Review: 'Murder in the Crooked House' (御手洗潔 #2) by Sōji Shimada, trans. by Louise Heal Kawai

I decided to start 2023 in suspense and in Japan. I had my first experience with Japanese detective/crime fiction last year with Death on Gokumon Island by Seishi Yokomizo which I really enjoyed, so Murder in the Crooked House felt like a perfect continuation. And I was definitely bewildered and in suspense throughout. Thanks to Pushkin Vertigo and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My sincere apologies for the delay in reviewing.

Pub. Date: 6/25/2019
Publisher: Pushkin Press; Pushkin Vertigo

A fiendish LOCKED ROOM MYSTERY from the Japanese master of the genre.

Never before available in English.

By the author of the acclaimed Tokyo Zodiac Murders.

The Crooked House sits on a snowbound cliff overlooking icy seas at the remote northern tip of Japan. A curious place for the millionaire Kozaburo Hamamoto to build a house, but even more curious is the house itself - a disorienting maze of sloping floors and strangely situated staircases, full of bloodcurdling masks and uncanny, lifesize dolls. When a man is found dead in one of the mansion's rooms, murdered in seemingly impossible circumstances, the police are called. But they are unable to solve the puzzle, and powerless to protect the party of house guests as more bizarre deaths follow.

Enter Kiyoshi Mitarai, the renowned sleuth, famous for unmasking the culprit behind the notorious Umezawa family massacre. Surely if anyone can crack these cryptic murders he will. But you have all the clues too - can you solve the mystery of the murders in The Crooked House first?

When I read Death on Gokumon Island I was really intrigued by the difference between the usual thrillers I read from the EU and USA and the ones written in Japan. It is not just a style difference, it is also a completely different tonal experience, if that makes sense. When it comes to "Western" thrillers there is such a focus on the internality of the characters, on how they feel about things, how they discover things, it is a much more emotional reading experience. It's about getting to know these characters, caring about them, and then joining them in the emotional roller coaster of solving a crime. My experience with Japanese thrillers so far shows them to be quite different. Both the ones I've read, including now Murder in the Crooked House, are locked room mysteries and they really present themselves like little puzzle boxes. The finding of clues, the solving of weird, almost impossible, scenarios, and parsing the truth is at the heart of these books. Characterisation is entirely in service of solving the riddle and exposition makes up a lot of the book. While this would feel like info-dumping in Western books, it's actually just part of the set-up here, so it kind of requires you to change your own mindset about what a thriller will give you. I really enjoyed having these different kind of reading experiences within the same genre. They're a perfect example for why I love reading books from different countries and cultures, because they always reveal something new.

It's Christmas Kozaburo Hamamoto has invited some guests to his bizarre island mansion. Called the "Crooked House", it seems to be built at a sloping angle with its own leaning tower. It features staircases that don't pass every floor, gaps in the floor, windows that make you dizzy, and a room full of weird puppets and masks. Kozaburo and his daughter live there, along with three members of staff and a cousin. The guests are two young men, vying for his daughter's hand; his business partner, who brought along his current lover/secretary and his driver; and an employee of the business partner and his wife. It is a tense gathering, as the daughter lords over her company with a tight fist. When the driver turns up dead, with no footprints leading to his room, the door locked, and a Golem-puppet dismantled outside in the snow, it is clear something is afoot. Police officers find themselves confronted by more riddles than answers as the days pass and more deaths follow. It is not until Kiyoshi Mitarai arrives that we begin to get some answers. 

This is my first time reading Shimada, who is most well-known for his Tokyo Zodiac Murders. I loved the almost blunt style of his writing and the way he had no mercy for any of his characters. For example, early on, he says this about one of the detectives: 'For a short while he managed to give off the air of a competent detective.' He also plays with the genre itself, like when, about halfway through the novel one of the detectives states that 'If the killer is one of the people who slept in this house last night, it's starting to get a bit like a murder mystery novel.' Yeah, Shimada has it in for the detectives! But it also makes for a really fun experience because you're not chasing after some kind of supersleuth for most of it. Even when Mitarai comes in to solve the case, he is still dealing with the same confusing situation as the reader. I was also really gratified that my suspicions about who the murderer was proved correct, even if I had no idea about how they could have achieved it. Initially I was a little overwhelmed by all the information that came my way. I think some of this could be solved by reading a physical copy of the book, since none of the maps really came off in the ebook. Had I been able to see those I might have more easily understood the information about the different rooms, staircases, vents, etc. which the detectives discussed. Nonetheless I enjoyed the way so much information was given to the reader and how technically all the clues literally were right there. There was no last minute major twist that revealed the narrator had been lying all along or that something crucial had been kept from you. In that way this novel really was like a fun brain exercise that kept me up way later than it should have. Louise Heal Kawai also does a brilliant job in her translation, making a lot of it accessible for Western readers while maintaining the novel's unique tone.

I give this novel...

4 Universes!

Murder in the Crooked House is the ultimate locked room-mystery, featuring a bizarre house and a cast of characters who seemingly couldn't have committed the murder. Add some bumbling but well-meaning detectives and a room full of weird puppets and you have yourself a great read! I will definitely keep an eye out for more of Shimada's books.