As a kid I read a lot of the Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot canon. Recently I learned that there’s a Japanese genre of honkaku (“orthodox”) mystery novels whose gimmick is a fastidious devotion to the “fair play” principles of Golden Age detective fiction, where the author is expected to provide everything that the attentive reader needs to come up with the solution himself. It looks like a lot of these honkaku mysteries include diagrams of relevant locations, genre-savvy characters, and a puzzle-like aesthetic. A bunch have been translated by Locked Room International.
The title of The 8 Mansion Murders doesn’t refer to the number of murders, but to murders committed in the “8 Mansion,” a mansion designed in the shape of an 8 by the eccentric industrialist who lives there with his family (diagrams show the reader the layout). The book is pleasant and quick—it didn’t feel like much over 50,000 words. Some elements feel very Japanese, like the detective’s comic-relief sidekick who suffers increasingly serious physical-comedy injuries. The conclusion definitely fits the fair-play genre in that it makes sense, could be inferred from the clues, is generally ridiculous, and doesn’t offer much in the way of motive.
If you like mystery novels, I would recommend reading one of these honkaku mysteries for the novelty. Maybe not this one, since there are more famous ones (this one was on libgen).
[Book Review] The 8 Mansion Murders by Takemaru Abiko
As a kid I read a lot of the Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot canon. Recently I learned that there’s a Japanese genre of honkaku (“orthodox”) mystery novels whose gimmick is a fastidious devotion to the “fair play” principles of Golden Age detective fiction, where the author is expected to provide everything that the attentive reader needs to come up with the solution himself. It looks like a lot of these honkaku mysteries include diagrams of relevant locations, genre-savvy characters, and a puzzle-like aesthetic. A bunch have been translated by Locked Room International.
The title of The 8 Mansion Murders doesn’t refer to the number of murders, but to murders committed in the “8 Mansion,” a mansion designed in the shape of an 8 by the eccentric industrialist who lives there with his family (diagrams show the reader the layout). The book is pleasant and quick—it didn’t feel like much over 50,000 words. Some elements feel very Japanese, like the detective’s comic-relief sidekick who suffers increasingly serious physical-comedy injuries. The conclusion definitely fits the fair-play genre in that it makes sense, could be inferred from the clues, is generally ridiculous, and doesn’t offer much in the way of motive.
If you like mystery novels, I would recommend reading one of these honkaku mysteries for the novelty. Maybe not this one, since there are more famous ones (this one was on libgen).
What about a book review of “The Devotion of Suspect X”?