Detective Yoshitaro Katayama is afraid of many things: heights, dark spaces, blood and ... women. When a young female student is found murdered, he's given two choices—review the harrowing crime-scene photographs or head to Hagoromo Women's College to investigate—and reluctantly opts for the latter.

But the threat escalates with additional murders, and soon Katayama has a different surprise on his hands: a calico cat named Holmes, orphaned when the dean himself falls victim.

Surely that's the last thing Katayama needs. Until Holmes begins to display some uncanny investigative instincts of her own ...

A Game of Cat and Killer has a story by Jirō Akagawa. English translation is done by Haydn Trowell. Published by Grand Central (September 29, 2026).

Erica Friedman
Rating:

A Game of Cat and Killer is definitely a “your mileage may vary” kind of story. This is the beginning of Akagawa's celebrated “Mikeneko Holmes” series. I really wanted to love this. A detective who seems unusually unsuitable for his job, plus an intelligent cat without its owner versus a brutal serial killer, who is committing gruesome and violent murders at a women's college could—and should— make this locked room murder mystery interesting and quirky. But there were so many quirks that it began to feel forced.

The translation is handled competently by Haydn Trowell throughout. The book itself was written in 1978, but it had a feel of mid- 20th century life. It was a little hard to pin down just “when” all of this was happening.

The biggest weakness is our protagonist Katayama. In an effort to make him more human, Akagawa has given us a not-particularly-clever detective who, without this cat companion, would have solved nothing. The cat is preternaturally intelligent, understanding and communicating things in ways that are simply impossible to believe. But the worst feature of this story was that it was predictable. I knew who was the initial person of interest within the first ten pages, and as soon as the key to the mystery was mentioned, that had horns blaring and lights flashing. The climax was not predictable in a human psychology kind of way, but in National Enquirer (like The Onion before there was an Internet, but full of aliens, psychos and conspiracies)-like way. The coincidences are not to be believed. As the story headed to its conclusion, I laughed out loud at that particular vehicle of justice.

Most depressing of all, was Katayama's continued lack of understanding of the people around him. I just couldn't buy that he could have made detective in the first place. I love a good mystery, but I despise when I am smarter than the detective. Everyone in the book was smarter than Katayama. I know, I know that I am supposed to be charmed by Holmes, the cat. The cat was perfectly charming. I can only hope that adopting a calico cat and naming it after a famous classic detective became trendy in the late 70s/early 80s.

I'd very much like to think that, as this is the first book in a long series, Akagawa's writing settles down and both he and Katayama need rely on gimmick and coincidence a bit less. If a dumb detective and a smart cat seem like winning combination for you, you'll probably get more mileage out of A Game of Cat and Killer than I did.

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

Jirō Akagawa is one of Japan's more storied mystery writers, and his Mikeneko Holmes series, published between 1978 and 2013, is one of his most famous. It's had a TV series adaptation, a film, and even a video game. This book is the first in the series, building on the long tradition of feline detectives primarily attributed to Lillian Jackson Braun's The Cat Who… series, which began in 1966. Cat mysteries are generally classed as “cozies,” meaning that the peril is low and the gore minimal, so it may be a bit of a surprise that A Game of Cat and Killer isn't particularly cozy. The serial killer is vicious and the crimes bloody. It results in a book that's an awkward combination of cozy and serious.

That's not the only thing that doesn't quite work here. The main issue is that our detective, the human one, beggars belief that he ever could have made the grade. I believe we're meant to understand that it may have been more nepotism than anything else – his dad was a textbook great detective and Katayama was meant to follow in his footsteps. But he's got zero investigative skill and utterly depressing people skills, so the cat's help is definitely needed. Rest assured, she's not a talking cat – Holmes just has a knack for yowling and pawing at things that Katayama needs to notice. There are definitely moments when I wished she could talk, though, if only to drive home how she's the true force behind the investigation. I will give the book credit, though – making her a calico was a very smart idea. Calicos, like tortoiseshells, have what's known as “tortietude,” meaning that they're their own very special brand of personality, dialing the well-known feline disgust with human foibles up to an eleven. My parents' calico, Florence, runs their lives like you wouldn't believe, so I had zero problems accepting that Holmes would be the queen detective.

Given that this novel comes from the beginning of Akagawa's storied career, I am willing to think that the series gets better from here. That's true of many long-running series, including Braun's. But I'd pick other volumes up at the library rather than buying them. This is okay, but not the best mystery novel I've ever picked up.