As they do every year, a small group of acquaintances pay a visit to the remote, castle-like Water Mill House, home to the reclusive Fujinuma Kiichi, son of a famous artist, who has lived his life behind a rubber mask ever since a disfiguring car accident. This year, however, the visit is disrupted by an impossible disappearance, the theft of a painting and a series of baffling murders.The brilliant Kiyoshi Shimada arrives to investigate. But will he get to the truth, and will you too be able to solve the mystery of the Water Mill House Murders?



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 is also available from Pushkin Vertigo.



From the first page you know you're in the hands of a master. The atmosphere, the setting, the characters... it is flawless.



If you enjoyed Yukito Ayatsuji's ingenious The Decagon House Murders - and how could you not? - you will love this quasi-Christie locked-room mystery



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



Just as clever and delightful as the locked room mystery that got Ayatsuji on our radar last year... [The characters have] their agendas, complex backstories, and shifting allegiances, and by the end of the novel, I fear many of them shall be dead...



A first-rate mystery, whose tight plot and deliberate structure will keep readers guessing until the very end-and might even clue them into a wide new world of international mystery



Another ingenious puzzle... John Dickson Carr would be proud to come up with as clever a locked room mystery as this... exceptional fun and superbly plotted



This chilly, elegant tribute to the locked-room mysteries of the golden age of crime writing offers a challenge in clue spotting to readers who enjoy pitting their wits against an author's



A great classic, Japanese locked room mystery perfect for fans of Agatha Christie!... I thought I had the mystery solved but lo and behold, the unraveling was completely unexpected and I loved it



Praise for The Decagon House Murders



Highly ingenious



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



Very clever indeed



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



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.



[A] landmark 1987 puzzle mystery



Behold, the perfect escapist drug! If I could crush this book into a powder and snort it, I would



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.



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



A terrific mystery, a classic... very much in the manner of Agatha Christie or John Dickson Carr



A real page-turner... Highly recommended



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



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