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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
"Enough with the gritty social realism please. A female office worker is murdered in a 1-bedroom apartment and, after wearing out the soles of his shoes through painstaking investigations, the police detective finally arrest the victim's boss, who turns out to be her illicit lover. No More of tha! No more of the corruption and secret dealings of the political world, no more tragedies brought forth by the stress of modern society and suchlike. What mystery novels need are - some might call me old-fashioned- a great detective, a mansion, a shady cast of residents, bloody murders, impossible crimes and never-before-seen tricks played by the murderer."
After Glass Onion I was craving another good Agatha Christie style locked room mystery, and this book - written way back in 87 - was just right. There's something pure about it. The characters are in a detective fiction club, visiting a true crime site, when the murders begin. Clues are given, it plays fair, and the end is satisfying.
Negatives - The prose might be great in Japanese, but here it simply propels the mystery forward. I It's more like an adult Encyclopedia Brown than a great novel. But I had a whole lot of fun reading it.
After Glass Onion I was craving another good Agatha Christie style locked room mystery, and this book - written way back in 87 - was just right. There's something pure about it. The characters are in a detective fiction club, visiting a true crime site, when the murders begin. Clues are given, it plays fair, and the end is satisfying.
Negatives - The prose might be great in Japanese, but here it simply propels the mystery forward. I It's more like an adult Encyclopedia Brown than a great novel. But I had a whole lot of fun reading it.
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Holy cow, I loved this book. This is my first dive into the "shin honkaku" trend of fair-play and impossible-crime mysteries that has taken Japan by storm for the past 35 years or so. This novel, alongside Soji Shimada's "The Tokyo Zodiac Murders" (which I have no yet read) were basically the two books which propelled the honkaku movement to popularity - very much the Japanese equivalent of Crofts' "The Cask" and Christie's "Mysterious Affair at Styles" which were the two novels to spark the beginning of the GAD era. Speaking of Christie, this one is well known to be a shining homage to her most famous novel, "And Then There Were None". With its plot of seven students going to an uninhabited island on which a brutal unsolved massacre occurred six months before, only to be picked off one by one themselves, the plot is very much a new take of the 10-people-on-an-island trope. The major differences here are the number of potential victims, the fact that the seven members of a university mystery club all know each other well (in fact they each have a nickname based on a famous mystery author), and the book's switching between the island and a few people in mainland Japan who are connected to people on the island from past and present, who, unaware of the massacre happening now (the island has no connection to the mainland,) investigate the first crime. There are many other interesting aspects of this story: The many allusions to the GAD era (my favorite being when "Ellery" shows "Agatha" a card trick in which he is able to guess her card as the Four of Hearts - "The Four of Hearts" being one of the original Ellery Queen novels!); the use of the past crime and specifically the character of Nakamura Seiji, the architect who designed the strange Blue Mansion (all blue, now destroyed,) and the Decagon House (where the students are staying,) and who was a recluse on the island before possible killing four people; and the intermingling of investigation on the island and in the mainland. All these things dovetail together to a stunning solution which I had begun to guess onto, but the main revelation of which left me utterly flabbergasted in a way only a few books have made me: Specifically, getting me to say "What!?" out loud. Although some people claim that this supposedly "fair-play" mystery is actually not fair-play, for my part I thought that although the cluing was not abundant, what was there was used in a stellar fashion: telling you what you need to know without being apparent except to the most intuitive readers. Furthermore, the pacing and plotting of this book overall are excellent - I found it VERY hard to put this book down at all, because I really had to know not only what the solutions were but what would happen to these characters who I had actually come to care about. As much as this is a big homage to Christie, I was struck by how much of the writing reminded me most of the great Christianna Brand. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes mysteries, in this wonderful translation by Ho-Ling Wong, who is really a true mystery fan who has put a lot of work and love into this translation.
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
In retrospect maybe I overthought this one but it was a fun ride!
Super Spoilers:
I can’t believe I didn’t remember the rules for a detective story even after reading all of Umineko. I really thought the cigarette brands might be important.
I should also reread And Then There Were None to compare. It’s been a few years so I didn’t catch all the references. I’m also going to blame current Covid brain fog.
Super Spoilers:
I should also reread And Then There Were None to compare. It’s been a few years so I didn’t catch all the references. I’m also going to blame current Covid brain fog.
very enjoyable and a really neat revision of Agatha Christie!
I’m intrigued by what non-western writers do with the locked room mystery, and this was an enjoyable version of that convention. I knew from the outset who the murderer was, and kept watching as the murderer manipulated their fellow Mystery Club members while on Tsunojima island at the Decagon House.
I liked how this story was in conversation with Golden Age mysteries, and specifically with Dame Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. I found the Mystery Club members’ nicknames amusing, and an effective device in concealing the identity of the members, and the murderer.
I can see why this mystery was so popular amongst its Japanese audience—with the concealed identities, amusing conversations about mystery stories, growing paranoia amongst the trapped friends, violent murders, and diabolical revenge plot, this book made for an entertaining read.
I liked how this story was in conversation with Golden Age mysteries, and specifically with Dame Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. I found the Mystery Club members’ nicknames amusing, and an effective device in concealing the identity of the members, and the murderer.
I can see why this mystery was so popular amongst its Japanese audience—with the concealed identities, amusing conversations about mystery stories, growing paranoia amongst the trapped friends, violent murders, and diabolical revenge plot, this book made for an entertaining read.
It was a little hard to get through the characters' relative stupidity for the first eight or nine chapters - which, admittedly, is a good chunk of the book - and for a long time I was confused and a little peeved at the "Mainland" chapters.
Then the last few chapters happened and it turned into a real horror of a novel and I was hooked. Would recommend, especially - even if this is so obvious that I might as well not say it - to fans of And Then There Were None.
Then the last few chapters happened and it turned into a real horror of a novel and I was hooked. Would recommend, especially - even if this is so obvious that I might as well not say it - to fans of And Then There Were None.
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Fairly obvious who the murderer was and the motivation. The translation could have been better.