The Broken Anchor

Night of fire 

この気持ちに勝るものなんてないけど

「Night of Fire」(Dream) 

 

Night of fire!

There is nothing that can overwhelm my feelings

"Night of Fire" (Dream)

Disclosure: I have translated novels by both Ayatsuji Yukito and Arisugawa Alice.

"Mystery Night" was a special event to commorate the 15th anniversary of the "shin honkaku" (New Orthodox) movement of mystery fiction, marked by the publication of Ayatsuji Yukito's 1987 debut novel Jukkakan no Satsujin (The Decagon House Murders). The main stars of the events were Ayatsuji Yukito and Arisugawa Alice, and as many mystery stories are set in closed circles, the event was held in one, for the event consisted of a special cruise tour. Fans of mystery fiction would be spending one night on a ship where there'd be talk shows with Ayatsuji and Arisugawa, as well as a lot of fellow mystery writers like Nikaidou Reito, Takemoto Kenji, Yamaguchu Masaya, Maya Yutaka and Norizuki Rintarou, and there'd also be an interactive murder mystery show: participants would be presented the story of a mystery writer who was murdered, and try to solve this mystery (the writing of this mystery was supervised by Ayatsuji and Arisugawa). The book Mystery Night (2003) contains a detailed report of all that happened on the ship during the event, including all the interviews and the murder game.

So this is a bit of a strange book, as this is not a novel per se. Half of the book consists of the murder play, written in screenplay format. The other half includes write-ups and reports on all the other things that happened during the event, from how people arrived on the ship to completely transcribed interviews (and even a transcribed... magic show), as well as photographs of the trip and of the belongings of the authors which had been exhibited at the show. The trip was held twice, once in October 2002, embarking from Tokyo, and once in December of the same year, embarking from Kobe: this book reports on the events on both trips. The general flow of both trips was that people could get on board in the afternoon, after which the ship would depart the harbor. After a while, guests would be shown a video that laid out the basics of the murder game they'd try to solve. They could then find panels on the ship with additional information and the clues needed to solve the murder (for example, panels with close up photographs of the crime scene). In between, there'd also be dinner, with talk panels with the authors and at a certain point, the participants would also be asked to go to either an Ayatsuji or an Arisugawa room, where they'd talk a bit and also provide an exclusive clue to solving the mystery. At the end of the evening, people could fill in a form to guess who the killer was, and the big reveal, and they'd award the person who got the answer right by picking up on all the clues. The book reminded me a lot of Ayatsuji Yukito Satsujin Jiken - Arujitachi no Yakata ("The Ayatsuji Yukito Murder Case - The House of the Owners"), which was also a screenplay-format write up of a murder mystery play in honor of Ayatsuji, accompanied by write-ups on the events around it.

The story of the murder play revolved around Katayama Kippei, an infamous mystery writer who was harshly criticized for his books that were basically plagiarized from other writers. One day, he didn't appear at an appointment, so his wife and his editor visited him in his office, which they found locked from the inside. When they got in, they found Katayama stabbed with a knife and his head resting on a few of his books (like a pillow), his body surrounded by torn pages from the books that were allegedly plagiarized. Oddly enough though, the police discovered the only key to the office in the victim's mouth, so how did the murderer escape? Among the suspects are Ayatsuji Yukito and Arisugawa Alice, as Katayama also published books titled The Hexagon House Massacre and The 64th Locked Room...

To be honest, I only picked up this book because I was interested in the murder mystery supervised by Ayatsuji and Arisugawa, as I have loved a lot of their collaborative work (on Anraku Isu Tantei and Trick X Logic). This story was only supervised by the duo though, and as a mystery story, I ended up not liking it nearly as much as I had hoped. While the backstory of the plagiarizing writer is pretty funny and meta, the actual murder plot is (of course) presented in a rather disjointed manner, with both parts with actual characters and dialogue, but also just still photographs of the evidence and things like the locked room murder element don't really come alive due to the dialogue-heavy set-up of the story, and the fact it was designed as a story where info would presented in several bursts (video/panels etc). I am not a big fan of the trick used for the locked room an sich, though some of the hints for the surrounding mystery are good. Though I guess I do very much miss the big "reveal that changes your look on how things played out" that a lot of the Ayatsuji/Arisugawa duo mysteries pull off greatly, making this one feel a bit underwhelming.

The interviews/talk shows give you some background information on how the men look back at (at the time) 15 years of shin honkaku and of course their work, but I have to admit I was not nearly as interested in the interviews as in the murder play.

The official site for this tour is still online by the way, and it looks DELICIOUSLY early 2000s Japanese website. It would fit right in in Project Hacker...

So Mystery Night is more of an interesting anecdote than something you really need to read if you're looking for Ayatsuji/Arisugawa mystery fiction. The interviews might be of more historical value, as well as the write-ups on what is actually a very unique event (can you just imagine it!? A cruise trip to celebrate a group of authors and the mystery genre!), but I wouldn't bother go looking for this book for the mystery.

Original Japanese title(s): 綾辻行人、有栖川有栖（監修）『新本格謎夜会(ミステリー・ナイト)』

番外編：The Clock House Murders Released

It is finally October 2025 and that means it's finally here! My English translation of The Clock House Murders (Tokeikan no Satsujin) by Yukito AYATSUJI was released last week by Pushkin Press. Or at least, it was released in the United Kingdom on the ninth of October. Readers in the United States have to wait until... June 2026. Sorry about that.

(And yes, I'm late with this announcement post. I was actually hoping for my own copy to arrive first before I'd make the announcement so I could make a personal picture, but it's still on its way...) 

It's been exactly a decade since I first translated The Decagon House Murders for Locked Room International back in 2015. Since then Pushkin Press has taken over the license, starting first with a revised re-release in 2021. Fortunately, they were interested in releasing more of the series and both Ayatsuji himself and Pushkin wanted me on board again, so then followed the sequel The Mill House Murders in 2023 and a third book, The Labyrinth House Murders in 2024. And now in 2025, it is time for The Clock House Murders, one of the most-praised entries in the series and also a personal favorite of mine. The book won Ayatsuji the prestigious Mystery Writers of Japan Award and it is a work I know Ayatsuji is very proud of and even since I got started again on The Mill House Murders, he'd mention how he'd want to see The Clock House Murders in English rather sooner than later. The book was originally released in 1991 and is set in the titular Clock House, a house with a huge clock tower and a floorplan designed like a clock, where a priceless collection of antique clocks are kept. Ghosts have been spotted in the neighborhood and a crew for the magazine Chaos are going ghost-hunting in the Clock House with the help of a spirit medium. The participants are locked inside the old section of the house where the collection is kept and they'll attempt to communicate with the ghost over the course of three days. However, they start getting murdered one by one, without any means to call for help from the outside world...

