#1449: The Ark (2022) by Haruo Yuki [trans. Jim Rion 2026]


Seven university friends go in search of a mysterious underground facility in the hills and, arriving late in the evening, encounter a family of three who have become lost walking in the same isolated region. The ten of them see no choice but to stay underground until morning, only for an earthquake to trap everyone inside. A means of escape exists, but requires that one person stays behind, trapping themselves underground where they might be lucky and not starve to death: instead, they may drown in the rising water filling the building from below. And so, naturally, one of the group is murdered. But why now? And, of course, whodunnit?

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#1180: The Devil’s Flute Murders (1953) by Seishi Yokomizo [trans. Jim Rion 2023]

Devil's Flute Murders

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After what felt like a run of fairly light reading, I found myself in the mood for something a little denser, and boy does The Devil’s Flute Murders (1953), the fifth title by Seishi Yokomizo to be published in English by Pushkin Vertigo, deliver on that front. We start with a mass poisoning in a jewellery store, then move onto the disappearance of a member of the nobility who turns up dead…only for his family to doubt his demise and pull amateur genius detective Kosuke Kindaichi into a superbly atmospheric divining ceremony that culminates in a gruesome locked room murder. Yup, the opening third of this book is, pleasingly, something of a whirligig.

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