Reviews
Someone is standing behind me. I am straightening my clothes while looking in a full-length mirror when a shadow appears in it. I was definitely murdered. The cold water finally brings me to my senses, and I get up and look around. The water is only shimmering and reflecting the sunlight. My throat had definitely been cut. That is not an injury one simply recovers from. So I was probably brought here by someone rather than washed ashore by the waves. I hurriedly feel my head, face, and chest,
The endings of the last few books I read were shocking. And again! Again! Again! — I was definitely murdered. (p. 9) The way this story unfolds is fresh. There were a few clues, but I could not identify the culprit until the end. With a mystery novel, almost anything I say could be a spoiler, so I am not sure what to discuss. A detective story that begins with a murder... Dead people gather and try to deduce who the culprit is. Is the place they think is heaven really heaven? Where are they?
I came across a mystery novel with a premise I had never seen before. The story begins after both the killer and the victim have died—can that even work as a story?! I wondered how the story could continue when everyone was already dead. It begins at a seaside mansion where six people have gathered, in a setting of unbelievable luxury. They have lost all their memories except for what they remember from the time they were murdered. The place where the dead have gathered is heaven. Everything is
A special-setting mystery that fires the imagination. I found the premise of dead people gathering in heaven to solve a mystery fascinating. Norio Kojo’s The Murderer Is in Heaven reportedly went through repeated printings after word spread on social media. The cover has a pink palette and cheerful illustrations, unusual for a mystery novel. At first glance, you might mistake it for a romance, but the large knife that appears later makes clear that it is not. Let me introduce this detective
A huge, castle-like mansion near the sea. It seems as if it might be on a deserted island, since there is no one around. The only people in the house are six individuals who cannot even remember who they are, only the memory of being killed. Their days repeat. At 6 a.m., a newspaper arrives at the front of the house with the sound of a motorcycle. It is an hourly newspaper dated July 20, with only the time changing by one hour each edition. Nothing happens, and perhaps that is why it is called
On July 20, 2019, six bodies were found decapitated at a mansion by the sea in Japan. Surprisingly, the six come back to life one by one near the mansion where they died. But they know nothing: not their names before death, why they died, or who killed them. Drawn to the mansion as if under a spell, the six learn from their conversations and the newspaper delivered there every day that they have all died and are now together in heaven. Each hourly edition of the paper adds new information about
This novel follows six people who have already been murdered as they gather in a mansion in heaven and investigate what happened. They were all killed in one mansion, and now they have come together in a heavenly mansion that looks just like the crime scene. The six men and women have lost their memories, including their names, so they call each other Maid, Young Lady, Gangster, Chef, Pouch, and Bearded Man. They share one thing: they were all killed by having their throats cut in the same
The premise of a specially configured mystery immediately intrigued me: what kind of special setup could it have? The title is wonderfully ironic, too. Aren’t murderers bad people? 😋 In the stories I heard growing up, good people went to heaven and bad people went to hell, so how could a murderer be in heaven? People who were killed begin gathering, one or two at a time, in a seaside mansion. It feels familiar: it is the same mansion where they once attended a party. In other words, this is
A locked-room setup where people are confined and one dies after another is common in mysteries. It is also common in classic mysteries to have a killer among the group and make the survivors find them. Seen that way, this book turns the familiar setup on its head. Instead of living people dying one by one, everyone is dead from the start, and the dead must find the person who killed them. To make things harder, they remember neither the moment of their murder nor even their own names. They
There is a book called Ghost Life Record. A murder has clearly taken place, but the story begins with the killer unknown and the victim aware that they have died. In other words, a ghost becomes the protagonist and sets out to find the culprit. I thought that was a very unusual idea, and this book follows a similar path. As the title suggests, everyone involved in this case is in heaven—in other words, they are dead. They stay in a place like the mansion where they were last. They did not
Norio Gojo: The murderer is in heaven
Have you ever read a mystery where everyone is already ‘dead’ rather than one where everyone is dying? Here is just such a story, one in which death is only the beginning. The Murderer Is in Heaven by Norio Kojo is an extraordinary debut, shortlisted for the 9th Shincho Mystery Award and praised by Kanae Minato, known for Confessions and The Suspicious Secondhand Shop, and Shusuke Michio. Trapped in a ‘heavenly mansion’ that looks exactly like the murder scene, spirits who are already dead but unable to move on stage a detective show in hopes of finally reaching the afterlife. This novel carries on the tradition of ‘special-setting mysteries,’ currently one of the most popular forms in Japanese mystery fiction. On its release day, it quickly sold out at Kinokuniya’s Shinjuku Main Store and branches around Japan, prompting an immediate reprint—an unusual debut.