As I mentioned, The Clock House Murders is one of the most well-beloved entries in the series and can be kind of considered the grand "season 1 finale" of the series, as the first few books were written in quick succession, but after The Clock House Murders, Ayatsuji would slow down a lot more and also be more experimental in the directions he'd go with the series, with some entries being very different from others. The Clock House Murders is a grand cumulnation of Ayatsuji growing as a mystery author, starting with his debut with The Decagon House Murders and reaching one of his highest point with this award-winning novel. The Clock House Murders is being adapted as a live-action show for Hulu in Japan right now as a direct sequel to their earlier The Decagon House Murders adaptation by the way, with a scheduled release date of early next year.  

I myself am a big fan of the book: in a way I feel it's a more refined version of The Decagon House Murders and I really enjoyed revisiting the house while working on the translation this time. Oh, just allow me a little of bragging here: a while back I met Ayatsuji, and we're actually having a drink served in Decagon House Murders cups and on the table stood a Clock House Murders table clock. Miraculously, we all survived this meeting.

So if you liked The Decagon House Murders, The Mill House Murders and/or The Labyrinth House Murders, please pick up The Clock House Murders too. It is without a doubt one of the best works Ayatsuji wrote, and I have no doubt a lot of readers will enjoy this one. And don't remember, positive sales and reception is the most likely to ensure more translations follow (hopefully by me of course...), so it'd be great if you could pick up a copy!

Regarding the English translation of The Labyrinth House Murders

My translation of The Labyrinth House Murders (Yukito AYATSUJI) was released three weeks ago in the UK by Pushkin Press. I hope the people who have read it enjoyed it, and that those who still have to read it, will find it as entertaining as I did when I first read the work. As much as I love the original work however, there was one point in the original work that wasn't likely to work "as is" in an English translation, and after deliberation with the editor and Ayatsuji himself, it was decided I'd change part of the mystery slightly, in order to keep the fair play spirit of the original work intact for the English-language reader. However, I still want people to know what the real idea was Ayatsuji had planted in his book, so I decided to write a piece explaining about what was changed and why, and go over a few other translation-related points while I am at it.

As you probably can guess, I'll be discussing major spoilers for The Labyrinth House Murders in that piece, so you should only read it after reading the book.

You can find the page here, and I will be re-posting this announcement when the US version of the book will be released coming Spring.

番外編：The Labyrinth House Murders Released

I probably mentioned it earlier on this blog, but today's finally the day: this is the day Pushkin Press is releasing my English translation of The Labyrinth House Murders (Meirokan no Satsujin) by Yukito AYATSUJI. Or at least, in the United Kingdom, I believe the US release will follow in a few months.

While my English translation of The Decagon House Murders was released via Locked Room International back in 2015, Pushkin Press took over the license, starting first with a revised re-release in 2021, and then following up with the sequel The Mill House Murders in 2023. Fortunately, both Ayatsuji himself and Pushkin wanted me on board again for the sequel and I was glad to hear that they also had intentions of continuing the series, so that brings us to the third book in the series: The Labyrinth House Murders was originally released in 1988 and is set in a rather unique location: the titular house is a genuine underground maze inspired by the myth of the Minotaur and the home of Miyagaki Yotaro, a veteran mystery writer who has been active for decades not only as an author, but also in an editing position where he helps younger authors debut in his beloved genre. As of late however, he has decided to retire, but for his sixtieth birthday, he has decided to invite some of his closest comrades, like writers who debuted under his tutelage and an editor with whom he has worked for a long time. However, soon after everyone has arrived, a shocking death is sprung upon the guests, and they are locked inside the Labyrinth House and are asked to participate in a bizarre competition with deadly results...

The Decagon House Murders was not written as a 'series' book with obvious story hooks or anything like that, which explains why The Mill House Murders, as a sequel, could be read without any prior knowledge of the series. That also holds for The Labyrinth House Murders: while a few references are dropped about earlier cases, the tale itself can be read independently, so there's no real problem if you decide to start with this book.   

Personally, this has always been one of my favorite entries in the series, ever since I read it over a decade ago. This is in part due to the background setting: ever since I was a child, I have loved Greek mythology, so the setting of the labyrinth and rooms named after figures related to the myth of the Minotaur really appeal to me. The floorplan of the titular Labyrinth House is also much more complex than any of the maps we have seen so far: it's a genuine maze and each time you want to move from one room to another, you need to go through the maze. As you read, you'll be looking at the floorplan, and that adds a fun element, kinda like how you'd read The Lord of the Rings and check how everyone was moving while heading for Mordor. But the story itself is also fun: we have a group of genre-savvy characters gathered together, from mystery writers to a critic, an editor and a huge fan of the genre, and the plot plays a lot with that. As for the mystery, it's a really tricky one once again, that has hints hidden in more places than you'd expect.  

Translation-wise, there's something I do want to discuss in due time, but I might wait a little bit longer to get back to that, as it's not something to mention right away on release day! 

Anyway, if you liked The Decagon House Murders and/or The Mill House Murders, please read The Labyrinth House Murders too, and if not... try it anyway! In a way, it's the most "detectivey" book of the three books released until now, so I have no doubt a lot of readers will enjoy this one. And as for more translations of this series? As you can expect, positive reception is the most likely to ensure more translations follow (hopefully by me of course), so it'd be great if you'd pick the book!

Ghost of the Dusk

"They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."

"Eleonora"

Disclosure: I translated Ayatsuji Yukito's The Decagon House Murders and The Mill House Murders. And yes, The Labyrinth House Murders is on its way!

