ISBN 987-1-80533-551-1
There are two stories in this short book. Both are cases of the famous detective Kosuke Kindaichi .
Murder at the Black Cat Café.
The beginning of the story is a discussion on the different types of murder and the difficulties and opportunities they present. It provides a little insight into the detective, but is otherwise less interesting than it should be. This is an 'unidentifiable corpse mystery. The story itself has enough twists and turns to keep any crime fiction reader engaged. I had some difficult with the style of the writing, or of the translation, it's difficult to tell. So there were a couple of occasions when I had to back track and re-read parts. The story is presented as a mystery that is apparently solved, then solved again and again - I didn't count. I was just looking forward to the next few pages. I very much enjoyed this story, and would give it 4 stars.
★★★★☆
Why did the Well Wheel Creak ?
The second story is a mystery of the identification of a person returning from war. Here there is a lot of scene setting. Just before that gets really tedious, the first murder occurs, and the story livens up. The unknowns are well set up by now, and we are just waiting for the resolution. At the end of the story, there is a whole set of newspaper reports. This didn't really work, it slowed the pace and left me not knowing whether to trust them or not. The final pages explain the mystery well, but by then I was sagging slightly.
★★★☆☆
My overall rating is ★★★☆☆
