When the wealthy patriarch of the Inugami clan dies, his will brings into high relief all the jealousies, rivalries, and petty conflicts within his family members. Sahei Inugami’s will leaves his estate behind, not to his grandsons Kiyo, Take, or Tomo, but rather to Tamayo, the granddaughter of Sahei’s mentor and rumoured once-lover. In particular, Tamayo has three months to choose one of Sahei’s grandsons to marry, and her husband will inherit the estate.

If Tamayo refuses, or dies before the three months are up, she forfeits the inheritance, and control of the family business passes to Kiyo, assisted by Take and Tomo. The remainder of the estate will be divided into five, with one share going to each of the grandsons, and two shares going to Shizuma Aonuma, the son of Sahei’s former mistress.

If Kiyo, Take, and Tomo all refuse to marry Tamayo, or die before the three months are up, Tamayo receives the full estate, and is free to marry whomever she wants. 

It’s a set-up that practically guarantees extra-juicy family drama, and The Inugami Curse doesn’t disappoint. Secrets come to light; siblings and cousins turn on each other, and soon enough, people start getting killed. 

I absolutely adore this book! I enjoyed my previous adventure with Detective Kosuke Kindaichi, and this story was even more my kind of whodunnit. Whereas The Honjin Murders had a very Sherlock Holmes feel with the focus being more on the howdunnit of the locked room mystery, The Inugami Curse feels much more like my personal fave, Agatha Christie. There’s a whole cast of suspects, each of whom has varying degrees of motive and opportunity, and I feel like the psychology of these characters — or the whydunnit, so to speak, holds the key to identifying the killer.

Even better, the clues are easy enough to follow; Kindaichi even helpfully lists them all for us in a chapter called “A Monstrous Riddle.” Various revelations come to light about the characters, each of which disproves one theory or another while raising new possibilities. And one clue in particular has Kindaichi thinking that finally, the puzzle pieces are falling into place. 

Alas for my ego, all these clues just leave me more confused than ever. And honestly, fair play to the author: he did give me all the tools I need to solve this case; I just can’t make sense of how they all fit together. I especially appreciate how often throughout the novel I’d come up with a theory that I consider absolutely brilliant, only for Kindaichi himself (or worse, Police Chief Tachibana!) to bring up that very theory only a few pages later. The first time it occurred was within the first few chapters, so it was far too early for such a major reveal. And honestly, I just feel like this is the author’s way of thumbing his nose at readers like me for thinking we’re cleverer than we actually are.

I am proud that at least I managed to guess a fairly big reveal. Does that reveal even matter in solving the mystery? I’m going to guess yes. As confused as I am with how the puzzle pieces fit together, I have two theories floating in my brain, and I’m just going to lock in the one my gut thinks is right. I have very little confidence I got it, but the next chapter is called “Confession,” so I figure it’s now or never for me to issue my verdict. 

(Side note: Yokomizo’s other mystery The Honjin Murders has pride of place as the one mystery where I read the big reveal before realizing I should’ve stopped reading and made my guess. So, I’m taking the fact that I actually stopped before the big reveal this time as a sign of progress. Go, me!)

Did I Guess Right?

Absolutely not, LOL. My verdict is not even close.

I did guess somewhat close to the truth with my second theory, which I ultimately discarded because I was giving myself a headache trying to make sense of it, and still couldn’t make the puzzle pieces fit together.

Gah, this was frustrating! I had the clues, but put the puzzle pieces together wrong. It’s like, if I’d only tilted my head in the other direction, or looked at a couple of key pieces of the puzzle from a different perspective, I might have figured it out. As Sherlock Holmes would say: I see, but I do not observe. Gah!

But honestly, fair play to Seishi Yokomizo. This was a very well-constructed puzzle, an absolute joy to read, and the ending turned out to be a touch more heartwarming than I expected. And really, this just makes me even more determined to solve my next Kosuke Kindaichi mystery. Onward and upward!

*** SPOILERS BELOW ***

My Verdict

Okay, first, let me preen that I correctly guessed that Matsuko’s koto teacher, Kokin Miyawaka, is actually Sahei’s mistress and Shizuma’s mother, Kikuno Aonuma. 

I think that Kikuno, Tamayo, and Shizuma are behind the killings. I think Tamayo’s best friend and bodyguard is actually Shizuma, and that he and Tamayo, with Kikuno’s support, are trying to get the inheritance they feel is rightfully theirs. Their plan is to kill the three grandsons, and have Tamayo and Monkey marry. Monkey and Tamayo also faked Tamayo’s three earlier near-death experiences to set the stage for the Inugami grandsons to be killed. (This was one of my early theories that Kindaichi immediately brought up himself a few pages later. Which makes me doubt its veracity, but heck, I’m going to say that he and I both just figured it out super early. Go, us!)

