I have a soft spot for ミス | L30?? because it’s the first one I read, though it might be out of print now. Journalist enters herself into a beauty contest while drunk as a dare, gets mixed up in murder.
I thought あなたも殺人犯になれる! | L26 was a good standalone book and example of Akagawa in his more usual humorous mood (mentioning it on WK is why the IBC did it recently). Collection of oddballs sign up for a writing retreat for aspiring manga authors at a remote mountain lodge; murder ensues.
鼠、江戸を疾る | L30 is the first in the Nezumi series of historical novels (all short stories about an Edo period “rob the rich and help out the poor” Robin Hood type thief. If you want to get into the Edo period historical fiction genre this is a good place to start because you can start learning the genre specific vocab without having to deal with a high difficulty level book at the same time.
魔女たちのたそがれ | L28 is more serious suspense/horror, if you prefer that.
He has a lot of long running series (which generally don’t need to be read in order), so if you pick up one of the 悪魔 books, or the 吸血鬼 books, or the 花嫁 books, etc, and you like it and the characters you have an easy source of “more of the same”. I suspect that a lot of people would bounce off the 吸血鬼 series for being too silly and a bit juvenile, but I enjoy them, and they are also a Natively level or two easier than his other books (I think they’re aimed at a lower age range). 吸血鬼はお年ごろ | L26 is the first book and probably the best place to start the series.
But more generally I don’t think I’ve read any book of his that I really disliked. He does have some tropes which he is fond of (lots of feisty young female lead characters, for example, and other things on the Akagawa bingo card that pocketcat on the WK forums put together), his plotting is sometimes a bit slapdash (I suspect him of being one of those “write in a single draft and never revise” writers) and his worldview is definitely “Japanese guy born in the 1940s” and that does rather show through sometimes, which might be a deal-breaker for some people. I tend to recommend him pretty widely because there aren’t that many authors who write consistently fun to read books at a level which is accessible to the intermediate learner and an easy quick read for the advanced learner.
