44. The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji

This is another classic in the Japanese honkaku school, I believe actually shin honkaku, or new orthodox/traditional where the authors recreate the "fair play" mysteries of Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr, etc. that the reader has all the clues to figure out the mysteries themselves.  This one is hardcore into the classics as the main characters are a group of university students who are also members of the mystery book club and give each other pseudonyms of different classic authors (Carr, Ellery, Van Dine, Orczy, Agatha, etc.).  There are several tropes here that are quite common in much of the Japanese media we get translated in North America: the group of young people isolated on an island, the sad loneliness of the loser kid but the overall style and atmosphere is more straightforward and realistic.

The plot is that 7 members of the mystery club are going to spend a week on a small island that is infamous because the owner who was an eccentric architect built a mansion which then was the site of at least four people being murdered and the building burned down.  One of the students uncle, a real estate agent, ended up buying the island and let the kids stay in the remaining ten-sided building.  For them it is kind of an adventure, but little do they know somebody is planning an elaborate revenge against them.

There are two narrative lines in the book, one with the students on the island first just exploring and being themselves but then dealing with each of them being murdered one by one.  The other narrative is another student who had quit the club who received a threatening letter.  He starts investigating and we learn about the history of the architect and start to piece together what happened before on the island.

At first, it felt a bit wooden.  The characters used their nicknames and it took me a while to get a sense of who they actually were.  Characterization is not strong throughout the book as the emphasis is on the puzzle, but it does get more human as the trauma of the murders starts to impact them (and eliminate them so there are fewer to try and remember).  The mystery is layered and elaborate and I really got into it by the second half.  It's a page turner for sure.  I'm hopeless at figuring these things out, I finally started to cotton just when the author wanted me to.  It's a lot of fun and I can't understand why all of his books are not translated into English.