Japan 1949, four years after the unconditional surrender. Labor disputes shake the country, the national railway announces mass layoffs, and its director general, Shimoyama Sadanori, is found dead. A suicide? A murder committed by communists? The backdrop of the story is a case that remains unresolved to this day, deeply rooted in the collective memory of Japan, which the author uses to sketch the psychological profile of journalist Hayami, who is fiercely searching for the truth. But there is more than one truth. "Black Flood," the masterful debut novel by Yasushi Inoue, is both a crime story and a social portrait. It forms a trilogy with "The Bullfight" and "The Hunting Gun." Yasushi Inoue, born in 1907 in Hokkaido, died in 1991.