This is clearly a well-crafted mystery, with intricate plotting and a clever use of the classic locked-room setup. However, despite its strong writing and the meticulous construction of the mystery, the story just didn’t grip me. While I can appreciate the skill involved in creating such a detailed puzzle, it ultimately wasn’t the right fit for my reading tastes.

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Pushkin Press in exchange for an honest review.

This was the first Japanese murder mystery I'd ever read, and I wasn't sure how I would feel about it. I tend to be a 'married to Agatha Christie' girl in terms of my mysteries, but I am so glad I branched out here.

The Honjin Murders is a fascinating tale of a newly-wed husband and wife, who both die violently on the night of their wedding. Just days before, a mysterious man was seen outside the house. The Ichiyanagi family are rich and proud, and adding to the mystery is the fact that the room the deaths occurred in appears to be locked with no way for a murderer to escape.

This book was an absolute joy to read. The writing/translation is fantastic and very entertaining. I loved the characters, particularly the detective Kosuke Kindaichi. The chapters are short and quick to read, which means it has a similar pacing to a Christie book. The mystery itself is very intriguing, with the surrounding characters and clues making for an enjoyable time.

I absolutely recommend this book if you are a fan of the genre. I have subsequently read almost all the translated books by this author, and they are all brilliant reads. I am so glad this book has been chosen for translation, and I can only hope more will follow.

Overall Rating: 4/5 stars

The Japanese take on the Golden era locked room mysteries.
The writing is very elegant and the atmosphere is painted vividly, with many psychological aspects adding the nuances to the storytelling.
While I think that the mystery itself was over-combined and trying a bit hard to be played accordingly the Western canon, the author´s writing skills still shines. Will read more of his works!

I started reading this book and found that it was not for me. I didn't want to review a book that I didn't finish.

I always like Pushkin Vertigo's mystery titles. This one is very technical (like Murders in a Crooked House) and so requires a bit of effort and concentration.

This is the first Japanese translation mystery that I have read, and this must be taken into account with regards to my ratings.
The first book of the reprints was The Honjin Murders. The story begins in a small town with the arrival of a disfigured man. This coincides with the marriage of one of the prominent families in the area. Soon after, death visits the family. This is followed by the arrival of an undistinguished child-like man who is the detective of this series. He is described in various ways, and although I do not have a clear picture of his positives, I can imagine the random intermittent stammer and the relentless head cratching. The story is short and swift. We are given constant indications of the ongoing events and kept in the loop at all times. If we do not see the answer coming, it is on us since the author clearly invites us to take a stab at the conclusion (pun maybe intended). I liked this story and the picture it threw up of long-ago Japan. There are so many bits hidden within the narrative of what was considered essential and how hierarchy was established.

The Honjin Murders is another great mystery classic published by Pushkin Press as part of their Vertigo series. This locked-door mystery draws inspiration from other famous authors of the time, such as Gaston Leroux, whose works have also become classics. Until the very end, author Seishi Yokomizo keeps the reader hooked on finding out how exactly the impossible crime played out, in all of its precise detail.

An excellent Agatha Christie type murder with an impossible locked room murder in the Japanese village of Okamura. The ichiyanagi family the local rich landowners who lived their lives by tradition. Kenzo’s marriage to Katsuko not from the correct lineage was controversial but was going ahead. It would be a wedding night to remember. There is a narrator taking you through the investigation and reveal in the Poirot manner. It is an excellent take on the locked room mystery and will keep you enthralled for hours.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Translated into English for the first time this is a classic “locked room” mystery with fascinating insight into another culture, plus an intriguing puzzle at the heart of it.
The family drama is central to the puzzle and this has all the hallmarks of Christie with some involving prose- kudos to the translator who makes it flow beautifully along keeping you hooked in and wanting to know the solution…
Which when it comes is cleverly satisfying.
Very enjoyable, another great translated novel from Pushkin.
Recommended.

i'm glad this book was translated to english, this was a great read. It was suspenseful and had great characters. I had a lot of fun reading this book.

A newly married couple are murdered on their wedding night within hours of the final sale ceremony. The problem is, how did the killer escape? There are no prints in the snow, no signs of escape as every entryway is locked. Police are baffled until the uncle of the bride brings in an unorthodox private detective to investigate. Thus starts the classic locked room mystery of The Honjin Murders.

I won't say much else about the plot as not to give it away. This was a fun and entertaining read with nods to both Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes.
The narration took a little getting used to, but that soon wasn't a problem. I found the main character likable and well rounded. I was completely surprised by the ending. This is book one of the series and I'm hoping more of the 77 book series will be translated in to English.

