The Decagon House Murders

The Decagon House Murders is a 1987 Japanese mystery novel and was the debut work of author Yukito Ayatsuji. Borrowing its basic plot structure from Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (Christie's book is directly referenced by some of the characters at several points), it tells the story of a group of seven university students who travel to a deserted island that was the scene of a grisly mass murder six months earlier, where events soon turn ominous.

Locked Room International published the first English-language edition of the novel in 2015.^[1]

Plot

Seven students, members of their university's mystery club, decide to spend a week-long vacation on Tsunojima Island off the coast of Japan. Six months earlier the owner of the island was brutally murdered alongside his wife and housekeepers, and the case remains unsolved. Soon after their arrival they begin to suspect that one of their number is intending to kill them one at a time, but who?

Meanwhile, back on the mainland a former member of the club named Kawaminami receives a letter blaming him for the death of a young woman who died at a club party one year earlier, and the girl in question just happened to be the daughter of the slaughtered island owner. After learning that several other people have received a similar letter, he too begins to suspect that something sinister is happening.

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