The Mill House Murders

My Rating:

☆☆☆

You know how professors in college will assign a syllabus of required titles, some of which you’ll need to read first to understand the books you’ll read later on in the course? My experience reading this title truly felt like a culmination of my translated novel reading 'journey'. Had I not read The Tokyo Zodiac Murders last fall, I would not have caught on to the fact that the name of Ayatsuji’s detective, Shimada Kiyoshi, was an homage derived from the detective Kiyoshi Mitarai in The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, and the author of that same novel, Soji Shimada.

I'd also made the mistake (?) of reading so many Japanese mysteries between this one and The Decagon House Murders last October that I somehow forgot that Shimada Kiyoshi was the amateur detective on the mainland in that one - so I practically losing my mind with excitement at what I thought were The Decagon House Murders "easter eggs" in The Mill House Murders before I realized that a.) the detective was the same one from that book and b.) therefore, these details and mentions weren't supposed to be half as surprising as I was finding them, because the two books were linked.  Exhilirating nonetheless for awhile there, though.

While reading, though, I had to actively make an effort not to compare it to The Decagon House Murders. While it was fun to see the case from that novel mentioned in this one, The Mill House Murders was pretty predictable. I did like the dual narrative and alternating timeline, as well as the overall vibes of the story, but unfortunately, I could see the ending coming from the very first couple of chapters. There were a couple exciting details that I didn't expect, but in the end, the how and the why of the crime were simply too unsurprising to earn it more than three stars. I do hope they'll translate more of Ayatsuji's work, though!