Closed room mystery! I think at one time this type of mystery was a favorite among writers and many have tried their hands at this mystery. I have read a handful of them and was never disappointed. This is the first mystery where Detective Kindaichi is introduced, I definitely had to read this.
The village is abuzz getting ready for the marriage of the son in the Ichiyanagi family. But amidst the activities, there has been an outsider who has been asking questions about the household. On the night after the wedding, the family is aroused by a scream and finds the bride and groom dead. But this happened in a closed building with literally no trace of entry or exit. Just a bloody sword outside in the snow. The bride's uncle being Kindaichi's wellwisher, he sets out to solve the mystery. But will he be able to solve this seemingly impossible crime?
A big shout out to Pushkin Vertigo again, for their efforts in bringing all these beauties. The same goes for their translators as well. Coming to the story, I liked how the story was told in a third-person perspective. It was told from the perspective of a writer who was penning down the happenings in a book as per his correspondence with the people living in the village, The way the story goes on for some time creating the build-up and stating the facts before Kindaichi gets introduced was good. By the time, he jumps into the action; we have a vague idea of the facts happening. Since this was the first book featuring the detective, I guess the author wrote the back story for Kindaichi in such a way that we have an idea as to why the detective takes this case as a personal interest, and at the same time, there is light shone on his past as well. The writing was very good and the read was fast like Kindaichi's quick observations. There were apparent red herrings as in any mystery novel which were smartly placed. As in most Japanese mysteries, the set of characters being listed in the beginning was useful along with the map provided of the crime scene. This made revisiting the scene easier. The book reflects a lot about the social and economic conditions of Japan in the 1930s - both within a family and within a village. The read was very quick and I was able to finish this within a day and a half. Another interesting thing is that since the book was written from the perspective of a writer; there was a short introduction of similar closed-room mysteries where a lot of books were referenced. This was great data for me to add more books to my ever-growing TBR.
In short, a quick mystery read. Indeed the first of the Kindaichi series. Mystery lovers will love this Japanese closed-room mystery.
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