Inspector Imanishi Investigates

Tokyo, 1960s. An unassuming but respected homicide detective, Eitaro Imanishi has a knack for both writing haiku and solving crimes. But when a mysterious unidentified body appears on the tracks of a rail yard, Imanishi has his work cut out for him. Soon, he finds himself on a strange chase that takes him from the hip hangouts of avant-garde Tokyo to a spa in rural Honshu. And all the while, the body count is climbing.

“First-rate … In the classic tradition of Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret of Paris and P. D. James’s Chief Inspector Dalgliesh in England.”—New York Times Book Review

©1989 Translation by Seicho Matsumoto (P)2024 Recorded Books

Interest plot, detailed descriptions of landscapes and city neighborhoods

Enjoyed a good detective story with interesting characters and embedded in Japan’s urban and rural settings

Great mystery

Love this detective. He is so methodical in his methodology. The ending seemed rushed but overall great story.

Slow Burn. Great story and performance but….

I read and listened to all of this authors books.
He’s great. Stories are great. Too meticulous in describing stuff but overall you won’t be disappointed.
However the common theme with this authors book is lack of that BIG satisfying conclusion at the end or big denouement.
I’m talking of all his books and not this particular. All of the mysteries are slowly solved as story progress and by the end. So there’s no satisfying denouement or big reveal in the end. Story usually ends with notion that culprit is now caught or main character has done their job.
Think a scene where a big chase between a detective and a killer is happening. Satisfying end would be killer tackled on the ground and detective reading the rights and culprit being taken away and detective being congratulate by everyone and returning home to their loving family and promoted and the killer now cursing and rotting in prison and thinking what went wrong and blah blah.
Now imagine this author writing same scene. After a big chase the killer is cornered. He has no where to go. He doesn’t even turn. He can hear the footsteps. The end.

Easy to listen too

Great listen for my 1st audio book.
Easy to move between chapters and pause and restart.

LibriVox-level narration of a boring story

My primary problem is with the narrator. His pacing and intonation are amateurish. I wouldn't be surprised if this is really a computer generated reading. There is no difference in his voice with different characters. The pace of his narration is a slow monotone, His accent is unattractive. When this narration is combined with a middling to poor story the result is, for me, unbearable,