Kosuke Kindaichi goes to a secluded island called "Gokumon" or "Hell's Gate". Kosuke's visit triggers a series of murders which causes the already suspicious inhabitants of the island to turn on him.

This is so far my favourite Kosuke Kindaichi story, it's very atmospheric since it's set in this remote, creepy location and Kosuke is truly on his own. Every character from the island almost feels off, like the three sisters oddly laughing at their crazy father. And the deaths have a creative imagery in them which is a bit of a spoiler so i'll let you find that out for yourself. The reveal isn't mindblowing or anything but it works as it's impactful and it makes the whole thing feel more ironic and tragic.

The head of the wealthy Inugami clan dies and leaves a will that puts the family in disarray. Kosuke Kindaichi is roped in to the trouble as he received an ominous letter requesting him to investigate the family.

This one is also pretty good. There's just this haunting sense of dread i felt for the family throughout the book since well the trauma and issues within this family is just... alot. They had some dynamic that was interesting to read... though they were all pretty much horrible people. And as always with Yokomizo Seishi, the deaths have an interesting theme which i won't spoil again, the last murder in particular was pretty creative. I think the only flaw for this one was the explanation of the murders. It makes sense and I can see it but it's not quite satisfying for me.

We folow Tatsuya, a man moving to the titular Village of Eight Graves to claim his inheritance. But even before he arrives to the village, a series of poisonings affecting people close to him starts to occur causing the village to suspect him. Thankfully, Kosuke Kindachi is also there to solve the mystery.

We follow Tatsuya's POV for this book which is different from the previous two books I read where there is a narrator outside of the story (though for The Honjin Murders, which is Kindaichi's debut and a book i sadly do not have a physical copy of, there is also a POV character so this isn't necessarily new). It starts of a bit slow, turns into an adventure book halfway through, and Kindaichi barely appears. But nonetheless, I still had fun reading it and it's a decent mystery. Yokomizo Seishi is really good at setting up the history/background for the mystery, just not really much into the whole secret treasure adventure angle the book has.

Kosuke Kindaichi meets a client who suspects her father, Viscount Tsubaki, isn't truly dead and was hiding a dark secret with his cryptic letters to her. She invites him to participate in a divination where her family will attempt to contact her dead father. Things eventually go wrong as a record composed by Tsubaki, creepily titled, "The Devil Comes and Plays His Flute", mysteriously plays, and a murder occurs afterward.

This one has the best and spookiest set-up and background of a mystery so far. The author narrating this book sets this up as Kindaichi's darkest case yet and you can feel that it is at the start with the background of the enigmatic viscount Tsubaki, his bizarre composition, how he was suspected in a surreal crime known as the "Tengindo incident" (which was apparently based on a real incident). There is a genuine intrigue and mystique that hooked me into the book.

Unfortunately, i don't think the latter parts of the book was as good. It feels pretty uneven, maybe it's the flaw of having such a cool mystery, when it starts to unravel it's not as interesting as you thought it would be. It won me back with its melancholic ending though, the small reveal at the end was actually mindblowing and i actually sort of empathize with the culprit due to just how messed up their circumstances were.

Kindaichi tries to go on a vacation on a remote village called "Onikobe". The good detective can't catch a break however when a mysterious old woman is said to have returned to the village and an odd disappearance and murders that appear to follow the imagery of an old nursery rhyme start to happen.

The plot for this one echoes a lot of Seishi Yokomizo's past works. This was kind of already late in the series so some of the ideas feel like it's a re-hash of his previous ones. The obvious one being the murder targets/victims are 3 young girls (not in an exploitative way though) and the deaths having a bizarre and unsettling imagery to them. Both of which are present in Death on Gokumon Island. And there are rival families which is present in almost all of the series.

However, i would say that this is better than Death on Gokumon Island on some aspects. The villager characters, for example, were kind of fun to read. They're fleshed out enough and mostly distinct. The case feels clearer and less messier and the structure was done really well showing Yokomizo's growth since his earlier works. It's a bit weaker on the tension and atmosphere though. It also lacked a good red herring to throw you off. I think the culprit was mostly obvious, mostly due to the fact that there were no other strong suspects.

All-in-all though, i still really enjoyed this book and it's up there with Death on Gokumon Island for me despite having some recycled ideas. The plot is just truly engaging and deceptively simple. i also enjoyed Kindaichi and Inspector Isokawa's friendship. You can feel that they have been through a lot of cases since this is late in the series.

A monk was found digging what appears to be a faceless corpse of a woman by a patrolling policeman, near the infamous, Black Cat Cafe. A dead black cat (suspected to be the cafe mascot) was also found along with the corpse. However, it turns out that the black cat mascot is alive? The case begins to unravel as we find out about the people residing in the Black Cat Cafe.

A decent short story, the book has an interesting opening where the author himself, Yokomizo Seishi, describes how he met Kosuke Kindaichi as if he's a real person, and their discussion about the trope of faceless corpse stories and how the twist usually involves a switcheroo between the murderer and victim. So essentially, the author gives us a hint of what to expect and yet the ending still has a decent twist. It doesn't have as much weight as your usual Yokomizo story but i still enjoyed this as a light read.

A bonus short story from the Murder at the Black Cat Cafe Pushkin Vertigo book, it tells the story of the oldest of the wealthy Honiden family, Daisuke, coming home from the war. However, his younger sister, Tsuriyo, suspects he's not who he appears to be.

This feels more like a classic Kindaichi story at first since it starts with this elaborate family backstories, but it starts to feel different as the main story is creatively narrated through letters mostly from Tsuriyo's perspective. You can feel the big influence of Edgar Allan Poe here since it really is almost borderline horror with each letter becoming more and more unsettling and worrying for Tsuriyo. The main mystery is kind of recycled from the Inugami curse though but i think it doesn't hinder much since it's all executed differently here. I really liked the tension and it's just a neatly done solid short story.