When I first picked up Rendezvous at Kamakura Inn, I mistakenly thought it was a quiet mystery set in the hills, perhaps geisha, or hot springs. Something along the lines of Laura Joh Rowland's Investigator Sano Ichiro novels. Rendezvous pulls the trigger from the first page, and only slows a third of the way through, turning into an involved mystery and then twists into the world of the Yakuza.
Detective Aoki, a twenty year veteran of the Tokyo police force, and his team are ready to blow a corruption scheme wide open. Ex-Governor Tamaki was the focus of the team who worked fourteen hour days, for seventeen months. Some of the team dropped out along the way, some divorced; it was a hard case for everyone. Suddenly, superintendent Watanabe declares the investigation is closed.
That man is now off-limits.
Aoki is thrown into a tailspin by this news, but cannot leave the case behind.
"Again Aoki heard that buzzing in his brain. Certainly his energy was failing him, and he was back to smoking thirty cigarettes a day."
One by one in quick succession, four people connected with Aoki are killed off. The dynamic and breathless pace only lets up in chapter six when Aoki is put on leave from the force and sent to a mountain ryokan for rest. At the inn, the story changes. A sudden winter storm blocks everyone in, and Aoki learns of a new mystery, perhaps twisted into his case on Tamaki. The characters at the inn include the head of a bank and his bodyguard, a top financial director, and an enigmatic older man who replays master games of Go.
The owner of the house may be a twin, and their mother was involved with both bankers before her mysterious disappearance. Is the mother alive, and have they brought the bankers here to exact revenge? Was Aoki sent here to investigate the bankers who are involved in the corruption scheme, even though officially the case is closed? What about the inn chef, husband to the missing woman who left him to become involved with the bankers? And who is the Go player Mr. Saito, who seems to know the history of all the players, including Detective Aoki? Trapped by the snow for days, Aoki arranges the characters and reveals the puzzle.
This would be enough for any other thriller, but the third act turns yet again bringing in the yakuza, master Go championships, a grim black market, and the connection with the mysterious Mr. Saito.
This is the first Detective Aoki novel written by Marshall Browne, and award winning Australian author. His previous novels include The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders.
Rendezvous is far from the rural mystery of a quiet Japanese inn I expected. Aoki is a tough character, and yet a thinker with a strong sense of how he can do right within the system. From the eye popping, page turning start of this crime drama, through the secret mysteries brought by each guest turning the inn into a hotbed of suspense, I was hooked on this hard-boiled thriller.
2005 / Paperback / 287 pages
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