Not your typical detective story – the plot of A Quiet Place is rather slow, with no twists or turns. The protagonist, an average salaryman, learns about his wife’s death during a business trip. He goes back to Tokyo to conduct an investigation on his own.
Seicho Matsumoto’s novels are a big part of the Japanese crime fiction canon. But one may in vain look in his books for genius detectives who, brilliantly and effortlessly, as if they had supernatural powers, crack every case. Matsumoto, on the other hand, focuses on organizations and procedures – investigators bound by police hierarchy, office workers by etiquette, even normal people by what’s considered right and expected. The puzzle, which usually takes some time to solve, turns out to be very humane and down to earth. When you’re reading A Quiet Place, we recommend paying attention to what’s in the background – conventions and limitations.
