The Little Sparrow Murders

English language

Published 2024 by Pushkin Vertigo.

ISBN:: 978-1-78227-887-0

(1 review)

An old friend of Kosuke Kindaichi’s invites the scruffy detective to visit the remote mountain village of Onikobe in order to look into a twenty-year-old murder case. But no sooner has Kindaichi arrived than a new series of murders strikes the village – several bodies are discovered staged in bizarre poses, and it soon becomes clear that the victims are being killed using methods that match the lyrics of an old local children’s song…

The legendary sleuth investigates, but soon realises that he must unravel the dark and tangled history of the village, as well as that of its rival families, to get to the truth.

2 editions

nerd teacher [books] reviewed The Little Sparrow Murders by Seishi Yokomizo

Engaging As Always

4 stars

The Kindaichi Kosuke series of books is currently one of my favourite, especially as it does a lot within the genre that typically goes undone. Something that I noticed this time around and was able to ruminate on was that a lot of the books still hold a degree of humanity for the murderer, even when they clearly don't support their behaviour. This is something that I appreciate because it really does highlight that people can and do horrible things but that they're still people (which I think actually makes them more terrifying instead of less terrifying).

I point this out because it's something that is done in the solution to the case, and it's something that I frequently find myself wanting to see more of because I think it's best that we not separate ourselves too much from these horrible people (as in, we can definitely separate ourselves ideologically, …

The Kindaichi Kosuke series of books is currently one of my favourite, especially as it does a lot within the genre that typically goes undone. Something that I noticed this time around and was able to ruminate on was that a lot of the books still hold a degree of humanity for the murderer, even when they clearly don't support their behaviour. This is something that I appreciate because it really does highlight that people can and do horrible things but that they're still people (which I think actually makes them more terrifying instead of less terrifying).

I point this out because it's something that is done in the solution to the case, and it's something that I frequently find myself wanting to see more of because I think it's best that we not separate ourselves too much from these horrible people (as in, we can definitely separate ourselves ideologically, but we shouldn't be doing it on a species-wide level... something I've also noticed with real-world politics and problems).

Anyway, it's engaging as always. The translator does a wonderful job, and all of these books feel like they've been written from one person (even though they've all largely been translated by a handful of different people).