Rather like my first foray into Japanese mysteries, this one flips the script by providing a false protagonist for a large portion of the novel. Though the seeming person who will solve the crime, turns out not to, he (Kenzo, if you are curious) is, arguably the protagonist. Kyosuke, nicknamed the Boy Genius (I hope that sounds better in Japanese), a friend of Kenzo, is the one who solves the crime.

While a couple of items could have been guessed, like Doyle’s famed mysteries, the reader isn’t really given enough to definitively solve on her/his own.

I think I liked to the steady proceduralism of Points and Lines more than The Tattoo Mystery‘s more holmesian style.