The Japanese Sherlock Holmes: Inspector Hanshichi

“But in retrospect, I realize that this piece of detective work was mere child’s play for Hanshichi. There are many more adventures of his that would astound and amaze people, for he was an unsung Sherlock Holmes of the Edo era.” (From “The Ghost of Ofumi” in The Curious Casebook of Inspector Hanshichi)

 

Edo-era Samurai armor from the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

This suit of armor and matching helmet were made for a samurai in the 19th century by the workshop of Mitsusada. Until 1869, the samurai had very special privileges under the rule of the Shogun, although by this time, the samurai no longer went into battle. Rather, they wore their elaborate armor on ceremonial occasions.  

Samurai families from that era are featured in the early twentieth century stories that appear in  The Curious Casebook of Inspector Hanshichi by Okamoto Kido. Although Kido (1872-1939) wrote these stories between 1917 and 1937, his fictional detective, Inspector Hanshichi, was active before the end of the Shogun era in 1869: each story specifies the year when it took place. This novel combines very ingenious detective fiction with fascinating detail about the life of people in several classes, including the samurai, in several neighborhoods of the city of Edo (modern Tokyo). 

The English translation of these selected stories dates to 2006.

These masterpieces of clever detecting are extremely delightful to read, and I like them for various reasons: 

• The mysteries in each tale are very inventive, and the character Hanshichi is very clever at solving them. He’s also modest in telling the narrator about them when they get together many years later.
• The author has adapted the conventions of Western detective stories in his time to the earlier era in Japan. Some of his stories repurpose plot elements of his sources in interesting ways — for example, in one story, the culprit is a monkey, clearly a reference to Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue.”
• The stories are intentionally crafted to convey what life was like in Edo/Tokyo before the Meiji restoration of the Emperor. The author carefully highlights many details of family relationships, how women were treated and viewed, how police work was done, what people ate and wore, and how the society was very unequal, with the Samurai and nobles having many privileges not extended to commoners. 
• The author is meticulous at showing the lives of murder victims, witnesses, bystanders, detectives, and criminals.

The result is a collection of stories that are very readable for a modern reader, but also offer a fascinating look at an obscure historical era.

Locations in old Edo/Tokyo Play a Large Role in the Tales

Each tale is set in a particular area of the old city of Edo, which was renamed Tokyo when the Emperor was restored to power in 1869. The author wants the reader to be aware of the characteristics of the city long before he was writing. Society and government had already been greatly altered by the early 20th century when the author was writing. There were several subsequent causes of change, including a great earthquake and fire in 1923, the devastation of World War II, and repeated modernizations. For a reader in 2024, the author’s vivid portrayal of the 1850s and 1860s is thus fascinating.

Quite a few of the places mentioned remain very famous, if different. One example of a place featured in the stories is the area around the Asakusa temple complex, which is still  today maintained in traditional form. Another example is the area near the shogun’s palace, where nobles were allowed to live in large compounds with extended families and many servants; as far as I know, nothing remains of this aristocratic compound in twenty-first century Tokyo, though the current Emperor still lives in this palace. A third example is the area near the Sumida River; while the river remains, I believe the area to now be totally different.

The Sumida River, as depicted in this print by the artist Houkusai (1760-1849) is often mentioned in the stories.
For example: “A gray mist hung over the waters of the Sumida River, and far downstream the pale light reflected from
their surface heightened the feeling of cold.”

A bridge on the Sumida River from our trip to Tokyo in 2011.
There are many mentions of the bridges in the detective stories: obviously it’s changed vastly.

A description of the river from the story “The Mansion of Morning Glories” —

“The winter night had still not ended when the trio crossed Suido Bridge. As though frozen in place, a solitary pale star twinkled among the upper branches of a dark pine. Enveloped in a grayish mist, the surface of the river flowing from Ochanomizu reflected not a glimmer of light. The frost seemed to be especially thick in that spot, lying like a blanket of snow over the withered reeds growing along the high riverbank. From somewhere they heard the mournful cry of a fox.”

Food in the Tales

Let me just show you a few descriptions of the food that Inspector Hanshichi eats during the course of investigating some of the mysteries.

“It was the time of year when baked sweet potato vendors set up their stalls at night, hanging out lanterns that glowed in the darkness and were inscribed with the words, in big, fat brushstrokes: ‘As sweet as roasted chestnuts.’” (from “The Mystery of the Fire Bell”)

“The day before yesterday, at lunchtime, Otoku had ordered one serving of weatherfish cooked in a pot from the local eel restaurant, and yesterday she’d asked the fishmonger to prepare sashimi.” (from “The Haunted Sash Pond”)

“He found the bar the guard had mentioned and peeked in through the entranceway. He saw a young man in the garb of a house servant nibbling on a dish of spicy peppers and sipping with obvious pleasure from a square wooden cup of saké.” (from “The Mansion of Morning Glories”)

The Samurai

To end this review, I’ve collected  a few quotes about the varied circumstances of samurai and their privileges. These are long, but very interesting, I think:

“Uncle K’s house lay inside the gate of an old daimyo estate, and long ago it must have been the residence of a senior retainer, steward, or some other high-ranking samurai. At any rate, it was a free-standing house with a small garden attached, surrounded by a roughly woven bamboo fence.” (from “The Ghost of Ofumi”)

“Now during the Edo period the second and third sons of samurai — even samurai of the highest rank who served the shogun — were, generally speaking, idle loafers with no responsibilities. An eldest son, of course, had the duty of succeeding his father as head of the family, but younger sons had virtually no prospects in the world, save for two: either to receive a special appointment from the shogun in recognition of some extraordinary talent or to be adopted into another family. Most simply lived under their elder brothers’ roofs, passing the time without any work worthy of a full-fledged samurai.” (from “ The Ghost of Ofumi”)

“Usually, anything that occurred within a samurai’s household would be settled in private, but in this case, Kuronuma decided to announce the incident publicly and seek the assistance of the city authorities in resolving the matter.” (from “Hiroshige and the River Otter”)

“One was not considered a full-fledged samurai until one had demonstrated the ability to read through the texts without stumbling over the words. Samurai families were grouped according to rank, and one month before the exam an application had to be submitted to the head of one’s group, whereupon a notice would be sent out telling the child to appear at the school by nine o’clock on the morning of the day. Each year there would be anywhere from a couple of dozen to as many as several hundred boys taking the exam. On the appointed day, the boys would arrive at the South Hall of the school, where one by one they would be called before the board of examiners, headed by Chief Scholar Lord Hayashi. There they would sit at a long, Chinese-style desk and be asked to read passages from the classics. The highest-scoring pupils received prizes of silver bars or bolts of cloth of a material befitting their rank.” (from “The Mansion of Morning Glories”) 

Note that I could also collect quotes about the lives of common people, shopkeepers, and women of various classes, but this would make my long post even longer. 

My thanks to Emma of Words and Peace who found me this great author!

Blog post © 2024 mae sander