Nine childlike drawings: a series of five pictures drawn by a pregnant woman, uploaded on a seemingly innocuous blog
a child’s sketch of his home
a drawing done by a young girl in therapy
and two different drawings by two different murder victims
One over-arching and terrifying mystery that connects them all. Can you solve it?
I probably should have read this book before Strange Houses; not only was it published first, but (I believe) two characters appear here that also appear in Strange Houses, just younger: Kurihara, the architect, and Shuhei Sasaki, who I think now is supposed to be the narrator of Strange Houses. Personally, I think Shuhei is supposed to be a Mary-Sue of Uketsu, but that’s just my opinion, as the two books are based off Uketsu’s YouTube channel, where he leads people through drawing-based murder mysteries.
What made this book (both books, actually) so creepy is that the motives for the murders and the way they occurred are very realistic; they could very easily actually happen. In fact, frighteningly enough, I would not be the least bit surprised to discover that the plot was inspired (or based on) a real-life crime. But then again, I have read far too many Harold Schechter true-crime books and watched far too much Criminal Minds, so maybe my inner compass is a bit skewed.
I appreciate that Jim Rion kept the Japanese mores and writing style when he translated; Japanese books at large, specifically mysteries, have a certain tempo to their writing style, and Rion keeps that here. And none of the details have been Americanized; from Bento boxes to Japanese grave markers to the inherent sexism of the employment options, everything is kept true to Japanese culture.
Also appreciate that Uketsu doesn’t tie everything up in a neat little bow, which makes the book more realistic. I will say that I saw where the story was going partway through Chapter One (there is a prologue and four chapters in this book), though that in no way decreased my enjoyment of the story. One thing that seemed slightly like a case of plot-necessitated goofing was that in Chapter One it’s mentioned that there have to be three people living in an apartment…and then that fact is forgotten by the characters discussing it five pages later, so they come close to, but don’t solve, the mystery.
Nice that in the end the mystery is solved by two college students and a cancer-ridden, demoted reporter with an ego-driven case of skin in the game.
I really liked this book and want to read more by this author.
Note: Book is a little gory, with graphic mentions of quite a few murders. It’s also a very quick read; I finished it in around two or three hours, and I wasn’t reading it non-stop.