A murder mystery with twists and turns reminiscent of the classics, like Christie and Queen.

This is a book within a book, where Shimada receives and reads an early copy of a book written by Shishiya, a new mystery writer. This book is based on events from a year before at the Labyrinth House, where new writers were gathered at the house of murder mystery legend, Miyagaki, who offers a prize to the writer who can write the best story. But when an actual murder takes place, the participants find themselves locked in this labyrinthine house with a killer.

It’s a little confusing and slow at first, and the formatting is kind of wonky in the ebook version which didn’t help, but once the murders start, it’s just straight sleuthing and investigating and theorizing, which is what I like in a mystery. And when you think you’ve figured it out, the book throws another twist that makes you want to reread to find the clues you missed. Readers should remember the Holmes’ quote about eliminating the impossible and keeping the improbable.

Some of the writing was awkward and had quite a few typos and grammar issues, but considering this is a translated work, I was impressed with how it internationalized the clues so it could work for an English-speaking audience, though it probably does flow better in Japanese.

It took a bit to get into this, but as a murder mystery that you can puzzle out along with the characters, I enjoyed this very much.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC!

“The Labyrinth House Murders" is an intriguing mystery novel that draws readers into a web of secrets, lies, and unexpected twists. The story is set in the eerie and atmospheric Labyrinth House, where a series of murders disrupts the lives of its inhabitants and guests.

The book's strength lies in its complex characters and the intricate plot that keeps readers guessing. Each character has their own motives and secrets, making it difficult to pinpoint the true culprit until the very end. The author skillfully builds suspense, creating a sense of unease and anticipation throughout the novel.

I got this book from NetGalley and It was a DNF for me. Sorry. Not my style. I was bummed because I was excited for it based upon title and summary.

At first, I wasn’t sure how I was going to find this book. It started off slow with us being introduced to two of the main characters in this Sherlock - inspired style story.

We follow a murder/mystery writer, Miyagaki Yotaro, and his editor, Utayama having tea at Miyagaki’s eccentric home, The Labyrinth House. They discuss an upcoming party the famous author would like to do with just a small few. Once Utayama and his wife, Keiko, arrive to the house on the day of the party they are greeted by six other guests. Four of them fellow young authors who admire the work of Yotaro and hope to one day achieve his success. The other two are critics and Shimada; a detective Yotaro met one day when his car broke down.

When they arrive all eight learn that Yotaro has seemingly taken his own life and left some very specific and odd choices for his departing words: Yotaro wants the budding authors Suzaki, Kiyomura, Furaoka, and Hayagti to write a fifty page short story based on murders that take place in the house. Murders that happen to them. If they do this and are picked the winner from the detective, critic, and his editor, they win half of his billion Yen fortune. The only problem is the stories they seem to be creating are having fatal similarities.

This book had a slow start for me. I wasn’t too invested in the characters or what was happening but once the murder mystery took off it became a gripping story-telling with multiple layers that I found to be not only entertaining but incredibly sharp plotting. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys Agatha Christie or Sherlock Holmes investigations that deal with solving and deducing crimes to find our killer.

Thank you to Netgalley and Pushkin Press for this ARC.

New to the Japanese Golden Age inspired mystery genre. This is my first experience with the genre and Yukito Ayatsuji’s work as it could be read as a stand alone.
What drew me to this book was the gimmick of the Labyrinth House. The labyrinth itself was a treat and the Greek mythology symbolism were the cherry on top. The mystery was okay, with me scratching my head why these characters with certain backstories would jump to certain conclusions. My favorite character was Keiko which I’m pretty sure was not intended with how the author harked on our ‘detective’ of how great they are. Which says something with how flat Keiko is. The reveal was decent, the author led me to the conclusion they wanted me to make as the audience, and I’m not angry about it. Solid work, more mystery driven than character driven to my disappointment but understandable. I enjoyed the meta commentary the story gives to itself.
Appreciate the translator for translating this novel for English readers to experience. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC!

Me while reading: I mean, it's good, but it's a bit predictable.

Me at the end: HOLY HECK DID I NOT SEE THAT COMING.

Yet another Japanese locked room mystery that I really enjoyed. There are puzzles throughout, and even when I thought I knew what was happening there were parts I couldn't solve. Really kept me guessing.

Fascinating characters, fun explanations, and appropriately ghastly deaths.

Also really enjoyed the brief reference to my other current favourite Japanese Detective, Kosuke Kindaichi.

I'll definitely be looking for more in this series.

With thanks to NetGalley for an ARC

I was initially drawn to this novel by the eye catching cover, however the premise intrigued me also.

I enjoyed Yukito Ayatsuji's simple writing style and the subtle hints peppered throughout the well paced plot. It made the story very readable. The setting was fantastic and well described and I enjoyed the story within a story aspect.

However, I found the female characters to be a let down. They were underused and did not add much to the majority of the story. I also found the final twist - and how this was discovered - to be ridiculous.

Thanks to NetGalley and Pushkin Vertigo for the ARC.

