Sorted on book title (not in series order)
Ordinary people plunge into insurmountable personal debt and fall prey to dangerous webs of underground creditors-so dangerous, in fact, that murder may be the only way out. A beautiful young woman vanishes, and the detective quickly finds she was not whom she had claimed to be. Is she a...Read more
The novel starts in the 1960s when 17 people die of cyanide poisoning at a party given by the owners of a prominent clinic in a town on the coast of the Sea of Japan. The only surviving links to what might have happened are a cryptic verse that could be the killer's, and the physician's...Read more
Early one morning, a body is found lying next to the railway tracks just outside of Kuki Station in Saitama Prefecture, shot dead. It is identified as belonging to the owner of a local mill which is embroiled in a labour dispute. Suspicion initially falls on the workers' union, then on a...Read more
![[node:field_alt_text]](https://www.austcrimefiction.org/files/styles/medium/public/book-covers/butter.jpg)
There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine.
Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Center convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has...Read more
Kazuya Takino leads a quiet life running a supermarket in the Tokyo suburbs. But when an extortionist tries to force him out of business, he finds himself drawn into the yakuza underworld-a world he once called home and thought he had left behind. Pursuing him is Detective Takagi,...Read more
Young, pretty Junko Aoki has an extraordinary ability; she can start fires through sheer force of will. When she begins using her gift of pyrokinesis to take the law into her own hands and punish violent criminals, her executions attract the attention of two very different groups: the...Read more
Kosuke Kindaichi arrives on the remote Gokumon Island bearing tragic news – the son of one of the island’s most important families has died, on a troop transport ship bringing him back home after the Second World War. But Kindaichi has not come merely as a messenger – with his last words,...Read more
The lonely, rockbound island of Tsunojima is notorious as the site of a series of bloody unsolved murders. Some even say it’s haunted. One thing’s for sure: it’s the perfect destination for the K-University Mystery Club’s annual trip.
But when the first club member turns up dead...Read more
Amid the rubble of post-war Tokyo, inside the grand Tsubaki house, a once-noble family is in mourning.
The old viscount Tsubaki, a brooding, troubled composer, has been found dead.
When the family gather for a divination to conjure the spirit of their departed...Read more
Yasuko lives a quiet life, a good mother to her only child. But when her ex-husband appears at her door without warning one evening, her comfortable world is shattered.
When Detective Kusanagi of the Tokyo Police tries to piece together the events of that night, he finds...Read more
The novel starts in the 1960s when 17 people die of cyanide poisoning at a party given by the owners of a prominent clinic in a town on the coast of the Sea of Japan. The only surviving links to what might have happened are a cryptic verse that could be the killer's, and the physician's...Read more
A whimsical, charming novel about a mysterious library in Tokyo that opens after dark, following the employees who bond each night over special meals inspired by the books on the shelves
The Night Library on the outskirts of Tokyo isn't your ordinary library. It'...Read more
It's been years since prostitutes Yuriko Hirata and Kazue Sato were murdered, but now Yuriko's unnamed older sister, who was also Kazue's classmate, is ready to share the girls' gruesome stories. How could two young women, both students at a prestigious high school, end up as prostitutes in...Read more
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...Read more
In the wee hours of a 1960s Tokyo morning, a dead body is found under the rails of a train, and the victim's face is so badly damaged that police have a hard time figuring out the victim’s identity. Only two clues surface: an old man, overheard talking in a distinctive accent to a young man...Read more
In 1940s Japan, the wealthy head of the Inugami Clan dies, and his family eagerly await the reading of the will. But no sooner are its strange details revealed than a series of bizarre, gruesome murders begins. Detective Kindaichi must unravel the clan's terrible secrets of forbidden...Read more
When a man is found murdered in an abandoned building in Osaka in 1973, unflappable detective Sasagaki is assigned to the case. He begins to piece together the connection of two young people who are inextricably linked to the crime; the dark, taciturn son of the victim and the unexpectedly...Read more
What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time?
Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that’s not the main...Read more
Three friends witness a terrifying fire that kills a Japanese painter when they are very young, and after growing up with the memory, one of them could be responsible for a chain of deadly arsonsRead more
The famed mystery writer Miyagaki Yotaro lives a life of seclusion in the remote Labyrinth House. When Yotaro invites four young crime authors to his home for a birthday party, they are honoured to accept. But no sooner have they arrived than they are confronted with a shocking death, then...Read more
A hunter prowls the night spots of Shinjuku
But he’s the one walking into a trap…
Ichiro Honda leads a double life: by day a devoted husband and a diligent worker, by night he moves through the shadow world of Tokyo’s cabaret bars and nightclubs in...Read more
THE LAST TRAIN is the gripping new Tokyo-based mystery by multi-award-winning author Michael Pronko
Detective Hiroshi Shimizu investigates white collar crime in Tokyo. He’s lost his girlfriend and still dreams of his time studying in America, but with a stable job, his own...Read more
An old friend of Kosuke Kindaichi's invites the scruffy detective to visit the remote mountain village of Onikobe in order to look into a twenty-year-old murder case. But no sooner has Kindaichi arrived than a new series of murders strikes the village - several bodies are discovered staged...Read more
The conclusion of Suzuki's Ring trilogy is a highly cerebral metaphysical thriller--one that once again turns the story inside out in a self-referential swirl not unlike the one that gives rise to consciousness itself.Read more
Acclaimed bestselling novelist Kunihiko Hidaka is found brutally murdered in his home on the night before he's planning to leave Japan and relocate to Vancouver. His body is found in his office, in a locked room, within his locked house, by his wife and his best friend, both of whom have...Read more
The K Apartments for Ladies are occupied by over one hundred unmarried women, once young and lively, now grown and old--and in some cases, evil.
Their residence conceals a secret connecting the unsolved 1951 kidnapping of four-year-old George Kraft to the clandestine burial of a...Read more
Japan, 1869. A time of reform and rebellion.
Detectives Kazuki and Kawaji are assigned to investigate a series of seemingly impossible murders. Together with the help of a mysterious shrine maiden, can they solve each gruesome death and piece together the dark connection between...Read more
Manabu Yukawa, the physicist known as "Detective Galileo," has traveled to Hari Cove, a once-popular summer resort town that has fallen on hard times. He is there to speak at a conference on a planned underwater mining operation, which has sharply divided the town. One faction is against...Read more
Ever since a horrific car accident, Fujinuma Kiichi has lived a reclusive existence in the remote Mill House, his scarred face hidden behind a rubber mask. Then one stormy night the tranquility of his retreat is shattered by gruesome murder, a baffling disappearance and the theft of a...Read more
