Category: Mystery

She Walks at Night by Seishi Yokomizo

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Translated by Jesse Kirkwood

I love Seishi Yokomizo’s Kosuke Kindaichi mystery series and have read all the books currently available in English from Pushkin Press, of which this is the eighth. Originally published in 1948, She Walks at Night has a slightly different feel from most of the others in the series and it’s one of my favourites so far.

The novel is narrated by Torata Yashiro, a struggling mystery writer, who is approached by a friend, Naoki Sengoku, to ask for his opinion on a series of strange incidents involving members of Naoki’s family. Like many people, Naoki thinks that because Torata writes mysteries he must also know how to solve them – but of course that’s not necessarily the case, and when Torata hears the story he’s just as confused as his friend.

It seems that Naoki’s father, once a servant of the wealthy Furugami family, has grown close to the widowed Lady Oryu since her husband’s death. In fact, Naoki believes that the relationship started earlier than that and Lady Oryu’s daughter, Yachiyo, is actually his father’s child and therefore his own half-sister. A family prophecy has stated that Yachiyo will marry a hunchback – and, surprisingly, there are two of these in the Furugami household. One is Morie, another half-brother of Yachiyo’s who developed rickets as a child; the other is Koichi Hachiya, an artist who has just become engaged to Yachiyo.

The reason for Naoki’s concern is that Yachiyo shot Hachiya in the leg at a nightclub the previous year and hasn’t given a satisfactory explanation for what she did. She has also been receiving anonymous letters warning her not to ‘walk at night’ – a reference to her habit of sleepwalking. Torata agrees to accompany Naoki to his family home to meet Yachiyo and see if he can provide any answers, but almost as soon as he arrives the mystery deepens when a dead body is found with the head removed. How can they track down the murderer when they can’t even be sure who the victim is?

You may be wondering where Kosuke Kindaichi comes into all of this. In some of the books, he’s there from the beginning, but in others we don’t see him until later on – this is one of the latter and our dishevelled, stammering private detective makes his appearance almost exactly halfway through the book. People often underestimate Kindaichi, as Torata and Naoki initially do here, but his talents are hidden beneath his unimpressive exterior and as soon as he begins to investigate, the mystery starts to unravel. However, I felt that things unfold too quickly and easily once Kindaichi arrives on the scene and with the whole story told from Torata’s perspective, we don’t really get to see how the detective reaches any of his conclusions. The final solution, when it’s revealed, is clever and surprising, though, and I certainly hadn’t guessed it (it had crossed my mind once or twice, but I’d quickly dismissed it).

Japanese crime novels tend to focus more on the plot than on the characters, but I’m finding that Yokomizo’s books have a better balance and there are several interesting characters here, as well as Kindaichi himself, including Naoki’s father, the drunken, sword-wielding Tetsunoshin, and the bitter, vengeful old family nurse, Okita. This book overall has many of the same elements as a typical country house mystery by authors like Agatha Christie or John Dickson Carr, with some Gothic touches such as sleepwalking, family curses and the murders being carried out with a legendary Muramasa sword.

Jesse Kirkwood is the latest of several translators who have worked on this series and although I’ve been happy with all of the translations, this one feels particularly smooth and easy to read. The use of a first person narrator also gives it a more intimate, personal feel than some of the other books (I think The Village of Eight Graves and The Honjin Murders are the only other ones written in the first person). If you’re new to the series, this could be a good place to start, but as they’re all separate mysteries you could really start anywhere. I’m already looking forward to the next one to be translated, The Queen Bee Mystery, coming next year!

Thanks to Pushkin Vertigo for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Book 2/20 of 20 Books of Summer

Murder at the Spirit Lounge by Jess Kidd

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This is the second book in Jess Kidd’s new 1950s mystery series, Nora Breen Investigates. I enjoyed the first one, Murder at Gulls Nest, but I thought this one was even better. It’s not essential to read them in order as they are completely separate mysteries, but you’ll have a better understanding of some of the characters and their relationships if you do.

