JAMES MELVILLE – The Wages of Zen. Martin Secker & Warburg, Ltd., UK. hardcover, 1979. Methuen, US, hc, 1981. Reprint paperback: Ballantine/Fawcett Crest, paperback, 1985.

   In this first novel, Melville gives us a very human and very Japanese superintendent of police, Tetsuo Otani, in a case involving foreign students at a small Zen temple. Its priest, Okamoto, is a mysterious person who leads his students in za-zen by day and entertains prostitutes by night.

   The students are a mixed bag: male, female, old, young, Irish, English, American, Danish, hippie, conservative. Otani is called in first when it seems that drugs are being used or sold; next there is a murder.

   In the course of the investigation we are introduced to Otani’s wife, Hanae, and their happy home life, and to his associates in the police and even an Ambassador. The depiction of everyday Japanese life is interesting, and Otani’s thought processes as he attempts to deal with these foreigners and their strange ways are enlightening. Seeing our Western ways through Eastern eyes is quite an experience.

   An enjoyable book.

The Superintendent Tetsuo Otani series  [Taken from the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin] —

       The Wages of Zen (n.) Secker 1979
       The Chrysanthemum Chain (n.) Secker 1980
       A Sort of Samurai (n.) Secker 1981

       The Ninth Netsuke (n.) Secker 1982

       Sayonara, Sweet Amaryllis (n.) Secker 1983
       Death of a Daimyo (n.) Secker 1984
       The Death Ceremony (n.) Secker 1985
       Go Gently, Gaijin (n.) Secker 1986
       Kimono for a Corpse (n.) Secker 1987
       The Reluctant Ronin (n.) Headline 1988
       A Haiku for Hanae (n.) Headline 1989

       The Bogus Buddha (n.) Headline 1990
       The Body Wore Brocade (n.) Little Brown 1992