Zero Focus

(Paperback)

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Description

Tokyo, 1958. Teiko marries Kenichi Uhara, ten years her senior, an advertising man recommended by a go-between. After a four-day honeymoon, Kenichi vanishes. Teiko travels to the coastal and snow-bound city of Kanazawa, where Kenichi was last seen, to investigate his disappearance. When Kenichis brother comes to help her, he is murdered, poisoned in his hotel room.

Soon, Teiko discovers that her husbands disappearance is tied up with the so-called 'pan-pan girls', women who worked as prostitutes catering to American GIs after the war. Now, ten years later, as the country is recovering, there are those who are willing to take extreme measures to hide that past.

'A master crime writer...Seich Matsumoto's thrillers dissect Japanese society.' The New York Times Book Review

Reviews

Praise for Matsumoto: "A master crime writer...Seich Matsumoto's thrillers dissect Japanese society."--The New York Times Book Review "He writes in the classic tradition of Georges Simenon's Inspector Maigret of Paris; Nicholas Freeling's Inspector Van der Valk in Amsterdam; Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo's Superintendent Beck in Stockholm; Magdalen Nabb's Marshal Guarnaccia in Florence, and P. D. James's Chief Inspector Dalgliesh in England."--New York TimesPraise for A Quiet Place by Matsumoto: "A surprising and immensely satisfying resolution that flows naturally from the book's complex characterizations. Readers will agree that Matsumoto deserves his reputation as Japan's Georges Simenon." --STARRED review Publishers Weekly "There's an element of the exquisite poetic Haiku form in the book, in the details that turn the story in new directions, and the tiniest mistakes that lead to tragic and unforeseen outcomes."--Spectator

Author Bio

Seich Matsumoto was Japan's most successful thriller writer. His first detective novel, "Points and Lines", sold over a million copies in Japan. "Vessel of Sand", published in English as Inspector Imanishi Investigates in 1989, sold over four million copies and became a movie box-office hit. Bitter Lemon Press published his novel "A Quiet Place to great acclaim.