In the previous book, former nun Nora Breen arrives in the English seaside town of Gore-on-Sea to investigate a friend’s disappearance. With that mystery now solved, she has decided to stay on at the Gulls Nest guest house for the winter so she can look for a job and build a new life for herself in the town. Soon, though, Nora finds herself caught up in another mystery – the murder of medium Doreen Chimes during a séance at her Gore-on-Sea ‘spirit lounge’. The séance had been attended by a small group of guests including Nora’s new friend, Detective Inspector Rideout, and there’s reason to believe that all of their lives could now be in danger.

With Rideout himself a possible target, along with the other séance attendees, he and Nora need to track down the murderer as quickly as possible. The only clue they have are the letters E.V.E. – part of a message Mrs Chimes was supposedly receiving from the spirit world at the moment of her death. Who is Eve and who was the message intended for? To find out, Nora will need to ask a lot of questions – and, fortunately, she’s just been offered a job as reporter for the Gore-on-Sea Herald, which gives her the perfect excuse to speak to people and hunt for information.

One of my favourite things about the first book was Nora’s relationship with Rideout and I was pleased to see it develop further in this book (although if you’re hoping for a great romance, I think there’s still a long way to go). Nora also has another suitor, the photographer Hosmer, so I suspect someone is going to be disappointed! There are plenty of other colourful characters as well, such as Irene, the Gulls Nest housekeeper, whose cooking leaves a lot to be desired, eight-year-old Dinah, who doesn’t speak but watches and listens, and even Father Conway, the seagull who taps at Nora’s bedroom window every morning.

The mystery is an interesting one and with this being the second book in the series, I felt that we got straight into the action more quickly than in the first book as less time needed to be spent introducing the main characters and setting the scene. I had my suspicions about the identity of the culprit early on and I was right, but there were still other things that I didn’t guess and I enjoyed watching Nora and Rideout carrying out their investigations. With Rideout’s life at risk, a lot of the detective work falls to Nora, much to his frustration! This also gives his assistant, Constable Griggs, a chance to get more involved and his help proves invaluable to Nora towards the end. Another important clue is provided by one of Doreen Chimes’ cats, whom Nora rescues from the medium’s house and brings home to Gulls Nest.

Overall, I found this an entertaining novel, slightly stronger than the first one. I love the 1950s seaside setting and will be looking out for more books in the series. First, though, I’m looking forward to reading Jess Kidd’s new standalone novel, Little Spark, which is being published in July.

Thanks to Faber and Faber Ltd for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie

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This month’s theme for the Read Christie 2026 challenge is ‘Best Short Story Collection’. I’ve already read the suggested title, The Labours of Hercules, so I decided to choose a different one – and although I’m not sure whether Poirot Investigates would be considered one of her best short story collections, it was her first and it’s one I hadn’t read before. Originally published in the UK in 1924, it contains eleven stories all featuring Hercule Poirot and narrated by Captain Hastings. The US version published a year later includes three extra stories, which later appeared in the UK in Poirot’s Early Cases.

The stories in this book are quick and fun to read, although some of them feel a bit insubstantial and there’s a sense that Christie is experimenting with different types of plot and still finding her feet as a writer. Poirot himself also doesn’t feel entirely like the character we get to know later on, but Christie is beginning to develop his famous characteristics and mannerisms in these stories. I’ve always loved Hastings and his relationship with Poirot, so I was happy that he narrates this whole collection. It’s very endearing every time he gets excited thinking he has solved the mystery and tries to console Poirot for getting things wrong – only to find out, every time, that Poirot has been a step ahead all along!

I won’t discuss all of the stories here, but will mention a few of the highlights. I think my favourite story was The Disappearance of Mr Davenheim, in which Inspector Japp tells Poirot about the disappearance of a banker who went out to post some letters and hasn’t returned. Poirot makes a bet with Japp that he can solve the crime without even leaving his armchair. The solution to this one is clever and the way Poirot carries out his investigation from his own home makes it feel slightly different. I also really enjoyed The Adventure of the Cheap Flat. One of Hastings’ friends, Mrs Robinson, tells him how she and her husband have been searching for a flat to rent and have been offered a beautifully furnished one at a desirable address for a suspiciously low price. This entertaining little story brings in some elements of espionage and adventure and, of course, Poirot quickly discovers why the flat is so cheap!

