In the army, he met Chimata, the son of a fishing mogul on the (fictional) Gokumon Island; and Chimata, while not a coward, had a single fear: of dying before getting back home. But Kindaichi has not come merely as a messenger—with his last words, the dying man warned that his three step-sisters’ lives would now be in danger.

As with the other novels, it is easily readable and flows well, and is not a particularly long book. The prose is familiar and cheery, even in the midst of the murders, evoking a mischievous tone similar to translations of Murakami. Mostly, we got in-depth thought from Kindaichi but also other supporting characters were given their thoughts and views which makes it interesting to see from a different point of view. In this gripping tale, Kindaichi comes to the island bearing the tragic news of a young man’s death on the way home from war. It has been quite a while since I have sampled any classic Japanese crime fiction, seven years in fact.I managed to spot a red herring solution, but the correct answer was not one you can get a hold of properly. Death on Gokumon Island is set in 1946 and I felt this was a really engaging time period to situate the mystery in. The protagonist is Kosuke Kindaichi, an eccentric private eye that we’ve met in earlier mysteries by Seishi Yokomizo. Besides the novels on this list, has published many short stories in online magazines and journals, play scripts and the odd poem.

The crime heinous, smart and technical, but what makes Yokomizo works interesting is the subject matter of each parts that the book was written at its period of time, integrating with the culture and the honour of each families that is instilled as well. Though there can be some fun in getting lost in the twisty, complicated details of a crime novel, Gokumon Island is keen to hand-hold, and the reader is better for it. Without giving away much, this murder mystery is a mixed bag, deaths start too late but once they to they don't stop, so not a lot of time for user to form suspicions. There are some aspects that the modern reader may find problematic, like the assumption that since Gokumon was an island of priests and convicts, its people are strange, crazy even. It seemed less like a motive, but rather an obsession and influence one wielded over the islanders…which made everything much more unnerving than it initially appeared to be.I did however enjoy the social and historical context of the book and it was interesting to see what society was like in Japan post WW2.

Maybe because I was not expecting it and because I felt very grounded in the realities of post-War Japan, I found this style a bit disconcerting, as though it didn’t quite fit in. I have read a lot of Western classic crime fiction which explores the short term and longer-term consequences of WW2, such as Agatha Christie’s A Murder is Announced and Elizabeth Ferrars’ Hunt the Tortoise, but I hitherto had not read any from a country within the Axis powers. there's a sort of "well, they were just women, after all" lackadaisicalness to the proceedings that truly got up my nose.

The setting is a tiny, strange fishing land populated by the descendants of pirates and criminals exiled here in the Edo period.

the delicately handled, and odd, romantic strand that would've passed by me unremarked without the translator's quiet nudges. It's September, 1946 and as the novel opens, a ferry is making its way to a few different islands in Japan's Seto Inland Sea. The book begins with Kosuke traveling to Gokumon Island to deliver the news of the death of Chimata Kito, a friend from the war and the only direct male heir of the island’s ruling family.Any aspect of the story that might require specific knowledge, such as the duties of a fishing community’s “tide master,” are taken care of within the first chapter. I could say the murder's methods are not exactly similar but they bear a similar method which you will understand once you read the book and also if you have read And Then There Were None. One women remains alive and more or less healthy at the novel's end, but she's the outlier—and her prospects aren't that great either.