Inspector Imanishi Investigates

«Inspector Imanishi Investigates» — a social detective story about a police investigation in which Inspector Imanishi tries to establish the identity of a murdered man and track down the crime through random snippets of conversation, dialect, and barely noticeable connections between people. A bloody body is found near Kamata railway station, and the case nearly reaches a dead end: the victim's face is disfigured, there are few witnesses, and the investigation is left with only scattered details. Together with a young partner, the detective travels to different regions of Japan, comparing testimonies and uncovering the victim's old connections. Gradually, the investigation leads to post-war society, where individual fate is closely linked to the changes in the entire country.

• Eitaro Imanishi — senior inspector of the Tokyo police. He conducts the investigation calmly, meticulously, and without unnecessary gestures, relying not on flashy guesses, but on patience, routes, conversations, and checking details.
• Yoshimura — the young partner of the inspector. He helps gather information and accompanies his senior colleague on trips, complementing his experience with energy and attention to the new urban environment.

The murdered man himself plays an important role — a former police officer whose past becomes the key to the case. On the other end are the members of the Nouveau Group, a circle of young avant-garde creators connected with new ideas and conflicts of post-war Japan.

The book is among the well-known social detective stories of Seicho Matsumoto. In it, not only the clues are important, but also the post-war Japanese context: the difference between the capital and the provinces, cultural changes, the traces of old biographies in new lives. The narrative unfolds leisurely and in detail: the author carefully works with schedules, trips, police routines, and everyday details. The novel is published for the first time in Russian, and its plot later served as the basis for the adaptation «Fortress on the Sand».