1. Matsumoto (1909-1992) is a ''Japanese immortal '', considered to have written the best Japanese mystery novels of the 20th century. The Japanese Simenon, many say. Our English-language edition of Point Zero follows on from the success of A Quiet Place , published by Bitter Lemon in 2016 . 2. Tightly Plotted Murder Mystery that keeps you guessing until the very end. The protagonist''s sleuth-like investigations into the disappearance of her husband in the coastal town of Kanazawa, hampered by the indifference of the local police, eventually succeed. But at a high cost: by the novel''s end, five people have suffered violent deaths.

3. Social Criticism. Point Zero (first published in Japan in 1959 ) pushed the art of the mystery story to new dimensions, abandoning the template of closed-room mysteries so popular in pre-war Japan, to embrace social criticism. It explores themes of gender roles, societal expectations, and the tension between tradition and modernity. 4. Early Feminism. Matsumoto takes on a taboo: the story and plight of the pan pan girls, who had prostituted themselves to GIs during the post-war occupation. These women,then usually made up and dressed up in glamorous Hollywood style to attract their customers,were ironically on a first step to emancipation.

In another radical departure, the novel centres on a female protagonist. Teiko, our heroine, travels alone to Kanazawa; she is respectful of all the rules and proprieties expected of a Japanese woman of the time, but she is a stubborn, intrepid and naturally intuitive sleuth. 5. Sense of Place . The story is set in a port city on Japan''s west coast and on the savage Noto Peninsula, with its impoverished fishing villages and murderous cliffs. It is mid-winter, and the coast, battered by the sea of Japan, is smothered by snow storms. Two films called Zero Focus were made of the novel, the first by Yoshitaro Nomura in 1961 and the second in 2009 (to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Matsumoto''s birth) by Isshin Inudo. They are both excellent, in very different ways, both paying loving tribute to the beauty of the locations.

If you must choose, stream the earlier film.