Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 2, August 2001 | Page 17

The Works of Seicho Matsumoto

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insurance saleswoman falls in love with a client, bludgeons her alcoholic husband
to death, and immediately turns herself in to the police. She readily confesss and is
sentenced to 18 months — the time she fully expected before the killing as a result
of her careful legal research.
Saying Matsumoto employs formulas is not to say his works lack origi
nality. Quite the contrary. Formulaic literary construction can be an art form in
skilled hands (Cawe