MURDER IN THE HOUSE OF OMARI, modern iteration of the Japanese locked-room mystery

MURDER IN THE HOUSE OF OMARI
TAKU ASHIBE (tr. Bryan Karetnyk)
Pushkin Vertigo (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$12.99 ebook available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Osaka, 1943: as the Second World War rages and American bombers rain death down upon the city, the once prosperous Omari family is already in decline, financially ruined by the terrible conflict. Then the household is struck by a series of gruesome murders.

Can anyone solve the mystery of these baffling slayings before the Omari line is extinguished entirely? To do so, and unravel the killer's fiendish plot, they will have to delve into the family's past, where a dark and deadly secret has been festering for decades...

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Dark secrets! Wartime as economic disaster! Lies and murder in a beauty-products business! What more can a mystery reader want?

How about a family saga (bookmark the list of characters or all is lost), with an old family business floundering after losing...somehow...the heir to the place, the prestige slice of the health-and-beauty market they'd banked on keeping to wartime supply and in general the economic depression inherent in postwar economies, and the new head (adopted after marrying the lost heir's sister) not having the power to make changes?

All that and more coming soon. First, though, understand the pace is not twenty-first-century but period-appropriate. The book was written and published in the 2020s, but it feels more vintage than it is. I myownself think this is a feature not a bug, but you might not. Take heed.

This isn't a story with huge revelations, or shocking twists, but with the women who decide to solve it working it through because, well, what's another death in a country so very recently ravaged by World War II and its often-fatal privations? Natsuko, a doctor, is primarily a rational thinker and a keen observer...doctors tend to be both...who sees things differently from the other women, Mineko and Tsuruko, who are her fellow sleuths.

It's not the fair-play playbook, but the clues *are* there; you can indeed solve the murders, and trace the lines of motive, if you're attentive. I paid attention and got it 50% right...it was one of two people and one indeed was guilty.

I found a lot of the interpolations of newspaper stories and the like to be pacing-killers (those missing stars), but enjoyed them nonetheless. I was kept happily engrossed the entire read. I hope you will be as well.