Japanese Fiction Thrillers

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.

Flo is sick of Tokyo. She is stuck in a rut, her translation work has dried up, and she's in a relationship that's run its course. That's until she stumbles upon a mysterious book left by a drunken passenger on the Tokyo Subway.

A decade ago, Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga went to collect the ashes of his recently deceased mother. Years before, she ran away from her husband and son without explanation or any further contact, leaving her estranged son with many unanswered questions. Now in Tokyo, Michiko Oshitani is found dead many miles from home. Strangled to death, left in the bare apartment rented under a false name by a man who has disappeared without a trace. Oshitani lived far away in Sendai, with no known connection to Tokyo—and neither her family nor friends have any idea why she would have gone there.

In the winter of 1937, the village of Okamura is abuzz with excitement over the forthcoming wedding of a son of the grand Ichiyanagi family. But amid the gossip over the approaching festivities, there is also a worrying rumour - it seems a sinister masked man has been asking questions about the Ichiyanagis around the village. Then, on the night of the wedding, the Ichiyanagi family are woken by a terrible scream, followed by the sound of eerie music - death has come to Okamura, leaving no trace but a bloody samurai sword, thrust into the pristine snow outside the house.

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.

Nestled deep in the mist-shrouded mountains, The Village of Eight Graves takes its name from a bloody legend. In the 16th century, eight samurais, who had taken refuge there along with a secret treasure, were murdered by the inhabitants, bringing a terrible curse down upon their village. Centuries later, a mysterious young man named Tatsuya arrives in town, bringing a spate of deadly poisonings in his wake. The inimitably scruffy and brilliant Kosuke Kindaichi investigates.

事故か、自殺か、殺人か――。母の手記と娘の回想が交錯し、浮かび上がる事件の真相とは。圧倒的に新しい、母娘ミステリー!

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.

四人の死者は、一軒家の和室に並べられた布団に横たわっていた。頭までかけられた掛け布団をはがすと、性別も年齢もわからないほど粘着テープが貼られていた。「武蔵村山市における占い師一家皆殺し事件」に駆り出された音道貴子は、本庁捜査一課星野警部補とコンビを組んで事件に当たることになった。清潔感があり人なつこい様子の星野に貴子は「悪くない」第一印象を抱いたが――　女刑事音道貴子シリーズ第三弾。　監督/吉田純子・編集/三好達也_武井寿夫

「救い出すからな」「―はい」「それまで、がんばれるか」「―分かりません」音道貴子のいらえを聞いた滝沢はぞくぞくした。あの絶対に弱みをみせまいとする女が。まずい。人質となって７日。限界が近い。どうにか生きているうちに発見できたと言うのに。･･犯人グループは銃を持っている。わずか数メートルの距離にいながら手も足も出せない。どうすれば、いい。　――緊迫の下巻。　監督/吉田純子・編集/三好達也_武井寿夫

あの日の放課後、手紙で呼び出されて以降、ぼくの幸せな高校生活は始まった。学校中を二人で巡った文化祭。夜風がちょっと寒かったクリスマス。お正月には揃って初詣。ぼくに「小さな誤解でやきもち焼いて口げんか」みたいな日が来るとは、実際、まるで思っていなかったのだ。――それなのに、小鳩君は機会があれば彼女そっちのけで謎解きを繰り広げてしまい……シリーズ第3弾。

Emma Hooper thought coming home to small-town life and the family farm would give her a chance to rest and recover from a traumatic accident. But that was before she started seeing ghosts. It was before Grandma Hooper started singing on the roof, and it was way, way before anybody spotted a ghost in a 19th-century cavalry uniform coming out of an outhouse. Can Emma learn to handle her newfound ability to see spirits, while figuring out a confusing relationship with the handsome local doctor? All while solving the ghastly murder of Preacher Jacob?

LA gardener Mas Arai returns to Hiroshima to bring his best friend’s ashes to a relative on the tiny offshore island of Ino, only to become embroiled in the mysterious death of a teenage boy who was about the same age Mas was when he survived the atomic bomb in 1945. The boy’s death affects the elderly, often-curmudgeonly, always-reluctant sleuth, who cannot return home to Los Angeles until he finds a way to see justice served.

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.

During the National High School Cultural Festival ceremony, Yoshiyuki Shimizu - the current Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and a literary giant - was fatally stabbed by a man who rushed out from backstage. The arrested suspect, 37-year-old Akatsuki Nagase, began publishing his memoirs in a weekly magazine following his arrest.

From the time she was a child, Mas Arai’s daughter, Mari, was completely gasa-gasa - never sitting still, always on the go, getting into everything. And Mas, busy tending lawns, gambling, and struggling to put his Hiroshima past behind him, never had much time for the family he was trying to support. For years now, his resentful daughter has lived a continent away in New York City and had a life he knew little about. But an anxious phone call from Mari asking for his help plunges the usually obstinate Mas into a series of startling situations.

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.

Recién reincorporada a la Brigada tras la cirugía de reasignación de sexo, Sofía Luna se ve obligada a investigar un misterioso caso. ¿Quién es este asesino que escoge a sus víctimas, todas japonesas, en el centro turístico de Madrid? Todo parece apuntar hacia el peculiar mundo de los viajes turísticos organizados y el más peculiar aún de personas asexuales, un grupo que rechaza la hipersexualidad de la vida moderna y tiene como animal favorito la estrella de mar.

Danger awaits best friends on the island of Malta, where one will be accused of murder and the other of being a spy on the run. A missing journalist cannot tell the world he is still alive by becoming a mystery writer's alibi. When Hiromi came back to Paris to settle an old score, she had no idea her target might be hiding on the island of Malta. But, now, she has a chance to redeem her reputation by neutralizing a rogue agent and capturing the mystery writer who hides agency secrets in his novels.

大晦日の朝、私立探偵・沢崎のもとを見知らぬ若い女、伊吹啓子が訪れた。銀行強盗を自首した父の無罪を証明してほしいという。彼女を父親が拘留されている新宿署に送り届けた沢崎は狙撃事件に遭遇してしまう。