Shouji seldom returned to his home town of Kurisu after he moved out to attend high school first and now university but when he returns to his apartment after a trip, his voice mail is full of messages by his mother telling his brother Shinichi died in an accident, urging him to come back. While he's already two weeks late, he of course travels back to the city that doesn't quite feel like his own home anymore. On his way to his parental home, the gossiping taxi driver mentions that some person recently committed suicide around here, and Shouji soon realizes the taxi driver was talking about his brother. His parents however insist it was an accident of his brother falling from the balcony while drunk. Shouji realizes his parents, who run a hospital and have powerful connections, may have reasons to make their son's death an unfortunate accident, rather than a chosen death and could've put pressure on the police to wrap the investigation up swiftly, but Shouji soon suspects his brother might not have died in an accident, or by suicide. Urabe, Shinichi's old tutor and friend, shares Shouji's suspicions, and they soon find indications something had been worrying Shinichi: someone had been calling him on the phone in the middle of the night, saying phrases like "Let's play..." and "You laughed...". These phrases slowly remind Shouji of something, an event that happened when he was very young, when he was playing with Shinichi and his friends in the twilight. While Shouji starts to remember the past as it slowly whispers to him, other childhood friends of Shinichi also die in what are very clearly murder cases. Why are these old friends being killed off, and who shall the last victim be? 

Tasogare no Sasayaki (1993) or as the cover also says Whispering in the Twilight, is the third and final book in the Whispering series by Ayatsuji Yukito. The idea behind the first book, Hiiro no Sasayaki ("The Scarlet Whispering" 1988) was that Ayatsuji was thinking of fanning out to genres beyond the pure puzzle plot detective of his House series after writing the first three books in that series. The result was a slasher mystery that was greatly influenced by the famous Dario Argento giallo film Suspiria, but with a twist that reminded you that Ayatsuji was of course a mystery foremost. I generally don't read horror novels or watch horror films (sometimes manga) and while Hiiro no Sasayaki was certainly not a pure puzzler like the House books, it was an okay, even if not super remarkable, horror novel, and as both the series and the books are fairly short, I was always planning to read all of them. The books are not directly connected: in Tasogare no Sasayaki for example, we hear Shouji's family is very distantly related to the Munakata family which runs the girls' academy in the first book, but that's the most "connected" these books get in terms of story. What these books do share, are the titular whisperings: the main characters in each of the three books hear "whisperings from the past" as they very slowly start to remember some traumatic event that happened in their past that they have surpressed, first starting with "whispers" of single words, that slowly become phrases and eventually become whole flashbacks, and of course these events are always related to the murders that occur in each book.

Of the three books in the series though, this book feels the most like a conventional mystery story. Perhaps it's because this book is set in a city, rather than the creepy closed community that was the Seishin Girls Academy, or a large forest in a resort town. While the death of Shinichi is officially deemed an accident, the prologue reveals that Shinichi was in fact attacked by the murderer and that Shinichi, in an attempt to defend himself, fell off his balcony, so we know there's an actual murderer roaming around, but why is the killer after Shinichi and his other friends? Some clues, like an old coin left at the crime scene and the weird phrases mentioned on the phone serve as the only clue, as well as Shouji's vague memories of something that occured that ties the coin and those phrases with Shinichi and his friends.

That does make this book, if you want to read it solely as a detective novel, very... passive. While Urabe and Shouji try to learn more from Shinichi's childhood friends, they remain silent, so a lot of the book basically depends on Shouji slowly remembering what happened when they were young. A lot of their detecting work is really only necessary because Shouji can't remember exactly what happened, even though he knows he was there. His "whisperings from the past" start out as very vague images, and slowly become cleare. This wouldn't be a horror novel if his memories didn't start to return properly only at the very end of the book, but that's a story-telling technique that is probably easier to accept in a horror novel (because the horror is derived from the fact Shouji can't remember yet), but in a detective novel, this device feels cheap because Shouji is holding vital clues but simply can't remember because of narrative reasons, rather than them not being able to interpret clues or make correct deductions. 

As an entry in a horror series though, the focus this time is less pronounced on that aspect, which is why it does feel more like a normal detective novel: the death scenes are not as graphic and horrible like in the first book, nor do you have things like the super creepy twins trope (technically, they weren't twins) of the second book, It's basically just a murderer going around killing people in a city, and Urabe and Shouji trying to figure out why and who. Like in the previous two books however, there is a 'big' twist  near the end that makes you realize you had been looking at the facts in the wrong way and that the truth had been staring you in the face all that time: I absolutely love the big one in this book: it is a bit silly, but it works in this book (especially with the plot device of Shouji only having vague memories at first and the whisperings from the past), and it is surprisingly well hinted at, while also providing great misdirection at the same time. It is a twist that would fly just as well in a proper puzzle plot mystery, which is probably why I think Tasogare no Sasayaki is the most detective-y of the three books. The way events then unfold after this twist is a bit hasty and clearly done in a more horror-storytelling mode than a detective-mode, but on the whole it was a fun read. Like the previous two books, this book is also directly inspired by a horror film, though Ayatsuji refrains from mentioning the film explicitly in the afterword of this book, because apparently it would spoil the twist of the book itself, and it's a "if you know, you know" film.

The Whispering novels are definitely closer to horror-thriller novels than the puzzle plot mysteries of Ayatsuji's own House series, and Tasogare no Sasayaki is no exception to that. While it is closer to a conventional detective novel, it is still very much rooted in the thriller mode, even if it has a fun, surprising twist at the end that would've fitted perfectly in any mystery novel. Overall, I don't think the Whispering series is a must-read, but they are very easy to read and quite short, so I have found them fun to read as a palate cleanser between the more traditional mystery novels I usually read. The first book, Hiiro no Sasayaki is probably the "tropiest" of the three, but I think I liked it the best as a slasher mystery, while Tasogare no Sasayaki is probably the best mystery-thriller of the trio.

Original Japanese title(s): 綾辻行人『黄昏の囁き』

番外編：The Mill House Murders Released

Back in November, I announced Pushkin Press would be publishing my translation of AYATSUJI Yukito's The Mill House House Murders, at the time with a scheduled release date of late February. Sorry for the wait, as the release was eventually pushed back a month to March. Now!

Two years ago, Pushkin Press re-released The Decagon House Murders, a slightly brushed-up version of the translation I originally made for Locked Room International in 2015.  Fortunately, the re-release seems to have been received well, leading to plans to release the follow-up novel and I am also happy both author Ayatsuji and Pushkin Press wanted me on board again. The Mill House Murders was originally published in Japan as Suishakan no Satsujin in 1988, set once again in an architectural creation by the architect Seiji Nakamura, and yes, people die there. The Mill House is a castle-like structure, home of a wealthy recluse with a unique art collection, and his beautiful young wife. One year before the present, a horrible murder case happened at the Mill House while a small party of guests were visiting visited the house to view the art collection. Exactly one year later, most of the same people have once again gathered at the Mill House, and that is of course the go sign for more mysterious happenings that build towards a surprising conclusion.

