Akimitsu Takagi Books In Order

Novels

Informer (1971)
Honeymoon to Nowhere (1972)
The Tattoo Murder Case (1997)

Novels Book Covers

Akimitsu Takagi Books Overview

Informer

When the Tokyo stock market crashes, adultery and industrial espionage lead to murder. Segawa had a good job as a stock market trader, but the ‘private’ hedge fund he operated suffered big losses and he was fired. He is down and out when he is approached with an offer of highly paid work. How can he resist? He agrees to become an industrial spy, even when he discovers the target is his old schoolmate who married Segawa’s girlfriend and his company. Ogino, the old friend, is murdered, and Segawa seems to have been the last person to visit him. He panics, fakes an easily disproved alibi, then tries to flee. He would seem to be the obvious culprit. Who else could have done it? The widow? Segawa’s other girlfriend? The dead man’s uncle or some of the other ambitious directors of the company? Ogino’s secretary, who happens to be his greedy sister’s lover? State Prosecutor Kirishima must solve a baffling crime to save Segawa from hanging for a murder he did not commit. The Informer, based on a real incident, was a runaway bestseller in Japan when it was published in 1965.

Honeymoon to Nowhere

Etsuko has fallen in love with a shy, studious lecturer at a university. But she has to tell her parents she’s pregnant to force their agreement to her marriage. Their objection is to the rest of her fianc’s family: his father was a war criminal; his deceased younger brother, a murderer. His only respectable relative is a research chemist who says he’s too sick to come to the wedding. And then the groom is called away on the first night of the honeymoon by an urgent telephone call. His body is found the next morning and State Prosecutor Kirishima must discover who killed him, and why.

The Tattoo Murder Case

Miss Kinue Nomura survived World War II only to be murdered in Tokyo, her severed limbs left behind. Gone is that part of her that bore one of the most beautiful full body tattoos ever rendered by her late father. Kenzo Matsush*ita, a young doctor, must assist his detective brother who is in charge of the case, because he was Kinue’s secret lover and the first person on the murder scene. The Tattoo Murder Case was originally published in 1948; this is the first English translation.