Reviews with content warning for War - The Honjin Murders

Brilliant, bold, and full of fun little meta moments of mystery authors that Yokomizo clearly loved as much as we do. The way he writes murder-mysteries with succinct and clear skill is wonderfully to-the-point and clear.

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mysterious fast-paced

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

3.5

The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo was this month’s book club pick and I’ll also be using it for my reading the world challenge for Japan!

There are a lot of characters to keep track of that could be confusing. And sadly we don’t get much of a look into each character, they’re just sort of there as background/plot devices. I think it’s because the storytelling style is detached, and written from the perspective of the author telling us the story as it happened ten years earlier.

This was a quick read, and felt very similar to the detective style of Benoit Blanc in Knives Out (could be because I just watched Glass Onion) 😁 You never really know who it is and the detective takes all the info over the course of the story and finally ties it all together to reveal how the crime was committed in one big monologue! I kind of wish there was more insight into some of the information that was only mentioned once the solution was given to us, instead of lots of info dumping throughout.

I did enjoy getting a glimpse into parts of Japanese culture during the early 20th century!

Overall a quick and easy read that was fairly enjoyable. It follows the typical murder mystery/detective novel so it’s not really anything unique in this genre, especially since it often mentions other novels that inspired the twists. I should note that I’m not a big detective novel fan so if you enjoy them, this could be a perfect book for you!

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