Manas Joshi Joshi itibaren Yoichi District, Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan itibaren Yoichi District, Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan

Before I'd cracked the spine on Special Topics, I'd decided it must be one of those novels about characters, not events. All nouns, no verbs. I was expecting something too clever, too witty, jury-rigged around a young, eccentric, navel-gazing protagonist. (Truthfully, sometimes that's my bag.) The thing is, though, that there is a plot here, and it's a whodunit. Organized like a syllabus, with each chapter loosely identified with and named for great literary works (the "Required Reading") the book has a gimmicky framework, but the story doesn't need that flash to capture the imagination. Blue van Meer (the big noun) is a stupid-smart high school senior and professor's daughter who stumbles onto the scene of an apparent suicide. She's pathologically brainy and reserved, but when the shit goes down, she's an unexpected, and unexpectedly able, sleuth. I actually hate whodunits, but I love this book; the pacing is uneven to some extent (it takes a while to get going), but ultimately the plot is well-considered and the Big Clues requisite to this sort of joint are not unsubtle. I've said too much already. Read it and we'll talk!

one of the first "twist" novels written in 1940, its sometimes marketed as a trashy pulp fiction type of book, but it's actually very good, and the suspense isn't a plot trick, it's a significant part of the story. It's based on Jane Eyre and the idea of "the mad woman in the attic"