Review: The Black Swan Mystery by Tetsuya Ayukawa

Synopsis: Early one morning, the owner of a local mill is found lying next to the railway tracks just outside of Kuki Station. Suspicion initially falls on the workers' union, with whom the man had been embroiled in a labour dispute, then on a new religious sect that has been gaining followers recently.

Chief Inspector Onitsura and his assistant Tanna are called in to investigate, and soon set off in a journey across Japan, from Tokyo to Kyoto and Osaka, and finally to the island of Kyūshu, in a hunt for the killer. But as they investigate, the killer strikes again, and again. Will they be able to catch the murderer before even more people are slain?

Fans of Agatha Christie’s 4.50 from Paddington and Seicho Matsumoto’s Tokyo Express will delight in the devious twists and turns of The Black Swan Mystery, as well as in the characterisation and portrait of 1960s Japan.

The author, Tetsuya Ayukawa, is considered to be the master of alibi deconstruction mysteries–a talent that is on full display in this brilliant classic railway murder mystery, which won the prestigious Japanese Detective Writers Club Prize.

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I have been enjoying a range of Japanese crime mysteries, however, I felt that this particular one was okay. It is very detail orientated around trains and train timetables. The prime detectives, Onitsura and Tanna, seem to be merely secondary to events, coming late into the novel, which is initially dominated by Inspector Sudo and Constable Seki.

There is, of course, the inevitable twist in the narrative, and the murderer confesses in their own way, explaining to their audience, the hows, whys and wherefores.  This I did enjoy!

Japanese crime novels, well at least the ones I have read, tend to be long drawn out affairs, detailing both the social and cultural aspects of the people and places, as well as the investigation - sometimes it feels as if each moment of each day is being documented for the reader. Is this just a quirk of the writers of this genre? Perhaps.

Nothing groundbreaking - an enjoyable, if somewhat dry, read.