Tag: crime

Book Review – Murder at the End of the World by Akane Araki, trans. by Jesse Kirkwood #20BOS26 @PushkinPress

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About the Book

TWO MONTHS UNTIL THE APOCALYPSE. TWO WOMEN WITH NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE

An asteroid is hurtling towards Earth and the human race has just over two months to live. But twenty-three-year-old Haru, stargazer and chronic worrier, is still trying to pass her driving test.Then she finds a body in the boot of her car: a woman, stabbed and tortured. There’s a murderer on the loose. And it turns out that Haru’s driving instructor is an ex-cop with a manic devotion to justice.

So, despite the small matter of an impending apocalypse, the two women team up to catch the culprit regardless of the danger.

After all, the world’s not quite over yet…

Format: Paperback (336 pages) Publisher: Pushkin Press
Publication date: 2nd July 2026 Genre: Crime, Translated Fiction

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My Review

Trigger warning: Suicide

I’m not sure Japanese crime fiction and I are ever going to be best friends but I enjoyed this more than I did Butter. The question of what you’d do if you knew the world was ending in two months time is an interesting premise. In fact, that element probably engaged me more than the actual mystery.

Others may have different priorities but Haru has decided she wants to pass her driving test. She’s already passed the theory test but just needs a few more lessons with her driving instructor Isagawa. Obviously, no-one’s really going to worry if she’s got a licence or not but she has a journey in mind that she’d like to be confident about making. All that gets derailed when she and Isagawa discover a body in the boot of the training car. It’s not a pretty sight either but Isagawa doesn’t seem fazed and Haru soon discovers why. Encouraged by Isagawa, they set out to try to discover the culprit because the police are either unable or unwilling to investigate. They’re in the process of packing up like everyone else.

I don’t think it’s giving too much away to say there is more than one murder. In fact there’s no scarcity of dead bodies because many people have decided to take their own lives rather than wait for the asteroid to do it. The fact there’s no-one around to deal with the bodies brings a distinctly ghoulish aspect to the book.

Initially, there seems to be no connection between the victims. Haru’s and Isagawa’s task is made more complicated by the fact water and power supplies have failed, and there’s no mobile phone coverage. In the course of their investigation, Haru and Isagawa encounter other individuals who have stayed behind in what is forecast to be the impact zone of the asteroid, scavenging supplies of food, water and fuel from empty shops and warehouses. A few of these join Haru and Isagawa in the hunt for the person behind the killing spree. One of the puzzles is what the motive could possibly be. When most people are going to die in a few months anyway, why kill them now? I did actually guess the identity of the killer about two thirds of the way through the book.

I can’t say I ever warmed to Isagawa, especially as we see a quite different side to her at some points.

The aspect of the story that interested me most was people’s differing responses to the approaching apocalypse. Some, if they can afford it, have fled to countries further away from the impact zone although even that is unlikely to protect them from the disastrous environmental effects that will follow the asteroid strike. Many have decided to spend their remaining time with loved ones. Others are putting their faith in underground shelters or rather fantastical escape schemes. Some, as we’ve already learned, have decided to take things into their own hands and commit suicide. But with no-one around to enforce the rule of law, perhaps it’s possible to get away with anything?

Murder at the End of the World is an entertaining, if rather macabre, murder mystery peppered with black humour.

I received an uncorrected proof copy courtesy of Pushkin Press. Murder at the End of the World is book 6 of my 20 Books of Summer.

In three words: Quirky, intriguing, dark
Try something similar: The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stu Turton

About the Author & Translator

Akane Araki was born in 1998 in Fukuoka, Japan. She is a graduate of Kyushu University’s School of Letters. Murder at the End of the World is her first novel, and it won the prestigious Edogawa Rampo Prize. (Photo/bio: Publisher website)

Jesse Kirkwood is a literary translator working from Japanese into English. His translations include The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai, Tokyo Express by Seicho Matsumoto and The Man Who Died Seven Times by Yasuhiko Nishizawa.

Book Review – A Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie #ccpin #20BOS26

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About the Book

Rex Fortescue, king of a financial empire, was sipping tea in his “counting house” when he suffered an agonizing and sudden death. On later inspection, the pockets of the deceased were found to contain traces of cereals.

Yet, it was the incident in the parlour that confirmed Miss Marple’s suspicion that here she was looking at a case of crime by rhyme….

Format: Hardback (191 pages) Publisher: Collins
Publication date: 1954 Genre: Crime

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My Review

A Pocket Full of Rye was the book chosen for me in the latest Classics Club spin.

As I was reading the book I realised that most of my knowledge of Agatha Christie novels comes from watching TV adaptations. I vaguely remembered some elements of A Pocket Full of Rye but luckily not enough that I was able to work out the culprit, the motive or the way the crime was carried out.

Assigned to investigate the sudden death of businessman Rex Fortescue, Inspector Neele of Scotland Yard soon discovers it was not due to natural causes. But how the crime was carried out eludes him although there is no lack of possible suspects who might have possessed a motive. Fortescue was a rich man but not particularly liked even by members of his own family. Estranged for many years from one of his sons, he had recently remarried a much younger woman. Perhaps the motive was money or, as his elderly sister-in-law hints, perhaps the answers lies with events much longer ago. What really puzzles the Inspector is a curious feature of the crime: that there was rye in the dead man’s pocket.

I don’t think it’s giving too much away when I say there are more crimes to come, just as inexplicable as the first one. The prime suspect, the person who might have benefited most, couldn’t possibly have done it. Or could they?

Miss Marple doesn’t come on the scene for a while but when she does her talent for observation, insight into what makes people tick and ability to coax information from people without them noticing is of immense help to Inspector Neele who, by this point, is rather floundering. He’s interviewed lots of people, gathered what evidence he can, checked backgrounds, established a timeline but still there’s something not quite right. He can’t put his finger on it. Perhaps after all, they’ve got everything the wrong way around.

At one point, a character remarks, ‘The whole thing seems so wildly improbable. Like a detective story.’ But of course that’s the point. The story is improbable but it’s hugely entertaining trying to get anywhere near the right solution. As Christie’s other famous detective would say, it gets the little grey cells working. However in my case it was to limited effect. I think I probably suspected every character of being the culprit at some stage proving the author’s genius for misdirection and red herrings.

Of course, a theory – even one of Miss Marple’s – is just a theory until there’s proof to back it up, which is why the ending is so brilliant.

A Pocket Full of Rye is book 3 of my 20 Books of Summer 2026. I alternated between my lovely secondhand copy and the audiobook superbly narrated by Richard E. Grant.

In three words: Ingenious, entertaining, classic
Try something similar: Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie

About the Author

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE (née Miller) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

She also wrote the world’s longest-running play, the murder mystery The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End of London since 1952. A writer during the “Golden Age of Detective Fiction”, Christie has been called the “Queen of Crime”. She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott.

In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.

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