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Friday, Jun 19
Format: Paperback
Description
"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 A hugely enjoyable, page-turning murder mystery sure to appeal to fans of Elly Griffiths, Anthony Horowitz, and Agatha Christie, with one of the best and most-satisfying conclusions you'll ever read. A classic in Japan, available in English for the first time. From The New York Times Book Review: "Read Yukito Ayatsuji’s landmark mystery, The Decagon House Murders, and discover a real depth of feeling beneath the fiendish foul play. Taking its cues from Agatha Christie’s locked-room classic And Then There Were None, the setup is this: The members of a university detective-fiction club, each nicknamed for a favorite crime writer (Poe, Carr, Orczy, Van Queen, Leroux and — yes — Christie), spend a week on remote Tsunojima Island, attracted to the place, and its eerie 10-sided house, because of a spate of murders that transpired the year before. That collective curiosity will, of course, be their undoing. As the students approach Tsunojima in a hired fishing boat, 'the sunlight shining down turned the rippling waves to silver. The island lay ahead of them, wrapped in a misty veil of dust,' its sheer, dark cliffs rising straight out of the sea, accessible by one small inlet. There is no electricity on the island, and no telephones, either. A fresh round of violent deaths begins, and Ayatsuji’s skillful, furious pacing propels the narrative. As the students are picked off one by one, he weaves in the story of the mainland investigation of the earlier murders. This is a homage to Golden Age detective fiction, but it’s also unabashed entertainment." Read more
Publisher : Pushkin Vertigo
Publication date : May 25, 2021
Edition : 1st
Language : English
Print length : 288 pages
ISBN-10 : 1782276343
ISBN-13 : 40
Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
Dimensions : 5.05 x 0.75 x 7.78 inches
Book 1 of 4 : The Bizarre House Mysteries
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Top Amazon Reviews
One of my favorite books which I read over and over when I was in middle school (then it was called "junior high school") was And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. Although the numerous film versions (usually under the title "Ten Little Indians") which almost invariably have a "happy ending" tacked on it make it seem like a hoary cliché to many people, for me the original book has lost none of its power. Which is probably why I set myself up for disappointment whenever I read a book that deliberately patterns itself after Dame Agatha's masterpiece. Nine Man's Murder by Eric Keith is a wonderful whodunit, but I couldn't believe the characters were suffering the psychological terror I expected. The Ex or You Won't Leave Here Alive (You Won't Leave Here Alive Series Book 1) by Nicholas "Nick" Sanders is a gripping thriller where you can easily believe in the characters' terror---but at the end it's clear he wanted to write a horror story rather than a mystery. The Invisible Circle by Paul Halter had a solution to the locked-room mystery that I had big problems with. But this book had several good reviews and so I decided to give it a try. To say the least, I was very impressed. Is it AS good as ATTWN? No, but I don't think any mystery book can be. It is a great mystery that "gets" Agatha Christie's famous work, and is most worthy of sitting next to it on the bookshelf. Several kids sail out to an uninhabited island where a series of grisly murders took place six months previously. They're all members of a detective book club in college, and all of them refer to each other by nicknames referring to famous mystery writers---- Agatha [Christie], [John Dickson] Carr, Ellery [Queen], [Gaston] Leroux, [Emma] Orcsy, [Edgar Allen] Poe, and [S.S.] Van [Dyne]. After their first night, they are greeted at breakfast with seven plates labelled "First Victim", "Second Victim", "Third Victim", "Fourth Victim", "Fifth Victim", "Detective", and "Murderer." It seems like a sick practical joke---until the kids start to die. Meanwhile on the mainland, a former member of the detective book club, Kawaminami receives a mysterious letter from the man who used to own that island and who was murdered six months ago. It read "My daughter was MURDERED by all of you." He contacts his buddy Morisu who has also received a similar letter, and soon the two of them are playing detective to find out who sent the letters and the truth about the murder six months ago. Can they find out who's responsible before their friends are all dead on the island? Considering how well known this story is, I found myself genuinely surprised at the unique twists taken in this book. It's not a coincidence that one of the kids on the island has the nickname "Ellery Queen", because I believe that his work as much as Agatha Christie specifically influenced this novel. Specifically, The Egyptian Cross Mystery. (When characters talk about "this being your typical 'headless corpse'" they are referring to this book.) Also as in Ellery Queen, things which seem to be the act of a homicidal lunatic actually have a very sane reason behind them. At the end, when the murderer and their plans are finally revealed, I think the reader will be as surprised as I was by why things took place. While this