The Fox Valley Murders. While the modus operandi may not be as gritty and manipulative as seen in Vance's work, Jessica does call upon favours from his companions (Dr. Seth Hazlitt and Sheriff Amos Tupper), and relies on her knowledge of Cabot Cove's residents, the relationship she shares with them, the city's history and evolving political climate, to dispense her own brand of ratiocinative, but ultimately sympathetic, justice—just as Joe Bain does.

Vance would go on to write another full-fledged Joe Bain novel, The Pleasant Grove Murders (1967), and a fully-sketched outline of a third novel, The Genesee Slough Murders. As someone previously relatively unaware of, but now keen to explore, American countryside mysteries of the kind seen in The Fox Valley Murders, I can only imagine the kind of complexities and tricks Vance cooked up in his latter two efforts.

Sitting on Top of the World

And thus, 2023 concludes, for me, with a picture-perfect rendition of the proverbial 'save the best for the last' scenario ...

My acquaintance with Japanese historical (or period) crime/detective fiction is limited to only a handful of works: Kidō Okamoto's Hanshichi torimonochō (translated as The Curious Casebook of Inspector Hanshichi : Detective Stories of Old Edo, University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007) and a couple of manga and anime series such as Shōtarō Ishinomori's Sabu to Ichi Torimono Hikae (Sabu and Ichi's Detective Tales),  Shōtarō Ikenami's Onihei Hankachō (adapted into a long-running manga series by Sentaro Kubota and Takao Saitō, as well as a 2017 anime series), Yuichiro Kawada and Takase Rie's Edo no Kenshikan (Edo Coroner), Fuyumi Ono and Niki Kajiwara's Toukei Ibun (Strange Tales of Tokyo), Kei Toume's Genei Hakurankai, and maybe a couple more. To this list, I now have the privilege and good fortune of adding Honobu Yonezawa's acclaimed, award-winning novel from 2021, Kokurōjō (translated as The Samurai and the Prisoner, Yen Press, 2023).

The period in which The Samurai and the Prisoner is set—1578–1579, falling in the last quarter of the Sengoku era—predates the historical setting of the other aforementioned works. This makes for interesting outcomes. For one, this is a far more chaotic time in history, marked by incessant, excessive warfare and strife, compared to the Edo and later periods. Second, the more visible difference is that the resulting focus or the gaze of this novel, unlike that of the ones set in the later Edo, Meiji, Taisho or Showa eras, is not as much on introspection that seeks to shed light on the internal decay or rot in society, as it is on the 'insider-outsider' dichotomy and the intrigue surrounding the relationship and politics between different clans and warlords negotiating who they want to ally with and who to fall back on in case of a betrayal.

What also gives the novel a distinct identity is the fact that the events of the novel transpire within a fortified castle besieged by enemies, within and without. Honobu's story picks on the historical events of the second siege of the Itami Castle (or Arioka Castle), orchestrated by Nobunaga Oda, the famous daimyō (feudal) and one of the "three Great Unifiers" of Japan. His plans for the ruthless conquest of the northern Settsu province (consisting of parts of the modern-day prefectures of  Hyōgo and Osaka) hit a roadblock when one of his allies, the general Murashige Araki, betrays the Oda in 1578. Araki—driven partly by his own ambitions and mostly due to his horror at the excesses of the Oda's brutality—seeks to mount an opposition against Nobunaga, with the help and support of the Mōri clan, an influential and powerful family in the Aki province (the western portion of modern-day Hiroshima prefecture), and the Buddhist temple-fort of Hongan-ji in Osaka. Araki holes up in the Arioka Castle (effectively a castle-city in Itami) with his commanders and members of several other clans who contribute to the army/military efforts, and his concubine Chiyoho, a 'blessing' and a 'gift' from the Hongan-ji to Murashige for helping defend them. 

And so it is, at the start of the novel in November 1578, when Araki receives a visitor called Kanbei Kuroda, a retainer of Hashiba Hideyoshi (a lord under Nobunaga; later Hideyoshi Toyotomi, the second of "three Great Unifiers of Japan") of Chikuzen province, who arrives to ascertain whether Murashige had indeed turned his back on the Oda, and to advise him against taking such a course of action. However, Araki goes on to capture Kuroda after a brief but bloody struggle. Instead of having him executed (which was the norm back then, and a matter of honour), Murashige throws him in a cage in the dungeon in the depths of the castle, alive but severely wounded—a truly ignominious fate for Kanbei.