Thank you to Pushkin Vertigo and NetGalley for gifting me a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

A closed room murder mystery set in rural Japan in 1937. A couple are found dead on their wedding night and police are baffled as to how the murderer escaped the scene. There are several clues which deepen the mystery. But then a young private detective is summoned whose skills in logic and deduction are unsurpassed.

The story is narrated by a crime writer, drawing on different testimonies to piece together events as they happened. There is much mention of English crime writers of the golden age and clues to the mystery lie in some of the titles cited. Echoes of Holmes are obvious in the character of the private detective.

Entertainingly told and beautifully translated, this book is both easy to read and most entertaining. There is no flab in this text as the writing is pleasingly concise. Some Japanese words with no direct equivalence in English are left untranslated. Even if readers are not tempted to investigate these words further, there is no loss of understanding.

The first of a series of 77 novels! Hopefully, translations of other titles in the series are in the offing.

A great example of a locked room mystery with charming characters and a real head scratcher of a mystery. I really enjoyed it though I found the answer...well, I wouldn't want to spoil this at all.

*Many thanks to Pushkin Press and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
A rather exotic read for me turned out to be enjoyable. The Japanese mystery has the feel of Golden Age mystery murder books, with a variety of characters, and a detective who eventually solves it all.
The translation is very good as I had no problem reading and following the plot. A big challenge, however, were Japanese names, and it took me a while to remember who is who.

Screams in the night… 4 stars

On the night of their wedding, Kenzo and his new bride Katsuko have retired to the annexe of the family home after a day of ritual celebration. The remaining guests are staying with the rest of the family in the main house, but they are startled awake in the middle of the night by screams and the sounds of a koto (a Japanese stringed instrument) twanging wildly. By the time they get to the annexe, it’s too late – Kenzo and Katsuko are dead, brutally slain by someone wielding the katana which is usually kept in the main house. But the annexe is sealed – all doors and windows locked from the inside – and the snow which has just fallen is pristine, with no trace of footmarks. How did the murderer get in and out, and who is the strange three-fingered man who’s been seen in the neighbourhood recently, asking for directions to the house?

The author, through his narrator, is quite open about having been influenced by many of the classic locked room mysteries of the Golden Age, giving special mention to The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux and the works of John Dickson Carr, an accepted master of this form of mystery. I haven’t read a lot of Carr, but for my money Leroux has clearly been the main influence on the plot and style of this one.

As so often happens with locked room mysteries, I felt that characterisation and motive came in as poor seconds to the intricacy of the way in which the murder was contrived. That’s not to say that the plot is weak – in fact, the reason for the murder is interesting and based firmly in the mores of the society at that time, and indeed it depends strongly on an understanding of the character of the murderer. But I felt these were presented too much as a given, rather than the reader learning about them for herself by observing the characters interact. Without getting into spoiler territory, so forgive vagueness, I also felt that one of the other characters’ behaviour was stretched well beyond the limits of credibility purely because s/he had to act in the way s/he does to make the murder method work. However, as I said, this is a common occurrence in locked room mysteries, and no worse in this one than in many others – it’s just not a sub-genre I’m particularly fond of.

The translation by Louise Heal Kawai is mostly very good, flowing and readable without any feeling of clunkiness. However the translator has chose to leave too many Japanese terms for my taste – I can see that this keeps the Japanese flavour better, but often I simply didn’t know what was being described and nor did my built-in Kindle dictionary. Sometimes, she would explain a word on its first appearance, but not always, and even when she did it meant I frequently had to search back to remind myself. This is a subjective criticism, though, and it certainly wasn’t a big enough problem to seriously affect either my understanding or enjoyment of the book.

The all-important murder method is extremely convoluted, and rather depends on a fortuitous fall of snow at exactly the right moment, which felt a little bit like cheating. However, in general the plot is fair play – the clues are all given, although this poor reader missed nearly every one!

Overall, then, I enjoyed this short novel with a few reservations, and I’m sure it will appeal even more to real aficionados of the locked room mystery who might be more interested in the method than the characterisation.

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Pushkin Press.

First published in Japan in 1946; published in translation by Pushkin Vertigo on August 4, 2020

The Honjin Murders is a classic Japanese locked room mystery, first serialized in a Japanese magazine in 1946. When the mystery baffles the local police, a brilliant young detective is called to the scene and promptly solves the puzzle. The novel marks the detective's first of more than seventy appearances in Seishi Yokomizo's work. The detective is also a character in five Japanese films.

