Murder at the Black Cat Café (Detective Kindaichi Mysteries)
FROM ONE OF JAPAN'S GREATEST CRIME WRITERS—the author of THE HONJIN MURDERS: Nothing at The Black Cat Café is as it seems. . .
A faceless corpse is discovered near a notorious Tokyo brothel. Scruffy detective Kosuke Kindaichi plunges into the seedy backstreets to investigate.
In order to solve this sensational stand-alone murder mystery, Kindaichi will have to untangle a complex web of love, jealousy, and betrayal.
In post-war Tokyo, still recovering from the devastating wartime bombing raids, a patrolling policeman passing The Black Cat Café makes a gruesome discovery: the body of a woman, lying in a hastily dug hole, with a dead black cat by her side. The woman’s face is disfigured beyond recognition, and the café’s black cat seems alive and well, so where did the two corpses come from, and why were they buried in the café’s garden?
As the legendary scruffy sleuth Kosuke Kindaichi investigates, he realizes the café’s enigmatic madam, Oshima, has a past shrouded in secrecy, and what exactly is her relationship with the owner, Itoshima?
Murder at the Black Cat Café is the latest instalment in the Kosuke Kindaichi mysteries—the classic series that made Seishi Yokomizo Japan’s greatest and best-loved crime writer of all time. This edition also includes a bonus story, ‘The Well Wheel Creaks’.
BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
That being said, the stories are sweet and interesting, but at times very dull. There seems to be a lot of conversation and very little shown. You’re told how things add up but a lot of details don’t seem to be very clear while reading the book even if we rely on the trope. They’re enough to fill an afternoon, but you won’t remember them for too long. Both stories felt a bit flat and the detective did not feel memorable, even though The Well Wheel Creaks was a bit better.
NetGalley also did this one a bit dirty; the edition I was given had many typos and words missing which made it harder to immerse yourself in the book.
