🕵️‍♀️ 推理小説読書会 📚 Mystery Novel Book Club 👮‍♂️ NOW VOTING!

Sounds good to me! I need to look around and see if I have anything else floating on my wishlist that fits the bill, though most of my to-reads are more just general fantasy.

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Book: 名探偵は嘘をつかない | L38
Is there an ebook available?: yes

Summary - Japanese

名探偵・阿久津透。数々の事件を解決してきた彼は、証拠を捏造し、自らの犯罪を隠蔽したという罪で、本邦初の探偵弾劾裁判にかけられることになった。兄を見殺しにされた彼の助手、火村つかさは、裁判の請求人6名に名を連ねたが、その中には思わぬ人物も入っていて――! 新人発掘プロジェクトから現れた鬼才、審査員を唸らせた必読のデビュー作!

Summary - English

Toru Akutsu is a famous detective. He has solved numerous cases, but he is to be tried in Japan’s first detective impeachment trial on charges of fabricating evidence and covering up his own crimes. His assistant, Tsukasa Himura, whose brother was left for dead, has been named as one of the six claimants for the trial, but an unexpected person is among them–! A genius who emerged from a project to discover newcomers, this debut novel is a must-read that had the judges in stitches!

Content warnings if known

Unknown

Why are you nominating this book: One of this author’s other books, 紅蓮館の殺人 | L30??, popped up on my radar, and while looking through their other works I found this, their debut work. The thought of a detective on trial for fabricating evidence and such sounds pretty interesting!

4 Likes

Book: 透明人間は密室に潜む | L30??
Is there an ebook available?: yes

Summary - Japanese

透明人間による不可能犯罪計画と、意外すぎる動機。裁判員裁判×アイドルオタクのアクロバティックな法廷ミステリ。録音された犯行現場の謎と、新米探偵のささやかな特技。クルーズ船内、脱出ゲームのイベントが進行する中での拉致監禁――。一編ずつ、異なった趣向、違った設定で作り上げられた、絢爛多彩、高密度の短編集。『紅蓮館の殺人』のスマッシュヒットで注目をあつめた新鋭が、本格ミステリの魅力と可能性に肉薄する。

Summary - English

An impossible crime plan by an invisible man and too unexpected motive. An acrobatic courtroom mystery of a jury trial and an idol otaku. The mystery of a recorded crime scene and the modest special skills of a rookie detective. Abduction and confinement on a cruise ship, while an escape game event is going on–. A collection of gorgeous, colorful, and dense short stories, each one with a different plot and a different setting. This newcomer, who has attracted attention with the smash hit “The Murder in the Red Hall,” delves into the charms and possibilities of the authentic mystery genre.

Content warnings if known

Unknown

Why are you nominating this book: This is a collection of four short stories. I don’t think we’ve had any short story collection nominations yet, so I thought this would be a good addition.

5 Likes

Love book clubs! I don’t have any recs at the moment but I’m interested to see what others suggest.

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I would love to participate in this but don’t have any recommendations since most people are likely reading at a way higher level than me without the training wheels :joy: (my level is probably still around lower N4 though I have read some stuff N3 level though I understood very little of the higher vocabulary without a dictionary :sweat_smile:).

Might join in properly once I get into reading native level content and figure out what books would actually qualify for this kind of club.

4 Likes

Thought I’d post this here now as next week will be pretty busy for me and I’d like voting to be as easy as possible when it opens on the 21st (/22nd if you’re ahead of me in time zones).

I’d also like to take this chance to remind any readers uncertain of higher level books that you are 100% welcome to join and read slower if needed and absolutely welcome to ask questions about grammar, vocab, etc.

I’m planning to allow people to vote for up to 5 books since we have such an abundance of choice.

Nominations Quick Links

  1. image
    赤ずきん、旅の途中で死体と出会う。 - Nomination link
    Pages: 336, ebook: yes
  2. image
    アンデッドガール・マーダーファルス 1 - Nomination link
    Pages: 320, ebook: yes, YA
  3. image
    ノッキンオン・ロックドドア - Nomination link
    Pages: 288, ebook: yes, YA
  4. image
    砂の家 - Nomination link
    Pages: 448, ebook: yes
  5. image
    変な家 - Nomination link
    Pages: 248, ebook: yes
  6. image
    名探偵は嘘をつかない - Nomination link
    Pages: 608, ebook: yes, likely YA
  7. image
    私が大好きな小説家を殺すまで - Nomination link
    Pages: 272, ebook: yes, light novel
  8. image
    時空旅行者の砂時計 - Nomination link
    Pages 313, ebook: yes
  9. image
    そして五人がいなくなる<名探偵夢水清志郎事件ノート> - Nomination link
    Pages: 306, ebook: yes; children’s book
  10. image
    眼球堂の殺人 ~The Book~ - Nomination link
    Pages: 576, ebook: yes
  11. image
    『クロック城』殺人事件 - Nomination link
    424 pages, ebook: yes
  12. image
    黒蜥蜴 - Nomination link
    Pages: 257, ebook: yes

  13. 悲嘆の門 (上) - Nomination link
    Pages: 370, ebook: no
  14. image
    湖底の光芒 - Nomination link
    Pages; 478, ebook: yes
  15. image
    点と線 - Nomination link
    Pages: 225, ebook: yes
  16. image
    満願 - Nomination link
    Pages: 422, ebook: yes
  17. image
    シャドウ - Nomination link
    Pages: 352, ebook: yes
12 Likes

Oh, I love seeing all the covers laid out! Might be good to have links of some sort to the nomination posts in the home post as well, right?

