Japanese Mystery Fiction

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 about the Ichiyanagis around the village. Then, on the night of the wedding, the Ichiyanagi family are woken by a terrible scream, followed by the sound of eerie music - death has come to Okamura, leaving no trace but a bloody samurai sword, thrust into the pristine snow outside the house.

As a member of a New York Mafia family, Levi Yoder's role is unique: He's a fixer, a solver of problems, a man whose code puts loyalty above all else, yet he's a man with a conscience. In the Inside Man, Levi's search for the kidnapped grandchild of a Japanese mob boss plunges him into a world filled with chaos. When he's falsely accused of a heinous series of crimes, the FBI makes Levi an offer he can't refuse: use his mob connections to help investigate the murders of several undercover agents or find himself in jail awaiting trial, without a way to clear his name.

Set in 1944 Chicago, Edgar Award-winner Naomi Hirahara’s eye-opening and poignant new mystery, the story of a young woman searching for the truth about her revered older sister's death, brings to focus the struggles of one Japanese-American family released from mass incarceration at Manzanar during World War II.

She was a monster, sleek and gleaming, designed to strike without warning like the dreaded shark. She was the USS Mako, as fearless and bold as any submarine that ever prowled the blue Pacific. Her mission: seek out and destroy the hitherto invincible ships of the Japanese Imperial Navy - and revenge the earlier defeats of a long and dirty war. Here is the story of the men who pitted their lives against impossible odds in the most dangerous branch of the American armed services.

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 reason customers stop by. The father-daughter duo are 'food detectives'. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person’s treasured memories—dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility.

A decade ago, Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga went to collect the ashes of his recently deceased mother. Years before, she ran away from her husband and son without explanation or any further contact, leaving her estranged son with many unanswered questions. Now in Tokyo, Michiko Oshitani is found dead many miles from home. Strangled to death, left in the bare apartment rented under a false name by a man who has disappeared without a trace. Oshitani lived far away in Sendai, with no known connection to Tokyo—and neither her family nor friends have any idea why she would have gone there.

Emma Hooper thought coming home to small-town life and the family farm would give her a chance to rest and recover from a traumatic accident. But that was before she started seeing ghosts. It was before Grandma Hooper started singing on the roof, and it was way, way before anybody spotted a ghost in a 19th-century cavalry uniform coming out of an outhouse. Can Emma learn to handle her newfound ability to see spirits, while figuring out a confusing relationship with the handsome local doctor? All while solving the ghastly murder of Preacher Jacob?

In Bullet Train, underworld operative Ladybug was tasked by his handler Maria Beetle with retrieving a suitcase from a high-speed train in Japan. The job did not go according to plan. Will the unluckiest assassin in the world will find things easier this time around? All he has to do is deliver a painting to a hotel guest, a portrait made by his daughter. Easy enough, except when Ladybug makes the delivery, he realizes that the guest is clearly not the guy in the painting. Then he attacks Ladybug, they fight, and the guest ends up dead. How can such simple jobs always go wrong?

Originally published in 1922 and translated by Takashi Kojima, this classic short story was the inspiration for Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film Rashomon, about the murder of a samurai. Told from the perspective of multiple witnesses.

In this gloriously over-the-top tale, Aoyama, a widower who has lived alone with his son ever since his wife died seven years before, finally decides it is time to remarry. Since Aoyama is a bit rusty when it comes to dating, a filmmaker friend proposes that, in order to attract the perfect wife, they do a casting call for a movie they don't intend to produce. As the resumes pile up, only one of the applicants catches Aoyama's attention - Yamasaki Asami - a striking young former ballerina with a mysterious past. But she is a far cry from the innocent young woman he imagines her to be.

Tucked away down a Kyoto backstreet lies the extraordinary Kamogawa Diner, run by Chef Nagare and his daughter, Koishi. The father-daughter duo have reinvented themselves as “food detectives,” offering a service that goes beyond cooking mouth-watering meals. Through their culinary sleuthing, they revive lost recipes and rekindle forgotten memories.

Rei Shimura, a California girl living in Tokyo, has an antiques business that's only slightly more successful than her love life. When her aunt enrolls her in the Kayama School of Ikebana to learn how to arrange flowers, disaster strikes. A mean teacher is found with scissors in her neck, and Takeo Kayama, the sexy billionaire heir to the school, considers Rei's aunt the main suspect.

Nanao, nicknamed Ladybug - the self-proclaimed “unluckiest assassin in the world” - boards a bullet train from Tokyo to Morioka with one simple task: Grab a suitcase and get off at the next stop. Unbeknownst to him, the deadly duo Tangerine and Lemon are also after the very same suitcase - and they are not the only dangerous passengers onboard. Satoshi, “the Prince”, with the looks of an innocent schoolboy and the mind of a viciously cunning psychopath, is also in the mix and has history with some of the others.

During World War II, a family finds life turned upside-down when the government opens a Japanese internment camp in their small Colorado town. After a young girl is murdered, all eyes turn on the newcomers. Rennie has just turned thirteen and until this time, life has pretty much been predictable and fair. But the winds of change are coming, and with them, a shift in her perspective and a discovery of secrets that can destroy even the most sacred things. Part thriller, part historical novel, Tallgrass by Sandra Dallas is a riveting exploration of the darkest—and best—parts of the human heart.

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, the dying man warned that his three step-sisters’ lives would now be in danger. The scruffy detective is determined to get to the bottom of this mysterious prophesy, and to protect the three women if he can.

Acclaimed best-selling 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, a locked room, within his locked house, by his wife and his best friend, both of whom have rock solid alibis. Or so it seems.

In 1890, the first Japanese diplomatic delegation arrives in London to open an embassy. Cyrus Barker, private enquiry agent and occasional agent for the Foreign Service Office, is enlisted to display his personal Japanese garden to the visiting dignitaries. Later that night, Ambassador Toda is shot and killed in his office and Cyrus Barker is discovered across the street, watching the very same office, in possession of a revolver with one spent cartridge.

Nestled deep in the mist-shrouded mountains, The Village of Eight Graves takes its name from a bloody legend. In the 16th century, eight samurais, who had taken refuge there along with a secret treasure, were murdered by the inhabitants, bringing a terrible curse down upon their village. Centuries later, a mysterious young man named Tatsuya arrives in town, bringing a spate of deadly poisonings in his wake. The inimitably scruffy and brilliant Kosuke Kindaichi investigates.

The Itos have finally been allowed to return home to California—but nothing is as they left it. The entire Japanese American community is starting from scratch, with thousands of people living in dismal refugee camps while they struggle to find new houses and jobs in over-crowded Los Angeles. Aki is working as a nurse’s aide at the Japanese Hospital in Boyle Heights when an elderly Issei man is admitted with suspicious injuries. When she seeks out his son, she is shocked to recognize her husband’s best friend, Babe Watanabe. Could Babe be guilty of elder abuse?

Flo is sick of Tokyo. She is stuck in a rut, her translation work has dried up, and she's in a relationship that's run its course. That's until she stumbles upon a mysterious book left by a drunken passenger on the Tokyo Subway.