#1213: The Noh Mask Murder (1949) by Akimitsu Takagi [trans. Jesse Kirkwood 2024]

Noh Mask Murder

star filledstar filledstarsstarsstars
With their gloomy house in isolated woodland, overlooking a dreary bay and containing a mask from Japanese Noh theatre that is rumoured to carry a curse, it’s frankly amazing that no-one in the Chizui family — “[r]iven by mutual suspicion, hatred and a sheer failure to understand one another…” — has been found murdered in a locked room before. Thankfully, hard upon the return of Hiroyuki Ishikari to the area, ostensible head of the family Taijiro is found thus slain, and mystery fan Akimitsu Takagi is on hand to help dig to the bottom of the tangled skein that will see yet more of the clan wiped out in the days that follows. Though how much use he’ll be is up for debate.

Continue reading

#527: Plotting the Perfect Crime – Potential and Pay-Off via The House of Haunts, a.k.a. The Lamp of God (1935) by Ellery Queen

Black Lizard Locked Room

Slowly, slowly I work my way through the Otto Penzler-edited Woo Whatta Lotta Locked Room Mysteries (2014) — it’s not really a convenient size to dip into — and, since my chronological reading of Ellery Queen is going so well, it seemed time to take on this impossible disappearance story.  Or so I thought…

Continue reading

#158: The Tattoo Murder Case, a.k.a. The Tattoo Murder (1948) by Akimitsu Takagi [trans. Deborah Boehm 1998]

tattoo-murder-caseSince Soji Shimada’s The Tokyo Zodiac Murders was republished by Pushkin Vertigo, I’ve found myself reading increasing amounts of Japanese detective fiction: the shin honkaku of The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji and The Moai Island Puzzle by Alice Arisugawa from Locked Room International, The Salvation of a Saint by Keigo Higashino (yes, The Devotion of Suspect X will follow in due course…), and I’ve recently started Gosho Aoyama’s Case Closed (a.k.a. Detective Conan) manga.  And authors such as Seicho Matsumoto and Kyotaro Nishimura are climbing ever-higher up by TBB list as I encounter more of the high-quality work that has been translated for our pleasure.  And, of course, the proliferation of impossible crimes in these stories doesn’t hurt, with the added cross-cultural glimpses also offered simply making them an even more attractive proposition.

Continue reading