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A review by saltycorpse
Villain by Shūichi Yoshida
4.0
Shuichi Yoshida is an expert at building both sympathy and suspicion for the characters in Villian, and plays an intricate game with the reader with strategic reveals and evidence. The novel is involving and I wanted to gorge myself on it as soon as I was only a few pages in. Yoshida seamlessly moves between characters, expanding his scope around the central murder victim via a game of six degrees of separation. The entire novel questions what it means to be an evil person, a villain, and ends with a chilling question:
"Isn't that what everyone says? That he's the villain in all this? ... Right?"
I highly recommend this novel, it is suspenseful and raw, and parts made me emotional in an unexpected way. This is a novel you will not regret reading, and one of the finest crime novels I have read so far. Yoshida adds another masterpiece proving that Japanese crime fiction is among the finest in a genre that has become world-wide.
"Isn't that what everyone says? That he's the villain in all this? ... Right?"
I highly recommend this novel, it is suspenseful and raw, and parts made me emotional in an unexpected way. This is a novel you will not regret reading, and one of the finest crime novels I have read so far. Yoshida adds another masterpiece proving that Japanese crime fiction is among the finest in a genre that has become world-wide.