Because Shizuma is actually Sahei’s first-born son, and really with more of a legal right to his fortune than the grandsons, because Sahei never married any of their grandmothers. And Tamayo is actually Sahei’s biological granddaughter. (There were rumours that Sahei and his mentor Dahei were actually lovers, but evidence revealed that Sahei also had a sexual relationship with Dahei’s wife. All this with Dahei’s blessing — unlike the bisexual Sahei, Dahei only liked men and could never get it up with his wife, so he was actually happy that she found sexual pleasure with Sahei.)

There’s some evidence against Shizuma being Monkey. First is that Monkey is ugly, and both Sahei and Kikuno are attractive, plus Kikuno says that Monkey looks like the super handsome Kiyo. I think Kikuno is lying, and that Shizuma’s unattractiveness just helped his disguise. Another evidence is that witnesses say they witnessed Monkey’s birth and he couldn’t have been Shizuma, but again, I think they can lie. 

My Other (Discarded) Theory

I also toyed with the idea that Matsuko and Kiyo were behind the murders. I guessed right that the Kiyo whom Matsuko brought to the estate was a fake. Kiyo was off at war, but needed to be home or proven dead before the will was read. And Matsuko obviously needed Kiyo alive to get her part of the inheritance. So I think she couldn’t find him and just brought over a random soldier whose face was injured enough that she could fake him as Kiyo.

Three things work against this theory:

First, there’s a scene midway through where Matsuko agrees to let Kiyo test his fingerprints against a sample that’s definitely from the real Kiyo. She had previously fought against this, but for some reason, agreed to let it happen that one night. True enough, Kiyo’s fingerprints did match the sample, but a later scene showed Kiyo anxious about leaving fingerprints on the windowsill. So for some reason, there’s both a fake Kiyo and the real Kiyo both in the area. Why? I have no clue; this is one of the puzzles that don’t fit for me. Maybe Matsuko and real Kiyo needed the fake Kiyo to give real Kiyo an alibi for all the murders?

Second, when the real Kiyo shows up (in the chapter before “Confession”), Kindaichi says he isn’t a murderer even though he will confess to being one. This is a point in favour of this theory, because who else would Kiyo protect but his mother? So I think perhaps Kiyo is involved in the murders, and that Kindaichi was engaging in wordplay: Kiyo isn’t a murderer but rather an accomplice to Matsuko who actually carried out the murders.

And finally, I can’t figure out why they’d kill the fake Kiyo in such a visible manner. Wouldn’t that just call more attention to the switch when real Kiyo shows up? Why not just buy off fake Kiyo to disappear, and let real Kiyo take his place? Thinking through all that gave me a headache; the more I tried to twist things to make it make sense, the less sense this theory seemed to make. So, for that reason, I’m giving up this theory, and locking in my guess to Tamayo, Monkey/Shizuma, and Kikuno being the killers.

The Actual Reveal

Matsuko is the murderer.

What I missed and/or got wrong:

• Matsuko genuinely believed that fake Kiyo was her son. She killed Take and Tomo because, with Kiyo’s facial disfigurement, she worried Tamayo wouldn’t want to marry him.
• Fake Kiyo was actually Shizuma trying to get his hands on the Inugami fortune.
• Matsuko is the only murderer; real Kiyo and Shizuma/fake Kiyo were only accomplices. What I missed is that Kiyo and Shizuma actually teamed up to cover up Matsuko’s murders. Real Kiyo wanted to protect his mother, and Shizuma was just happy to have his path cleared for the Inugami fortune. 
• Shizuma blackmailed Kiyo into not revealing himself, by saying he would expose Matsuko as a murderer if Kiyo exposed him as fake.
• Tamayo was innocent. Matsuko managed to get a copy of the will and tried to kill her three times before the will was read out loud. 
• Matsuko kills Shizuma because she realizes he isn’t actually her son, and that her real son was actually alive and in the area.

Some happy(ish) endings to wrap up the story:

I love the romantic ending to the story. Tamayo and Kiyo have been in love since they were kids, and even though Kiyo has to spend a chunk of time in jail for his part in covering up his mother’s murders, Tamayo chooses him as her husband, “if he’ll have her.” He does agree to this, and not at all (I like to think) because of the Inugami fortune; he truly does seem equally in love with her, and I’m happy they’ll get their (albeit delayed) happy ending.

Matsuko dies by suicide in the end, but before she does, she makes Tamayo promise to give half the Inugami fortune to the child of Tomo and Sayoko (Take’s cousins), so that the descendants of Matsuko’s sisters also get a share in the family fortune. Honestly, it’s kind of sweet, and, you know, murders and suicides aside, this does give a somewhat happy(ish) ending for the rest of the family. Sahei’s attempt to keep his children all against each other turns out to fail in the end.