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. =__=
Một cuốn đặc trưng trinh thám cổ điển. Bối cảnh được tác giả xây dựng khá tỉ mỉ với một ngôi nhà cô lập trên vùng đất hẻo lánh. Điểm nhìn theo chân nhân vật chính là Hamura- phó clb những người đam mê những điều bí ẩn. Trưởng clb là Haruko, một cô bé thông minh và vô cùng nhạy bén. Phần đầu câu chuyện rất lôi cuốn khi hai nhân vật chính lần theo bí ẩn của lời tiên tri qua 1 tờ tạp chí. Ngay trên đường đi họ đã gặp những điều kỳ lạ cùng Toiro và cậu bạn của cô. 9 vị khách lần lượt tập hợp ở chiếc hộp mắt ma, nơi 1 lời tiên tri k ngờ đến đang chờ họ. Lời tiên tri dần ứng nghiệm khi một nạn nhân bất ngờ qua đời. Cuốn các nhân vật vào những âu lo riêng. Truyện xây dựng tâm lý nhân vật khá ổn, mỗi nhân vật dều rõ tính cách riêng. Nhưng điểm nhìn nhân vật chính là học sinh nên những suy luận, quan sát vẫn còn non nớt, chưa gây được ấn tượng với mình. Tác giả lý giải được các bí ẩn của truyện, tuy nhiên vẫn có điểm gượng ép và hơi dài dòng. Phần twist mình đã đoán trước được nhưng vẫn là điểm nhấn giúp truyệ thêm hấp dẫn. Điêm mình thích oqr q này là không bị quá nặng yếu tố tâm linh, tác giả xây dựng được mối liên hệ giữa các nhân vật. 3.5 ⭐️
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.
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.
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?