Jordan Taylor

Summary

Koharu, a young woman in her 20s, is finally getting around training for her drivers license with her driving teacher, Ms. Isagawa. Problem is, her father's dead body is still on the floor at home after he hung himself, there are dozens of bodies hanging in the trees as the citizens of Japan kill themselves, and society has broken down as a whole since the world is going to be wiped out in a few months by a massive asteroid hurtling towards Earth. Which leads to the question: Why, when all humanity was about to be destroyed, would someone murder a woman and hide her in the trunk of one of the driving school's cars? Which leads to a second question: How do they find this person and bring them to justice?

About the Author

The Murder at the End of the World is Akane Araki's debut novel, published in August 2022. The book won the 2022 Edogawa Rampo Prize and ranked high on several mystery novel rankings. Her second novel, Broken Chain and Scraps of Light (Chigireta Kusari to Hikari no Kirehashi), published in 2023, also ranked highly on several best mystery novel lists.

Review

DISCLAIMER: The publisher, Kodansha, gave me a free copy of this book. However, they did not ask me to write a review and, as always, my views are entirely my own.

I am officially crowning Akane Araki as Queen of Twists. I went into this book with zero knowledge of what it was about (I should stop that), not even the genre, and found myself gobsmacked within the first few pages by what was happening, seeing as I wasn't expecting this nice little driving lesson to turn into a pre-apocalyptic nightmare scenario. Unfortunately, I've already ruined that for you, but most people will at least know the genre before going in which will mean they won't have the same experience I did, but that doesn't mean the book is short of other twists to keep the reader spinning.

I'm only a casual mystery reader myself, so I won't comment much on the unfolding of the mystery other than it left me guessing, never felt contrived or too convenient, and overall had good pacing.

In addition to a solid plot, the book has incredibly solid characters. The story never delves too deeply into the details on the characters, but it still feels like those depths are there, like the characters are very well crafted and therefore all their actions and thoughts feel consistent to them. They were all likable, not necessarily in the literal likable sense (though many are), but in the sense that they were intriguing, compelling, and helped make me want to keep on reading.

Now, this book is definitely not a fantasy book and I'm only including it because it has very slight science fiction elements, perhaps better described as speculative fiction. It does take a look at what might happen when society and its systems break down. What happens to the justice system, the cellphone network, healthcare, and food supply when everyone gives up, either killing themselves in advance of the death of humanity or fleeing the impact point (Japan in this case, of course) in the hopes they'll be able to survive the apocalypse a bit longer. This seemed fairly believable, not that I am an expert on any of these things and capable of determining it, but it never felt odd.

Overall, it's an incredibly solid and very enjoyable book. Hard to believe it's actually a debut novel. Oh, and one thing I didn't tell you before, Akane Araki is the youngest person to ever win the Edogawa Rampo Prize. So, yeah. Impressive.

Potential Translation Problems

I honestly can't remember anything. It was relatively straightforward in terms of language. A tiny bit of justice system and medical terminology, maybe a tiny bit of technical terms, but nothing that complicated.

Final Ratings

How many stars? 5.0
Would I want to translate it? Absolutely. I loved it. It was great.