"The Flower Path: A Daidoji Shin Mystery" by Josh Reynolds tackles the classic theme of justice within a confined setting. The story revolves around Daidoji Shin, an unconventional detective, investigating a murder that takes place backstage during a prestigious theater performance. With a locked-room scenario and a limited suspect pool consisting of the theater's elite patrons and staff, Shin must untangle the web of secrets and motives to find the culprit.

Special thanks to NetGalley, Tantor Audio, and the editorial team for giving me the opportunity to review the ARC in audiobook format and to you, my reader, for taking the time to read this honest personal book review.

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Let me start by saying I have not read any of the previous books in this series. While this book can stand-alone, I do think it would be more enjoyable if you were already familiar with this universe and the characters. I believe that it is in part to that disconnect that I found that I really couldn’t get too into the plot until about half-way through the book.

This book also has many characters between the actors, the audience members, the clans, etc. I personally found the number of characters a bit overwhelming, especially as an audiobook, because at times it felt like I was just being inundated by names and a societal hierarchy that I couldn't quite grasp. I also feel like the way the clans go in and out of the story doesn’t make it fully feel like a locked-door mystery but I may have missed the fact that the leaders are all actually in the theater. Despite the characters being difficult to keep track of, I didn't have any other issues with the narration.

I did learn that this book is part of its own special universe called the Legend of the Five Rings. This universe exists throughout several books and even different authors, which I find rather fascinating. I would be interested in reading some of the earlier books that take place in this universe to get a better feel of it and of the characters you meet in The Flower Path. If you’re interested in a world-building mystery, I would say to consider checking out the previous titles in the series and then getting into The Flower Path. This mystery is supposed to take place in a matter of a few hours so it is a lot of information and not much world-building for readers unfamiliar with this universe.

When I first started this book, I did not realize this was part of a series. Now, I don't think you need the earlier books to understand this book, at all, but it does mean the worldbuilding was a bit lacking. At first I assumed this book was set in Japan, seeing as the names and words were Japanese. I thought it was so clever to use the name Daidoji, a minor clan with very little information about it available (in Enligh). But then I realised that this was not the case. This book is set in a Japan inspired world, but it's not like Japan at all.

In fact, I did some researching and this book is part of a larger "series", a collection of books by different authors, all set in the same world. A concept which I really love. The publisher seems to have several "worlds" in which the stories are set, which just sounds super fun. I had more fun looking at the publisher's site than reading this book ><;

The world uses Japanese names for the people, and has different clans that are all given animal names. (Which is something I also saw in [book:The Poppy War|35068705], which is inspired by China) One problem I had here: somethings the clannames are English, the scorpion, the crane, etc sometimes they are in Japanese, Kaeru, the frog) etc. It's use of language is inconsistent throughout the book.

This book has a large cast of characters, and it suffers from it. None of them feel very well developped and all feel like shallow, one-dimensional people. Daidoji Shin is the most developped but even so his development is mostly us being told things. Like how smart he is and how much of a good detective. And as usually the case with the "super smart detective trope", he really wasn't very smart.

The plot was incredibly predictable, which meant that having our detective struggle so much to figure out the case was more annoying than anything. And having the other characters be amazed at him having figured things out, despite things being super obvious was even worse.

The character interactions didn't feel like interactions actual people would have. If the idea was to make things seem like feudal Japan, it didn't work, at all. "But Annemarie, why do you keep picking up Asian inspired books if you dislike them so much?" you might be wondering. I don't dislike them, I actually really like them. Heck, the best books I read this year were [book:後宮の烏|44661692]、Koukyuu no Karasa, an Asian inspired fantasy series that blew me away. Another favourite this year was [book:Makura no soshi|10679938], musing from a lady in Heian Japan. I LOVE reading books with Asian mythology/Asian inspiration, but I do want them to be done right. I want them to fit the setting and take into account how people would interact at that time, like I want for all my historical fiction, no matter where it is set. If you want to write a historical Asian setting, even if it's a fantasy, you need to research actual Asian history, imo. (And for people thinking I only like books when written by Japanese authors, some other favourites with an Asian setting I read this year include [book:Six Crimson Cranes|53457092] and [book:Wicked Fox|42133479])

So we have a predictable plot, underdeveloped characters and interactions that don't fit the setting of the book itself. On top of that, there are a lot of inconsistencies in how people treat each other. There is also a lot of repetition, of reading almost the same interaction and same phrases again. These people all talk similarly, and use the exact same phrases...

The book takes place over the course of a few hours, so I'll forgive it for the characters not developing throughout it. I think the timing of the whole thing is a bit iffy, because everything is set during a play, but the break is extremely long and so is the play itself. (With 2 hours after the break, so I assume about as many before, which means this whole play, including the break took about 5~6 hours at least which seems excessive).

The audiobook is alright, but not great. The pronunciation of names is very inconsistent throughout the book, which is a bit frustrating. The pronunciation is also usually very un-Japanese, but sometimes the same word gets pronounced correctly, so I'm not sure if they were going for an English pronunciation of Japanese words, or an actual Japanese pronunciation. Most words are pronounced both ways throughout the book.

All in all, I had high expectations of this book, but I didn't actually enjoy it all that much. The idea is better than the execution, and the plot was just too predictable for it to be enjoyable.

I saw positive reviews in regards to the previous book. So I decided to take a go at this one. I would say for me I didn’t fully start getting into the story until over 30% in. I had never read the previous book so I don’t know if maybe that’s why I did not catch onto the story format as quick as others do. I love the setting of the story the detail of the locations and the unique name choices. I felt like I was in that timeframe.
The narration is great I love how the voice actor switches it up when doing female voices.
This was my first mystery style book to listen to. Which might be why I struggled through it.

I requested this one because it might be an upcoming title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book does not suit my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one.