The Tattoo Murder 

By Akamitsu Takagi

Translated by Deborah Boehm

(1948, translated 2003)

Pushkin Press, Soho Crime

Edogawa Ranpo, the grandfather of Japanese honkaku or “locked room mysteries” was a genius for codifying the rules and regulations for plotting such stories. He was also an advocate of a tone, mood, and vision incorporating ero, goru, nansensu, which translates to eroticism, the grotesque, and the nonsensical or absurd. Akamitsu Takagi’s The Tattoo Murder provides all three, in spades. Historians may be interested in the author’s descriptions of post-war Tokyo, where the Ginza has been so reduced in size and influence that it can be walked from end to end in under thirty minutes, significant portions of the city are still in ruins, and American military bases are built astride bomb craters. The Americans themselves saunter the main streets like the conquerors they are, while Japanese men embrace old friends, grateful to have survived, whether as civilians or members of the armed forces. The crime in question involves the discovery of the body of a beautiful woman. The mistress of the director of a powerful corporation, she was famed for her beauty, sexuality, and exquisite tattooing which adorned her body. On the day she was murdered, she participated in a public meeting between tattoo aficionados and those who had been decorated by dead and living masters of the art of Japanese tattooing. All of the tattooed individuals were taking some risk in appearing, as the practice had been banned, yet the victim appeared, completely nude, before slack-jawed connoisseurs. Early the next morning, two men with a profound interest in the women met just outside her garden. One was a former army medic and the younger brother of the head of the local police force. Still recovering from wartime trauma, he is lingering outside to catch a glimpse of his passionate lover, who has not returned his calls. The other is an anthropologist and famed collector of the skins of tattooed humans. Though rivals for the woman’s attention, they search the house together and discover their object of interest in a locked bathroom. Tragically, someone has removed her head and limbs; her torso, still alive with the representation of a mythical Japanese demon, is all that remains of her. Akamitsu Takagi provides a police procedural that is in itself full of tension and suspense, a string of subsequent murders all connected to the case, and a handful of likely suspects. However, despite the efforts of the police, the case runs cold. All seems lost, until, as sometimes happens in Japanese crime stories, a Holmes-like amateur arrives on the scene. In this case, the heartbroken narrator/forensic scientist receives a visit from an old schoolmate, an eccentric and beautiful young man who expresses an interest in hearing the details of the case. After a series of uncanny insights prove to be correct, the friend joins the investigation, revisits the crime scene, and engages in polite conversation with the suspects. With the benefit of approaching the case as an outsider, simple logic, and a willingness to follow the unlikeliest of possible leads, the wunderkind uncovers the elaborate plot. If you have a love for classic Japanese crime novels, The Tattoo Murder will delight in every way.
(I am grateful to Pushkin Press for sending me this copy of The Tattoo Murder; there were no conditions or expectations attached to their offer.)

“Oh, come on Kamizu, it’s not just me. Anyone who would buy into that load of moronic propaganda they call the Pronouncement from Imperial Headquarters would have to be soft in the head, don’t you think? Let’s just say that participating in the war was not my idea of a delightful experience. Day after day we would sink innumerable aircraft carriers and battleships. I remember counting sixty ships destroyed, each one full of men who probably didn’t want to be fighting any more than we did. We didn’t have nearly as much success in downing the crucial B-29s, though. Next time we go to war, we should practice with the catapult and the crossbow. Then we might have a better chance of downing a few B-29s.”