ABSTRACT
A writer of detective fiction would hesitate to use the story of the Shimpeitai, or God-sent Troop, or the Prayer-meeting Plot. It is too fantastic. It lacks the air of plausibility that a good detective story should have. Like many things in Japan, when rendered into English, it seems too crazy to be credible. It is crazy, it is incredible, and it happened. The story is told here as the outstanding example of the close relationship of patriotism and crime in Japan. It exhibits the types of men the patriotic societies recruit; it shows them at work in their natural way. And besides it is a queer story.
