Yukito Ayatsuji’s 'The Decagon House Murders' takes out second place for our recommendations, this Review Season. The novel achieves the rare feat of taking one of the most highly regarded mysteries of all time, spoofing it, and somehow, besting it. It’s incredibly clever, astonishingly memorable, and as the current wave of shin-honkaku translations hopefully continues, you will love seeing the work this did in inspiring a generation of writers. We do not have the time to name the dense list of people, who upon hearing we occasionally feature Japanese novels ask ‘have you read the Decagon House Murders?’.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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