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御手洗潔 #1
The Tokyo Zodiac Murders
A bestselling and internationally-acclaimed masterpiece of the locked-room mystery genre
Japan, 1936. An old eccentric artist living with seven women has been found dead- in a room locked from the inside. His diaries reveal alchemy, astrology and a complicated plan to kill all seven women. Shortly afterwards, the plan is carried out: the women are found dismembered and buried across rural Japan.
By 1979, these Tokyo Zodiac Murders have been obsessing a nation for decades, but not one of them has been solved. A mystery-obsessed illustrator and a talented astrologer set off around the country - and you follow, carrying the enigma of the Zodiac murderer through madness, missed leads and magic tricks. You have all the clues, but can you solve the mystery before they do?
Born in 1948 in Hiroshima prefecture, Soji Shimada has been dubbed the 'God of Mystery' by international audiences. A novelist, essayist and short-story writer, he made his literary debut in 1981 with The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, which was shortlisted for the Edogawa Rampo Prize. Blending classical detective fiction with grisly violence and elements of the occult, he has gone on to publish several highly acclaimed series of mystery fiction, including the casebooks of Kiyoshi Mitarai and Takeshi Yoshiki.
In 2009 Shimada received the prestigious Japan Mystery Literature Award in recognition of his life's work.
321 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 1, 1981
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About the author
Sōji Shimada
180 books292 followersJapan language profile here 島田 荘司
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,945 reviews
February 17, 2021
Cluedunit
The Tokyo Zodiac Murders is a unique and intriguing murder mystery set in the same vein as a Sherlock Holmes mystery. The master coaching the assistant through the clues while never totally revealing his decisive analysis until the end. The genre belongs to the Japanese ‘honkaku’ subgenre which focuses on plotting and clues. As a whodunit puzzle, it is a very well structured plot, with a locked room scenario questioning how a killer committed a murder and then escaped from a room locked on the inside. Then additional murders were attributed to the victim even though he was dead at the time of those deaths. We're never quite sure what the motive really was or the number of killers and Shimada does a great job keeping this hidden while not affecting the story. There are multiple clues and multiple red-herrings in the detail, but sifting through is a real puzzle and challenge for the reader.
A 'Last Will and Testament' is found with the dead body of an artist, Heikichi Umezawa, in Tokyo 1936. He claims in the Will to be possessed by the devil and dreams of the perfect woman.
Heikichi has 1 daughter to his first wife, 3 stepdaughters and 1 daughter to his second wife, plus 2 nieces. The devil is apparently telling him to sacrifice 6 of these young women, the eldest stepdaughter is too old, to create Azoth from the separate parts. The plan introduces alchemy, astrology and geography, defined in great detail, especially at the start of the book. The most baffling aspect of the case is that the plan is implemented perfectly but after Heikichi’s death.
For over 40 years this has remained one of Japan’s most infamous, studied and elusive cases, which has been investigated by numerous professional detectives and amateur sleuths. No-one has solved the riddle of – who, how, why?
In similar Sherlock Holmes style, 43 years later, Kiyoshi Mitarai and Kazumi Ishioka (Holmes and Watson) embark on solving the case. Kiyoshi has his idiosyncrasies and deeply meditative episodes, while Kazumi is the industrious partner who is smart enough to follow leads and have sound opinions but is missing the crucial connections and insights that Sherlock, sorry Kiyoshi has.
The facts of the case are delivered as a dialogue between Kiyoshi and Kazumi which enables detail and anticipated questions to be aired and discussed with the reader drawn into the conversation. The plot will certainly appeal to an analytical mind. At 74% into the book, the author directly reaches out to the reader and challenges them to solve the mystery and identify the killer. Stating that he has now provided all the clues necessary. From this point on the solution will be revealed.
The structure of the novel was a new and refreshing one for me. I highly recommend this book, especially for the puzzle solvers. Enjoy the puzzle, it is a very unique and interesting plot.
The Tokyo Zodiac Murders is a unique and intriguing murder mystery set in the same vein as a Sherlock Holmes mystery. The master coaching the assistant through the clues while never totally revealing his decisive analysis until the end. The genre belongs to the Japanese ‘honkaku’ subgenre which focuses on plotting and clues. As a whodunit puzzle, it is a very well structured plot, with a locked room scenario questioning how a killer committed a murder and then escaped from a room locked on the inside. Then additional murders were attributed to the victim even though he was dead at the time of those deaths. We're never quite sure what the motive really was or the number of killers and Shimada does a great job keeping this hidden while not affecting the story. There are multiple clues and multiple red-herrings in the detail, but sifting through is a real puzzle and challenge for the reader.
A 'Last Will and Testament' is found with the dead body of an artist, Heikichi Umezawa, in Tokyo 1936. He claims in the Will to be possessed by the devil and dreams of the perfect woman.
Following the terminology of alchemy, I shall call her Azoth, which means “From A to Z” – the ultimate creation, the universal life force. She fulfil my dreams completely.To create his perfect woman, he requires 6 different body parts: the head, the chest, the abdomen, the hips, the thighs and the lower legs, each must come from a different woman.
Heikichi has 1 daughter to his first wife, 3 stepdaughters and 1 daughter to his second wife, plus 2 nieces. The devil is apparently telling him to sacrifice 6 of these young women, the eldest stepdaughter is too old, to create Azoth from the separate parts. The plan introduces alchemy, astrology and geography, defined in great detail, especially at the start of the book. The most baffling aspect of the case is that the plan is implemented perfectly but after Heikichi’s death.
For over 40 years this has remained one of Japan’s most infamous, studied and elusive cases, which has been investigated by numerous professional detectives and amateur sleuths. No-one has solved the riddle of – who, how, why?
In similar Sherlock Holmes style, 43 years later, Kiyoshi Mitarai and Kazumi Ishioka (Holmes and Watson) embark on solving the case. Kiyoshi has his idiosyncrasies and deeply meditative episodes, while Kazumi is the industrious partner who is smart enough to follow leads and have sound opinions but is missing the crucial connections and insights that Sherlock, sorry Kiyoshi has.
The facts of the case are delivered as a dialogue between Kiyoshi and Kazumi which enables detail and anticipated questions to be aired and discussed with the reader drawn into the conversation. The plot will certainly appeal to an analytical mind. At 74% into the book, the author directly reaches out to the reader and challenges them to solve the mystery and identify the killer. Stating that he has now provided all the clues necessary. From this point on the solution will be revealed.
The structure of the novel was a new and refreshing one for me. I highly recommend this book, especially for the puzzle solvers. Enjoy the puzzle, it is a very unique and interesting plot.
November 23, 2019
”My name’s Kazumi Ishioka. I’m a huge fan of mysteries; in fact, they’re almost an addiction. If a week goes by without reading a mystery, I suffer withdrawal symptoms. Then I wander around like I’m sleepwalking and wake up in a bookshop, looking for a mystery novel. I’ve read just about every mystery story ever written….
But of all the mysteries I’ve read, The Tokyo Zodiac Murders was, without a doubt, the most intriguing.”
Kazumi is not only obsessed with mystery novels, but he is also obsessed with his brilliant friend Kiyoshi Mitarai, who is not overly ambitious but does get motivated when there is a puzzle to be worked out. When Kazumi challenges him to solve the 40 year old mystery of the Tokyo Zodiac Murders, he is intrigued enough to devote his little gray cells to the task of solving it.
Kiyoshi Mitarai’s name means clean toilet, which is humbling for even the most arrogant of men. I think I’d flip a few letters around or change my name completely, but then it would probably be fine if his friend Kazumi didn’t point it out to everyone they meet. Kazumi is his Watson, and as this investigation into the Tokyo Zodiac Murders continues, he, like Watson at many points in the Holmes stories, begins to believe that he can find his own clues and make his own break in the case. Which is simply adorable. What he forgets is, even when Kiyoshi doesn’t seem to be doing anything, he is still pondering the case. ”I had often complained about Kiyoshi’s oddity, but I never doubted his talent, his intelligence, his knowledge and his powers of intuition. Those were the good things about him. But they lingered just on the other side of catastrophe.”
This is a locked-room mystery, which harkens back to the golden age of British detective novels. The writer in these types of books has to release information to the reader in such a way to inspire conjecture, but not enough information to let the reader solve the case too quickly. Certainly, Soji Shimada accomplishes this. He even pops into the novel at one point to say that the reader has all of the information required to solve the case, which is a bit of a nana nana boo boo moment for this reader. I am quite content to be spoon fed the solution at this point because my head is spinning, but for some of you brilliant deductionists out there, I’m sure you would have the murders solved and the killer in mental handcuffs already.
An artist, Heikichi Umezawa, is murdered in his studio with no discernible way for the murderer to have left the room. There are a few clues that only seem to make the crime more baffling. He is a painter of the astrology and working on a series of paintings of the zodiac upon his death. What is fascinating is the discovery of his journal detailing his plans to create the perfect woman from the chopped up pieces of his female family members. He has notes saying which woman has the best thighs, the best breasts, the best torso, and so on. He wants to create the most beautiful of Frankenstein’s monsters. This is certainly disturbing, but what is more disturbing is that, after his death, seven of the women are killed and dismembered.
What? Wait? But he’s dead. What madness is this!
The case isn’t any easier because it is forty years old. Witnesses have died or moved away. The investigation is beyond cold. It is Arctic. Little did the original investigators know, but all the “pieces” were there for them to solve the case forty years ago. Fortunately, Japan’s version of Sherlock Holmes, who is not addicted to cocaine or as showy with his deductions, is on the case. Speaking of Holmes, there is this funny bit in the book where Kiyoshi is critical of Holmes, and Kazumi takes exception. We do find ourselves defending our fictional friends from time to time, don’t we?
If you like books to tease your brain, then warm up some sake and stir up some miso soup. You will need to be properly fortified to ponder away as Shimada unspools the clues.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
But of all the mysteries I’ve read, The Tokyo Zodiac Murders was, without a doubt, the most intriguing.”
Kazumi is not only obsessed with mystery novels, but he is also obsessed with his brilliant friend Kiyoshi Mitarai, who is not overly ambitious but does get motivated when there is a puzzle to be worked out. When Kazumi challenges him to solve the 40 year old mystery of the Tokyo Zodiac Murders, he is intrigued enough to devote his little gray cells to the task of solving it.
Kiyoshi Mitarai’s name means clean toilet, which is humbling for even the most arrogant of men. I think I’d flip a few letters around or change my name completely, but then it would probably be fine if his friend Kazumi didn’t point it out to everyone they meet. Kazumi is his Watson, and as this investigation into the Tokyo Zodiac Murders continues, he, like Watson at many points in the Holmes stories, begins to believe that he can find his own clues and make his own break in the case. Which is simply adorable. What he forgets is, even when Kiyoshi doesn’t seem to be doing anything, he is still pondering the case. ”I had often complained about Kiyoshi’s oddity, but I never doubted his talent, his intelligence, his knowledge and his powers of intuition. Those were the good things about him. But they lingered just on the other side of catastrophe.”
This is a locked-room mystery, which harkens back to the golden age of British detective novels. The writer in these types of books has to release information to the reader in such a way to inspire conjecture, but not enough information to let the reader solve the case too quickly. Certainly, Soji Shimada accomplishes this. He even pops into the novel at one point to say that the reader has all of the information required to solve the case, which is a bit of a nana nana boo boo moment for this reader. I am quite content to be spoon fed the solution at this point because my head is spinning, but for some of you brilliant deductionists out there, I’m sure you would have the murders solved and the killer in mental handcuffs already.
