Reviews with content warning for Body horror - The Tattoo Murder

Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

The Tattoo Murder by Akimitsu Takagi

7 reviews

thesapphiccelticbookworm's review

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mysterious slow-paced

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

3.75

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celina246's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

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

3.25

this had an old classic mystery feel, which i always love & find comforting and in the beginning i was hooked, even though the murder itself was slow to play out. the Japanese setting & traditions mixed in with the story gave it a cool edge too. the only thing that stopped me giving it a higher rating was that i didn't looove how the story ended up playing out - and i wanted to throttle the main characters often.

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dannilmp's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective tense slow-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

3.0

The Tattoo Murder offers a good mental challenge while reading if you want to try and solve both the locked room mystery and the murder itself. I found the concept of someone murdering in order to steal body art interesting, as well as the detail and explanation that went into both the murder itself and the social views around tattoos at the time period as well.

While I had zero expectations of being able to solve the locked room mystery, I was quite suprised by how detailed the mystery was and I felt unless you really knew about Japanese house construction, it would have been nearly impossible to solve how the room remained locked.

This was a good book and an enjoyable read, including the time I spent trying to construct the timeline of the murder! I was able to work out the murderer but only just before the big reveal itself. While this was a good book, now that I know who the murderer is, I would not read it again, hence the three star review.

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snowwhitehatesapples's review against another edition

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challenging informative slow-paced

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

2.0

Also on Snow White Hates Apples.

As someone who has completely fallen in love with 20th-century Japanese mysteries, I was really looking forward to The Tattoo Murder by Akimitsu Takagi. But, sadly, it didn’t meet my expectations…

While I found the views on traditional Japanese tattoos, the intertwining Japanese folklore and the historical contexts of the setting interesting, they also took over too much of the book. Many times, it felt as though the murder mystery was placed on the back burner just so those views could be further explored. This, in return, made the mystery too drawn out, resulting it in being incredibly underwhelming despite how clever the crime was.

Moreover, Kyosuke Kamizu, the boy wonder mentioned in the summary entered the picture much too late. Instead of being present around the beginning and solving the mystery with us, he comes in only at the final quarter of the book which makes all the revelations too convenient. It felt like he was merely inserted just so a major plot point could be concluded. In fact, the entire crime aspect felt like it was just there as an excuse to talk more about the art of traditional Japanese tattoos.

I think it’s such a shame because the crime itself is clever — a little predictable but still, clever. You have pieces of a gorgeous woman’s corpse found in a locked room. Her torso is missing and it’s the exact location of her equally gorgeous Orochimaru tattoo which she had only just revealed to a crowd of spectators days ago. There are several suspects but instead of a tense race to unveil the truth before the next victim appears, we end up with an incredibly slow and cumbersome investigation. Sure, this may mimic reality where not all cases can be solved and closed quickly but I think in a book, there should be a little leeway for the pace to be sped up so that the story becomes less exhausting and more of a page-turner.

All things considered, The Tattoo Murder reads more like a historical fiction with a side of crime than a thriller mystery set in 1947 Japan. It’d be best to read this with the expectation that it’s more focused on the beauty of traditional Japanese tattoos instead of the murder mystery.

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