Forgotten Book - The Obituary Arrrives at Two O'Clock

Having enjoyed Shizuko Natsuki's The Third Lady a while back, I was tempted to sample her work again, and this led to my reading today's Forgotten Book - a title she produced back in 1983, and seems to have translated herself five years later as The Obituary Arrives at Two O'Clock. The title struck me as extremely intriguing, as I find stories focusing on obituaries rather fascinating, but I have to say that the title does not bear any relation to the book. Rather, the starting point is a ploy slightly reminsicent of the Wallace case, which I have discussed here several times recently.

Kosuke Okita is a youngish landscape gardener who is owed a lot of money by a rascally co-owner of a golf club. One night, he receives a mysterious telephone call from a woman in need of help, and this prompts him to go out on an abortive attempt to meet and help her. At about the same time, the man who has been cheating him is bludgeoned to death with a golf club. Kosuke has no alibi, and becomes the prime suspect.

After that opening, there is no similarity between the storyline and the Wallace case. Kosuke eventually goes on the run, and when he disappears, it seems that he has committed suicide. But is it possible he is still alive, and if so, what on earth is going on? Tension is maintained pretty well, and there's a rather grim explanation of the final mystery in the very last sentence of the book.

The excellent ingredients mean that there is much to enjoy in this book. The regular shifts in viewpoint mean you can never be quite sure where you are with events, and the effect is quite pleasing. Having said that, you have to suspend your disbelief on several occasions, and I felt that there were not enough suspects, and a bit too much time was devoted to discussing the intricacies of the Japanese golf club business. Not a masterpiece, but a good book, and further evidence of Natsuki's storytelling ability, as well as another reminder of the dangers associated with believing everything people tell you on the telephone.

Forgotten Book - The Third Lady

My Forgotten Book for today is one of the few Japanese novels that I’ve read (in translation, I hasten to add.) It is The Third Lady by Shizuko Natsuki, and I learned of it from John Norris’s brilliant blog. John raved over it, and when I saw that Ed Gorman – someone whose literary judgment is irreproachable – had also admired the novel, I simply had to read it.

And I wasn’t disappointed, though I must say I thought the translation by Robert Rohmer had one or two infelicities here and there. But it’s a story of “murder by proxy” which takes the basic idea of Patricia Highsmith’s classic Strangers on a Train, but puts a very different spin on it.

This idea of giving a fresh twist to an old idea is one that appeals to me. After all, most ideas have crossed someone else’s mind in the past. And Natsuki does very well to turn this story into a sort of moral fable, while giving the tale an excellent twist.

The premise is that a man and woman have a fleeting encounter and tell each other about someone they hate and whom they wish dead. The man, Kohei Daigo, finds that his enemy is killed by a mystery woman. He’s sure the killer is the woman by whom he is now quite obsessed. But can he bring himself to kill her enemy? It’s cleverly done, and I enjoyed reading the book. First published in 1987, it certainly doesn’t deserve to be forgotten.

And here’s a question. What other “murder by proxy” stories are out there? I can think of at least two, and that isn’t counting the embryonic story I dreamed up when visiting Dublin last year!