Don’t hesitate to nominate low level books, or whatever you think you can handle! Our nominations so far have skewed towards higher-level stuff, but this club is, correct me if I’m wrong, absolutely supposed to be open to everyone of all skill levels. While that might mean struggling for lower-level learners if a higher-level book is picked, it also means higher-level learners needing to slow down for lower-level books.

I for one would love to see a lower-level book nominated and picked; it’s nice not to need a dictionary on hand for every other sentence, personally. ^_^;

cat listed some options for lower-level stuff here (+ a giant list of elementary/middle-school books), so this could be a good starting point to see if anything looks interesting to you! Slap the book description into deepl and go from there; it’s a surprisingly accurate translator!

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Tbh, I’m not even sure what books or authors might have thrillers/mystery novels or short stories that would be lower level :sweat_smile:

Most of my books are recommendations from others or stuff I’ve picked up from language learning forums and articles. With the exception of a few that I knew about already, I’m not even sure what genre my own books are in :joy:

1 Like

Oooh! This is a great idea! I’ve been meaning to read more mystery (I own a number of the recommendations but they’re gathering dust on my TBR stack.)

I guess you already have a large number of nominations, so I’ll refrain from adding to the pile right now. (Unless you want a huge number of suggestions.)

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If there’s anything you really want to add, go ahead, but I think we’re fairly well stacked :joy:

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As far as I know, the maximum number of poll options is 20, and I already see 19 in your list above. :slight_smile:

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Appreciate the input (meant sincerely, not sarcastically!) but I’m fine running two polls if I must. I’m digging the chaotic energy that a mystery club brings :joy:

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So what I’m hearing is we need one more nomination. :thinking:

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* I know I said I’d do this tomorrow but uh, I looked at my schedule and trust me, now is better

Reminder that you can see the full linked and prettified list of nominations here

VOTING IS ESSENTIAL AND READING IS FUNDAMENTAL
The_library_is_open

Because this is a :sparkles: mystery club :sparkles: and we love twists and character reduction And Then There Where None anyone? :dagger: any books which receive no votes will be cut from next round nominations. This allows for more books to be added without fatiguing voters. You can re-nominate if you are very excited about the book, but then why didn’t you vote for it? :wink:

You have 5 votes, have fun!

  • 黒い森の記憶 | L30??
  • グラスホッパー | L35
  • 聖母 | L31
  • 柔らかな頬 上 | L30??
  • 十角館の殺人 | L30
  • 赤ずきん、旅の途中で死体と出会う。 | L30??
  • 大鞠家殺人事件 | L30??
  • テスカトリポカ | L35
  • 体育館の殺人 | L30??
  • アンデッドガール・マーダーファルス 1 | L30??
  • ノッキンオン・ロックドドア | L30??
  • スマホを落としただけなのに 囚われの殺人鬼 | L28
  • 砂の家 | L30??
  • 変な家 | L30
  • 木洩れ日に泳ぐ魚 | L30??
  • 白光 | L30??
  • 模倣の殺意 | L30??
  • 名探偵は嘘をつかない | L30??
  • 透明人間は密室に潜む | L30??

0 voters

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I should note that while I cast my vote there isn’t a book here that I’m not excited to read so whatever gets picked…I’m in :smiley:

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I’m suffering from decision paralysis :face_with_spiral_eyes:
I had been looking forward to the poll and now I don’t know how to vote. Obviously I’m interested in my own nominations, but is it fair to vote for them and ensure they’re not eliminated? What if no one else votes for them and they’re kept on as zombies? And I’m interested in most of the other nominations as well. Should I vote for other people’s nominations only? Maybe I’d be better off not voting at all? Why is this so hard? :scream:

Edit: Well, I finally voted. But just so you know, I’m full of regret for all the books I didn’t vote for. I’ll be happy whatever we end up reading.

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It’s tiiiime! \o/ Similar issues on my end: too many good options, not enough votes. ;_; Good luck to all the options; I’m very interested in seeing what gets cut after the first round. :eyes:

Ah, when does voting close?

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July 29th according to the OP.

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Whoops, thanks. Haven’t had my meeting coffee yet. :+1:

Put in my votes; there were like 10 I wanted to vote for; it was real sad cutting half of them. :cry:

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Oh sweet! Just voted!

Also, if you like mystery novels there’s a great Japanese BookTuber called Masaki Books who reviews a lot of mystery novels (including many from this list!)

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