Ngày hôm đó, chín người – trong đó có Hamura Yuzuru và Kenzaki Hiruko, hai thành viên thuộc Hội những người yêu thích bí ẩn của trường đại học Shinko – đã đến Chiếc hộp Mắt Ma, một cơ sở nghiên cứu cũ của tổ chức Madarame tọa lạc ở một khu vực hẻo lánh. Chủ nhân của nó, một bà lão được mệnh danh là Nhà Tiên Tri, đã nói với họ rằng: “Trong hai ngày tới, sẽ có bốn người chết tại đây.”
Ngay sau đó, cây cầu duy nhất nối cơ sở này với thế giới bên ngoài bị cháy rụi. Một người thiệt mạng. Lời tiên tri bắt đầu ứng nghiệm, nỗi sợ hãi bao trùm những người đang bị mắc kẹt tại đây. Mọi thứ càng rối ren hơn khi một nữ sinh trung học trong số họ thú nhận rằng cô ấy cũng có khả năng dự đoán tương lai.
Với 48 giờ còn lại trong Chiếc Hộp Mắt Ma, bị chi phối bởi những lời tiên đoán chồng chéo, liệu Hamura và Hiruko có thể sống sót và vén màn bí ẩn hay không?
Premise: after surviving the ordeal from book 1, the pair of university students (or the detectives) discovered new information about the mysterious organization beyond the outbreak in book 1. In order to get to the bottom of the mystery, they traveled to a remote village which was supposedly hosted the testing field of the organization's secret experiments of superhuman abilities. Murder ensures.
This second book by Masahiro Imamura is a lot more 'traditional' than the first book of the series. It's a neatly written murder mystery and things have a good explanation in the end, although there are one or two characters I don't wish to see dying, do winding up dead in the story. =__=
I’m writing this review almost a year late to the point that I probably should have re-read it to write a better review. Though I forget most of the details, I remember how impressed I was with the details in the book, especially one related to animals.
“Four will die in the next two days,” says the psychic, whose precognition is feared by the neighbouring villagers. Too bad our protagonists didn’t run fast enough.
In this satisfying sequel to the award-winning mystery novel Shijinso no Satsujin (屍人莊殺人事件), Masahiro Imamura brings us another closed-cycle mystery with supernatural elements. In Mame no Kushige no Satsujin, the supernatural is psychic precognition.
WHAT’S THIS BOOK ABOUT Long story short, our two protagonists, Hamura and Kenzaki, and nine other characters are trapped in an abandoned supernatural research facility in a remote mountain village with an old psychic’s precognition that predicts four deaths in the next two days. Hamura and Kenzaki must try not to become one of the four deaths while searching for more information on the mysterious organisation responsible for the devastating event in book 1. As the first death occurred, fear, suspicion, and scepticism rose.
Is this the precognition coming true or a hoax? Is this fate or man-made? And most haunting of all, who will be next? Exciting, isn't it?
MY REACTION AFTER FINISHING THE BOOK OH MY GOD… When it all clicks into place at the ending, it clicks! And that’s brilliant and impressive. The story gets more complicated than the first book, which is awesome. I always feel a bit stupid for not noticing all those clues; I bypass them without a second thought. And that’s OK. Let’s not be too harsh on yourself.
It still hurts whenever Akechi senpai is mentioned. Bring back my Akechi senpai!!
DID I GET THE CULPRIT RIGHT? I did suspect that person at one point in the story, but I was in doubt and thought that it would be too obvious, not to mention at that time, I hadn’t figured out the howdunnit part yet, so I ruled them out. I realised that even the tiniest details could help solve the case, for example, a dead rodent. Even a passing mention that seemed insignificant at that time can be crucial. And I love it.
After finishing the book, I wondered when I would ever get it right. Maybe never. And that’s fine. I know I’m no Sherlock, but I know I would make a damn good Watson.
WHY THIS RATING? The complexity and details are fantastic, and I enjoyed the supernatural elements, which make you double-think and question all the possibilities in each death. Is the death a fated death that is predicted by supernatural means? Or is this a man-made death caused by fear because of the supernatural prediction?
CHARACTERS Other than Hamura and Kenzaki, the other nine people included are a teenage girl who can’t stop drawing and her fanboy, a father and son, a biker, a journalist, a woman in red, and the old seer and her care-taker.
At first, I didn’t like the teenage girl; I found her mean attitude towards her enthusiastic fanboy quite annoying. But then, she started to grow on me, but only a tad. She was OK—just a scared little girl who was only trying to find answers.
I don’t have a favourite character for this book besides the protagonist, Hamura Yuzuru. I’m still not sure about Kenzaki being the Holmes to Hamura’s Watson, but that’s only because I still haven’t gotten over the death of Akechi senpai. I’m gonna cry again. He shouldn’t have had to die!! We could have more detective battle scenes, though it would get boring quickly if not written well. But I thought we didn’t have enough of the deduction battle in book one, which was quite a letdown.
