Monday, August 23, 2021

番外編:Death Among the Undead

After the annual releases of The Decagon House Murders (2015), The Moai Island Puzzle (2016), The Ginza Ghost (2017) and The 8 Mansion Murders (2018),  Locked Room International didn't have a full-length Japanese release in 2019, but last year, two of them were released: Ayukawa's classic locked room & perfect alibi story collection The Red Locked Room and Higashigawa's comedic locked room mystery Lending the Key to the Locked Room. And people who have been following these releases will probably have noticed that the summer is a time to pay attention to, so...

I'm happy to announce that Locked Room International will be releasing Masahiro IMAMURA's debut novel Death Among the Undead very soon and I am even more thrilled that I was the one to translate the work to English. Oh, and to be clear: this is the Japanese cover, the Locked Room International release will have a different cover. Originally published in 2017 as the winner of the 27th Ayukawa Tetsuya Award with the title Shijinsou no Satsujin ("The Murders in the Villa of the Dead"), it was an absolute monster hit in Japan. It became the first title in history to conquer the first place in all the major annual rankings of mystery novels organized by various publishers and has since become a multimedia franchise, with a manga adaptation and an excellent live action adaptation. Honestly, no other mystery novel in recent years managed to make such enormous waves in Japan as this novel. It became the first novel in an on-going series, with the third novel being released just a month ago in Japan. Imamura's debut work is a novel I was absolutely sure was going to be available in English sooner or later, but I couldn't have guessed I'd be the one who'd get to translate the book!

Having heard about a curious threatening note to the university's Film Club, self-proclaimed detective and notorious campus troublemaker Kyosuke Akechi and his assistant Yuzuru Hamura manages to tag along with the Film Club's summer outing, together with the mysterious Hiruko Kenzaki, who is apparently also known in some circles as a gifted detective. The trip brings them to a mountain-side pension overlooking Lake Sabea and the idea is that the members will film a short film in this nature-rich area. During their stay here, the three student-detectives try to learn more about the threats while they help the members of the Film Club with their project, but in the evening, the students are suddenly attacked by a mob of something very unlikely. The group are forced to barricade themselves inside the pension with no hope of escape from this closed circle situation as the beings try to get inside, but then one of the students is killed inside his locked room during the night: at first they suspect one of the beings killed the poor man, but they soon realize that isn't possible and that a human, ergo, one of them must've done it. But how did the murderer manage to get in and out the locked room of the victm, and more importantly, why now, while they're being attacked by those things and don't even know whether they'll survive this!?

I was late to the party myself and read Death among the Undead in 2018, but I absolutely loved it, and the series has become one of my favorite ones in recent years. Imamura managed to create an absolutely unique closed circle situation for a mystery novel and makes excellent use of the concept to present one of the most original mystery you'll read. While initially you might think the concept is more focused on suspense or perhaps even gore, and that it doesn't fit the mystery genre, you'll be surprised at how brilliantly Imamura uses non-conventional elements to create a fantastic locked room murder mystery that is still all about the fair-play, originality and logical reasoning we love about detective fiction. It's a novel you have to read, and I would have said that even if I wasn't involved with the translation (in fact, I've been fanboying about this novel on this blog ever since I first read it).

Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy Death Among the Undead as much as I originally did, or more! As mentioned on the Locked Room International website, due to circumstances there's a product page online already, but the book isn't actually available yet at this moment: I believe it's scheduled to released very soon though so keep an eye on the Locked Room International website to see when it's available for purchase. People who liked previous Japanese releases by Locked Room International will definitely love this one, but the book has a lot of appeal beyond that I think, so I hope the book will also act as a gateway work for a new reading audience to get into Japanese mystery novels! And that's it for today's service announcement. Enjoy Death Among the Undead when it's out!

14 comments :

  1. Congratulations on your latest translation! I'm extremely excited to finally be able read this (and have been refreshing the relevant pages since I saw the "this-isn't-released-yet-but-it-will-be-soon" announcement). And I'm sure that you must have chuckled a bit when I said I looked forward to this novel's "inevitable translation" on your review of the latest in the series :D

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    1. You'll understand that as long there's no official announcement from the publisher, I'm not going to open my mouth or even hint at anything I may or may not know about ^^' Anyway, I hope you'll find the wait worthwile!

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    2. I know you're not going to hint at anything, it's just a funny coincidence, is all.

      And, as with Lending the Key to the Locked Room, I have to ask, are there endnotes?

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    3. No end notes (I guess we should go for a The Ginza Ghost-esque type of book next time ;)), but there should be an introduction included this time :)

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  2. Congratulations! I've purchased all your translations, the only way to read wonderful Japanese novels. This new release will be amazing, I'm sure, and as a fan of both detective fiction and "The Walking Dead" I can be more thrilled!

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    1. Thank you! I hope you'll enjoy this book too!

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  3. I have watched the movie version and I loved it,so I'm more excited towards future publications,it's just amazing and congratulations!!

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    1. Thanks! The movie adaptation is absolutely great, but there are some key differences too, so it's definitely worth it to check the original novel too!

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  4. The way I SCREAMED when I saw this announcement. OH MY GOODNESS. You have no idea how much serotonin this has given me. Thank you so much for translating it, Ho-Ling! Happy to add a seventh translation of yours to my shelf. Seems like it was only yesterday I was hyped about Decagon's release. Time flies when you're solving mysteries. Your blog is definitely responsible for raising Western mystery fans' awareness for Death Among the Dead. You manifested its translation! Ho-Ling Wong is an icon, a legend and they are the moment. Lemme go back to refreshing the Amazon page to see if it's up for order yet. :D

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    1. Thanks! Great to hear you're looking forward to the book, and I hope you'll fanboying over the book as much as I do :D

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  5. Wow! I am so happy for both you and the mystery fans community! Thanks for your hard work. I know this book had definitely caught the attention of some English readers ever since you introduced it, and now the dream of finally having more people getting a chance to read it is coming true!

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    1. Thank you! Yeah, it's a story that every mystery fan on the world should really try out, because it shows so well why detective fiction doesn't need to be "realistic" to be fun and still fantastically plotted in a fair play manner, so I really hope people will pick it up!

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  6. I owe you my life! I am so excited! Already saw the movie, but still. Definite day one purchase.

    Any expectations regarding when/if the sequels will be getting translated, or is it too soon to say?

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    1. Thanks!

      Waaaaay too soon to tell, let's see how the first book will do first ^_^' The other books don't really have locked room murders, but they do feature (semi-)impossible situations, so that at least means that they are still the kind of books Locked Room International keeps an eye on.

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