A review by flying_monkey
The Inugami Curse by Seishi Yokomizo

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I enjoyed The Honjin Murders (my review is also on here) just enough to read this second-translated but actually 6th in a sequence of dozens of Detective Kindaichi novels written by Seishi Yokomizu. The crimes in both are overly intricate and bloody, and in this case happen as the detective watches helpless, and while he eventually 'solves' the murders, he could have prevented them if he was really as clever as we are constantly told he is. Anyway, this one involves a damaged and disfigured man who returns from the war after his grandfather's death, wearing a rubber facemask to cover his injury. Is he really who he appears to be? And why did the rags-to-riches silk-baron patriarch of the Inugami family set up such a fiendish situation with his will, which seems designed to set sister against sister, brother against brother. Suspects are presented to us like a line-up: is it the impossibly beautiful adoptive daughter, Tamayo, or her brutish and protective retainer, 'Monkey'? Could it be one of the three half-sisters, each one born of a different mistress? Could it be one their sons? If you like old-fashioned crime novels that hinge on coincidences and hidden identities, and suspicious characters who are suddently introduced late on, you might enjoy this. The novels are really not great as crime novels, but they are quite interesting as family melodramas that cast some sociological light on Japan in the immediate post-WW2 era.