Review: 'Death on Gokumon Island' by Seishi Yokomizo

Anyone with a passing familiarity with this blog knows that I love thrillers. It's my favourite thing to read when I need to unwind, or when I need to wind myself up, or when it's a day ending in y. But it's also a genre you can get stuck in, as a lot of novels do follow the same routine. This is why it was high time for me to step outside of familiar territory and get to know Japan's classic private eye, Kosuke Kindaichi! Thanks to Pushkin Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pub. Date: 7/5/2022
Publisher: Pushkin Press, Pushkin Vertigo

A fiendish, classic locked room murder mystery, from one of Japan's greatest crime writers

Loosely inspired by Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, the brilliant Gokumon Island is perhaps the most highly regarded of all the great Seishi Yokomizo's classic Japanese mysteries.   Detective Kosuke Kindaichi arrives on the remote Gokumon Island bearing tragic news--the son of one of the island's most important families has died, on a troop transport ship bringing him back home after the Second World War. 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. The scruffy detective is determined to get to the bottom of this mysterious prophesy, and to protect the three women if he can.   As Kindaichi attempts to unravel the island's secrets, a series of gruesome murders begins. He investigates, but soon finds himself in mortal danger from both the unknown killer and the clannish locals, who resent this outsider meddling in their affairs.

In the sea there lies an island, with a ferry slowly moving towards it. Upon this ferry are a few key characters, whose news will stir up the quiet island known as Gokumon. It is a brilliant opening and it tells you a lot about the setting immediately. Islands are great settings because they give you a closed community with a long past, which may not respond well to outsiders. Tensions run deep, agreements go back generations, and secrets are known by everyone and yet kept quiet. What really got to me, however, was the way Yokomizo depicts the ending of World War II. He truly shows it to have a major impact, not just onto the soldiers sent abroad to commit horrible crimes, but also on those who stay behind, on the communities that suffer, on the families that are fractured. While Death on Gokumon Island is a dramatic novel, sure, it nonetheless has its roots in something real and serious.

Gokumon Island is a strange place with a mysterious past. Above all, however, it is isolated from the world and is home to a close-knit community that doesn't like strangers poking in. Enter Kosuke Kindaichi, returning from the Second World War with the tragic news that the heir apparent of the main family of the island has passed. But this is only the beginning, as more death awaits on the horizon. Can Kosuke prevent these deaths? Or is there more going on than even he could imagine? Death on Gokumon Island is one of those locked-room mysteries, in that the limited cast of the novel is all stuck on an island together, a murderer amongst them. Yokomizo makes sure to give the reader plenty of information, from time stamps to maps to clues, to allow them to think along with Kosuke. And yet I could not have seen the solution coming. I really enjoyed Death on Gokumon Island; for all its oddities, it was utterly gripping.

Seishi Yokomizo is a must-read in Japan, in the way that Agatha Christie is in the West. If you like thrillers and suspense, you go to Yokomizo. And I can see why, now. Gokumon Island combines a whole lot of things I love, from a Gothic spooky angle to a sly sense of humour. It must be said that the style of this novel is very different from what readers of Western thrillers may be used to. The main thing I noticed is that we don't get as much introspection. We have an insight into the main character, Kosuke, to a certain extent, but we don't get pages upon pages of his thoughts, worries, concerns, or memories. The author and reader are at a little bit of a distance from it all, which makes it more of a puzzle to solve than a harrowing emotional rollercoaster. This felt like an absolute breath of fresh air to me, in comparison to the last thriller I read. There is definitely a feel of "classic" about Gokumon, as we know it from Agatha Christie. Kosuke is like Poirot in his oddities and attention to detail, but loveable in a different way. There is an enthusiasm to him, but also a sensibility that keeps him truly human. I will definitely be looking into Yokomizo's other Kosuke Kindaichi novels so this shall not be my final foray into Japan.

I give this novel...

3 Universes!

Death on Gokumon Island truly does feel like a classic. While it may take some time to get into the style of these novels, I can wholeheartedly recommend them.