The Inugami Curse

I had not heard of Seishi Yokomizo before, although he is a famous Japanese mystery writer. The Inugami Curse had all the features you have come to expect from mystery novels from that particular era.

There is a rich but strange family, the patriarch recently deceased. Upon reading of the will, family members start dropping like flies and many secrets are uncovered. Into this, the main character, a somewhat strange private detective is thrown. The real mystery, he has been hired before the first crime took place. He does the thing at the end were everyone is called together and everything is discussed, which has always seemed a very strange and illogical thing to do.

Set in post-war Japan, I thought it was an interesting read. A nice change of setting from the typical British mystery. While I had guessed most of it by the end of the novel before the big reveal, there still were some thing that had me guessing. The writing was a bit odd, and contained a lot of repetition but I do not know how much of this is due to the translation.

Interesting read.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!