Like, I feel like Van Dine had the most opportunity coz he was there first, and his being sick feels sus, but he also has no motive that I can see? Characters also geek out over mysteries; our first introduction to the students has Ellery talking about how strongly he prefers mysteries that are intellectual puzzles, and Carr accuses him of being elitist. But from another perspective, the parallel between this novel and Agatha Christie’s seminal work And Then There Were None is also made plainly obvious. Also, they are whodunnit experts, surely they would know that they are squandering valuable time on the kind of idiotic disagreements that solve nothing and if anything may result in them not paying attention to their surroundings etc. These conversations serve Ayatsuji’s purpose, which is chiefly to frame the events of the book not as a novel but as a puzzle.

It’s a locked room mystery that clearly takes its inspiration from Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. It lacked the labyrinthine quality of The Tokyo Zodiac Murders and the over the top melodrama of The Inugami Clan, but its clarity of purpose - shades of Christie's And Then There Were None - and its interesting focus on physical spaces - and not just the murder house, but nearly all indoor locations - made it thoroughly absorbing from beginning to end. The characters here are nothing more than pieces on a magnificent, imaginative board game, and their lack of dimension allowed me to feel pleasure in the storytelling.But once I got to the first portion of the story that takes place on the mainland, I was completely hooked and hated putting the book down. The English here sounds something like Japanese native speakers who have only a fragile command of English. I don't have that reaction very often; even though there have been many times I've been truly surprised at the unmasking of the who, this one absolutely takes the cake. As the book builds towards its crescendo, the descriptions of the natural surroundings become poetic and ominous, in the tradition of the greatest Japanese literature. The Mainland thread is more visibly non-western; not only by the use of the proper names for the characters but also in the references to the lifestyle and habits.

Ayatsuji honors the traditions of mystery’s honkaku, Japan’s take on the Golden Age puzzle-plot, while putting his own spin on the form.We have our characters trapped on an island getting picked off, but we also have a second set of characters on the mainland investigating another mystery. I think she got Poe to cover for her by telling him she could go undercover as a detective if everyone thought she was dead. All nine mystery club members received letters saying “My daughter Chiori was murdered by all of you.