The four short stories that form the bulk of the novel span the following year, corresponding quite accurately to the historical timeline of the conquest of the castle. The stories, divided according to seasons (winter, spring, summer, and autumn) follow a common pattern—strange, unsettling events threaten to undo the goodwill and harmony not just among the clans and commanders, but also among the masses, for reasons directly or indirectly tied to the events. Each time, Murashige has to rely on Kanbei's extraordinary intellect to get to the truth behind the incidents. The bad blood and further developments between the two influences the evolution of their relationship, with the result that Kanbei does not provide outright answers to the mysteries narrated to him (instead, replying in convoluted riddles), and plots behind Murashige's back. 

In the first story, a young hostage from a clan that betrays Murashige's faction is found dead in a closely guarded storehouse surrounded by an unfinished garden covered in snow. In the second story, a successful, surprise, nighttime attack leads to the elimination of an enemy camp hidden perilously close to Arioka Castle. However, unrest brews when the decapitated heads of two high-ranking enemy officers are switched during a head-identification session, and the camp commander's head is not found despite definite reports of his demise. Ugly rumours spread within the city, and a Christian place of worship is burnt to the ground leading to the death of a person. In the third story, a revered priest-messenger and a member of Murashige's personal guard-force are murdered in an old hermitage and its environs. The priest had been entrusted to convey a secret message and a treasured possession of Murashige to a samurai serving under an enemy general Mitsuhide Akechi (who would later force Nobunaga to commit seppuku in the Honnō-ji Incident of 1582). The article in question was stolen, while the secret message, even though left intact, had already been read by parties unknown—a development that, apart from hinting towards the presence of a potential traitor within the castle, meant certain doom for Murashige and Itami, especially in the face of defections by the generals and commanders in neighbouring forts and castles, as well as the rapidly declining morale of the soldiers who still stood beside Araki. The fourth story ties some of the loose ends in the preceding chapter, sees Murashige try to uncover a conspiracy and Kanbei enact his 'revenge' before the castle's inevitable fall, and heads off towards a surprising but extremely logical conclusion.

Seen in a vacuum, the mysteries can be dissected fairly easily. But, to better understand Murashige's struggles against them, it is necessary to look at and identify the numerous battles he was fighting on multiple fronts. And, it is here that the novel excels—without passing judgement, Yonezawa continuously sprinkles the narrative with details that give great insight into the socio-cultural and economic status of samurai and commoners, cutting across different strata, while also depicting, time and again, the mindset of the people, their religious beliefs, and the rituals and practices they subscribe to. All of these myriad, divisive elements determine the context, and ensure that the characters do not act in ways that seem too forced, unnatural or absolutely out of sync with their historical persona. For instance, in the first story, Yonezawa describes the standing and importance of the multiple clans in the war council, delving into their background, and the story behind their participation in the faction and reasons for doing so. These details give readers some idea of the possible frictions between clans and individual members inside this faction, while also explaining why Murashige personally analyses the so-called 'betrayal' of his close allies in a very measured, sympathetic manner. Yonezawa also fleshes out the story and background details of each member of his personal guard in vivid detail (even pertaining to their mastery of individual weapons), to explore who would want to murder a hostage, going against his explicit orders not to. The problem is, nearly all of the influential personalities or the suspects who had an opportunity to and even the victim himself wanted the hostage dead, so that an example could be made out of him, with many of them expressing surprise and discontent at Murashige's decision to spare him. Furthermore, there is also the mystery of the vanishing weapon and the no-footprints-in-the-snow conundrum to deal with. On a different note, Murashige also has to deal with the curious incident of a fort near the castle borders not reacting to the summons to join a skirmish in time. Little wonder then that Murashige—who is also continuously planning and trying to maintain harmony between the individual clans and their heads, and uplift the spirit of his troops—finally has to take the help of the prisoner, Kanbei, despite his unwillingness. Ultimately, the solution, which makes great use of the positional awareness of the culprit, the details provided by the author regarding the weapons stored in the castle, and some inspired ingenuity on the culprit's part, is one that could only have been employed in the special setting of a besieged castle at its time of occurrence. In the second story, religious beliefs and the 'insider-outsider' dichotomy take centrestage, as the missing head of the commander becomes a flashpoint that ignites tempers between the members and followers of a clan subscribing to Buddhist faith and the adherents of another clan which has taken up Christianity. Once again, Yonezawa describes, in minute detail, the circumstances of the ambush and the sequence of events leading both to the replacement of heads and the commander's head going missing, paving the way for a simple, logical reveal. Additionally, the beliefs and religious alignments of the masses, the samurai and the clans are outlined with great care, providing more motives to a larger cast of characters. Then, there's the larger picture, with rumours and gossip about more potential defections among Araki's allies—and once again, Murashige finds himself besieged by too many enemies and wars to fight.