The Mill House Murders is the second book in Ayatsuji's long-running series featuring Nakamura's buildings and he recently got started on the tenth book. This second volume can be read seperate from The Decagon House Murders, as basically the only spoiler is the series detective, but of course, those who have read the first book will get some of the minor references and call-backs. People who liked the first book will find a lot to love in The Mill House Murders, as the reader will once again explore an unsettling, closed-off location where curious, bloody murders occur and a surprising conclusion waiting at the end. The Mill House Murders is also a transitional book: The Decagon House Murders was written as a standalone book, inspired by Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, but its success led to it being turned into a series, and this book does feel like it opens up the world a bit, marking the transition to a series.

One personal memory I have of this book I already mentioned in my review of the Japanese book. I originally obtained a used copy of this book, and near the end, before the final chapter, I found a receipt stuck between the pages. At first I thought it was just something left accidentally there by the previous owner and missed by the employees of the used book shop, but when I turned it around, I found it had a message for me, the new owner: it was a Challenge to the Reader, from A Reader. The note mentions that the murderer would be revealed in the next part, and challenged the reader to try to solve it themselves first before reading the final chapter. It was such a fun, unique present of the previous owner and I still have the note.

Pushkin is based in the UK, which means The Mill House Murders is out this week there, with a US release scheduled for I believe in May. Anyway, if you liked The Decagon House Murders, please try The Mill House Murders too and if not.... try both? The Decagon House Murders was the first novel I got to work on, and when I first started this blog, I of course never had imagined I would be translating all those books I was writing about, so I'm more than thrilled I was able to also work on The Mill House Murders. And as for more books in this series? I guess positive reception is the most likely to ensure more translations follow (hopefully by me, haha), so it'd be great if you'd pick the book if you happen to be looking for a fun mystery novel.

番外編：The Mill House Murders

Better make an announcement in advance, before I am too late...

Two years ago, Pushkin Press re-released The Decagon House Murders, a slightly brushed-up version of the translation I originally made for Locked Room International in 2015. 1987's The Decagon House Murders is of course historically an important work, as it was Yukito AYATSUJI's debut novel was also the first novel in the so-called shin honkaku (new orthodox) movement in Japan, which was a call for authors and reader to return to intelligent puzzle plot mysteries. Readers of the blog are very likely to be interested in shin honkaku fiction and hopefully, they have read some of the other shin honkaku novels I have translated like Death of the Living Dead, Death Among the Undead and The Moai Island Puzzle. But I think most people can also understand me when I say I consider The Decagon House Murders also a work important to me personally: it was the full first full novel I translated and it was the positive reception that has since allowed me to translate more Japanese mystery novels. The Dirda piece in the Washington Post back in 2015 must have been one of the first mainstream publications to use the word honkaku and it's been very interesting to see that word develop since in the English-language word. The more recent release by Pushkin Press of The Decagon House Murders gave the book renewed attention worldwide too, so it was great to see the book mentioned and referenced more and more as time passed by.

I believe this has been officially announced by Pushkin Press already, or at least, you can already find entries for the book and pre-order it at all the big bookstores, so some might be aware already, but Pushkin Press will be releasing the sequel to The Decagon House Murders next year. The Mill House Murders was originally published in Japan as Suishakan no Satsujin in 1988, and once again features a classically-styled tale of murder and mystery. The English translation is scheduled for a February 23rd, 2023 release and I am happy to say that author Ayatsuji and Pushkin Press wanted me on this project again, so yes I reprising my role as the translator for this second novel featuring an architectural creation by the architect Seiji Nakamura, and of course something bad is going to happen in the titular house. The Mill House is a castle-like structure with three gigantic water wheels that power the building. It is the home of a recluse and his beautiful young wife. One year before the present, a horrible murder case happened here while a small party of guests visited the house to view an exclusive, prviate collection of paintings on display here. Exactly one year later, most of the same people have once again gathered at the Mill House, but perhaps they should have known that would be tempting fate, and indeed, new deaths occur at this creepy house...

I know a lot of readers were curious to the further adventures revolving around the buildings created by Nakamura after reading The Decagon House Murders, either back in 2015 or more recently with the Pushkin Press release, so it's great to be able to say their wishes will come true soon. People who liked the first book will find a lot to love here, as we once again explore an unsettling, closed-off location where curious, bloody murders occur and where a surprising solution awaits at the end. At the same time, I'd say this is also a transitional book: The Decagon House Murders was of course written as a standalone book, inspired by Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, but this book does feel like it opens up a bit, marking the transition to a series and upon hindsight, it's an interesting book to look at as a "link" between The Decagon House Murders and the books that would follow later. I read the book back in 2012, and if you're curious to my thoughts, you can find them here, or you could just wait and read the book first in a few months and then come back to check. By the way, Ayatsuji has recently announced he's finally getting started on the tenth novel in the series, and he announced the title last week...

Anyway, I could probably write more about this book, but I better save that for when we're closer to the actual release of the book in a few months! If you haven't read The Decagon House Murders yet, you still have plenty of time to read that one and be ready for the sequel, and otherwise, there might be some other translated honkaku novels out there to read while we wait for The Mill House Murders to arrive in stores, right?

The Adventure of the House of Darkness

Deep into that darkness peering

"The Raven"

Started with the Answer chapters of Higurashi: When They Cry! First one up is Meakashi, and it appears I was on the right track! Added my thoughts/inferences about that episode (and previous episodes) to the memo page for my playthrough of Higurashi: When They Cry. I'll have to do a few console-exclusive chapters first before moving on with the original Answer chapters though...

Man, the covers of these rereleases are really gorgeous!

Disclosure: I translated Ayatsuji Yukito's The Decagon House Murders.

