Murder in the Crooked House

Murder in the Crooked House
斜め屋敷の犯罪
,

, Book # 2
Pushkin Vertigo
January 1st, 1982
ebook from Netgalley
352
Japanese
Louise Heal Kawai
February 28, 2019 March 4, 2019

The Crooked House sits on a snowbound cliff overlooking icy seas at the remote northern tip of Japan. A curious place for the millionaire Kozaburo Hamamoto to build a house, but even more curious is the house itself - a disorienting maze of sloping floors and strangely situated staircases, full of bloodcurdling masks and uncanny, lifesize dolls. When a man is found dead in one of the mansion's rooms, murdered in seemingly impossible circumstances, the police are called. But they are unable to solve the puzzle, and powerless to protect the party of house guests as more bizarre deaths follow.

Enter Kiyoshi Mitarai, the renowned sleuth, famous for unmasking the culprit behind the notorious Umezawa family massacre. Surely if anyone can crack these cryptic murders he will. But you have all the clues too - can you solve the mystery of the murders in The Crooked House first?


About the book

I would like to thank NetGalley and the author for my ARC in exchange for an honest review. I chose this book because I didn’t know the author and set in Japan. Obviously I read it in English.

There is a house on the island of Hokkaido, it is big, 4 floors, 16 rooms and a tower that resembles the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The house is crooked and the staircases strangely placed. The owner, an eccentric Japanese millionaire, Mr Kozaburo Hamamoto, lives here with his daughter Eiko.

It is winter and his guests are invited during Christmas for a holiday in this crooked house. Kozaburo invites his guests to solve a riddle. But on the first night, one of the guests is killed. Who did it?

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