Hints to the Reader: Leaving Clues About my Reviews
I am a huge fan of Japanese mysteries and detective fiction, which usually makes me biased about the books I’m reviewing. In this post, I’m sharing my preferences to help put my reviews in context. Don’t have time for the full narrative? Skip down to the bottom where I break down my rating “system”.
Why I Read Japanese Detective Fiction
I “discovered” Japanese mystery novels by way of anime and manga. (For more on this, make sure to check out the Dying Message: Detective Anime podcast). I grew up watching the anime series Detective Conan — dubbed as Case Closed on Adult Swim — and returned to the series repeatedly over the past twenty years. I also found the Case Files of Young Kindaichi manga at my local library. Detective Conan has its own signature twist (a high school detective trapped in the body of a six year old), but both series feature elaborate murder plots and long lists of suspects. Each case usually ends with the protagonist gathering all of the suspects together in a room to reveal whodunnit.
Both series also allude to classic Japanese detective fiction: the character “Conan Edogawa” in Detective Conan sources half of his alias from mystery/suspense author Edogawa Rampo; high school student Hajime Kindaichi is established as the grandson of the character Kosuke Kindaichi from Seishi Yokomizo’s novels. The more I watched these shows, the more I wanted to dive into the source material, and in recent years, there’s been a steady stream of newly-translated novels as well as reprints of older translations.
Edogawa Rampo’s separate library at the Edogawa Rampo Residence in Tokyo
Things I love:
Locked room and puzzle mysteries. I don’t mind a book that focuses less on character and plot in service of a clever murder mystery.
Clever detectives, doing clever things. Do these detective protagonists sometimes have an unusually wide set of skills and knowledge and pull the solution to these murders out of thin air? Yes. Do I care? No.
Elaborate traps to catch the suspect even if it fools the reader. It doesn’t happen all the time. But whenever a detective uses disguises or subterfuge to trip up a suspect, I’m all for it.
A well-delivered explanation of the solution to the murder. Nothing beats the classic if far-fetched circumstance of gathering all the suspects to reveal the killer. I don’t mind if the detective goes on for a while and recaps much of the novel if it’s fun to read.
Long lists of characters and diagrams of rooms/houses. I love flipping back and forth to keep track of the characters and the environment. As long as the description of the setting doesn’t get confusing, I love the idea that the solution to the murder could be hidden in a detail of a floorplan.
Things I don’t like as much:
Murder motives cast as sympathetic when they’re really not sympathetic. It’s hard to explain this without getting into details.
Books written primarily from the perspective of the killer. I don’t need to get inside their head and spend the whole book there.
Rating Scale
I rate each book on a scale of 1-10. In general, 0-5 are books that I didn’t like, and 6-10 are books that I enjoyed reading and would recommend. I sometimes find it hard to be critical of media, and I tend towards finding the positive in every book I’ve read. I’ve given myself such a wide range of positive ratings to try to differentiate between books that I loved and ones that were just okay.
An overly wordy breakdown of the rating scale follows:
0 - I couldn’t finish this book, or I really regret finishing it.
1 - I barely finished this book and I found it unpleasant to read.
2 - I wasn’t particularly motivated to keep reading the book, but I wasn’t turned off enough to consider quitting.
3 - This book was bad, but there was something I liked about it that made it worth reading.
4 - I didn’t like this book, but it’s not terrible.
5 - This book is fine, and I feel pretty neutral about it. I’m not mad I read it, but I would probably not recommend it to anyone.
6 - I enjoyed reading this book, but I’m not sure how I feel about it. It may be worth it to check out, but I’m not in a rush to read it again.
7 - This book is good, but not great.
8 - Solid mystery and good book overall. Doesn’t stand out, or maybe I have a major criticism.
9 - This was great. I don’t really have many criticisms.
10 - I loved it. My mind is blown. I can’t stop thinking about it, and I could definitely read this again. And honestly, I don’t care if it’s a good book or not because I enjoyed it so much.
Nearly every book in my growing collection
Books I’ve Read So Far
Here’s a list of Japanese detective fiction, murder mystery, and crime novels that I have read so far (all of which have been translated into English). I only have a handful of reviews written (the first one will be published soon!), but I am working filling in reviews for some of the other entries and definitely for anything new that I read.
CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER BY YEAR WRITTEN
English/Translated titles used
author names presented in Western order
The Fiend with Twenty Faces by Edogawa Rampo (1936)
Murder in the Honjin by Seishi Yokomizo (1946)
Tattoo Murder Case by Akimitsu Takagi (1948)
The Inugami Curse by Seishi Yokomizo (1950)
The Master Key by Masako Togawa (1962)
A Quiet Place by Seicho Matsumoto (1975)
Murder in the Crooked House by Soji Shimada (1982)
The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji (1987)
The Mill House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji (1988)
Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino (2005)
Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino (2008)
A Midsummer’s Equation by Keigo Higashino (2011)
Death Among the Undead by Masahiro Imamura (2017)