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Astrologer, fortuneteller, and self-styled detective Kiyoshi Mitarai must in one week solve a mystery that has baffled Japan for 40 years. Who murdered the artist Umezawa, raped and killed his daughter, and then chopped up the bodies of six others to create Azoth, the supreme woman? With maps, charts, and other illustrations, this story of magic and illusion, pieced together like a great stage tragedy, challenges the reader to unravel the mystery before the final curtain. The Tokyo Zodiac Murders joins a new wave of Japanese murder mysteries being translated into English.
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0 0It's really hard to rate this novel simply because of where it stands in the grand scheme of Japanese mysteries. Hard, because it has to stand alone as an entertaining novel. Hard, because it has to stand against other locked room mysteries. Hard, because it has to stand as a translated mystery.
As a novel that stands on its own and as a mystery, this was a solid read. It's the type of story where we're alongside the characters as they talk to each other to solve the mystery, and that typically isn't my favorite style of mystery. It leads to tons and tons of info dumping, dropping clues here and there as the story moves forward and my brain doesn't really enjoy that style.
While I was intrigued and super into the mystery itself, the reveal was...lackluster. The book dares you to solve the mystery before its revealed, and there are even two interludes from the author teasing you by saying you have all the clues. LOL as if. The puzzle of the mystery was so weird and gruesome, how the hell is someone supposed to have solved it in that particular way?
Anyway, this was a decent read. I liked it for what it was doing, but felt a little like I had the rug pulled out from underneath me as a reader by the end.
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