Korean title: 살인자는 천국에 있다
Korean author: 고조 노리오
Korean publisher: 하빌리스
ISBN-13: 9791172453145
Reviews
Someone is standing behind me. I am straightening my clothes while looking in a full-length mirror when a shadow appears in it. I was definitely murdered. The cold water finally brings me to my senses, and I get up and look around. The water is only shimmering and reflecting the sunlight. My throat had definitely been cut. That is not an injury one simply recovers from. So I was probably brought here by someone rather than washed ashore by the waves. I hurriedly feel my head, face, and chest,
The endings of the last few books I read were shocking. And again! Again! Again! — I was definitely murdered. (p. 9) The way this story unfolds is fresh. There were a few clues, but I could not identify the culprit until the end. With a mystery novel, almost anything I say could be a spoiler, so I am not sure what to discuss. A detective story that begins with a murder... Dead people gather and try to deduce who the culprit is. Is the place they think is heaven really heaven? Where are they?
I came across a mystery novel with a premise I had never seen before. The story begins after both the killer and the victim have died—can that even work as a story?! I wondered how the story could continue when everyone was already dead. It begins at a seaside mansion where six people have gathered, in a setting of unbelievable luxury. They have lost all their memories except for what they remember from the time they were murdered. The place where the dead have gathered is heaven. Everything is
A special-setting mystery that fires the imagination. I found the premise of dead people gathering in heaven to solve a mystery fascinating. Norio Kojo’s The Murderer Is in Heaven reportedly went through repeated printings after word spread on social media. The cover has a pink palette and cheerful illustrations, unusual for a mystery novel. At first glance, you might mistake it for a romance, but the large knife that appears later makes clear that it is not. Let me introduce this detective
A huge, castle-like mansion near the sea. It seems as if it might be on a deserted island, since there is no one around. The only people in the house are six individuals who cannot even remember who they are, only the memory of being killed. Their days repeat. At 6 a.m., a newspaper arrives at the front of the house with the sound of a motorcycle. It is an hourly newspaper dated July 20, with only the time changing by one hour each edition. Nothing happens, and perhaps that is why it is called
On July 20, 2019, six bodies were found decapitated at a mansion by the sea in Japan. Surprisingly, the six come back to life one by one near the mansion where they died. But they know nothing: not their names before death, why they died, or who killed them. Drawn to the mansion as if under a spell, the six learn from their conversations and the newspaper delivered there every day that they have all died and are now together in heaven. Each hourly edition of the paper adds new information about
This novel follows six people who have already been murdered as they gather in a mansion in heaven and investigate what happened. They were all killed in one mansion, and now they have come together in a heavenly mansion that looks just like the crime scene. The six men and women have lost their memories, including their names, so they call each other Maid, Young Lady, Gangster, Chef, Pouch, and Bearded Man. They share one thing: they were all killed by having their throats cut in the same
The premise of a specially configured mystery immediately intrigued me: what kind of special setup could it have? The title is wonderfully ironic, too. Aren’t murderers bad people? 😋 In the stories I heard growing up, good people went to heaven and bad people went to hell, so how could a murderer be in heaven? People who were killed begin gathering, one or two at a time, in a seaside mansion. It feels familiar: it is the same mansion where they once attended a party. In other words, this is
A locked-room setup where people are confined and one dies after another is common in mysteries. It is also common in classic mysteries to have a killer among the group and make the survivors find them. Seen that way, this book turns the familiar setup on its head. Instead of living people dying one by one, everyone is dead from the start, and the dead must find the person who killed them. To make things harder, they remember neither the moment of their murder nor even their own names. They
There is a book called Ghost Life Record. A murder has clearly taken place, but the story begins with the killer unknown and the victim aware that they have died. In other words, a ghost becomes the protagonist and sets out to find the culprit. I thought that was a very unusual idea, and this book follows a similar path. As the title suggests, everyone involved in this case is in heaven—in other words, they are dead. They stay in a place like the mansion where they were last. They did not