is less of a "whodunit" than "Nine Man's Murder" there are clues left which point in the direction of the killer which the astute reader might be able to catch. (I missed them. :( ) It would not be right for me to overlook the work of translator Ho-Ling Wong. He not only had a steep language barrier to overcome to make this book available for English-language readers, but a cultural one as well. For example, when "Ellery" tells two riddle that rely on knowledge of Japanese "kanji" to get the joke, Wong tells a new joke that relies on English wordplay while explaining the original in footnotes. My only quibble with his translation is his decision to render Japanese names with the surname or family name first. I know this is how names are actually written in Japanese, but unlike China, Japanese people usually reverse the names into Western format whenever the names are written or spoken in English. Still, it's a minor quibble. The revelation of the killer is stunning surprise, and Wong formats the book so that this takes place at the very bottom of a page. Perhaps the best compliment that I can give is that like ATTWN, I found myself still thinking about this book for several days after I finished reading it. Mystery fans should be grateful to Locked Room International publisher John Pugmire for making this available to English-speaking mystery fans. Although it won't be published by him, because of this book I am looking forward to reading "The Tokyo Zodiac Murders" by Soji Shimada which will be republished in English come September. Shimada wrote the introduction to this book.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2015 by Edward J. Cunningham
Format: Paperback
This book, patterned on And There There Were None by Agatha Christie is set in Japan. The setting of the mystery is well thought out and very apt. It was a real plus. I found the story very slow in the beginning but my interest picked up once the murders began. The book is translated from Japanese, and I think part of my struggle with the book initially related to the translation which at times seemed overly formal and stiff. I suspect that may reflect cultural differences between a Japanese author and an American reader. That said, I enjoyed the book enough to buy another book by the author. I expect to enjoy it.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2026 by poodleskirt
Format: Kindle
This is a decent book that exists mainly as a reference to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. It’s a very enjoyable and well-written (or at least well-translated) read about a group of students who become stranded on an island and start dying off one by one. My main criticism comes down to the mystery. The best murder mystery endings surprise you, give you clues that meant something other than what you thought they meant when you read them, and make logical sense. This murder mystery wraps up in a way that, at most, only hits one of these. That said, I think Christie had worse mysteries — Hallowe’en Party, They Do It With Mirrors, and Lord Edgware Dies immediately spring to mind. And almost anything is better than The Big Four. But most of her mysteries proper are going to be much more satisfying than this. Though, unfortunately for those of us who have read them all, there’s only so many that exist. This is at least not a terrible substitute for the real thing.
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Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2023 by Carter Place
A group of people is stuck on an island, with no way off. Stuck on the island with them is a mad, cunning killer, determined to pick off the group members one by one. It’s a race against time, a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. No, I’m not talking about Agatha Christie’s "And Then There Were None". Rather, I’m talking about a recently-published translation of a Japanese detective story: "The Decagon House Murders". The titular Decagon House is, of course, shaped like a decagon, and the island upon which it sits was recently the site of a gruesome series of murders. Naturally, a university’s mystery club (modelled on such a club at Kyoto University) decides the island is a great place for a club excursion. Thus the members meet up, each of them known by a pseudonym taken from one of the great Western Golden Age writers: Agatha, Orczy, Van Dine, Leroux, Ellery, Carr, and Poe. It doesn’t take long for murder to occur, and as the body count rises, the list of suspects gets shorter and shorter… Locked Room International has become known in recent years for its work in the locked-room/impossible-crime subgenre, especially when it comes to publishing the work of Paul Halter in English. With its publication of Yukito Ayatsuji’s The Decagon House Murders, however, LRI has taken a bit of a different step from the usual. The novel was originally published in Japanese in 1987, and was credited with helping to resurrect the Golden-Age style detective story in Japan (the official term for this being "honkaku"). Another book that helped this resurgence was "The Tokyo Zodiac Murders" by Soji Shimada. Shimada played a big role in the success of Ayatsuji’s book – he promoted it upon its initial publication in Japan, and he now has fittingly written the introduction to this English translation. This translation comes to you courtesy