The Body Wore Brocade: A Superintendent Otani Mystery

A change of narrative voice yields refreshing new insights but slows the pace of the 12th case for senior Japanese police officer Tetsuo Otani. Now getting on in years, Inspector Otani muses in the first person on the amateur theatrical career of a wealthy computer software developer, while digesting his loyal wife Hanae's announcement that he has become arrogant, intolerant and thoroughly disagreeable. With plenty of time to ruminate while hospitalized after being hit by a sniper's bullet, he is struck by the coincidence that the only witness to the event was the software developer's favorite nephew. The young man attempts suicide, then becomes a murder suspect when his uncle's strangled body is found, resplendently dressed in a Noh costume. Otani's chronicle is slow-paced and laced with gentle, dour humor. The detective is revealed as more flawed and uncertain than heretofore, as Melville's (A Haiku for Hanae) new perspective illuminates Otani's fears (of losing Hanae), his concerns (over his sister-in-law's affair with his assistant) and his desires, both romantic and professional. (Nov.)