Tokyo Express

By: Seicho Matsumoto, Jesse Kirkwood - translator

Narrated by: Eleanor Matsuura

Brought to you by Penguin.

In a rocky cove in the bay of Hakata, the bodies of a young and beautiful couple are discovered. Stood in the coast's wind and cold, the police see nothing to investigate: the flush of the couple's cheeks speaks clearly of cyanide, of a lovers' suicide. But in the eyes of two men, Torigai Jutaro, an old and shabby detective, and Kiichi Mihara, a young gun from Tokyo, something is not quite right. Together, they will begin to pick at the knot of a unique and calculated crime....

A coiled mystery in the vein of Georges Simenon, Tokyo Express is Seicho Matsumoto's best-selling masterwork.

©2022 Seicho Matsumoto (P)2022 Penguin Audio

Clever puzzle mystery

This is a short, clever murder mystery focusing as much on how to catch the murderer as on their identity. To say anything about the plot would be to spoil it, except that I didn't realise at first that the novel is from 1958 so was briefly confused as to why train journeys in Japan would take so long - it's set six years before the first Shinkansen went into operation.

If you're a fan of Keigo Higashino this seems to have been an influence on his work, especially the Police Detective Kaga and Detective Galileo books.