Stakeout Diary

Softcover | first edition | 198 pages

Published by Nanarokusha, 2014.

Text and composition by Otsuichi. Art direction by Shin Sobue. Over 140 black and white photographs. Text in Japanese.

In 1958, Watabe was granted unprecedented access to follow two detectives investigating a dismemberment murder in Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture. Over 20 days he shadowed the pair from the crime scene through stakeouts across downtown Tokyo, photographing interrogations, witness interviews, late-night surveillance and the slow grind of police work with the eye of a film noir cinematographer. The photographs appeared briefly in a magazine that year and were then forgotten. In 2006, a British dealer found 120 prints in a Jinbocho bookshop and brought them to Europe, where they were published in Paris as A Criminal Investigation (Editions Xavier Barral, 2011) and immediately became one of the most talked-about photobooks of the year. This Nanarokusha edition, distinct from both the French publication and the roshin books editions, pairs the photographs with a new narrative text by novelist Otsuichi, drawing on the original negatives held by Watabe's son. Black and white throughout.

Condition: very good