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Takagi Akimitsu: The Informer, transl. Mizuguchi Sadako, Soho Crime, 1999.

Takagi was one of the most popular and prolific crime writers of post-war Japan, starting with The Tattoo Murder Case, which he published in 1948. He was also initially an aeronautical engineer, a fan of tattoo art, a self-taught legal expert, and considered a moderniser of Japanese detective fiction. Despite his occasionally formulaic mysteries and bland writing style, he does imbue his books with rich characterization and a panoramic view of a rapidly changing Japanese society. Four of his mysteries have been translated into English (by Soho and Pushkin Press), while his photographic archive of Japanese tattoos of the 1950and 60s was discovered recently and you can read more about it and see some of his photos here.

All of the above makes me think that Takagi was inquisitive and fascinated by every strata of Japanese society, and this is particularly obvious in The Informer. The novel was published in 1965 and is supposed to be based on the real case of a stock broker who became unemployed for reckless trading, but I haven’t been able to find out any further information about this.

In the book, the hapless trader is Shigeo Segawa, and he feels very sorry for himself at the start of the story. Money is clearly very important to him, but in pursuit of it, he gave up his integrity (committed fraud) and the woman he loved (his pride wouldn’t allow him to marry her until he was wealthy enough, so she married Segawa’s old friend Ogino, the son and heir to the Shichiyo Chemical Company instead). So he is now working in a lowly position for very little pay and cannot resist when his friends and former co-workers introduce him to Sakai, the owner of a tiny and somewhat shady trading company. The high salary offered for not very much work does make him somewhat suspicious initially, but when he finds out what the real work entails, he does not take long to accept the rather illegal mission and cosy up to Ogino once more, with the aim to betray him in the end.

The first half of the book we see the world entirely from Segawa’s point of view, and it’s a POV full of self-pity and self-justification, with only the occasional twinge of a bad conscience as he seduces and uses women to achieve his goals, and also betrays his old friend Ogino by reigniting the relationship with the latter’s wife. But then things go wrong and his world starts to crumble… and he becomes the main suspect in a murder. From then on, we see the story through the eyes of multiple characters, including Kirishima, the main prosecutor, his fiancee Kyoko, Inspector Ishida, as well as Segawa.

I know most readers enjoyed the second part of the novel more, which becomes a more regular police procedural. There are a lot of people who are not quite what they appear to be and may have ulterior motives to kill and frame Segawa for the killing. I too initially suspected someone else but, just before the denouement, I guessed the main perpetrator/informer, although not all of the details.

However, I personally preferred the first part, despite the rather weak, unlikeable Segawa, because I believe the author intended to show the rising generation of Japanese men and women in the 1960s, greedy for money and sex. He does so in less overt and shocking ways than Murakami Ryu would just ten years later, perhaps because he chooses to focus on business people in their late 20s/early 30s rather than disaffected youth. I loved the period detail and the psychological insights, including issues around industrial espionage (something the Japanese were being accused of at the time of doing in the US, although in the 1980s it switched to the other way round).

The translation did feel a little stiff and dated in places, but perhaps that is reflective of the 1960s or else the 1990s when it was published. A compelling, quick and fun read to start my January in Japan. Some much tougher reads will follow.

I haven’t been able to find reliable information about film adaptations of this book (AI completely makes up stuff and links it to two unrelated films). The cover image on the translated book is also from an entirely different film: The Insect Woman by Imamura Shohei.

I was inspired by Joanne from Portobello Book Blog to join in this weekly meme created by Sam at Taking On a World of Words. Three quick and easy questions about our reading:

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

What I’m currently reading…

Far too many books at once, which is probably the reason I’ve not finished one in a while. I’m reading the definitive Kafka biography by Reiner Stauch (greatly enjoying it, but it needs to be read in short chunks, as it’s very dense). As if to compliment that, I’m also reading two books set in 1930s Berlin – one actually written and published in 1931, a love story called (ironically) Happy People by Hermann Kesten, a contemporary of Fallada and Kästner, but who has been largely forgotten and never translated, I believe. The other book, Transatlantik, is set in 1937 but written much more recently, and is of course the next one in the Gereon Rath series, which I’m now addicted to. The remaining three books I’ve barely touched in the last month: I’m trying to do a chapter by chapter reread of The Tale of Genji together with Tony Malone, but have fallen far behind. I started a book about Moldova’s experience of WW2, The End of the World Is a Train, but found it quite upsetting and so put it to one side for the time being. And I bought The Course of the Heart in Cambridge for nostalgia’s sake, but am finding myself rather bored by it.

What I just finished reading…

Ogawa Yōko’s Mina’s Matchbox – which was a bit of a disappointment compared to other works I’ve read by her: a little too pointlessly cutesy, with no real sense of menace, mystery or yearning

A Romanian novel that I’ve been asked to consider translating and pitching to publishers: it’s part historical, part fantasy, very highbrow intellectual, and I’m fascinated by it, but need to find comp titles to try and entice Anglo publishers. It would certainly be a lovely challenge to translate it!

What to read next

I usually like to curl up with a massive tome during the winter season, but my life seems to be much busier here in Berlin in December than it was in Maidenhead, so am not sure I’ll make much progress with Russians or Nordic doorstoppers. Instead, I’m intrigued by a non-fiction book about our emerging relationships with AI: Love Machines by James Muldoon (which might also be useful for a novel I’m currently writing – or rather, NOT writing).

I’m also tempted to start advance reading for my January in Japan, always a highlight of the reading year for me. I bought the German language translation by Katja Busson of Tsumura Kikuko’s There’s No Such Thing as an Easy Job, and it’s calling out to me.