I have something like six hundred books on my Thriftbooks wishlist so when I order books from them I just kinda pick randomly, but sometimes I end up with a bunch of say murder mysteries at once or fantasy books at once, or young adult books at once...I think you get the point. So I started adding some rules. One of which is that one book has to be written before 1984 (the year I was born) and this was what I picked under that rule. Once I got it I added it to Goodreads and noticed that the star rating on this one was pretty low but it's also considered a classic in JP so I figured that there may be some translation issues and went in with as open a mind as possible. I am happy to say I was not only not disappointed but I've found a new series to read!
Kenzo Ichiyanagi is the middle-aged head of the Ichiyangi family, a respected family in their home of village Okamura who decides to marry a much younger woman from a family of tenant farmers. His entire family is against the marriage but he knows that if he simply holds out they will eventually grant him permission to marry and they do. After holding a surprisingly small wedding ceremony given the Ichiyangi's status in the village the entire family heads to bed in the early morning hours, only for the night to be shattered by screams and the unmistakable sounds of a Koto being played chaotically. The entire family including Ginzo the bride's Uncle rushes to the annex building where the newlyweds are sleeping. They discover the entire building locked up tight and the couple not answering them. Finally, they are able to enter the room to discover a horrifying scene, the couple is dead, killed by a sword. Everyone is horrified and puzzled at once. How did the killer get out? As Ginzo's suspicions of the Ichiyanagi family mount he calls in Detective Kosuke Kindaichi to solve the crime.
This was really such a great who done it! Up until Kindaichi dramatically explains the murders I had absolutely no idea how the killer had gotten out of the locked room or who the killer even was for that matter. It became pretty clear early on that the person that was set up to look like the killer probably wasn't, there was just too much evidence against him but who it could have actually been was anyone's guess. And I was totally blown away by the answer! Never even crossed my mind.
Kindaichi was absolutely amazing too, he may be one of my new favorite detectives. If you watch anime and you've watched Case File n221 (yes, I can relate almost any book back to an anime it's a gift. Also, if you haven't watched Case File n221 it's a pretty amazing version of Sherlock.) it's hard not to imagine that Sherlock isn't a little bit based on Kindaichi. While Kindaichi doesn't do his big reveal by putting on a rakugo play, he shares the same kind of glee in solving the crime along with a clear love of dramatics.
Overall I found the simplicity of Yokomizo's writing to be such a wonderful break from some of the more needlessly complicated murder mysteries I've read recently, instead of making a long and complicated tale Yokomizo makes the story itself rather short with an incredibly complicated murder which I found to be the best place for complications and dramatics. Unfortunately, it seems only certain books from this series have been translated (it appears the sixth book in the Japanese series is the second book in the English translation) so I'm hoping that the entire series will eventually be translated but in the meantime, I am definitely going to be picking up what books have been translated in this series.
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