It is a four hour drive from Tokyo to reach Usakino, a location deep within the luscious green mountains that's perfect for recreation... or at least, that's what project developers and investors had hoped for, but things didn't quite go as planned and in the decade or so that has passed since everybody realized this wasn't going to be a hit, nature has not troubled by tourists very much. One of the people who got burned by the project falling through was by the uncle of Yuuki Takuya, who bought a second home here with the expectation that the location would be developed further, but now he just has a house in the middle of nowhere. Takuya, a university student, asks his uncle if he could use the small house during summer, as he has to read and translate a German book for his thesis, and the house would be ideal to force himself to focus on his project. On the day Takuya is driving to the house, his car accidentally lightly hits a boy who came running out of the woods onto the road. The young boy, around ten years old, is soon followed by another boy who is not only about the same age, but looks very similar. Takuya learns that the two handsome boys are Enjouji Mado and Miya, two brothers who are in fact not twins. They live in the Enjouji Manor, basically Takuya's neighbor (even if it's a modest walk from one house to the another through the forest) and are living there with their mother, their aunt and a tutor during summer. Takuya drives the boys back to their home, where he meets their father, a very strict man who seems to have forgotten that boys should enjoy their time as boys, before becoming adults, Takuya also meets with Haruka, the boys' tutor and a nurse-in-training, who takes care of the mother. The following day, Takuya is visited by Haruka, who confides with him that she's actually here with an ulterior reason: her friend had been the previous tutor of the boys here, but she died in some freak accident in the forest, but strangely enough her hair had been cut short. Haruka thinks something's wrong about the Enjouji Manor, which Takuya also feels: the boys, who seem to have grown to like the newcomer, are very secretive, but seem to have been meeting with someone in the forest before they got in the accident. Takuya agrees to support Haruka during his stay here and go poking around himself too, but then new deaths occur in the forest, and it appears that Mado and Miya are found at the center of things in Ayatsuji Yukito's Kurayami no Sasayaki (1989), which also has the English title Whispering in the Dark on the cover.

Kurayami no Sasayaki is the second book in the Whispering series, which Ayatsuji started after writing the first three books in his House series that started with 1987's The Decagon House Murders. The concept behind the series was that Ayatsuji wanted to fan out, so these books are actually more horror than detective, Nowadays, Ayatsuji is known for both his mystery and horror novels, and he has also written a few hybrids, of which Another is undoubtedly the best known worldwide. But his first published steps into the horror genre are found here. Last year, I read the first book in this series, Hiiro no Sasayaki ("The Scarlet Whispering" 1988), a slasher mystery that was greatly influenced by the famous Dario Argento giallo film Suspiria. But while the focus in that novel definitely lay on the gruesome murders and the suspense arising from those murders, there was also an okay whodunnit mystery plot there and while as a detective novel, Hiiro no Sasayaki wasn't going to blow your mind like an axe to your head, I found it an amusing read and I wrote in my review that I enjoyed it as a palate cleanser, and that I'd probably read the other two books in the series too.

I mentioned in the other review that I am not a fan of the horror genre per se: I do read horror manga once in a while, mostly thr work of Umezu Kazuo and Itou Junji (not the most original choices, but they're really good!!), but I don't watch slasher or horror films at all for example. I am of course familiar with horror (film) tropes of course through other media, and many mystery novels do often incorporate horror elements. So even I managed to recognize the "creepy twins" trope in Kurayami no Sasayaki, even if Mado and Miya aren't really twins. But they are described as being rather handsome for their age, and that coupled with their otherwordliness due to their isolated upbringing within the Enjouji clan and the fact they keep mostly to themselves, it's clear that the two brothers aren't quite normal, giving the reader (and Takuya and Haruka) a distinct feeling of uneasiness. And the fact creepy, often gruesome murders around these boys probably doesn't help either. For the faint of heart: the murders in Kurayami no Sasayaki are on the whole not as bloody as in Hiiro no Sasayaki, but the plot device of the murders in this book is definitely not to function as a focal point in an investigation, but to function as suspenseful plot devices, so the descriptions are written in a way to get some visceral reactions.

Oh, and about gorey murders, the books in the Whispering series aren't really connected save for the theme (so no characters carrying over, or at least, not in the first two books), but apparently, this book is connected to another horror novel by Ayatsuji, Satsujinki. I haven't read that one, and I also don't know exactly how "tight" the connection is, but apparently events described in the prologue of Kurayami no Sasayaki are worked out in more detail in Satsujinki. So if you have read that book already, it might be worth it to take a look at this book too.

But the most important thing to write about on this blog is of course: can Kurayami no Sasayaki also be read as a detective novel? Just like Hiiro no Sasayaki, the book does take on the format of a mystery story most of the time despite the focus on the horror elements: we learn early on in the book that Haruka is investigating the death of her friend, and the reader also learns that other mysterious deaths have occured in this region, all with a common, yet unexplicable link: for some reason all the bodies had some part of them removed, like their hair. Takuya too knows there's something the boys are hiding from the adults, but breaking their defenses is rather hard, as Mado and Miya do seem very intent on keeping their secret a secret. Ultimately though, you won't find a detective character summing up all the clues and logically proving who the murderer was by combining fact A, B and C and overturning that one perfect alibi. Like Hiiro no Sasayaki however, there is a twist somewhere in the book that makes you realize you had been looking at the facts in the wrong way and that the truth had been staring you in the face all that time, but I'd argue that the twist, seen solely as a "mystery plot twist" was better in Hiiro no Sasayaki, compared to its sequel. Kurayami no Sasayaki, when read as a mystery novel, feels not as fair as the first novel, nor is the clewing as good. There's no way you're going to figure out why the bodily parts have been removed for example, you just have to accept the explanation because it's basically impossible to deduce the truth based on the clues you get. The "big" twist is better, but still feels not as fair in set-up as the one in Hiiro no Sasayaki.

Overall though, I think that if you liked Hiiro no Sasayaki, you'll like Kurayami no Sasayaki too. Like the first entry, a lot of the horror touches of this second novel will feel familiar, purposely so, invoking familiar tropes from horror films. The plot is designed as a mix of these horror films, with some of the plotting and twists we know from Ayatsuji's work and in that sense, I'd say Kurayami no Sasayaki is definitely recognizable as one of his creations. I do think the first one was better if read with a mystery cap on, but I'm still interested enough to also want to pick up the last volume in the series in due time.

Original Japanese title(s): 綾辻行人『暗闇の囁き』

The Secret of the Scarlet Hand

"That’s the result of all our Study in Scarlet: to get them a testimonial!"

"A Study in Scarlet"

The book of today has a gorgeous cover! This is the cover for the 2020 revised pocket version by the way.

Disclosure: I translated Ayatsuji Yukito's The Decagon House Murders.

