A beautiful story of love and revenge with lovable characters and some unexpected turns. Recommended!

Introduction Title: 『六番目の小夜子』 (ろくばんめの さよこ)Author: Riku ONDA (恩田陸)Published by 新潮文庫339 pages Riku Onda is a prolific author who won the Naoki Prize in 2017 for her novel 『蜜蜂と遠雷』. 『六番目の小夜子』 is her debut novel. Review 『六番目の小夜子』 has overall positive reviews on Amazon, but it is hard for me to understand why… Maybe some reviews are from readers who love Riku Onda and enjoyed reading her debut novel, not as much for the book itself but as a pilgrimage to their favourite author’s starting point. The setting of the story is a highschool and our protagonists are a bunch friends who go through their third and last year together. The story spans a whole year. There is a mysterious tradition in this school, though… Once every three year, someone is chosen to incarnate “Sayoko”. Part of the mystery consists in guessing who is Sayoko and what exactly is her role. The beginning of the book was very promising with the prologue explaining the rule of the wink murder game. It is a party game where a “murderer” and …

Introduction Title: 『11文字の殺人』 (11もじのさつじん)Author: Keigo HIGASHINO (東野圭吾)Published by 光文社文庫356 pages 『11文字の殺人』 is one of Keigo Higashino’s first novels. It was first published in 1990 and got a new bunko edition this year (2020) with a new design cover and a bigger font. Review This book is a real page-turner. I found it very easy to read, the kind of books where I am able to read 50 pages or more in a row because it is mainly composed of dialogues. Our protagonist is an author of crime fiction whose partner has been murdered, and who decides to investigate by herself. There is nothing unrelated to the case in the novel, the pace is very quick, we jump from an interview to another, there are almost no descriptions. I would say that 『11文字の殺人』 is purely entertaining, and that it succeeds in keeping the reader engrossed in the story until the end. It certainly does not have the depth of other books like 『手紙』 or 『虚な十字架』, nor the genius of other whodunnits like those of the Kaga series, but it …