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btkeyes's review
4.0
Interesting Japanese mystery set in the 60s. Fun to read about very different cultural and societal norms
jenny_d's review
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I really liked this book! One of the most satisfying endings to a mystery/thriller I've read in a long time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Infidelity
aug3zimm's review
3.0
A bit mixed on this book. It started out slowly but was pretty interesting - weirdly, I found the super-polite business and social exchanges really interesting. It was fairly obvious early on that the dude was going a bit nuts but initially I did question if maybe I wasn’t suspending disbelief enough to go along with the narrator. No, I wasn’t. So I wasn’t surprised with the path this took. Though I did think it would escalate a little slower. I was thinking Asai would break into Kubo’s house first.
But after the inevitable happened, the book took a bit of a turn for me. At first, I felt a bit tense and actually sharing the protagonist’s anxiety. But after a bit, I got bored and started counting remaining pages to see how quickly it would be over. It’s a bit ironic then that I found the conclusion a bit sudden. But I suppose it was the same as the first part - I expected one more, more moderate, step of escalation before the inevitable and it was a bit more jarring to not get it at the end.
Oh well. A quick but decent read. I’m not sorry to have read it but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it unless you’ve got a day or two to kill or a particular fondness for Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart".
But after the inevitable happened, the book took a bit of a turn for me. At first, I felt a bit tense and actually sharing the protagonist’s anxiety. But after a bit, I got bored and started counting remaining pages to see how quickly it would be over. It’s a bit ironic then that I found the conclusion a bit sudden. But I suppose it was the same as the first part - I expected one more, more moderate, step of escalation before the inevitable and it was a bit more jarring to not get it at the end.
Oh well. A quick but decent read. I’m not sorry to have read it but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it unless you’ve got a day or two to kill or a particular fondness for Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart".
jameseckman's review
3.0
A very strange book, and while I labeled it a mystery, its certainly not a conventional one. Here we get a peek inside of Japanese bureaucracy where graduates from Todai (Tokyo Imperial University) and other elite colleges rule over the people who do the real work. Our hardworking protagonist Asai endures this nonsense, he knows that there is no other way for him. The unexpected death of his wife Eiko under strange circumstances seems to have been the final straw, the investigation that he undertakes leads him down a dark path. It starts slow but picks up the pace near the end. A decent, unusual read.
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