This ingenously constructed masterpiece, written by one of Japan’s most celebrated crime writers and translated into English for the first time, is perfect for locked-room mystery fans who can’t resist a breathtaking conclusion.
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 the Chizurui family.
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 as clues to his mysterious murder.
As Takagi delves deeper into the perplexing case, he discovers a tangled web of secrets and grudges. Can he discover the link between the family and the curse of the Hannya mask? Who was the person who called the undertaker and asked for three coffins on the night of the murder? And do those three coffins mean the curse of the Hannya mask is about to strike again?
The Noh Mask Murder’s legendary ending offers locked-room mystery fans the perfect coda to an ingenously constructed mystery.
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Japanese crime fiction is not a simple genre - it is complex, tedious, ingenious, complicated, enthralling, gruesome. There is a narrative that can be as long and winding as a mountain path - it is never direct and never clear-cut. It is an onion - each layer revealing something new, something deadly, something confusing, something linked, something delicious.
Japanese crime fiction of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s - or deductive reasoning fiction - is a genre that explores human driven motives that, as SeichÅ Matsumoto says "... originates from the psychology when people is left in the extreme situation..".
An article from The Guardian discusses the art of "Honkaku" which refers "... to the crafting of fiendishly clever and complex puzzle scenarios". In this same article, writer Haruta Yoshitame is said to have defined or described "Honkaku" as "... a detective story that mainly focuses on the process of a criminal investigation and values the entertainment derived from pure logical reasoning”."
The Noh Mask Murder is no different - the author narrates his own murder mystery, when he is called in to investigate by one Koichi Yangi, whose journals also form part of the narration.
As Takagi notes: "... unnatural facades have a habit of concealing sinister motives .." and as more family secrets are being revealed or unraveled as the case progresses, the corpses pile up. Prosecutor Ishikari observed that "... the Chizurui mansion was not a place where normal notions of justice held much sway ...". In fact, as the author notes, "... once the curtains had opened on the tragedy, the Chizurui family was plunged into catastrophe after catastrophe - and at a terrifying speed ...".
It is deliciously gripping narrative that slowly draws the reader into the spider web deftly woven around the key themes of family, suspicion, fear, hatred and death. No one is innocent but who is truly guilty ..? You must read on till the very end!
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