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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.