enjoyed both the stories in the book. I am a huge fan of kosuke kindaichi and again he impresses me with the solutions. I felt I figured out the culprit in first case only to realize I was wrong 😂😂. As usual seishi yokomizo writes it cleverly. I would recommend it for all the thriller fans who love classic mysteries .

There are two stories within this, which I didn't initially realise. Although neither are long, I personally found them a bit slow going. I think this is because I was not massively invested in either, though I found the 1st more interesting than the 2nd. Overall, it was an easy read, with some twists/reveals but nothing revolutionary.

Thank you Netgalley and Pushkin Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Murder at the Black Cat Café was a solid thriller and my first read from this author.
The book actually includes two stories—the main murder mystery at the black cat café and a bonus tale called The Well Wheel Creaks, packed with family drama, betrayal, and jealousy.

The first story is intense and full of unexpected twists. Some parts got a little complex—especially during the big reveal—so I found myself re-reading a few parts to really follow what was going on. But the suspense kept me hooked.

The bonus story was a bit of a slow burn. There’s a long prologue and a deep dive into a family tree that felt slightly overwhelming (not gonna lie, I almost bailed).
But once the actual case kicked in—with all the letters and secrets—it completely drew me in. The ending? Super shocking and worth the wait!

<i>I received a review copy through Netgalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. Huge thank you to the author and publisher!</i>

⚠️ 𝐓𝐖: murder, animal death, PTSD

Murder at the Black Cat Café by Seishi Yokomizo, is a rediscovered classic, out in the UK in 28 August 25. Based in post-WW2 Japan, we’re treated to two stories (the first featuring detective Kosuke Kindaichi) - the titular Black Cat Café, and Why Did the Well Wheel Creak?

Yokomizo was a master of the Golden Age crime novel. Here, both mysteries hang on cases of mistaken identity with plenty of twists to keep you guessing. Previous stories of his I’ve read relied on inheritance as motive, here we see jealousy and revenge rear their ugly heads. Crisp plotting leads us to satisfying conclusions.

Originally published in 1947, 'Murder at the Black Cat Café' is a collection of two novellas starring Yokomizo's Detective Kasuke Kindaiche. Despite the shortness of the stories Yokomizo does well with keeping the stories fast paced and eager to discover the identity of the murderer.

Yokomizo brings us a classic 'faceless corpse mystery' with the victim being found buried with a dead black cat in the back yard of the Black Cat Café and is suspected to be the owner. Once Kindaiche gets accepted into the investigation you can't help, but try and discover double meanings behind his questions and musings.

The story that really brought the star rating up overall for me was the second instalment ‘Why Did the Well Wheel Creak?'. Structured in the style of letters received by Shinkichi from his sister Tsuruyo we begin to put together the narrative of the story. However with only having one half of the story we can only guess what Shinkichi is replying to his sister. Paired with the theme of World War Il in the background of the story the mystery surrounds the return of Daisuke brother whom has returned home after being injured in the war.

Overall this is a thoroughly enjoyable and satisfying read with all the twists and turns of a mystery you could want. I can't wait to delve back into this series and discover further mysteries alongside Detective Kasuke Kindaiche.

Thank you to Pushkin Press and Net Galley for the advanced DRC

I really like Japanese detective stories, but this one did not really catch me. I think it's a good beginning for people who want to get into detective novels, to see what they can expect, but for people who read a lot of those, this book will feel very superficial.
The plot itself is well done, but I got the feeling that the depth of the mystery is missing...

Murder at the Black Cat Café by Seishi Yokomizo
Translated by Bryan Karetnyk

This is a classic Japanese mystery about a strange murder at a café called the Black Cat. When a man is found dead, detective Kosuke Kindaichi steps in to solve the case. There are secrets, clues, and twists that keep you guessing until the end.

It’s a fun and clever mystery with an old-school feel. If you enjoy detective stories, this one is a good pick!

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the e-arc!!

Reading Murder at the Black Cat Café felt like stepping into a classic locked-room-style puzzle wrapped in postwar unease. The Tokyo setting—worn down by the aftermath of war but full of secret life—creates the perfect backdrop for a strange and unsettling case: a faceless corpse, a dead cat, and a brothel café that feels caught between reality and performance.

The story is compact and fast-moving, with plenty of misdirection. I sometimes wished for a little more depth in the characters—some felt more like roles than real people—but that theatrical tone is part of what gives Yokomizo’s work its charm. The whole book plays out like a carefully staged performance where every line has a double meaning.

This isn’t the most emotionally deep crime novel I’ve read, but it’s clever, atmospheric, and satisfying. A great introduction to Kindaichi’s world if you like Golden Age-style mysteries with a slightly off-kilter twist.

