“My name’s Kazumi Ishioka. I’m a huge fan of mysteries; in fact, they’re almost an addiction.”

I’ve had this book on the Overdrive wishlist for the longest time ever, but only got around to it now. And I regret my wait so much because this is an amazing (if slightly disturbing) mystery. I actually had a dream about this book because I only finished half of it in one day because of how vivid the images were in my mind.

The Tokyo Zodiac Murders open with a confession: an eccentric artist plans to kill his six daughters and nieces and assemble their bodies to create the perfect woman Azoth. Before he can carry out his plan, he’s found dead in a locked room. Soon after, the women die exactly as written in his plan.

Years later, a mystery-fanatic illustrator (Ishioka Kazumi) and a talented astrologer (Mitarai Kiyoshi) try to solve the case.

This is actually not my first brush with Ishioka and Mitarai. Years ago, I caught a special on television starring the very two characters. I loved it but didn’t quite realise that they were based on books until now (I have so many books to get when I go back to Japan – I just hope I can remember them all!). For once, I had actual people’s faces in my mind as I read the book, something that almost never happens.

Parts of the structure of the book reminded me very much of Ellery Queen’s mysteries. The front part was almost true-crime, but towards the end, there’s an authorial note telling the readers that all the clues necessary to solve the case have been given and challenging them to deduce who the killer is. Spoiler alert: I did not get it.

I honestly loved this book. Apart from the characters that I was already favourably disposed towards, the mystery was extremely ingenious yet made sense. The start of the book had heavy tinges of the supernatural, but the solution was logical and convincing. It was a perfect balance between the spooky, almost gothic, supernatural and a down-to-earth mystery involving human emotions (although I suspect Chesterton would argue that human emotions are the real mystery).

While reading this book, I just knew that this is going to be one of my favourite books of the year. Everything flowed seamless, even with two confessions interrupting the main flow of the text, and I enjoyed every aspect of the book. It’s a little bit disturbing, especially the description of the murders, but I would definitely recommend this to mystery fans.

If you enjoyed this, you might like…

Drama: Tensai Tantei Mitarai – Available in Japanese, this 2015 adaptation by Fuji Television has Mitarai deduce that a woman committed a murder just because she threw away an umbrella. The twist comes when the woman he saw was found dead.

The Greek Coffin Mystery by Ellery Queen – A missing will, the wrong body in a coffin, and a young Ellery Queen. In the first of the series, Ellery Queen makes his mark as a detective.