The Honjin Murders is a Japanese novel from the post World War II era recently translated into English for the first time.  A brutal murder is committed after a wedding on the estate of the Ichiyanagi family and a young unassuming detective named Kosuke Kindaichi is called to investigate.  The murder happened in a locked room surrounded by fresh snow, and no footprints are left to show the path of the murderer.  Family secrets abound and Kindaichi must use Sherlock Holmes like powers of observation to unmask the killer.  A must read for any classic mystery fan.

Kosuke Kindaichi is a detective character created by Seishi Yokomizo. The Honjin murders’ is the first book in the series of 77 books based on the same detective, Kosuke Kindaichi. This is my 2nd book Japanese mystery (the first book I read was Murder in the crooked house by Soji Shimada). Both the authors were bestsellers in their time. Seishi Yokomizo wrote between 1902-1981 and precedes Soji Shimada. Sadly, only a few of their works have been translated.

The book is a classic locked-room mystery. A crime is committed on the wedding night of Kenzo and Katsuko. But, how the perpetrator committed the crime with no point of entry or exit is the main point of mystery.
Katsuko Kobo is a school teacher. Kenzo is a nobleman. He is not interested in his family business.
Kenzo devotes his time in education and scientific discoveries.
Kenzo Ichiyanagi and Katsuko Kubo are engaged and will get married on 25th December 1937.
Itoko, the matriarch of the Ichiyanagi family, did not approve of the engagement but gave in after much persuasion.
Just around the wedding, there is a rumour about a creepy looking man roaming in the village.
On the wedding night and after a wonderful celebration, the entire family house wakes up to screams and music playing at the same time. When the police come they find only evidence, that’s a katana. Who is the murderer and, how was the crime committed?

Locked room mysteries are delightful to read. The author narrates the story. The book will remind you of Hercule Poirot or, in my case, Feluda by Satyajit Ray without the shabby hair. The book is cleverly written and the reading will scratch their head to solve the mystery. It isn’t a long book, and the book has a good pace. The author plays fair with the reader; he points out towards the end of the book.
I have Seishi Yokomizo another book, The Inugami Curse, in my TBR. I am too excited to read the next one.

Thank you, NetGalley and Pushkin Press for the copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.

A three-fingered man. A room painted all in red. The eerie music of a Japanese koto. A katana – a sword – standing blade-first in the snow. These all form part of this classic murder mystery, originally published in Japanese in 1946 and now available from Pushkin Press in an English translation by Louise Heal Kawai.

The Honjin Murders is set in November 1937 in the village of Okamura, home to the Ichiyanagi family, whose ancestors once ran a honjin – an inn where noble travellers would stay during the Edo period. Those times are long gone, but the Ichiyanagis are still proud of their illustrious lineage. At the beginning of the novel, the various members of the family are gathering for the wedding of the eldest son and heir, Kenzo, to a young schoolteacher, Katsuko. Kenzo’s family are not very happy about the bride’s humble origins, but the marriage goes ahead and everyone retires to bed for the night. A few hours later, screams are heard from the newlyweds’ room and the pair are found inside stabbed to death.

With the doors locked and no fresh footprints in the snow surrounding the building, it seems that the perfect locked room murder has been committed. Luckily, Katsuko’s uncle Ginzo knows just the man who will be able to solve it: his friend, the private detective Kosuke Kindaichi. Ginzo sends for Kindaichi who arrives in the village looking dishevelled, unassuming and unimpressive (it’s difficult not to make comparisons with that other famously untidy detective, Columbo, although this book was published decades earlier) but appearances can be deceptive and it quickly becomes clear that Kindaichi has the sort of sharp mind and powers of deduction that are necessary to solve such a complex crime.

I won’t say any more about the plot of the novel or the mystery itself. I didn’t work out how the murder was committed or who the culprit was and I was happy just to watch the solution unfold – although like another Japanese mystery novel I read last year, Murder in the Crooked House by Soji Shimada, I felt that there seemed to be more focus on puzzle solving and providing an ingenious technical explanation for the crime rather than on character and motivation. Maybe that is a common feature of Japanese crime fiction; I haven’t read enough of it yet to know.

