One of The Guardian's "Top 10 Locked Room Mysteries"

An amateur detective races to solve a decades-old murder mystery in this "bloody and bizarre" Japanese crime novel with a twist hailed as "one of the most original" (Daily Mail).

Astrologer, fortune teller, and self-styled detective Kiyoshi Mitarai must solve a macabre murder mystery that has baffled Japan for 40 years -- in just one week.

With the help of his freelance illustrator friend, Kiyoshi sets out to answer the questions that have haunted the country ever since: Who murdered the artist Umezawa, raped and killed his daughter, and then chopped up the bodies of six others to create Azoth, 'the perfect woman'?

With maps, charts, and other illustrations, this story of magic and illusion -- pieced together like a great stage tragedy -- challenges the reader to unravel the mystery before the final curtain falls.

This quintessential Japanese "logic mystery" -- eerie, gory, and intriguing -- combines the puzzle-solving of Golden Age Western detective fiction with elements of shocking horror and dark humor.

• We started tracking this book on March 17, 2015.
• This book was $9.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 25 times in the past 3,791 days.
• The current price of this book is $9.99 last checked one day ago.
• This lowest price this book has been offered at in the past year is $1.99.
• The lowest price to date was $1.99 last reached on July 6, 2025.
• This book has been $1.99 7 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $13.95 last reached on April 16, 2015.
• This book has been $13.95 one time since we started tracking it.

• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 321 Pages
• File Size: 31 KB