THE LABYRINTH OF THE SCRIPTORIUM (originally published in Japanese in 2002), is a mystery thriller set in modern Europe, with echoes from Europe’s medieval past. The reader must pile logic on logic and display astute reasoning skills to unravel the secrets locked in the novel’s multi-layered structure.

The story follows the exploits of a Professor Tomii who stumbles upon a mysterious painting by a deceased Japanese artist in Switzerland. It depicts the siege of Montségur, the final stand of the Cathars, a Christian sect, in 13th century southern France. Professor Tomii is drawn deeper and deeper into the mysterious circumstances of the painting, the artist, and an unsolved murder that the artist witnessed.

In the classic styles of Umberto Eco, Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen, author Hitoshi Goto weaves a substantial and complex tale that keeps the reader stumbling through mazes of rationales and counter-rationales. The Labyrinth depicted by Goto is like a “miniature”, a medieval illuminated manuscript, small but highly precise, filled the sound of the Gregorian chant. The mysteries in the Labyrinth of the Scriptorium are finally totally unlocked in Goto’s subsequent novel Gutenberg-Dämmerung (Twilight of Gutenberg), published in Japan in 2005 (Japanese only). The Labyrinth of the Scriptorium was awarded the prestigious Ayukawa Tetsuya Award in 2002, Japan’s most renowned literary award for mystery novel