Just a decent read, a whodunit. A classic detective story/novella.
Was expecting more from the author, but I think it's just me. This one disappointed a little.
It's an okay read, i needed more depth in the detection work, the flow was not bad either.

This book is set between 'Death on Gokumon Island' and 'The Village of Eight Graves'.

I decided to come back to Seishi Yokomizo after sitting out on 'Little Sparrow Murders' since I am not a fan of Seishi Yokomizo repeating the same structures nearly in all his books and also his foreshadowing is not for me, as I enjoy to read my mysteries with the possibilities of guessing the plot. Both of those were not as noticable in this collection of two novellas but in the end I'm not a fan of his depiction of women which is of course related to the time those works were originally published in Japan. But the writing style is easy to read and if you are looking for a fast book to read in a day or two I recommend this one.

On a side note: My friend and I discussed how we love this cover on it's own but since it does not fit with the rest of the Kindaichi series we're still very irked about it. If it was a standalone this would be a whole different story.

I've been a fan of the Kosuke Kindaichi books, but the last couple I've read really jumped the shark. Murder at the Black Cafe is a collection of two novella-length stories, both of them stripped back to the absolute basics of the detective genre: who murders who and when. The stories still explore the themes Yokomizo novels normally engage with: the industrial and urban development of Japan and the continuity of lifestyles in small remote villages dominated by local landlord families. Yokomizo's stories also often engage with a very limited repertoire of classic detective tropes, from locked room to faceless body. Both of these stories self-consciously engage with particular trope - in the first one, we have a variation of the faceless body trope, whereas the second explores the 'twin' trope, paired with a Yokomizo classic of 'did the right man come back from the War'.

As the stories are very short, there is little time for character development or multiple red herrings. The first one in particular reads like a newspaper puzzle, not a work of narrative fiction. The second one pleasantly surprised me, pushing the overall rating up quite a bit. It has a bit more of an inventive structure and is a bit more closely rooted in its rural context. As always with Yokomizo, WWII is always present, but never critically interrogated. The first story laconically mentions that the 'China incident' created an economic boom in the suburb of Tokyo it is set in.

If you like Kindaichi books, read this one, too. The second story is very much Yokomizo's home turf, and it is quite well executed.

I have read a couple of Seishi Yokomizo’s books and am a fan of the investigator Kosuke Kindaichi. As such I was excited to read Murder at the Black Cat Café.

The book is actually made up of two short stories Murder at the Black Cat Café and also The Well Wheel Creaks.

I found Murder at the Black Cat Café an interesting read as it’s set immediately after the end of World War II and Japanese soldiers are demobbed and are returning back to Japan, as are Japanese nationals returning from China. A woman’s body is found in a shallow grave next to a dead cat in the grounds of a bar in a Tokyo suburb. It’s impossible to identify the woman and the detectives assume it must be one of the owners of the bar. The story is a “faceless corpse” murder mystery. There are some twists and turns and I did guess what really happened before I finished reading.

The second story, The Wheel That Creaks, follows a two families in a small town before and after World War II. I found the family drama a really engaging read and the tension built steadily. I wasn’t sure where the story was going, but the tension and suspense felt like it was leading to murder. I didn’t see the twists and turns and I really believed one character would be murdered, when in fact they were not.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, Pushkin Press, for making this e-ARC available to me to read in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I'm a fan of the 'Kosuke Kindaichi' novels by Japanese classic crime writer Seishi Yokomizo, but this one was a bit of a disappointment. The crime concerns an unidentifiable female body found buried in the garden of disreputable cafe/brothel. The former owner and his wife have sold up and disappeared, with their maid and the hostesses reporting strange behaviour in the weeks leading up to their departure. The local police are baffled (or at least, for quite a while they're confident they've solved it, and then are baffled when they realise they have not). Then along comes Kindaichi to explain the whodunnit, howdunnit, whydunnit, and who-it-was-done-to.

It sounds like it should be as good as any of Yokomizo's books, but what isn't apparent from the packaging of this book is that it is much shorter than the usual Kindaichi novel - in fact it's novella length. The 'black cat' murder story is over before we're 60% into the page count, and then we move to another even shorter novella. I was so thrown by this - not helped by the second story not being clearly marked (maybe an issue with the advance proof copy I read) - that I didn't even realise it was a new story unrelated to the one I'd just finished until I was a nearly a chapter in.

The result is two stories that are too short to be satisfying. There isn't enough page time to properly create a twisty, immersive mystery, so it all feels rather perfunctory. I didn't get to know the characters (particularly in the first story - the epistolary nature of the second story helped me feel closer to the characters), so I didn't care too much who had committed the crime or why. Also when large numbers of characters with unfamiliar and similar sounding names are introduced at once, and the story is over quickly, it's hard to keep track of who is who.