What I particularly loved about this book was the style in which it was written, with the narrator (presumably meant to be Yokomizo himself) speaking directly to the reader and breaking off from the story now and then to discuss other classic mystery novels, especially of the locked room variety, and their similarities to the Honjin case:

    "The first that came to mind were Gaston Leroux’s The Mystery of the Yellow Room and Maurice Leblanc’s The Teeth of the Tiger; then there’s The Canary Murder Case and The Kennel Murder Case, both by S.S. Van Dine; and finally, Dickson Carr’s The Plague Court Murders…But this real-life case wasn’t quite like any of the above-mentioned. Maybe, just maybe, the killer had read a selection of stories like these, dissected all of the different devices used, then picked out the elements that he needed, constructing his own device. At least that’s one theory."

Yokomizo may have drawn inspiration from some of those earlier mysteries, but The Honjin Murders itself feels original and different, as well as being a very clever and entertaining novel. Although I hadn’t heard of Kosuke Kindaichi until I read this book, it seems that he appears in over seventy novels (one of which, The Inugami Curse, is also available in English from Pushkin Press). I will look forward to meeting him again!

I love crime fiction and nothing thrills me more in this genre than the locked room mystery. Fortunately, it appears Seishi Yokomizo also loved detective stories growing up and went on to become an accomplished author in his own right.
He is one of Japan’s most famous and best loved mystery writers. It was a joy to be given a copy of his first Kosuke Kindaichi story. The Honjin Murders also happens to be a Locked Room Murder Mystery.

The head of an aristocratic family appears to be marrying beneath his status; his future bride has secrets of her own and despite her future husband’s family lack of enthusiasm the wedding goes ahead.

But in the early hours of the next day eerie screams reveal a horrific and brutal crime. The room is completely enclosed and locked; snow has fallen and not one footprint has been made leaving the crime scene. Yet somehow a murderer has struck and disappeared in thin air.

The local police seem competent but unable to catch the main suspect.  A relative of the murdered bride knows someone who can break the impasse.
Enter Kosuke Kindaichi a young man with a canny ability to reason and bring logic to a murder mystery and find solutions others overlook.

Nothing gives me more pleasure in addition to my words above than finding new detective stories, in fresh locations and from different perspectives. Sadly not all good detective novels have been translated and this is where readers should be grateful to publishers like Pushkin Press to bring an English translation of this Japanese classic. Mention should go to Louise Heal Kawai for her readable translation that made my experience with the book smooth and comfortable.
The writing flows with great energy so that the story never seems to stumble or pause. This impetus means that the pages pass quickly, you feel comfortable with the plot and characters without the need to recap or return to an early passage.
I liked the detective and the problems that confronted him at the murder scene. I smiled as he got more animated discerning clues and scratching his head to show his lifted mood and contentment. It was also clever in that the account was like a report of the events and we were being drawn into a notorious murder from a earlier time.
You don’t feel an outsider, rather a privileged member of a crime club being given insight into this mystery. Japanese culture is shared and again the writing draws you into all aspects of the story so you feel included rather than a voyeur or a witness just too far away to understand.

I was at ease as much as I when I am reading a Maigret, yet I have walked those Paris streets but never travelled to Japan. 
I loved the story, the writing and the detective and hope other stories will become available and others will be encouraged to read and learn more about Japanese fiction and crime mysteries especially.

