The Tokyo Zodiac Murders (Pushkin Vertigo)

Product Description
In this classic Japanese locked room mystery an amateur detective investigates a string of gruesome unsolved murders 
 
Astrologer, fortuneteller, and self-styled detective Kiyoshi Mitarai must solve a macabre murder mystery that has baffled Japan for 40 years—in just one week. With the help of his freelance illustrator friend, Kiyoshi sets out to answer the questions that have haunted the country ever since: Who murdered the artist Umezawa, raped and killed his daughter, and then chopped up the bodies of six others to create Azoth, ‘the perfect woman’?
 
With maps, charts, and other illustrations, this story of magic and illusion—pieced together like a great stage tragedy—challenges the reader to unravel the mystery before the final curtain falls.
From Publishers Weekly
First published in Japan in 1981, Shimada’s intriguing first novel blends metafiction with a locked-room mystery. The title refers to a (fictional) series of sensational unsolved murders committed in 1936. In 1979, freelance illustrator Kazumi Ishioka, “a huge fan of mysteries,” and his moody artist friend, Kiyoshi Mitarai, a self-styled amateur detective, are intent on unraveling the decades-old ritualistic killings. Painter Heikichi Umezawa left an eerily specific note about how he wanted to create the perfect woman, his Azoth, made up of the severed parts of his six daughters and nieces. These women, all with different astrological signs, ended up dead and buried all over Japan, but it was impossible for Umezawa to be the killer, because he had been dead for days himself, murdered in his locked studio. Kazumi and Kiyoshi spend a lot of time getting up to speed on the case by simply relating facts to each other. But once Shimada enters his own narrative as an investigator, the pace picks up considerably, and readers will understand why Shimada is considered one of Japan’s most fiendishly clever crime writers. (Sept.)n
Review
‘If you like your crime stories to be bloody and bizarre, then this one may be for you. The winner of several major awards… the solution is one of the most original that I’ve ever read.’ — 
Daily Mail

‘The great Soji Shimada virtually invented the “logic problem” sub-genre.’ – 
Guardian Top 10 Locked Room Mysteries (No. 2)

‘Intricately constructed and entertainingly exotic.’ – 
The Japan Times
Review
If you like your crime stories to be bloody and bizarre, then this one may be for you. The winner of several major awards… the solution is one of the most original that I’ve ever read. –Anthony Horowitz
About the Author
Born in 1948 in Hiroshima prefecture, Soji Shimada has been dubbed the ‘God of Mystery’ by international audiences. A novelist, essayist and short-story writer, he made his literary debut in 1981 with 
The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, which was shortlisted for the Edogawa Rampo Prize. Blending classical detective fiction with grisly violence and elements of the occult, he has gone on to publish several highly acclaimed series of mystery fiction. He is the author of 100+ works in total, including
Murder in the Crooked House. In 2009 Shimada received the prestigious Japan Mystery Literature Award in recognition of his life’s work.