The Devil’s Flute Murders (2023) by Seishi Yokomizo is translated by Jim Rion and is a classic locked-room murder mystery. Regarded as Japan’s premier crime writer, akin to Agatha Christie, this is only Seishi’s fifth novel to be transcribed into English. Detective Kosuke Kindaichi is asked by a woman to investigate whether her dead father is actually alive. Some family members have seen her father alive and heard him playing his flute concerto. After Kosuke attends a Divination at the family home, another man is discovered in a locked room complicating the investigation further. The book includes a helpful list of characters and chapter headings, as well as a succinct narrative reminiscent of the classic detective series. Although released in Japan in 1973, this is a most welcome addition to the canon of great crime writers, as it’s a four and a half stars must-read rating. With thanks to Pushkin Press and the author, for an uncorrected advanced review copy for review purposes. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own and freely given, without inducement.

This is definitely a case of it's me, dear book, and not you. I found this book very confusing. The cast of characters was huge and I tried to use the character list in the beginning of the book but I should have written my own. Honestly, I should have had a pad and paper out the whole time to make my own notes. I found nuances within the story also confusing, times when Kikue would get giggly or Kindaichi would get stuttery and I couldn't seem to decipher why that was significant or what had changed in the situation to warrant it being noted. I also found Kindaichi easily flustered and a bit bumbling. Reading other reviews, I think I would have found him in a better light had I read the first book in the series and not started with this one.

So, if this one sounds good to you, You should give it a try - especially if complex mysteries full of a huge cast of characters and small clues to lead you to the killer, then this is definitely for you!

A huge thank you to the author and publisher for providing an e-ARC via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

I went into this with such high hopes, but it just didn’t work for me - thematically, characters, atmosphere, pacing - none of it worked for me.

The Honjin Murders is still at the top of my TBR list, and I hope to have better luck with that one!

Thank you to Netgalley + Pushkin Press for the digital arc. All opinions my own.

I very much enjoy the setting of this book. I thought it was translated well. I'm not sure how translations like this work but I think a bit could have been edited to be more appealing to modern readers. There are a lot of characters & a lot going on - it kind of made my head spin. Overall a fun, old mystery. If you like Agatha Christie you will probably like it

2.5 stars rounded up. A locked-room murder mystery with a constantly-escalating body count, the latest translated Kosuke Kindaichi novel by Seishi Yokomizo treads familiar ground, but somehow didn't really hit for me. The mystery itself is one of those where there are few, if any, breadcrumbs left for the reader to unravel, until you learn one fact maybe 85% into the book that reveals one character is not who they say they are. A clear indication that that character is the murderer, surely, but where some stories would swerve and reveal a different solution this one does not; the de rigueur parlor scene merely explains the character's motivations and method (to some degree, anyway: the locked-room bit is skated over with minimal attention), which leaves the ending kind of flat.

Really well crafted and engaging murder mystery! It kept me guessing and on the edge of my seat. So happy I discovered this series. Great job on translation as well.

I look forward to reading the other books in the series.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.

The Devil's Flute Murders was definitely a stronger entry for me than the past two books in the series. In this book, Kindaichi is approached by a young woman named Mineko who involves him in a convoluted case associated with her not-so-long-ago aristocratic family. Mineko's father, Viscount Tsubaki is supposed to have committed suicide but it seems that his ghost is haunting their family, especially her mother Akiko. Tsubaki was also briefly a suspect in a horrific killing spree, but was later set free. And what about the haunting melody that was the viscount's last creation? Why does someone keep playing it whenever the viscount's ghost makes an appearance? As Kindaichi takes the case, he has to see three more people lose their lives before he can reach at the heart of this mystery that was set into motion a long time ago.

The Japanese morals and ideals of that time play an important role in the plot, which is sure to keep its readers engaged. However, I have to say I am getting a little tired of the writer's writing style, who makes the detective as well as the other characters gasp, sigh so many times. Multiple times a chill keeps running down their spines and their surprised expressions are becoming too cliched and seem to repeat in the story too often. Apart from these minor niggles, a good novel.

Thanks to Netgalley and Pushkin Vertigo for the review copy.

One of my favorite authors from Japan and an excellent translation as well! Thank you to NetGalley and Pushkin Press! I like the historical background of the novel as the book is set in end of World War II. I enjoyed it very much.

This was my first Detective Kosuke Kindaichi novel. It took me a little while to get used to the writing style, and the convoluted relationships between the characters (iykyk) took a while to wrap my head around too. I think having too many things happening at once took away a little bit from the final reveal. Overall it was entertaining and the suspense was done pretty well, but the complexity did make the case a bit hard to follow at times.

Another highly entertaining Kosuke Kindaichi mystery, this time a locked-room murder, paired with a countryside investigation and terrible family secrets.

