My Rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was blown away by Tales of Mystery and Imagination, a short story collection of Edogawa Ranpo’s best short stories. His uniquely grotesque and suspenseful mysteries quickly made him one of my favorite authors and made me hungry for more. So naturally, I became very excited when I found more of his work translated into English, and without hesitation, laid my hands on it. Despite how famous Akechi Kogoro stories are in Japanese Mystery fiction, I’ve found myself enjoying other works by Edogawa Ranpo more. Of the two stories in this book, I personally preferred Beast in the Shadows.

My Rating: 3 of 5 stars

The reason why I picked up this book is that I currently live in Kobe, Japan, and I wanted to know more about what it may have been like to experience one of the biggest disasters involving an earthquake in Japanese history, so I thought that this book was perfect—despite it being fictional. I had read articles and watched documentaries about the disaster, but I assumed that Haruki Murakami could show me a different angle on the subject. To my disappointment, I found the stories underwhelming and not nearly as interesting and well-written as the ones I read in Men Without Women.

My Rating: 5 of 5 stars

I remember telling my mother about my favorite story from this collection “The Caterpillar,” a story about the wife of a quadruple amputee, where I simply retold the story to her over the phone, inadvertently bringing her to tears. This is easily my favorite short story collection and has propelled Edogawa Rampo from an author that I knew very little about, despite my love of the mystery genre, to be my favorite author.

My Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Continuing with my research on Japan, I picked up this book to learn more about the Yakuza—the Japanese mafia. Apart from the tattoos and finger cutting, I’ve heard them be described as a “necessary evil”—some members are even treated as celebrities, and so, I’ve always been fascinated with how they operate and why some people believe they’re “necessary.”

My Rating: 5 of 5 stars

A Nearly Normal Family is a very unique mystery novel told in a three-part structure—each part told from the perspective of each character of a family of three after the daughter becomes a murder suspect. Told through an unfiltered lens, the family dynamics exhibited in this story are very relatable to any parent or teenager and question the role of “love.” What is the glue that holds families together? The author, M. T. Edvardsson, gives an alternative answer to that question—lies.

My Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

I was first introduced to Stephen King earlier this year when I read one of his best books, Misery, which instantly made me a fan. I went on to read more of King’s work—On Writing, The Mist, and Mr. Mercedes, all of which I would highly recommend. I enjoyed reading the first two-thirds of The Outsider, but the last third was like a lukewarm burger that had been sitting for hours in a bucket of grease—disappointingly mediocre and hard to finish.