Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Although released in English in 2024, Point Zero was written in Japanese and published in Japan in 1959.  It was kind of a conundrum for me–was it actually a Golden Oldie or a current release–but I decided to review it in the former category, as it is a mystery over sixty-five years old.

Although it takes place more than a decade after World War II ends, Seicho Matsumoto’s novel seems to reflect an even earlier time.  That’s probably because it begins with an arranged marriage between 26-year-old Teiko Itane and Kenichi Uhara, a man a decade older than his bride.  Although Teiko is described as a professional, the reader will have no sense of what her work consists of and why she stops working the day she got married.

Kenichi is a manager at an advertising agency.  At the time of their marriage, Kenichi is working twenty days a month in Kanazawa City, several hundred miles from Tokyo where Teiko lives.  He works in the capital ten days each month, however, and he tells his wife he plans to move there as soon as possible.

Their honeymoon is a delight, and all is well when they return to Tokyo.  Teiko accompanies her husband the following day to the train station so he can return to work in Kanazawa City and makes him promise that the next time he takes this train she will be with him.  Then he boards, and that “was the last time Teiko ever saw her husband.”

The day before her husband is due to return to the capital, Teiko decides to start rearranging their apartment.  She opens several of the cartons of books he left, finding a number of law books, and she wonders why an advertising salesman would be interested in them.  Had he hoped at some point to be a lawyer or judge?  She will ask him when he returns, she thinks.

Then, as she’s closing one of the volumes, two photos fall out.  There are no people in the photos, just two houses.  One is of a very luxurious Western-style home, something one would find in an upscale residential section of Tokyo; the other is a Japanese-style farmhouse that appears to be set in the countryside.  Why did her husband take these particular pictures?  What do these houses mean to him?  And why are there no people in the photos?  These would be other questions to ask him.

When Kenichi still hasn’t returned to Toyko two days after the date he was due, Teiko begins her search for him.  She questions his brother and the staff at the agency where he works, but no one has heard from him.  They don’t appear to be especially worried, however, telling her that he’s obviously been delayed and will certainly come home soon.  But he doesn’t.

Point Zero offers readers a fascinating look into Japanese society in the middle of the twentieth century following its defeat in World War II.  The introduction of American culture, from dress to music, has a major impact, and the importance of pan-pan girls, or young women who adopt Hollywood ways and seek romantic relationships with their foreign conquerors, is a major part of this story.

The late Seicho Matsumoto is credited with popularizing detective fiction in Japan.  He won multiple prizes for his work, which include novels, short stories, and non-fiction historical studies, and several of his mysteries were made into films.  You can read more about him at various sites on the web.