CY@CY Says Welcome to my dreamscape. Where a Lim is also a Ling.
Six Four, the sixth novel by Hideo Yokoyama but his first to get an English translation, is a Japanese Crime Literature phenomenon with rave reviews from around the world. In Japan, it sold over a million copies in the first six days after it was released.
As I started reading it, I was increasingly caught in its grip. It is an addictive read and is unlike anything I have ever read in the crime fiction genre. It is like an education about Japan, Japanese society, its police departments and inter-department politics. I managed to finish reading the 635-page book in 3 days.
Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama
In 1989, the 64th year of Emperor Hirohito’s reign (Showa), hence the case’s unofficial title ‘Six Four’, Shoko Amamiya, the seven-year-old daughter of the owners of a thriving pickle business, was kidnapped and found murdered after the ransom handover. The killer remains at large and the case remains unsolved after almost 14 years.
The novel concentrates on Yoshinobu Mikami, a detective who was involved in the Shoko kidnapping case, who is now the Press Director of Prefecture D. He chafes at his transfer from criminal investigations to the role of press director, a position that requires him to deal with crime correspondents.
Facing a rebellion from the Press Club over police’s refusal to name the pregnant woman driver in a traffic accident, he is facing a lot of stress. Compounding his woes is the disappearance of his own daughter, causing him much distraction.
Charged with organising a visit by the police commissioner to Shoko’s family on the latest anniversary of the crime, things come to a head when the press threaten to boycott the Police Commissioner’s visit to pep up the Six Four investigation before the statute of limitations precludes prosecution.
Mikami suspects there is more to it all than a simple visit and starts his investigations. An unsolved case is suddenly re-energised, and what follows is a dense and complex drama that lays bare the corruption, cover-up and the rivalry between crime investigations and administration.
About three quarters into the book, another kidnapping rocks the police department. A 17-year-old girl is reported kidnapped and it looks like a copy-cat of the Shoko kidnapping. As police races to solve the latest case, things start to unravel. The twist towards the end of the novel caught me by surprise. This sort of twist reminds me of the twists in Keigo Higashino’s books.
But I have to warn that Six Four is not a novel which will appeal to everyone. It is not a book for the casual reader. You have to have patience. And with quite a large cast of characters with their Japanese names, I struggled to keep track of who is who. This is a slow burner of a novel, not the standard crime novel with a detective and clues and suspects and the like. The patient reader will find themselves handsomely rewarded.