Despite the emotional distance in their relationship, the tragedy is a shock to Asai, though not enough to make him put aside his professional obligations before he arranges travel home. Asai, a section chief in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, is on a business trip with his boss when word reaches him that his wife, Eiko, who had a heart condition, has died suddenly in Tokyo. Why would a woman with a serious heart condition risk her health by climbing a steep hill in an area where she knew no one? That conundrum obsesses Japanese bureaucrat Tsuneo Asai, the hero of this stellar psychological thriller from Matsumoto (Inspector Imanishi Investigates). Vessel of Sand, published in English as Inspector Imanishi Investigates in 1989, sold over four million copies and became a movie box-office hit. His first detective novel, Points and Lines, sold over a million copies in Japan.
Seicho Matsumoto was Japan's most successful thriller writer. As he digs deeper into his wife's recent past, he must eventually conclude that she led a double life. When Tsuneo goes to apologize to the boutique owner for the trouble caused by his wife’s death he discovers the villa Tachibana near by, a house known to be a meeting place for secret lovers. How did it come about that his wife-who was shy and withdrawn, and only left their house twice a week to go to haiku meetings-ended up dead in a small shop in a shady Tokyo neighborhood?
But the circumstances of her demise left Tsuneo, a softly-spoken government bureaucrat, perplexed. Eiko had a heart condition so the news of her death wasn’t totally unexpected. While on a business trip to Kobe, Tsuneo Asai receives the news that his wife Eiko has died of a heart attack. "A stellar psychological thriller with a surprising and immensely satisfying resolution that flows naturally from the book’s complex characterizations.Readers will agree that Matsumoto (1909–1992) deserves his reputation as Japan’s Georges Simenon.-Publishers Weekly. Seicho Matsumoto's thrillers dissect Japanese society."-The New York Times Book Review
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