The Honjin Murders (本陣殺人事件)

⚖The case for it

The debut of detective Kosuke Kindaichi. A murder on a wedding night, a locked room, complex family secrets. Yokomizo created the Japanese Golden Age mystery tradition, blending Western honkaku puzzle conventions with specifically Japanese social structures. The Kindaichi series is Japan's most beloved classic mystery series.

— the canon

✕The case against

Yokomizo's locked room resolves into a Rube Goldberg contraption so elaborate that belief collapses the moment you picture someone actually rigging it. The motive turns on an obsession with a bride's purity that has aged badly even as period detail, and Kindaichi barely registers as a person in his own debut.

— the honest librarian