Seicho Matsumoto, Point Zero (1959)

This book fell into my lap in the most dangerous way: my best friend gifted it to me saying, I loved it, I’m sure you’ll love it too. I’m sure you’ll agree that this is an experience fraught with peril. There’s no way I can leave this book at the bottom of my pile to be read in a few years’ time, no way I can DNF it. It will be complicated for me to say, well, it really wasn’t for me… Luckily, I’m spared all these uncomfortable situations, because I did enjoy it!

My friend probably don’t know it (I don’t think she reads this blog but who knows?), this is not my first book by Seicho Matsumoto. A few years ago, I read a curious mystery where a boring bureaucrat investigated his wife’s murder. It felt a bit cold, quite matter-of-fact, and very different. This time, it’s the opposite configuration: a wife investigates the disappearance of her husband. Teiko’s husband was introduced to her by a professional matchmaker and he was everything a young woman in the late 1950s would wish: a good career in advertising and a promotion to settle down in Tokyo with a flat. But just after the honeymoon is over, Teiko’s husband doesn’t return from the Northern town where he’s supposed to transfer from.

Teiko is very proper and very polite but she also very much wants to find her husband. He’s 10 years older so she expects him to have had previous experiences but she hardly knows him and she has practically no clue. The mystery is rather straightforward, quite realistic and slow to develop at first, reminding remotely of the first Sjöwall and Wahlöö mystery.

(No spoiler) I was rather surprised to see the direction the writer took and I appreciated the socio-historical background quite a lot. The resolution was well done even if hardly a surprise.

My personal conclusion is that the book could work as an anti-matchmaking propaganda. Even marrying someone you know might entail some surprises, but marrying someone you don’t know… nope!