Specs
Reviews
(4.59/5)A love letter to the mystery genre
This book is a must read for fans of the mystery genre. It references and pays homage to so many classic books and authors, making it very clear how much respect it holds for them. The book also stands on its own very well, with little details paying off very satisfyingly In the end.
As for language learning, I didn't find it too hard to understand. The descriptions of the buildings structure were confusing at times, and some of the references flew over my head, but it's overall a light read. Also, if you're listening to the audible audiobook, it has one of my favorite vocal performances ever, the narrator managed to convey so many different characters and personalities perfectly, which helps with comprehension
Very entertaining!
An excellent book for anyone who likes unexpected twists!
It even asks you to solve the mystery yourself at one point and it's theoretically doable
I will never forget the term 密室殺人
Also! There is an audiobook! I listened to it when it was 聴き放題 on オーディブック and I absolutely loved it
Made my detective novel loving heart explode
Content disclaimers: references to torture (not explicit)
Basic plot: A traditional whodunnit in reverse. Rather than starting out with a mysterious murder and assembling the clues to find the culprit, we start off knowing the culprit and watch the surrounding characters try to work out how it happened. Or so we start. This story is delightfully full of twists and turns, and even the ones I managed to guess I was overjoyed at how they were revealed.
Vocabulary: Quite a few medical words, words relating to the construction of the title building, and a scattering of legal words give this a breadth of vocab that bumps up my difficulty rating. I also want to call out that several famous mystery authors and book titles are referenced - if you’re not already an avid mystery fan I think some of this will just feel like gibberish. This isn’t so much a ‘language’ difficulty issue as it is a content familiarity issue.
Grammar: The writing is meant to be fast paced and easy to consume, with little heavy prose. That said, if someone is following JLPT grammar guides it’s still probably solidly in N2. Some formal speaking styles. One character talks kind of “police detective-y” and another talks in a way I don’t know how to describe other than I associate it with チャラい types.
I was in absolute detective/murder/mystery nerd heaven reading the finale of this book. I loved it. 10/5 stars. I can't say what particularly I loved so much without spoiling the ending, but let's just say it hit all my favorite notes.
I wavered between 4 and 5 stars, it's on that line, but I think I'm too impressed by how many details this weaves together in all of its tricks to not reach for the 5. The book is an intricately planned mystery, solvable but convoluted enough to make that difficult, which ended with a satisfying mix of things I intuited and things I couldn't begin to guess. Fun read, flows well, almost gives me the same sort of bombastic mystery vibes I get from some videogames/VNs that I love.
The downsides making 4 possible mostly come from a lot of repetition (which, to be fair, can be nice for language learners), some side characters fading into the background, and the huge chunk of mystery references. This book LOVES mystery novels. And for someone who loves them as much this might be cool, but it's less "references" to them and more having characters monologue for a page with lists of author and book titles over and over. Early on I honestly got pretty tired of it, but I'm glad I stuck through that.
It starts a little harder to read than it'll actually be due to a lot of description of the building it takes place in, but once you get started, the vocab is fairly self-contained and you can start smoothly running through with all the words you learned/refreshed in the first quarter. It's pretty generous with the furigana and despite somewhat long sentences, all feels pretty straightforward.
This is a hugely entertaining (meta-)mystery for mystery lovers. Twists and mystery trivia abound. The book is full of all the classic mystery cliches, but in a good way: it's conscious of the fact, and does so very deliberately. Many of the characters are mystery buffs themselves, and keep discussing authors, books, locked room tricks and great detectives, even as they themselves are in the middle of a murder mystery.
I half-guessed two of the major twists, but this didn't diminish my enjoyment in the slightest. The book is good fun. Don't expect great literature, but you can definitely expect to be entertained. This is a classic mystery, and at the same time a love song to classic mysteries.
Language-wise it wasn't difficult. There was some specialized vocabulary and many author names and book titles, but there is also a lot of dialogue, and things tend to get repeated and (over)explained. If I have a minor quibble with the book, it's that there's some needless repetition (not to the point of getting boring or annoying) without which the book could easily have been shorter without removing anything. But even at 500 pages, it still goes by fast.
Such a fun read!
This was a fun one! I read it awhile ago so I can't give a detailed review any longer but it was so fun to read in my book club. Also, the audiobook is super fun. Such a talented voice actor!