Japanese Mystery

Chris Harding's enormously enjoyable new book distils Japan's long, complex and fascinating history into the stories of 20 remarkable individuals. These vivid and entertaining portraits take the listener from the earliest written accounts of Japan right through to the life of the current empress, Masako. We encounter shamans and warlords, poets and revolutionaries, scientists, artists and adventurers - each offering insights of their own into this extraordinary place.

Tokyo, 1960s. An unassuming but respected homicide detective, Eitaro Imanishi has a knack for both writing haiku and solving crimes. But when a mysterious unidentified body appears on the tracks of a rail yard, Imanishi has his work cut out for him. Soon, he finds himself on a strange chase that takes him from the hip hangouts of avant-garde Tokyo to a spa in rural Honshu. And all the while, the body count is climbing.

From “Japan's Agatha Christie” (The Sunday Times): A secluded bay. An apparent lovers’ suicide. And a pair of detectives with a nagging suspicion that the pieces don’t add up. Can you solve one of the most astonishing literary puzzles ever written? “An irresistible Hitchcockian gem: a...

NATIONAL BEST SELLER A NEW YORK TIMES BEST CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR GMA BUZZ PICK “A bravura feat of storytelling...daring and completely satisfying.” —James Patterson, #1 best-selling author A PULSE-POUNDING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER ABOUT A SERIAL KILLER NARRATED BY THOSE CLOSEST...

Marty Friedman's upbringing was as atypical as his career. Growing up in a Jewish household in Maryland, the son of an NSA executive, he lacked motivation until he discovered the guitar. Enjoying a hazy adolescence overflowing with partying, music, and teen antics, he achieved local stardom in Deuce, then burst onto the national scene by pioneering a radically new style of playing, bringing attention to the guitar aficionado label, Shrapnel Records. Friedman moved to California and scored a gig in Megadeth.

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.

Acclaimed bestselling novelist Kunihiko Hidaka is found brutally murdered in his home on the night before he's planning to leave Japan and relocate to Vancouver. His body is found in his office, a locked room, within his locked house, by his wife and his best friend, both of whom have rock solid...

Detective Kyochiro Kaga of the Tokyo Police Department has just been transferred to a new precinct in the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo. Newly arrived, but with a great deal of experience, Kaga is promptly assigned to the team investigating the murder of a woman. But the more he investigates, the greater number of potential suspects emerges. It isn’t long before it seems nearly all the people living and working in the business district of Nihonbashi have a motive for murder.

She was a monster, sleek and gleaming, designed to strike without warning like the dreaded shark. She was the USS Mako, as fearless and bold as any submarine that ever prowled the blue Pacific. Her mission: seek out and destroy the hitherto invincible ships of the Japanese Imperial Navy - and revenge the earlier defeats of a long and dirty war. Here is the story of the men who pitted their lives against impossible odds in the most dangerous branch of the American armed services.

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.

A New York Times bestselling author—and “a mythmaker for the millennium, a wiseacre wiseman” (New York Times Book Review)—delivers a surreal and elaborate quest that takes readers from Tokyo to the remote mountains of northern Japan, where the unnamed protagonist has a surprising...

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?

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 chilling Japanese psychological thriller and Edgar Award finalist about four women, forever connected by one horrible day in their childhood -- fifteen years later, someone wants to make sure they never forget. When they were girls, Sae, Maki, Akiko and Yuko were tricked into leaving their...

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...

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.

警察官を定年退職し、妻と共に四国遍路の旅に出た神場。旅先で知った少女誘拐事件は、16年前に自らが捜査にあたった事件に酷似していた。手掛かりのない捜査状況に悩む後輩に協力しながら、神場の胸には過去の事件への悔恨があった。

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...

車椅子の玄太郎おじいちゃん＆介護者・みち子さんコンビが大暴れ！玄太郎は下半身が不自由で「要介護」認定を受けている老人だが、頭の回転が早く、口が達者な不動産会社の社長。ある日、彼の分譲した土地で建築中の家の中（密室状態）から死体が発見された。お上や権威が大嫌いな玄太郎は、みち子を巻き込んで犯人捜しに乗り出す！

「それが、ここに流れてるあたしたちの血。あたしたちは無法者なの」