"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."
