The Black Swan Mystery

Thank you to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for the ARC

A classic locked room mystery novel set in the 1960s Japan. A great mystery with a cast of different interesting characters and a clever detective. I won't spoil anything but I'll say that I couldn't guess who the culprit was. It was an Agatha Christie alike book so if you've enjoyed her books then you'll love The Black Swan Mystery

I've read a few Japanese mysteries, and they are always so well plotted. They are intricate and detailed and I can never guess the outcome. This is no different, and I have a great time trying to work out how this was going to end. It's kind of like a locked room mystery but not in a room, which I'm seeing more and more of as a theme. However, this book is really quite old now and so the fact that it is hitting this trend is interesting.

I'd recommend this one to fans of translated fiction and detective fiction. It has echoes of Christie but far less humourous and more restrained.

Like Seicho Matsumoto's classic Japanese detective story ,"Tokyo Express", railway timetables play a big part in Tetsuya Ayukawa's ,"The Black Swan Mystery".

When the body of a prominent local businessman is found laying on the tracks alongside Tokyo's Kuki Station there are a couple of obvious suspects. With a bitter Union dispute ongoing and his dealings with a shadowy religious sect Chief Inspector Onitsura and his assistant Tanna are tasked to investigate.

This is a cerebral thriller with as many twists and turns as the railways that play a large part in the plot. As the dogged detectives try to make sense of often contradictory evidence the bodies continue to pile up. I was reminded of Jorn Lier Horst's Wisting books where persistence and dead ends show a more realistic picture of crime-solving than the norm in a fairly slow-moving but involving manner.

I loved this book, the pacing might be slow but there's plenty going on and it's very. very clever as the police are led down several blind alleys,closely followed by the reader. This is a book to take your time over and enjoy, not least Onitsura's deconstruction of a key alibi in the case, complex doesn't even touch the sides .

This is book 1 of a classic series of murder mystery novels about Chief Inspector Onitsura which are very popular in Japan. The novels are about deconstructing alibis and in this train set one, timetables feature heavily as Onitsura and his assistant Tanna investigate the murder of a local mill owner who was in dispute with the workers union and whose body is found on the railway track. The mystery sees them travel across Japan as the killer strikes several times and they are led up blind alleys. The novel takes it time but is very clever and quite riveting. I'll look out for book 2 if it gets published.

Once again train times feature largely in a Japanese crime read. If you love mysteries which pile up the puzzles for the reader which in turn creates a complex mystery novel then you will love The Black Swan Mystery. The plotting is central to this however the intricate plotting means that it can be a bit of a clunky read slowing down the pace of the novel. A must for fans of Japanese crime fiction.