Point Zero

Tokyo, 1958. Teiko marries Kenichi Uhara, ten years her senior, an advertising man recommended by a go-between. After a four-day honeymoon, Kenichi vanishes. Teiko travels to the coastal and snow-bound city of Kanazawa, where Kenichi was last seen, to investigate his disappearance. When Kenichi's brother comes to help her, he is murdered, poisoned in his hotel room.Soon, Teiko discovers that her husband's disappearance is tied up with the so-called "pan-pan girls", women who worked as prostitutes catering to American GIs after the war. Now, ten years later, as the country is recovering, there are those who are willing to take extreme measures to hide that past.

Auteur

The Author and the Translator

Seichō Matsumoto (1909-1982) was Japan's most successful mystery writer. His first detective novel, Points and Lines, sold over a million copies in Japan. Vessel of Sand, published in English as Inspector Imanishi Investigates in1989, sold over four million copies and became a movie box-office hit. Bitter Lemon published his novel A Quiet Place in 2016. 

Louise Heal Kawai comes from Manchester. She has spent the past twenty years Japan and currently lives in Yokohama. Her translations include Daido Tamaki’s Milk, Tendo Shoko’s best-selling autobiography Yakuza Moon*, and for Bitter Lemon, Matsumoto’s A Quiet Place.*