![]() ![]() The Ichiyanagi family once ran an elegant honjin or upmarket inn for imperial couriers and noble travellers in feudal times. Let’s hope that these two books are successful and encourage Pushkin to get the rest translated, because on the basis of The Honjin Murders they’re going to be mind-scrambling, very entertaining classic crime stories. ![]() ![]() ![]() Unfortunately, The Honjin Murders (deftly translated by Louise Heal Kawai) is at present one of only two Kindaichi novels available in English the other, The Inugami Curse, is also available from Pushkin Vertigo. I didn’t recognise Kosuke Kindaichi’s name, but he has a devoted following in Japan and appeared in a whole series of Yokomizo’s novels after this, his first appearance, in 1946. Somewhere like provincial Japan in the late 1930s: a world still struggling to free itself from the legacies of feudal hierarchies, in which a shocking crime offers a brilliant young detective the chance to make his literary debut. Let’s go somewhere else together instead. I don’t intend to dwell on the present madness, though: I’m here, writing this, because I’d rather forget about it for a few minutes, and I hope you’re here for the same reason. I can only hope that none of you or your loved ones have been directly affected by coronavirus, and I send virtual hugs out across the ether to all of you. ![]()
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