This requires a lot of suspension of disbelief—too much for me, personally. The resolution is so contrived there’s no way to guess the particulars, and I’m not convinced it’s even possible in the time frame given. But if you can get over that, there’s some things about this that are enjoyable.

For one, it’s an interesting mystery. It’s the first appearance of this particular character, and they’re both a private investigator and amateur detective in a similar vein to Sherlock in methodology. If you like not being able to figure out every detail, you’ll also like this. I was able to guess a few things, but like I said, the actual conclusion feels so out there I’ve no idea who could guess it. And that did make it seem more contrived as the story progressed. It also has a bit of an interesting, but also odd point of view. It’s a Watson type character who is a mystery writer and travels around looking for good ones, apparently. And so the narrative shifts around, attempting to lend credence to particular sections via fictional eye-witness testimony of the villagers. And it begins not with the inciting incident, but a survey of the grounds at a much later date. Which was an odd choice. But different.

Had it actually been written well apart from the construction of the mystery, I’d have like this much better. I have no idea if some of it is translation issues or if additional information was added by the publisher or translator, but it goes out of its way to use terms and then explain them for a western audience sometimes. Which is odd because it makes a point of saying it was only recently translated, and sometimes these points are helpful and other times pure common sense.

Then, the actual prose are just not that well written. It’s Hemingway-esk, but done poorly. Weasel words, stale diction choices, very inactive sentences. Dialogue escalates into melodrama which is a trope, but feels more hammy due to the sentence construction choices. Also feels like it’s trying to make people sound really “natural” and the expense of actual good dialogue. And just some bad similes, which is kind of a staple of sophomoric writing, to me. There was a loud thump like a sliding door fell. First of all, I don’t want to find the sentence again but they didn’t have a comma in there, and then the use of “like” for things the characters and reader definitely already know the sounds of, really bugged me. Because it is a sliding door falling. It is the sound of Koto strings, you said so already so it isn’t _like_ that, it _is_ exactly that thing.

Anyway, if you can go with the flow and want an unexpected and fairly fun, but contrived mystery, check this out. You’ll probably like it more than me. I have the second book in the translated series; here’s hoping it improves.