nerd teacher [books] reviewed Devil's Flute Murders by Null
Very Good but Very Difficult at Times
4 stars
Content warning There are a lot of necessary content warnings for this book, but I also recognise that knowing about those content warnings can potentially ruin the narrative. I've put them at the top of this post but beneath this spoiler for people who don't want them.
The relevant content warnings for this book include: sexual assault, rape, incest, suicide, financial abuse, and extreme manipulation.
The opening chapter of this book rightfully describes this book as being "Kindaichi Kosuke's darkest case" by the 'author' of the book. Something to note about Yokomizo's books is that the 'author' is also a character who has been publishing Kindaichi's stories, though they are usually a semi-anonymous character who outlines the important details of the case for the readers and are rarely the same person.
The story has a lot of twists and turns that may sometimes feel like red herrings, but something that Yokomizo's books often do is to have things that seem like red herrings but are actually still useful pieces of information. Sometimes events may seem entirely unimportant, but they still hold a whisper of information. I appreciate this more than when stories do typical 'red herring' events or provide 'red herring' evidence to intentionally mislead the audience, as it's not necessary to understand the connection of the evidence to the case but it at least has something to say to people who are trying to solve the case alongside Kindaichi (and if you don't recognise its usefulness to the case, it doesn't detract from the story or feel disruptive).
The story itself is interesting, and I genuinely love the way that Kindaichi is a character who reminds me of Columbo. He's not bumbling, but he's extremely affable and occasionally appears a little confused despite the fact that he very much isn't. That personality trait in a 'detective' character is something that I appreciate. It also, in such a dark story, provides some of the bits of light that make it easier to continue reading; because of his interactions with others, his character keeps the book from feeling far too heavy.