She Walks At Night

Unfortunately, She Walks At Night by Seishi Yokomizo, was a little underwhelming. Although the great sleuth with shaggy hair, Kosuke Kindaichi, is in the story, his role is quite marginal and he only appears significantly late in the story. Instead, the novel recycles an idea that was famously used by Agatha Christie in the 1920s. The narrator is a third-rate mystery novelist who is the belitted play-thing ("friend") of a man from a wealthy family which once ruled his peasant ancestors. Our narrator, who covers the series of gruesome murders (including decapitations) that take place in the Koganei and Okayama estates of his wealthy friend's family (Sengoku, but they were the actual power behind the Furugami, an old "feudal" clan), writes a report of the crimes as if it was a detective novel. There are some fun meta references to the mystery writer here and perhaps Seishi Yokomizo was poking fun at the way some may not have taken the genre seriously. But the real weakness here is the little screentime for Kindaichi's character. He has his moments, such as being regarded as a joke by the narrator and Naoki, and there is even an interrupted denouement that is taken in a different direction. But something was amiss here. The little "screentime" of Kindaichi is undoubtedly part of it, yet the actual case itself was not as developed as it should be. It was also difficult to understand why Tokyo cops let the family go to their rural estate without solving the first murder.