The Decagon House Murders is a 1987 Japanese murder mystery in the Golden Age honkaku style. Students from a university murder mystery club visit an offshore island where four grisly murders had happened some months before, then strange things begin to happen to the students themselves.

There are many nods to classic European and American mysteries, with the students all having mystery writer nicknames such as Agatha or Poe. The plot itself has obvious parallels to Christie's And Then There Were None, but is differently constructed.

An enjoyable mystery recommended for lovers of Japanese fiction and Golden Age murder mysteries.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.

It's a classic in the mystery genre and I was excited to read the translation from the Japanese. It certainly ticks all the boxes- isolated island, clues and red herrings aplenty, a diverse cast of characters, closed room mystery etc. In principle, this could have been written for me - I adore Golden Age crime mysteries-but in practice it didn't quite align with my expectations. It might be that my expectations were too high, it might be showing its age slightly (written in the 1980s) or it might have been the translation, but I didn't love it. I liked it though, and often liking a book will do just fine. It felt slightly "flat" and I think that is largely a language issue. I wanted to get stuck in to the characters a bit more but felt held at arms length a bit.

All in all, I am glad I read it and it is worth ticking it off your list as a classic.

Originally published in 1987, Yukito Ayatsuji’s The Decagon House Murders is considered a cult classic in its native Japan and is credited with reviving interest in the traditional puzzle mystery format, inspiring a new generation of Japanese crime writers.

Now re-issued by Pushkin Vertigo with a translation by Ho-Ling Wong, the novel pays homage to several Golden Age crime classics, most notably Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Despite some misgivings, several of the most prominant members of the K-University Mystery Club head to the now deserted island of Tsunojima in an attempt to solve the myterious triple murder that happened there six months previously. Setting up camp in The Decagon House – the only remamining part of eccentric architect Nakamura Seiji’s Blue Mansion complex – it isn’t long before the group begin to suspect that they may not be as alone on the island as they thought.

Meanwhile, back on the mainland, former club member Kawaminami Taka’aki receives a sinister note signed by Nakamura Seiji – “My daughter Chiori was murdered by you all”. But Nakamura Seiji was one of the Tsunojima victims, and has been dead for six months.

Alternating between Kawaminami’s investigations on the mainland and the increasingly sinister events taking place on the island, The Decagon House Murders offers an homage to Christie’s original whilst creating a uniquely twisty and cleverly plotted mystery all of its own. Replete with references to Christie’s classic – and to the detectives and writers of the wider Golden Age milieu – the novel still manages to innovate and there are a number of intricate twists on well-worn formulas.

I particualrly loved the way that the novel wears its antecedants and inspiration on its sleeve – the writing is incredibly self-aware and delights in being knowingly referential without this ever feeling like a distraction from the plot. Readers familiar with Golden Age crime will delight in picking up on references as much as they’ll enjoy the fiendishly clever mystery that has been created with the bones of the crime fiction it pays homage too.

Because for all its referential playfulness, The Decagon House Murders is a twisty and enjoyable mystery in its own right. With its contained setting and cast, dual narrative and dual timeline, there’s plenty of space for red herrings, plot twists and sudden revelations. Although I did guess the ‘who’, I have to admit the ‘how’ still surprised me – and there was an enjoyable twist at the novel’s close that I did not see coming!

I also really enjoyed getting to know the characters – especially Kawaminami and his fellow ‘detective’ Shimada – and was impressed by how well drawn each of the detective club members felt, despite some of them only being in the story for quite a brief period of time.

If you don’t enjoy classic or ‘Golden Age’ crime, The Decagon House Murders probably isn’t going to convert you – it honours the genre and conforms to many of its tropes, albeit in a knowingly playful way. Fans of the classics of crime fiction will, however, find much to enjoy here and the book makes for a fantastic introduction to Japanese crime fiction, or to crime fiction in translation. As a fan of the genre, I really enjoyed The Decagon House Murders and look forward to reading more of Pushkin’s translated Japanese crime classics very soon!

