SHE WALKS AT NIGHT

Spooky mansion, crazy clan, multiple murders: The perfect case for a legendary Japanese detective.

Yokomizo’s labyrinthine, delightfully creepy whodunit, originally published in 1973 and now translated into English for the first time, begins when the slightly sloshed Naoki Sengoku, heir to the fortune of the infamous Furugami family, buttonholes his friend Torata Yashiro, a “writer of middling detective novels,” to commiserate and ask for advice. Naoki’s concerns include his young half sister. Yachiyo’s engagement to the much older Koichi Hachiya, whom he describes as a “hunchbacked artist.” Not long after the duo’s arrival at the Furugami family mansion, there’s a grisly murder, complete with a beheading. Since the presumed murder weapon—a bloody sword—is found locked away, this is a locked safe mystery. The complexity and grisliness of the tale, narrated by Torata in a bubbly first person, are leavened by his delightful and often discursive banter with Naoki. The police arrive but gain little traction in their investigation. The plot unfolds like a Rubik’s Cube, each new revelation shifting the overall complexion of the case. The Cube shifts again with the arrival, midway through, of modest Kosuke Kindaichi, the detective Yokomizo featured in scores of works. More twists and murders keep the plot pulsing as Kindaichi unravels the tangled solution. A character list, including a Furugami family tree, should be an immense help to armchair investigators.

A merrily macabre whodunit starring a classic sleuth who’s likely new to many American readers.