Saeko's life changed the day she learned her parents who brought her up, weren't her real parents. As long as she could remember, she had always been Izumi Saeko, so it was a shock to hear that she was born Munakata Saeko, and that after an incident that took her parents and her sister's lives when she was still little, she was raised by the Izumis. The Munakata clan is an influential family in the city of Aizato, about two hours away by train from Tokyo, but there are few living members left: only Saeko's grandfather and her (childlesss) aunt Chiyo, which is why Saeko is now brought back to the Munakatas as the heir. As per family tradition, Munakata Chiyo is the current director of the Seishin Girls Academy, a prestigious boarding school that has prepared the girls in the upper-class society for their future duties for generations. As the heir of the Munakatas, Saeko too is of course required by her aunt to enroll in Seishin, but the moment Saeko arrives there she's having regrets. Unlike her old school, Seishin Girls Academy is located in the middle of nowhere, with gates keeping outsiders out and all the sudents inside. Saeko also quickly learns that life here is nothing at all like the free life she had always enjoyed: there are strict rules about how to behave, what to wear and what they can own and as a transfer student suddenly arriving in this new environment, she quickly also realizes there's a distinct hierarchy among her fellow students, with the 'madonna' Aya at the absolute top. Everyone here seems to have adapted completely to the strict life here, which makes Saeko feel quite uneasy. Saeko's roommate Kei on the other hand doesn't seem to fit in quite well with the other students, but to Saeko, Kei seems one of the few normal girls here. For some reason however Kei refers to herself as a Witch. With Kei as her roommate, Saeko seems to think she might make it through her time here, but only one day later, Kei is found dead in a special room in the dormitory whcih is usually kept locked: thirty-five years ago, a wealthy student of the academy stayed in this extra spacious room, and she too claimed she was a witch. But one night, she committed suicide in the bathroom and the room has remained sealed since, fueling rumors among the students. Kei too was found burned alive in the bathroom of the sealed room, like a witch. This event is of course enough to greatly disturb Saeko, but she's given no time to recover as more and more murders occur on the grounds of the Seishin Girls Academy. Due to her period, Saeko's also been feeling unwell lately, sometimes passing out or even losing memory of what she was doing moments before, and that's not helpful as the other students slowly start to suspect the new transfer student of the murders in Ayatsuji Yukito's horror mystery novel Hiiro no Sasayaki ("The Scarlet Whispering" 1988).

After writing the first three novels in his House/Yakata series, Ayatsuji decided to try his hand at a different genre for the first time, resulting in Hiiro no Sasayaki in 1988, a book that is more focused on horror than on mystery (though there's a mystery plot there). Nowadays, Ayatsuji is also known for his horror novels, and the horror mystery Another is arguably his best known work across the world due to its various adaptations, but Hiiro no Sasayaki is when he first fused the horror genre with a mystery plot. I'm personally not a real horror fan by the way: I don't watch horror movies at all for example, nor do I really play horror games (soooometimes I play horror sound novels). I do like reading horror manga once in a while, like by Umezu Kazuo and Itou Junji (yeah, those are not really original choices), but that's about it with me and horror. Despite that though, I didn't need the dediction in this book to Dario Argento to realize the main inspiration for Hiiro no Sasayaki, for even though I haven't even seen the movie, it was clear that this slasher horror mystery set in a closed-off girls academy and talk about witches was greatly influenced by the famous giallo film Suspiria.

 Oh, and to go off a minor tangent. I recently read the manga 13-gatsu no Higeki ("The Tragedy of the 13th Month") by Miuchi Suzue, the shojo manga giant best known for Glass Mask. This manga too is about a young girl suddenly being sent to a girls boarding school, slasher murders and a witch cult. I read this manga soon after Hiiro no Sasayaki, so I obviously assumed the same inspiration source, so imagine how surprised I looked when I learned that 13-gatsu no Higeki actually predates Suspiria by several years!

So Hiiro no Sasayaki takes strongly after slasher horror films. It has a creepy atmosphere throughout, with almost doll-like female students who under the burden of the strict school rules and a kind of caste system, all seem to resemble each other in an attempt to "not stand out", people hiding secret pasts from Saeko, gruesome murders that happen across the school (each murder is portrayed from the POV of the victim) and a Saeko who is suspected as the murderer not only by her fellow students, but Saeko even has doubts about herself as she keeps having these moments where she just blanks out and finds herself waking up somewhere hours later. And of course, usually a murder occurs during those moments. The book provides a thrilling, speedy read that follows the familiar horror film tropes and as the story develops, things start to escalate even further until it reaches the haunting climax.

But, I hear you asking, is it a mystery story? For I don't have the habit of discussing non-mystery stories here. It's a surprisingly difficult question. Hiiro no Sasayaki's focus definitely lies on the slasher horror plot, but there is a mystery plot beneath all the blood. Part of the story revolves around Saeko (and an ally) trying to figure out what really happened to Kei in the bathroom and the subsequent murders and while the climax doesn't really have a "here we have clue X, clue Y and clue Z, and that's why A is the murderer" scene, it does have that moment so typical of Ayatsuji's plotting where previous parts of the book suddenly take on a completely different meaning and you see the whole book was plotted and written in a way that was probably cleverer than you had first expected. I think that if you start reading this after the House/Yakata series, the difficulty level is fairly low and you'll be able to make an educated guess as to the final revelations regarding the killer, but if you were just expecting a bloody slasher, you might be pleasantly surprised by what the book has in store. Still, don't be mistaken, you'd best read this book as a horror story, that also uses mystery genre writing conventions to give the reader the 'shock ending' we all expect from a horror movie, and you shouldn't expect a mystery story with people calling themselves Ellery, Carr and Agatha talking about the limitations of the genre here.

As a palate cleanser, I did enjoy reading Hiiro no Sasayaki though. It's not a genuinely surprising horror mystery story, but it reads incredibly smoothly and as a horror slasher, it basically gave me what I'd expect of the genre, plus some minor elements that make it recognizable as specifically an Ayatsuji work. There are two other books in this series and while I won't be binging them, I expect I'll return to this series in the future anyway.

Original Japanese title(s): 綾辻行人『緋色の囁き』

番外編： The Decagon House Murders Released Once More, with Feeling

Five years ago, Locked Room International released The Decagon House Murders, my translation of Ayatsuji's monumental 1987 novel Jukkakukan no Satsujin, about the members of a university mystery club who plan a visit on an abandoned island, only to be killed by a mysterious killer one after another. It would be the first novel of the so-called shin honkaku (new orthodox) movement in Japan, which was a call for authors and reader to return to intelligent puzzle plot mysteries. Many writers would follow in the wake of The Decagon House Murders, making it one of the most important novels in recent detective fiction history in Japan. The release of the English-language version of The Decagon House Murders was of course a personal milestone, but putting it in the wider context, for many it was probably also their first steps into shin honkaku, and since then, I've been fortunate enough to be able to work with Locked Room International to bring more Japanese mystery fiction to the English-language world (In case you missed it, take a look at The Red Locked Room!). Since its release, The Decagon House Murders has seen some interesting and positive reviews. Personally, I have to admit that the Dirda piece in the Washington Post back in 2015 still made the most impression on me, especially as it really helped the word honkaku spread.