An artist, Heikichi Umezawa, is murdered in his studio with no discernible way for the murderer to have left the room. There are a few clues that only seem to make the crime more baffling. He is a painter of the astrology and working on a series of paintings of the zodiac upon his death. What is fascinating is the discovery of his journal detailing his plans to create the perfect woman from the chopped up pieces of his female family members. He has notes saying which woman has the best thighs, the best breasts, the best torso, and so on. He wants to create the most beautiful of Frankenstein’s monsters. This is certainly disturbing, but what is more disturbing is that, after his death, seven of the women are killed and dismembered.
What? Wait? But he’s dead. What madness is this!
The case isn’t any easier because it is forty years old. Witnesses have died or moved away. The investigation is beyond cold. It is Arctic. Little did the original investigators know, but all the “pieces” were there for them to solve the case forty years ago. Fortunately, Japan’s version of Sherlock Holmes, who is not addicted to cocaine or as showy with his deductions, is on the case. Speaking of Holmes, there is this funny bit in the book where Kiyoshi is critical of Holmes, and Kazumi takes exception. We do find ourselves defending our fictional friends from time to time, don’t we?
If you like books to tease your brain, then warm up some sake and stir up some miso soup. You will need to be properly fortified to ponder away as Shimada unspools the clues.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
June 3, 2020
Another marvelous book I would never have known about but for Goodreads friends. I suppose if I hadn't been private my first six years Mt. TBR would now consist of 9,382 books and if I lived long enough I'd be much better for it as this is another one I just loved. Other than every Agatha I am not much for mysteries, the violent ones, the ones with stalkers, the ones written on a sixth-grade level don't interest me. And in the few I do read I have never before guessed the murderer, I'm not logical that way.
The bar here is high. I worked one thing out very late that's not very impressive and thought this must be impossible to figure out but just read a few Amazon reviews where people did. "The Tokyo Zodiac Murders," published in Japan in 1981, is part of the genre known as 'the Japanese locked-room mystery' and Soji Shimada is a master of it. For me it was utterly absorbing and a totally different flavor than I've read before. Right-brains may want to pit yourselves against Shimada's sleuths and left-brains like me can enjoy the ride, the clever plotting and great writing.
It opens with a letter titled "Last Will and Testament" in which a man, a visual artist, a painter who was murdered in his locked country home explains how using alchemy and astrology, choice body parts and lots of sawing, he will act on his obsession to create from six virgins "...the perfect woman...Following the terminology of alchemy I shall call her Azoth, which means 'from A to Z' -the ultimate creation, the universal life force. She fulfills my dreams completely." She'll be buried at the precise center of Japan using latitude, longitude and astrology and once buried will restore the glory of the Japanese empire. The other body parts will be buried according to the girls' astrological signs scattered across the country. And then he explains he will use his own virgin daughters and nieces, all in their twenties, chop up their bodies based on astrology and what he finds the most attractive bits of each for Azoth: the prettiest head, the best chest as determined by the breasts, abdomen, hips, thighs and legs. "I am mesmerized by her beauty," he writes, "her psychic power, her vigour. I know I would be incapable of painting her on a canvas. Would I be able to bear seeing her with my own eyes? My desire is slowly killing me..I would gladly give up my wretched life if this perfect woman were to become a reality."
From there Shimada moves to Act One. The novel from here is set up like a play, with intermissions and even asides. Here we learn this came to pass in 1936. All of the girls are dead and he was killed in the locked country home he secured for the purpose of creating Azoth. The extraneous body parts have been found precisely where he said they'd be, but Azoth has yet to be located. He's been labeled 'The Tokyo Zodiac Killer' and police and legions of amateur detectives have tried for forty-three years to find Azoth and solve the mystery of his death. A book was written, theories created, land dug up over the years but the case has remained unsolved.
We are introduced to Shimada's sleuths. The novel's narrator tells us he's obsessed with mysteries and that "part of the bigger picture at the time was that the failure to solve the murder seemed to symbolize the darkness surrounding pre-war Japan." The mystery has eaten at him since he was young and he hopes and believes the one who can solve it is Kiyoshi Mitarai, a professional fortune-teller and astrology teacher whom the narrator met taking his astrology class a year ago. Kiyoshi is extremely intelligent, intellectually curious and at times inscrutable. There's a Thing going on here with Sherlock and Watson. Kiyoshi professes disdain for Sherlock and does a terrific take-down of Holmes at one point I found both on point and hilarious. But as the book goes on Sherlock will come up again and this reader was delighted to realize Shimada has laid in something meta here in this game that's afoot.
From the opening manifesto to the end this book is fascinating. There are Things I don't like, I'm not good at: math, astrology, latitude, longitude, details like the depth of each girl's burial. But it's laid out bit by bit and with charts to refer to in such a way that even I could follow along. I was rapt. "The Tokyo Zodiac Murders" held my attention so much that once I didn't even hear the phone ring inches from me. Shimada is a great writer, I can't imagine how much better it would be reading the original Japanese but no doubt it is. Kiyoshi Mitarai is a terrific creation. Like a certain other far more famous detective he seeks and processes clues and makes deductions methodically, though he's no Sherlock clone. Each new piece he works out brings him enthusiasm, even exuberance. He shares them with his friend the narrator in his own time, usually only saying he's discovered something, leaving narrator and reader panting for more. They travel, he tracks people, others insert themselves, the smallest details matter. As the painter has created Azoth, Shimada's book uses lovely bits from other genres. But it always stays in the locked-room zone.
Reading it was a very pleasurable experience and I look forward to devouring the other Shimada that's been translated into English and which also features Kiyoshi, "Murder in the Crooked House." Because I've had difficulty reading during Pandemic I'm very tempted to read it next but given that there are only two Shimadas translated into English to date and that there's possibly going to be a second wave of covid-19, I'm going to try and save "Murder in the Crooked House" to savor in case of future locked-in history.
The bar here is high. I worked one thing out very late that's not very impressive and thought this must be impossible to figure out but just read a few Amazon reviews where people did. "The Tokyo Zodiac Murders," published in Japan in 1981, is part of the genre known as 'the Japanese locked-room mystery' and Soji Shimada is a master of it. For me it was utterly absorbing and a totally different flavor than I've read before. Right-brains may want to pit yourselves against Shimada's sleuths and left-brains like me can enjoy the ride, the clever plotting and great writing.
It opens with a letter titled "Last Will and Testament" in which a man, a visual artist, a painter who was murdered in his locked country home explains how using alchemy and astrology, choice body parts and lots of sawing, he will act on his obsession to create from six virgins "...the perfect woman...Following the terminology of alchemy I shall call her Azoth, which means 'from A to Z' -the ultimate creation, the universal life force. She fulfills my dreams completely." She'll be buried at the precise center of Japan using latitude, longitude and astrology and once buried will restore the glory of the Japanese empire. The other body parts will be buried according to the girls' astrological signs scattered across the country. And then he explains he will use his own virgin daughters and nieces, all in their twenties, chop up their bodies based on astrology and what he finds the most attractive bits of each for Azoth: the prettiest head, the best chest as determined by the breasts, abdomen, hips, thighs and legs. "I am mesmerized by her beauty," he writes, "her psychic power, her vigour. I know I would be incapable of painting her on a canvas. Would I be able to bear seeing her with my own eyes? My desire is slowly killing me..I would gladly give up my wretched life if this perfect woman were to become a reality."
From there Shimada moves to Act One. The novel from here is set up like a play, with intermissions and even asides. Here we learn this came to pass in 1936. All of the girls are dead and he was killed in the locked country home he secured for the purpose of creating Azoth. The extraneous body parts have been found precisely where he said they'd be, but Azoth has yet to be located. He's been labeled 'The Tokyo Zodiac Killer' and police and legions of amateur detectives have tried for forty-three years to find Azoth and solve the mystery of his death. A book was written, theories created, land dug up over the years but the case has remained unsolved.
We are introduced to Shimada's sleuths. The novel's narrator tells us he's obsessed with mysteries and that "part of the bigger picture at the time was that the failure to solve the murder seemed to symbolize the darkness surrounding pre-war Japan." The mystery has eaten at him since he was young and he hopes and believes the one who can solve it is Kiyoshi Mitarai, a professional fortune-teller and astrology teacher whom the narrator met taking his astrology class a year ago. Kiyoshi is extremely intelligent, intellectually curious and at times inscrutable. There's a Thing going on here with Sherlock and Watson. Kiyoshi professes disdain for Sherlock and does a terrific take-down of Holmes at one point I found both on point and hilarious. But as the book goes on Sherlock will come up again and this reader was delighted to realize Shimada has laid in something meta here in this game that's afoot.
From the opening manifesto to the end this book is fascinating. There are Things I don't like, I'm not good at: math, astrology, latitude, longitude, details like the depth of each girl's burial. But it's laid out bit by bit and with charts to refer to in such a way that even I could follow along. I was rapt. "The Tokyo Zodiac Murders" held my attention so much that once I didn't even hear the phone ring inches from me. Shimada is a great writer, I can't imagine how much better it would be reading the original Japanese but no doubt it is. Kiyoshi Mitarai is a terrific creation. Like a certain other far more famous detective he seeks and processes clues and makes deductions methodically, though he's no Sherlock clone. Each new piece he works out brings him enthusiasm, even exuberance. He shares them with his friend the narrator in his own time, usually only saying he's discovered something, leaving narrator and reader panting for more. They travel, he tracks people, others insert themselves, the smallest details matter. As the painter has created Azoth, Shimada's book uses lovely bits from other genres. But it always stays in the locked-room zone.
Reading it was a very pleasurable experience and I look forward to devouring the other Shimada that's been translated into English and which also features Kiyoshi, "Murder in the Crooked House." Because I've had difficulty reading during Pandemic I'm very tempted to read it next but given that there are only two Shimadas translated into English to date and that there's possibly going to be a second wave of covid-19, I'm going to try and save "Murder in the Crooked House" to savor in case of future locked-in history.
November 24, 2018
The Tokyo Zodiac Murders by Soji Shimada was born under the Sun Sign Aries in 1981; its original name is Senseijutsu Satsujinjiken, which can be roughly translated as "Zodiac Murder Magic". Those born Aries are Cardinal signs whose element is Fire; they are ruled by Mars. The color of Aries is RED.
Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, and its Cardinal quality further signals a beginning, the start of something innovative and new. And such is Tokyo Zodiac Murders, or at least it was in 1981: something new. The first novel by its author and the first novel to reignite an interest in Golden Age-style "locked room mysteries" that had fallen out of fashion with the Japanese public and Japanese writers of murder mysteries. Its nature is that of a puzzle - logical, complicated yet precise - and one that can be figured out by its readers. It is tricky but does not cheat; it can indeed be figured out. Although it was not figured out by this reader!
Fire is an element with strong masculine energy, and it easily neglects the feminine principles within. At first, this appears to be the case with Tokyo Zodiac Murders, which details the murder and dismemberment of seven women, all related, all apparently murdered according to their nefarious father's demented plan. A masculine plan that obliterates living women in order to create a puppet doll out of their various parts; a doll that will become his personal goddess. But is this truly the case? As the reader reads on, they may learn that the element Fire is perhaps not as influential as one might think - at least with this particular Arian!
Mars rules both Aries and Scorpio; it has charge over our first scream and our last breath. Mars is symbolic of our unconscious animalistic nature, one we often don’t give freedom to. Restrictions in our (primarily sexual) expression of energy will lead to inhibitions of all sorts and accumulation of anger and frustration below our surface, beyond the face we show to the world. Perhaps the killer within Tokyo Zodiac Murders should have sought to create more balance when engaging with its Mars nature!
