The Murder in the Honjin
The Murder in the Honjin (本陣殺人事件 Honjin satsujin jiken) is a mystery novel by Seishi Yokomizo. It was serialized in the magazine Houseki from April to December 1946, and won the first Mystery Writers of Japan Award in 1948. It was filmed as Death at an Old Mansion in 1976.
The first novel in the Kosuke Kindaichi series, it concerns a murder in a locked room in a Japanese mansion surrounded by thick snow.
Story
On 25 November 1937, at a former honjin in Okayama, the wedding of Kenzou Ichiyanagi and Katsuko Kubo is held. The celebrants include the mother Itoko, the third son Saburo, the second daughter Suzuko, the cousin Ryousuke, and Ginzo Kubo, Katsuko's uncle. During the ceremony, Suzuko plays the koto, and everything ends without incident.
Later that night, the wild sound of the koto is heard across the mansion. Ginzo rushes to the newly wedded couple's bedroom, only to find the couple killed in a brutal fashion. A Japanese sword is later found thrust into the ground in the middle of the garden, with no footprints on the surrounding thick snow, creating a perfect locked room mystery.
Main characters
Key figures
- Kosuke Kindaichi
- A private detective, summoned by Ginzo Kubo
- Tsunejirou Isokawa
- An inspector from Okayama prefecture in charge of the case
- Katsuko Kubo
- A schoolteacher, married to Kenzou Ichiyanagi
- Ginzo Kubo
- The owner of an orchard, Katsuko's uncle
House Ichiyanagi
- Itoko Ichiyanagi
- The mother of the family
- Kenzou Ichiyanagi
- The eldest son, the present head of family, and a scholar
- Taeko Ichiyanagi
- The eldest daughter, married to a company employee and travelling to Shanghai
- Ryuuji Ichiyanagi
- The second son, working as a doctor at a hospital in Osaka
- Saburou Ichiyanagi
- The third son
- Suzuko Ichiyanagi
- The second daughter, in poor health, but excellent at the koto
- Ryousuke Ichiyanagi
- The family's cousin
- Akiko Ichiyanagi
- Ryousuke's wife