The Tattoo Murder offers a good mental challenge while reading if you want to try and solve both the locked room mystery and the murder itself. I found the concept of someone murdering in order to steal body art interesting, as well as the detail and explanation that went into both the murder itself and the social views around tattoos at the time period as well. 

While I had zero expectations of being able to solve the locked room mystery, I was quite suprised by how detailed the mystery was and I felt unless you really knew about Japanese house construction, it would have been nearly impossible to solve how the room remained locked. 

This was a good book and an enjoyable read, including the time I spent trying to construct the timeline of the murder! I was able to work out the murderer but only just before the big reveal itself. While this was a good book, now that I know who the murderer is, I would not read it again, hence the three star review.

I liked the short and concise chapters. Story has a strong and fast-paced development, and is consistently exciting. Well-written plot with a great conclusion. I enjoyed it!

This is an incredibly detailed murder mystery, with a wealth of discussion about the culture of post war Japan and tattoo culture, and meticulous about how the crime was committed...Which made it almost too dry to be interesting at times. Listening to lists of information looses its charm after a while and Kinue was a...strong choice of perspective character. If not for the introduction of Kyosuke quite late in the book, it would have taken me a lot longer to finish. I still found a lot of the story very interesting, and was hooked again once things sped up later in the narrative. 

I'd definitely recommend this to any fans of a good old fashioned murder mystery, with a single third person perspective and an amateur detective that can hold his own against any Poirot or Sherlock. If you're squeamish about gore or not into lots of discussion about women in a sexual manner, though, this might not be one for you.