Mystery - Korean and Japanese Crime - Christchurch City Libraries
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Korean and Japanese crime fiction revitalise old genre tropes, blending hard-boiled noir and golden age mystery with twisting narratives and specific cultural contexts and histories. Often hinging off a seemingly simple crime, these stories quickly become complex, multilayered mysteries, with nuanced and well-developed characters. Intense and gripping, you'll be hooked right up until the final sentence! A Christchurch City Libraries List
On the day criminal psychologist Seonkyeong begins a series of interviews with a renowned serial killer , she returns home to find her stepdaughter Hayeong on her doorstep, left in her custody after a terrible accident. As her interviews…
This Korean noir thriller is packed with quirky characters, dark humour, and page-turning action. Reseng grew up knowing that one day he would have to fill his mentor's shoes and become a professional assassin - this isn't Reseng's idea of…
A gripping and intense Korean psychological thriller that explores memory and family dynamics. Yu-jin wakes up one morning disoriented, thinking he has had another seizure. Things take a dark turn when he finds his mother dead at the…
‘Human Acts’ is a superb example of International Booker Prize winner Han Kang’s haunting and lyrical prose. Set in 1980, a variety of interconnected perspectives recount the tragic death of a student who was killed during violent riots in…
Watanbe Yuichi is a guard at a prison who is ordered to investigate his workmate's murder. Over the course of his gruelling task, Watanbe is pulled into a web of deceit as he starts to dig deeper into what life is really like in the…
This fast-paced, suspenseful mystery follows Gilmo, a North Korean with Asperger's Syndrome who escapes a labour camp only to find himself at the centre of a murder investigation. Using his analytical mind and aptitude for complex…
When the body of a young girl is discovered in Seryong Lake, a blanket of suspicion falls over the nearby village. As the police investigation reaches its shocking, tragic conclusion, a security guard from the nearby dam is convicted and…
In this tightly-plotted, fast-paced procedural mystery, divorced single mother Yasuko Hanaoka leads a quiet life, working at a bento shop. Quiet, that is, until her brutish ex-husband reappears on the scene, and an ensuing act of violence…
Drawing upon locked-room mystery traditions, The Decagon House Murders is a landmark in Japanese honkaku fiction— that is, Japanese mysteries that pay homage to the Golden Age mysteries. A university mystery club set off for a week on a…
A classic of Japanese crime literature, The Inugami Curse is an engaging, macabre, whodunnit murder mystery. Set in 1940s Japan, the wealthy head of the Inugami Clan dies, and his death sparks a series of bloody, bizarre murders. Steeped…
Four women work the night shift in a bento factory, longing for more from life. When one of their number murders her ne'er-do-well husband, she enlists her colleagues to assist her in covering up the crime. After the discovery of some…
This classic locked-room murder mystery introduces one of Japan's best-loved detective characters, amateur sleuth Kosuke Kindaichi. A strange and sinister masked man appear in a rural Japanese village, and later, a pair of newlyweds are…
This contemporary Japanese crime novel weaves together distinct narratives to resonant effect. Centred around the strange murders of 17 people at a party in the 1970s, each chapter presents a different perspective on the crime.…
