Death on Gokumon Island - MXHDR BookWyrm

Paperback, 320 pages

English language

Published Jan. 5, 2022 by Pushkin Vertigo.

ISBN:: 978-1-78227-741-5

(1 review)

Kosuke Kindaichi arrives on the remote Gokumon Island bearing tragic news – the son of one of the island’s most important families has died, on a troop transport ship bringing him back home after the Second World War. 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. The scruffy detective is determined to get to the bottom of this mysterious prophesy, and to protect the three women if he can.

As Kosuke Kindaichi attempts to unravel the island’s secrets, a series of gruesome murders begins. He investigates, but soon finds himself in mortal danger from both the unknown killer and the clannish locals, who resent this outsider meddling in their affairs.

Loosely inspired by Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, the fiendish Death on Gokumon Island is perhaps the most …

Kosuke Kindaichi arrives on the remote Gokumon Island bearing tragic news – the son of one of the island’s most important families has died, on a troop transport ship bringing him back home after the Second World War. 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. The scruffy detective is determined to get to the bottom of this mysterious prophesy, and to protect the three women if he can.

As Kosuke Kindaichi attempts to unravel the island’s secrets, a series of gruesome murders begins. He investigates, but soon finds himself in mortal danger from both the unknown killer and the clannish locals, who resent this outsider meddling in their affairs.

Loosely inspired by Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, the fiendish Death on Gokumon Island is perhaps the most highly regarded of all the great Seishi Yokomizo’s classic Japanese mysteries.

2 editions

nerd teacher [books] reviewed Death on Gokumon Island by Seishi Yokomizo

Enjoyable and Intriguing.

4 stars

This book was actually quite surprising. It was less surprising for the solution and the mystery itself, but I wasn't expecting for a mystery novel to kind of tackle the idea of 'outsiders' and the supposed suspicious nature of people within a small town while also recognising that there are different cultures within the same country that impact how we think and behave.

Rather, I was more surprised because the handling of the issue wasn't immediately structured in a way to make all the 'small town' people inherently unlikable, unintelligent, or 'beneath' the protagonist (which is something that is annoyingly common in texts that utilise this structure). This is actually something that Yokomizo's books seem to handle well because Kindaichi never seems to hold himself above the people he's around. The locals are shown to be somewhat suspicious and cautious, friendly to a point, but with some still believing that …

This book was actually quite surprising. It was less surprising for the solution and the mystery itself, but I wasn't expecting for a mystery novel to kind of tackle the idea of 'outsiders' and the supposed suspicious nature of people within a small town while also recognising that there are different cultures within the same country that impact how we think and behave.

Rather, I was more surprised because the handling of the issue wasn't immediately structured in a way to make all the 'small town' people inherently unlikable, unintelligent, or 'beneath' the protagonist (which is something that is annoyingly common in texts that utilise this structure). This is actually something that Yokomizo's books seem to handle well because Kindaichi never seems to hold himself above the people he's around. The locals are shown to be somewhat suspicious and cautious, friendly to a point, but with some still believing that the 'outsiders' can never really understand them or the people they've lived with.

I also really like the ways in which superstition is utilised and discussed. This was also another surprise for me because, again, I'm so used to texts that utilise superstition in a way that makes in feel disconnected from the story and the people. This made it feel really authentic to the story and like something you could actually interact with, question, and understand. It wasn't taken for granted, and it showed how even some people who weren't really superstitious could still find themselves falling into the trap of 'fate'.