The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb is another I particularly liked, mainly for the setting and the atmosphere. It involves the deaths, one by one, of the people involved with the opening of the tomb of King Men-He-Rah. Poirot and Hastings travel to Egypt to try to unravel the mystery, which is clearly inspired by the real life opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun which took place just before the story was written.

This is an enjoyable collection, then – maybe not as strong overall as some of her others, but it was interesting to read some stories written so early in Christie’s career. I’m not planning to take part in Read Christie next month but have The Rose and the Yew Tree, one of her books published as Mary Westmacott, lined up for July.

Dead Men Don’t Ski by Patricia Moyes

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This is the first in a series of mysteries published between 1959 and 1993 and featuring Inspector Henry Tibbett. I had never come across them, or their author Patricia Moyes, until now, but I really enjoyed this one and will definitely be looking for more.

Dead Men Don’t Ski begins with Henry Tibbett and his wife, Emmy, setting off on a skiing trip to Italy. It’s a much-needed holiday for the two of them, but Henry is also planning to mix business with pleasure. The hotel they’ll be staying at in Santa Chiara is suspected of being the centre of operations of a ring of drug smugglers and Henry has been asked by Scotland Yard to work with the local Italian police to find out who the culprits are. Of course, he doesn’t admit this to his fellow guests as he wants them to speak and act freely around him. These guests include a party of young English tourists – Jimmy, Roger and Caro; a retired military man, Colonel Buckfast and his wife; a beautiful Italian baroness and her possessive Austrian husband; and a German couple with their daughter and her prospective husband, as well as an assortment of hotel staff, skiing instructors and local residents.

At first, Henry and Emmy manage to blend in with everyone else, enjoying the scenery, attending skiing lessons and relaxing around the hotel. But when one of the guests boards the ski lift at the top of the mountain and is found dead by the time he reaches the bottom, Henry’s detective skills are needed to solve the crime and he will no longer be able to stay undercover.

This is an entertaining novel with a beautiful setting. Santa Chiara is described as a small village close to Chiusa near the border of Italy and Austria and drawing from the cultures of both countries. There are lovely descriptions of snow-covered peaks and valleys, pine trees and pink rock, Alpine houses with wooden balconies – and the Bella Vista Hotel perched high in the mountains. I was reminded of another ski resort mystery, Death in Kashmir by M.M. Kaye, although I thought that book was darker than this one.

I liked Henry Tibbett and it was also good to see so much of Emmy. Often the detective’s wife is kept very much in the background, maybe popping up now and then to make a cup of tea or answer the phone, but in this book Emmy is present from beginning to end. It would have been nice to see her play a bigger role in helping to actually solve the mystery, but maybe she will in one of the later books in the series. The other characters are also interesting; with such a mix of different nationalities you do need to be prepared for some slightly dated attitudes, but no worse than in most other books of this period. I was particularly drawn to Maria-Pia, the Baroness, and her cold, controlling husband Hermann, who turns out to have hidden depths.

As for the mystery itself, it’s a good one with plenty of suspects, although my heart sank when Spezzi, the Italian policeman working with Henry, draws up a detailed timetable of events, which is reproduced in the book. I find mysteries that focus on timings and alibis to be tedious and difficult to follow, so I was pleased that this book didn’t dwell too much on that after all – it was just part of Spezzi’s approach to crime solving and although his timetable did prove very useful, the interviews he and Henry conduct with the witnesses and suspects were just as important.

The first two books in this series are available now in attractive new editions from Farrago Books and with the next two advertised for publication later this year I hope that means they’ll be reissuing the whole series. I suspect it’s probably not essential to read them in order but I’m planning to try the second one, The Sunken Sailor, soon.

