Reviews for No Reason for Murder

The average rating for No Reason for Murder based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-05-27 00:00:00 Dave Maida Jr. Ayako Sano's No Reason For Murder (originally Heavenly Blue in the original Japanese) is an interesting look at the lives of two people who happen to meet. Yukiko is a seamstress working at home who comes across Fujio in her garden. He asks her for morning glory seeds from the flowers she is planting, but Yukiko later discovers the packet of seeds thrown in a garbage heap by her house. This sets the tone for the entire novel, which is at its heart a detective story, but also brings to the forefront the question of just how much dishonesty people can take in their lives, and the various delusions our own minds offer to justify our actions. Yukiko, much like the author herself, is an extremely pious Christian, and this plays heavily into the framework of the story; she is often questioning Fujio, but always forgiving him--until she finds out that he is the one behind a brutal string of murders as well as the rape of one of her sister's colleagues. Fujio, on the other hand, is an antisocial misfit with some real anger toward the world; living in a penthouse apartment above his parents' home, he is coddled by his mother despite being rarely seen by her, as he is usually as far away from his house as possible, driving in his car and picking up women. However, his relationship with Yukiko is even more interesting than the women he has sex with nearly constantly; a strained relationship that I'm not going to spoil in a review. If you like a good serial murder story, or a serious look at relationships, you may like this novel.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-03-18 00:00:00 Robert Mendez Very enjoyable. The central plot device, that a man can pick up strange women in his car and do bad things to them, pushed the limit of disbelief only because he was always successful in doing so. I found out toward the end that the killer is based on real-life Kiyoshi Okubo, who did bad things in the 1960s and 1970s. Maybe if it was set in an earlier time, this would have been more believable. However, other than that, the book was well done. The other central character, Yukiko Hata, is one of my favorites. She is my new definition of sincere. And the setting and dialog are all engaging. Ayako Sono is not widely translated in English, but I recommend this. I don't think hard-core murder mystery fans would be satisfied. However, it's not a murder mystery at all. That is just the story from which we get to meet two true originals.