REVIEW: The Tokyo Zodiac Murders - Soji Shimada

• Year first released:  1981 
• ISBN of the edition I read:  1782271384
• Publisher of the edition I read: Pushkin Vertigo
• My rating (out of 5):  4

On page 231 (out of 316) of this serial-killer murder mystery, Shimada breaks the fourth wall and interrupts his own book. He says, in part:

All of the information required to solve the mystery is now in your hands, and, in fact, the crucial hint has been provided already. ... Let me throw down the gauntlet: I challenge you to solve the mystery before the final chapters!

What a fantastic, fun invitation. And it’s okay by me.

At this point, I set the book aside for a week. Once I proceed on to the next page, there’s no going back. You can’t unread things.

One week later, when I came back to Zodiac again, I was precisely zero percent closer to having figured out even the first thing about the solution to the murders.

This is one thing I love about Zodiac. The final solution to the crime was, quite simply, cosmic. Unlike The Devotion of Suspect X, though, (another Asian mystery which I read and reviewed a few weeks ago here), Zodiac is not merely a novel about its finale. Yes, the final act is the best part, but the journey matters here, too.

For one, it matters in the way I’ve already described: the author actually directly challenges us to figure out the case before the characters. Even beyond this element, though, we are still left with excellent pacing (at least once you finish the first part of the book, which is a bit of an overly-long exposition about the crime, more than it is actual plot), an ingenious crime, and a secondary character who is enjoyable and attention-grabbing throughout (even if he does make fun of Sherlock Homes, which is only barely forgivable).

All of this perhaps sounds as though I am building up to a stellar rating. And I wish I could say that I am. There is a sizable flaw, though, which I can’t really ignore:

Zodiac is the perfect example of the translation leaving us to wonder who is to blame for the stiff style of writing. Is it Shimada’s form which is rigid, or Ross and Shika Mackenzie’s translation? As I don’t speak Japanese, I can’t say. (And, as I explained in my blog The Art of Translation, pt. 3, I try very hard not to blame the author directly for this.)

Nevertheless, we have a rather colorless set of words and sentences to tell us a very colorful story, which can be somewhat distracting. 

This rigidity is worth forgiving, though, so that we can experience a truly unique mystery - and incredible payout - that serves as one of the highest examples of the genre.