Death on Gokumon Island

Translated by Louise Heal Kawai 

Loosely inspired by Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, the brilliant Gokumon Island is perhaps the most highly regarded of all the great Seishi Yokomizo's classic Japanese mysteries.
 
Detective Kosuke Kindaichi arrives on the remote Gokumon Island bearing tragic news--the son of one of the island's most important families has died, on a troop transport ship bringing him back home after the Second World War. But Kindaichi has not come merely as a messenger--with his last words, the dying man warned that his three step-sisters' lives would now be in danger. The scruffy detective is determined to get to the bottom of this mysterious prophesy, and to protect the three women if he can.
 
As Kindaichi attempts to unravel the island's secrets, a series of gruesome murders begins. He investigates, but soon finds himself in mortal danger from both the unknown killer & the clannish locals, who resent this outsider meddling in their affairs.

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Seishi Yokomizo (1902–81) was one of Japan's most famous & best-loved mystery writers. He was born in Kobe & spent his childhood reading detective stories, before beginning to write stories of his own, the first of which was published in 1921. He went on to become an extremely prolific & popular author, best known for his Kosuke Kindaichi series, which ran to 77 books, many of which were adapted for stage & television in Japan. The Honjin Murders is the first Kosuke Kindaichi story, & regarded as one of Japan's great mystery novels. It won the first Mystery Writers of Japan Award in 1948 but has never been translated into English, until now.