of Ho-Ling Wong, who must be commended for his translation of The Decagon House Murders – it is eminently readable. The prose style is easily digestible, and it made for really compelling, page-turning reading. I was genuinely excited to get further along in the book. From what I can tell, Yukito Ayatsuji has minimal interest in character development in this book. What propels the book is the plot, and so the characters are drawn in a few hasty brush strokes. Agatha is the popular, pretty girl. Orczy is the not-so-pretty wallflower who likes to retreat into her inner world of fantasy. Ellery has a brilliant intellect, but is extraordinarily pompous (much like the early incarnations of Ellery Queen in that respect!). And so on. When this style works, I really admire this – you get what you need out of characterization, and no more. What fuels interest is the plot. And boy, oh boy, is this plot ever a sweet one! "The Decagon House Murders" must deal with the example that Agatha Christie left behind. Simply recycling her ending will not do. Ayatsuji found an excellent way of handling this problem. Simply put, this is a stunner of a plot, with an ending which I simply could not believe when it was first revealed. When I put the book down, I realized that I had just read a book which rivals "The Tokyo Zodiac Murders" for sheer audacity and ingenuity. Indeed, now that I’ve read it, I have to say that "The Decagon House Murders" is a serious contender for my favourite Japanese mystery. It has everything I want in a mystery. It left me satisfied with what I’d read, and eager to read more. I sincerely hope that this publication signals more to come in English from the Japanese honkaku school – you can count on me being at the front of the line waiting for more books like this.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2015 by Patrick
Definitely an homage to the great murder mystery classics. At the beginning readers may have a hard time following all the different characters (and the dialog tags which can prove a bit confusing at first), but if you hang in there with it, it turns into a very compelling murder mystery. I was a bit put off by the use of Western mystery writer names as nicknames as it definitely presents the story as more western than Japanese and I was hoping for more of a murder mystery set in Japan. While set in Japan, it reads very much like a regular western mystery and would read more like America or Britain than Japan except for the occasional reference. But then again, that was rather the point. So I can't fault the book for accomplishing exactly what it set out to do. Plenty of red herrings....plenty of guessing. I don't know that one could genuinely figure it out as one is going along, but the final reveal....everything fits exactly. I will say, there was one glaring reveal I missed very near the end that should have been obvious to me, but by that time I had been misdirected so well that I skimmed over it and found myself a bit lost in the explanation. Hint: Pay attention to the newspaper clippings. All in all, a very enjoyable read and though I usually can figure out the answers in most fiction, this one had me stumped until the end (and, yet, it all makes so much sense that I feel a bit of a dunce for not figuring it out). If you're looking for a good-old murder mystery in the form of the great works by Christie and the like, this is definitely for you. For some, it may feel far too old-fashioned but it is, after all, an homage. Oh...and if the epilogue doesn't make sense to you, re-read the prologue and it will. EDITED TO ADD: A quality translation to boot. I wish the person who translated this was contracted to translate Keigo Higashino's works as the translations of his works are dreadful.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2016 by Paul G. Bens, Jr.
Format: Paperback
Starts off slow like a jog, then by the end, you're sprinting to the finish line and connecting all the puzzle pieces together. Timeless classic that deserves more attention than it's getting.
Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2026 Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2026 by Jeddrick
In general it was a good book with a nice twist, it was just annoying how many times some things said were repeated.
Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2026 by Kindle Customer
Format: Kindle
Given the rapid pacing of much of American genre fiction, it's not unusual to find literature from other cultures to move at a slower pace and be more diffuse. You have to enter the story-telling on its own terms...but, at the same time, I founded the writing (or translation?) often rather stilted. The conceit of the novel is interesting, although the college students who assume the names of shining lights in crime fiction don't really assume anything else about them - Holmes isn't particularly insightful, for example. To prevent the book from becoming too claustrophobic, chapters switch between the island, where the college students have gone for a week-long writing retreat, and a few people on the mainland who are trying to sort out a previous murder on the island from a distance, which reduced tension, rather than adding to it. I'd be so interested how a Japanese reader experienced this book.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2021 by PracAdemic