Shelf Spotlight: Death Note

Welcome to this week's Shelf Spotlight!  This is a drastic genre switch from my last few posts, but that means you're getting a good feel of what's on my bookshelves.  (Of which I need more.)

This week, I'm working my way through a manga series.  I'm not usually the biggest fan of manga, but if I find one that I like, I'm not opposed to it.  A good friend lent me his complete collector's edition set of Death Note, a mystery-thriller manga that seems to be one of the most popular, at least in the United States.  I'm trying to finish the books before I move, and I'm smack in the middle of one of the most complicated murder-mystery plots I've discovered yet.

When an highly intelligent, bored young man receives the power of the death gods...what will it do to him?

There are a few drawbacks because as usually happens with manga, Death Note was originally published as a serial or at least as a dozen smaller manga, so the plot structure gets a little weird.  Overall, it's a very realistically but classically drawn manga, great for my taste, with an intense, slightly dark storyline.  It's a clever character study, since the audience has almost omniscient point of view, and can see inside the heads of the criminals, the detectives, and the gods of death.

Not my most favorite series ever, but a fun summer read!  I'd recommend to adults or at least over 16, especially if you have a taste for murder mysteries or Dostoevsky.