Murder Mystery Series Meta Book Club

Japanese Language Book Clubs
1

Welcome to the Murder Mystery Series Meta Book Club!

A small group of people recently read through a 10-volume murder mystery series, namely Saikawa & Moe (S&M) Series Reading Club, and we decided that we want more!

So in this thread we are going to decide on which series to read next. The series we pick will then be read until it’s done or until we lose interest in it (I guess…?).

So far, the individual books have been read at a pace of ~70 pages per week (on a weekly schedule). Maybe for other series, the pace may be different. We will determine this individually.
Between the books, we usually left a gap of a few months, so that everybody is able to read other stuff as well, and also to not burn us out because series often feature similar topics in each book (e.g. architecture) and have the same main characters (with all their quirks).

Having said that, on to the series!

Series Proposals

Ongoing Series

None so far. Stay tuned!

Finished Series

Members

Would you like to join us for a series or a few?

  • Yes
  • Maybe
  • No
0 voters

What type of books do you usually read?

  • Digital
  • Physical
0 voters

Proposals

Please use this template:

Proposal Template 
* **...name...**
   * Proposed by:
   * Theme / Specialty: 
   * Links to series:
   * Links to first volume:
   * Number of volumes:
   * Notes:
13 Likes
2

We had started this discussion in the Saikawa&Moe book club, and I moved all nominations into the OP. If you have any information that I should add to the nominations, please let me know.

If you have any other series you would like to nominate, please post it in this thread, using the template I placed at the end of the OP.

I was wondering whether we should run a “veto” round at some point in order to exclude series that we would absolutely not read (e.g. Belerith and I expressed concerns regarding the Hall series, and we had concerns regarding availability for some other series) but I guess as long as we stay below the limit of 20 proposals, things should sort themselves out automatically through the voting process.

For the decision, my idea is to vote for the series, then pick the three most popular ones and read the first volume each, and then decide which series to go forward with. This way we will gain not only insights about the contents but also about the writing style and the characters.

What do you think?

  • Sounds great! Sample 3 books then move forward
  • Nice, but sampling 2 books should be sufficient
  • Just pick the most popular one and go
  • I have another idea (please explain)
0 voters
5 Likes
3

@NicoleIsEnough have you read 硝子の塔の殺人? The protagonists in the book discuss a lot of crime mystery books, Japanese and international, might be of interest for you and the others from the S&M club.
Now thanks to it, I can at least recognize a lot of the names from the proposals :smiley:

5 Likes
4

Thanks for organizing this Nicole and compiling it all into one post!

5 Likes
5

Haha, I can also throw a ‘please no’ or at least a ‘I definitely won’t participate’ towards the Hall series. I think everyone who participated in the club for the first book over on Natively either dropped it or hate read it :sweat_smile:

I’ll also note that the MBC also read book 2 of the series 館 series: 💧 Home Thread for 水車館の殺人 🩸 | Starting Nov 11 - Book Clubs - Natively Forums

Also speaking of the MBC, I had put it on hiatus over on Natively since the forums were kinda of dying and planning to re-evaluate in the new year. There is still a pretty strong chance I’ll end up bringing it here where there’s more activity. If so will need to coordinate a bit to not bump into each other :sweat_smile:

3 Likes
6

Thank you! Added the link to the OP.

Or, if we happen to pick the same book, we could make it a temporary joint venture :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

2 Likes
7

I’m pretty sure this is a massive underestimate – I think the author wrote over a hundred of these. (There’s no continuity between volumes, though, so you can read as many or as few as you want in any order you like.)

3 Likes
8

Oh thanks for the info - I don’t know where I got the 25 from, but I counted the list in the wikipedia article, and it lists more than 100, indeed :+1:

Having said that, I don’t think I would want to read the whole series now that I think about it :sweat_smile:

2 Likes
9

I like to treat it as “sometimes I’m in the mood for travelogue + mystery, so I pick one of these books” – I know exactly the kind of story I’m going to get. If I’m in Japan there’s usually some for sale cheaply at bookoff.

