Rating: 7/10 · Translated from Japanese; English edition 2015
- Plot: Members of a university mystery club visit an island where a murder took place, and start dying one by one.
- Clues: Scrupulously fair, in the classic puzzle tradition.
- Reveal: A famous single-sentence twist that turns the story upside down.
Seven members of a university mystery club travel to Tsunojima, a small island where a reclusive architect and his family died in a fire months before. They stay in the architect’s strange decagonal guest house. The students use nicknames borrowed from famous mystery writers: Ellery, Carr, Agatha, Poe, Leroux, Van and Orczy. Soon they begin to be murdered.
Yukito Ayatsuji’s debut is an homage to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, and it helped launch the “new orthodox” movement in Japanese mystery fiction. The novel alternates between the island and the mainland, where other club members investigate letters from the dead architect.
The puzzle is ingenious, and the twist is justly famous. The book plays with genre conventions, and its characters argue about mystery fiction.
The weaknesses are thin characterisation and a somewhat mechanical plot. The students are more pieces in a game than people. The 7 reflects a clever and influential puzzle novel. It is essential for fans of fair-play mysteries and a key work in Japan’s classic mystery revival.
Leave a Reply