Labyrinth of books
The book’s use of metalinguistics is amazing. At first, I was curious to see how the story would unfold, especially with characters who are writing professionals in a peculiar setting, and the narrative managed to surprise me. For much of the reading, the predictability of the mystery made me impatient, as I believed I had uncovered the plot too soon. However, I was caught off guard by the ending, which further enhanced the story’s construction. Despite the time and setting, I felt the absence of more strong female characters throughout the narrative. Greek mythology is well incorporated, adding depth to the book’s atmosphere. Similarly, the mystery genre is explored in a way that allowed me to learn interesting concepts, which I will apply to my future readings. I enjoyed the author's shared universe, which sparked my interest in exploring their other works.

I loved it. I adored it. I absolutely and utterly devouvered it.
Where it takes me a week to finish a book, I did it in two days. I read late into the night, I woke up in the middle of the night and I read in commute.

Yukito Ayatsuji is has a very simple writing style without big words and fancy sentences. What makes this sleuthing murder mystery a page turned is the nested premise of a story within a story, small reveals and the absolutely fantastic setting.

The setting is the title- The Labyrinth House is a mysterious architecture that could give the reader creeps and fantastical wonder. To its character, the house seem to have eyes that follow their moves. When there are guests stuck in the house on 1st April and murders begin to go down, its more than April's Fool or an inheritance game. The situation is difficult. The doors are locked. The keys are with the murderer. The murderer in question is dead, died after murders and was dead before the murders. And yet he is the murderer.

Now What? YES! I can't explain, you have to read for yourself.

I loved the premise that the narrator of the story was a man who experienced the events in real life and was narrating his events as fiction. The nesting style of the story- a story within a story is the best part of the plot. The story's premise is mind blowing, The twists are unexpected to the point they make you want to read the whole thing again to see the clues littered.

Thank you Netgalley and Pushkin Press for this eARC.

I requested this as a bit of something different to my usual reads and was not dissapointed. The book is a murder mystery set a house that has been inspired by Greek Myth - 'The Labyrinth House'. As I am currently on a Greek Mythology trip that was a pleasant suprise for me as I did think a labyrinth could relate to anything! I really liked all the characters in this and when I thought I had worked out the whodunnit I was shocked that I was SO FAR away from the answer.

I will definitely be reading more books by this author!

Such great writing in this book! I loved the characters and the mystery! I was in the story and felt really invested pretty much straight away! Will definitely order myself a copy!

I was loving the story, I like this kind of mysteries, but as a woman, that ending... it shows - in a bad way - that the writer is a man. Did nobody told him that what he wrote was absurd?? It spoiled all of the good parts of the book, I was even ignoring how all the women of the story did nothing, but that was the last straw.

The ‘murderer’ was very obvious in my opinion I didn’t even need the fake clues left behind. I didn’t like the writing style.

This novel was such a treat to experience!
I highly recommend going into it armed with your note taking tools of choice and try to figure out for yourself the solution of the murders as you read along.
The story was incredibly well paced and, even if this wasn't my first one with a similar concept, the structure of a novel within a novel to recount the events occurred at the Labyrinth House worked great for me in this case.
The Labyrinth House Murders was my first one of the Bizarre House Mysteries series and I had no trouble with jumping straight into it with no context from the previous instalments, but I'm definitely going to pick them up in the future since this one left me so pleasantly surprised for how much I enjoyed the time spent between its pages.
I would love to get into more details of the reason why I liked this book so much but I feel like any information further than the one given by the blurb would reveal any of the many clever wits of the author.

The Labyrinth House Murders is an ingeniously plotted locked room mystery from Japanese author Yukito Ayatsuji and is now available for the first time in an English translation from Pushkin Vertigo. 

Miyagaki Yotaro is considered a master of the Japanese detective novel but for the last several years has lived a life of solitude in his secluded mansion known as The Labyrinth House. To celebrate his sixtieth birthday, he invites four young writers to his home for a unique celebration. But things quickly become bizarre as they are drawn into a deadly competition for the right to inherit Yotaro's fortune.

Yokito Ayatsuji is known as one of the founders of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan (Honkaku means "fair play"). He has constructed an extremely clever novel that will keep the reader guessing until the very end. He also makes frequent references to the Golden Age of Detective Fiction where is obvious he has drawn his inspiration. 

Mystery lovers (particularly fans of the Golden Age) would be well served to pick up Ayatsuji's books as he has a knack for constructing very clever mysteries. The Labyrinth House Mysteries continues to cement Ayatsuji's legacy as one of the most important mystery writers from Japan. It's great to know that Pushkin Vertigo is making these novels available in English so that they may find a wider audience. 

Thanks to Pushkin Vertigo and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. No other consideration was received in exchange for this review.

I really enjoyed this title. A little different to my usual read as I’m not familiar with much Japanese fiction, but this was very rewarding. It’s a clever blend of cosy murder mystery, like Christie, but with suspense. It’s a clever construction, both literally and figuratively as a group of authors are locked in to Labyrinth House and tasked with writing a novel to a very tight deadline. Then they start dying. Typical locked room stuff, but this is different and I was drawn in to their strange circumstance and task right from the first page. I’ll be looking for more like this. It’s different.

