THE MEIJI GUILLOTINE MURDERS, seeing the birth of Japan's modern police

THE MEIJI GUILLOTINE MURDERS
FUTARO YAMADA (tr. Bryan Karetnyk)
Pushkin Vertigo (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$12.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: A classic Japanese mystery—a pair of sleuths investigate a series of bloody murders in 19th century Tokyo

A captivating locked room murder mystery perfect for fans of Stuart Turton and Janice Hallett!

Japan, 1869. A time of reform and rebellion.

Detectives Kazuki and Kawaji are assigned to investigate a series of seemingly impossible murders. Together with the help of a mysterious shrine maiden, can they solve each gruesome death and piece together the dark connection between them?

Taking us deep into the heart of 19th century Tokyo, The Meiji Guillotine Murders is a fiendish murder mystery from one of Japan's greatest crime writers.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: One of those wonderfully Japanese locked-room puzzles that regularlt defeat me, forcing me to rethink my self-image as an experienced mystery solver, all while the author's playing fair with the reader. It's exhilarating.

You read that right. I find being bested in these contests fun because I need to feel challenged in order to feel awake not simply trudging ox-like in the ruts already worn in. Chief Inspector Kawaji Toshiyoshi (a real historical man who established Japan’s modern police force) and his colleague, the fictional Chief Inspector Keishiro Kazuki, of the new Imperial Prosecuting Office, each feel that way as well. They decide to keep themselves sharp by engaging in a rivalry over the case resolutions each attains...to demonstrate they're both the cream of the crop, to share triumphs and get input on tougher cases.

Meiji Japan must've been as exciting a place to live as 1960s London as the stifling fog of overweening tradition was beginning to lift. It extended into such modern ideas as policing, crminal prosecution, and execution of the condemned. Kazuki, whose naming convention was altered to Western style while he was living in France (!!!–a Japanese person voluntarily living abroad!) returns to his new appointment to the Imperial Prosecuting Office to fight the scourge of corruption that lingers from the Shogunate's old-style power dynamics. Kazuki believes passionately in merit and fairness, being the beneficiary of them. He also returned with two guillotines: one device, one woman. The Frenchwoman Esmeralda Guillotine is Kazuki's mistress and a trained...medium/mystic/seer.

Kawaji is more of the old school, more deferential, more traditional..but steely in his determination to see crime and corruption extirpated. He is less the big-picture man in the dynamic duo of this novel (while it is seventh in the Japanese series order, it works fine as an introduction to it). A number of details he spots are crucial to resolving the seven cases in this novel. I feel it's more a braided-stories novel, but with far more robust linking material than that description usually implies.

Esmeralda was the real surprise to me. Kazuki bringing an intimate partner back from France where she faces truly appalling racism and equal fascination from the Japanese was the touch that set the stories apart. Her central contribution to crime resolutions isn't from detection but from more...esoteric...sources. I enjoyed this flip from the usual stereotype of Eastern mysticism I see in Western fiction: the exotic Westerner has access to the Beyond! she can help us!. And she does.

I hope Pushkin Vertigo commissions more translations of this series. It's very high-quality reading for the ma'at addicts. A wonderful, pausable way to distract yourself briefly from Yule duties, or an immersive read depending on your need of the moment.