The Decagon House Murders: Yukito Ayatsuji (Pushkin Vertigo)

Product Information

First of all, I'd like to thank NetGalley and Kodansha for providing and giving me the chance to read the e-ARC of this interesting book. The art and character design are gorgeous. I particularly enjoyed the eerie shading in some of the panels showing the island and the Decagon House. It’s probably too soon to tell, but this seems like a series where I’ll be slightly more invested in the characters (dangerously so as it appears one club member may already be dead by the end of the volume) than the actual murder mystery as I already love Ellery and Van far too much. ⁣

He sat down on the cold concrete of the breakwater and faced the expansive darkness, his body veiled by the white vapour of his breath. Are you aware of the physical space around you? Asks the mad architect. He will build two houses, one of Blue and one of Ten. These houses will hold secrets and mysteries and murder and despair. One burned to the ground, one empty but soon to be burned. I lived for years in Japan and this experience made my reading all the more delightful. The translation sounds exactly like the Japanese, to the point where many times I could know for certain what the Japanese word or phrase had originally been. It felt as if the translator is not a native English speaker, or at least the translator never stepped out of literal translation, and the unusual nature of the language in the novel gave it a charged, unexpected feeling as I read.The book opens with the inner thoughts of a deranged character, staring into a choppy sea hell-bent on passing ‘Judgement’. From there, we follow seven students of the K- University Mystery Club as they travel to the desolate island of Tsunojima, the sight of a gruesome murder-suicide six months earlier. Instantly, the cogs in the reader's mind begin to whir; the puzzle Ayatsuji has crafted is beginning to take form.

At the same time, a former member of the mystery club received a mysterious letter at her home. She decided to spend her spring break to solve this case which might be connected to the murder of the Tsunojima island. 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) If you’re not all that familiar with Asian and Japanese literature, I think this is an ideal point to start. Disclaimer: This is an honest review from me as a reader, and it is not because of receiving the ARC or so on. Also, this review is not influenced by my mood before reading, as I read this out of the blue and not forced by anyone/anything (need to clarify this because I am a mood reader most of the time). And Then There Were None is also the most suspenseful of Christie’s novels, I think the only one that successfully played with suspense. It’s compact, clear, and gives readers a sense of justice served within a few short scenes. It’s said a lot, but I think this novel is a true masterpiece.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.

Bad things happened on the island relatively recently, with its owner, architect Nakamura Seiji, murdered there, along with his wife and another couple who worked for them, and the main building on the island, the 'Blue Mansion', burned down (leaving only the 'Decagon House', which is where the visitors live while on the island). The club members don't use their real names but refer to each other as Ellery, Carr, Leroux, Poe, Agatha, and Orczy. The names were derived from the American, British, and French mystery writers that the members looked up to.The time focused on her and their shenanigans is pretty boring, she's a boring Mary Sue and her clueless demeanor and comedic relief makes me think she's more or less there for the reader to insert into and live through as she watches all of this unfold around her while desperately (and failing) to piece this entire mystery together. The Decagon House Murders ( 十角館の殺人, Jūkakukan no satsujin) is a 1987 Japanese mystery novel, the debut work of author Yukito Ayatsuji. Borrowing its basic plot structure from Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (Christie's book is directly referenced by some of the characters at several points), it tells the story of a group of seven university students who travel to a deserted island that was the scene of a grisly mass murder six months earlier, where events soon turn ominous. The Decagon House Murders belongs to the honkaku subgenre of mystery fiction. [1] Among the mysteries surrounding the recent crime: the four victims died at different times over the course of several days -- and Kazue, Seiji's wife, was found with her hand cut off. Mateo, Alex (April 6, 2022). "North American Anime, Manga Releases, April 3-9". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on April 21, 2022 . Retrieved August 31, 2022. Chapter Seven: Fourth Day - Island ( 第七章 ( だいななしょう ) 四日目 ( よっかめ )・ 島 ( しま ), Dai Nanashō Yokkame Shima)

The novel began with a mood that was very similar to And then There Were None, which is one of my favourite books of all time. A group of pals from university's mystery club agreed to investigate the case on a deserted island? Solve the situation? That occurred six months ago. However, everything began to go wrong, and they began to be slain. A parallel plot follows two of their fellow mystery club members as they attempt to uncover the mystery of "letters by dead man" along with a Mr. Shimada. 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 The atmosphere on the island and in Decagon House was chilling and unsettling, and the art was fantastic, really expressive. I especially loved the architecture.This one's like a 3.7 popped up to a 4 by the ending. Speaking of which, crikey! While not the best Japanese crime novel I've ever read, had I been eating something when the big reveal of this story came along, I probably would have choked because of the huge gasp that involuntarily came out of me. As soon as that cleared, the first words out of my mouth were "holy sh*t." I don't have that reaction very often; even though there have been many times I've been truly surprised at the unmasking of the who, this one absolutely takes the cake. First published in 1987, Ayatsuji’s brilliant and richly atmospheric puzzle will appeal to fans of golden age whodunits. Six months after the bodies of architect Nakamura Seiji, his wife, and two servants were found in the burnt remains of a house on isolated Tsunojima, a small island off the coast of Japan, seven members of the Kyoto University Mystery Club decide to visit Tsunojima. They are to reside for a week in the bizarrely constructed Decagon House, where everything seems to have 10 sides and where they soon learn that a killer is targeting them. The tension in this sophisticated homage to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None is expertly heightened by a parallel plot set on the mainland, where two other members of the Kyoto society have received threatening letters, ostensibly from the dead Seiji. As in the best fair-play mysteries, every word counts, leading up to a jaw-dropping but logical reveal. (July) Publishers Weekly