The Story Log
同名偵探事務所

同名偵探事務所

tóng míng zhēn tàn shì wù suǒ
Author 王少杰
Language Traditional Chinese · Taiwan
Format Novel
Published 2025
Pages 384
Read 2026-09-22 → 2026-10-16
Finished ★★★★★

Part of a reading goal

2026 Readmoo Reading Challenge behind by Dec 31, 2026 ·63 days left ·8 of 10 read 80%
8of 10 books read·from 15 to choose from·one every 31.5 days
each mark is one month’s worth
Counted so far
Still to pick from 2 more needed
  • 測字歐吉桑
  • 努力是癮
  • 進烤箱的好日子
  • 煙街
  • 魚眼
  • 套條子
  • 我從前認識的某個人
See how this goal went →

Review

★★★★★

I read this book for the Readmoo Reading Challenge, and it was a really nice discovery!
The novel contains five chapters that are independent cases. They focus on the little mysteries of daily life and are not criminal cases (except for the last one). This is usually not my cup of tea, but I really love this novel, the characters we meet all feel very real and have interesting and complex personalities. We share a slice of their life through private detective Cheng Chung-fan‘s eyes, and this alone made for great stories, but the plot and mystery are also very good, with some twists and surprising reveals. I also found that Chung-fan’s deduction skills were really good, but he never makes a show of it, which actually gave them more impact and made them more impressive.

I learnt in the afterword that the last story, 聽海的聲音 was actually written first as a standalone, and the author idid not intend to develop it into a series of linked short stories. 聽海的聲音 won the 13rd edition of the Mystery Writers of Taiwan Award (2015) and was published in the collection 《寂寞球體》, so some readers have read it first. I find it fascinating to learn about the creating process. 聽海的聲音 seems so natural as the last story of 同名偵探事務所, it’s hard to believe it was initially a stand alone! I think that reading it first would have changed my perspective on Chung-fan and the other stories, because I like complex characters that are not perfect.

One other thing that I really enjoyed is sharing songs with the characters. Each story is linked to a song, but the song themselves really do matte a lot for the characters. I knew none of them, but being able to listen to each of them and feel like a part of it was really cool.

王少杰《同名偵探事務所》書中歌單｜博識出版眾文圖書 · youtube.com

I’ll read other books by Wang Shao-jie in the future!

Updates

聽海的聲音
100%

The last short story really took me by surprise. I was expecting the last chapter to explain the circumstances that led Cheng Chung-fan to quit the police, so I was happy to see that it was the case. However, Chung-fan is such a nice character, and the stories are all quite positive, so I thought that even if he went against the law, it would be for noble reasons like hiding evidence to save an innocent from being falsely accused or something like that. So i’m really shocked by the end.

I wonder if reading this story first would have affected the way I saw the character and all the other stories. And I think the answer is yes, a little. I think that I personally would have preferred the reverse reading experience: know Cheng Chung-fan’s past first, then read his recent adventures. It’s funny to think that this could have been possible given that the last story was published previously.

Anyway, I don’t know if there are other books with Cheng Chung-fan, I’ll have to check. I would be interested in reading more!

聽海的聲音
87%

I started the last chapter. I personally can’t understand Ching-ching’s decision.

一路上有你
83%

I finished the fourth story! This one was quite nice and moving. I found the awkward position of Cheng Chung-fan very interesting, and I really loved the end, though Hu I-hsiu seems a bit too perfect to be true.

一路上有你
75%

I still haven’t finished the fourth story, I really wonder how it will unfold…

71%

Just read some pages.
I’m feeling very sleepy, so I don’t think I can continue today.

一路上有你
69%

Started the next story, this one had some technical explanations that were a bit difficult, but it’s fine still. Loving this one too, I wonder where it’s going to lead to, as everything seems more or less solved already!

最浪漫的事
61%

Finished the third story! It was so cool spending time with the characters, I really loved this one. It’s funny to think that during all this time Hao-kun must have been thinking “who the heck is this guy” and have a mystery of his own to solve.

最浪漫的事
57%

Couldn’t finish the chapter as planned but I’m close to the end. This one is my favourite so far, I can’t wait to read the end!

最浪漫的事
50%

I haven’t progressed this one as much as I wanted today.

I’m exactly halfway through the book and halfway through the third story!

最浪漫的事
45%

I had time to start the third story, it’s crazy how engrossing each story has been right from the beginning. Just a few pages in and I feel as involved in the story as if I were in the middle of a novel (well it is a novel, but each chapter is a different story/case).

