Inhae's blog

This is my latest book haul: 13 books / genre fiction only!

Medical Fiction

『逃げるな新人外科医』 and 『走れ外科医』 by Yujiro Nakayama (中山裕次郎) – 泣くな研修医シリーズ 2 and 3

I loved the first book of this series 『なくな研修医』, and when I heard that there was a second volume, I knew I had to read it as well. When I ordered it, I saw that a third book had just came out, so I had to get it too 🥰 I don’t know if there will be other books in this series or if it is just going to be a trilogy.

A drama adaptation is just coming out, I’ll try to watch it when I finish the books!

Business Novel

『空飛ぶタイヤ』 by Jun Ikeido (池井戸潤)

This will be my second book by Jun Ikeido, and similarly to the first one, I feel a little apprehensive. First because it is very long (900 pages!) and also because there will be a lot of economics in this novel. I hope that it will not be too difficult for me to read in Japanese, but even if it is, I will not give up!

『空飛ぶタイヤ』 has been recommended to me on Twitter, and it is one of Jun Ikeido’s most famous novels as well. It has excellent reviews on Amazon, and I am sure that I will love it.

You can buy either the whole novel in one book or two separate books (上 and 下), which I did because I don’t like holding thick or heavy books.

Mystery fiction / Detective novels

Stand alone novels

『犯罪者』 by Ai Ota (太田愛)

This book is 974 pages long 😱, and thankfully it comes in two separate books (上 and 下). To be honest, I don’t really feel like reading such a long book, but the problem is that I bought another novel by this author during my previous book haul: 『幻夏』 . I did not realise that 『幻夏』 had to be read after 『犯罪者』. I don’t know exactly how the two stories are connected (it does not seem to be a series), but apparently, you need to read 『犯罪者』 first.

Thankfully, someone pointed this crucial information to me on Twitter, when I was talking about my last book haul. I put 『幻夏』 aside and was waiting for my next order to get 『犯罪者』.

『犯罪者』 has very good reviews, so I hope I will like it. I haven’t read the summary because I find that they tend to reveal too much, and I like diving into a story with zero previous knowledge of it.

『聖母』 by Rikako Akiyoshi (秋吉理香子)

I have never read this author before, but 『聖母』 has been recommended to me on Twitter some time ago, and I finally added it to my order! It looks like it is going to be a thriller, and it also looks like the kind of stories that I love reading.

I am also interested by other books by Rikako Akiyoshi. Her earlier books seem particularly interesting. If I like 『聖母』 , I will certainly add other titles to my list.

Series

『完全犯罪に猫は何匹必要か？』 by Tokuya Higashigawa (東川篤哉) – 烏賊川市シリーズ 3

That’s the kind of title that I cannot resist. And the cover is so cute (illustration by Keiichi Arawi)!

『完全犯罪に猫は何匹必要か？』 is the third book in the Ikagawa city series, and I have set my heart on reading the whole series. I must admit that I was particularly excited about this one because it seems so intriguing and funny!

I loved the first book of the series, but the second one not so much. Hopefully, I will love this one!

『名もなき毒』 by Miyuki Miyabe (宮部みゆき) – 杉村三郎シリーズ 2

This is the second book in the Saburo Sugimura series, and I have read the first one so long ago that I don’t remember much about the story. I do remember loving the protagonist, Saburo Sugimura, and the author’s style, though I also found that the book was quite slow and lacked a bit of tension and suspense.

This book is quite long (600 pages), so I hope that it will not be as slow as the first one! I will decide whether I continue the series or not after reading 『名もなき毒』 .

The publisher 文春 (Bunshun) has made a guide to the series that includes a list of characters that is very useful to me. It is worth noting that they added the furigana for each name, which I feel very thankful for as well.

『メゾン・ド・ポリス』 by Miaki Kato (加藤実秋) – メゾン・ド・ポリスシリーズ 2

The first book of the Maison de Police series was published in 2018, and the 6th book has just been released (March 2021)! This means that Miaki Kato has written more than one book per year for the series, which seems a lot to me.

The first book was a collection of several cases, and the second book seems to be the same. This is perfect to me because I can read one story from time to time when I need to take a break from longer books.

『真夏の方程式』 by Keigo Higashino (東野圭吾) – ガリレオシリーズ 6

First of all, the cover? 😳 It looks like a computer program randomly chose a picture from a free image website based on the word “Summer” from the title. Not only does this cover looks like a cheap commercial for a travel agency, but it also departs from the other books of the series which all have a similar vibe to their cover 🤔

Anyway, the only thing I want from this book is a nice role for detective Kusanagi. If you follow my blog, you know that I don’t like how this character was portrayed in the previous books. He used to be my favourite character of the series (I am not a fan of professor Yukawa), so it is a bit sad to see him turning into a stubborn and not so good police officer.

I am slowly catching up with the Galileo series, I might even be able to finish it this year. I think it would be fun to read the last book around the same time when its English translation gets released (announced for December 14th by Macmillan).

『 真夏の方程式 』 has been translated into English by Alexander O. Smith under the title A Midsummer’s Equation.

『プレゼント』 and 『依頼人は死んだ』 by Nanami Wakatake (若竹七海) – 葉村晶シリーズ 1 and 2

I have been wanting to start the Akira Hamura series for a long time but never got around to doing it. I am almost certain that I will love this series so I decided to buy the first and the second book together.

I haven’t read the summary on the back covers and the only thing I know about this series is that detective Akira Hamura is extremely unlucky, though good at her work. I don’t know if the books will be humoristic or not, but they look intriguing.

『最後の証人』 by Yuko Yuzuki (柚月裕子) – 佐方貞人シリーズ 1

This is the first book of the Sadato Sakata series. I have read the second book of the series and loved it. It was a collection of short stories, whereas 『最後の証人』 is a novel.

It looks like the first book is the only novel of the series. If I understood correctly, Sadato Sakata is a lawyer in this book, but he used to be a prosecutor. The other 3 books of the series all seem to be collections of short stories taking place when Sakata was still a prosecutor. This looks like a strange format where the first book would be the present time and the other ones would all be set in the past.

『占星術殺人事件』 by Soji Shimada (島田荘司) – 御手洗潔シリーズ 1

This is the first book in the Kiyoshi Mitarai series, and it has been translated into English by Ross and Shika Mackenzie under the title The Tokyo Zodiac Murders.

Soji Shimada has written a lot of mystery novels and this series is very popular, so it’s not clear why I haven’t read it yet. I don’t know much about the series, and I haven’t read the summary of this book, so I really don’t know what to expect.

The edition I have says its a revised complete version (改訂完全版), but I don’t know what it means concretely. It also looks like they are not going to reprint all the books of the series with this revised edition. I have searched through Kodansha’s website and it looks like only the first, second and sixth books of the series have been re-published for now. The fact that they are not reprinting the books in order makes me think that only some titles will get a revised edition.

I know it’s not the end of the world, but if I am to read the whole series, I would be happier if all the books where the same edition – revised or not – just all the same 😩

---

And that’s it! I have enough books to keep me occupied for the next months 🙂

About

---

---