Book Review : Tea and Sympathy--and Murder

The Death Ceremony by James Melville (St. Martin’s: $12.95)

Melville’s Japanese mysteries are to the usual thriller what sushi is to steak--an acquired taste with a loyal and enthusiastic following. While there’s a murder by Page 15, it’s accomplished so adroitly that no one among the scores of distinguished guests assembled for the Kyoto New Year’s tea ceremony is aware that anything untoward has taken place until the Seventeenth Hereditary Grand Master of the Southern School topples over in mid-bow, a neat bullet hole in his patrician forehead.

Like the four previous books in the series, “The Death Ceremony” stars Superintendent Otani of the Hyogo Prefectural Police, a position of such eminence that he is automatically invited to this exclusive cultural event, performed for a select company of foreign ambassadors, leading industrialists and others of equal rank. Though Otani actually witnesses the crime, even his trained eye notices nothing out of the ordinary until he’s confronted with the indisputable evidence of a dead Grand Master.

Leisurely Pace

While crucial to the plot, the murder is almost incidental to Melville’s meticulous exploration of Japanese manners and psychology. The story unfolds at a leisurely pace, the focus evenly divided between police procedure and the private life of Superintendent Otani, whose customary domestic tranquillity has been shattered by the obtrusive presence of a visiting Englishwoman, a university friend of his daughter’s. Rosie Winchmore, given to long steamy showers, faddish health food, and free and easy Western ways, is a constant irritant for Otani, so abrasive that he’s all too ready to believe she might be involved in the murder plot.

During her stay at the Otani house, Rosie has renewed her acquaintance with Patrick Casey, a gentle but eccentric Irishman who has extended his study of Japanese culture to become a disciple of the deceased; virtually the only Westerner ever to immerse himself so completely in the arcane tea ceremony rituals. The presence of the British ambassador at the fatal ceremony suggests to Otani that the wrong man may have been killed.

Grand Masters of the Tea Ceremony enjoy a unique position in Japanese society; not only enormous prestige but impressive wealth accumulated from tuition payments. By the time Melville has described the convoluted financial workings of the small empires, jealousy and monetary gain seem powerful motives for removing an incumbent Grand Master. To complicate matters further, this particular Iemoto was a notorious womanizer with ample opportunities to indulge his fancies.

“The Death Ceremony” concentrates intently upon character; the various officers within Otani’s department representing conflicting strains in contemporary Japanese life.

Melville’s Otani novels could be described by the Japanese adjective shibui, generally translated as elegant, restrained and in the best possible taste. Virtually bloodless, they nevertheless qualify as mysteries in a double sense, revealing the more recondite aspects of Japanese culture, as the motives behind a particular crime are gradually unraveled.