That’s how I understood it as well, also that it was one place doing both things. It’s proving hard to find anything about this online.
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My interpretation was that single men were bringing prostitutes to the ryokans, which is why only couples were allowed to stay… but I also can’t say I fully understood any two consecutive sentences from the innkeeper, so who knows 
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Spoilers for chapters 20 and 21:
Clearly Kindaichi shouldn’t have gone off to the other side of the country – you can’t leave these people alone for five minutes without somebody getting murdered…
Can the person who killed 新宮 be the same as the person who killed the nun? The timing seems pretty tight (assuming I haven’t mixed up the days) - they would have had to start on the island in the morning, get the first ferry and then a (1940s speed) train back to Tokyo in time to kill 新宮 in the evening.
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Spoilers through chapter 19:
I sort of like the new setting, but there are way too many new characters (most of whom we will never even meet since they died in the war or were otherwise murdered). Maybe it would feel more coherent if Kindaichi were traveling around with someone from the original estate (e.g. Mineko) instead of the police detective.
And speaking of Mineko - my guess is that she is the daughter Kindaichi’s looking for, rather than Kikue or Tane. Yokomizo keeps emphasizing how ugly she is compared to her mother, so that has to mean something…
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Through chapter 24, and it seems like the answer is no.
The way the jewelry store robbery has been tied back in is pretty neat. I guess a book with no misogyny would’ve been too much for Yokomizo. But this is not nearly as bad as most of his other books. And there’s no incest or statutory rape… Honestly one weak female character is fine, and Mineko’s indignation shows that it’s a bad thing.
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Are we sure? This is one of my theories for the hidden really bad thing that happened at the Baron’s summer house…
Also, we’ve been told there’s another murder coming up – who do you think it will be? My guess is either Mega (as the most grotesque of the remaining cast) or Akiko (as I think the last remaining person who was at the summer house twenty years ago or whenever it was).
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Spoilers to end of chapter 27:
Nearly at the end now. I was amused by the inspector grumbling about it being yet another potassium cyanide murder. And I see my guess about the locked room mystery was totally wrong…but I was right to think it was a bit early to declare that the plot didn’t feature any incest 
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Yup. 
This book has been a very comfortable read in a way. I feel like all the typical Yokomizo shenanigans are there, but it’s very approachable. A good book to come back to after a break.
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Oh, I forgot to mention that it seems a trifle unfair to have a key clue Kindaichi picks up be one which is only present in spoken language and not on the printed page (Kansai vs Tokyo pitch accent)…
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Through Chapter 24:
My largely-unfounded theories are that Tsubaki is still alive (the dead body was the lookalike) and that Shino is the next to die (because she gives me a suspicious vibe).
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To the end of chapter 27
I guess that’s… okay for the locked room murder? My mental picture of the crime scene was way off, not sure if that’s Yokomizo’s fault or just b/c it’s been so long since it happened. (I thought there was some distance between the body and the door… and also had completely forgotten about the strangulation and thought he had just been bludgeoned.)
I was glad when Kikue asked why the statuette swap was necessary when they had the press, because that’s exactly what I was thinking!
Anyway, I guess the full reveal is next week (err, tomorrow?). Since the murderer had to swap the statuette (come to think of it there was a lot of stuff they had to do in the dark…) my guess is that they are the person that was sitting closest to the statuette, but I’m too lazy to go back and check who it was.
The other possibility would be the person that was accused of messing with the sand after they broke into the room… but wasn’t that Toshihiko? And come to think of it, didn’t he have a tattoo/birthmark in the same shape as the devil’s mark? Whatever happened with that?
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Spoilers for the whole book
Well, that wasn’t how I thought everything would unfold. Especially the motive, and why the people outside of the mansion died.
Maybe it’s because of that that I’m feeling kind of lukewarm on the case itself. Even so I think this is a very solid 金田一. It’s very 横溝風 without the language being overly dated (unless I just got so used to it) which made for a very comfortable weekly read. I enjoyed getting to read the parts! I just wasn’t overly invested. It was still interesting seeing the family dynamics exposed and 金田一being himself, as well as our good old police friends.
I’d give it a 4/5 stars for enjoyment, but it’s not 獄門島. In fact it might not make the top 3 were I to rate the books we’ve read so far against each other. 
I might do that some time.
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I had somewhat suspected the brother-sister incest part of the motive, but the way Kindaichi was all “let’s not question 東太郎 just yet” when the inspector wanted to threw me off and made me think he’d turn out to not be the killer. I wasn’t too sure about the choice to switch to the long confession letter to give the solution to the mystery – I found that chapter a bit of a slog to get through. I did like the final reveal that the flute music could be played with missing fingers, but how come 東太郎 knows how to play a flute and also has been practicing this piece enough to play it from memory?
獄門島 is one I haven’t read because I wasn’t around when the club read it – should I pick it up at some point? Of the ones I have read I think my favourite is 八つ墓村.
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It’s my favorite so obviously I’m biased, haha. I think you should give it a try, yes. It’s super atmospheric and there’s small island ‘politics’, so in a way it’s not dissimilar to 八つ墓村. That’s also an isolated village and very atmospheric, wasn’t it?
If I recall correctly, 獄門島 is set right after 金田一 comes back from the war. That also makes for an interesting historic background, even if it’s not the focus.
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Wasn’t Toutarou his flute student/protege?
Well, that happened. Despite the incest background I think this actually is one of the less-problematic Yokomizos. (Even though there’s incest it’s portrayed as awful and done by a terrible person.) In the end I’m pretty whelmed by the book. I liked the first part of the book, but it felt like it lost a lot of momentum when Kindaichi traveled west and never recovered. The seance and first murder were fine, but none of the murders felt like they had any meat on them–did we learn anything about them in the denouement that we didn’t already know? Also was there any way we were actually supposed to figure out Toutarou did it, besides the fact that they told us at the last second he had been lying about his identity? The clue in the song was actually pretty cool, but also pretty difficult to fairly convey in this medium.
@pm215 I haven’t read Gokumontou yet either, if you wanna do a mini-reading club
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Finished!
I agree that the solution was just OK. I liked how it was revealed (“we’re going to recreate the other day exactly, down to the number of drinks you had” is great), and the birthmark is a nice trick, but it just wasn’t that compelling to me overall.
The flute moment was fun. I thought the typewriter situation would also have something to do with his injured fingers, but I’m not really sure what the deal was there.
My favorite part was when Mineko told her cousin that his recently-murdered dad was an awful person, but at least he probably took after his mother instead (and vice-versa for Mineko herself). 
By the way, there was a point in the book where Kindaichi talked to Mishima about his accent and his origin - it’s possible that a knowledgeable reader would notice the discrepancy even without being able to hear how he pronounces kumo.
I have yet to find the perfect Kindaichi novel, but they never really let me down either. Maybe I’ll get around to 獄門島 someday too
Edit: this wasn’t meant to be a reply to BadPlayer specifically but I don’t think I can undo it ¯\(ツ)/¯
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IIRC he says in his confession letter that he worked for a German import/export company and that’s where he learned to type. Which, OK, but why make a big thing of the typewriter if you aren’t going to let us know who might have learned on a German typewriter until the murderer has confessed? Maybe I missed a more subtle clue that it was him?
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Sure, but let’s leave a bit of time between this one and that. Ping me at some point again about it
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@BadPlayer (and maybe @Escalus ?) – I have now acquired a copy of 獄門島, so if you’re up for more Kindaichi let me know. (I have also acquired a huge pile of other books to read, so doesn’t need to be “start right away”…)
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I’m still planning to read it eventually, but it’ll be a few months before I order any more books, so feel free to start without me.
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