The Little Sparrow Murders

By Seishi Yokomizo 

Translated by Bryan Karetnyk

(1959, translated 2024)

Pushkin Vertigo


The Little Sparrow Murders features the elderly, dishevelled private detective Kosuke Kindaichi. When a former colleague invites him for an opportunity to vacation in  Onikobe, a remote backwater in Osaki, Kindaichi-san soon discovers that his friend is hoping he will help him solve a murder that happened twenty years before. While puzzling out that mystery, Kindaichi is called to investigate the disappearance of the old village headman. Arriving at the scene, the two detectives learn that he disappeared sometime in the night after meeting an elderly woman. They discover a disorderly room, blood spatter, the remains of a poison distilled from a local plant, and a large salamander in a jar. More deaths follow, and although the body of the headman is gone, the detectives soon realize the killer is carefully staging the crime scenes. In addition to the thrill of the mystery, readers will be able to observe a village that was untouched by the Greater East Asia War and that is still very much rooted in Japan’s feudal past. In discussing the murder that took place in the 1930s, Kindaichi reacts with concern when he learns a suspect was rumored to have been in Manchuria. Entrepreneurs tried to make a go of a vineyard and winery just before and after the privations of the war but failed when Japan’s economy recovered and people could afford a better quality product. Seishi also introduces us both to the transitional period between silent movies and talkies and the emergence of female pop stars and pinup girls.  We also gain insight into folk beliefs associated with physical disabilities and diseases as well as the social status of operators of inns. Best of all, Seishi uses an old folksong from the samurai period which not only exposes the sins of the past but also hints at who will be murdered

 “In the trees in the garden behind our house, three little sparrows came to stay. The first birdie said to me: In the faraway land where I come from, many are the pleasures of the shogun’s man — women, wine and hunting all day long, but most of all, he likes the women, oh yes, it’s the women he likes. A good little woman was the cooper’s girl. A pretty little thing, but she liked a drink, all day long, she would guzzle it down, she would measure by the barrel and drink through a funnel, but before she’d had her fill, she was sent away, they were all of them sent away…”