The second story, 'The Well Wheel Creaks', is the stronger of the two, and makes a decent longish short story. But the title story just isn't very strong and it's a shame when I know how good a mystery Yokomizo can write. If I had expected a novella and a short story, I might not have reacted so badly as being wrongfooted by one story ending unexpectedly soon and another unrelated one beginning definitely spoiled my reading experience. But if you are new to Yokomizo, don't take this as typical - any of his other novels published in English so far is better.

This is the fifth book in the Kindaichi Kosuki series I have read. For the most part I have enjoyed them, and this was no exception. What I hadn't realised is that this one is actually two novellas. The first story is the Black cat cafe story. Kindaichi Kosuki related a case he investigated that would fit with the 'faceless field's trope that we come across in golden age detective novels, though naturally there is a bit of a twist in this one.

The second story is a complicated family drama involving half brothers and mixed up identities. It for a little confusing as to who was who, but I managed to straighten it all out in the end. Mogadishu doesn't make much of an appearance in this one, but does pop in towards the end. I find I am warming to him as a detective.

*Many thanks to Netgally and the publishers for a copy in exchange for an honest opinion.*

I wasn’t sure for a while if this was a 3 stars read for me or 4 stars but considering how fast I finished the first part of the book, I decided it deserves the 4 stars.

This is a historical Japanese mystery book, I’d say and it follows the Kosuke Kindaichi mysteries. It was also reminded me of these cozy crime types of TV series where there is a murder and the big detective then gathers everyone and tells the story behind the murder and why, what, and when everything happened. It sure feels more of a telling than showing kind of book. But I didn’t mind.

The first and longer story is about the Black Cat Cafe, where the body of a woman is found in its garden, her face decomposed, and close to her corpse was found the body of a black cat. Everyone wonders what has happened since it everything seemed fine until then. The cafe has recently changed ownership too.

The second shorter one is about a double murder that has happened in a family. There is a lot of family drama too and it’s told through letters, which was pretty interesting to read about.

Thank you NetGalley and Pushkin Press for the ARC! I appreciate it!

This one, unfortunately, didn’t quite live up to my expectations. Part of the Kosuke Kindaichi series, the book features two novellas.

The first one is the titular black cat cafe murder mystery, where a faceless corpse is found at the black cat cafe and the mystery revolves around uncovering both the identity of the victim and the killer.

The second novella is centered around three feuding families and the murder of two individuals from one of them. The narrative unfolds through a series of letters exchanged between two family members, gradually revealing what truly happened.

Both stories were fairly straightforward with little twists at the end of the stories. The pacing lagged at times, and I found myself losing interest midway through each.

Overall, average reads for me.

3 🌟

This was quite an average read for me. The book consists of two long stories, or perhaps novellas, which are both quite ordinary. There isn't much detective work in either, but more of conversations and long-long unravelling and explanations of the crime which can sometimes feel boring.

DNF. This fell really flat for me. I wasn't engaged and felt bored.

To clarify this is a me issue, just this genre of book is just not for me. I gave it a go :(

i love the Kosuke Kindaichi series and this was one of my most anticipated books of the year so i had high hopes but sadly, it didn’t live up to my expectations! 🙃

this short book has two stories and i’ve nothing much to say! good for one time read!
the first one — The Murder At The Black Cat Café — was a twisted version of “the faceless corpse” and the second one — Why Did The Well Wheel Creak? — was atmospheric and tragic!

thanks to the publisher and the netgalley for the copy!

There are two short stories in this book.

The first one is Murder at the Black Café. It tells the story of a faceless corpse discovered at an inn, where the identity of the murderer remains unclear until the private detective reveals the mystery in the final pages. I really enjoyed the pacing of this story and was hooked from start to finish!

The second story is Why Did the Well Wheel Creek? It centers on the Honiden family, who grew rich through moneylending. Daizaburo has two sons—Daisuke, his official heir, and Goichi, born out of wedlock. They look almost identical but lead very different lives. Goichi has a half-sister, O’Rin, while Daisuke has a younger brother, Shinchi, and sister, Tsuriyo, who narrates part of the story through letters to Shinchi at a sanatorium. When the war starts, both Daisuke and Goichi go off to fight, but things get complicated when Daisuke returns injured. Old tensions resurface, and trouble brews in the village and at home—leading to a death. Detective Kindaichi solves the case, but the truth is already beginning to come to light. This story had a slower pace, and it took me more time to get into it.

Overall, I enjoyed the first story more, but they were both enjoyable.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for a copy of this eARC in exchange for an honest review!