The Kindaichi Case Files Vol. 1 The Opera House Murders by Yozaburo Kanari and Fumiya Sato

Hajime Kindaichi is a slacker who goes to Fudo Private High School, But even though he spends his time skipping class and hanging out on the roof, he's bored by school, despite having the highest score ever gained on the entrance test. His close friend and neighbor, Miyuki Nanase, likes him better than she will ever admit, but she feels closer to him as a friend while Kindaichi definitely is thinking of her as a grown-up.

Kindaichi has another claim to fame. He's the grandson of the famed detective Kosuke Kindaichi, and while he may be a bored and indifferent student, he excels at solving mysteries and noticing details. Invited to join the Drama club as they get ready to put on the play "The Phantom of the Opera" by Gaston Leroux at a Meiji-Era House on a small and distant island, Kindaichi finds himself coming to the fore when the lead actress playing Christine is struck down on stage by a falling light.

While he and the others are shocked by the death. Kindaichi realizes that there isn't something right about the death, even as Miyuki points out that the death of the lead actress mirrors that of the deaths in the play, as the first death in play happens when an actress has a chandelier dropped on her. The second death is a strangling, and the third is a drowning.

But one of the men staying at the Opera House Hotel is a Police Detective named Kenmochi, and he decides to take charge of catching the murderer while instructing Kindaichi to stay out of his way. But when another actress is found hung outside her bedroom on a cold, wet night, Kindaichi gets in on the hunt for the killer. And he discovers a secret: that there was another actress in the School's Drama Club who was killed when she was burned with acid and disfigured... just like the Phantom from the play. Shortly afterwards, she committed suicide while reciting lines from the play. And three of the actresses from the club were responsible.

But who could have decided to take revenge on the three actresses, and can Kindaichi catch him or her before the big city Police Detective, Kenmochi. Or will Kindaichi himself fall victim to the killer?

This isn't a new series, but I've been moving the books around in my attic and found myself drawn back to this series, which I have always loved, and I intend to read them now again. Most Kindaichi tales are locked room murders, where a killer is seemingly vindicated from suspicion by the circumstances of the crime, yet Kindaichi must reveal how the killer made it seem that the room was locked, or the problem seemed insoluble, but wasn't.

This is an excellent series, with the tension building slowly and subtly during the course of the story. We are introduced to all the characters, from the victim to the killer and the bystanders, allowing us to care for them before the (metaphorical) hammer drops and the murders start, but keeps Kindaichi's "aha!" moments clear and yet opaque at the same time, allowing viewers to know that Kindaichi has come to a significant conclusion but keeping it secret from the readers until Kindaichi reveals it at the end.

These books are wonderful mysteries, and keep their secrets until right up near the very end, when the killer confesses and explains why he or she did the killing(s). And then we get to see what led the killer to that point. But in many cases, Kindaichi points out why they were wrong to kill, that the person who they are killing for would never have wanted them to become the person they are.

It differs from Boy Detective Conan (or Case Closed, as it is known here in America), in that the cases are all murder, and the murderers are usually portrayed somewhat sympathetically in how they came to the point of being killers. If you want a good murder story with a guy whose a bit of a goof for a detective, and you really enjoy trying to puzzle out locked room mysteries or those whose solution seems impossible, this is a series you'll want to try.