I don’t expect to take part in this book club as my to-read pile is still too large, but if anybody wanted a change of pace you might be interested in 北海道警察 | L35 which is gritty/serious police procedural set in Hokkaido. The first book is partly based on a real life police corruption scandal.

4 Likes
10

That sounds like a good approach as well. It could maybe also act as a palate cleanser in between other series or series parts? :thinking:
I figured there must also be fans that rank their most favourite volumes from the series, so we could draw some inspiration from them regarding what to pick. After a quick search I found one such blog post: https://suspenselife.net/archives/80 and there must be more posts like this. Together with the first volume (which I like to read anyways in order to get the author’s very first thoughts and introduction) they should give us a good picture.

Thanks for the recommendation! I put it on the list just in case. :+1:

4 Likes
11

Thanks for the comments and recommendations everybody! Let’s head straight into our first

Poll !!! :tada: :partying_face: :confetti_ball:

Please make sure to read the information about the series in the OP, especially regarding availability and popularity :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: I added the numbers from the OP to the poll for easier reference.

I’ve chosen the same settings for the poll as with the IBC and ABC, i.e. auto-close the poll after one week, in this case on 2025-11-07T14:00:00Z, and allow 5 votes each.

After the poll, we will sample the first volume each of the 3 winning series (there will be a tie poll if we cannot clearly determine the 3 winners due to tied positions), starting in early January (so the readers of physical books should have enough time to receive their deliveries before we start). We will determine the exact start time of the first pick after the poll.

  • (1) Ayatsuji Yukito’s 館 series
  • (2) Ritsu Shuki’s Hall series
  • (3) Nisio Isin’s Zaregoto series
  • (4) Kyo Shirodaira’s In/Spectre/虚構推理 series
  • (5) Alice Arisugawa’s Writer Alice series
  • (6) Nikaido Reito’s Nikaito Ranko series
  • (7) Uchida Yasuo’s Asami Mitsuhiko series
  • (8) Kitayama’s Castle series
  • (9) 東野圭吾’s Galileo series
  • (10) 北海道警察
0 voters
3 Likes
12

The poll is closed, and we have three winning series:

image
image1040×546 70.6 KB

In the Sampling Poll, everybody agreed to sampling the first volumes of the three winning series, so let’s do that! Do you have any particular order you’d prefer the three books to be read in?

  • Let’s start with 十角館の殺人
  • Let’s start with 46番目の密室
  • Let’s start with 後鳥羽伝説殺人事件
  • I have no particular favorite
0 voters

Here are the Natively links to these books:

When should we start reading the first book?

  • Early January
  • Late January
  • Early February
  • Late February
  • Early March
0 voters
3 Likes
13

It might be helpful to know how many people have already read 十角館の殺人 (I haven’t, but if half the club already has, we might want to skip it / compress the timeline)

3 Likes
14

I’m fine waiting on a regular timeline and commenting (spoiler free) where I can. I definitely don’t want to rush anyone. I’ve read the first two books in that series.

2 Likes
15

I’ve only read the manga adaptation of 十角館の殺人, but I don’t mind reading the novel to get the true 十角館 experience!
Can’t wait to start a series! :relieved_face:

2 Likes
16

Here are our voting results:

Book Order

As there was no strong sentiment towards reading one of the books first, let’s roll with this order:

  1. 46番目の密室 | L30?? (because @Ryohei11 voted for it :blush:)
  2. 後鳥羽伝説殺人事件 「浅見光彦」シリーズ | L30?? (because it is comparatively thin, so we can finish it quickly in-between)
  3. 十角館の殺人 | L33

Book Club Start

Everybody voted for early January, so let’s start the first book from January 3rd, 2026.

Book Club Host

I don’t mind running the clubs for these books, but maybe somebody else would like to have a go at hosting a book club? If so, please speak up :hugs:

4 Likes
17

I’m so excited to start reading all these!
Thank you again for holding this club :handshake:

2 Likes