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I looked at Kanae Minato’s books ranking in the major mystery novels rankings, and there must be a mistake… According to Wikipedia, only 告白 ranked in the top 10:

• 1st in 週刊文春ミステリーベスト10
• 3rd in ミステリが読みたい!
• 4th in このミステリーがすごい!

And that’s it… three other books made it to the rankings, but not in the first 10 places.
I find this very strange, how come that books like 白ゆき姫殺人事件 or 豆の上で眠る never got into any ranking at all? These are my favourites, but she wrote so many novels I haven’t read which I’m sure are great.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to read much, but I absolutely love the beginning! I had no idea that this book featured one of the main characters of 403小組，警隊出動！, that’s really a nice surprise.

Reading in Traditional Chinese after reading in Simplified for a long time always gives me a headache. Took me one hour to go through 20 ebook pages. I know it’s going to get easier with time, I just need to get used to it again.

Oh, 林木森 is also from 403小組，警隊出動！, hard to forget that name!

After just 2 or 3 pages, I was thinking that this Wang Shuoyan felt very similar to the partner of the protagonist in 403小組，警隊出動！And the more I was thinking that, the more the name actually sounded similar, so I checked: it’s the same character!
That’s pretty cool!! I’m super happy, really loved this character!

So given that I’m following a list that gave chronological order for Yen Yu’s books, I guess that this novel takes place after the events in 403小組，警隊出動！

Every time I read a book in Chinese after reading in Japanese I feel so let down when I see a character name. Wdym you’re not giving me the pronunciation??

I started the first story (I’m assuming each chapter is going to be a different case), it’s very good and reads very easily!

I’m not doing my Korean food notebook anymore, but there’s a mention of 갈비탕 and 냉면 right on the second page. Having to go through a whole dialogue during which characters are eating galbitang and naengmyeon is pure torture!!

I read the first chapter! Loved it, looks like a good police procedural!

They don’t work in the same departments, but here are the police ranks of the main characters:

• Takamiya is 警視 Police Superintendent, two ranks above Hino.
• Habaro is 警部, Police Inspector, one rank above Hino, even though they’re the same age.
• Hino Yukihiko is 警部補 Assistant Police Inspector.
• Irie Ayano is 巡査部長, Police Sergeant, one rank below Hino who is her direct superior.

The 生活安全課 is a branch in Japanese police specialised in prevention and public order. They handle juvenile delinquency, DV, cybercrime, economic crimes, illegal gambling, prostitution, drugs, etc.

Given that I have three new books at the same time (a rare occasion!), I’ve decided to start them all today.

When I decided to start this reading challenge of reading one book per language, I was thinking of it as a friendly competition between my target languages: see which language I will read the most each month.
If I start the three current books at the same time, we’ll see which one I’ll finish the sooner! I know it depends on a lot of parameters, but to me it’s just a fun way to make things more interesting.