76. The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo

I only learned recently that Japan has a rich and plentiful tradition of the murder mystery genre.  This is probably a simplification but my understanding is that there are three broad periods/styles in the Japanese detective fiction genre.  Honkaku is the orthodox style, which I guess is the more classical mystery and follows certain conventions.  Later came the Shakai ha or the social school which is more grounded in realism and takes into account the social and political context.  More recently there has been a turn back to a neo-orthodox style called Shin Honkaku ha but more self-conscious with a real emphasis on complex mysteries that the reader could theoretically solve.  There is a ton of great books in there!

I am not sure where the Honjin Murders is located.  It's definitely orthodox in the sense that it is a classic locked-room mystery and supposedly the reader has all the elements to solve it themselves. However, it also does an excellent job of setting the place and social context:  1937 rural Japan and in particular the compound of a noble Honjin family.  Honjin were the family who managed the roadside inns for the nobility and thus were themselves conferred a high social status.  In this case with the restoration of the Emporer the Ichiyanagi family no longer ran a honjin, but they were still an upper class family in the region.

The writing is very self-conscious and involves the reader.  The narrator speaks to us, giving us context and setting the stage, acting sort of like a puzzle master who is teasing us to figure out the murder.  It feels slightly too straightforward, but this may be a product of translation where the cultural elements do not quite come across to my western mind.  In any case, it is not a flaw, just a question of style.  The way that the locations and the details of all the elements involved in the murder are presented are extremely clear.  I could visualize almost all of it, especially the layout of the compound. There also is a map of the place where the murder took place.  I am really bad at staying focused on all those details, so I have to say that this book excels at description.

It also does a really good job of explaining the social relations of the region as well some Japanese traditions and how the are changing.  There is quite a dark coda at the end where we see how the war impacts everybody beyond the murder itself.  

The Honjin Murders is a real detective mystery nerd book.  He drops the names of several authors and specific books that influenced the murder and actual detective books feature into the plot itself.  I already have a few of the John Dickson Carr books on my hunting list.  I may now have to add an A.A. Milne book!  I myself am not too motivated to try and solve these mysteries myself but I really enjoy following along with the detecting process.  My one beef is that it is only at the end that significant details of certain characters' personalities are revealed and these would have had a major influence on how I thought about the crime.  So though he lays out all the physical clues that smarter people than I may have figured out the how of the murder, he actually hides the social clues so you really could not have guessed the why.

There is a detective here, the youthful and sloppy Kosuke Kindaichi, who I guess would become quite famous in Japan.  Yokomizo wrote 77 books! Here is a great piece that better explains the mystery scene in Japan and Yokomizo's role in it.  This was a lot of fun.  I recommend.