Yachiyo Furugami, plagued by episodes of sleepwalking, receives a series of cryptic letters culminating in an ominous warning: 'Walk not at night'. Then a body is discovered on the grand Furugami estate, decapitated with a centuries-old samurai sword. The police are baffled, so the famous sleuth Kosuke Kindaichi is called upon to solve the mystery, but before he can do so, the killer strikes again. Can Kindaichi get to the truth before the Furugami family is destroyed by its own secrets?
Seishi Yokomizo (横溝 正史) was a novelist in Shōwa period Japan. Yokomizo was born in the city of Kobe, Hyōgo (兵庫県 神戸市). He read detective stories as a boy and in 1921, while employed by the Daiichi Bank, published his first story in the popular magazine "Shin Seinen" (新青年[New Youth]). He graduated from Osaka Pharmaceutical College (currently part of Osaka University) with a degree in pharmacy, and initially intended to take over his family's drug store even though sceptical of the contemporary ahistorical attitude towards drugs. However, drawn by his interest in literature, and the encouragement of Edogawa Rampo (江戸川 乱歩), he went to Tokyo instead, where he was hired by the Hakubunkan publishing company in 1926. After serving as editor in chief of several magazines, he resigned in 1932 to devote himself full-time to writing. Yokomizo was attracted to the literary genre of historical fiction, especially that of the historical detective novel. In July 1934, while resting in the mountains of Nagano to recuperate from tuberculosis, he completed his first novel "Onibi" (『鬼火』), which was published in 1935, although parts were immediately censored by the authorities. Undeterred, Yokomizo followed on his early success with a second novel Ningyo Sashichi torimonocho (1938–1939). However, during World War II, he faced difficulties in getting his works published due to the wartime conditions, and was in severe economic difficulties. The lack of Streptomycin and other antibiotics also meant that his tuberculosis could not be properly treated, and he joked with friends that it was a race to see whether he would die of disease or of starvation. However, soon after the end of World War II, his works received wide recognition and he developed an enormous fan following. He published many works via Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine in serialized form, concentrating only on popular mystery novels, based on the orthodox western detective story format, starting with "Honjin Satsujin Jiken" (『本陣殺人事件』) and "Chōchō Satsujin Jinken" (『蝶々殺人事件』) (both in 1946). His works became the model for postwar Japanese mystery writing. He was also often called the "Japanese John Dickson Carr" after the writer whom he admired. Yokomizo is most well known for creating the private detective character Kosuke Kindaichi (金田一 耕助). Many of his works have been made into movies. Yokomizo died of colon cancer in 1981. His grave is at the Seishun-en cemetery in Kawasaki, Kanagawa (神奈川県 川崎市).
old review: Really impressive murder mystery, I couldn't see the ending coming at all when I first read this splendid crime novel (by Seishi Yokomizo) years ago.
Updated@15/12/2021:
A new book cover for this Yokomizo's classic! How can I resist...
New review starts here:
Night Walk is one of the finely crafted classic Detective Kindaichi mystery novels.
This time the story is narrated by a third-ranked detective novelist, he was invited to the remote family manor of his well-to-do friend. In the manor, the novelist met his friend's eerie family members, one of them being a beautiful but wanton young woman, and she had an unusual suitor: a humpbacked painter.
The men within the family seemed to all harbor complicated/incestuous feelings toward this young woman, plus when cursed bloodline, family's secrets, madness, lust and greed came into play, murder and beheading ensured.
Beheading! All the beheading in the story is really...interesting to say the least. Plus it's also worth noticing that the story takes place in a time period when DNA testing hadn't ever existed, that enables the murderer to do what they did.
Overall, the story is on the melodrama side but for a whole novel I'm fully entertained, the plot twists are neat and the murder mysteries really can keep you guessing, although Kindaichi only shows up at around the late 2/3 part of the story, still the story carries itself nicely, from start to end.
