The Fixer-Upper

"I looked upon the scene before me — upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain — upon the bleak walls — upon the vacant eye-like windows — upon a few rank sedges — and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees — with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium — the bitter lapse into every-day life — the hideous dropping off of the veil. "

"The Fall of the House of Usher" 

I don't read them as often anymore, but there was a time, you'd very regularly see a Kindaichi Kousuke review on my blog ( Note: I wrote this review before I watched the recent Yatsu Haka Mura film...) There are still some novels I haven't read yet, but I have read most of the famous books already, so it's only natural the books started to become less prominently featured here on the blog, but I'll always have a weak spot for Yokomizo Seishi's literary creation, and I am not alone: even though there obviously aren't new Kindaichi books being written anymore (though there are occasional pastiches, like by Ashibe Taku), it's like every few years, you will have a book on Kindaichi Kousuke published. And today's book is one of those.

Kindaichi Kousuke no Madori ("The Floor Plans of Kindaichi Kousuke", 2026), as you can guess based on its title, is a book that is all about the floor plans of buildings featured in the stories with the famous detective. The book is written by Mokugyoan, a Kindaichi Kousuke scholar who has written several books on the literary detective, and features many, many illustrations by Honma Itaru, who is an architect. In fact the book actually collects a series of columns originally published between 2024 and 2025 in the architectural magazine Kenchiku Chishiku ("Architectural Knowledge"), though the text and perhaps also the illustrations have been brushed-up for the book release.

Each chapter is focused on a different book from the long career of Kindaichi Kousuke. The text introduces the building in question, like the Inugami manor of Inugamike no Ichizoku, the Ichiyanagi manor and the annex from Honjin Satsujin Jiken or the Tajimi residence of Yatsu Haka Mura. The book introduces each building in an easy-to-understand manner, using the source text to first give the reader  a basic idea of what kind of building we're talking about, but also using historical and regional context to give the reader more details about how the building should look like. Honma's illustrations do a lot to really bring these observations to life. It's not just one illustration per chapter either; the same house might have several diagrams, from an overhead floor plan to cross-section plans. Certain stories will feature buildings with secret hallways or other objects of interest, which are often also accompanied by detailed illustrations by Honma. The material culture found in Yokomizo's books is thus examined in a very accessible manner. 

The duo also go beyond just floor plans, despite the title of the book. They often firmly place the building in question in its local setting, which for example means that in the Yatsu Haka Mura chapter, we not only get detailed floor plans of the very spacious Tajimi manor, we also get maps for the titular Village of Eight Graves and its surrounding mountains, as well as plans for a certain location that is revealed midway. A novella like Kuronekotei Jiken features plans for the titular Black Cat Cafe and diagrams of rooms, but also plans for the city block the cafe is located in, and analyses on how the town would have developed in that region in that period in history. Writer Mokugyoan does a great job at not only being a Kindaichi Kousuke scholar, using the texts to link the various books (chapters) featured in this volume in terms of where and when the adventures took place, but also in terms of real history/geography, and all of this information is made even more accessible via Honma's great illustrations.

As you can guess though, a lot of the chapters will contain spoilers for the books in question: some might be "fairly" mild, so it might mention that some persons will die at a certain location, some might include more significant spoilers, like showing where a hidden passage is even though it isn't revealed in the book unti late. So it is a read-at-your-own-risk book, though it's not going out of its way to spoil the identity of the murderer each time, so for most of the chapters, I don't think it's really that dangerous to read them before reading the actual book (unless you were like planning of reading the book-in-question like the following day). They might spoil a few plot points, but nothing that would spoil the whole experience, and in fact, the analyses by Mokugyoan add a whole dimension on their own.

Perhaps we need more detective-themed coffee table books. Kindaichi Kousuke no Madori is definitely one; you're not going to read the whole book in one go, but place it somewhere where you can easily grab it, and once in a while, when you have some spare time, you just peruse the book and read another chapter. Each chapter offers some interesting, from the way Mokugyoan analyses the featured book and the historical and architectural context to the captivating illustrations by Honma that bring the Kindaichi books alive. I don't review critical works that often anymore, but this is definitely recommended material for Kindaichi Kousuke fans!

Original Japanese title(s): 木魚庵（文）、本間至（絵）『金田一耕助の間取り』