The Ruined Map by Kobo Abe

 

The detective has been given an assignment which he welcomes.  Things have not been going well for him as his marriage has recently broken up.  He is assigned the case of Mr. Numuro who disappeared six months ago.  His young, attractive wife has just hired someone to look into the case as she has heard nothing from him.  Her brother has been looking but hasn't come up with anything.

The detective is not convinced that this case is legitimate.  The wife, who seems to be an alcoholic, doesn't seem that worried about her husband.  She can tell him nothing.  Her brother seems reluctant to share anything that he has learned and as the detective works the case, he trusts the brother less and less.  The brother seems to be caught up in the underworld of crime; perhaps that plays into his brother-in-law's disappearance?

The detective is left with only a few clues.  There is a matchbox from a nearby diner that has two different types of matches in it.  There is a slip of paper with what appears to be a telephone number on it.  He goes to the diner but gains no knowledge.  He is slowly pulled into the underground of Japanese crime and its territorial inhabitants.  His boss is pressuring him while reminding him that he will be fired if he gets into anything illegal.  He becomes confused, losing his own identity as he searches unsuccessfully for his missing man.

Kobo Abe is a well known Japanese author whose work is full of surrealism. This novel is considered one his most accessible yet the reader may feel that he is reading through a fog, that there is much that is hidden and just out of reach that would solve the mystery.  The main character, the detective, is never given a name which increases the feeling of unreality.  Readers will see how the detective starts to lose his own identity and question what our identity really is and how we come to define it.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.