Aging Ayuda Tōma was once the manager of a large family estate, The Black Cat House. As his memory begins to fail, Tōma hands two friends his personal notebook. Inside is a record of a gruesome murder that occurred there. How many secrets does this bizarre building hide, and will the amateur detective duo be able to uncover the truth?



Yukito Ayatsuji (born 1960) is a Japanese writer of mystery and horror novels and one of the founding members of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan, dedicated to the writing of fair-play mysteries inspired by the Golden Age Greats. He started writing as a member of the Kyoto University Mystery Club, which has nurtured many of Japan's greatest crime writers. The Decagon House Murders, The Mill House Murders, The Labyrinth House Murders and The Clock House Murders are also available from Pushkin Vertigo.Ho-Ling Wong is a translator currently living in Tokyo. He is also both a member of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan and former member of the Kyoto University Mystery Club. He did not commit any murders on Mystery Club excursions!



--Praise for The Bizarre House Mysteries



A knowing tribute to classic crime, it features all manner of puzzles, including locked rooms, jigsaws and magic tricks



Fiendish foul play... Ayatsuji's skillful, furious pacing propels the narrative... This is a homage to Golden Age detective fiction, but it's also unabashed entertainment



A psychological-mystical thriller built on tropes from cozier crime fiction. Agatha Christie-type stopwatch sequences and John Dickson Carr-style locked-room conundrums coexist with Poe-like Gothic sequences full of severed limbs and charred flesh... No one can accuse Mr. Ayatsuji of not sustaining the eerie mood of his strange story until its very last sentence



The dénouement was fiendishly clever... An engaging, entertaining mystery with a puzzle fit for the most ardent of armchair detectives