The powerful Ichiyanagi family are gathered together to celebrate the wedding of the heir.  After the ceremony louds screams are heard and then the unlikely playing of a musical instrument.  The compound is locked but when the family breaks into the room they find the heir and his new bride lying in a pool of blood.  Immediate suspicion falls on a mysterious scarred and disabled stranger seen in the vicinity.  Detective Kindaichi addresses the crime with an open mind and the powers of his brain.
Written in the 1930s, this story is a classic Golden Age of Crime novel from a far-away place.  The homage done to classic fiction in the narrative is wonderful and the plot is deliberately complex and seeming impossible.  The translation is great but the style of writing is a little stilted however this could be that I am not used to pre-War Japanese!  A short but thoroughly entertaining mystery

Wow!! If you love a good murder mystery then this  classic Japanese mystery from Pushkin Vertigo is definitely a must read for you. The story is a little eerie, the crime heinous, the sleuth scruffy-looking and the other elements present in just the right proportions to make it a great read even today years after it was first published in  1946. 

The book is a locked room mystery told by a writer of Detective stories who is visiting the scene of crime years after it was committed and solved to, what else, write about it. We meet the host of characters in the wealthy Ichiyanagi family which is getting ready to celebrate the marriage of the eldest son. The setting is the year 1937 and a small Japanese village and Yokomizo gives us a glimpse of the social and cultural norms of the rural life of that era.
A rumour is also fast gaining weight while the village gossips about the wedding and family. It seems a dangerous  man has been asking questions about the family,

And then it happens! On the night of the wedding, the entire household is woken by a bloodcurdling scream, followed by the sound of eerie music. A bloody samurai sword is found thrust into the snow outside the house. Soon, amateur detective Kosuke Kindaichi is brought in by the uncle of the murdered woman on to the scene to investigate what will become a legendary murder case. But can this eccentric sleuth solve a seemingly impossible crime?

 The Honjin Murders is the first book to feature Yokomizo's "scruffy-looking" sleuth Kosuke Kindaichi. Making his debut in 1946. He would go on to solve more than 70 cases over the next thirty-plus years before his creator's death in 1981.

The Honjin Murders written by Yokomizo in 1946 is a classic closed door murder mystery full of Japanese culture and references to the golden age of detective fiction.

I was slightly disappointed by this one. This book highlighted to me that I just may not be a closed door murder mystery fan. As we're guided through the steps which helped solved the mystery by the Doctor and Kindaichi, I found myself quite deflated and I was left wanting more. I had to remind myself that this was written over seventy years ago, also set in 1937 and speaks to the culture and beliefs of that time. (The misogynistic element of the book really threw me!) The redeeming feature of the book was definitely Kosuke Kindaichi. A really intriguing and savvy character, so much so that I'd happily read more books in this series purely for his method and weird logic. It was written well, descriptive yet succinct and very easy to read. A wonderful translation by Kawai.

In the winter of 1937, the village of Okamura is abuzz with excitement over the forthcoming wedding of a son of the grand Ichiyanagi family. But amid the gossip over the approaching festivities, there is also a worrying rumour – it seems a sinister masked man has been asking questions about the Ichiyanagis around the village.

Then, on the night of the wedding, the Ichiyanagi family are woken by a terrible scream, followed by the sound of eerie music – death has come to Okamura, leaving no trace but a bloody samurai sword, thrust into the pristine snow outside the house. The murder seems impossible, but amateur detective Kosuke Kindaichi is determined to get to the bottom of it.

What with various real-life distractions I ended up taking most of May off from book reviewing. Things have settled somewhat, and I decided it was high time to get back to reading. I have tentatively dipped my toe back into the waters of genre fiction with a Japanese period detective novel called The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo.

I’ve not read a huge amount of what you would probably call traditional crime fiction so this was a pleasant change for me. The setting and time period felt suitably evocative and I was quickly embroiled in the twists and turns of the whodunnit.

The main protagonist, amateur sleuth Kosuke Kindaichi, is a fascinating character. He is certainly not what I expected when I decided to read a Japanese detective novel that is over seventy years old. Slightly wild of appearance and prone to obvious, if somewhat inappropriate, delight when investigating. I couldn’t wait to see what this enigmatic individual would do next. His entire being feels like the antithesis of what many would picture as the reserved traditional Japanese archetype. This is particularly obvious when he brings everyone together for the final reveal of how the killings were accomplished. The members of the household are continually caught off guard by Kosuke and his singular behaviour.

