AA CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION by Watabe Yukichi

Editions Xavier Barral, 2011, First edition, 200pp., 8 1/2" X 11 1/2", Hardcover

New in publisher's shrink wrap

On 13 January 1958, the grotesquely disfigured body of a man was discovered near Lake Sembako in Japan. Two investigators from Tokyo came to help the local police in resolving what at first appeared to be a banal case, but which soon proved to be something more complicated. For the first time, a photographer was authorized to accompany the police to document the investigation. Press photographer Watabe Yukichi (1924-1993) followed the inspectors as they questioned witnesses (workers in a tannery factory, local police officers) and pounded the streets of the most insalubrious neighbourhoods in Tokyo--its bars, bridges, alleyways and hospitals-- in search of the killer. Like the haunted film stills of a newly discovered noir classic, Watabe's images record much more than simply a police investigation.