Death Notice was written by Zhou Haohui which is a huge hit trilogy in China. The first book sold over a million copies and there claims to be more books to come. I'm actually really confused about the next sequel since I didn't know that Death Notice was going to carry on into multiple books. I guess I'll stick around if the story continues to be translated…. The trilogy inspired a wed series drama then a film that was released last year called Death Notify. Zhou has become one of the most popular crime fiction writers in China.
A police force is formed to capture a killer who murders criminals for their crimes. The murders spawn over twenty years and are connected to the past. Who will outwit who?
Death Notice has a lot of characters. The cast of characters is placed at the beginning of the book for people who want to keep track. Don't bother because the names will sometimes look similar so you'll think the text is talking about one character while it's really referring to another. Most of the text does a good enough job creating solid characteristics for each character, making you the reader remember them by their actions or description and not their names. Death Notice basically takes readers down the gritty streets of Taipei in a cat and mouse game to catch a kill who goes by the fake name; Eumenides. This kind of story was written a thousand times before this novel and will probably be written a thousand more times after. One of the biggest reasons I even picked up a copy was because the novel's plot was based in China which of whom I never get a lot of opportunities to read about in stories. I won't give the story away -I want you to read the book but Death Notice is a book that labels the timelines of what will transpire or what is transpiring. Since the story does a bit of backtracking, You will need the labeled points in time to help piece each piece together as they are revealed. This task force is giving the mission to catch this murder while also dealing with the emotional weight from the mistakes made in the past during the early Eumenides case. As I think about it now after finishing the novel, Much of the text talked about the "birth of Eumenides" as in the beginning of his… maybe.. her story. So I will assume that theres more terror to come in the next book as this villain becomes even more of a well rounded character. Think Death Note without the notebook and replace it with bombs…. You get the idea anime fans. [INSERT ME LAUGHING.]
I liked how you learned about Eumenides without spoiling the mystery of the character. This villain plays a good game of tag with the police task force to the point that I wanted the police to throw in the towel. Narrative of the character changes during a few chapters. Readers jump inside of a couple of people's heads, causing you to see the story from different viewpoints and why an event happened at that time. Some characters give a little flavor of comedy to Death Notice, while others take you a step closer to the truth. Moments are very thrilling as you watch on the sidelines of a chess game between Villain and Cops but it's not a novel that hasn't been written before in America. Only difference is country of origin.
What left me scratching my head in confusion was the fact that Death Notice turned out to be a trilogy. Why do novels that don't need to go that route do this anyways? I didn't feel like this novel was rich enough in depth to carry on the plot. If I look back at how the story was turning out towards the end, I could see the set up for another book however, everything could have been tied up in one book too in my opinion.
My recommendation would be to pick up a copy of Death Notice in paperback just to support a Chinese author's release outside of China. Death Notice does a good job keeping you engaged for the entire read through but doesn't add anything special to the Crime Fiction genre overall.
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