Honeymoon to Nowhere - Softcover

Akimitsu Takagi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1569471541 ISBN 13: 9781569471548

Publisher: Soho Press, 2003

Synopsis

Etsuko has fallen in love with the shy young university lecturer who clumsily courts her. But her family objects to his past: his father was a war criminal; his deceased younger brother, a murderer. When Etsuko lies to force the marriage through, she thinks their troubles are over, but on their wedding night, the groom leaves in response to an urgent phone call. In the morning, he is still missing.

About this title

About the Author

Akimitsu Takagi (1920–1995) studied engineering at Kyoto University and later worked for the Nakajima Aircraft Company. Over the course of his writing career, he published fifteen popular mysteries and won the Japan Mystery Writers Club Award.

Reviews

This early mystery (1965) by Takagi was originally published in this country in mass market by Playboy Press. Takagi's masterful psychological portraits here recall those of Patricia Highsmith or William Irish in their depiction of individuals enveloped by intrigue that threatens to destroy them. A young woman, Etsuko Ogata, is being pressured by her father to marry a rather pedestrian lawyer, Tetsuya Higuchi, whom she respects but does not love. Quietly, Etsuko rebels and begins to seek a relationship with Yoshihiro Tsukamoto, a lecturer in industrial management whom she meets by chance. Against the backdrop of a culture rapidly changing amidst recovery from the devastation of WWII, Etsuko avoids Higuchi and pursues Tsukamoto despite doubts about his family's past. Eventually she marries her beloved, but the wedding night has barely begun when Etsuko's new husband rushes off and is murdered. As the plot of this involving mystery progresses, State Prosecutor Saburo Kirishima (who also appears in The Informer, reviewed above) must use all his subtlety to untangle the strands of jealousy and greed that have made Etsuko a bride and a widow on the same night. (June)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Honeymoon To Nowhere ($12.00 paper; Jun. 10; 288 pp.; 1-56947-154-1): The first US trade edition of the 1965 novel by Takagi (The Informer, above, etc.), previously published in mass-market paper in 1977. Here, Etsuko Ogata overcomes her family's many objections to her marrying the unsuitable Yoshihiro Tsukamotoonly to have her bridegroom disappear on the first night of their honeymoon and turn up dead the next morning. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Takagi (The Tattoo Murder Case), a popular Japanese mystery writer who died in 1995, wrote this novel in 1965. Etsuko Ogata, the unmarried daughter of a highly respected lawyer, has fallen in love with a university lecturer. Her parents do not approve of him because of his father's criminal past; her father wants her to marry a junior partner in his law firm who has already asked for her hand. Etsuko refuses his offer. In desperation, she lies to her parents and tells them that she is pregnant, and they reluctantly agree to let her marry her lover. On the night of their honeymoon, the groom receives a mysterious, urgent phone call. He leaves his young bride at the hotel and never returnsAhis body is found the next day. The state prosecutor, Kirishima, is a typical detective whose methods, though routine and predictable, make for a solid mystery. This well-translated work is recommended for larger public libraries.AJanis Williams, Shaker Heights P.L., OH
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Soho Press
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1569471541
• ISBN 13: 9781569471548
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272