An all around good time. Very tidy in a way that...who knew a murder mystery could help me feel less anxious, right? But here we are.

Loved this! It was a great variation on And Then There Were None with a Japanese background
Totally fooled by the misdirection.

A fast read. Different, the characters are very passive it is hard to believe they would actually accused rack other.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji is an Agatha-Christie style murder mystery that is sure to become as popular in the West as it is in Japan. In The Decagon House Murders, seven members of a Japanese university's mystery club, with nicknames like "Ellery" and "Poe," converge on a mysterious island where a group of murders happened years prior. Nakamura Seiji died on the island, but before he did, he built the titular Decagon House, a house with a unique floorplan shaped like a decagon. The seven members discuss the case of the Seiji's murder and wonder whether they will come across new evidence for the unsolved case. Unbeknownst to the group, someone is planning another group of murders during their trip.

Here is an excerpt from the prologue of the book, which sent chills up my spine and made me wonder if I really should be reading this book at night:

"Judgement. Yes, judgement.
In the name of revenge, he was going to pronounce judgement on them - on all of them!
Judgement 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.
...
He had to kill them in order, one by one. Precisely like that story written by the famous British writer - slowly, one after the other."

Since the book's prologue alludes to And Then There Were None, a masterpiece of mystery fiction by Dame Christie, I was expecting the same level of plotting in this book. The book also alludes to other master writers of Golden-Age detective fiction, I wondered if the book was setting itself up for failure with such lofty aspirations. Would The Decagon House Murders live up to the other books that it references? In addition, the synopsis of the book touts a clever reveal that will shock the reader. I wondered if I was expecting too much from this book.

In the end, I have to rate the book an amazing 5 stars! I was hooked from the beginning to the end. I couldn't stop reading and finished the book in a day. I found this book just as good as the masterpieces of Golden-Age detective fiction. Overall, The Decagon House Murders is a stunning mystery, and I recommend it for all readers who enjoy mystery books. If you've ever enjoyed reading an Agatha Christie novel or watch Sherlock Holmes on TV, you will undoubtedly enjoy this book. You won't regret checking it out when it comes out in May!

Seven friends venture to an isolated island for a week of bonding over their shared love for detective fiction. They leave both civilisation and their real persons behind, adopting the names of their beloved, favourite writers for themselves. They also, unknowingly, take on the contents of their books, as well as the names that adorn the front covers, as events quickly turn sinister and, with no escape from the island, they only have their own astute minds to help save them from their bloody fates.

This was a twisted, little story and I greatly appreciated witnessing it unfold. Death was quickly welcomed into the plot and a And Then There Were None scenario was introduced, where both reader and remaining characters attempted to puzzle out who the criminal in their midst was.

Despite adoring the sinister plot, the dialogue appealed to me far less. Perhaps there was some elegancy that was lost in translation, but I found the character interactions to feel stilted and unnatural. Conversations would unfold in a manner that took me out of the story and often felt like scenes were created only to fill the reader in on information that should have been already known to the characters, and therefore not something they would naturally discuss. An example of this was when the captain manning the vessel that transported the friends to the island commented on their rather bizarre names. They responded that they were merely names borrowed from their idols. Pages later the friends then have a similar conversation with each other where one states the same facts concerning their self-given names. If these were names they had been using with each other for years then why would they suddenly discuss it with no other motive than to inform each other on something they should already be aware of? This might seem petty but I did find myself drawn from my immersion, on occasion, due to it.

I became disengaged with the unfolding events, about half-way through the book, as well. Events slowed and the focus returned, again and again, to the characters casting their suspicions on one another.

The end twist, however, was probably one of the best I have read! I am mad not to have loved everything that led up to it in quite the same way, as the conclusion, with its grand reveal, was utterly ingenious and highly original. I would recommend this book to any thriller reader and classic crime lover, just so they get to experience Ayatsuji's clever dupe for themselves.

Firstly, wow.

If you love the intricacies and twists of Agatha Christie’s ‘And Then There Were None’ then you will adore the English translation of Yukito Ayatsuji’s ‘The Decagon House Murders.’

The premise is this; seven students decide to spend a week on Tsunojima Island off the coast of Japan. Six months earlier the previous residents of the island were brutally murdered, and the case remains unsolved. Soon after the students’ arrival they begin to suspect that someone intending to kill them one at a time, but their identity is currently unknown. Meanwhile, back on the mainland, a former member of the student club receives a letter blaming him for the death of a young woman who died at a party a year earlier, and the girl in question just happened to be the daughter of the murdered island owner. After learning that several other people received a similar letter, he too begins to suspect that something sinister is happening.

I had to get my pen and ‘murder board’ notebook out for this one as it was truly excellent. From start to finish you could get closer to who you think is responsible and then be sent off in a completely different direction. I think at times I was too confident in my ‘armchair detective’ role honed from seasons of Midsomer Murders, and the author somehow knew this. The second I got even remotely confident in my far-flung theory, he shot it down in an aggravatingly logical manner. However, it wasn’t impossible to work out who was responsible, as long as you looked carefully past all the threads of misdirection expertly woven around this tale. It would be too easy to claim this is a rip-off of ‘And Then There Were None’ – true it held the basic plot premise for this novel, but the twists and turns were excellently contrived and implemented.

I was eventually confident I had worked it out as I was about 2/3 of the way through the novel, circling the name viciously before I had to sit back and wonder how the hell they did it. Then came the big gasp moment, which, despite having a rough idea who was responsible, made my jaw drop and I had to put my tablet down for a second. Nothing is as it seems in the novel, both for you or the characters, and it is wrapped up excellently in the final chapter which soothes all your burning questions by tying up all the loose ends in a way that makes you kick yourself for not seeing these things before (as they were there, I checked!)

My only advice for any reader is to get yourself a copy of the map of Decagon House with their names in each room (you can get one from the first result on Google Images). This doesn’t provide any spoilers, but it definitely helped me envision the house, where people were and their relation to the other rooms (it is difficult to imagine a house with ten sides!). It was also far neater than my hastily scribbled drawing which looked like some misshapen circle instead of the precise angles of the book!

My thanks to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for the e-ARC of this translation!

Book Review for The Decagon House Murders
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