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Loading... The Decagon House Murders (edition 2020)by Yukito Ayatsuji (Author)
Work InformationThe Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Couldn't get into it -- plot, characters, atmosphere weren't interesting. ( ) Published in 1978, THE DECAGON HOUSE MURDERS is credited with launching the shinhonkaku movement, a return to Golden Age style plotting and clue provision for the reader to discover along the way. It's often described as a subgenre of the honkaku style - which can best be described as whodunit's rather than why or howdunits. Full review at: https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/decagon-house-murders-yukito-ayatsuji Real Rating: 3.5* of five The Publisher Says: The 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? I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU. My Review: It's And Then There Were None with a Japanese accent. It works the same way, it has the same strengths (puzzles are fun!) and weaknesses (set-up is improbable in the extreme). This iteration is satisfying to me in that it doesn't ignore the conventions as does make use of its own vernacular. The translator chose, for example, not to switch family names and personal names around to suit western usage. I like that, others won't, so be aware of the fact. The prose, as translated, is a bit flat. The world the tale takes place in is largely nuanceless, so it feels like it's a kabuki performance in front of scenery instead of an equally artificial film set where volumes flicker in front of our eyes fast enough to fool them into thinking they're real. That's not a flaw to me, but it does obtrude when I try to find an emotional resonance to the killings. Maybe that's a good thing? Whatever it is, good or bad, it's a choice that left me without a fourth-star's worth of involvement. Satisfying read, though not in the ordinary ways of series mysteries. I will, however, read them as Pushkin Vertigo publishes them. no reviews | add a review
Fiction.
Mystery.
Thriller.
HTML:"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" â?? Publishers Weekly A hugely enjoyable, page-turning murder mystery sure to appeal to fans of Elly Griffiths, Anthony Horowitz, and Agatha Christie, with one of the best and most-satisfying conclusions you'll ever read. A classic in Japan, available in English for the first time. From The New York Times Book Review: "Read Yukito Ayatsujiâ??s landmark mystery, The Decagon House Murders, and discover a real depth of feeling beneath the fiendish foul play. Taking its cues from Agatha Christieâ??s locked-room classic And Then There Were None, the setup is this: The members of a university detective-fiction club, each nicknamed for a favorite crime writer (Poe, Carr, Orczy, Van Queen, Leroux and â?? yes â?? Christie), spend a week on remote Tsunojima Island, attracted to the place, and its eerie 10-sided house, because of a spate of murders that transpired the year before. That collective curiosity will, of course, be their undoing. As the students approach Tsunojima in a hired fishing boat, 'the sunlight shining down turned the rippling waves to silver. The island lay ahead of them, wrapped in a misty veil of dust,' its sheer, dark cliffs rising straight out of the sea, accessible by one small inlet. There is no electricity on the island, and no telephones, either. A fresh round of violent deaths begins, and Ayatsujiâ??s skillful, furious pacing propels the narrative. As the students are picked off one by one, he weaves in the story of the mainland investigation of the earlier murders. This is a homage to Golden Age detective fiction, but itâ??s also unaba No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)895.63Literature Literature of other languages Asian (east and south east) languages Japanese Japanese fictionLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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