But, there are undercurrents to the novel as well. It can be read at several levels—but, for me, there are at least two major ones. One of them is, of course, the constant intrigue surrounding wars, battle strategies, potential alliances, betrayals—and this is mostly limited to the samurai class. Considerations of honour, prestige and status inform this level of narrative and its underlying rules—the interactions of Murashige with his commanders, guards and soldiers (both personally as well as in the war councils) and with Kanbei are representative of this. The other major level is the religious subtext, that assumes greater significance further into the novel. In the limited confines of the castle, the interplay between three major religious sects/practices—True Pure Land Buddhism (also known as Jōdo Shinshū or Shin Buddhism), Zen Buddhism and Christianity—propels the narrative in subtle ways. It is this subtext that unites the other spectrum of the population (the masses) through the promise of salvation and fear of divine punishment. Seen in this light, despite the overall chaotic atmosphere of doom and gloom, an uneasy peace does exist in the midst of the town's populace outside the inner citadel and the samurai quarters. In his quest to unearth the rational nature of the truth behind the incidents, Murashige fails to read the pulse of the people until late into the novel. For the common people, the deaths and the mysterious incidents could be attributed to a form of divine justice or the Buddha's wrath, reinforcing their faith in the real existence of these concepts, however abstract they may be, and providing solace to them in the face of a doomed war, unceasing brutality and killings, by suggesting that even the Oda and their allies will not be spared from such justice and that they would have to pay for their sins, sooner or later. This also explains why the sentiments of the masses are best seen after the murder of the revered priest and the subsequent divine punishment meted out to the perpetrator (a perfect cause-and-effect, or 'reap what you sow', scenario for the observers), and why passions rise against an 'outsider religion' like Christianity. Unfortunately, for Murashige, he is unable to bridge the gap between these two levels, ironically due to the lack of an introspective view of his own fiefdom. As a result, he is unable to stay true to his own tenet that the people make the castle, and finds himself, unwittingly or driven by circumstances, walking a path similar to that of Nobunaga Oda—a fact he rues late in the novel. The reason for his failure, as pointed out by his concubine Chiyoho, lies in a fundamental difference in the faith and creed of a samurai and that of a simple, god-fearing, common person, in those times. For a samurai clothed in armour and wielding weapons, the bravery and valour embedded in their being makes it impossible for them to understand that fabricated omens and concepts such as divine retribution could honestly be 'believed' by one. After all, the question of their survival depends on their cunningness on the battlefield and how attuned they are to their immediate reality and surroundings. Above all, as stated by Murashige, samurai fear death the most. For common people not protected by any armour or weapons, who are constantly on the receiving end of massacres by warlords, the reality is not so straightforward. It is possible to engender hope among them through talk of fabricated omens and the spread of ideas such as divine miracles, punishment and retribution, especially as they need something to hold to at a time when they are subjected to unending torture. And, that is why, as stated by Chiyoho, they fear not death itself but the fact that they may not achieve salvation or reach heaven even after dying. Besides adding another layer of historical authenticity (with events such as the Ikkō-ikki rebellion and the subsequent massacre of the sect at Ise-Nagashima serving as one of the backdrops), the religious subtext therefore also opens up a wealth of theological discourse of an admirably high quality, through the conversations between the characters who fulfil the role dictated by the needs of the mystery plot while staying true to their historical personas—a very difficult act to pull off, in my opinion.

A quick note about the translation—it is slightly inconsistent (words like 'damn' sharing space with archaic terms like 'prithee' and 'ye' feels anachronistic, to put it lightly), the setting may need some time to sink one's teeth into, and the need for footnotes is sorely felt. But it is well worth the effort, time and money to procure a copy. Yonezawa does not rewrite or reinvent history in this book—the Itami Castle siege ended in November 1579, and a total of 670 people (women, men and children included) were executed by Nobunaga, in Itami, Kyoto and Nanatsumatsu (near Amagasaki, in Hyōgo prefecture). No further worthy deeds of Murashige Araki have been recorded either. However, what he does most skillfully is weave in tales of mystery and intrigue into the seams of Arioka Castle—tales that elevate the work from the status of simply being a work of only mystery or historical fiction. By using real-life figures and events, Yonezawa bestows life upon his craft, turning it into a living, breathing, plausible document of the times that shares an extraordinary synergy with its mystery and historical elements, and its many other subtexts.

