The Murder in the Honjin is a mystery novel by Seishi Yokomizo. It was serialized in the magazine "Houseki" from April 1946 until December in the same year. Yokomizo won the 1st Mystery Writers Club Award by this work in 1948.
It's the first novel in Kosuke Kindaichi series, about the murder in a locked room in a Japanese house surround with the thicked snow.
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1937 November 25th, Okayama, in the mansion of the scions of the former honjin, the wedding of Kenzou Ichiyanagi and Katsuko Kubo was held. The celebrants included the mother Itoko, the third son Saburo, the second daughter Suzuko, the cousin Ryousuke and Ginzo Kubo, Katsuko's uncle. In the ceremony, Suzuko performed the koto, and everything ended without the incident.
Later that night, the screaming, angry sound of the koto was heard across the mansion. Ginzo rushed to the newly wedded couple's bedroom, only to find the couple were killed in a bloody fashion. There was a Japanese sword stabbed into the ground in the middle of the garden and no footprints on the surrounding thick snow, leaving a perfect "locked room" mystery.
A private detective, summoned by Ginzo Kubo
An inspector from Okayama prefecture in charge of the case.
A girl school teacher, would be married with Kenzou Ichiyanagi.
The owner of an orchard, Katsuko's uncle.
The mother of family.
The eldest son, the present head of family, and a scholar.
The eldest daughter, married with a company employee and travelled to Shanghai.
The second son, worked as a doctor at a hospital in Osaka.
The third son.
The second daughter, with the poor health, but excellent in playing koto.
The family's cousin.
Ryousuke's wife.