Most of the remaining characters are members of the Ichyanagi family and they are a mildly eccentric bunch. I guess that makes for a perfect rogue’s gallery when you are trying to unmask a murder. Everyone could be a potential suspect.

The majority of the novel takes place in the old inn owned by the family and using this single location made it feel almost like I was watching a play unfold. The reader’s attention is deliberately driven towards the characters. The author teases with suggestions that clues are right in front of your eyes if you choose to search for them. The novel’s approach also felt reminiscent of Agatha Christie television and film adaptations that I’ve seen.

This is the first time that The Honjin Murders has been translated into English and Louise Heal Kawai deserves kudos for such a flawless job. I often worry that translated works lose some of the original author’s intent but not so in this case. The pace and execution of the narrative are perfect.

I enjoyed my first foray into historic Japanese crime fiction. It felt oddly familiar but also different at the same time. I think this is the thing I liked most about it. I’m always keen to learn about new cultures, and the novel gave me the opportunity to learn more about the rigid structures and rules that existed, and may still exist, in Japanese society. This is well worth checking out if you are looking for a crime novel that is a little different to what you are used to.

My musical recommendation to accompany The Honjin Murders has a distinctly whodunnit vibe about. The devilishly suspicious tone to the soundtrack of Knives Out by Nathan Johnson fits perfectly.

The Honjin Murders is published by Pushkin Press and available now.

Set in Japan in the 1930's one is immersed in a society of old and heirarchic values where the author presents you with a locked room mystery.  In the wealthy Honjin family the head of the family is getting married to a woman of a much lower social status.  Class values abound in this highly structured society and all seems well until we are introduced to a mysterious three-fingered man where he appears and leaves a message for the bridegroom

On the wedding night both the bride and husband are murdered.  But how as the room was locked and yet the mysterious man's fingerprints are everywhere.

It comes across as a period piece set in what to most of us in the west must seem a strange world of ritual and class privilege in a distant time and place set before World War II.

In the pre-publication version I read it disconcertingly referred to some people and most place by a first letter then a dash as if we were meant to work out who or where was being referred to,  Having already been enticed into a foreign land in a time over 80 years ago to abbreviate places and people just lost me as a reader.  I hope the published version corrects these with the full names.

Atmospheric and exotic it kept my attention but the "how it was done" revelation seemed unlikely.  Well worth a read for the culture and investigation which transported me to a very different time and place but not convinced by the ending.  Recommend a read for crime afficionados though

An excellent locked room mystery that reminded me of a Golden Age story set in Japan.
The plot is well crafted and fascinating, the characters are fleshed out and the mystery is solid.
I found it engrossing and entertaining, recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

“A locked room murder, a red ochre-painted room and the sound of the koto...”

Set in 1937 in a rural Japanese village, a horrible murder takes place following the wedding of the eldest son of a wealthy family. The Ichiyanagi family operated a honjin (an inn for the nobility) but when the feudal system was on the verge of collapse they moved to this small town and bought cheap farmland. This is a classic locked room murder mystery. It is the first in a series featuring the young, disheveled and stuttering detective Kosuke Kindaichi. (Think of a less pompous Hercule Poirot.) A suspicious looking three-fingered vagrant has been seen lurking around the estate and mysterious koto music has been heard in the night. 

The story is related by an unnamed narrator based on what he was told by people close to the crime. It’s a very inventive plot. There is no way I could have figured out how the crime was committed, but the narrator didn’t really hide anything. In fact, at the end of the book he sets out several instances of how his careful wording should have been a clue to the reader. I would love to read more of this series, but most of the books don’t seem to be readily available in English. The author matches up well with the other authors to whom he refers in this book, including Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Seishi Yokomizo is undoubtedly one of the most well renowned mystery writers of Japan. His novels are filled with the enigmas and amateur sleuths the keen readers of Golden Age mysteries have so come to love and his stories and famous detective, Kosuke Kindaichi, have had a great impact in Japanese literature and culture.

