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Seishi Yokomizo: The Village of Eight Graves (Paperback, 2021, Pushkin Press, Limited) 4 stars

Nestled deep in the mist-shrouded mountains, The Village of Eight Graves takes its name from …

Delightful.

5 stars

I genuinely enjoy Yokomizo's novels. Even in translation, they are well done and engaging. It's hard to not applaud that.

The thing I liked about this one, even with the detective of Kindaichi Kosuke being part of it, is that it was less from his perspective (or involved him less) while still making it clear that he was an important part of the story. He was solving the many crimes alongside the protagonist, who wasn't entirely setting out to solve the crime (as he recounts).

I also really liked that this is written in such a way that it's like a mystery memoir from the perspective of one of the suspects. Being from his perspective, it creates a lot of chaos about who you trust and who you don't. This makes it a bit more interesting because you're trying to empathise with him while also scrutinising him and what he sees or how he understood something. I really like that because it's a great way to kind of hide the solution, and it's so simple once you start unravelling who really committed the murders.