There is one thing, since it's a novel penned decades ago, so it's hard to overlook all the discrimination against disable people in the text, the characters in the book always talk like humpbacked people are mentally unbalanced and abnormal because they are handicapped! At the back of the book, I found the Taiwanese publisher noted that they are aware of the outdated discriminations in the story so they had already adjusted the wording and the tone in this reprint! If what I'd read is already the 'adjusted' version then the original text has to be really offensive. *sighs* I'm not holding it against Mr. Yokomizo, but still.
PS: here is one small detail, the murderer in the end confessed that they were 'used to beheading people during the war', *sighs* now I remember I read from another book that the Imperial Japan Army tended to kill their war prisoners by beheading them because they claimed they 'didn't have enough resource to keep war prisoners alive', that really sucks.
My Top Ten Yokomizo's Detective Kosuke Kindaichi Mysteries novels
The Publisher Says: FROM JAPAN’S GREATEST CRIME WRITER: Yokomizo’s iconic detective Kosuke Kindaichi returns in this stand-alone murder mystery featuring a luxurious family estate beset by madness, scandal, and a terrifying curse
"Plenty of golden age ingredients... with a truly ingenious solution." — The Guardian, Best New Crime Fiction
In this mind-bending new addition to Seishi Yokomizo’s bestselling Kosuke Kindaichi Mysteries—translated into English for the first time—scruffy sleuth Kindaichi is called to the home of the aristocratic Furugami family, where in the midst of the Musashino countryside and enclosed on all sides by a long earthen wall, a gruesome scandal is brewing.
At the centre of the estate is the family patriarch: the drunken, sword-wielding father Tetsunoshin. His mistress, the icy, alluring Lady Oryu, is also housed in the estate along with their illegitimate daughter Yachiyo —beautiful and unstable—and the drink-ravaged Furugami heir, Naoki Sengoku. With each family member holding onto their own dark secrets, tensions between them ride high.
But this family feud turns bloody when the mutilated, headless body of Yachiyo’s fiancé is discovered in the Furugami estate. To solve the case, Kindaichi will need to pick apart the threads of the family’s carefully-woven story. But can he find the killer before the family is torn apart by its own secrets?
Perfect for fans of Knives Out and Lucy Foley, this thrilling mystery from Japan’s greatest and best-loved crime writer is rife with family drama and shocking twists that will captivate readers old and new.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: Third, in internal chronology, in the Kindaichi series; the publisher says, now, these are able to be read as stand-alones. I know y'all need to sell books but do stop lying to us.
Don't read this entry in the series first. I can't give you an eager recommendation to read the interestingly-constructed puzzle because I'm completely skeeved out by the not very hidden incestuous lust of the men in the story.
Pushkin Vertigo publishes this book on 2 June 2026. Preorder for $14.99 for an ebook.
₊˚⊹♡ Thank you to NetGalley & Pushkin Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
This book was dramatic and disturbing. I really enjoyed the weird family dynamic the author created; it helps accentuate how messy and layered this whole mystery is. She Walks at Night is the third installment in the Detective Kosuke Kindaichi series, and is the eighth in the series to be translated into English (According to Goodreads).
⟡ ݁₊ RECOMMENDATION: I would recommend this to anyone who loves Japanese crime literature, translated fiction, or mystery novels in general!
This novel follows Torato Yashiro, a below-average crime novelist and his friend Naoki Sengoku, the Furugami family heir. Naoki asks Torato to accompany him home to his aristocratic family's estate, where a murder will soon take place.. The investigation that follows will slowly unravel secrets from the Furugami family. This story unfolds through the writing of author Tarato, who may or may not be a reliable narrator.... If sleepwalking, sword-wielding drunk dads, hunchbacks, and headless corpses showing up sound interesting to you, you won't want to skip this one!
What really worked for me was the twists. I liked that I couldn't predict anything; I was surprised right up to the end. The last twist/ending shook me to my core.. As I said, I didn't predict it! I was able to sit and read this in only two sittings! I will say that the ending and the reasoning were ultimately quite sad, though. I wish our introduction to the famous Detective Kosuke Kindaichi wasn't so late in the story. I would have liked to see more of him and his thought process THROUGHOUT the story instead of just in the conclusion.
