She Walks at Night - Seishi Yokomizo // Book Review

 

She Walks at Night
Seishi Yokomizo || Publication Date - 17.03.2026

A family of suspects and a few beheadings - what could go wrong?

Crime | Mystery

A mediocre crime novelist, Kosuke Kindaichi has been roped into the affairs of an aristocratic family known as the Furugami's. For the next few weeks, he would be subjected to the isolation of their estate locked away within mountains and single road access.

Within the same walls, family secrets start to trickle out and one by one victims emerge, beheaded. Fingers are pointed every which way, and as soon as new evidence or conclusions are made, something switches to put a strain on the investigation. All Kosuke wants is to solve the murders before anyone else, including himself, becomes headless. 

However, with a family full of dark secrets such as the Furugami's, sometimes murder is a lot better of an option than telling the truth.

The Review (may contain spoilers)

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me early access to this eARC for an honest review!

What I loved about this novel was the isolation experienced by all the characters. It added a significantly higher stake to the traditional Golden Age murder mystery which was being written. It had all the elements of something you might have read from Agatha Christie. However instead of a genius detective, you had a sub par crime novelist. Coming from the description for this author as being Japan's greatest crime writer, you can definitely see how the elements within the novel work together to create a mystery which was truly satisfying.

My one dislike when it came to the novel as a whole was the translation. I believe this aspect adds a whole different layer of being able to appropriately tell the story true to the authors original manuscript, and also allowing for a lot of the nuances of language to be conveyed to English readers. One example of something which happens often I have highlighted below:

This type of double dialogue happens a lot, and I know in Japanese these 'Umm', 'Ahh' and 'Hmm' verbalizations are a vital part of the spoken language, however, it could be written out when translated to English. Explicitly stating that 'Naoki sighed' would be enough without adding the dialogue translation along with it. Unfortunately it's not a vital part of English dialogue to always be verbalizing these fillers, so having this many through the novel make it obvious that it is a direct translation and a little clunky as a result.

Overall Thoughts

Despite the translation issues I had described above, which likely wouldn't affect someone who isn't familiar with the Japanese language, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Was it my favourite murder mystery? No. Would I still recommend it to those who adore golden age style mysteries? Yes.

It was atmospheric, twisty and the ending had very much surprised me. Not one I saw coming that's for sure.