I was immediately intrigued by this book when I read the premise. Seven members of a Murder Mystery club travel to an isolated island where a year or so previous a mansion burned down killing three people and a fourth who had gone missing. Staying in an oddly built annexe to the house, the seven teens stay in the decagon house. A house that is completely blue and is made up of ten even sides and ten rooms. As if that isn't weird enough, they wake up to a mysterious message. A message predicting their deaths. Five victims, a detective and the murderer. But who of the seven is the murderer? On the mainland, one of their old friends receives a mysterious letter blaming him and the seven teens of the death of a classmate, can Conan figure out the riddle of who sent the letters before it's too late for them all?

I loved the shroud of mystery throughout this book. I found myself trying to plot who I thought the murderer was throughout the book, with each victim and each new clue, that guess changed and then when it was revealed, wow. I literally could not have guessed it. I found myself numerous times wondering how does the story on the island and on the mainland link together, but when that was revealed too, UGH I literally was taken by surprise. Gasp type of surprise. While it's not the most beautifully written, or suspenseful book I've ever read, becoming a little predictable every so often with each new death, how it all tied together at the end really appealed to me. I also loved their little trend of naming one another after famous western mystery writers. Overall, this was a really enjoyable book and I can see why it is a cult favourite in Japan.

Students from a university mystery club decide to visit an island which was the site of a grisly multiple murder the year before. Predictably, they get picked off one by one by an unseen murderer. Is there a madman on the loose? What connection is there to the earlier murders?

This is a classic of Japanese locked room mysteries and you can see why. Skilfully plotted and owing a lot to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, it excels with a really surprising ending. the prose is a bit flat and the translation just so-so but that doesn't detract from the page-turning plot!

A wryly amusing closed-room murder mystery which pays particular homage to And Then There Were None and more widely the Golden Age of detective fiction. The novel is translated from Japanese and forms part of the brilliant Pushkin Vertigo series. The main cast of characters form the core group of members of a university murder mystery club who ironically adopt monikers after famous “foreign” mystery writers – Poe, Ellery, Agatha, Orczy, Carr, Van Dine and Leroux. Taking themselves off to an uninhabited, inescapable island, the scene of a grisly quadruple murder just 6 months prior, it is soon revealed that they are to become five picked-off victims, a detective and a murderer. Meanwhile on the mainland a couple of their acquaintances are investigating the original murders with interesting consequences.
An enjoyable and quick read with the denouement wonderfully explained with no silly “off-camera” last minute revelations.

This novel was originally published in 1987, the debut novel of Yukito Ayatsuji, and has just recently been translated into English. Taking its inspiration from the classic locked room mystery scenario, this is a firm nod towards the Golden Age of crime and its authors.

A group of university students who form a mystery club, and all take on nicknames referring to famous authors, such as Agatha Christie and Edgar Allen Poe. They decide to take a trip to an island, which was the site of a mysterious fire months earlier, and also houses an usual house - the Decagon House of the title. However, once they arrive, strange things begin to happen, and the mystery begins. Is there a secret hidden in their past that is coming back to haunt them? Or is it connected to the recent fire. The mystery unspools from there with plenty of twists and turns, but overall a rattling, good, enjoyable read!

I would recommend this for fans of Seishi Yokomizo - I actually had to check whether or not this was written by the same author! Or if you enjoy this and haven’t read Seishi Yokomizo, then I would recommend trying his novels!

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I can see why this is a cult classic. It was odd, unsettling, almost comical at parts - but always deeply engaging and absorbing. Highly recommend.

The premise of this book sounded so interesting and it did not disappoint!
Reading this book felt strangely nostalgic. I am a huge fan of Agatha Christie (though admittedly I have mainly watched the tv adaptations of her work) and it's not hard to see Ayatsuji's love for her too. This book really does pay homage to some of the greatest detective/mystery stories but is also very creative in its own right.
I must admit that I am able to guess murders relatively easy in thrillers nowadays but this one got me! I really was left guessing right up until the reveal.
While there are many characters in this book, Ayatsuji made it very easy to distinguish between them. They were all so full of character that when the murders started, I really wanted them all to be saved!
This book would have been a five star but I had to bump it down a little because of the ending. I loved the reveal but I think that it just felt a bit rushed and I came away wishing that things had been explained in the same detail that had been used earlier in the book.
But despite this, I would recommend this book to anyone that loves classic mystery novels! I have a feeling that there will be a few people getting this book for their birthday this year!

i was particularly drawn in by the book's cover and wanted to give this a read. it has a lot of detective mystery and thriller elements to it and is visibly inspired by the greats of the genre. i found it a little drab. first i thought that it must be the writing but i wonder if it was actually the translation that felt a little off to me. the narration felt a strange mix of easy and breezy but dull. i did plow through it and enjoyed the story, however the ending could have been more satisfaactory.