This reader was born under the Sun Sign Virgo. Alas, there is little compatibility between these signs. Although the often obsessive-compulsive Virgoan nature had some respect for the carefully ordered and intricately pieced-together parts of this puzzle, in the end, it was simply that: a complex little puzzle. Lacking humanity and focused more on its puzzle pieces than on human psychology, it therefore also lacked a human anchor to capture and then hold this Virgo's interest. It was obviously and rather strenuously quite pleased with itself, which is an unseemly display to the modest Virgo. It lacked the grounding in reality that an Earth Sign such as Virgo requires as a base before climbing to more imaginative heights or burrowing to the more morbid lower depths. Although the lack of affect gave the first chapter a certain appeal - it is the creepily cheerful father's final note, detailing his horrific plan - eventually the novel's overall shallowness made this Virgo quite bored. Aries is rarely a boring sign, but clearly there are exceptions to that rule.
Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, and its Cardinal quality further signals a beginning, the start of something innovative and new. And such is Tokyo Zodiac Murders, or at least it was in 1981: something new. The first novel by its author and the first novel to reignite an interest in Golden Age-style "locked room mysteries" that had fallen out of fashion with the Japanese public and Japanese writers of murder mysteries. Its nature is that of a puzzle - logical, complicated yet precise - and one that can be figured out by its readers. It is tricky but does not cheat; it can indeed be figured out. Although it was not figured out by this reader!
Fire is an element with strong masculine energy, and it easily neglects the feminine principles within. At first, this appears to be the case with Tokyo Zodiac Murders, which details the murder and dismemberment of seven women, all related, all apparently murdered according to their nefarious father's demented plan. A masculine plan that obliterates living women in order to create a puppet doll out of their various parts; a doll that will become his personal goddess. But is this truly the case? As the reader reads on, they may learn that the element Fire is perhaps not as influential as one might think - at least with this particular Arian!
Mars rules both Aries and Scorpio; it has charge over our first scream and our last breath. Mars is symbolic of our unconscious animalistic nature, one we often don’t give freedom to. Restrictions in our (primarily sexual) expression of energy will lead to inhibitions of all sorts and accumulation of anger and frustration below our surface, beyond the face we show to the world. Perhaps the killer within Tokyo Zodiac Murders should have sought to create more balance when engaging with its Mars nature!
This reader was born under the Sun Sign Virgo. Alas, there is little compatibility between these signs. Although the often obsessive-compulsive Virgoan nature had some respect for the carefully ordered and intricately pieced-together parts of this puzzle, in the end, it was simply that: a complex little puzzle. Lacking humanity and focused more on its puzzle pieces than on human psychology, it therefore also lacked a human anchor to capture and then hold this Virgo's interest. It was obviously and rather strenuously quite pleased with itself, which is an unseemly display to the modest Virgo. It lacked the grounding in reality that an Earth Sign such as Virgo requires as a base before climbing to more imaginative heights or burrowing to the more morbid lower depths. Although the lack of affect gave the first chapter a certain appeal - it is the creepily cheerful father's final note, detailing his horrific plan - eventually the novel's overall shallowness made this Virgo quite bored. Aries is rarely a boring sign, but clearly there are exceptions to that rule.
January 22, 2024
What an enjoyable journey this fictional story of some unsolved Tokyo murders from the mid-1930s this book has been. Just what I needed to get back to my reading.
Back in 1936 the Umezawa girls are killed. Their killing seems to be linked to alchemy, astrology, and the creation of a new superior being. A diary left behind seems to indicate the killer was the father, an eccentric artist, but due to the fact he got killed before the actual killing of the girls, investigations are carried out without reaching a consensus and which leads to the murders being considered as a cold case.
Years later (1979) the case is brought to Kiyoshi Mitarai's attention, an astrologer and detective who seems to have developed quite a decent reputation to solve the unsolvable. Will he be able to achieve such task considering no one has been able to in the past? As usual, the only way to find out is by getting immersed in this world and taking a trip down memory lane to the 30s and then back to the late 70s.
I really loved Kiyoshi's witty mind filled with a bit of sarcasm and which made me kept going and making it hard for me to put the book down.
If mysteries are your thing, you'll really enjoy this book. Have a happy reading!
Back in 1936 the Umezawa girls are killed. Their killing seems to be linked to alchemy, astrology, and the creation of a new superior being. A diary left behind seems to indicate the killer was the father, an eccentric artist, but due to the fact he got killed before the actual killing of the girls, investigations are carried out without reaching a consensus and which leads to the murders being considered as a cold case.
Years later (1979) the case is brought to Kiyoshi Mitarai's attention, an astrologer and detective who seems to have developed quite a decent reputation to solve the unsolvable. Will he be able to achieve such task considering no one has been able to in the past? As usual, the only way to find out is by getting immersed in this world and taking a trip down memory lane to the 30s and then back to the late 70s.
I really loved Kiyoshi's witty mind filled with a bit of sarcasm and which made me kept going and making it hard for me to put the book down.
If mysteries are your thing, you'll really enjoy this book. Have a happy reading!
August 2, 2024
Sōji Shimada’s honkaku masterpiece, “The Tokyo Zodiac Murders,” is a mesmerizing blend of cerebral intrigue and macabre fascination.
Set in 1936 during the Shōwa period in pre-World War II Japan, Heikichi Umezawa, the eccentric artist, stands at the center of this twisted tale. His confession drips with madness: he plans to kill his six daughters and nieces to assemble their bodies into the perfect woman, Azoth. Astrological alignments guide his blade, and alchemical metals mark their resting places. But before Umezawa can carry out his macabre plan, he is found murdered in his locked private studio, skull shattered—a classic locked-room mystery. And then, Kazue Kanemoto, the daughter he meant to spare, meets a similar fate—violated, her head crushed.
As the days unfold, Umezawa’s horrifying vision materializes. His six daughters and nieces, dismembered, their lives stolen to create Azoth. The question echoes: Who committed these atrocities, and why?
—Excerpt from The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, Sōji Shimada
Shimada challenges readers to think critically, question assumptions, and appreciate the beauty of deduction. Every clue necessary for unraveling the web of intrigue is meticulously included in the text, along with dramatis personae, maps, charts, and illustrations—no unfair advantages, no hidden tricks. As you turn each page, you're both observer and participant, piecing together the puzzle with a sense of urgency.
What makes “The Tokyo Zodiac Murders” stand out is not just its intricate plot but also its masterstroke of misdirection. The story's originality lies in its ability to weave an elaborate tale that keeps readers on the edge of their seats. Just when certainty blooms, doubt creeps in. Shadows shift, and we question our assumptions. Even though I happened to solve the mystery early on—largely due to having encountered “inspired” plots in other thrillers (Kindaichi Case Files vol 2 - The Ijinkan Village Murder Case and 少年包青天 / Young Justice Bao)—the novel's relentless pacing and palpable tension ensured that I remained captivated throughout the 252 pages.
For those who relish intellectual challenges and the satisfaction of piecing together a complex puzzle, "The Tokyo Zodiac Murders" is an unmissable triumph—a literary gauntlet flung down, daring us to solve the case before the final revelation, and it is a dare well worth accepting.
Set in 1936 during the Shōwa period in pre-World War II Japan, Heikichi Umezawa, the eccentric artist, stands at the center of this twisted tale. His confession drips with madness: he plans to kill his six daughters and nieces to assemble their bodies into the perfect woman, Azoth. Astrological alignments guide his blade, and alchemical metals mark their resting places. But before Umezawa can carry out his macabre plan, he is found murdered in his locked private studio, skull shattered—a classic locked-room mystery. And then, Kazue Kanemoto, the daughter he meant to spare, meets a similar fate—violated, her head crushed.
As the days unfold, Umezawa’s horrifying vision materializes. His six daughters and nieces, dismembered, their lives stolen to create Azoth. The question echoes: Who committed these atrocities, and why?
"My greatest fear is that I might already have told you too much about the case! But I dared to do that both for the sake of fairness of the game, and, of course, to provide you with a little help.
Let me throw down the gauntlet: I challenge you to solve the mystery before the final chapters!"
—Excerpt from The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, Sōji Shimada
Shimada challenges readers to think critically, question assumptions, and appreciate the beauty of deduction. Every clue necessary for unraveling the web of intrigue is meticulously included in the text, along with dramatis personae, maps, charts, and illustrations—no unfair advantages, no hidden tricks. As you turn each page, you're both observer and participant, piecing together the puzzle with a sense of urgency.
What makes “The Tokyo Zodiac Murders” stand out is not just its intricate plot but also its masterstroke of misdirection. The story's originality lies in its ability to weave an elaborate tale that keeps readers on the edge of their seats. Just when certainty blooms, doubt creeps in. Shadows shift, and we question our assumptions. Even though I happened to solve the mystery early on—largely due to having encountered “inspired” plots in other thrillers (Kindaichi Case Files vol 2 - The Ijinkan Village Murder Case and 少年包青天 / Young Justice Bao)—the novel's relentless pacing and palpable tension ensured that I remained captivated throughout the 252 pages.
For those who relish intellectual challenges and the satisfaction of piecing together a complex puzzle, "The Tokyo Zodiac Murders" is an unmissable triumph—a literary gauntlet flung down, daring us to solve the case before the final revelation, and it is a dare well worth accepting.
Read
January 23, 2023Extremely weird Japanese murder mystery, and when I say extremely weird it's massively weirder than that.
Premise is a horrific set of murders in the 1930s, in which an artist is victim of a locked room murder, leaving behind a manifesto of gibbering insanity in which he expresses his intention to murder his six daughters, cut them up, and use bits of their bodies to assemble a perfect female mannequin for reasons of astrology. The daughters are all duly murdered *after* his death and found with the bits missing; the mannequin is never found. Some three decades later the murders remain unsolved and an 'astrological detective' looks into the case.
Weeeeird. But not hugely involving. It's in the tradition of 'give masses of incredibly detailed information about everything and let the reader sift through to find the clues', which leans more towards puzzle than novel per se. This is more apparent because the translation suffers from the very common problem of translation from Japanese, where the translators insist on sticking to the closest word equivalents rather than the meaning/sense. eg people constantly saying 'is that so?' to one another as a translation of so desu ka instead of a more English-sounding filler noise (really, right, okay), very literal translations of politenesses etc. Anthea Bell's Asterix translations have been described as 'the spirit caught, the words flying free', which is exactly how this isn't.
So: that's clunky. The book itself is slow moving because of the masses of detail (don't talk to me about the endless screed of astrology bullshit at the start). And the solution is--well, I did not see it coming in the slightest and it's the most impressively insane thing I have seen in a while, worth the price of admission for the sheer what-the-fuck-did-I-read, but shatteringly implausible in terms of motive and general possibility even given the premise of the book. Which is a shame because it's brilliantly clever in concept.
so yeah. Weird.
Premise is a horrific set of murders in the 1930s, in which an artist is victim of a locked room murder, leaving behind a manifesto of gibbering insanity in which he expresses his intention to murder his six daughters, cut them up, and use bits of their bodies to assemble a perfect female mannequin for reasons of astrology. The daughters are all duly murdered *after* his death and found with the bits missing; the mannequin is never found. Some three decades later the murders remain unsolved and an 'astrological detective' looks into the case.