This detective story is a complicated and well-thought out mystery. It's filled with minute details that dexterously interweaved with domestic issues within the narrative, in the context of post-WW2 Japan. It's sometimes a bit difficult to grasp and you definitely have to take your time with it.

The writing style sometimes gets to me a bit with its rampant sighing or gasping or dramatized stuttering, but I don't have any other gripes with it and besides that, it's quite pleasant.

Thank you NetGalley and Pushkin Vertigo for the free review copy, I'm leaving this review voluntarily.

Thanks to Seishi Yokomizo, Pushkin press, and NetGalley for the early release version of this book.

Good story with a big motive, a locked room murder, and a detective that gave me a Japanese Columbo vibe. Lots of twists and turns wrapped in the Japanese culture of the late 1940’s.

We sell a lot of these novels in our shop so I wanted to give one a try- which in hindsight wasn’t the best idea seen as I’m not a big fan of crime fiction. I enjoyed certain elements but found it hard overall to maintain focus when reading the book. A lot of the time I was a bit confused as to what was going on which obviously affected my reading experience.

'This is my second detective Kosuke Kindaichi book after after Death on Gokumon Island and I have to say I preferred that one over this. I thought the beginning leading up to the murder, the murder and the reveal at the end were interesting but the actual investigation part was little bit dull. I didn't really like how the translator decided to translate accent's of different characters, but I understand there was plot reasons for them to be noticeable. I just found them tedious to read through.

I also absolutely despise how the author describes all the women characters as either super beautiful or ugly. I did find one paragraph of the author describing this older maid being beyond ugly quite amusing. Like what did that maid do to you to roast her like that lol.

Overall this one wasn't really something I enjoyed that much but I will keep on checking out more of detective Kosuke Kindaichi works in the future.

It's really easy to get lost while reading this book, and not in a good way. Yokomizo tends to overinflate his books with too many characters and that could get distracting. However, I enjoyed this one fairly more than the previous two I've read from him.

This one was a little bit of a disappointment for me…I’m always excited by mystery novels and had heard that this particular author/series was a classic. I’m not sure if it was the translation that had me a little lost, or if it was just not the story for me.

I found a fair bit of the novel to be a little redundant. A lot of the same information was repeated and I found myself skipping sections. There is one point near the end where the culprit is writing their confession but it is almost exactly the same information as what the detective was describing in the previous chapter. It does reach a point where the author cuts the letter short because of the repetitive nature of the content…but the whole beginning of the confession was a repeat as well.

I just had a hard time getting in to the story, and once I did find something to hook me in, it didn’t last long and I lost my concentration again.

The story wasn’t bad, don’t get me wrong, it just felt muddled. The crimes themselves weren’t as diabolical as you are lead to believe, but the twist is pretty shocking. If you’re looking for an easy mystery book, this isn’t it. Be ready to take notes and keep track of details! If I had known that beforehand I think I would have had a much better experience. Altogether though, I didn’t dislike it, I actually quite enjoyed the twists and turns of the story. The last quarter of the book sucked me in for sure, but by then it was a little too late.

Not since Agatha Christie have I been so engrossed in a murder mystery! I'm so glad that I found this Japanese writer and you can bet that I will be reading all of his works that are translated into English.

"Ugliness of such purity and extent is actually not unpleasant. Indeed, it becomes a kind of art at that point. The corrosion of age seemed to have washed all marks of shyness or vanity from her expression, and she stood unabashed in front of guests as if having forgotten her own ugliness, even putting it on display, making it an object of awe. In a way, this woman seemed to have left some elements of human weakness behind."

Seishi Yokomizo drops readers right into the action in the opening and doesn't let up. A classic whodunit set in the midst of Japan rebuilding after the war. The scruffy detective, Kosuke Kindaichi, leads readers through a twisting series of mysterious events to reveal the truth.

For readers who love the whodunit stories, Yokomizo is a must read.

This locked-room murder mystery, set in post-war Japan, is full of twists and turns. I was surprised by how quickly I got sucked into it.

This is very much an old-school, Sherlock Holmes-style story with an eccentric detective coming in to solve the case. One thing I found unusual was that the author kept reiterating the ages of and relationships between the characters. I actually found that really helpful when it came to keeping the large cast straight.

This isn’t my favourite mystery I’ve read this year, but I enjoyed reading it and plan to check out more from this author.

From Japan and set a few years after WWII, this intriguing mystery begins with a disappearance of an impoverished nobleman When his death is determined to be a suicide, questions open up as to what dark family secret led to this act. Mysterious music, appearances, clues, and more deaths add to the mystery. While the murderer was easy to guess, the mystery really is the secret and that kept me guessing until the end.