The Honjin Murders, initially published in Japanese in 1973, is Kosuke Kindaichi's very first introduction to his audience and the first of more than 30 novels featuring Yokomizo's quirky and ingenious sleuth. The novel is set in the 1930s in rural Japan, where the murder of a newly wed couple has shocked the local community. The only clues left at the murder scene are a samurai sword and the fingerprints of a three-fingered individual, while both the door and the windows appear to be locked from the inside without any traces of tresspassing.

I surely do love a well-staged locked room mystery, and this one did not disappoint in the slightest. I very much enjoyed reading about the lives of the murdered couple and the people surrounding them, and I never expected the solution that was given at the end. I also liked the mentions of various Golden Age mystery writers and some of their famous works, as it shows that Yokomizo was not only well read in the genre, but also attempted to pay homage to the works that influenced him.

The novel was marvellously translated by Louise Heal Kawai and it was a fast and suspensful read, but it is quite evident that this was one of the author's earlier works. I also found Kindaichi's backstory a bit exaggerated and hard to believe, although I do recognise that this type of story adds to his quirkiness and the mystery that surrounds him as a genius amateur sleuth.

If you are a classic mystery fan and locked room mysteries set in rural areas are your cup of tea, I definitely recommend checking this novel out. Even if you have never read a similar book before, I'm pretty sure the twists and turns of the novel's plot will keep you captivated until its very last pages.

I'm really looking forward to reading more of Kindaichi's sleuthing adventures and I do hope Pushkin Press keeps bringing them to us.

This is my favorite mystery crime story at the moment.

I'm truly grateful that this classic read was translated into English. 

My attention was totally caught with the locked room murder case. How did it happen? Who killed the newly married couple?

Hands down to Detective Kosuke Kindaichi, I love how he traced the pieces of evidence, how his mind works and solve the death like a professional. Wow just wow!

Thank you to Steerforth Press and Netgalley for the ARC!

Locked Room Murder Strikes Rural Japan! An English translation of the masterful Japanese mystery author Seishi Yokomizo, one of Japan's most beloved mystery writers. This sensational case marked the debut of the eccentric young detective genius Kosuke Kindaichi. *Reading this brought back many happy memories of when I lived in Japan, so I might be biased. The details, not the event!

Picture it: November 25, 1937, the rural village of Okamura in Okayama Prefecture, Japan... The scholarly eldest son of the Ichiyanagi family is marrying a young, intellectual school teacher. The wedding ceremony goes as planned, however in the middle of the wedding night, screams and eerie koto music echo throughout the mansion. The wedding couple is discovered dead inside their locked rooms, with no indication of how or why this has happened. 

The mystery is baffling, the cast of characters is relatively small (though the depth of characters is hit or miss), and the atmosphere is creepy, but not terrifying. Overall a very enjoyable read, and I want to read more by Yokomizo.

With my current fetish for Japanese crime I read The Honjin Murders and The Inugami Curse by Seishi Yokomizo back to back, which introduce the shambling, head-scratching private investigator Kosuke Kindaichi. Very much in the tradition of, and relecting the Japanese obsession with, the locked room mystery genre, both books are cleverly plotted, replete with red herrings and mind tickling twists in the narrative. I slightly preferred The Inugami Curse (trans. Yumiko Yamakazi) as the other book seemed a little more slight in its plotting, but would heartily recommend both as a sterling introduction to this author. As an aside, The Honjin Murders (trans. Louise Heal Kwai) also includes in the story a go-to list of other Japanese mystery writers which I have started exploring, and am looking forward immensely to the next Yokomizo to be produced by Pushkin Vertigo.

This is the first of many books b Yokomizo (77 in all) to be translated into English. It's the first in the series and a real winner. The crime was tricky (a locked room mystery) and the solution unique. 

