Truth is slippery in ‘Suspicion,' a detective story based on a true crime

Japan Times

24-05-2025

A spare, deceptively candid novella, Seicho Matsumoto's 'Suspicion' is as much about crime as it is about truth, human bias and belief.
Translated by Jesse Kirkwood and out this month from Penguin Classics, it is Kirkwood's second Matsumoto translation, after the acclaimed 'Tokyo Express' in 2022.
Matsumoto (1909-1992), winner of both the Akutagawa Prize and the Kikuchi Kan Prize, didn't publish his first novel until he was 40. Yet he quickly established himself as a master of Japanese crime fiction, publishing over 30 detective novels, hundreds of short stories and nonfiction works on both modern and ancient Japanese history.
Suspicion, by Seicho Matsumoto. Translated by Jesse Kirkwood. 112 pages, PENGUIN CLASSICS, fiction.
In his novels, Matsumoto frequently focuses on social crime and psychological thrillers. 'Suspicion' satisfies on both counts despite its unique spin. Although an undisputed tragedy has occurred, with a suspect and various layers of unfolding conjecture, the novella is not a crime novel in the traditional sense. It instead emerges most clearly as an allegory on the various pursuits of truth —– and what humans will do in their determined search to reveal it.
Originally published in 1982, the novella was the basis for an award-winning Japanese film of the same name that year and has further inspired five different TV adaptations. The story, however, was already familiar to the public at the time, being loosely based on an infamous real-life crime.
In 1974, what is known as 'the Beppu 300 million yen insurance murder' rocked Japan. On a Sunday night in November, two children and their mother drowned after their car crashed off a ferry dock and plunged into the sea in Beppu, Oita Prefecture. The woman's newly wed husband, Torami Araki, an ex-convict who adopted both her name and children, managed to escape the car.
Insisting his wife had been driving, Araki was the only survivor of the crash. Suspicion soon arose when it was discovered the man had recently taken out several different insurance policies on his new wife and her two youngest children. After appearing on a live TV talk show to protest his innocence, Araki was arrested backstage for the murders and insurance fraud.
In 'Suspicion,' Matsumoto keeps the basics of this infamous case but changes the husband to a beautiful woman at the center of his story, Kumako Onizuka. She is a former Tokyo hostess and petty grifter with connections to the yakuza. Her new spouse, Fukutaro Shirakawa, is a wealthy, widowed landowner from the countryside.
With these simple changes, Matsumoto immediately heightens the uncertainty, playing on the obvious gender stereotypes of the gold-digging city bride and the hapless, older man from the countryside. Even innocent hobbies like her swimming are used to underscore suspicions that she planned the car crashing in the sea. As an outsider to the local community, Onizuka is instantly labeled a femme fatale and quickly convicted in the local press, weeks before she is arrested.
In 'Suspicion,' we never hear directly from Onizuka — only from the men surrounding her. She vehemently protests her own innocence and insists her husband was driving the car when it plummeted off the dock and into the sea.
Seicho Matsumoto, a master of Japanese crime fiction and a prolific writer, only published his first work at age 40. |
PUBLIC DOMAIN VIA WIKIMEDIA
However, more than merely the guilt or innocence of Onizuka, Matsumoto examines other perspectives on truth and its very nature.
For instance, the actions of Moichi Akitani, a local reporter, make the reader doubt journalistic integrity. Being convinced Onizuka is guilty, Akitani builds his reputation on scathing but methodically researched articles on Onizuka, helping to spread the notoriety of the case nationwide.
Seizing on her seductive beauty and unusual name — it contains the kanji for 'demon' — Akitani unearths suspicious details of her past in Tokyo, adding these tidbits to the circumstantial evidence against her. Akitani also manipulates similarities to a real life Taisho Era (1912-26) murder case, referenced in the novel as the 'Onikuma Incident,' to further sensationalize the case.
On the other side, Matsumoto also includes the views of the various defense lawyers associated with Onizuka's case. Masao Harayama is a seasoned veteran suffering from liver disease. Despite his failing health, Harayama is determined to provide the best defense possible to the accused. There's also Kanetaka Okamura, a hotshot Tokyo attorney, who flies into the area to consider joining the team.
A speedy, thought-provoking read, by the end, Matsumoto cleverly offers a final, philosophical twist: How far are we willing to go in pursuing an objective truth? And how much does our individual perspective on truth become our own identity?