Yams! Yams! Yams!

Or, to state the case more fully:

"Rubbing his sleepy eyes, he looked a second time, and with a sharp gasp he realized what they were. Yams! Yams! Yams!"

The passage is from Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's story "Yam Gruel," which has nothing to do with crime, but how could I resist a line like "Yams! Yams! Yams!"?

Akutagawa (1892-1927) did write stories with elements of crime to them, notably the two on which Akira Kurosawa based his celebrated movie Rashomon. And "Kesa and Morito," based, like a number of Akutagawa's stories, on old Japanese tales, may remind crime fans of Double Indemnity.

© Peter Rozovsky 2012