Japanese Mystery Fiction

Bakemono, literally “altered thing,” which translates as “monster.” Monogatari, literally “thing narrated,” which translates as “tale.” Combined into a neologism by he of the reversible nom de plume, they yield BAKEMONOGATARI, the monster tale that kicked off a series whose anime...

As they do every year, a small group of acquaintances pay a visit to the remote castle-like Water Mill House, home to the reclusive Fujinuma Kiichi, son of a famous artist, who has lived his life behind a rubber mask ever since a disfiguring car accident. This year, however, the visit is disrupted by an impossible disappearance, the theft of a painting, and a series of baffling murders. The brilliant Kiyoshi Shimada arrives to investigate.

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?

With My Annihilation, Fuminori Nakamura, master of literary noir, has constructed a puzzle box of a narrative in the form of a confessional diary that implicates its reader in a heinous crime. Delving relentlessly into the darkest corners of human consciousness, My Annihilation interrogates the unspeakable thoughts all humans share that can be monstrous when brought to life, revealing with disturbing honesty the psychological motives of a killer.

In 1890, the first Japanese diplomatic delegation arrives in London to open an embassy. Cyrus Barker, private enquiry agent and occasional agent for the Foreign Service Office, is enlisted to display his personal Japanese garden to the visiting dignitaries. Later that night, Ambassador Toda is shot and killed in his office and Cyrus Barker is discovered across the street, watching the very same office, in possession of a revolver with one spent cartridge.

A class president among class presidents, a bespectacled model student who soars to the top of honors lists without fail, Tsubasa Hanekawa also happens to be a decent human being. True, she does have a habit of making single-minded assumptions, but they come from a good place and turn out to be...

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.

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR · Marie Claire “A taut and compelling depiction of loneliness and obsession.” --Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train “[It] will keep you firmly in its grip.” --Oyinkan Braithwaite, bestselling author of My Sister, the...

Rei Shimura, a California girl living in Tokyo, has an antiques business that's only slightly more successful than her love life. When her aunt enrolls her in the Kayama School of Ikebana to learn how to arrange flowers, disaster strikes. A mean teacher is found with scissors in her neck, and Takeo Kayama, the sexy billionaire heir to the school, considers Rei's aunt the main suspect.

Enter a world of samurai and geishas, ninjas and Zen masters in this “rousing tale of Shogun Japan” (New York Post) from the acclaimed author of Autumn Bridge. “Triumphant . . . terrific . . . This is a riveting read, alternately playful and suspenseful.”—People The year is 1861. After...

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.

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?

Few things get Mas more excited than gambling, so when he hears about a $500,000 win - from a novelty slot machine! - he’s torn between admiration and derision. But the stakes are quickly raised when the winner, a friend of Mas’s pal G. I. Hasuike, is found stabbed to death just days later. The last thing Mas wants to do is stick his nose in someone else’s business, but at G. I.’s prodding, he reluctantly agrees to follow the trail of a battered snakeskin shamisen (a traditional Okinawan musical instrument) left at the scene of the crime.

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?

孤島に聳え立つ来鴉館で嘘つきたちの饗宴が始まる　お嬢様・彩莉は転がり込んできた莫大な遺産で孤島にギミックつきの館を建設し、かつて自分の書いた小説を馬鹿にした相手を殺害しようと企てる。

伊豆見翔人、23歳、無職。強盗やひったくりを繰り返すうちにウッカリ女を刺してしまった。逃げるなか山奥の村に迷い込み、おスマ婆さんに拾われる。村人たちにかまわれながら暮らす日々、その間にもよぎる迷い「いざとなったら」「盗んで」「殺しても」「仕方がない」――「今から諦めちょったら、残りの人生、どぎゃんすっと」。　巧みな人物造形・心理描写、著者の真骨頂ともいえる心理サスペンスの傑作。監督/吉田純子

小野賢章が1人で50役以上演じて朗読する話題作『VIVANT』のオーディオブック。映像にはない音声コンテンツならではの魅力をお楽しみください！

群馬県の山道から練馬ナンバーの車が転落炎上。

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.

A Japanese The Thursday Murder Club, taking healing fiction for a mystery-filled spin with this Japanese bestseller that has sold more than 200,000 copies in Japan. He’s not your average Grandpa. As a lover of classic crime stories, it’s no surprise that schoolteacher Kaede encounters...