[DeepL Translation - needs review] Suspect is a ...... grudge!
The "Type 2 Unsolved Cases Section" exists on the fourth basement floor of the main office of the National Police Agency.
It is also known as the "Cursed Section.
Keizo Tadakura, a veteran detective who was suddenly assigned to the department, reluctantly accepts the investigation, but when a ghost storyteller, the boyfriend of his beloved daughter, shows up--?
This is the birth of the "Mystery x Ghost Story" novel of all time!
T...
I'd say my enjoyment of this book was actually closer to three stars, but for the genre it's in (goofy, guessable mysteries with supernatural elements) I think it was well done so I bumped it to four.
There is a running gag throughout the book about how much the MC cop dislikes his daughter's boyfriend, who is deferential, kind, brings him nice sake, etc...but earns his living as a 怪談師 which is totally unacceptable to this no-nonsense veteran cop.
The mysteries were all guessable, and intentionally so. The author lays out clues for you which are quite easy to spot without being painfully obvious and by the time you reach each case's 'reveal' you have a pretty good idea where it's going. These types of stories can be a bit annoying for me, but this author managed to avoid making everything too obvious too quickly with most of the cases so I was still able to enjoy the mystery without thinking 'get on with it already' like I sometimes do with guessable types.
Language wise this book stretches a lot in vocabulary. Ghostly vocab, crime vocab, idiom usage - it's the primary driver behind me rating it as hard as I did compared to other books. That said, the grammar and overall writing style is quite easy to follow I think, with a good deal of repetition in 'types' of scenes since the plot structure it follows is rather formulaic.
I think if you like goofy 'dad hates the boyfriend' type drama and/or mysteries meant to be solved by the reader without too much effort you may enjoy this book.