(This post was published on the Scroll website with the following title: ‘The Samurai and the Prisoner’: This Japanese crime novel recreates the 1578 Itami Castle siege)

Crazy Train

"Later, one summer night in 1949,
again the Buddha appeared to me,
in my cell, beside my pillow.
He told me:
The Shimoyama Case is a Murder Case.
It is the son of the Teigin Case,
it is the son of all cases.
Whoever solves the Shimoyama Case,
they will solve the Teigin Case;
they will solve all cases."

—"Sadamichi Hirasawa", a poem, from Natsuame Monogatari, by Kuroda Roman, translated by Donald Reichenbach 

Two of the cases mentioned in the verse above, the Shimoyama case and the Teigin case, form the basis of two out of the three novels David Peace's now-complete Tokyo trilogy—the works in question being Tokyo Redux (2021) and Occupied City (2009), respectively. One of these, the Shimoyama incident, concerning the death of Sadanori Shimoyama, the first president of the Japanese National Railways, is officially listed as unsolved, even after nearly 74 years of its occurrence, while the other, the Teigin Bank Massacre of 1948, was a highly contentious affair, with the accused (Sadamichi Hirasawa) serving a death sentence for over 30 years, despite several retrials and no minister of justice ever signing Hirasawa's death warrant. Given the nature and legacy of the two cases, it is no surprise that both of them captured the imagination of the country's masses for decades, and continue to do so to this day.

Let's not bury the lede here—Tokyo Redux is an extremely clever feat of narration that blurs the boundaries between reality, history and imagination supplemented by the former two. It is also, stylistically, an incredibly accomplished work. But, a lot of the credit also goes to its subject matter, the Shimoyama case, the ambiguous and unsolved nature of which invites intelligent, well-measured speculation and manipulation. Tokyo Redux promises to be a great read for anyone sufficiently invested in detailed and well-researched conspiracy theories (paradoxical however it may seem).

Peace may be best known for his football books, The Damned United ("a fiction" based on Brian Clough's ill-fated managership of Leeds United) and Red or Dead (detailing Liverpool legend Bill Shankly's stewardship of the club between 1959 and 1974), but in crime-writing, particularly noir fiction, circles, he is hailed as an exceptional prose innovator and stylist. In Tokyo Redux, Peace displays the aforementioned virtues and much more. The novel begins with the discovery of a body on the outskirts of Edinburgh in the late 1980s (circa 1988–1989). Certain items found at the scene of the crime—an alarm clock, a newspaper clipping, a photograph and a picture postcard with a certain message scribbled behind it—connects this incident to the death of president Shimoyama on July 5, 1949. It also leads readers directly into the first of three neatly demarcated sections, each possessing identities of their own.

***

The first section, titled The Mountain of Bones, takes one back to the Tokyo of July 1949—a period when the American Occupation was in full force. Even with the challenge posed by criminal gangs and the protests by the communists, the administration is rudely jolted further more when president Shimoyama goes missing on July 5. The Public Safety Division (PSD) springs into action especially as its lead investigator, Harry Sweeney, receives a mysterious call just before the news of Shimoyama's disappearance breaks out. What follows next is a rigorous but speculative retracing of the steps Shimoyama took and the places he visited (for instance, the Mitsukoshi Department Store in Nihonbashi and the Chiyoda Bank near Tokyo station); however, Shimoyama's dismembered corpse is discovered after midnight, apparently having been run over by a train on the  Jōban Line near Ayase station in Adachi in north Tokyo.

The course of investigation over the next few days, besides throwing Sweeney's life completely off-kilter, also takes Sweeney and his team over a vast cross-section of Tokyo's landscape, not just in a geographical sense but in socio-economic terms as well. Shimoyama's death is more than it seems—and the more the PSD investigates, the more the number of threads emerge. Investigating these threads leads Sweeney and his team to various locations—from the posh neighbourhoods of Tokyo to the seats of administrative power, department stores, banks, railroad shanties, red light districts and seedy joints frequented by the underworld. Due to the large web spreading out of Shimoyama's influential connections and interpersonal relationships, Sweeney ends up visiting a large, diverse cast of characters—Shimoyama's assistant, family members, members of the upper echelons of the General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (GHQ-SCAP), an underworld don, a shamaness, Shimoyama's ex-mistress. Most of these interactions provide brief snippets not only into the lives of the characters, but also constitute pieces, earned painstakingly, of what would ultimately prove to be Sweeney's fruitless investigation. Needless to say, while this section has something of a hardboiled edge to it, it is also easily that portion which resembles a whodunnit the most. Sweeney faces challenges and pressures from both seen and unseen quarters—the GHQ-SCAP is more than willing to lay the blame on the communists, especially since members of the party, besides organising citywide protests against the railways' decision to fire several thousand employees, had also sent threats to Shimoyama, while a section of the police is happy to close the case as a suicide; an underworld don, on the other hand, pulls strings behind the scenes to incriminate Korean immigrants (one of whom also turns out to share a link with the infamous Zed Unit, an international covert ops organisation that saw action mainly in China and Korea).