Weeeeird. But not hugely involving. It's in the tradition of 'give masses of incredibly detailed information about everything and let the reader sift through to find the clues', which leans more towards puzzle than novel per se. This is more apparent because the translation suffers from the very common problem of translation from Japanese, where the translators insist on sticking to the closest word equivalents rather than the meaning/sense. eg people constantly saying 'is that so?' to one another as a translation of so desu ka instead of a more English-sounding filler noise (really, right, okay), very literal translations of politenesses etc. Anthea Bell's Asterix translations have been described as 'the spirit caught, the words flying free', which is exactly how this isn't.
So: that's clunky. The book itself is slow moving because of the masses of detail (don't talk to me about the endless screed of astrology bullshit at the start). And the solution is--well, I did not see it coming in the slightest and it's the most impressively insane thing I have seen in a while, worth the price of admission for the sheer what-the-fuck-did-I-read, but shatteringly implausible in terms of motive and general possibility even given the premise of the book. Which is a shame because it's brilliantly clever in concept.
so yeah. Weird.
September 1, 2015
Pre-war Japan. A deranged artist called Heikichi Umezawa claims to be possessed by the Devil. He plans one final masterwork: the creation of Azoth, the supreme woman. How to make her? Chop up the bodies of his six daughters, selecting their most perfect parts, and stitching the pieces together into a whole.
But before he can begin, he’s brutally murdered. A few days later the six daughters are also killed and their bodies chopped up, per Umezawa’s plan. Who killed Umezawa? Who killed the six girls? And if Azoth, the supreme woman, was created where is she? 40 years pass and astrologer detective Kiyoshi Mitarai is joined by our narrator Ishioka to solve the mystery in a week - who was behind the Tokyo Zodiac Murders?
Soji Shimada’s detective novel is pretty good for the first half, pretty bad for the second. While I enjoyed the first half, it’s a bit artlessly written - the Holmesian Mitarai and the Watson-esque Ishioka are literally sat in a room telling the reader through their discourse the details of the crime. But it’s morbidly interesting stuff and the locked room mystery aspect to it is tantalising.
Things get a bit bogged down in the second half as Shimada tries to bring it all together. Mitarai and Ishioka separate while the reader is stuck with Ishioka as he follows numerous red herrings, waiting for Mitarai to reappear and tell us whodunit. And when he does, he irritatingly milks the attention for all its worth in the final quarter, stopping and starting to gloat. Shimada doesn’t help by literally intruding the narrative (twice!) to encourage the reader to try and figure it out themselves.
That’s because Tokyo Zodiac is part of the honkaku (“authentic”) genre of detective fiction where the clues are laid out in the text which supposedly gives the reader all they need to solve the case themselves. Diagrams, maps, etc. pepper the book. Except given the utterly convoluted explanation, I’m not sure that’s entirely true of this novel. I didn’t spend any time thinking about it and just went with the story! And then it turns out to be an unsatisfying reveal anyway.
I didn’t hate the novel because the first half effortlessly held my attention but it’s not a great detective story for the weak conclusion. Still, The Tokyo Zodiac Murders isn’t a bad creepy mystery story that some crime fans might enjoy. I’d recommend it with the caveat to lower expectations going in to maybe get more out of it.
But before he can begin, he’s brutally murdered. A few days later the six daughters are also killed and their bodies chopped up, per Umezawa’s plan. Who killed Umezawa? Who killed the six girls? And if Azoth, the supreme woman, was created where is she? 40 years pass and astrologer detective Kiyoshi Mitarai is joined by our narrator Ishioka to solve the mystery in a week - who was behind the Tokyo Zodiac Murders?
Soji Shimada’s detective novel is pretty good for the first half, pretty bad for the second. While I enjoyed the first half, it’s a bit artlessly written - the Holmesian Mitarai and the Watson-esque Ishioka are literally sat in a room telling the reader through their discourse the details of the crime. But it’s morbidly interesting stuff and the locked room mystery aspect to it is tantalising.
Things get a bit bogged down in the second half as Shimada tries to bring it all together. Mitarai and Ishioka separate while the reader is stuck with Ishioka as he follows numerous red herrings, waiting for Mitarai to reappear and tell us whodunit. And when he does, he irritatingly milks the attention for all its worth in the final quarter, stopping and starting to gloat. Shimada doesn’t help by literally intruding the narrative (twice!) to encourage the reader to try and figure it out themselves.
That’s because Tokyo Zodiac is part of the honkaku (“authentic”) genre of detective fiction where the clues are laid out in the text which supposedly gives the reader all they need to solve the case themselves. Diagrams, maps, etc. pepper the book. Except given the utterly convoluted explanation, I’m not sure that’s entirely true of this novel. I didn’t spend any time thinking about it and just went with the story! And then it turns out to be an unsatisfying reveal anyway.
I didn’t hate the novel because the first half effortlessly held my attention but it’s not a great detective story for the weak conclusion. Still, The Tokyo Zodiac Murders isn’t a bad creepy mystery story that some crime fans might enjoy. I’d recommend it with the caveat to lower expectations going in to maybe get more out of it.
July 23, 2025
The author Soji Shimada, has been known to readers as The King Of Dismemberment in the realm of Japanese crime/detective novels, it is his first long detective novel and it is damn impressive (the story has its flaws, but I'm still impressed).
(1) I like the mentions about the different suspects and how they got on with their lives after the shocking murder cases.
I look forward to re-read this book some day.
(1) I like the mentions about the different suspects and how they got on with their lives after the shocking murder cases.
I look forward to re-read this book some day.
May 26, 2022
I thought this might have been the sort of novel to breathe new life into the crime-mystery genre.
Clever and original with a surprising twist ending, they say.
A 'locked-room mystery' (There was something really enticing about that).
The Japanese Sherlock Holmes.
Sounded great. What could possibly go wrong?
Er...quite a lot, actually.
It's not that it's too clever for its own good, it's just not...well...really that clever to begin with.
Never mind Sherlock Holmes, the old porn star John Holmes would have made a more interesting detective than Kiyoshi Mitarai.
As for the ending. I was looking foward to jumping up and down in a fit of hysteria going "Wow! I can't quite believe it! Now I didn't see that coming!"
If only.
I'm not saying everything about the novel was wholly predictable, but at the end all I did was yawn in desparate need of a cup of coffee. Never has a murder mystery been so dull.
Not terrible, just disappointing.
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's classic short story In a Grove, which is now 100 years old, tramples all over this when it comes to writing a clever murder mystery.
May 29, 2018
Quoted from ‘The Tokyo Zodiac Murders’:
“FOREWORD
To the best of my knowledge, the case of the serial murders which took place in Japan in 1936 - popularly known as ““The Tokyo Zodiac Murders”” - is one of the most peculiar and most elusive mysteries in the history of crime....
....Readers may like to attempt to unravel the puzzle themselves, just as we - my good friend Kiyoshi Mitarai and I - set out to do on that fateful day in the spring of 1979.
I can assure you that I have included all the necessary clues - the same clues we had to work with.
Kazumi Ishioka”
Kiyoshi Mitarai is the Sherlock Holmes of this Japanese novel and Kazumi Ishioka is his Watson. Mitarai is an astrologer, and Ishioka is a freelance illustrator. They both had studied art in college. (An amusing - !?!?- fact is Kiyoshi Mitarai means ‘clean toilet’ in Chinese, a revelation which the author tosses in on page 118. I think this is a hint why Kiyoshi, naturally brilliant, is also an original thinker. He appears to have had a bad relationship with his father who named him - clearly an impetus for many iconoclasts, including me.) Kiyoshi is moody, upbeat one day, depressed the next. He is coming out of a prolonged depression, and Kazumi decides he is going to cheer his buddy up.
Kazumi wants to solve the Tokyo Zodiac murders, which really are three linked murder cases. These murders are famous in Japan (in the plot), and many books and magazine stories have been printed for decades guessing what could have happened.
The first incident was the murder of patriarch Heikichi Umezawa on February 26, 1936, found in a room mysteriously locked from the inside. The second was of Heikichi's stepdaughter, Kazue Kanemoto, found a week later in her own home. The six cut-up bodies which became known as the Azoth murders were discovered during the next year at various locations. All six dead women were daughters, step-daughters and nieces of Heikichi. The name Azoth came from an insane letter found next to Heikichi's body, which detailed a mad scheme of his to create a goddess from the flesh of the six women, cutting off those parts he believed their best bits to form the goddess Azoth. The letter was dated five days before his death.
How did Heikichi kill his relatives after he died? Was his death faked? If he really was murdered, how was the murder done in a room locked from the inside? Who killed the women and Heikichi, if Heikichi wasn't the murderer? Why? In author Soji Shimada's story within a story, within a story, readers are challenged to solve the murder mystery before Kiyoshi tells all. We readers learn every fact and clue of the cases along with the amateur sleuths. Just before the chapter Kiyoshi tells how and why it all happened, the author stops the tale with a letter to readers on page 231:
"Gentle Reader,
Unusual as it may be for the author to intrude into the proceedings like this, there is something I should like to say at this point.
All of the information required to solve the mystery is now in your hands, and, in fact, the crucial hint has been provided already. I wonder if you noticed it? My greatest fear is that I might already have told you too much about the case! But I dared to do that both for the sake of fairness of the game, and,of course, to provide you with a little help.
Let me throw down the gauntlet: I challenge you to solve the mystery before the final chapters!
And I wish you luck.
Yours sincerely,
Soji Shimada"
This novel is of a type of mystery which was really popular off and on in past decades:
The Who Done It, or as Americans popularized it, the Whodunit:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whodunit
which was often combined with The Locked Room Mystery:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locke...
One of the books in the occasional waves of public interest in these novels I first caught were the Philo Vance mysteries. Searching through a bin of used books in my local Salvation Army store, I picked up The Benson Murder Case. I was a teenager, and these novels were old-fashioned to me. Nonetheless, I thought they were interesting enough for an occasional read.
I had always thought these 'locked door' mystery conventions were either of British or American invention, but it seems the Chinese and even the ancient Greeks (Oedipus Rex) may have first written stories which could be earlier mysteries of this style with some of these elements:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detec...
Gentle reader, when I was very young, American families used to sit around the single TV set console in the living room and watch TV shows together. Sociologists called us “nuclear families”, which, considering the arguments and physical grappling between tots and siblings, with the resulting parental grappling of the kids separating them saying “If you kids can’t watch TV without fighting then all of you will go to your rooms without any TV NOW!” was more apt of a description than the sociologists meant.
Once families stopped going nuclear and settled into the more peaceful quiet of ‘being’ a nuclear family in the manner sociologists actually meant, i.e., the basic community of mom, dad and children sitting peaceably together enjoying each other's company, most Americans would watch TV in one room at night after dinner. TV networks and producers, knowing this, often hoped to attract such viewers by TV shows considered 'family entertainment'. (These type of shows are very rare today, imho.)
Thankfully, since my family was more into going nuclear than being nuclear, I had my own apartment and TV set in 1975. One of the family entertainment TV shows which enchanted me was ‘The Ellery Queen Mysteries.’ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eller.... The viewer was given the opportunity and a minute to solve the episode's mystery during the show! Jim Hutton in the character of Ellery Queen would turn to the audience after about 45 minutes of the hour-long show, breaking the fourth wall, and ask us did we figure it out? Every fact and clue of the murder had been aired during the preceding minutes. I admit I had a slight crush on Jim Hutton, so in not paying attention to the mystery closely, I never solved these TV mysteries (that is my excuse).
Anyway.
