Suspicion

Satsuko Utamaro is accused of pushing a man onto the railway tracks. She denies it. The evidence is ambiguous. And the detective assigned to her case — methodical, patient, and increasingly uncertain — finds that the closer he looks at her, the less he can be sure of anything, including his own judgement. Seicho Matsumoto’s Suspicion is a short, devastating novel that works simultaneously as a perfectly constructed crime narrative and as an inquiry into the nature of guilt, perception, and the limits of what any investigation can establish.

Matsumoto — the most important crime writer in twentieth-century Japanese literature — wrote fiction that was simultaneously gripping plot and serious social criticism. His protagonists are ordinary people in ordinary situations whose ordinary failings produce catastrophe; his detectives are honest, painstaking, and frequently helpless against the complexity of human motive.

A masterclass in psychological crime fiction — taut, intelligent, and completely compelling. For readers who love Patricia Highsmith or Japanese fiction at its most refined. Published by Penguin Modern Classics.