Japanese Fiction Thrillers

The winter of 1578, four years prior to the Honno-ji Incident. Araki Murashige has betrayed his ally Oda Nobunaga and holed himself up in Arioka Castle—but a string of unsettling incidents within the castle walls has him at his wit’s end. The desperate warlord’s only hope for solving these mysteries is imprisoned in the castle’s dungeon: a man named Kuroda Kanbei, one of Oda’s most gifted strategists. When all the conflict and intrigue come to a close, what will these two men have gained…and lost?

Originally published in 1922 and translated by Takashi Kojima, this classic short story was the inspiration for Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film Rashomon, about the murder of a samurai. Told from the perspective of multiple witnesses.

In the Chizurui family mansion, a haunting presence casts a shadow over its residents. By night, an eerie figure, clad in a sinister Hannya mask is seen roaming around the house. An amateur murder mystery writer, Akimitsu Takagi, is sent to investigate—but his investigation takes a harrowing turn as tragedy strikes. Within the confines of a locked study, the head of the family is found dead, with only an ominous Hannya mask lying on the floor by his side and the lingering scent of jasmine in the air.

In Hillbilly Hollow, even the dead want the last word...When an eccentric local artist meets an untimely end during the annual Flower Festival, Emma gets pulled into two cases at once. First, the murder investigation. Second, the hunt for a dangerous burglar who has the whole town on edge. After all-brawn-and-no-brains Sheriff Tucker declares the death an accident, Emma's search for the killer hits a dead end... until a vengeful ghost comes calling. Can Emma decipher the mad ramblings of the disgruntled spirit?

Following the loss of his brother to the war in Europe, Canadian writer John Easley feels duty-bound to report the story that seems to have fallen into his lap: the 1943 Japanese occupation of the U.S. Aleutian Islands and the Allied attempts to drive the Japanese forces back into the sea. But when his plane is shot down over the island of Attu, he is exposed to the full fury of a wilderness known as "the Birthplace of Winds." He soon discovers that the island’s indigenous residents (U.S. citizens) have all disappeared and that he has one choice: surrender or face starvation and madness alone.

In Bullet Train, underworld operative Ladybug was tasked by his handler Maria Beetle with retrieving a suitcase from a high-speed train in Japan. The job did not go according to plan. Will the unluckiest assassin in the world will find things easier this time around? All he has to do is deliver a painting to a hotel guest, a portrait made by his daughter. Easy enough, except when Ladybug makes the delivery, he realizes that the guest is clearly not the guy in the painting. Then he attacks Ladybug, they fight, and the guest ends up dead. How can such simple jobs always go wrong?

When Toru Narazaki's girlfriend, Ryoko, disappears, he tries to track her down, despite the warnings of a private detective he's hired to find her. Ryoko's past is shrouded in mystery, but the one concrete clue leads him to a compound in the heart of Tokyo, with a group that seems to be a cult led by a charismatic guru. Narazaki plunges into the secretive world of the cult, ready to expose himself to any of the guru's brainwashing tactics if it means he can learn the truth about Ryoko. But the cult isn't what he expected, and he has no idea of the bubbling violence beneath its surface.

Emma Hooper thought coming home to small-town life and the family farm would give her a chance to rest and recover from a traumatic accident. But that was before she started seeing ghosts. It was before Grandma Hooper started singing on the roof, and it was way, way before anybody spotted a ghost in a 19th-century cavalry uniform coming out of an outhouse. Can Emma learn to handle her newfound ability to see spirits, while figuring out a confusing relationship with the handsome local doctor? All while solving the ghastly murder of Preacher Jacob?

Akira Kido is a divorce attorney whose own marriage is in danger of being destroyed by emotional disconnect. With a midlife crisis looming, Kido's life is upended by the reemergence of a former client, Rié Takemoto. She wants Kido to investigate a dead man - her recently deceased husband, Daisuké. Upon his death she discovered that he’d been living a lie. His name, his past, his entire identity belonged to someone else, a total stranger.

When her cozy hometown is visited by death, Emma's investigative skills are enlisted by a secretive ghost. But with the uncooperative spirit holding so much back, and with the handsome local doctor pressing Emma for answers, will she ever get to the bottom of the case? Or will the Hollow be forever haunted by the secrets of the past?

Ken Hideyoshi is the new guy in Halawa Correctional Institute. He’s tough looking, a hard case. His cellmate is Cal—the mute tattoo artist of the prison who murdered his own wife. Ken, already inked with a gang symbol and a Japanese emblem, eventually asks Cal to create an elaborate tattoo on his back, in kanji script, of Musashi’s Book of the Void.

「こちらはクライド・アムニー、弁護士だ」午前六時半。

夫と子供に恵まれ、女は理想の家庭を築き上げたことに満ち足りていた。

Inspired by the real-life Glico-Morinaga kidnapping, an unsolved case which terrorized Japan for two years, Lady Joker reimagines the circumstances of this watershed episode in modern Japanese history and brings into riveting focus the lives and motivations of the victims, the perpetrators, the heroes and the villains. As the shady networks linking corporations to syndicates are brought to light, the stakes rise, and some of the professionals we have watched try to fight their way through this crisis will lose everything—some even their lives.

その孤島に招き寄せられたのは、たがいに面識もない、職業や年齢も様々な十人の男女だった。だが、招待主の姿は島にはなく、やがて夕食の席上、彼らの過去の犯罪を暴く謎の声が……無気味な童謡の歌詞通りに、彼らが一人ずつ殺されてゆく！　強烈なサスペンスに彩られた最高傑作。新訳決定版。

Japanese literary sensation Fuminori Nakamura’s latest novel is as a dark look into human psyche - what turns someone into a killer? Can it be something as small as a suggestion?

CI SONO DUE COSE CHE IO NON RIESCO ASSOLUTAMENTE A SOPPORTARE: LE FEMMINISTE E LA MARGARINA. Rika è una giornalista in una rivista maschile. È l’unica donna nel suo posto di lavoro e spesso viene trattata come una segretaria, quando non peggio. Per cercare di farsi strada lavora giorno e notte e tutto ciò che riesce a cucinare quando la sera torna tardi a casa è un ramen preconfezionato. Da tempo però un pensiero la assilla: vuole intervistare Manako Kajii, la cuoca gourmet accusata di aver assassinato gli uomini d’affari con i quali si intratteneva, dopo aver cucinato per loro.

Louis Thorn and Haruto "Harry" Yamada - Eagle and Crane - are the star attractions of Earl Shaw's Flying Circus, a daredevil (and not exactly legal) flying act that traverses Depression-era California. The young men have a complicated relationship, thanks to the Thorn family's belief that the Yamadas - Japanese immigrants - stole land that should have stayed in the Thorn family.

Japan faces Korea in the World Baseball Classic at Dodger Stadium, and curmudgeonly gardener Mas Arai finds himself embroiled in a murder. A Japanese tabloid writer drops dead on the field, and Mas gave the victim his last drink. It turns out there's more at stake than a baseball championship - international diplomacy depends upon uncovering secrets buried decades ago.

A ghostly visit from her former landlady draws Emma away from sleepy little Hillbilly Hollow to investigate a murder in the big city. But what seems like a straightforward case soon becomes entangled with an event from Emma's past and a personal quest for justice. With the attractive but bungling Sheriff Tucker at her side, will Emma be tempted by the chance to avenge an old wrong?