Thanks to Farrago Books for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz

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The Word is Murder, the first book in Anthony Horowitz’s series chronicling his partnership with the detective Daniel Hawthorne, is being adapted for film. Although Anthony, to his disappointment, has not been asked to write the script or participate in any other way in bringing his own story to life, both he and Hawthorne have been invited to visit the set in Hastings. Here they meet the cast and crew, including the two actors in the main roles – David Caine, playing Hawthorne, and Ralph Seymour, playing Horowitz himself. It’s clear that there are tensions between the two, so when Caine is found stabbed to death, Ralph is one of the prime suspects. However, it quickly emerges that almost everyone else on the set also has a motive for the murder. It seems that Hawthorne and Horowitz have found themselves with yet another crime to solve…

None of the above is true; it’s entirely fictional, but part of the fun (at least for me – I know not everyone likes it) is that Anthony Horowitz uses himself as a character throughout this series, in a clever blend of reality and imagination. Hawthorne is not a real person and neither are most of the others, but Horowitz occasionally refers to his real-life wife, Jill, his own books, and other aspects of his own life and career. He’s very self-deprecating and portrays himself as the Watson to Hawthorne’s Sherlock Holmes, often completely missing important clues and coming up with theories that turn out to be entirely wrong. A Deadly Episode is the sixth book in the series and although I would recommend reading them all in the correct order to fully understand the relationship between Horowitz and Hawthorne, it’s not really essential and each book has a self-contained plot.

The mystery in this book is an interesting one, with plenty of suspects as David Caine has made enemies of everyone involved with the film: his co-star Ralph Seymour, with whom he’s had a long professional – and often personal – rivalry; the screenwriter Shanika Harris who has known Caine since they were both young eco-warriors; his agent James Aubrey whom he’s been threatening to break ties with; and the runner (production assistant) Izzy Mays, who has lost her job because of Caine. Even the director and the producer have good reasons to want him dead, so there’s a lot for Anthony and Hawthorne to untangle here. The real Horowitz has had experience of working in film and television and I think it shows in his descriptions of life on set.

Halfway through the book, a second mystery begins to unfold, revolving around a crime that took place more than a decade earlier. I found this a bit jarring at first, as it meant getting to know a whole new set of characters, but eventually connections between the two mysteries start to form and the eventual solution gives an explanation for both.

After the previous book, Close to Death, where our two main characters were separated for most of the novel, it was good to see them spending more time together again in this one. Hawthorne has never been the most pleasant of people – he’s secretive, prickly and tactless – but I do think he’s a fascinating character, partly because we know so little about him. In this particular novel, Anthony tries to dig into Hawthorne’s past, in a diversion that takes him to the village of Reeth in the Yorkshire Dales, but still doesn’t manage to shed a lot of extra light on things. Will we ever know the full story? Well, it seems there will be more books in the series, so there’s still hope!

Thanks to Century for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

The Mill House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji

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Translated by Ho-Ling Wong

This is the third of Japanese author Yukito Ayatsuji’s books I’ve read – I loved The Labyrinth House Murders but found The Decagon House Murders disappointing, so I was curious to see what I would think of this one. All three books are part of Ayatsuji’s Bizarre House series and all of them feature the detective Shimada Kiyoshi and an unusual, sinister house designed by the architect Nakamura Seiji. The Mill House Murders was originally published in Japanese in 1988 and is available from Pushkin Press in an English translation.

This book is set entirely within the walls of the Mill House which, like the Decagon House and Labyrinth House, is one of Nakamura’s creations. It’s home to Fujinuma Kiichi, who sustained terrible injuries in a car accident several years earlier and is now confined to a wheelchair, with a mask and gloves covering the damage to his face and hands. Kiichi is the son of the late artist Fujinuma Issei, and although he normally lives a reclusive life with his wife, Yurie, and their servants, once a year he invites a group of acquaintances to the house to look at his father’s paintings.

In September 1985, the group are making their annual visit when several shocking events occur, all in the space of one night: a woman falls to her death from the tower, one of Issei’s paintings vanishes, one of the guests disappears without explanation and a gruesome discovery is made in the furnace room. A solution is suggested by the police, but it’s not very satisfactory and lots of questions remain unanswered. A year later, in September 1986, the same people have gathered at the Mill House again and this time they are joined by Shimada Kiyoshi, a friend of the man who disappeared (and was largely blamed for everything that happened). Shimada believes he can find out the truth about the events of 1985, but he’ll have to hurry before history begins to repeat itself.