For some time now, Pushkin Press has been publishing Japanese mystery fiction, with prominent writers like Shimada and Yokomizo seeing both new translations, but also re-releases of older translations that had gone out of print. Some of the readers may have been aware of this already, but Pushin Press required the rights for The Decagon House Murders some time ago. And now their version's out! At least, I believe the e-book is available right now, while the physical book will follow in only a few weeks. It's a re-release, but the text has been brushed up by the new editors, and some help from myself of course and it's got a nifty new cover. Seriously, Pushkin has been hitting home-runs with these covers, and the first I was contacted over this new release, I couldn't help but be utterly excited about what kind of cover it would get!

Pushkin Press is based in the UK, so the e-book is out now and the physical release follows in the first week of December, while I think the US release is scheduled for next year, though that's kinda a moot point since you can just order anything from internet nowadays... Anyway, if you were still wondering about gifts for the holiday season, or just something to read yourself in the upcoming darker months, why not The Decagon House Murders?

Bear Witness to Murder

Three little Soldier Boys walking in the zoo;

A big bear hugged one and then there were two.

Disclosure: I translated novels by both Arisugawa Alice (The Moai Island Puzzle) and Ayatsuji Yukito (The Decagon House Murders). And in case you're still looking for Christmas presents...

I don't plan to find me some Christmas mystery stories when the season approaches, but coincidences do happen, resulting in today's review. Anraku Isu Tantei ("The Armchair Detective") was a brilliant television drama series created by mystery writers Ayatsuji Yukito and Arisugawa Alice, produced irregularly between 1999-2017. Earlier, I have discussed the episodes ON AIR (2006) and ON STAGE (2017), with the latter later being confirmed by co-creator Ayatsuji as being the last episode of this series, at least in the usual format. If one considers the detective genre to be an intellectual game that challenges the reader (viewer) to solve the mystery themselves, than this show was the ultimate example of how to present a mystery drama as a game. Each story consists of two episodes: the first episode introduces the viewer to all the characters, the events leading up to the murder and the subsequent investigation. All the hints and clues necessary to solve the crime are shown in this first episode, while the solution is revealed in the second episode broadcast the following week. Sounds like common sense of course, but this point was of particular essence for this show, as viewers were encouraged to write in that week with the answers to the following two questions: 1) Who is the murderer? and more importantly: 2) What is the logical process by which you arrived at that conclusion? The winner, drawn from the people who submitted the correct answers, was presented with a sizeable money prize.  The show thus provided the ultimate challenge to the armchair detectives at home and one of the more impressive parts of the show was how it had to walk the line between being difficult enough that not everyone would arrive at the correct conclusion, along the correct route, but not being overly complex so nobody could guess who the murderer was in a logical manner.

Anraku Isu Tantei no Seiya ~ Kieta Teddy Bear no Nazo ~ ("The Holy Night of the Armchair Detective ~ The Mystery of the Vanished Teddy Bear~", 2000) was the third installment of this show, the first episode broadcast on December 21 and the solution episode following soon after on Christmas. We are introduced on Christmas Eve to Kumako, a young woman who recently found a new job, but her boyfriend sadly enough can't see her on Eve, so they plan a date for the twenty-sixth. The twenty-sixth is also the first day of Kumako working at NATO (Nihon Action Team Office), a small scale stunt action series production team, which recently got a small hit with the television tokusatsu series Athlete 4. It's also the last office day for the year, so everyone is present at the office. Kumako is introduced to all the staff and actors, but she soon learns her new workplace is also a den of intrige and hate, with love triangles, post-divorce fights and rumors of embezzlement flying around. In the evening, Kumako waits for her boyfriend in a restaurant, but she's stood up and she only comes home after a lot of drinking. At home, she finds an e-mail waiting for her by Norie, her new colleague who plays Athlete Purple in Athlete 4. To her surprise, Norie says she killed the boss of NATO at the office and that she'll commit suicide too. By the time Kumako had reported this to the police, it's already to late: NATO's owner Inoue was found with his head bashed in with his own golf club at the office, while Norie set fire to herself at her own home. The police however determine that Norie did not commit suicide, but that she was already dead by the time the fire was started. It thus appears someone else must've killed Inoue en Norie, and the main suspect is a suspicious figure spotted by the guards of the building that houses the NATO offices. The two men saw a figure dressed like Santa Claus carrying a large sack on his back leave the building that night, only moments after the Inoue murder must've happened. The Santa Claus costume was stolen from NATO's costume wardrobe, but there's another missing object: the rare, large teddy bear Inoue kept as a memento in his office. But why would the murderer steal a teddy bear or dress up like Santa Claus? Eventually, even Kumako is accused of the murder by the police, which is when she decides to use the magical flute she was gifted a few days ago, of which she was told it would save her from danger. The flute is of course the item that summons the titular Armchair Detective, a mysterious entity who is ratiocination personified and who can prove without any doubt who is in fact the true murderer.

The show was conceived as a puzzle plot mystery drama where the reader could participate, so to start off with some statistics: the television station received 36,731 (!) entries for this particular installment, the highest amount of participants in the history of the series. 21.5 percent of the respondents guessed the identity of the murderer correctly, but only forty respondants, or mere 0.1 percent, actually got the process right of correctly identifying the murderer/eliminating the other suspect. The numbers will thus tell you it was pretty hard to get all of the story right. I have seen most of the episodes of this series now, and I thought this was one of the easier episodes actually (it was), but getting full marks would've been difficult.

