And now, I have read the first book!
I found this one to be a bit less of an enjoyable read than Strange Pictures and Strange Buildings, although it was still an easy, enjoyable read. And I did know more or less what to expect from the book, even if I didn’t know how things would turn out, considering I’d read Strange Buildings that referenced this book.
I definitely liked the use of the floor plans in this book, and I felt that the interview style way this book was written was really good. The idea of a room hidden from the outside world, and a house built purely for killing purposes, was really creepy and definitely caught my attention from the start.
I will say that there were parts of this book that felt a bit convoluted. By the end, I was kind of confused…and after reaching that point, I felt that there was perhaps one twist too many. I would have liked the book to end a bit earlier.
One important thing about mystery books, one that makes them better than good…at least in my opinion…is if they ask questions you keep reading because you want the answer to. And this book did that really well. As the author delved deeper into the mystery of the house with a hidden room and passageways, I found myself reading as fast as I could…wanting answers to the mystery, and answers as to why the house had been designed the way it was. And I especially wanted to find out why the left hand had been severed.
Unlike the previous two books, it was immediately obvious, through the narration, that these short stories were connected to each other. At first, the second story just seemed to involve the wife of a potential victim…only for Yoshie to have a far deeper connection to everything than I ever could have imagined.
I did have quite a few questions while reading this book. Not so much the logistics of the houses or anything like that…but the ages of the characters. I just felt, by the end of the book, that I’d missed something while reading, or perhaps several things.
Unlike the other two books, this one didn’t really have a nice ending that tied up everything with a nice, neat bow. I mentioned that I felt this book had one twist too many, and I think maybe that was my biggest problem with it. I actually would really like to see a sequel to this book, with those questions left unanswered by the end to be answered. Having said that…this book has still stayed in my head after I finished reading it, so it did that really well.
Ink of Blood 