Another brilliant offering from the excellent Pushkin Vertigo imprint. A classic crime story featuring locked rooms, jigsaws and magic tricks. It's also sharp, witty and fiendishly entertaining. The dénouement is up there with the likes of Christie, Sayer & Allingham. Can't wait for more crime fiction from Japan, bravo Pushkin!

Yukito Ayatsuji is one of the founders of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club: a group of Japanese mystery authors who echo the golden age of detective stories to outstanding effect. His first novel — now available in English thanks to some outstanding translation by Ho-Ling Wong — was The Decagon House Murders.

Paying homage to Agatha Christie’s masterpiece, And Then There Were None, The Decagon House Murders follows the story of a group of young mystery novel fanatics who spend a few days on an island which was, just one year prior, the scene of a brutal murder.

The story is split in two, with one narrative following these students as they fall into a murderous trap while staying in the island’s one remaining building, the Decagon House. This trap echoes And Then There Were None to great effect as the students are picked off one by one.

Full review posted on Books & Bao: https://booksandbao.com/japanese-mystery-novels/

When I was a young teenager, I went through a phase of voraciously reading classic mystery fiction (particularly Agatha Christy and Dorothy L Sayers). So I was very excited to read this book, which is heavily influenced by that era of detective stories. I also really enjoyed all the allusions to And Then There Were None - my favourite of Agatha Christy's work and possibly of all detective fiction.

I really enjoyed the writing style of The Decagon House Murders and the sense of tension that pervaded the story. The characters were, on the whole, quite well-written; although I did get Poe/Leroux/Van confused sometimes. I really enjoyed reading this book, especially as it's pleasingly short and fast-paced compared to many of the other books I've been reading lately. My one gripe was that the ending just wasn't... satisfying enough for me. It made sense, it tied things up, there was nothing massively objectionable about it, but I was expecting a bit more, somehow. Most of my reading experience was more like four stars, but the ending just nudged it over to three stars overall.

An island setting, seven people on the island, dying one by one.
Sound familiar?
Paying homage to And Then There Were None, this book keeps you on the edge of the seat when you try to work out exactly who the culprit. Is it one of them on the island? Or is it the man everyone presumed dead last year? Just who exactly is doing it and why?

This story kept me gripped and as I got towards the end, I couldn't put it down as I so badly wanted to know exactly who had done it - and why they had done it. I had a feeling that love would be the root of it all and there were lots of different types of love featured in this book - familial love, romantic love, friendship love of friends who've been there for each other since childhood.

I was shocked at the reveal but it made complete sense.

Very, very impressed.

Three plotlines intertwine in this classic Japanese crime mystery: a private island is dipped in mysterious fog after four bodies are rescued from a fire and the fifth goes missing; a group of university students — who regularly discuss literary murders with passion — step on this enclosed island for a week and discover a perplexing message that entails the impending death of each of them; a single thread of a common party binds these friends to some individuals on the mainland who are receiving enigmatic letters and facing deadly consequences, thereby motivating two to commence an investigation. The puzzle is enticing, especially as a Honkaku mystery which is essentially a style that challenges the readers to find the solution too by dropping all the clues and characters in a single space, and the dynamic relationships along with a shifting narrative that wonderfully sustains suspense is able to keep one engrossed, and satisfies with the ending quite well.

I love (underscore 3 times) playing escape room games. I revel in the observation and deduction skills it demands in the limited space. So, it was with great anticipation that I picked up Yukito Ayatsuji’s The Decagon House Murders, a murder mystery set on an island. It resembles an escape room game in its setting – the finite space of an island, specific number of characters, clues strewn about everywhere.

