About the book

Title 『天啓の殺意』(てんけいのさつい) – The Apocalyptic Fugue
Author: Sin NAKAMACHI 中町信 (1935-2009)
Published by 創元推理文庫

『天啓の殺意』has been first published by Tokuma (徳間書店) in 1982 under the title 『散歩する死者』. It was re-published by Tsogen publisher in 2005.

It is the 6th novel written by Sin NAKAMACHI.

Book Review

If you like mystery and detective novels, I heartily recommend 『天啓の殺意』!

I purposely skip the “setting” part of this review because I think that it is best to read this book without having any previous knowledge of the story and the setting.

I was just thinking the other day how relatively calm 2019 has been in terms of reading. I liked all the books I have read this year, but apart from 『新参者』by Keigo HIGASHINO, I haven’t felt really excited about what I was reading. Of course, this was until I read『天啓の殺意』: it was easy to read and engrossing, and it is without a doubt one of my favourite reads of 2019.

I had already read a book by Sin NAKAMACHI earlier in 2019 so I knew what to expect: Sin NAKAMACHI plays with the reader and invites us to actively participate in the mystery. As a consequence, I was determined to read closely, to pay attention to every detail and to not let myself be fooled this time. But still, I was staring at the book with amazement when I reached the end!

It is the kind of murder story that makes you cry “I knew it!” or “what???”, and reading it was so much fun and so exciting! I finished it in 5 days, which is extremely rare when it comes to novels written in Japanese. I usually become tired of reading in a foreign language after 20 or 30 pages, but this book was so engrossing that I couldn’t put it down.