🕵️‍♀️ 推理小説読書会 📚 Mystery Novel Book Club 👮‍♂️ On Hiatus

[Magyarapointe]

Since we’ll soon be voting again, a new nomination !

Book: 放課後 | L31

Is there an ebook available?: Unfortunately not. The Learn Natively page links to OpenLibrary, where you can borrow a scanned copy

Japanese blurb

校内の更衣室で生徒指導の教師が青酸中毒で死んでいた。先生を2人だけの旅行に誘う問題児、頭脳明晰の美少女・剣道部の主将、先生をナンパするアーチェリー部の主将――犯人候補は続々登場する。そして、運動会の仮装行列で第2の殺人が……。乱歩賞受賞の青春推理。

English summary

A student guidance teacher has died of cyanide poisoning in the school locker room. A problem child who invites the teacher on a private trip, a beautiful and intelligent girl, the head of the kendo club, and the head of the archery club who picks up the teacher - the candidates for the murderer appear one after another. And then there is a second murder at a field day costume parade …

Why are you nominating this book : this is the first novel written by 東野圭吾, and it won the 江戸川乱歩受賞. I really enjoy this writer, especially because he writes good mysteries that usually do not rely on far-fetched explanations. He’s one of those very famous authors for which there are very few ebooks, unfortunately, probably to limit piracy, but usually the writing isn’t too difficult.

[cat]

I will get this added by Monday! Crazy weekend here but it has been seen

edit: done

[cat]

It’s time to vote!

As a reminder, all the nominations with levels and nominator notes can be found here . The next book club with start September 1st.

THE POLL

As usual you have up to 5 choices and the poll is set to auto-close in a week

• アンデッドガール・マーダーファルス 1
• 砂の家
• 変な家
• 名探偵は嘘をつかない
• 私が大好きな小説家を殺すまで
• 時空旅行者の砂時計
• 『クロック城』殺人事件
• 悲嘆の門 (上)
• 満願
• 推しの殺人
• ヨモツイクサ
• 後鳥羽伝説殺人事件 「浅見光彦」シリーズ
• 黒死館殺人事件
• 放課後

[eefara]

I’m going to try to put in an effort to participate this time around. It’s been far too long since I’ve read a mystery club book.

Oh, do we have a list of links to the current nominations @cat? Or should I just search via title in the thread?

[nikoru]

There is a Natively list with the nominations: Mystery Book Club Current Nominations | Japanese list by cat | Natively

[eefara]

They don’t link to the actual nomination posts, though.

[cat]

The text of the nomination is in the list and the remaining info (page count, level, etc) can be found of the page of the book.

[cat]

黒死館殺人事件 | L51?? has won.

I’ll note a handful of things:

1. I know there was desire to read this without a schedule (which is not how the MBC runs)
2. We only had 8 people vote this time, with the top pick getting 3 votes.
3. Natively as a whole seems to be losing its population. I’ve been seeing fewer and fewer people on the forums as late

With this said I’m going to be putting the MBC on hiatus. Those who voted for 黒死 are welcome (of course!) to make thread(s) for it, but I’m not going to try to run it given the desire for it to be informal and given I don’t intend to read it at this time.

I’ll re-evaluate the forums in the new year - maybe 2026 will bring in some readers - but I also may shift the club over to WaniKani which has a much larger population of readers if the forums here still seem to quiet too sustain the club.

Thanks for 13 fun reads (even if some were hate reads ) thus far, and hope to puzzle out clues and make wild allegations with you all sometime again

[eefara]

Oh no. MBC was our first book club, too.

[Magyarapointe]

First of all, thank you to @cat for running the club so far ! It was a very fun ride, and I hope MBC will come back stronger in 2026 , either here or on WK.

That said, I’m willing and ready to run the club for 黒死館殺人事件 if people (whether they voted or not) are interested, either informally or on a schedule. If you’re interested or just curious, head over here !