It’s been a while since I read a Japanese mystery, and I was pretty excited for this – especially since the cover uses the words “spine chilling”.

Set in an ageing apartment for women, most of whom are also pretty elderly by the time the book is set, The Master Key is about a crime that no one knows has been committed. Seven years ago, a man wearing a dress was hit and killed by a truck. Just before that, the same man and a woman buried a child in the unused communal bath in the building. In the present day, the master key to the building has been stolen.

The Master Key reminded me of Newcomer by Higashino Keigo because each chapter focuses on a different resident in the building. Unlike the characters in Newcomer, most of these residents aren’t very likeable – one woman, for example, is likened to a mouse in the way she lives off scraps and hides in her room. There isn’t a detective or some third party that would help tie the narratives together either, so the book can feel a little disjointed at times. However, the individual stories and the overall arc were compelling and I found it difficult to put the book down.

However, although I found most of the book compelling, the ending was a bit of a let-down for me. I won’t spoil the book, but I’ll just say that although the ending weaves all the stories together, I would never have been able to guess what was going on just from the information given and that made the resolution feel unsatisfying.

Overall, this was an interesting mystery that is very different from what I normally read. Although I’m not a fan of the ending, I enjoyed the suspense and the characterisation in the book and I would still be interested in reading more from Togawa.