'The Tokyo Zodiac Murders' is a homage to this old classic form of mystery novel, especially popular in the 1920's. Every convention common to these novels is included in this book - locked-door murder, astrological signs strongly hinting at a paranormal element, psuedo- and real scientific methodology, a zillion possible suspects, detailed drawings of the murder scenes, and a genius amateur sleuth who figures it all out. The Asian version of the early 1920's detective story has more violence and gore, but nonetheless, they are obviously as satisfying to read as the more sedate polite English versions of this mystery format I have read.
“FOREWORD
To the best of my knowledge, the case of the serial murders which took place in Japan in 1936 - popularly known as ““The Tokyo Zodiac Murders”” - is one of the most peculiar and most elusive mysteries in the history of crime....
....Readers may like to attempt to unravel the puzzle themselves, just as we - my good friend Kiyoshi Mitarai and I - set out to do on that fateful day in the spring of 1979.
I can assure you that I have included all the necessary clues - the same clues we had to work with.
Kazumi Ishioka”
Kiyoshi Mitarai is the Sherlock Holmes of this Japanese novel and Kazumi Ishioka is his Watson. Mitarai is an astrologer, and Ishioka is a freelance illustrator. They both had studied art in college. (An amusing - !?!?- fact is Kiyoshi Mitarai means ‘clean toilet’ in Chinese, a revelation which the author tosses in on page 118. I think this is a hint why Kiyoshi, naturally brilliant, is also an original thinker. He appears to have had a bad relationship with his father who named him - clearly an impetus for many iconoclasts, including me.) Kiyoshi is moody, upbeat one day, depressed the next. He is coming out of a prolonged depression, and Kazumi decides he is going to cheer his buddy up.
Kazumi wants to solve the Tokyo Zodiac murders, which really are three linked murder cases. These murders are famous in Japan (in the plot), and many books and magazine stories have been printed for decades guessing what could have happened.
The first incident was the murder of patriarch Heikichi Umezawa on February 26, 1936, found in a room mysteriously locked from the inside. The second was of Heikichi's stepdaughter, Kazue Kanemoto, found a week later in her own home. The six cut-up bodies which became known as the Azoth murders were discovered during the next year at various locations. All six dead women were daughters, step-daughters and nieces of Heikichi. The name Azoth came from an insane letter found next to Heikichi's body, which detailed a mad scheme of his to create a goddess from the flesh of the six women, cutting off those parts he believed their best bits to form the goddess Azoth. The letter was dated five days before his death.
How did Heikichi kill his relatives after he died? Was his death faked? If he really was murdered, how was the murder done in a room locked from the inside? Who killed the women and Heikichi, if Heikichi wasn't the murderer? Why? In author Soji Shimada's story within a story, within a story, readers are challenged to solve the murder mystery before Kiyoshi tells all. We readers learn every fact and clue of the cases along with the amateur sleuths. Just before the chapter Kiyoshi tells how and why it all happened, the author stops the tale with a letter to readers on page 231:
"Gentle Reader,
Unusual as it may be for the author to intrude into the proceedings like this, there is something I should like to say at this point.
All of the information required to solve the mystery is now in your hands, and, in fact, the crucial hint has been provided already. I wonder if you noticed it? My greatest fear is that I might already have told you too much about the case! But I dared to do that both for the sake of fairness of the game, and,of course, to provide you with a little help.
Let me throw down the gauntlet: I challenge you to solve the mystery before the final chapters!
And I wish you luck.
Yours sincerely,
Soji Shimada"
This novel is of a type of mystery which was really popular off and on in past decades:
The Who Done It, or as Americans popularized it, the Whodunit:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whodunit
which was often combined with The Locked Room Mystery:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locke...
One of the books in the occasional waves of public interest in these novels I first caught were the Philo Vance mysteries. Searching through a bin of used books in my local Salvation Army store, I picked up The Benson Murder Case. I was a teenager, and these novels were old-fashioned to me. Nonetheless, I thought they were interesting enough for an occasional read.
I had always thought these 'locked door' mystery conventions were either of British or American invention, but it seems the Chinese and even the ancient Greeks (Oedipus Rex) may have first written stories which could be earlier mysteries of this style with some of these elements:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detec...
Gentle reader, when I was very young, American families used to sit around the single TV set console in the living room and watch TV shows together. Sociologists called us “nuclear families”, which, considering the arguments and physical grappling between tots and siblings, with the resulting parental grappling of the kids separating them saying “If you kids can’t watch TV without fighting then all of you will go to your rooms without any TV NOW!” was more apt of a description than the sociologists meant.
Once families stopped going nuclear and settled into the more peaceful quiet of ‘being’ a nuclear family in the manner sociologists actually meant, i.e., the basic community of mom, dad and children sitting peaceably together enjoying each other's company, most Americans would watch TV in one room at night after dinner. TV networks and producers, knowing this, often hoped to attract such viewers by TV shows considered 'family entertainment'. (These type of shows are very rare today, imho.)
Thankfully, since my family was more into going nuclear than being nuclear, I had my own apartment and TV set in 1975. One of the family entertainment TV shows which enchanted me was ‘The Ellery Queen Mysteries.’ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eller.... The viewer was given the opportunity and a minute to solve the episode's mystery during the show! Jim Hutton in the character of Ellery Queen would turn to the audience after about 45 minutes of the hour-long show, breaking the fourth wall, and ask us did we figure it out? Every fact and clue of the murder had been aired during the preceding minutes. I admit I had a slight crush on Jim Hutton, so in not paying attention to the mystery closely, I never solved these TV mysteries (that is my excuse).
Anyway.
'The Tokyo Zodiac Murders' is a homage to this old classic form of mystery novel, especially popular in the 1920's. Every convention common to these novels is included in this book - locked-door murder, astrological signs strongly hinting at a paranormal element, psuedo- and real scientific methodology, a zillion possible suspects, detailed drawings of the murder scenes, and a genius amateur sleuth who figures it all out. The Asian version of the early 1920's detective story has more violence and gore, but nonetheless, they are obviously as satisfying to read as the more sedate polite English versions of this mystery format I have read.
August 6, 2015
This novel is being released under the new ‘Pushkin Vertigo’ imprint – which aims to re-release international crime classics written in the years between the 1920’s and 1970’s. “The Tokyo Zodiac Murders,” is the first of over two dozen novels featuring Kiyoshi Mitarai and is written in the popular Japanese Honkaku subgenre of mysteries; very much focused on plotting and clues and where the reader is drawn into participating in solving the crime before the detective.
In some ways, this book reminded me of mysteries I have read from the 1920’s, such as “The Cask,” by Freeman Wills Croft, where you are almost walked through the crime, clue by clue. As such,, “The Tokyo Zodiac Murders,” appeared a little dry at first, but I was soon thoroughly immersed in the novel and really fascinated by the plot and the characters.
The title of the books comes from a series of murders which took place in 1936 and remained unsolved when the narrator of the book, Kazumi Ishioka, tells his friend, Kiyoshi Mitarai, about them. The murders involve an artist, named Heikichi Umezawa, who believed that he was possessed by the devil and who dreamt of creating the perfect woman – ‘Azoth’ – by killing six young women (his daughters and nieces) and combining their body parts. However, Umezawa is murdered in his studio and the murders took place after his death…
This is a classic, locked door mystery and involves Ishioka and Mitarai discussing the murders in 1979, before setting out to solve them. As I mentioned before, the first part of the book involves Ishioka relating what happened in some detail and can come across as a little dry. However, this book does become very engaging. There are delightful digressions into other subjects, such as the novels of Sherlock Holmes, and dashes across the country to follow up clues; as well as exhortations from the author himself to try to beat the fictional detectives and solve the crime.
This is a charming read and the Pushkin Vertigo series looks very promising indeed. I look forward to reading more – both from Pushkin Vertigo and from this author, Soji Shimada. Lastly, I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.
In some ways, this book reminded me of mysteries I have read from the 1920’s, such as “The Cask,” by Freeman Wills Croft, where you are almost walked through the crime, clue by clue. As such,, “The Tokyo Zodiac Murders,” appeared a little dry at first, but I was soon thoroughly immersed in the novel and really fascinated by the plot and the characters.
The title of the books comes from a series of murders which took place in 1936 and remained unsolved when the narrator of the book, Kazumi Ishioka, tells his friend, Kiyoshi Mitarai, about them. The murders involve an artist, named Heikichi Umezawa, who believed that he was possessed by the devil and who dreamt of creating the perfect woman – ‘Azoth’ – by killing six young women (his daughters and nieces) and combining their body parts. However, Umezawa is murdered in his studio and the murders took place after his death…
This is a classic, locked door mystery and involves Ishioka and Mitarai discussing the murders in 1979, before setting out to solve them. As I mentioned before, the first part of the book involves Ishioka relating what happened in some detail and can come across as a little dry. However, this book does become very engaging. There are delightful digressions into other subjects, such as the novels of Sherlock Holmes, and dashes across the country to follow up clues; as well as exhortations from the author himself to try to beat the fictional detectives and solve the crime.
This is a charming read and the Pushkin Vertigo series looks very promising indeed. I look forward to reading more – both from Pushkin Vertigo and from this author, Soji Shimada. Lastly, I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.
April 27, 2009
Oh my! This is probably the best mystery novel I've read all year -- it is the kind of book that I hope to find every time I pick up a new mystery. I do have to admit to a fondness for Japanese authors, especially mystery writers, and this particular book is an example of why. I have to find other works by this author in translation if they exist. I could NOT put this book down at all once I started.
The story begins some time back in the 1930s, and its focal point is a bizarre case known as the Tokyo Zodiac Murders. In the last will & testament of an artist under the influences of astrology and alchemy, he sets forth his plan to create the perfect woman...by killing off female relatives, including his daughters, to combine the best parts of all of them in his creation. The murders occurred, but this happened after the artist was found dead, in his studio, locked from the outside. The clues left little to go on, and solving the horrifying case became an obsession for many over the last decades. One detective, who is also a fortune teller, decides to take it on and solve it where others have failed. With the help of his friend, a fan of detective fiction, he tries to do what so many have attempted and failed over the a 40-year period of time.
An amazing book, one that will totally occupy you as you read. There are a number of possibilities that present themselves as the two friends delve into the past. The characterization is very well done, the writing is excellent, and the mystery itself (not to mention the solution) is nothing like I've ever read before. Hooray for a mystery I could really sink my teeth into.
I think this one will really appeal to people like myself who enjoy the different take on mysteries provided by Japanese mystery authors, and those who enjoy the classic locked-room scenario. It isn't a mystery for cozy readers or readers who want an easy solution -- this requires the reader's participation the entire way. Also, if alchemy and astrology aren't your thing, then you may want to skip it.
An excellent mystery -- I enjoy finding these little gems now and then. Most highly recommended.
The story begins some time back in the 1930s, and its focal point is a bizarre case known as the Tokyo Zodiac Murders. In the last will & testament of an artist under the influences of astrology and alchemy, he sets forth his plan to create the perfect woman...by killing off female relatives, including his daughters, to combine the best parts of all of them in his creation. The murders occurred, but this happened after the artist was found dead, in his studio, locked from the outside. The clues left little to go on, and solving the horrifying case became an obsession for many over the last decades. One detective, who is also a fortune teller, decides to take it on and solve it where others have failed. With the help of his friend, a fan of detective fiction, he tries to do what so many have attempted and failed over the a 40-year period of time.
An amazing book, one that will totally occupy you as you read. There are a number of possibilities that present themselves as the two friends delve into the past. The characterization is very well done, the writing is excellent, and the mystery itself (not to mention the solution) is nothing like I've ever read before. Hooray for a mystery I could really sink my teeth into.