Sadanori Shimoyama, the ill-fated,
first president of the
Japanese National Railways

The spotlight, however, shines solely on Sweeney, from an individualistic point of view. The case takes a heavy toll on Sweeney, the sordidness of which is laid out in excruciating, all-too-literal detail. The microscopic focus extends not only to his actions, but also to Sweeney's thoughts. For instance, the section after Sweeney returns to a hotel at the end of a particularly long, tiresome day reads as follows:

"Harry Sweeney put the key in the lock of the door to his room in the Yaesu Hotel. He turned the key, he opened the door. He shut the door behind him, he locked the door behind him. He stood in the center of the room and he looked around the room. In the light from the street, in the light from the night. The screwed-up envelope, the torn-up letter. The open Bible, the fallen crucifix. The upturned suitcase, the empty wardrobe. The pile of damp clothes, the bundle of soiled sheets. The bare mattress, the empty bed. He heard the rain on the window, he heard the rain in the night. He walked over to the washstand. He looked down into the basin. He saw the shards of broken glass. He looked back up into the mirror, he stared at the face in the mirror. He stared at its jaw, its cheek, its eyes, its nose, and its mouth. He reached up to touch the face in the mirror, to trace the outline of its jaw, its cheek, its eyes, its nose, and its mouth. He ran his fingers up and down the edge of the mirror. He gripped the edges of the mirror. He prized the mirror off the wall. He crouched down. He placed the face of the mirror against the wall beneath the window. He started to stand back up. He saw spots of blood on the carpet. He took off his jacket. He threw it onto the mattress. He unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt. He rolled up the cuffs of his shirt. He saw the spots of blood on the bandages on his wrists. He undid the buttons of his shirt. He took off his shirt. He tossed it onto the mattress. He took off his watch. He dropped it on the floor. He unhooked the safety pin that secured the bandage on his left wrist. He put the pin between the faucets of the washbasin. He unwound the bandage on his left wrist. He threw the length of bandage on top of his shirt on the mattress. He unhooked the safety pin that secured the bandage on his right wrist. He put it next to the other safety pin between the faucets. He unwound the bandage from his right wrist. He tossed this length of bandage onto the other bandage on top of his shirt. He picked up the trash can. He carried it over to the basin. He picked out the pieces of broken glass. He put them in the trash. He turned on the faucets. He waited for the water to come. To drown out the rain on the window, to silence the rain in the night. He put the stopper in the basin, he filled the basin. He turned off the faucets. The sound of the rain on the window again, the noise of the rain in the night again. He put his hands and his wrists into the basin and the water. He soaked his hands and his wrists in the water in the basin. He watched the water wash away the blood. He felt the water cleanse his wounds. He nudged out the stopper. He watched the water drain from the basin, from around his wrists, from between his fingers. He lifted his hands from the basin. He picked up a towel from the floor. He dried his hands and his wrists on the towel. He folded the towel. He hung the towel on the rail beside the basin. He walked back into the center of the room. In the light from the street, in the light from the night. He held out his hands, he turned over his palms. He looked down at the clean, dry scars on his wrists. He stared at them for a long time. Then he knelt down in the center of the room. By the screwed-up envelope, before the torn-up letter. The scraps of paper, the scraps of phrases. Betrayal. Deceit. Judas. Lust. Marriage. Sanctity. My religion. You traitor. Will never give up. Give you a divorce. I know what you are like, I know who you are. But I forgive you, Harry. The children forgive you, Harry. Come home, Harry. Please just come home. Harry Sweeney brought his palms together. Harry Sweeney raised his hands toward his face. He bowed his head. He closed his eyes. In the middle of the American Century, in the middle of the American night. Bowed in his room, his hotel room. The rain on the window, the rain in the night. On his knees, his stained knees. Falling down, pouring down. Harry Sweeney heard the telephones ringing. The voices raised, the orders barked. The boots down the stairs, the boots in the street. Car doors opening, car doors closing. Engines across the city, brakes four stories below. Boots up the stairs, boots down the corridor. The knuckles on the door, the words through the wood: Are you there, Harry? Are you in there?"