WHAT I LIKE One part I like is a tribute to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. It adds a certain amount of creepiness and eeriness to the mystery and gives the characters something to panic about.
TO SUM UP Awesome supernatural mystery. Great observation and deduction. An excellent read for those who like murder mysteries with supernatural in them.
Độ này nhiều cuốn được hyped quá đà xong mình đu theo bị thất vọng ghê. Cuốn này k quá dở, nhưng nhiều lúc mình k theo được mạch suy luận, vì thấy nó cứ khiên cưỡng kiểu gì, giống như giả sử A đúng thì chắc chắn B đúng, giả sử B không làm thì chắc chắn là C làm. Nói chung twist đến tận cuối, cũng bất ngờ, nhưng k cứu được mấy màn suy luận phong cách học sinh sinh viên nửa vời.
In this volume of The Case Files of Young Kindaichi, when Hajime and Miyuki travel to a mysterious village in order to investigate a prophet and a series of murders the killer torches their only escape, an old wooden bridge, and they’re isolated from the rest of the world…
(I can think of many examples of the latter in mystery manga and anime. And, you know what, the burned bridge thing never gets old.)
I wish this author would actually write some Young Kindaichi novelizations. He’d be great at it. Not that his own characters and premises are bad, though. I like the reluctant detective solving crimes not because she loves solving crimes but because she has Jessica Fletcheritis and merely wants to survive; with a non-Scooby Doo helping of the paranormal thrown into the mix. But I friggin’ love Kindaichi and this is very much a mystery after Hajime’s own heart.
THE CASE OF THE SOPHOMORE SLUMP?
I went in guns blazing but I was a little taken aback with this sequel. The last book set up the infamous zombie storyline and that’s completely dropped here. Such a shame. Instead, clairvoyance is the supernatural element. But it’s just not as fun. Maybe I should have re-read Death Among the Undead first but I recall that book foreshadowing if not more zombies then at least learning about the making of said zombies. And that’s not what we have here. There’s some stuff about the shadowy organization behind the zombies, though. I assume each novel will be a classic style locked room murder mystery livened up by INSERT PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (zombies and prophecy, for the first two books) until the final showdown with the Black Organization. I found myself actively missing the zombies long after I realized they were no-shows.
Non sequitur? Sure. The author has this strange style tic: a character will be delivering exposition via dialogue, then the next paragraph the narrator will continue it without missing a beat, and then it will switch back to dialogue in the next paragraph; rinse and repeat. Don’t know what if anything to make of it, really, except it gave me mild whiplash and seems a haphazard way to break up too much exposition.
I’m not gonna gripe about preposterous coincidences because that’s like complaining there’s an egg in your omelette, but some things did stretch credulity more than I’d like. And the revenge and reputation motivation for the whole thing didn’t make sense really. There were also some weird errors. For instance: “Tokino had begun to find her happiness outside Yoshimi, and had finally adopted a new attitude towards her abilities.” But Toiro is the one with abilities. But it can’t be a simple name swap mistake because Tokino is the one who found happiness outside Yoshimi. There were one or two others like that. Woes of translation, I presume. An arduous and often thankless task. (Thanks, Ho-Ling Wong.)
But, overall, this is a solid mystery. A solid mystery with a little something extra (albeit not zombies.) The paranormal elements again turning out to be real (not a spoiler as it’s the whole premise of the series) is fresh and fun, and here’s hoping this too gets a film adaptation. Thank you, LRI. More, please. Is there a third one of these?
Pros: - wonderfully used the premise of prophecies to incite and explain the murders in an interesting, unique and complex way - fun tricks like both murderers swapping victim targets and the impossible footprints into the waterfall problem - lots of strong, clever logic used such as deducing how both hands of the clock were hit at the same time - many layers of deduction beyond just the culprit: how a single culprit didn't have enough time so there had to be another, the identity of the fake Sakimi, the usage of the erica flowers/rats, etc - lots of excitement mixing a cast of stragglers together and is good in a meta sense too, such as the group referencing "And Then There Were None" and actually watching each other as a group
Cons: - some slight stretches of logic for some deductions, and then some have alternate solutions possible - some situations are a smidge contrived, like the group watching each other but then immediately splitting after the first murder, instead of just tightening the watch and making people go to bathroom in pairs/triplets from then on
Overall, it was excellent. A complex and satisfying mystery using its premise well. Hiruko and Hamura further their bond as they learn more about the evil organization that was hinted at in the first novel, and while there were minor nitpicks, this is a great impossible crime mystery well worth the read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.