Known as a leading author in Japan during the Golden Age of detective fiction, the prolific writer Seishi Yokomizo sold more than 55 million copies of his books before he died in 1981. Seventy-seven of those books featured Kosuke Kindaichi, the iconic sleuth who first appeared in The Honjin Murders. Originally serialized in a magazine in 1946 and later published as a novel in 1973, Yokomizo’s locked-room mystery centers on a wedding gone terribly wrong. It’s 1937 and the son of the Ichiyanagi family is about to be married, but on the night of the nuptials, a piercing scream wakes up the household, and the bride and groom are found dead. In unraveling exactly what happened, Yokomizo crafts a stunning tale full of surprising twists. The Honjin Murders won the first ever Mystery Writers of Japan Award in 1948. Though the story was immensely popular in Japan, it was only released in English in 2019, with a translation by Louise Heal Kawai. —Annabel Gutterman
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