The Decagon House Murders

No cover — Yukito Ayatsuji, Hong-Li Wong: The Decagon House Murders (Paperback, 2021, Pushkin Vertigo)

Paperback, 224 pages

English language

Published May 24, 2021 by Pushkin Vertigo.

ISBN:: 978-1-78227-634-0

(1 review)

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, the remaining amateur sleuths realise they will need all of their murder-mystery expertise to get off the island alive.

As the party are picked off one by one, the survivors grow desperate and paranoid, turning on each other. Will anyone be able to untangle the murderer’s fiendish plan before it’s too late?

3 editions

nerd teacher [books] reviewed The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji (The House Murders, #1)

Concept is interesting, execution isn't great.

2 stars

Content warning May spoil the solution of the crime.

While I did enjoy reading this to some extent, it left me feeling really dissatisfied because of how obvious the answer turned out to be. I kept hoping that the solution would be something else, and it just... wasn't.

It's stated that this book was inspired by Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, so I expected that the events would unfold in a way that was much more in line with that and that one of the victims would turn out to be the killer (much in the way that the judge was among the victims but later revealed to be the killer in Christie's work). It's also frustrating that some of the gimmicks that would've made the mystery more enticing just... weren't used that much? And when they were, it was just... boring.

The more interesting parts, too, were in places where the victims weren't. While I don't need them to be sympathetic, they should at least... be characters. And most of them were so one-dimensional that it was just dull or so bothersome that I couldn't wait for them to just die so they'd stop existing. I don't feel like that's how I want to feel about any character in books, even when I know someone has to die or probably will die.

And lastly, I think the issue is the English-language marketing of the book. The blurb on the back says that they "need to solve the crime" to stop it, but... that's not what happens. If your marketing is also playing on the fact that the book was inspired by And Then There Were None and it doesn't really deviate from the "none were left alive" (or only deviates for the killer)... Then I don't see the purpose in making it sound as if there's something that will subvert that expectation, which I don't think is the fault of the book but is the fault of the marketing setting up bad expectations.