Seven students decide to spend a few days in a palatial house on the island, the scene of multiple murders the previous year. Even as they puzzle out the unsolved crime the murderer strikes again, and the students get killed one by one. The story begins with all seven of them dead and two investigating officers on the case.
This is an intricately wrought plot with layers and perspectives like Matryoshka dolls. Everything and everyone seem to be interlinked, revealing new angles as the story progresses. I loved how it kept me guessing till the last few pages and how the twist was so clever and satisfying.

Now, for the unsatisfactory part. Most of the characters were very cardboard-ish with hardly any personalities to speak of. There was absolutely nothing of the charm that accompanies a Sherlock and Watson or a Poirot. The denouement was a tad too lengthy and felt overloaded with information. I understand it’s because every question lingering from the beginning needed to be answered but I just wish there was a better way it could have been done.

In the end, I felt like I had just solved an escape room game. I walked away thrilled, excited but did not have anything memorable. I enjoyed reading this because I love the reasoning and trying to unravel clues on my own. I would recommend this to anyone who likes a puzzle for the puzzle, a mystery for the mystery, and nothing more.

Thanks to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for the ARC!

The Decagon House Murders pays homage to Agatha Christie's And then there were none, which is one of my fav books. This is a locked room (locked island?) mystery where seven students decide to spend a few days in the Decagon house. These students belong to the mystery group at the university and have nicknames based on famous mystery writers. There's Ellery, Agatha, Van, Leroux, Orczy, Carr and Poe. While they are away on the island, a former member of the mystery group, Kawaminami receives a mysterious letter that points out his connection to a former student Chiori, who died. The Decagon house has had a 'everyone-murdered' scenario before and coincidentally Chiori is related to the house (she is daughter of the owner). Now the students who are staying in the house start getting murdered, one by one, sometimes even hands being cut off from their bodies (eeerily similar to the old series of murders). So the three mysteries—the murders of the past, the student group getting murdered, Chiori's death—clash.

What I loved?
- the mystery
- the climax was nice! I guessed the motive of the murderer very early on. But I liked that even after that, the murderer was elusive to me
- I also liked how the mystery group tries to solve the murder of their friends. And how quickly everyone is dead (however bad that sounds)

Small hiccups
-I didn't love it as much as The Inugami curse, the earlier title released in the Pushkin Vertigo series. Mainly because The Inugami Curse was more dramatic and twist-filled while The Decagon House murders is more of a narration without added 'shocks' and 'emotions'. But I did really enjoy the book (PS: The narration style was not a problem for me and if you enjoy cozy mysteries, Agatha Christie mysteries, it would not affect your enjoyment of the book either),
- During the major part of the novel, the characters are called by their nicknames. But at the end when the mystery is resolved, the characters are suddenly addressed by their original names. I found this confusing and kept forgetting who was whom. I wish the original names were introduced earlier on, so that the reader had enough time to map the nicknames to the real names. This wasn't a big deal; because they were all dead anyway. But I woud've liked an earlier introduction.

If you love And then there were none, definitely give this a try.

ANy fans of Agatha Christie are sure to love this one! A great detective-style novel with clever reveals that envoke a nostalgic feeling. I really enjoyed the slow burn of this novel and the Japanse elements and influences made an old classic feel new.

"Students from a university mystery club decide to visit an island which was the site of a grisly multiple murder the year before. Predictably, they get picked off one by one by an unseen murderer. Is there a madman on the loose? What connection is there to the earlier murders? The answer is a bombshell revelation which few readers will see coming."

I can fully appreciate what the author was attempting here and I appreciate his place in the history of the traditional mystery in Japanese literature.

However i found this novel unremittingly dull. The flat prose style and even flatter characters with their irritating names failed to interest me. Even the "surprises" were unsurprising.

This is yet another novel which one recommends because of its historic/literary import, rather than as an object of enjoyment.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for the digital review copy.

Another new author to me, although this book is over 30 years old - and I was not disappointed! Seven university friends on a deserted island for a week, with murders occurring. Strong hints of Agatha Christie And Then There Were None, which can't really be bettered, even when you know what's coming

The translation can be a bit too literal at times but well worth a read