The story is set in 1937. Kenzo is the current master of the house of Ichiyanagi. Before the shogun was overthrown and the imperial government restored, the house was an inn for travelers who belonged to the nobility (a honjin). Nothing is more important to the Ichiyanagi family than being descendants of the owners of a honjin.

Kenzo and Katsuko were married in Kenzo’s home. Kenzo was about 40. His bride was about 25 and (to her shame) not a virgin, a confession she made just before the wedding. A scarred man with three fingers on his right hand inquired about Kenzo while passing through the village on Kenzo’s wedding day.

The post-wedding sake ceremony lasted all night. It was after midnight before Kenzo could take his new bride to their bedroom. Two hours later, a blood-curdling scream is heard. Kenzo’s family broke into the locked room and discovered that both had been hacked to death, apparently with a sword. The murder weapon disappeared with the killer, but how did the killer enter or leave a room that was locked from the inside?

Bloody three finger handprints point three fingers of guilt at a possible culprit, but that doesn’t solve the mystery of the locked room. Other characters who might be murder suspects are primarily Kenzo’s family members, including his mother and four siblings. His youngest brother is the family’s black sheep while his youngest sister is a bit simple. The sister has just buried a dead cat, which is apparently an ominous circumstance in Japanese mythology.

The stringed instrument known in Japan as the koto figures into the plot, in part because “the eerie strains of a koto being plucked with wild abandon” are heard just after the scream. A letter and a photo album that contain the words “My Mortal Enemy” provide another potential clue. Deciding which clues are real and which are red herrings adds to the fun, but to Seishi Yokomizo’s credit, none of the potential clues are completely extraneous to the story. Everything fits together and contributes to the mystery’s solution.

The police inspector, unable to make headway, summons Kosuke Kindaichi from Tokyo. Kosuke is unkempt and speaks with a stammer, but in the tradition of eccentric detectives, he pieces together obscure clues with ease. When Kosuke notices that the home’s library is filled with detective novels, he offers some literary criticism, expressing a preference for locked room mysteries that do not rely on a mechanical trick over those that do. Kosuke is a particular fan of Leroux’s Mystery of the Yellow Room and the locked room murder mysteries of John Dickson Carr.

The story is clever and complex, as good locked room mysteries tend to be. I probably miss the nuances of Japanese mysteries, having not grown up in the culture, but the unfamiliarity of the setting is part of the appeal of Japanese fiction. I doubt anyone will guess how the murder was committed. It may be possible for astute readers (and I’m not one of those) to puzzle out why it occurred. Whether the novel surprises the reader or not, following Kosuke’s deductive chain as he assembles the clues is fun. The Honjin Murders would be a perfect addition to the shelf of any devoted fan of locked room murder mysteries.

RECOMMENDED

Such a fun mix of golden age murder mystery with a Japanese post-war setting! I enjoyed the cultural vacation.

What many believe is the best Japanese mystery story is now available in English. The author Seishi Okomizo died in 1981 and the book was originally published in 1946. It is a short novel remarkably similar to the locked room mysteries of Agatha Christie. A wealthy family, the Ichiyanagi family is a proud high-class family and on the eve of their son’s wedding, the son and fiancé are murdered. Nothing is left but a handprint in the snow and a bloody katana. Sometimes compared to Japan’s Sherlock Holmes, I found Kosuke Kindaich, the eccentric detective brought in to solve the case far more human than Holmes.

The Honjin Murders is the first Kosuke Kindaichi story and was followed by another astounding 76 books, many of which were adapted for stage and television in Japan. It was first published in 1946 and thanks to publishers Pushkin Press and an on target translation by Louise Heal Kawai we can now read the Japanese crime classic in English.

One snowy winter night in 1937 in the village of Okamura the affluent Ichiyanagi family is struck by a terrible tragedy when one of the sons, Kenzo and Katsuko, his new bride, are brutally murdered on their wedding night.

Full review on my blog: https://wanderingwestswords.wordpress.com/2020/08/04/the-honjin-murders-seishi-yokomizo/

In this murder mystery we are introduced to Kosuke Kindaichi, an amateur sleuth, who has solved some famous cases in Japan. It happens that in the town of Okamura, there's been a wedding in the Ichiyanagi family. The whole town is abuzz over the wedding and also about a stranger that has come to town. The night following the wedding, a murder takes place a the family home and the police are called in to investigate. Soon, Kosuke Kindaichi is also called in to assist in the case with his different way of seeing cases.

Overall, it's an enjoyable mystery and a pleasant introduction to the series featuring this character.

I give this book 3.5 stars.

I would like to thank Pushkin Vertigo and Netgalley for sharing an advanced reader copy in exchange for a fair review.