On 14 January 1958, the disfigured and dismembered body of a man was discovered near Lake Sembako in Japan. Two investigators arrived from Tokyo to assist the local police in solving what initially appeared to be a routine case, but proved more complex. For the first time, a photographer was authorised to accompany the police and document the investigation. Watabe followed the inspector as he questioned witnesses—workers at a tannery, local police officers and others—and searched the streets of Tokyo's most unsanitary neighbourhoods, their bars, bridges, alleyways and hospitals for the murderer. Watabe's images record far more than a police investigation: they reveal Tokyo in the 1950s in a way rarely seen or shown.