The Man Who Changed His Name

Mr. Honda is quite a lady-killer. Though impotent in his weekend visits with his wife in Osaka, his weekday one-night-stands in Tokyo with a variety of enthusiastic women serve to salve his id. His ""huntsman's log,'' a journal in which he describes each amorous encounter, is filled with the names of the quarry he's ``shot down.'' The question is: is he also a killer of ladies? The police seem to think so. At least three women have been found strangled with his neckties; his blood (a rare type) and his semen have been found on their bodies, and the journal, which might have provided him with an alibi, is missing. Only his lawyers, wise old Hatanaka and his young associate, Shinji, suspect that Honda has been framed. When Shinji sets out to find the real killer by interviewing the remainder of Honda's harem, he uncovers not only a bizarre plot but also the threadbare emotional lives of a number of Japan's modern women. That he does so while lingering over dishes of vinegared seaweed flavored with horseradish, adds greatly to the appeal of this book, whose unusual atmosphere makes credible an original, if far-fetched, story. (August)