The Decagon House Murders

The Japanese cult classic mystery'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 WeeklyThe lonely, rockbound island of Tsunojima is notorious as the site of a series of bloody unsolved murders. Some even say it's haunted. One thing's for sure: it's the perfect destination for the K-University Mystery Club's annual trip.But when the first club member turns up dead, the remaining amateur sleuths realise they will need all of their murder-mystery expertise to get off the island alive.As the party are picked off one by one, the survivors grow desperate and paranoid, turning on each other. Will anyone be able to untangle the murderer's fiendish plan before it's too late?

"A terrific mystery, a classic of misdirection very much in the manner of Agatha Christie or John Dickson Carr'" *- Washington Post

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

"A real page-turner... Highly recommended" - Classic Mystery

"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)

"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" *- At the Scene of the Crime

"A knowing tribute to classic crime, it features all manner of puzzles, including locked rooms, jigsaws and magic tricks." *- Mark Sanderson,* The Times
 
"highly ingenious" - **Laura Wilson, Guardian

*"The Decagon House Murders, is a thrilling homage to Christie’s And Then There Were None, following a group of amateur sleuths on a trip to a lonely island, the site of several unsolved murders. In the opening chapter, one character remarks: “Enough gritty realism please! What mystery novels need are a great detective, a mansion, a shady cast of residents, bloody murders, impossible crimes and never-before-seen-tricks played by the murder.” It’s impossible not to agree." - The Guardian*

Auteur
Yukito Ayatsuji (born 1960) is a Japanese writer of mystery and horror novels. He started writing as a member of the Kyoto University Mystery Club, a society dedicated to the writing of fair play mysteries inspired by the Golden Age greats, which inspired the club featured in The Decagon House Murders and has nurtured many of Japan's greatest crime writers.The Decagon House Murders was Ayatsuji's debut and is considered a landmark crime novel in Japan, where it revived the traditional puzzle mystery format and inspired a new generation of writers. It is the first of Ayatsuji's works to be translated into English.

Texte du rabat

The members of a university mystery club decide to visit an island which was the site of a grisly, unsolved multiple murder the year before. They're looking forward to investigating the crime, putting their passion for solving mysteries to practical use, but before long there is a fresh murder, and soon the club-members realise they are being picked off one by one. The remaining amateur sleuths will have to use all of their murder-mystery expertise to find the killer before they end up dead too.

This is a playful, loving and fiendishly plotted homage to the best of golden age crime. It will delight any mystery fan looking to put their little grey cells to use.

Résumé
A classic Japanese murder mystery inspired by the golden age of British crimewriting.

Échantillon de lecture
The sea at night. A time of quietude.
The dull sound of the waves welled up from the endless obscurity, only to disappear again.
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.
He had been suffering for months. He had been brooding for weeks. He had been thinking about just one thing for days. And now his mind was focusing on one single, clearly defined goal.
Everything had been planned.
Preparations were almost complete.
All he needed to do now was to wait for them to walk into the trap.
He knew his plan was far from perfect. It was best described as shoddy rather than meticulous. But he’d never intended to plan everything out in perfect detail in the first place.
No matter how hard he tries, man will always be mere man, and never a god.
It was easy to imagine oneself as such, but he knew that as long as humans were simply humans, even the most gifted amongst them could never become a god.
And how could anyone who was not a god predict the future, shaped as it was by human psychology, human behaviour and pure chance?
Even if the world was viewed as a chessboard, and every person on it a chess piece, there would still be a limit as to how far future moves could be predicted. The most meticulous plan, plotted to the last detail, could still go wrong sometime, somewhere, somehow. Reality is brimming with too many coincidences and whimsical actions by humans for even the craftiest scheme to succeed exactly as planned.
The most desirable plan was not one that limited your own moves, but a flexible one that could adapt to circumstances: that was the conclusion he had come to.
He could not allow himself to be constrained.
It was not the plot that was vital, but the framework. A framework where it was always possible to make the best choice, depending on the circumstances at the time.
Whether he could pull it off depended on his own intellect, quick thinking and, most of all, luck.
I know Man will never become a god.
But, in a way, he was undoubtedly about to take on that role.
Judgment. Yes, judgment.
In the name of revenge, he was going to pronounce judgment on them—on all of them.
Judgment outside the court of law.
He was not a god and so could never be forgiven for what he was about to do—he was completely conscious of that fact. The act would be called “a crime” by his fellow men and, if found out, he himself would be judged according to the law.
Nevertheless, the common sense approach could no longer keep his emotions under control. Emotions? No, nothing as shallow as that. Absolutely not. This was not just some powerful feeling within him. It was the cry of his soul, his last tie to life, his reason for living.
The sea at night. A time of quietude.
No flickering of the stars, no light of the ships off-coast could disturb the darkness into which he gazed. He contemplated his plan once again.
Preparations were almost finished. Soon they, his sinful prey, would walk into his trap. A trap consisting of ten equal sides and interior angles.
They would arrive there suspecting nothing. Without any hesitation or fear they would walk into the decagonal trap, where they would be sentenced.
What awaits them there is, of course, death. It is the obvious punishment for all of them.
And no simple deaths. Blowing them all up in one go would be infinitely easier and more certain, but he should not choose that route.
He has to kill them in order, one by one. Precisely like that story written by the famous British female writer—slowly, one after the other. He shall make them know. The suffering, the sadness, the pain and terror of death.
Perhaps he had become mentally unstable. He himself would be the first to admit to that.
I know—no matter how I try to justify it, what I am planning to do is not sane.
He slowly shook his head at the pitch-black roiling sea.
His …