“The weirdness, illogic, and magnificence of this murder are unprecedented and unprecedented”

?——“Astrology Killing Magic”

As a mystery novel, there must be a mystery. This is also the most fascinating part of mystery novels. This book is Shimada Shoji's first mystery novel. There are three "unsolvable" mysteries in the whole book. These three mysteries are directly revealed on page 35 of the book, which are:

1. The person who wanted to create "Assword", Umezawa Heiji, was killed in the secret room. Within this mystery appears a mystery within a mystery, the "double chamber."

2. Umezawa Heiyoshi’s daughter Ichie was killed. In this mystery, there was fresh semen in a corpse, and it was found that the murderer had type O blood. The only person who doesn't have a sufficient alibi is blood type A.

3. The core case, Asoud murder case. 6 girls were killed. These 6 girls were the 6 people who wanted to create Asod in Umezawa Heiji's Notes. However, the murderer of these 6 people was not Umezawa Heiji, because Umezawa Heiji had already died when they died. . The deaths of the six girls were exactly the same as in the notes of Umezawa Heikichi, which made people think that the only murderer was the dead Umezawa Heikichi. Each of them was dismembered, and each body was buried in a different location in Japan corresponding to their zodiac sign.

I believe many readers can’t wait to read this book in one sitting when they read this.

The author Shoji Shimada is a very important person among Japanese mystery novelists and the founder of the new style. "Astrological Killing Magic" was his debut novel. It shocked the entire Japanese reasoning circle at the time. As a result, the judges of the Ranpo Award were confused when they saw this book and did not know how to evaluate it. Therefore, it was a pity that it won the "Ranpo Award" Step Prize second place.

This book sets the background of the story in 1936 AD. At the beginning of the book is a letter written by Umezawa Heiyoshi to himself. The letter stated that he wanted to create a life because he hated himself. "God", the letter is filled with the absurd and perverted "beauty" in his heart. His entire creation was inspired by astrology. From the description that follows, it is enough to see that the author Shoji Shimada has a very deep understanding of astrology. In the first 19 pages of the book, he shows readers a wonderful and strange world of astrology. At the same time, we can also get a glimpse of the "madness" of Umezawa Heiji, which plays a very important role in the unfolding of the entire story.

When it comes to the success of this book, we have to talk about the most famous detective written by Shoji Shimada: Mitar Aoi. Shimada's setup for him was very successful. A very important point in writing a novel is to make the protagonist special and have characteristics that are different from others in order to impress people. This detective Mitarai borrowed the character of the protagonist Sherlock Holmes in the famous mystery novel "Sherlock Holmes". Mitarashi is also a "crazy lunatic". He will be particularly excited whenever there is a murder. He only drinks coffee. He is also a patient with depression. There is also a Watson-like character around him, named Ishioka Kazuki, and Ishioka Kazuki and Watson. Likewise, record every case of Mitarai.

Because this book is so successful and famous, many film and television works have been plagiarized. The most famous one is a case in China's "Youth Bao Qingtian", and secondly, it was copied by the famous Japanese animation "Kindaichi" 》Plagiarism. Therefore, I have seen many people comment on this book and write: "Those who have read "Shaobao" don't need to read this book again." I don't know why such people would say such things. I can only say that if you think you don't need to read this book after reading "Shaobao", it is really a pity. Here I will briefly talk about the trick in "Shaobao". I was lying alone on the bed. Except for the door, which was guarded by Xiao Zhanzhao all night, there was no window on the four walls of this house. The only place with a window is on the roof, but this window is extremely small and no one can get in. This house formed a secret room, but when I entered again the next day, the person on the bed had been killed. The explanation of "Shaobao" is that someone lowered the bed with ropes and hooks from the roof, hoisted the entire bed to a small window on the roof, then killed the victim, and then lowered the bed smoothly, making it look like there was no one around. It's a mystery that even if you go in, you can kill the people inside.

I don’t know how many viewers were impressed by this “solving the mystery”, but this trick is just a pseudo-solution in the book “Astrology”. The form of pseudo-solution is often used in mystery novels, which is to give readers a seemingly feasible solution before actually solving the mystery, but in the end the detective will come out and say that this seemingly feasible solution is actually not feasible. In "Astrology", there are only a few words to explain the pseudo-solution of "hammock". Mitarai said: "This method is too difficult to be feasible, so it was eliminated." It can be seen that Shimada does not bother to explain this "trick". However, "Shaobao" still used this trick, and it has to be said that it failed slightly.

In mystery novels, the detective often writes a "challenge" before solving the mystery to challenge the reader.

This book is certainly no exception:

Letter of Challenge

It may be a little late to issue this letter of challenge now. But I hope this is a fair competition and I hope most readers will be able to figure it out.

Now, I have the courage to write that famous sentence here:

"I want to challenge the readers!"

Of course, all the information has been presented It’s given to you, so readers please don’t forget one thing, that is: I really want to be right in front of you.

After the challenge book, the whole book begins to solve the puzzle. You will appear at this time! Why didn't I expect such forehead-slapping and shouting to follow. Especially the solution to Assold's mystery in this book, I believe all readers will feel this way. Its crazy, perverted, complex and artistically beautiful killing techniques send chills down people's spines.

Everyone knows that there must be a motive for killing, and this is something that must be explained in the reasoning. I think this book, after everyone read the extremely sophisticated murder plot, made me want to cry every time I read it. It also added the most important part to this book. The murderer's helplessness, what he gave up for this, and the price he paid for it were a pain that the murderer himself did not expect. And the whole book ends abruptly in this helpless pain.

And my first book review in life also wanted to end my resilience like this.

? The Kyogoku cat who always loves reasoning