I think this one will really appeal to people like myself who enjoy the different take on mysteries provided by Japanese mystery authors, and those who enjoy the classic locked-room scenario. It isn't a mystery for cozy readers or readers who want an easy solution -- this requires the reader's participation the entire way. Also, if alchemy and astrology aren't your thing, then you may want to skip it.
An excellent mystery -- I enjoy finding these little gems now and then. Most highly recommended.
August 15, 2015
Practically unreadable - the first part is a sick piece of murderous misogyny, the rest - a too-long conversation between two people trying to solve a closed-room murder mystery 40 years after the fact, by meticulously dismantling inch after inch of the technical details of the murder. This you cannot possibly follow unless you have a phenomenal memory and an unlikely level of tolerance for boredom. Sorry, quitting now, before it's too late and I drown in an ocean of mind-numbing technicalities.
March 14, 2023
Jesus, just if i don't think TOO fucking MUCH, i might guess it earlier.
The TWIST OH MY G.O.D
So hear me out!
When you read this book please don't think too much, keep it simple and easy. For me this book is more HOW she/he done it? Not WHO done it?.
When you see the bodies picture, plz see it closely and give it a minute before u turn into another page. And while you seeing it don't think too much. Use your math a bit. But still keep it simple don't get yourself work out too much. Don't eagerly trying to find the killer.
Put your mind in ease so your mind and your judgement is not clouded by a shit that thrown to you.
FYI: Silly me, when i first saw the tittle i really thought it has a connection to Zodiac Killer (which is a real event that happend in the real life) so at first like oh my god is a real story, but then i learned is full fiction guys.
I have a funny story over this book, so when i bought this book i got some spoiler that told me there's the killer name at the of the book. So i kinda half belive half not, so i opened the last page. BUT, i gave it to my mom and i asked is there any name in there and my mom said "Yes", but before i told her do not read the name she read that already. And i was like "GOD JESUS LORD MUMMY!".but it's fine. So yeah i hated that but that's fine (I'm NOT FINE!😔).
I LOVE U MUM, i do belive me.
🐥
The TWIST OH MY G.O.D
So hear me out!
When you read this book please don't think too much, keep it simple and easy. For me this book is more HOW she/he done it? Not WHO done it?.
When you see the bodies picture, plz see it closely and give it a minute before u turn into another page. And while you seeing it don't think too much. Use your math a bit. But still keep it simple don't get yourself work out too much. Don't eagerly trying to find the killer.
Put your mind in ease so your mind and your judgement is not clouded by a shit that thrown to you.
FYI: Silly me, when i first saw the tittle i really thought it has a connection to Zodiac Killer (which is a real event that happend in the real life) so at first like oh my god is a real story, but then i learned is full fiction guys.
I have a funny story over this book, so when i bought this book i got some spoiler that told me there's the killer name at the of the book. So i kinda half belive half not, so i opened the last page. BUT, i gave it to my mom and i asked is there any name in there and my mom said "Yes", but before i told her do not read the name she read that already. And i was like "GOD JESUS LORD MUMMY!".but it's fine. So yeah i hated that but that's fine (I'm NOT FINE!😔).
I LOVE U MUM, i do belive me.
🐥
January 23, 2019
Bellissimo libro che consiglio a chi piacciono gli omicidi a camera chiusa. E io sono una di quelle persone. Mi viene in mente Meitantei Conan. Tuttavia chi lo leggerà deve tenere conto che lo stile narrativo di un thriller giapponese è differente da quello che conosciamo e a cui siamo abituati. Molta gente potrebbe rimanere delusa ma non io. Adoro questo stile diverso. Non avremo il classico stile assassino/poliziotto o detective alternato che raccontano ma avremo una persona che racconta la storia. La revisione del caso, dopo 40 anni, da parte sua e del suo amico astrologo Kiyoshi Mitarai. Ponendosi le domande di come sia potuto avvenire questo o quello il lettore ne viene coinvolto o almeno io lo sono stata.
Apprezzo che il traduttore abbia usato il macron nei nomi.
Apprezzo che il traduttore abbia usato il macron nei nomi.
October 2, 2021
What's the best way of getting out of a reading slump? I say go for your guilty pleasure reads or genres, and for me, that happens to be mystery/thriller/suspense/horror. I picked up "The Tokyo Zodiac Murders" when I was in a slump, and this book kept me hooked and helped me break my slump!
"The Tokyo Zodiac Murders" is a peculiar mix of astrology and alchemy used in an elaborate plan to murder seven women. The book starts with the death of an old eccentric artist, Heikichi Umezawa, confined to his studio, locked from the inside. In his room, police find his nefarious scheme, and soon after, they find the women dismembered and buried across Japan.
Even after 40 years, the case remains an enigma eluding even the best of detectives. It seems to have hit a dead end until the duo takes it up; Kazumi Ishioka, illustrator and amateur detective, and Kiyoshi Mitarai- an astrologer, fortune-teller, and a self-styled detective. Together, they travel across Japan, gathering clues and interviewing suspects to decode the puzzle that baffled people for decades.
This is a unique and unsettling mystery blending the ordinary with the unusual similar to a magician pulling a trick. Because the magician is familiar with the technique, the deceit comes effortlessly while the audience, us readers, struggle to grasp the threads and are left clueless.
After 3/4th of the book, the author addresses the readers, telling us that we have all the clues necessary and challenges us to solve this case. I'm sorry to admit that I failed the author but that only proves his brilliance in constructing a mind-boggling thriller. After the case was explained, I took a pen and paper and tried to understand the logic behind the murder and gave up only after I was satisfied with its authenticity!
I had a great experience watching the two friends run around gathering clues and bantering among themselves. Some humorous moments in the book add a pleasant touch and lightens such a dark topic.
The entire premise of this book revolves around zodiac signs and alchemical references. I don't believe in astrology, but reading about it in the book made me look up more info on my zodiac sign. (Apparently, Scorpios are mysterious, mean and people are afraid of them!) Well, I'm not like that! Or am I? That's the mystery...
Anyway, if you are someone who enjoys thrillers, then this book is for you! It can be a little unsettling with all the cutting and the burying so if you are someone who can't stomach the gore, consider yourself warned!
INSTAGRAM
"The Tokyo Zodiac Murders" is a peculiar mix of astrology and alchemy used in an elaborate plan to murder seven women. The book starts with the death of an old eccentric artist, Heikichi Umezawa, confined to his studio, locked from the inside. In his room, police find his nefarious scheme, and soon after, they find the women dismembered and buried across Japan.
Even after 40 years, the case remains an enigma eluding even the best of detectives. It seems to have hit a dead end until the duo takes it up; Kazumi Ishioka, illustrator and amateur detective, and Kiyoshi Mitarai- an astrologer, fortune-teller, and a self-styled detective. Together, they travel across Japan, gathering clues and interviewing suspects to decode the puzzle that baffled people for decades.
This is a unique and unsettling mystery blending the ordinary with the unusual similar to a magician pulling a trick. Because the magician is familiar with the technique, the deceit comes effortlessly while the audience, us readers, struggle to grasp the threads and are left clueless.
After 3/4th of the book, the author addresses the readers, telling us that we have all the clues necessary and challenges us to solve this case. I'm sorry to admit that I failed the author but that only proves his brilliance in constructing a mind-boggling thriller. After the case was explained, I took a pen and paper and tried to understand the logic behind the murder and gave up only after I was satisfied with its authenticity!
I had a great experience watching the two friends run around gathering clues and bantering among themselves. Some humorous moments in the book add a pleasant touch and lightens such a dark topic.
The entire premise of this book revolves around zodiac signs and alchemical references. I don't believe in astrology, but reading about it in the book made me look up more info on my zodiac sign. (Apparently, Scorpios are mysterious, mean and people are afraid of them!) Well, I'm not like that! Or am I? That's the mystery...
Anyway, if you are someone who enjoys thrillers, then this book is for you! It can be a little unsettling with all the cutting and the burying so if you are someone who can't stomach the gore, consider yourself warned!
May 26, 2016
This is my second novel where the author challenge readers explicitly to guess the culprit. The first one is The Egyptian Cross Mystery. And coincidentally this novel is my first Soji Shimada's novel that I've ever read. After read this novel, I wish there are other Soji Shimada's novel translated into English.
Highly recommended for readers who want to guess the culprit. Although I found some minor clues seems useful if the reader knows pop-culture of Japanese at mid 1930 era, but the essence of the trick is a classic for me.
Highly recommended for readers who want to guess the culprit. Although I found some minor clues seems useful if the reader knows pop-culture of Japanese at mid 1930 era, but the essence of the trick is a classic for me.
July 7, 2018
I am reading this for "Locked Room Mystery": The Tokyo Zodiac Murders by Soji Shimada. This apparently is a locked room mystery novel that has been getting rave reviews.
Wow all I have to say is that this book was great. More than anything I love clever books like this, and this was definitely very clever. I honestly was a bit worried for a couple of minutes that maybe I wouldn't be able to get the book since the setting is in Japan. But wow the author Soji Shimada is able to pretty much show you that murder is murder no matter where it takes place.
This book is broken into two time periods. The first is Japan in 1936 and the second time period is Japan in 1979.
In 1936, we are treated to a letter that is left by an artist named Heikichi Umezawa. Umezawa wants to "build" the perfect woman. We read of his obsession with women and their bodies as well as his comments on astrology. We realize that he plans on doing away with his children, stepchildren, and nieces (all female) and using parts of them to build his perfect woman and bring Japan back into a state of harmony.
Oh here's the problem, Heikichi Umezawa is found murdered in a locked room. Yet the murders still take place. Who could have decided to follow Umezawa's plan?
When we are back in1979 we follow two amateur detectives (Kiyoshi Mitari and Kazumi Ishioka) our Sherlock and Dr. Watson if you will. FYI that would tick Mitari off since he had some hilarious bad opinions about Sherlock. We find out that the murders are famous in Japan and many people have tried to figure out who killed the women after Umezawa was dead where the perfect woman was left. Just like Sherlock, Mitari is subject to depression, and Kazumi is hoping that the puzzle of the Tokyo Zodiac Murders will drag him out of his depression.
I was fascinated with Mitari since he is a respected astrologer and fortune teller. It seems an odd hobby for our amateur detective, but it makes sense when you get into the astrology aspect of this book.
There are a lot of characters in this one, but I was able to keep them straight. The author provides you the names of everyone up front and throughout the book. We really only get Kazumi's deductions and point of view since he is telling us the story. We do get glimpses of what drives Mitari though.
I loved the writing. Reading about headless corpses that were dismembered repeatedly may not be your thing, so be forewarned. The flow was great too. I also applauded the author for including illustrations of the locked room, and diagrams of other rooms, as well as the corpses being dismembered, and also people's names to family trees, etc. There are a lot of really good illustrations in this book and it made it for me, into a five-star read.
I will say that aspects of this story just thrilled me from beginning to end. Trying to work out how Umezawa was murdered and how an unexpected snowfall came into play was great.
I also loved thinking of Kyoto and cherry blossoms.
The reveal of who the murder was and how they carried it off was brilliant. I would imagine that Dame Agatha would have given this author kudos. Because once this was revealed I had to go back and re-read the clues that were spread throughout the book.
Wow all I have to say is that this book was great. More than anything I love clever books like this, and this was definitely very clever. I honestly was a bit worried for a couple of minutes that maybe I wouldn't be able to get the book since the setting is in Japan. But wow the author Soji Shimada is able to pretty much show you that murder is murder no matter where it takes place.