Besides having a quirky dectective, which is always fun, I loved the way the author is very familiar with Golden Age mysteries and authors. He refers to them ften and, in fact, one of them serves as part of the solution. It's also nice that, although he refers to other mysteries, he gives you enough information about them to know how they fit into the solution.

I also loved that Yokomizo combined many authorial styles in the mystery: first person narratives, flashbacks, doctor's journals,and third person narratives. It was deft and made the book more interesting than many mysteries.

I also loved that theauthor took the time to describe many aspects of Japanese life and history that would have been less familiar to his 1973 readers than to folks at the time of the murder (1937). This aspect makes them ideal for the non-Japanes writer.

I can't wait for the next one to come out!

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
I think this is not my style of detective novels.  I'm sure this genre is popular but I think it's a little slow for me.

This was a nicely told story, with depth, and cultural nuances, but the method of the 'murder' / attempted murder was too unrealistic and hard to believe. 

Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. I hope Pushkin translates more of Yokomizo's work and of others. Thanks..

Another great international mystery from Pushkin Press! They are very good in bringing solid authors from world other to English-speaking readers. This is a classic tale and a first in a series. Hopefully, more will follow.

This is the new 2019 English translation of a Japanese writer Yokomizo’s fictional crime story published in 1973. The narrator, also a crime writer is investigating a “true crime” event that took place in 1937 and this is his recounting of the tale. A senior policeman DI Isokawa is brought into the area but is helped by a friend and private investigator Kindaichi to unravel the mystery. Initially suspicion will fall on a stranger, the enigmatic, masked “three fingered man”.  When the deaths are investigated if they cannot be a simple suicide murder then they must have been deeply planned – where did the killer get his ideas from? The whole tale has references to international crime fiction authors and plots. Is it co-incidental that the house library holds a large selection of crime novels? Or is there something deeper going on? When Isokawa and Kindaichi start to work out how the killings were carried out they can then start to identify the guilty party. But crime does not operate in a vacuum so the author explores what was the motive at both the immediate and deeper level.
The deaths take place on the wedding night of Kenzo, eldest son of the Ichiyanagi family and Katsuko of the Kubo family at the groom’s family estate. The reference to Honjin refers to the family’s previous traditional role as keepers of a Honjin – an inn for royal or aristocratic travellers. The family are very proud of this aristocratic heritage. Katsuko comes from a family of “tenant” farmers, albeit that her uncle, and late father, made a great deal of money as businessmen in America before returning to Japan. His niece is therefore both wealthy and cultured. Kenzo, 40, needing a family heir had insisted on the wedding to his younger bride in spite of family objections. We are taken through the preparations and ceremonies of a traditional wedding being introduced to al the main characters of both families. Shortly after the married couple are left alone screams are heard and when others break into the locked annexe both bride and groom are found dead. 
Without giving away the plot, the process that the investigators went through is then detailed as the investigators check, motive, capacity, intentions etc. As all the family “witnesses” are questioned the reader is able to build a picture of the place in its historic time, of the deeper nuances of the family lives and the stresses and disagreements. A number of possible suspects emerge as the tale inevitably becomes deeper and more multi layered.
It should be said that towards the end “all shall be revealed” in the classic (and less believable) moment when all parties sit down with the investigators and the latter reveal exactly how it was done and who was responsible. But if you accept the nature of early historic crime fiction with its nuances and practices then that might be OK with you. Because of the sheer complexity of the plot it must be said that this is the heaviest part of the novel and perhaps the weakest too. 
Around the murder and procedurals  Yokomizo graphically depicts an already old fashioned, or almost obsolete, family life style. But the depiction of a “foreign” place either by geography or time is part of the attraction for this reader. The picture he builds of the surrounding rural landscape is lush and beautiful and very visual too. But the greatest skill is in his depiction of the people, sympathetic to some, but quietly critical of others whose lack of generosity of spirit and kindness does not go unnoticed.  This is an interesting read, albeit already a little dated at the time of its first publication of a novel that will, until this translation, have passed most people by.