The reason I have quoted this section in its entirety is to illustrate the numbing effect of this immensely hardboiled piece of narration and characterisation here. The blow-by-blow account of every single one of Sweeney's actions and thoughts beats one's mind into submission, not unlike the effect produced by blunt-force trauma. This treatment is extended all through the novel, whenever Sweeney takes centrestage. In another instance, while strolling along the Sumida river, Sweeney's mood, ruminations and the surrounding cityscape come together and supplement each other as follows:

"Harry Sweeney turned and started to walk away from the station, away from the store, across Avenue R, toward the river, the Sumida River. He walked into the park, through the park, the Sumida Park. He came to the river, the banks of the river. He stood on the bank and he stared at the river. The current still, the water black. There was no breeze, there was no air. Only the stench of sewage, the stink of shit. People’s shit, men’s shit. The stench always here, the stink still here. Harry Sweeney took out his pack of cigarettes and lit one. By the river, on her bank. The streets behind him, the station behind him. All the streets and all the stations. He stared down the river, into the darkness, where its mouth would be, where the sea would be; across the ocean, there was home. A dog barked and wheels screamed, somewhere in the night, somewhere behind him. A yellow train was pulling out of the station, the yellow train crossing an iron bridge. The bridge across the river, a bridge to the other side. Going east, going north. Out of the city, away from the city. Men disappearing, men vanishing. In the city, from the city. On its streets, in its stations. Their names and their lives. Disappearing, vanishing. Starting afresh, starting again. A new name, a new life. A different name, a different life. Never going home, never coming back. The train disappearing, the train vanishing. 

Harry Sweeney looked away from the bridge, stared back down at the river, the Sumida River. So still and so black, so soft and so warm. Inviting and welcoming, tempting, so tempting. No more names and no more lives. Memories or visions, insects or specters. So tempting, very tempting. An end to it all, an end to it all. The pattern of the crime precedes the crime. The end of his cigarette burning his fingers, blistering their skin. Harry Sweeney threw the butt of his cigarette into the river. This dirty river, this stinking river. People’s shit, men’s shit. He turned away from the river, walked away from the river, the Sumida River. Back to the station, back down the steps. Away from the river, the Sumida River, and away from temptation, away from temptation. The pattern and the crime. Disappearing, vanishing. Into the night, into the shadows. Under the city, under the ground."

Once again, a constant hypervigilant focus on and repetition of key patterns, thoughts and associations creates a numbing, sombre mood for Sweeney and the readers—a mood that rarely lets up through the novel. However, the flipside of this highly stylistic exercise is that Sweeney's colleagues (such as Bill Betz and Susumu Toda) and the rest of the supporting cast are not even afforded a third of the limelight Sweeney gets in the first section. They keep appearing and disappearing, flitting around like phantoms which only adds, perhaps, to one key essence of the novel—that of events and ghosts of the past casting long, sinister shadows.

***

If The Mountain of Bones presented post-War Tokyo in all its dirtiness and filth through an exploration of its geography, socio-economic conditions and characters, the second section titled The Bridge of Tears achieves the same effect through different means and in a far more sinister fashion. The scene shifts to 1964 Tokyo during the time of the Olympics—a period that Peace, in the voice of one of the characters, succinctly describes as "Edo stench, Olympic noise". To achieve its purpose, this section employs the trope of a detective lost in the maze of a rapidly modernising city (with a dark underbelly) to devastating effect—a trope that has been quite popular, in a postcolonial context and era, in Japan and the world over.

President Shimoyama's remains being
removed from the Jōban Line

Murota Hideki, a somewhat down-on-his-luck, crooked policeman-turned-private detective is handed a missing-person investigation by a publishing house. The author in question is Kuroda Roman, who had apparently pocketed some advance fees without furnishing the requisite manuscript. Kuroda Roman, it turns out, was a popular author for some years during the post-1945 Shōwa era, at which time he gained some notoriety before disappearing completely from public view. What seems to be a routine investigation turns on its head when Hideki finds out that Roman had penned a pretty revelatory entry on Hideki himself, dating back to his days as a policeman, in one of his books. Furthermore, in Roman's address book, Hideki finds out that his residence and contact detail have also been listed, without him being none the wiser. What finally signals Hideki's spiralling descent into madness and a sinister plot far beyond his ability to comprehend and his ability to fight back is his discovery of a manuscript titled Natsuame Monogatari, or Tales of the Summer Rains, written jointly by Kuroda Roman and Shimoyama Sadanori. It is a development that inextricably ties the events of 1964 with the Shimoyama Case of 1949.

