[DeepL Translation - needs review] Volume 1: [The e-book includes a newly written SS as a bonus] "Me", a former police officer and mystery maniac, longs to be a detective and becomes a private investigator, but gets caught up in a silly mess and ends up dead. This is not the real me. Perhaps it was because he wished so strongly that he was reincarnated as a resident of another world with his memories and took the name Van. He is reborn in a fantasy world of swords and magic, monsters and dun...
Content warnings (potential spoiler CW hidden): murder, cannibalism
I was torn on whether to give this a 3 or a 4. I was bored the first half of the book and the writing style isn't my vibe at all. But I've found I'm not much into light novels in general, and this one at least managed to make a decently interesting mystery and fleshed out characters - so I'm giving it that extra star.
Grammar wise this isn't very challenging. The sentences are pretty plain for the most part. The challenge will be in the scope of vocab - expect a decent stretch there. It's where the majority of my difficulty rating comes from.
I do want to call out that this book wildly changes tone between the first half (setup of the fantasy world and establishing character relationships) and the main-event murder. I was taken aback at how needlessly gruesome the discussion of the murder was, and how insensitive the main character(s) seemed in their investigation. It was quite jarring. Was it very explicit? No. Did it feel like it fit the overall mood of the book? Also no.