Libro tradotto di recente, ma in realtà scritto nel '48 e libro d'esordio di Takagi Akimitsu, che ambienta questo romanzo proprio in quegli anni, nel Giappone del dopoguerra: vengono quindi dipinti quartieri distrutti dai bombardamenti, persone disperse nelle Filippine o sotto le bombe atomiche, i bar aperti solo per i membri come il Serpent, la rigida legislazione che ha portato i tatuaggi ad essere da forma d'arte diffusa a fuorilegge. I tocchi noir della storia sono affascinanti, se pensiamo che lo scrittore non sta necessariamente inventando, ma ci sta raccontando quello che sta succedendo davvero intorno a lui.

Ho apprezzato molto l'introduzione storica sul tatuaggio in Giappone e come il romanzo parta proprio da qui, da lontano, quasi fosse un drammatico e non un poliziesco. Ancora di più come abbia unito il tema tatuaggio con un grande mito giapponese, quello di Orochimaru-Jiraiya-Tsunadehime, inserendo oltre l'aspetto storico contemporaneo anche quello tradizionale culturale giapponese. Buon bilanciamento anche tra la parte narrativa e descrittiva.

Ascoltato versione audiolibro, la lettrice Jun Ichikawa tiene sempre un ritmo bilanciato e incalzante, decisamente apprezzato quando lo si ascolta durante la guida.

I feel like this was let down by the translation

My first Takagi book. A riveting story with an interesting puzzle that was fairly and ingeniously solved. I love our naive protagonist/POV character, he really does feel like a well-meaning, hapless, and depressed graduate student-slash-nepo baby brother to a successful police detective. The story sympathizes with him without feeling that he does not deserve the sympathy, by giving him the right amount of chastisement. I love the detail and care that goes into describing the tattoos--still quite a taboo thing, even in today's Japan--and their wearers, most of them lower-class people and denizens of Japan's underbelly. They are vividly drawn, but not sensationalized. The plot twist at the end was also fairly earned and does not feel like it was magically conjured out of a hat.

4,5 stars rounded down to 5 stars

At Japanese locked room mystery in the style of Agatha Christie. Lots of red herrings, multiple motives and an intriguing cast of characters, including the somewhat flawed 'detective". Written in 1948, it is written in a modern way so that it was easy to read for audiences in 2023 - timeless, if you will. The descriptions of post-war Japan settings and culture were clearly well researched and thoughtfully constructed. I am intrigued by the themes of the tattoo culture, the mythology touched upon, and want to read more about these skin museums - macabre but interesting! Like all good murder mysteries, I was surprised by the outcome.

While i certainly wanted to know the solution to the murders, i cant really say i liked the book. The trope of the exceptionally bright young man who takes one look at a crime scene and instantly understands the criminal's plan, though it stumped the police for months, is a weary one. Takagi really wants to paint a cat-and-mouse, Sherlock vs. Moriarty, gifted criminal mind vs. equally-gifted forensic mind tension. However, the scenes play out in such clichéd ways as to feel like I'm reading a transcript of an episode of some generic procedural crime drama. This may be in part due to the age of the book, like trying to appreciate Citizen Kane 60 years after its influence affected every movie made after that. But as it stands, it didnt really hold up for me here in 2024.

Predictable thriller.