Welcome to Labyrinth House, the home of famed detective novel Miyagaki Yotaro. For his 60th birthday the famed author has invited a close group of friends to his home to celebrate on April 1st at precisely 4:00pm.

All of the 8 guests but one, have a literary connection and are known to our narrator. The last is met while on the way to the party, and offers that the house they heading to was designed by Nakamura Seiji. The group has a shared sense of foreboding as they recall the events that have transpired in other homes designed by the late architect.

Upon arrival the guests are shocked to learn that their host passed away that morning but has left them with a request- the writers that compose half of the guest list will stay for a week to compete for half of the late author’s fortune by writing a novel worthy of such a prize. The half of the guest list comprised of literary critics will determine the winner.

There are some conditions to these rules- the story must be set within Labyrinth House and can only include those present (including the late host) as characters, and every author must be the victim of their own murder mystery.

But as the authors begin to pass one by one, those remaining begin to question if all is as it seems in this house of mazes. Did their host really die in the manner by which they were told? Why are they truly at Labyrinth House? Who amongst them has taken murder from the pages and into their midst?

A love letter to the traditional locked room mystery ala Poe or Christie, this one was a fun and suspenseful read (even if the reader was not given all the traditional means by which to solve the case on their own).

Thank you to NetGallery and the Publisher for this ARC!

This book was quite a wild ride. It took a little time to get into it because of the complicated nature of the Labyrinth House itself and the number of characters you're introduced to, but I enjoyed the mystery once things really got going. Once the setting and characters are fully laid out, the story moves swiftly. I appreciated the inclusion of the maps both at the beginning and in the middle of the book, which helped a lot with being able to picture the complex setting.

This book will be great for fans of locked room mysteries, and those who like any novel in which books and stories are a key component of the plot.

Note: I haven't read the first two books in this series, but got the sense that this novel works fine as a standalone.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Pushkin Vertigo for the chance to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I absolutely adored my time reading The Labyrinth House Murders. Thank you to Net Galley for the opportunity to sit down with a copy of this book.

The famed mystery writer Miyagaki Yotaro lives a life of seclusion in the remote Labyrinth House. When Yotaro invites four young crime authors to his home for a birthday party, they are honoured to accept. But no sooner have they arrived than they are confronted with a shocking death, then lured into a bizarre, deadly competition. As the twisted contest gathers pace, murder follows murder. The ingenious sleuth Shimada Kiyoshi investigates, but can he solve the mystery of the house before all those trapped in its labyrinth are dead? And can you guess the solution before he does?

After reading and loving The Decagon House Murders, I knew I was in for a treat with this locked room mystery. I'm a huge detective novel fan and devour Agatha Christie and other classic detective reads, there's just something about a house full of potential suspects/victims that is so readable - you never know what's going to happen next and to who its going to happen! I always enjoy playing detective alongside the main protagonist, desperately trying to beat them to the murderer, but often falling just short - haha

This book had everything for me, twists, tension and a brilliantly spooky setting. It was a timeless classic and the translation was perfect. I initially panicked a bit as the characters were introduced, but I always find that with murder mystery books - it takes a little time for me to flesh out each person and find their memorable their traits/quirks, However, the way in which Yukito Ayatsuji introduced each character really helped me to quickly establish who everyone was and their role within the story.

I have since realised that there is another "House Murders" book by Yukito Ayatsuji that I haven't read yet - The Mill House Murders, now I know this exists, I'll certainly be adding it to my TBR!

Oh, I absolutely loved The Labyrinth Murders!!! This book had me hooked from the very first page, and by the time I reached the ending, I was completely blown away.

The story follows Shimada Kiyoshi as he tries to unravel a series of bizarre murders that took place at the infamous Labyrinth House - a twisted, maze-like mansion belonging to renowned mystery writer Miyagaki Yotaro. Yotaro had invited a group of crime writers, an editor, and some key figures in the literary world to celebrate his 60th birthday. But instead of a celebration, the night turned into something much more sinister.

Yotaro is soon found dead, seemingly by his own hand, leaving behind one final challenge: each guest must write their own murder mystery, where they themselves are the victim. The best story will win a share of his fortune. But then, one by one, the writers begin to die - each in the exact manner described in their unfinished stories. Trapped in the house with no way out, the survivors must race against time to unmask the killer before it’s too late.

I love a classic-style murder mystery, and Yukito Ayatsuji delivered a brilliantly crafted, multilayered puzzle full of clever misdirection. Every time I thought I had figured it out, I was proven wrong! The eerie, locked-room setting and the psychological tension made it even more gripping.

While the translation had a few challenging moments, it didn’t take away from the thrill of the story. If anything, it added to the charm of reading a mystery from a different cultural perspective. I’ll definitely be looking for more of this author’s work!

Big thanks to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for the opportunity to read and review this book! Much appreciated!!

#TheLabyrinthHouseMurders #NetGalley