Ursina's Shelf - International mystery
Issue 75
Dear readers,
This fall has been flush with new cases for some of my favorite sleuths. Joyce and the Cooper Chase retirement home gang made me full-on cry in the fourth installment of Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series (previously featured in the cozy mystery issue). Robert Galbraith, a.k.a. J.K. Rowling, had me ensnared in another Strike-and-Ellacott mystery for 950 pages (issue 3). And I am now eagerly awaiting the return of Sweden’s most famous Profiler Sebastian Bergman from the writing duo Michael Hjorth and Hans Rosenfeldt later this month (also issue 3).
All these authors, detectives, and stories are European and I’ll be quick to admit it is easy to read from and about your own surroundings by authors who sound like yourself. So today, I would like to share three international mysteries and shout out how I discovered them.
The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo (1946)
Description: Set in 1930s Japan, written 1940s, this is a classic locked room mystery with no apparent explanation for how the gruesome murder of the eldest Honjin heir and his bride on their wedding night could have occurred.
My take: If you enjoy Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple, you will enjoy Kosuke Kindaichi. This short novel is full of minute yet brief descriptions of the hamlet, where the murder took place, its surrounding areas, and the characters, transporting you to 1930s Japan. I reveled in discovering the motive, once revealed, while I found the means of the murder and its explanation slightly convoluted (Buy here). I am now reading a second Kosuke Kindaichi mystery, so definitely a repeat for me.
Shout-out to Berlin’s Hammett crime novel bookshop and specifically their owner for recommending this book to Dominic on our visit in August (previously featured in the Berlin issue).
The Dry by Jane Harper (2016)
Description: Police agent Aaron Falk returns to the rural Australian farming town, where he grew up, where he is soon confronted with the murder of his best friend’s family, his own past and expulsion from the community, and the untangling of buried stories. While not gruesome, this is a serious dark crime novel with depth to the protagonist, murder, and motive.
My take: A treat for anyone seeking a complicated protagonist and no clear-cut line between good and bad. A lot gets uncovered in the 300 pages of this debut, making for an engaging pace. (Buy here)
Shout-out to my mom Vera for gifting this to me.
A Most Peculiar Malaysian Murder by Shamini Flint (2016)
Description: In the first book in the Detective Singh series, Singh is sent from his home in Singapore to Kuala Lumpur to solve a murder and absolve the potentially innocent wife of the victim, while being forced to work alongside the local police.
My take: While the crime is serious, I would put this somewhere between cozy and hilarious. I laughed along quite a bit at this light novel, which was a perfect escape from more challenging reading. (Buy here)
Shout-out to Daunt Books in London, which organizes books of all genres by geography and thus led me to discover this book while exploring the Southeast Asian section. (Previously featured in London for book lovers).
A bookish adventure
Speaking of London, I had a chance to squeeze some fun into a business trip last week and visit Hatchards’ Holiday Tree made of bookshelves in St. Pancreas station with Briana. Sadly the stories being told on speaker in the little reading nooks at the bottom were not working, but it was very fun to admire the tree before a delicious dinner, which also included many bookish discussions.
The tree will be up through January 1 and is worth a detour. (Incidentally, Hatchards, though not this location was also featured in the London issue).
Currently reading: Deat on Gokumon Island, Kosuke Kindaichi’s second mystery by Seishi Yokomizo.
Thank you as always for reading. If you know someone, who would like this newsletter, please encourage them to sign up. Have a great weekend and can’t wait to hear what you are reading.