This book is broken into two time periods. The first is Japan in 1936 and the second time period is Japan in 1979.
In 1936, we are treated to a letter that is left by an artist named Heikichi Umezawa. Umezawa wants to "build" the perfect woman. We read of his obsession with women and their bodies as well as his comments on astrology. We realize that he plans on doing away with his children, stepchildren, and nieces (all female) and using parts of them to build his perfect woman and bring Japan back into a state of harmony.
Oh here's the problem, Heikichi Umezawa is found murdered in a locked room. Yet the murders still take place. Who could have decided to follow Umezawa's plan?
When we are back in1979 we follow two amateur detectives (Kiyoshi Mitari and Kazumi Ishioka) our Sherlock and Dr. Watson if you will. FYI that would tick Mitari off since he had some hilarious bad opinions about Sherlock. We find out that the murders are famous in Japan and many people have tried to figure out who killed the women after Umezawa was dead where the perfect woman was left. Just like Sherlock, Mitari is subject to depression, and Kazumi is hoping that the puzzle of the Tokyo Zodiac Murders will drag him out of his depression.
I was fascinated with Mitari since he is a respected astrologer and fortune teller. It seems an odd hobby for our amateur detective, but it makes sense when you get into the astrology aspect of this book.
There are a lot of characters in this one, but I was able to keep them straight. The author provides you the names of everyone up front and throughout the book. We really only get Kazumi's deductions and point of view since he is telling us the story. We do get glimpses of what drives Mitari though.
I loved the writing. Reading about headless corpses that were dismembered repeatedly may not be your thing, so be forewarned. The flow was great too. I also applauded the author for including illustrations of the locked room, and diagrams of other rooms, as well as the corpses being dismembered, and also people's names to family trees, etc. There are a lot of really good illustrations in this book and it made it for me, into a five-star read.
I will say that aspects of this story just thrilled me from beginning to end. Trying to work out how Umezawa was murdered and how an unexpected snowfall came into play was great.
I also loved thinking of Kyoto and cherry blossoms.
The reveal of who the murder was and how they carried it off was brilliant. I would imagine that Dame Agatha would have given this author kudos. Because once this was revealed I had to go back and re-read the clues that were spread throughout the book.
March 18, 2019
2.5 stars. At one point in this novel, the author adds a note saying, "Hey, you have all the clues now, so stop reading and solve the mystery! Have fun bbs!" And sorry bro but no thanks. By this point the book has thrown so many piles of information at you that it's hard to keep any of it straight. And while there are parts of the solution that are quite strong and make sense, there are parts where you think, "Well how could I have possibly figured that part out?" This is par for the course for this type of mystery, one far more concerned with the question of how than the question of why. They are always a little less interesting than they promise to be, though one particular part of this solution (not the locked room mystery but the multiple murder at the end) was a bit brilliant.
There isn't much of a sense of fun in the book, there is a lot of minutiae (unfortunately some of it ends up being quite important) that bogs it down. And without much concern for motive there isn't a lot of interest or plot to speak of. To be fair, the only book I've ever enjoyed in this particular vein is SALVATION OF A SAINT by Keigo Higashino.
There isn't much of a sense of fun in the book, there is a lot of minutiae (unfortunately some of it ends up being quite important) that bogs it down. And without much concern for motive there isn't a lot of interest or plot to speak of. To be fair, the only book I've ever enjoyed in this particular vein is SALVATION OF A SAINT by Keigo Higashino.
June 17, 2025
This is well-written, engaging,compelling and fun. I solved the murder about halfway through, which was very satisfying. That said, there was one aspect where the book fell a bit flat for me and that may be a spoiler. Overall, it’s a brilliant murder mystery, and I’m definitely looking forward to reading more from the author.
January 20, 2022
Rating – 4.5 stars
Author – Japan
Genre – Mystery/Crime
I love Pushkin Vertigo. They deliver the best crime fiction from authors all over the globe. They have allowed me to learn of and read various authors that otherwise may have eluded me, with Japanese writer Soji Shimada being one of them.
From the Forward through to the last page, this book had me hooked. Like a chocolate, I savoured every element. I’d nestle myself into bed at night and open the fine cover, exposing the next element of the mystery. I’d then take a nibble of a couple of chapters, just enough to uncover the taste, and savour the fact that I was joining readers the world over who had also turned the pages, or were turning the pages with me.
The book is narrated by Kuzumi Ishioka, a freelance illustrator who is a huge fan of (and addicted to) mysteries. The Tokyo Zodiac Murders is, without doubt, the most intriguing mystery that Kazumi has read. The murders actually happened in 1936, just before the Second World War, at the time of the abortive military uprising on 26 February, known as the “2-26”Incident.
Note: The February 26 Incident was an attempted coup d'état in the Empire of Japan on 26 February 1936. It was organized by a group of young Imperial Japanese Army officers with the goal of purging the government and military leadership of their factional rivals and ideological opponents.
For over forty years the police, numerous intellectuals and would-be detectives had been trying to solve the crime of The Tokyo Zodiac Murders. Several books had been released about the case, but the failure to solve the murders seemed to symbolise the darkness surrounding pre-war Japan.
The worst thing about the case was that eight people died that day;
• Heikichi Umezawa, an artist, murdered in his studio that was mysteriously locked from the inside;
• Heikichi’s step daughter Kazue Kanemoto, murdered in her home with indications that she had been raped; and
• Heikichi’s other step daughters (2), daughters (2) and nieces (2). The bodies of the women were buried in six different places, each with a body part missing, and each with different metal elements buried with them.
Kazumi enlists the help of Kiyoshi Mitari, an astrologer, to assist him in solving the murders. At the same time we readers learn all about the case, are presented with all of the facts, and we too become one of the mystery’s amateur sleuths.
I was delighted when the author himself popped in for a couple of chapters to make sure that I, the reader, was following everything that had been presented to me.
I really enjoyed the plot and style of this book, which could be categorised as a locked room mystery. All the clues are there for the astute observer, including illustrations of the crime scenes and so on.
A gripping story – top marks to Soji Shimada. Definitely well worth a read.
Author – Japan
Genre – Mystery/Crime
I love Pushkin Vertigo. They deliver the best crime fiction from authors all over the globe. They have allowed me to learn of and read various authors that otherwise may have eluded me, with Japanese writer Soji Shimada being one of them.
From the Forward through to the last page, this book had me hooked. Like a chocolate, I savoured every element. I’d nestle myself into bed at night and open the fine cover, exposing the next element of the mystery. I’d then take a nibble of a couple of chapters, just enough to uncover the taste, and savour the fact that I was joining readers the world over who had also turned the pages, or were turning the pages with me.
The book is narrated by Kuzumi Ishioka, a freelance illustrator who is a huge fan of (and addicted to) mysteries. The Tokyo Zodiac Murders is, without doubt, the most intriguing mystery that Kazumi has read. The murders actually happened in 1936, just before the Second World War, at the time of the abortive military uprising on 26 February, known as the “2-26”Incident.
Note: The February 26 Incident was an attempted coup d'état in the Empire of Japan on 26 February 1936. It was organized by a group of young Imperial Japanese Army officers with the goal of purging the government and military leadership of their factional rivals and ideological opponents.
For over forty years the police, numerous intellectuals and would-be detectives had been trying to solve the crime of The Tokyo Zodiac Murders. Several books had been released about the case, but the failure to solve the murders seemed to symbolise the darkness surrounding pre-war Japan.
The worst thing about the case was that eight people died that day;
• Heikichi Umezawa, an artist, murdered in his studio that was mysteriously locked from the inside;
• Heikichi’s step daughter Kazue Kanemoto, murdered in her home with indications that she had been raped; and
• Heikichi’s other step daughters (2), daughters (2) and nieces (2). The bodies of the women were buried in six different places, each with a body part missing, and each with different metal elements buried with them.
Kazumi enlists the help of Kiyoshi Mitari, an astrologer, to assist him in solving the murders. At the same time we readers learn all about the case, are presented with all of the facts, and we too become one of the mystery’s amateur sleuths.
I was delighted when the author himself popped in for a couple of chapters to make sure that I, the reader, was following everything that had been presented to me.
"Gentle Reader,
Unusual as it may be for the author to intrude into the proceedings like this, there is something I should like to say at this point.
All of the information required to solve the mystery is now in your hands, and, in fact, the crucial hint has been provided already. I wonder if you noticed it? My greatest fear is that I might already have told you too much about the case! But I dared to do that both for the sake of fairness of the game, and, of course, to provide you with a little help.
Let me throw down the gauntlet: I challenge you to solve the mystery before the final chapters!
And I wish you luck.
Yours sincerely,
Soji Shimada"
[Soji Shimada, author of The Tokyo Zodiac Murders. Photograph: Mark Yu.]
I really enjoyed the plot and style of this book, which could be categorised as a locked room mystery. All the clues are there for the astute observer, including illustrations of the crime scenes and so on.
A gripping story – top marks to Soji Shimada. Definitely well worth a read.
May 7, 2016
When Raymond Chandler wrote his somewhat disparaging essay on mystery novels, perhaps he hadn't been exposed to works by writers such as Shimada.
For the ingenuity, meta jabs and the evocation of a bygone era where 'crime solving' was not all CSI and procedurals, 5 stars. It's just absolutely riveting and this must fall under Poirot's favourite kind of case, one that's primarily concerned with imagination and analysis, for all the fresh clues had been set in print articles, unavailable for further investigation. It's the epitome of the 'armchair detective' novel if ever there was one. There was legwork, sure, but it's more of an afterthought sort of thing, and as such people who prefer action may find the narrative dry at times.
And they have the drama adaptation (of other Mitarai cases, sadly not this one. Prolly cuz of possible explicit scenes) Although Mitarai is a scientist instead of an astrologist in the adaptation, which is a pity since there's already a similar character in Higashino's Prof. Yukawa aka Detective Galileo.
Tamaki Hiroshi in the title role.
Mitarai & Ishioka
I can't believe it took me so long to read Shimada, since I first got to know of this book from the Kindaichi Shonen series manga I'd read in my teens. Even though I'm privy to the gist of the trick because of that, this was still greatly entertaining, and I can't wait to read the rest of his novels.
PS: I read the Mandarin translation while comparing it to the English and Japanese kindle samples that I've got. All the versions are equal on their own merit; from the samples the English one is extremely interesting when it comes to explaining Umezawa's notes while the Japanese and the Mandarin ones are more whimsical.
For the ingenuity, meta jabs and the evocation of a bygone era where 'crime solving' was not all CSI and procedurals, 5 stars. It's just absolutely riveting and this must fall under Poirot's favourite kind of case, one that's primarily concerned with imagination and analysis, for all the fresh clues had been set in print articles, unavailable for further investigation. It's the epitome of the 'armchair detective' novel if ever there was one. There was legwork, sure, but it's more of an afterthought sort of thing, and as such people who prefer action may find the narrative dry at times.
More than 30 years have passed since the moment I thought of the trick, but I still remember it clear as day. I was lying on the bed, overwhelmed with excitement at how everyone would be shocked by it. Meanwhile it had been my resolution to write a novel once I turn 30; thus driven by these two motivations, I wrote this.
Soji Shimada
And they have the drama adaptation (of other Mitarai cases, sadly not this one. Prolly cuz of possible explicit scenes) Although Mitarai is a scientist instead of an astrologist in the adaptation, which is a pity since there's already a similar character in Higashino's Prof. Yukawa aka Detective Galileo.
Tamaki Hiroshi in the title role.