純情青春夢
39%

I finished the second story, it was very sweet! I loved spending time Yu-yu and his grand-mother. The story made me a bit sad and melancholic too.

I usually really don’t care for this kind of mystery and bitter sweet, heartwarming stories, but I really like this book. And Cheng Chung-fan is a very likeable character.

純情青春夢
27%

Halfway through the second short story. I really love this one, I love how the mystery is a pretext to glimpse into strangers’ lives and share part of it for a short period of time.
I also really love the music that goes with each story, it helps building the atmosphere and gives them a unique flavour.

純情青春夢
20%

Wow this book is so well written, the opening dialogue was so lively and funny. I also really love the characters. I wish I had time to read it more today, but the day has passed very fast…

放你在心裡
17%

I thought I’d just start or read half of the first chapter/story, but ended up finishing it in one go. It was impossible to put down, I loved this story very much.
I was not ready for this though, went for the mystery, but ended up crying over a tragic love story. Characters’ state of mind and feelings were so well described. The mystery is great too, but it’s also a pretext to talk about the characters involved, get a peak into their lives, their past, their regrets… Even though I don’t usually care too much for non criminal mysteries or cases, this story was very engrossing and I ended up caring a lot for the characters.

Characters

聽海的聲音
  • 李裕仁 lǐ yù rén Lee Yu-jen
    A colleague of Chen Ching-ching and manager in their company's M&A department.
  • 李之萍 lǐ zhī píng Lee Chih-ping
    Chen Ching-ching's mother.
  • 鄭慈峰 zhèng cí fēng Cheng Tzu-feng
    Chung-fan’s father.
  • 胡德祥 hú dé xiáng Hu Te-hsiang
    A street vendor and Chung-fan’s client who wants to investigate what his son does.
  • 胡一修 hú yī xiū Hu I-hsiu
    Hu Te-hsiang's son, a high school student who lied about attending summer cram school classes.
  • 佐藤武 zuǒ téng wǔ Tso-teng Wu
    The founder of the tech company ProbeMind.
  • 梁語寧 liáng yǔ níng Liang Yu-ning
    Chung-fan’s client who wants to help her boyfriend regain his memory.
  • 宋皓坤 sòng hào kūn Sung Hao-kun
    Liang Yu-ning's boyfriend, who had a car accident at age 32 and currently works as a software engineer at a company called JK會話宅
  • 謝佳琳 Xiè Jiālín Hsieh Chia-lin
    Highschool friend, formerly the class beauty in school.
  • 楊小芸 Yáng Xiǎoyún Yang Hsiao-yun
    Highschool friend who got married.
  • 鄭少維 Zhèng Shǎowéi Cheng Shao-wei
    Highschool frien currently studying in the US
  • 周幼祐 zhōu yòu yòu Chou Yu-yu
    A third-grade elementary school student who visits Chung-fan’s agency asking for help to find the missing cat Ah Fei (阿肥).
  • 月霞 yuè xiá Yueh-hsia
    Chou Yu-yu’s grandmother. Her husband was a detective.
  • 葉宜翔 yè yí xiáng Yeh I-hsiang
    One of Yu-yu’s friends who wants to explore the “haunted house”
  • 曹之鑒 cáo zhī jiàn Tsao Chih-chien
    High school classmate of Hao-kun and owner of JK會話宅.
  • 鄭崇範 zhèng chóng fàn Cheng Chung-fan
    37, former police officer from the Keelung City Criminal Investigation Corps who resigned years ago following an incident. Runs the Tongming Detective Agency.
  • 高傳丞 gāo chuán chéng Kao Chuan-cheng
    Former colleague of Cheng Chung-fan who entered the police the same year. Known for his superior deductive reasoning, he is the one suggesting opening a detective agency.
  • 盧國斌 lú guó bīn Lu Kuo-pin
    A police superior who has looked after Cheng Chung-fan for years and suggests that he return to the police force in a contracted capacity to mentor juniors.
  • 李瑛 lǐ yīng Li Ying
    Client who comes to the agency about anonymous blank letters.
  • 許彥博 xǔ yàn bó Hsu Yen-po
    Li Ying's first boyfriend.
  • 陳晴晴 chén qíng qíng Chen Ching-ching
    Chung-fan’s girlfriend at university

Quotes

純情青春夢

你們柯南看太多了啦。現實中辦殺人案的是警察，偵探只能解解日常之謎而已。