Because as always Ayatsuji and Arisugawa came up with a deliciously tricky story. The second episode starts off with every major character in the story being transported to the dimension of the Armchair Detective, who then goes through the long chains of deduction that lead to the identity of the murderer. The tone here is rather comedic, with each character trying to argue why they aren't the murderer. There are a few meta-rules here that help the viewer out: there is always only one culprit (no accomplices), everything shown on screen (including the time stamps) is correct and nobody besides the murderer lies intentionally. Still, you need to pay attention very well to keep up with the Armchair Detective while he eliminates the suspects one by one and crosses off false solutions. I mean, how many detective shows do you know that spend between thirty minutes and an hour purely to the explanation of a crime? In order to solve the crime yourself, you need to reference the time stamps of each scene and sometimes check the backgrounds very carefully for hidden clues. In some episodes, the zoom-and-enhance trope can be rather persnickety (and kinda unfair in pre-HD TV broadcasts), but it's done fairly err, fair here. As mentioned, this show has to be both difficult, and also fair enough for the viewer at home (anyone can come up with an unsolvable mystery), and I think this episode is definitely one of the better efforts. It helps this show isn't about locked room murders etc., as they are harder to present in a truly fair manner. You can show a thread and needle on the screen, but it's not really fair to expect from the viewer to imagine what could've done with that. This show is about eliminating suspects, so you have to determine what the murderer must have done or known, and then see which of the suspects does or does not fit that profile. You'll definitely have to rewatch scenes a few times to get it though, and unless you have photographic memory, it's impossible to solve this in one go. There are a few scenes in the first episode that do stand out as being obviously 'oh, this scene is used to prove that this character couldn't have done this or that' but this doesn't hurt the experience, because you still need the context of the murder to understand how this becomes revelant in the elimination process.

In this case, the mystery revolves around two questions: Why the Santa Claus dress-up, and why steal a gigantic teddy bear after committing a murder? At first, the problem seems so trivial and also meaningless, but when the whole solution is presented, you'll see how neatly everything fits, and how all the odd movements of the culprit actually made perfect sense considering the situation. The problem of the teddy bear in particular is great, with a convincing reason as for why it had been spirited away from the office, one that seems so obvious in hindsight. The misdirection is quite clever, and while I kinda knew which characters I could already eliminate based on some of the scenes, I still couldn't make out exactly how the teddy bear was involved, so I was pleasantly surprised when it was all explained to me.

Anraku Isu Tantei no Seiya ~ Kieta Teddy Bear no Nazo ~ is in general a strong installment in this series, and while I'll be the first to admit that this series can be very fussy about its visual clues, I'd say this was actually one of the entries that didn't expect everyone in 2000 to have HD recorders to be able to solve the mystery. Some of the scenes do telegraph themselves too obviously as being clues, but overall, the mystery of the disappearing teddy bear is an amusing one, resulting in a very well-constructed mystery drama show that also does its job well as a Christmas-themed mystery.

Original Japanese title(s): 『安楽椅子探偵の聖夜 〜消えたテディ・ベアの謎〜』

The Quest of the Missing Map

Convenient for reading this post: a post on glasses in mystery fiction.

Don't you just get excited when you open a mystery novel and you discover there are floorplans or other diagrams inside? There's just something romantic about a visual depiction of the setting of a story. In some stories, having a clearly drawn map might be necessary in order for you to solve the mystery, while in other stories, the map is merely there to assist the text, just to make things a bit more clear and perhaps to add a bit of flavor. And as I've also mentioned in my reviews of novels like Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken and Murder Among the Angells, settings like houses, mansions or castles can also act as a character on their own in mystery stories, and floorplans really help giving life to these sinister settings.

For this short post, I wanted to show a couple of floorplans that made an impression on me. I won't be talking about them too much, as in some cases one can even figure out something important by looking at these diagrams if you know what to look for, but I think that no matter what, these floorplans just look impressive.

Ayatsuji Yukito - Meirokan no Satsujin ("The Labyrinth House Murders", 1988)

The title basically says it all. After his debut novel The Decagon House Murders, Ayatsuji continued with this series featuring the creations of the architect Nakamura Seiji and this third novel features an underground 'house' designed after the Labyrinth of the Minotaur, and the building is absolutely insane.

Shimada Souji - Naname Yashiki no Hanzai ("The Crime at the Slanted Mansion", 1982)

The second novel in Shimada's Mitarai Kiyoshi series has an interesting diagram, as it's drawn with depth. Floorplans with perspective aren't really common actually, and I really like how this house looks with the tower.

Nakai Hideo - Kyomu he no Kumotsu ("Offerings to Nothingness", 1964)

These floorplans are a bit smaller in scale compared to the previous ones, but I love the hand-drawn feeling of these plans. Kyomu he no Kumotsu is an infamous anti-mystery novel where the protagonist detectives try to figure out how a murder was committed even though there's no proof it's a murder and they just want it to be a murder because it's more fun and they hope more murders happen. These plans of course help them with their deductions.

Ayatsuji Yukito - Kirigoetei Satsujin Jiken ("The Kirigoe Mansion Murder Case", 1990)

Another novel by Ayatsuji. Technically, Kirigoetei Satsujin Jiken isn't part of Ayatsuji's House series, though the connection is heavily hinted at and the floorplan certainly seems similar in its complexity. This one is remarkable because of its sheer size, and this is just the ground floor!

Nikaidou Reito -  Jinroujou no Kyoufu - France (" La Terreur Château du Loup-garou La Second Partie: France, 1997)

Jinroujou no Kyoufu is a mammoth of an impossible crime mystery, consisting of four volumes of 600~800 pages each. These 8(!) floorplans are of the Blue Wolf Castle, which lies in France. A serises of horrible murders and other gruesome crimes happen in this gigantic castle, but what makes this a true terrifying experience is that this just half of the mystery: the Blue Wolf Castle is just one half of a set of twin castles, and another series of murders happen in the Silver Wolf Castle, just across the border in Germany. The Silver Wolf Castle has the exact same layout as the Blue Wolf Castle, but the happenings that occur in these two castles is just amazing, and one can sense the scale of this story just by looking at these castle plans.

Chisun Inn

 Oh, wait, this isn't from a mystery novel. This is in fact a floorplan of the Chisun Inn, a hotel located in Nagoya, Japan. Which also happens to look exactly like something from a mystery story. The hotel is designed in a spiral form, with a lot of rooms in a fan form, but one can easily imagine this to be the setting of a series of murders, right? I for one would make sure my door was locked and double locked if I were to stay here, as there's bound to be someone who's planning some kind of ingenious alibi trick or an impossible murder!

Anyway, these were a few floorplans from mystery novels that made an impression on me because of how they were designed, the scale of the setting or simply how they were drawn. Feel free to leave a comment with the floorplans from mystery novels (or TV series/manga/games) that made an impression on you.