Partly because it is framed as a narrative portraying a person suffering from personal nightmares, while being trapped in the machinations of others, The Bridge of Tears reads faster and features more tighter prose than The Mountain of Bones. It also helps that much of the groundwork, in terms of key themes (vis-à-vis corruption, abuse of socio-political and economic power, racial tension, among others) is painstakingly laid out in the first part. So, how does The Bridge of Tears go about reinforcing an already dark and depressing atmosphere, other than the plot itself? One of the more interesting ways it does so is by a rhythmic repetition of certain sounds that also act as particular signifiers. If The Mountain of Bones saw a geographical mapping of Tokyo, The Bridge of Tears introduces a novel onomatopoeic mapping. For instance, 'ton, ton' represents sounds of construction, 'shu, shu, pop, pop' stands for the sound of a train's steam engine, the 'murder weapon' in Shimoyama's death, while the sounds signifying ghosts and phantoms of the past inhabiting and passing through empty, shadowy, dilapidated spaces is dramatically represented as 'sā, sā, rei, rei'. The repetition of these sounds at key intervals creates an effect similar to the chanting of Buddhist sutras in monasteries, as far as the setting of particular moods is concerned. 

The postcolonial nature of the narrative here also plays a major role here. For Hideki, the deep-dive into the past and the search for the remnants of Roman's presence transforms the Tokyo of 1964, caught in the crossroads of modernity and tradition, into an unfathomable monster whose inhabitants ambush one at every conceivable corner. Despite his training as a policeman and a private detective, Hideki is unable to see the dangers as they approach him—the deceitful clients, the lying people he interviews in course of the investigation and an unseen, powerful enemy that traps him leaving him no room for escape. As a result, he finds himself indicted in a murder case, two cases of assault and the disappearance of his own common-law life. It's a fate that, in its inevitability and hopelessness, closely and curiously resembles that of Kuroda Roman from a decade-and-a-half ago. As is revealed, after realising the extent of his participation in the Shimoyama case, Roman too found himself utterly helpless despite appealing to the police and the institution of Mystery Writers of Japan, ultimately being threatened and manipulated like a puppet in the hands of insidious forces whose presence he is constantly aware of but can do nothing about. And, it is here that the book-in-book structure that is employed half-way into the section displays its full utility. After Hideki discovers the manuscript of Natsuame Monogatari, Peace intersperses the action, unfolding in real time, which Hideki is involved in with excerpts from the book detailing Roman's surprising and deep-rooted involvement in the 1949 Shimoyama case from its earliest days, way before its commission. The purpose is perhaps to draw parallels between Roman's plight in the past and Hideki's fate unfolding in real time, but these passages also reveal much about the Shimoyama case that was left unsaid and unrevealed in The Mountain of Bones. Some characters with an almost shadowy, transient presence in the first half, who reappear in The Bridge of Tears, are also revealed to have played very important roles in the lead-up to and in the aftermath of the Shimoyama case.

The resulting effect is that Hideki not only finds himself caught in the web of a nightmarish conspiracy that extends from the past to the present, he also ends up as a victim of Kuroda Roman's and Sadanori Shimoyama dark legacy—the book, Natsuame Monogatari, which, if published, was, ironically, meant to be a tell-it-all account and a means to escape the clutches of the perpetrators of the Shimoyama murder case. Perhaps, Hideki's and Roman's fate do not exist on parallel tracks; they converge with only one possible outcome—madness, that hits both characters with the speed and force of a freight train. The element of madness adds yet another dimension to an already dark narrative, and it all culminates in a frighteningly spectacular scene in a mental asylum under the aegis of the 'Department of Psychic Seances'. The seance held at the end of The Bridge of Tears—akin to a lucid, fever dream which would have been completely at home in a novel like Dogura Magura (1935), author Yumeno Kyūsaku's surrealistic tour de force—sees an uncomprehending Hideki gliding through the spectres of cases past in a pantomime of a performance conducted for supposedly 'scientific reasons'. The figures in this performance include Kuroda Roman himself, Sadamichi Hirasawa (of Teigin Bank Massacre fame), and perhaps, most significantly, the figure of Harry Sweeney who clutches a broken teddy bear and softly whispers "It's too late" (a recurring motif and statement seen throughout the novel) just as the 15-year statute of limitations expires for the Shimoyama case.

***

More skeletons and secrets tumble out of the Shimoyama case closet in The Gate of Flesh, the last of the aforesaid three sections. Set towards the end of 1988, only a month or two away from the death of Emperor Hirohito, this concluding part is as much about the passing of an era (the Shōwa era) as it is about displaying the grasp the Shimoyama case had on each of the individuals involved prominently, till the moment of their deaths.

