Soji Shimada
One of The Guardian’s “Top 10 Locked Room Mysteries”
An amateur detective follows a trail of astrological clues to solve a decades-old murder mystery in this twisty crime novel by Japan’s “God of Mystery”
“Bloody and bizarre... the solution is one of the most original that I've ever read” — Anthony Horowitz
Japan, 1936. An old eccentric artist living with seven women has been found dead—in a room locked from the inside. His diaries reveal alchemy, astrology and a complicated plan to kill all seven women. Shortly afterwards, the plan is carried out: the women are found dismembered and buried across rural Japan.
By 1979, these Tokyo Zodiac Murders have been obsessing a nation for decades, but not one of them has been solved. A murder mystery-obsessed illustrator and a talented astrologer set off around the country—and you follow, carrying the enigma of the Zodiac murderer through madness, missed leads and magic tricks. You have all the clues, but can you solve the murder mystery before they do?
Considered a master of crime fiction, and the leader of the ‘honkaku mystery’ revival, Soji Shimada has a cult following in Japan and the Far East. With darkly devious twists and turns, and filled with elaborate astrological clues, The Tokyo Zodiac Murder will have the reader on tenterhooks till the very last page.