The Mill House Murders is another Ayatsuji novel that I thoroughly enjoyed, so it does seem that it’s only The Decagon House that, for whatever reason, didn’t work for me and I’m glad I decided to give him another chance! Although I often find that Japanese mysteries focus very heavily on complex puzzle solving, often involving alibis, timetables and maps, with characters, relationships and motives pushed into the background, this particular book is more balanced. It does have some floor plans, but I was pleased to find that I could follow the plot quite easily without having to study them too carefully, and the characterisation is stronger than in the Decagon and Labyrinth books.

The timeline switches backwards and forwards throughout the book, with one chapter describing the events of 1985 and the next set in the present day of 1986. This could have become confusing, but as long as I paid attention to the chapter headings, I had no problem keeping them straight in my mind. The mystery itself is a clever one; I partly managed to solve it (mainly because some of Seishi Yokomizo’s novels have similar tropes), but I didn’t get it completely right and was content to let Shimada Kiyoshi, the series detective, explain the full solution for me.

The translator, Ho-Ling Wong, also translated the other books I’ve read in this series and does a great job of making everything very clear and readable. I see there’s a fourth book in the series already in print – The Clock House Murders – and another, The Black Cat House Murders, on its way. I’ll look forward to reading both!

Murder Like Clockwork by Nicola Whyte

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This is the second in a series featuring the amateur detective duo Audrey Brooks and Lewis McLennon. I haven’t read the first, 10 Marchfield Square, but I enjoyed this one so much I’m planning to go back and read it, as well as looking out for any future books in the series.

Murder Like Clockwork is set in London and begins with cleaner Audrey Brooks arriving at the house she cleans every Thursday afternoon. She got the job through an agency and has never met the owner of the house, a Russian financier who is rarely in the country but wants someone to wind his collection of clocks and dust his antiques and expensive furniture. On this particular Thursday, Audrey arrives earlier than her usual time but it’s so cold she enters the house anyway and prepares to start work – only to find that she’s not alone. There’s a dead body in one of the bedrooms…with splashes of blood all over the walls and floor, showing that it wasn’t a natural death.

Audrey runs outside to call the police, who arrive twenty minutes later. To her shock, however, she finds herself accused of wasting police time, because there’s no dead body or blood to be seen. Audrey can’t believe it; how can an entire crime scene completely vanish in only twenty minutes? Convinced that she wasn’t imagining things, she contacts her friend, Lewis McLennon, who recently helped her solve another mystery. Lewis is excited to have a second crime to investigate, but how can they even prove that a crime has been committed when the victim and the evidence have disappeared?

I picked up this book after starting and temporarily abandoning two other books that didn’t immediately draw me in. I hoped this would be the quick, entertaining read I needed to help avoid a reading slump – and it was! The characters are well drawn and quirky, the mystery is cleverly plotted without being too difficult to follow and the overall tone is light and humorous. It didn’t really matter that I hadn’t read the previous book as this one works well as a standalone, but I did feel that I didn’t fully understand the role of one of the characters, Celeste, the owner of Marchfield Square, the residential complex where Lewis and Audrey both live. I’m sure I’ll get to know her better when I read the first book.

The novel is written from the points of view of Audrey, Lewis and occasionally Celeste, giving different perspectives on different aspects of the mystery. I found Lewis a particularly interesting character. As a struggling crime writer, he’s enthusiastic about having a real life crime to solve in the hope that it will give him inspiration for his books, but this often leads him to speak without thinking and many people find him annoying. He has a job at a recruitment agency, which he resents because he would rather spend his time writing, and is genuinely surprised when he discovers that other people also have lives outside work and are finding ways to balance their day jobs with pursuing their own dreams. Audrey is a very different personality – she’s warm, friendly and sociable and is happy with her cleaning jobs (although she wishes they were better paid). She and Lewis complement each other perfectly and form a good team.

Although Audrey and Lewis do most of the investigating, I loved the way the other residents of Marchfield Square also get involved. Somehow they all seem to know exactly what’s going on and everyone has an opinion to give or a piece of advice to offer. If you’ve ever watched Only Murders in the Building, that’s what this book reminded me of! I found it very entertaining overall and am looking forward to meeting Lewis and Audrey again.

Thanks to Raven Books for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.