Ayatsuji's cult classic mystery about a group of sleuthing university students trapped on a notorious island pays homage to the Golden Age puzzle-plot novel whilst cleverly pushing its boundaries.
The Japanese cult classic mystery
The lonely, rockbound island of Tsunojima is notorious as the site of a series of bloody unsolved murders. Some even say it's haunted. One thing's for sure: it's the perfect destination for the K-University Mystery Club's annual trip. But when the first club member turns up dead, the remaining amateur sleuths realise they will need all of their murder-mystery expertise to get off the island alive.
As the party are picked off one by one, the survivors grow desperate and paranoid, turning on each other. Will anyone be able to untangle the murderer's fiendish plan before it's too late?
Publisher: Pushkin Press
ISBN: 9781782276340
Number of pages: 288
Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm
A knowing tribute to classic crime, it features all manner of puzzles, including locked rooms, jigsaws and magic tricks - Mark Sanderson, The Times
Highly ingenious - Guardian, Best Crime and Thrillers
Very clever indeed - Anthony Horowitz
Fiendish foul play... taking its cues from Agatha Christie's locked-room classic And Then There Were None... Ayatsuji's skillful, furious pacing propels the narrative... This is a homage to Golden Age detective fiction, but it's also unabashed entertainment - Sarah Weinman, New York Times
The Decagon House Murders is one of the most enjoyable classic crime novels I've ever read. An evocative island setting, a perfectly constructed puzzle, and an entirely satisfying solution. It'll keep you guessing until the very end. - Alex Pavesi, author of Eight Detectives
[A] landmark 1987 puzzle mystery - New York Times
Behold, the perfect escapist drug! If I could crush this book into a powder and snort it, I would - Vulture
Ayatsuji's brilliant and richly atmospheric puzzle will appeal to fans of golden age whodunits... Every word counts, leading up to a jaw-dropping but logical reveal. - Publishers Weekly, starred review
A stunner of a plot, with an ending which I simply could not believe when it was first revealed... Rivals Soji Shimada's The Tokyo Zodiac Murders for sheer audacity and ingenuity - At the Scene of the Crime
Exceptional... The denouement is clever, entirely plausible and not far short of poetic... The Decagon House Murders is sharp and witty and very much in the spirit of the golden age mystery; superbly plotted and wickedly entertaining - NB Magazine
A terrific mystery, a classic... very much in the manner of Agatha Christie or John Dickson Carr - Michael Dirda, Washington Post
A real page-turner... Highly recommended - Classic Mystery
A captivating read, culminating in an ending as satisfying as it is shocking... The solution to the novel's puzzle unfolds in a way so ingenious and logical it can stand shoulder to shoulder with the very best mystery novels - The Japan Society Review
Taking a new page out of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, seven college friends in a mystery club decide to camp out in the infamous 10-sided house on Tsunojima Island, the site of nasty murders. But when one by one the friends start showing up dead, they now have to turn their efforts into figuring out who is killing them and why - Book Riot, 10 Best Mysteries With a Twist
A wonderfully original take on the Christie classic And Then There Were None [and a] watershed moment in the annals of crime fiction writing in Japan - Scroll
This celebration of traditional whodunits plays with the mystery genre in a wonderfully self-referential way... With each new murder, the remaining members of the group must use their knowledge of the genre to find the killer and try to stay alive - Esquire, The 50 Best Mysteries of All Time
This was originally published in Japan in 1987 which is worth remembering as it predates the internet and the rise in mobile phones. The story would be hard to do in 2022 due to the need to isolate the characters so... More
ARC provided to me through NetGalley for an honest review.
I didn't really know what to expect from this book but I love Agatha Christie type murder mysteries so I was really intrigued! After finishing it,...
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A group of Japanese students are members of a Mystery Club and each of them take on names of famous crime writers . A number of them go to visit an island where an eccentric man has built a mansion and also a separate... More
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