Mitarai & Ishioka
I can't believe it took me so long to read Shimada, since I first got to know of this book from the Kindaichi Shonen series manga I'd read in my teens. Even though I'm privy to the gist of the trick because of that, this was still greatly entertaining, and I can't wait to read the rest of his novels.
PS: I read the Mandarin translation while comparing it to the English and Japanese kindle samples that I've got. All the versions are equal on their own merit; from the samples the English one is extremely interesting when it comes to explaining Umezawa's notes while the Japanese and the Mandarin ones are more whimsical.
July 20, 2024
3.0 Stars
I'm always looking to try more translated thrillers so I was intrigued by this one. The story introduces a messed up serial killer that grabbed my attention at the start. Unfortunately I found the narrative style to be quite cumbersome which ended up diminishing my enjoyment. It ended up being an average serial killer mystery that was ultimately forgettable.
I'm always looking to try more translated thrillers so I was intrigued by this one. The story introduces a messed up serial killer that grabbed my attention at the start. Unfortunately I found the narrative style to be quite cumbersome which ended up diminishing my enjoyment. It ended up being an average serial killer mystery that was ultimately forgettable.
August 20, 2025
I actually found this a little dull right up until it challenged me to solve the mystery myself.
This detailed a 'locked-room mystery' in three parts - first, death of the patriarch, second, death of one of his daughters, third, the murder of his six other daughters and nieces.
The crimes are wild and I was certainly puzzled as to how they all connected.
This book lays out all the details - what occurred, all the clues, all the red herrings, and also blood type and star sign of each person. There are a LOT of details and it's clear this is designed to confuse things and make it harder to tease out what's important.
I found it fascinating, but at the same time nothing new is occurring which meant it was just two-thirds info dump. The case in question is decades old, so most of the relevant players have since died making it a confusing jumble of who's who. There's also not a lot of characterisation so again, hard to keep track of them all.
Still, when the gauntlet was thrown, I found myself going back to read the facts, study the details and the diagrams etc. I wound up solving the Who and the Why, but certainly came nowhere near the How. That sh*t was INSANE.
I really enjoyed the challenge at the end, and I think others will, too. Especially fans of crime who like to put the puzzle together themselves and make their own guesses.
Highly recommend for fans of the genre. Be patient with the overwhelming amount of detail and you'll have fun working the case yourself at the end.
This detailed a 'locked-room mystery' in three parts - first, death of the patriarch, second, death of one of his daughters, third, the murder of his six other daughters and nieces.
The crimes are wild and I was certainly puzzled as to how they all connected.
This book lays out all the details - what occurred, all the clues, all the red herrings, and also blood type and star sign of each person. There are a LOT of details and it's clear this is designed to confuse things and make it harder to tease out what's important.
I found it fascinating, but at the same time nothing new is occurring which meant it was just two-thirds info dump. The case in question is decades old, so most of the relevant players have since died making it a confusing jumble of who's who. There's also not a lot of characterisation so again, hard to keep track of them all.
Still, when the gauntlet was thrown, I found myself going back to read the facts, study the details and the diagrams etc. I wound up solving the Who and the Why, but certainly came nowhere near the How. That sh*t was INSANE.
I really enjoyed the challenge at the end, and I think others will, too. Especially fans of crime who like to put the puzzle together themselves and make their own guesses.
Highly recommend for fans of the genre. Be patient with the overwhelming amount of detail and you'll have fun working the case yourself at the end.
July 3, 2017
Mutilasi korban ditemukan di enam tempat berbeda dengan metode yang membingungkan. Dan, di awalan saya sudah dibuat pusing mencerna segala keterkaitan zodiac, unsur alkali korban-korban yang akan dirancang sebagai karya 'sempurna' bernama Azoth.
Berlanjut dengan bagian analisa kasus tak terpecahkan #TheTokyoZodiacMurders antara Kiyoshi dan Kazumi. Bagian yang kusuka dari novel terbitan asli tahun 1987. Bab ini mengajak pembacanya ikut tebak-tebak metode dan cara pembunuh merealisasikan mutilasi dari enam korban. Tapi, di bagian ini juga sangat berpotensi menjadi bab yang membosankan terutama untuk pembaca yang menyukai aksi.
Sejak membaca salah satu bagian mutilasi setiap korban hilang, kepala saya terbayang sebuah kasus dari komik #DetektifKindaichi versi klasik, jadinya dari awal bayangan tersangka pembunuhnya sudah ada. Hanya saja saya dibuat bingung dengan apa hubungan segala hal berbau zodiac dan muatan alkali tanah pekuburan masing-masing korban.
Membaca proses penyelidikannya terasa berputar-putar dan ternyata berujung pada kesia-siaan yang melelahkan. Mungkin perasaan ini muncul karena saya sering disuguhkan buku misteri detektif yang hampir 100% penyelidikannya selalu bermanfaat untuk mengungkap pembunuh.
Sedangkan di buku ini, TIDAK. Mungkin penyelidikan seperti inilah yang lebih mendekati keadaan di dunia nyata, yang bisa saja sebuah penyelidikan hanya menjadi sesuatu yang sebenarnya tidak nyambung sama sekali dengan pemecahan kasus.
Berlanjut dengan bagian analisa kasus tak terpecahkan #TheTokyoZodiacMurders antara Kiyoshi dan Kazumi. Bagian yang kusuka dari novel terbitan asli tahun 1987. Bab ini mengajak pembacanya ikut tebak-tebak metode dan cara pembunuh merealisasikan mutilasi dari enam korban. Tapi, di bagian ini juga sangat berpotensi menjadi bab yang membosankan terutama untuk pembaca yang menyukai aksi.
Sejak membaca salah satu bagian mutilasi setiap korban hilang, kepala saya terbayang sebuah kasus dari komik #DetektifKindaichi versi klasik, jadinya dari awal bayangan tersangka pembunuhnya sudah ada. Hanya saja saya dibuat bingung dengan apa hubungan segala hal berbau zodiac dan muatan alkali tanah pekuburan masing-masing korban.
Membaca proses penyelidikannya terasa berputar-putar dan ternyata berujung pada kesia-siaan yang melelahkan. Mungkin perasaan ini muncul karena saya sering disuguhkan buku misteri detektif yang hampir 100% penyelidikannya selalu bermanfaat untuk mengungkap pembunuh.
Sedangkan di buku ini, TIDAK. Mungkin penyelidikan seperti inilah yang lebih mendekati keadaan di dunia nyata, yang bisa saja sebuah penyelidikan hanya menjadi sesuatu yang sebenarnya tidak nyambung sama sekali dengan pemecahan kasus.
January 10, 2016
If you can make it through the exceedingly dry first third of this puzzler, the rest of this book is a real treat. I did figure "who dunnit" and more or less how before the big reveal but that did not in any way lessen my pleasure in this clever mystery. Bonus points for setting the much of the latter two-thirds of the book in picturesque Kyoto. Recommended for those who like old-fashioned locked room mysteries.
April 17, 2025
Một câu chuyện hết sức nhạt nhẽo. Mình thật không hiểu lý do vì sao nó nổi tiếng và là best-seller.
Tiền đề của vụ án, với câu chuyện về Azoth nghe khá hấp dẫn. Nhưng câu chuyện có quá nhiều chi tiết thừa, quá nhiều nhân vật không cần thiết. Tác giả để nhân vật mất rất nhiều thời gian loanh quanh lạc lối, rồi cuối cùng chỉ mất 2 tiếng đồng hồ để giải quyết bí ẩn 40 năm. Phi lý! :))
Nói chung, mình thấy nếu là trinh thám Nhật thì chỉ nên đọc sách của Keigo tiên sinh :))
Tiền đề của vụ án, với câu chuyện về Azoth nghe khá hấp dẫn. Nhưng câu chuyện có quá nhiều chi tiết thừa, quá nhiều nhân vật không cần thiết. Tác giả để nhân vật mất rất nhiều thời gian loanh quanh lạc lối, rồi cuối cùng chỉ mất 2 tiếng đồng hồ để giải quyết bí ẩn 40 năm. Phi lý! :))
Nói chung, mình thấy nếu là trinh thám Nhật thì chỉ nên đọc sách của Keigo tiên sinh :))
October 16, 2020
I don’t know if contemporary Japanese author Sōji Shimada is a member of the Detection Club, but he deserves to be — both because of his excellent novel and due to Shimada’s strictly maintaining the club’s promise to play fair with readers in their novels. (Founded in 1930, the Detection Club was originally all British. The great G.K. Chesterton was its first president, and it continues to this day.)
Shimada promises more than once that he gives you every clue you need to solve the crime, and he’s true to his word. Even so, I never guessed the culprit, and I suspect that most readers won’t. I was utterly delighted that this was the first of a series featuring slacker astrologer Kiyoshi Mitarai and his Watson, illustrator Kazumi Ishioka. It’s hard not to dislike Kiyoshi, just as it’s impossible not to love the eager beaver Kazumi; however, Kiyoshi could play Sherlock Holmes like no other. I’m so glad there are sequels. Highly recommended.
Shimada promises more than once that he gives you every clue you need to solve the crime, and he’s true to his word. Even so, I never guessed the culprit, and I suspect that most readers won’t. I was utterly delighted that this was the first of a series featuring slacker astrologer Kiyoshi Mitarai and his Watson, illustrator Kazumi Ishioka. It’s hard not to dislike Kiyoshi, just as it’s impossible not to love the eager beaver Kazumi; however, Kiyoshi could play Sherlock Holmes like no other. I’m so glad there are sequels. Highly recommended.
February 24, 2017
4 sao
Truyện hấp dẫn, tình tiết ly kỳ nhưng nói về điểm không thích thì cũng không ít: đoạn đầu đọc khá chán, khô khan, hơi nhiều chi tiết và nhân vật (mà thật ra cũng không đóng vai trò gì quan trọng cho lắm ngoài làm cho sách rối rắm thêm và tốn nhiều thời gian đọc.)
Đoạn điều tra cũng khá hay, nhưng kết thúc làm mình hơi thất vọng. Một phần vì mình đã biết sơ bí mật của nó thông qua bộ Kindaichi rồi. Một phần cũng do bản chất của nó quá đơn giản, cộng với bối cảnh, cách gây án cho mình cảm giác không thực tế cho lắm, dù là câu truyện đã cố đưa về mốc thời gian trước đây khá lâu.
À cuốn này có thêm 1 điểm mới lạ nằm ở sự tương tác của tác giả với người đọc về sau, mà thật ra mình thấy không có tác dụng gì cho cốt truyện ngoài làm tăng kịch tính cho phần kết :)
Truyện hấp dẫn, tình tiết ly kỳ nhưng nói về điểm không thích thì cũng không ít: đoạn đầu đọc khá chán, khô khan, hơi nhiều chi tiết và nhân vật (mà thật ra cũng không đóng vai trò gì quan trọng cho lắm ngoài làm cho sách rối rắm thêm và tốn nhiều thời gian đọc.)
Đoạn điều tra cũng khá hay, nhưng kết thúc làm mình hơi thất vọng. Một phần vì mình đã biết sơ bí mật của nó thông qua bộ Kindaichi rồi. Một phần cũng do bản chất của nó quá đơn giản, cộng với bối cảnh, cách gây án cho mình cảm giác không thực tế cho lắm, dù là câu truyện đã cố đưa về mốc thời gian trước đây khá lâu.
À cuốn này có thêm 1 điểm mới lạ nằm ở sự tương tác của tác giả với người đọc về sau, mà thật ra mình thấy không có tác dụng gì cho cốt truyện ngoài làm tăng kịch tính cho phần kết :)
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