An inspection of the locomotive
that hit Shimoyama

The spotlight this time falls on the hitherto-unseen Donald Reichenbach, a professor and the translator of the verse mentioned at the start of this essay. It is through his eyes and memories that Peace lays forth his interpretation of the facts in the Shimoyama case and posits a plausible solution to the case. While the major perpetrators and much of the main conspiracy are pretty much revealed in act two, Reichenbach and his fellow cast of characters play roles that effectively prevented Sweeney and his team from getting to the bottom of the case in act one itself. In this third act, however, Reichenbach emerges as a rapidly ageing, broken-down, lonely man who is fast running out of friends and company, mainly  due to his refusal and inability to let go of the past, and always returning to the scenes of his past crimes, despite undergoing psychiatric treatment. Through the course of this section, even though his colleagues have moved past the Shimoyama incident and its long aftermath, Reichenbach finds himself unwittingly visiting some of the locations pertaining to the incident, almost like a ghost incapable of setting itself free off a haunted house. Here too, Peace utilises flashbacks into the past, shuttling alternately between 1949 and 1988, to reveal the incidents that the locations were witness too. While in the previous act, the alternating past-and-present narratives focussed more on the characters themselves, the focus of these flashbacks in this act seems to have shifted to the locations themselves, as mute, silent and impartial witnesses. This treatment may just be what the doctor ordered, because once the entire picture emerges, the sordidness, inhumanity and callousness underlining the Shimoyama case, as deduced by Peace, is simply too shocking. Briefly said (and spoilers ahead), Peace indicts the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Zed Unit (and, in close collaboration with it, the Hongō House) and the SCAP to varying degrees, with the unsettling revelation that the upper echelons of each of these organisations were aware of the political moves they were plotting against each other, while many of the foot-soldiers and the bits-and-pieces players were kept in the dark till the endgame, so that they could fulfill their role as scapegoats better. With its focus on secret organisations and internal politics, Tokyo Redux reminds me of Nagasaki Takashi and Kouno Kouji's manga, Inspector Kurokochi (2012), which, even if tonally disparate from Peace's work, takes on another yet-unsolved crime that is often considered to the holy grail of Japanese mysteries—the 300 million yen affair or robbery from 1968—and also indicts a clandestine, shadowy institution in the process. 

It is, perhaps, fitting then that, as the past rapidly catches up to him, Reichenbach is subject to the same terror that Hideki, Sweeney and Roman were subject to—the fear of an unknown, powerful enemy, except that, in Reichenbach's case, the enemy is a vengeful one as well. Ultimately, Reichenbach, fearful of death, is made to bear the weight and responsibility of the Shimoyama case as he meets an ignominious end, falling down a flight of stairs—"down the steps, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down each one, each single one of the thirty-six steps to the ground ... "

***

Tokyo Redux is a hefty novel that is, perhaps, well worth the ten-plus years it took Peace to research and write. In the way it presents conflicting perspectives, it resembles, in my opinion, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's short story, "In A Bamboo Grove"—but only to a certain extent, because, for one, the misinformation and deception is deliberate in a relatively linear story (it's not that the readers see different truths as much as they are made to see manufactured ones), and secondly, at the end of it all, Tokyo Redux provides a concrete solution to the Shimoyama case, and does not leave it to the imagination and judgement of the readers. Besides its stylistic and narrative achievements, it is also an incredibly immersive book and it is easy to lose oneself in the noirish underbelly of the Tokyo of the past, as portrayed here. And, despite his well-documented repugnance towards considering crime fiction as a puzzle game/game of logical reasoning, Peace does employ a bit of the essence of a whodunnit (not a fair-play one though) in this work, bringing the narrative to a well-reasoned-out conclusion. However, the most telling and impressive evidence of Tokyo Redux as a historical, conspiracy thriller of the first order comes in the End Matters portion of the book, where Peace hints that his entire understanding and reasoning of what actually happened in the Shimoyama case hinges upon the singular fact that "the sections for Japan in the weekly intelligence summaries provided by the Office of Reports and Estimates, CIA Far East/Pacific Branch remain redacted for the period around the death of Sadanori Shimoyama. And for only that period."

As my first tentative and experimental stab at Peace's crime fiction, Tokyo Redux proved to be a lot more than I had bargained for—in a good, fruitful way, of course. I will be covering more of Peace's works on this blog in the future, as and when I come across them. For the time being, however, my first order of business will be to complete the Tokyo trilogy—from the back forwards, which will be another first for me.