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陳進興: Chen Chin-hsing
A character refers to a murderer called 陳, it’s probably Chen Chin-hsing who kidnapped and killed Pai Hsiao-yen (白曉燕) the daughter of a celebrity in 1997. During the months that followed he and his gang kidnapped, killed and raped several other victims while the police seemed unable to stop them. The manhunt finally came to a stop in November when Chen took hostage the family of the current South African military attaché to Taipei. After negotiations with politicians and access to media, he finally was surrendered to the police. He was sentenced to death in January 1998.
The government’s inability to arrest Chen has led to major civil protests.

The kidnapping and murder of Pai Hsiao-yen is referred to as 白案 (short for 白曉燕命案), it’s then referred to clearly by Hsieh Cho-en who wants to avoid a repetition of the negotiations and exposure given to Chen when he took hostage the South African attaché’s family.

Finished chapter 4, this novel is very suspenseful and fast-paced!
Knowing about the real bus hijacking case makes reading the novel even more interesting! I really like how the author rewrote the case.

建國黨: Taiwan Independence Party
Founded in 1996 and dissolved in 2020.
The party was founded by members of the Democratic Progressive Party who found the that DPP was becoming too moderate in its position for Taiwan’s Independence. The Party never managed to gain real influence, though they did won one seat in the Legislative Yuan in 1998 (legislative elections were held in December, so the novel - set in April - takes place before).
(Kuo Jen-kuei is a fictional character)

Legislative Yuan (立法院) is Taiwan’s unicameral legislature today, but in 1998, while the Control Yuan had been dismantled, the National Assembly (國民大會) still existed, though it was largely powerless at the time (it will be abolished in 2005, making the Legislative Yuan the unique parliamentary chamber).

There’s a mention of 巡邏箱! I learnt what it was in 警察執勤中：正義的代價!

All three books I’m reading at the moment are particularly easy to read.

Uketsu is one of the easiest authors I’ve read in Japanese, not just his writing, but also the nature of the books, with illustrations and recaps that make them very easy to follow.

Yun Jayeong is also one of the easiest Korean authors I’ve read. My Japanese and Chinese reading levels let me read comfortably anything that’s crime fiction, so sometimes it’s hard for me to tell whether an author is difficult to read or not. But not for Korean, I struggle a lot while reading, so I can easily tell the level of a book. If a book feels easy to me, it means that it really is easy to read.

And finally Shuei-yüeh is a new author to me, and the book is a spy novel based on true criminal cases, so I was bracing myself for something hard, but it’s very easy to read. It’s the most difficult of the three because it sometimes refers to real events I didn’t know much about, so it needed some quick research outside the book, but the writing style is very easy to read, and the book is very suspenseful.

Another really good collection, I find the stories so unique and so different from each other, yet they all have something in common that makes me absolutely love them. Some situations are so relatable, for example, when you find yourself in a situation you created yourself, and feel like you can’t go back, and all you can do is actually go further in the deception. All the stories made me feel very close to the characters and invested in their stories, and this alone would have been great, but then they turn into really good mysteries with twists and resolutions that are excellent.

I finished the story that gives its name to the collection, 失踪假日, it was a long one, maybe more a novella than a short story? Like the first one, I was very surprised at the end, when the story turns into a mystery with a really good twist. I really didn’t see this one coming.

Didn’t read this one much today, but I’m happy I read all three books at least a little.

美麗島事件: Formosa Incident (Kaohsiung Incident)
A crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations (Kaohsiung, 1979) during the martial law period (1949-1987). The incident has galvanised the public into political actions, encouraging a new generation of activists and ultimately leading to democracy.

Kuo Jen-kuei is a legislator of the Taiwan Independence Party (建國黨)

Finished chapter 3! I’m loving this novel so far!

On April 27th, 1998, a man armed with three knives hijacked a bus in Taipei, keeping the 25 passengers hostage. He asked the driver to bring the bus to the Criminal Investigation Bureau (刑事局).
When the bus stopped a three-hour long stalemate with the police followed. Among the passengers several were school students.

The perpetrator, 陳能評 (Chen Nengping) said he had grievance against several political figures: 侯友宜 (Hou Yu-ih) Deputy Director of the Criminal Bureau (刑事局副局長), 郝龍斌 (Hau Lung-pin) and 趙少康 (Jaw Shau-Kong) members of the New Party (新黨) and asked to talk to them.

The bus was surrounded by policemen, but it’s Hau Lung-pin and one of Chen Nengping’s friend who entered the bus and persuaded him to release the hostages. Then Jaw Shau-Kong arrived at the scene and persuaded Chen Nengping to surrender. He was diagnosed as mentally unstable.
(source: https://time.udn.com/udntime/story/122833/7946666)

Finished chapter 3, just one more to go!

I continued the event and finally unlocked the management game!
I love management games, and I particularly love the aquarium theme, so I’m biased, but I find that the game is much better than the two other iterations we had before. Underwater combat is really not my favourite thing though, but filling the aquariums, doing commissions and levelling up is fun.
I’m not sure about the backpack thing though, it doesn’t seem to be that important to optimise it…

I’m still at the very beginning of the game so we’ll see, but I’m loving it so far!

I can’t remember if it was the case with Uketsu’s other books, but 変な地図 is really making sure the reader is following… There are many recaps and most of the drawings do not add anything (the descriptions were clear, and it was easy to picture the scene or objects from them). I usually hate it when the author thinks the reader is stupid and takes tons of precautions to make sure we’re following, but it somehow does not bother me at all in this novel.
There are flashbacks too, like actual flashbacks like you would see in a film: instead of having the narrator paraphrasing what happened or was said previously, the text is just pasted as-is, exactly like films or series replay a previous scene without changing anything.
I kind of like it in this novel, I feel like it somehow suits the atmosphere?

More than halfway through it now! I’m really loving this novel!

Went back to the book after a long break!