Death on Gokumon Island (Pushkin Vertigo) (Detective Kindaichi Mysteries): Seishi Yokomizo

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Just as Chimata had warned, the three sisters of the ruling family are picked off one by one, in oddly staged scenes. Exactly why this might be is not explained until the end, but by then, it's too late -- it seems that Chimata had been right, and now our detective must try to discover who is behind these (quoting the back cover) "grotesquely staged" deaths that start not too long after he lands on the island. It was actually the single most important motivating factor in the first book, The Honjin Murders, and while it wasn't prominent in the second book, The Inugami Curse, there was enough homophobia there to make up for it. He is asked by a dying comrade to go to his home and save his sisters, who he believes are going to be murdered once he is dead.

The scruffy detective is determined to get to the bottom of this mysterious prophecy, and to protect the three women if he can. A succession of grotesque murders has the endearingly dishevelled Kindaichi forever scratching his head. I love the pacing for each story and I like that, even when the killers have been revealed, you can't seem to blame them as well. In Death on Gokumon Island, which takes place right after the war has ended, this altered consciousness is apparent in all of the characters, most notably in the prodigious detective’s life path. In those days, to persist in wearing traditional Japanese dress took some stubbornness, but this passenger didn’t look stubborn.The protagonist is Kosuke Kindaichi, an eccentric private eye that we’ve met in earlier mysteries by Seishi Yokomizo. It seemed less like a motive, but rather an obsession and influence one wielded over the islanders…which made everything much more unnerving than it initially appeared to be.

Interestingly while the priest speaks of not wanting to ‘scare’ the women with the news of the murder, one woman indeed acting in a stereotypical, hysterical manner, and Chimada-san’s sisters being compared to the gorgons at one point, we also have Sanae-san, who is running the family’s fishing business on her own when the men are away at war, and womenfolk on the island being the ones who tend the fields for fishermen would never pick up a hoe. In the end, Kosuke solves the series of crimes, uncovering a plot that had been put in motion by Chimata’s own grandfather.The Publisher Says: 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.

The plot twist is quite unexpected for me and I do think they are brilliant but I was left wanting more or perhaps a grand reveal. The last-minute application of regret, even though I think the whole story's revoltingly misogynistic, does at least gesture at some sense of the trope's wrongness. The cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The crime heinous, smart and technical, but what makes Yokomizo works interesting is the subject matter of each parts that the book was written at its period of time, integrating with the culture and the honour of each families that is instilled as well. In the army, he met Chimata, the son of a fishing mogul on the (fictional) Gokumon Island; and Chimata, while not a coward, had a single fear: of dying before getting back home.His last stop had been in Wewak, New Guinea, where he had met and befriended Chimata Kito, helping him through his bouts of a very bad case of malaria and spending time together while the other soldiers "fell one after the other.