Death on Gokumon Island (Pushkin Vertigo) (Detective Kindaichi Mysteries): Seishi Yokomizo

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It feels like a funhouse reflection of the American hard-boiled genre — not only are Japanese people grappling with the general trauma of war in these stories, but they are also dealing with the horror of losing said war and enduring nuclear disaster. Novels set in this era showed how heavy words can contain and how sometimes, the reason for each crime is right under your nose. You expect a certain amount of clashing cultural mores when you read a book that was written over fifty years before, but when I read Agatha Christie, for instance, it's usually just small stuff you can roll your eyes at and be like, ugh you dumb people in the past, but here (and in most of the books in this series so far) the sexism gets in the way of good storytelling. As Seishi Yokomizo is acknowledged as the King of Golden Age crime fiction in Japan, it’s no surprise that this proved an intricately plotted murder mystery.

Instead, the murders are treated like an interesting puzzle built around a series of unusual actions, and we're asked to empathize with the men who did the killing. Loosely inspired by Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, the fiendish Death on Gokumon Island is perhaps the most highly regarded of all the great Seishi Yokomizo's classic Japanese mysteries.the delicately handled, and odd, romantic strand that would've passed by me unremarked without the translator's quiet nudges.

Gokumonto, or The Prison Gate Isle/The Hell Gate Isle/Inferno Island, is widely considered as Seishi Yokomizo's best work.Reading cult-classic-crime-thrillers always left you with that bitter sense of; these crimes can never be prevented . T]he overall effect was of an island springing from the ocean, its cliffs rising hundreds of feet into the air all around. Because there is a deeply unpleasant truth I must face in reviewing this book: I love a puzzle so much that, when I'm offered it wrapped in enough sweetly seductive mystery, I will just keep reading and ignore my squicked-out "but this is appalling! But Kindaichi has not come merely as a messenger - with his last words, the dying man warned that his three step-sisters' lives would now be in danger. El misterio tal vez no sea tan sorprendente o descabellado (según la opinión que cada uno tenga) como lo que Agatha Christie acostumbraba a escribir, pero el ritmo es rápido y hay una tensión creciente a medida que aumentan los cadaveres.

As the body count rose, I was completely baffled as to why Kindaichi still thought that revealing his mission would endanger the lives of the women he was supposed to protect, since clearly by not telling anyone, he had not saved anyone either.But unbeknownst to his family, the victim warned Kindaichi with his dying breath that his three step-sisters’ lives would now be in grave danger. It allows English-language readers a view into another country’s literary DNA, and inevitably illuminates other translated genre work from the same country. After Chimata, his cousin Hitoshi (also from the ‘main’ family) is to be heir, but he too, is away serving in the war in Burma. It is to Gokumon Island that detective Kindaichi Kosuke, recently demobbed, travels, bearing news of the death of one of his war-time comrades, Chimata-san, who belonged to the most powerful of the island’s families—the Kitos. It was originally published in Japan in 1947/48 and this first English edition was translated from the Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai.

Yes, I heard that last night Hana-chan was found murdered in this place, and the whole village is talking about it. I wonder if this is because their horribleness is fuelled by extreme self-obsession and juvenile and immature personalities. And after two of them are murdered, keeping a close eye on the remaining one instead of letting her fuck around and do whatever she wants while you focus on talking to all the men in the book including "the lunatic" and ignore the primary reason you are there?

Before I get into the review, firstly, many thanks to Netgalley and Pushkin Press for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review. It's September, 1946 and as the novel opens, a ferry is making its way to a few different islands in Japan's Seto Inland Sea. Es curioso también que cuanto más leo sobre Japón, más descubro la importancia de la "brujería" o "chamanismo" femeninos. A testament to the power of the simple murder mystery and its enduring appeal --Spectator --This text refers to the paperback edition. This is the second book in the Kosuke Kindaichi series, though it is the forth to be translated into English.