The Tokyo Zodiac Murders

Soji Shimada's The Tokyo Zodiac Murders was a fun whodunit. Using an astrologist as the sleuth who quickly solves the case of a serial murderer several decades after the killings was interesting, provocative, and amusing at the same time. And, as with all the best of the genre, the unveiling of the true killer was a huge surprise. And Kiyoshi as our astrologist Sherlock and Kazumi as his Watson were a fun pairing. I suppose if one remembers that it is important to always look at who benefits from the killings, the revelation makes a little more sense. But this was very well-done. The only disappointment was that Kiyoshi Mitarai, after insisting that they take their investigations to Kyoto, disappears from the narrative for several short chapters featuring his "Watson" attempting to solve the case. We prefer our sleuths to be more in the limelight and to have more interactions with the list of suspects and witnesses, etc. Nonetheless, this was an engaging read that we could not put down.