Onizuka Kumako is a fierce woman: tall beautiful and not afraid to speak her mind. In Tokyo
bars she seduces customers and commits petty crime using her connections to the local yakuza
to get by. When she meets Shirakawa Fukutaro a rich widower desperate for companionship and
unaware of her shady past the two hit it off and are soon married. But their newlywed bliss is
suddenly cut short: one rainy July evening their car veers off course plunges into the
harbour and Fukutaro is pulled beneath the waves. Suspected of murder and labelled a femme
fatale Kumako is hounded by the press but stays firm repeatedly proclaiming her own
innocence. As pressure from dogged journalists mounts the tide of public opinion is rising
against her. But when a scrupulous defence lawyer takes on her case doubt begins to creep in .
. . In this intricate psychological noir masterfully translated into English for the first
time Seicho Matsumoto draws out the hidden demons that guide our convictions our biases and
our deepest desires.
