Reviews

Un endroit discret by Seichō Matsumoto

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aritrigupta's review against another edition

2.0

To be honest, I am not sure what I read.
Is this a mystery? Is this a manual for sex deprived salty husbands?
The book started off well, a common man trying to deal with his wife's death - the grief, the suspicion, the morbid curiosity about the circumstances of her death - all of that I could understand. But then, it just spiraled into sheer nonsense. Asai's actions were haphazard, lacked a reasonable motive other than missing out on sex with his dead wife. I can't believe the author wrote a book justifying such bizarre motivations for murder.
The narration was very monotonous and included unrelated stuff and details that did nothing to help the book. The blurb indicated there could be more to this story, but it was just drivel concocted by a man who does not how to process his emotions and know when to stop. What a surprise!

fruhjahr's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

bioniclib's review against another edition

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3.0

It’s refreshing to see a society as polite as American Society is brash. Though, that concocts it’s own set of problems. The book was a great look at not just Japanese society but also Japanese personality. It's a pretty good mystery novel, for the first 2/3rds of the story. Then, well, spoilers...

What starts as a traditional find-the-murderer mystery novel does does an about face with a punch to the gut killing that I did not see coming. The last 3rd of the book devolves into a reverse mystery where we wonder if our "hero" will be caught. Then it ends abruptly with a statement that leaves you to assume they catch him. I was really disappointed with the twist because Asai's paranoid actions that carry the book to its close was very well done but not my cup of tea.

If you're looking for an Eastern take on a Western genre you could do worse than this. Though, I preferred Inspector Imanishi Investigates. It had all the insight into a foreign way of living with none of the twist at the end that I don't like about this book.

kirstenrose22's review against another edition

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5.0

I randomly picked this up at the library and ended up really enjoying it. It is less of a whodunnit, and more of a why-and-howdunnit, but from there evolves into psychological suspense. I won’t say more. This was a fun fast read.

nmschoeffel's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

madameroyale's review against another edition

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1.5

This book makes no sense. The whole entire story is built on a character jumping to wilder and wilder conclusions about his wife cheating on him without a single shred of evidence beyond his own circling thoughts.

I genuinely do not understand how or why any of his random guesses were proven right.

I expected the reveal at the end to be that he’d hallucinated everything, that’s how weakly it was all tied together.