A murder is announced
Oct. 15th, 2022 07:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiBook Review: Death on Gokumon Island, by Seishi Yokomizo
This is apparently number 4 in a prolific series begun by The Honjin Murders; although there are references to that book, this is self-contained and it's not necessary to have any prior knowledge. Our hero Kosuke Kindaichi is returning from war in 1946, with bad news for a family on Gokumon Island that one of their sons survived the conflict but died during the return from New Guinea. However, he has a professional motive for visiting the island, as the son's dying words referred to the possibility of murder in the event of his death.
It is not really a spoiler, given that this is a crime novel, to say that a tragedy unfolds. The community is closely-knit but also factional, and the tropes of conflicted loyalties and divided families are present, along with an undercurrent of an already insular society disturbed physically and psychologically by the war and its outcome. Kindaichi is portrayed even more as a drifter - which does make one wonder how he survived in the army - and his reputation is mostly unknown to the island's inhabitants - so the character is much more in the style of Holmes than of Poirot. As with the previous volume, the conclusion is somewhat fantastical, but the writing is entertaining, insightful (though presumably also somewhat imaginative) into the nature of Japanese society of the period, and gives the reader plenty to think about along the way.
This is apparently number 4 in a prolific series begun by The Honjin Murders; although there are references to that book, this is self-contained and it's not necessary to have any prior knowledge. Our hero Kosuke Kindaichi is returning from war in 1946, with bad news for a family on Gokumon Island that one of their sons survived the conflict but died during the return from New Guinea. However, he has a professional motive for visiting the island, as the son's dying words referred to the possibility of murder in the event of his death.
It is not really a spoiler, given that this is a crime novel, to say that a tragedy unfolds. The community is closely-knit but also factional, and the tropes of conflicted loyalties and divided families are present, along with an undercurrent of an already insular society disturbed physically and psychologically by the war and its outcome. Kindaichi is portrayed even more as a drifter - which does make one wonder how he survived in the army - and his reputation is mostly unknown to the island's inhabitants - so the character is much more in the style of Holmes than of Poirot. As with the previous volume, the conclusion is somewhat fantastical, but the writing is entertaining, insightful (though presumably also somewhat imaginative) into the nature of Japanese society of the period, and gives the reader plenty to think about along the way.