⟡ ݁₊ Some topics in this book may be upsetting to readers. I would encourage everyone to make sure they check for potential triggers before reading.
This review is for an ARC copy received from the publisher through NetGalley. A dysfunctional family, two hunchbacks who crave the same girl - a girl who sleepwalks among other eccentricities, a cursed sword and a murder with a headless corpse. As this bizarre case and cast of characters becomes more complicated, detective Kosuke Kindaichi will have to use his wits to solve it. I've read and enjoyed several of the Kindaichi mysteries before, usually a complex locked rooms or other puzzles being at the heart. However, in this book I found most of the characters to be unlikable if not full on detestable, and the initial laying out of the plot to be rough and hard to get into. Eventually the crimes and the story become more interesting; however, when what really happened is finally explained in painful exposition, it really felt pretty hackneyed and derivative of another mystery novel famous for using a similar major plot device much better. And Kindaichi disappointingly was more of a deus ex machina figure, merely showing up towards the end to resolve things rather than being a central figure in the story. The complexity of the mystery itself was pretty good, but the rest of the book was disappointing.
This had everything one could ask for, and more. Creepy estate, sleepwalking, a cackling hunchback (I'm serious), a late-to-the-story detective, an author of detective thrillers, a centuries-old feud, beheadings, mayhem, unreliability in the telling of the tale, a drawing room full of suspects for the final reveal, and so much more.
Part of the "so much more" was 1) the droning on of the author's pen to capture far more detail than was necessary to the plot and/or red herrings, and 2) the agonizingly incessant explanation of the how and why of the crime that (one can presume) was ladled heavily onto the nearly codswallop reveal.
One could argue in favor of what might be considered an inspired ending, but I felt fairly betrayed by the author. The reveal of the murderer's identify felt like a cheap parlor trick. I'll round up from 2.5 stars to 3 because, if nothing else, I pushed through it to the very silly end.
My favorite Inspector Kindaichi story so far. This one is about an aristocratic family embroiled in scandal.
The pacing of this mystery was excellent and the twists were surprising. I liked the structure of the novel with the main story being told by a mystery novel writer. Nothing is ever as it seems in a good detective story and that was the case here, as well.
As is unfortunately a little too common with these novels, there was some misogyny in the characterization that left me with a bad tase in my mouth. There is also some ableism and ableist language as two characters have physical disabilities that make them “horrendous” to the other characters.
Inspector Kindaichi is one of my favorite literary detectives and this novel was another very good Yokomizo mystery.
After a strong start and solid middle, the ending was a letdown for me. It felt overly simplistic and the last 25 pages were almost a chore to read. I considered between giving 3 or 4 stars - it's really just the last 20-30 pages out of over 300 that disappointed me, but the impact was still enough to make me lean towards 3.
The setting and set up, as I've come to expect from Yokomizo, were superb. (In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that I have high expectations for his novels, I might have given 4 stars.) I'd still recommend this book to someone who liked his other works, but it doesn't come close to i.e. 獄門島.
Thanks NetGalley and Pushkin press for an arc copy There is a reason why Seishi Yokomizo is one of my favourite authors and it’s because all his mysteries are just my favourite type. This book was over dramatic, the right amount of creepy and mysterious and I devoured it in less than a day. Headless corpses, locked safes and a whole lot of sleep walking. What more could I ask for.
Very well translated with clear fluid prose. I loved this book a lot and reminded me why I love murder mysteries so much!
If you are familiar with Hercule Poirot, then Seishi Yokomizo’s sleuth Kosuke Kindaichi will be immediately familiar to you. As will the intricate plotting and elements, the clue laden plot and the intricate sitting room reveal. Intricately plotted and with an intriguing portrayal of a regal family in mental and physical decline, this a superb example of golden age ‘whodunnit’ detective fiction with gothic overtones, plenty of gore and an eerie atmosphere.