The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Seishi Yokomizo
- Language: English
- Genre: International Mystery & Crime
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
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The Three-Fingered Man
Before recording the strange history that follows, I felt I ought to take
a look at the house where such a gruesome murder was committed.
Accordingly, one afternoon in early spring, I set off, walking stick in
hand, for a stroll around that infamous residence.
I was evacuated to this rural farming village in Okayama Prefecture
in May of last year, at the height of the bombing raids. And since that
day, everyone I’ve met has talked to me at least once of what some call
“the Koto Murder Case” and others “the Honjin Murder Case” at the
home of the Ichiyanagi family.
Generally, as soon as people hear that I’m a writer of detective
stories, they feel compelled to tell me of any murder case with which
they have the slightest personal connection. I suppose rumours of my
profession had reached the ears of the villagers, so every single one
managed to bring up the topic of the Honjin Murder Case at some
point. For the people of this village there could hardly be a more
memorable case, and yet most of them were not aware of the full
horror of this crime.
Usually when people tell me these kinds of tales, they never turn out
to be as interesting to me as they are to the teller, much less potential
material for a book. But this case was different. From the moment I
heard the first whispers about the case, I was fascinated. Then, when I
finally got to hear the account from the lips of F—, the man most
directly connected to the case, I was at once seized with a great
excitement. This was no ordinary murder. The perpetrator had
scrupulously planned the whole ghastly deed. What’s more, it was
worthy of the label “Locked Room Murder Mystery”.
The locked room murder mystery—a genre that any self-respecting
detective novelist will attempt at some point in his or her career. The
murder takes place in a room with no apparent way for the killer to
enter or exit. Constructing a solution is an appealing challenge to the
author. As my esteemed friend Eizo Inoue wrote, all of the works of
the great John Dickson Carr are some variation on the locked room
murder theme. As a writer of detective novels myself, I intended one
day to try my hand at one of these, and now I’ve been unexpectedly
blessed—one has fallen right into my lap. I know it’s shocking but I
feel I owe a debt of gratitude to the killer for devising such a fiendish
method to stab this man and woman.
When I first heard the story, I immediately racked my brain to think
of any similar cases among all the novels I’ve read. The first that came
to mind were Gaston Leroux’s The Mystery of the Yellow Room and
Maurice Leblanc’s The Teeth of the Tiger; then there’s The Canary
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