The island was then sold to someone whose nephew is in the mystery club, and the students decide it would be a great spot for their get-together. But I did really enjoy the book (PS: The narration style was not a problem for me and if you enjoy cozy mysteries, Agatha Christie mysteries, it would not affect your enjoyment of the book either) and if you love And then there were none, definitely give this a try. But from another perspective, the parallel between this novel and Agatha Christie’s seminal work And Then There Were None is also made plainly obvious.

Unfortunately, the 'denouement' felt a little too "informative" rather than exciting, and that lessened my rating of the book. I had a hunch who the killer was but the book made me keep wondering if I was right and keep weighing other possible options.One of the characters was firm on a rather far-fetched theory that, to be fair, would’ve been a very valid option as a surprise twist given what we’re expecting based on our experience with Christie’s book. The members at the island are known to us by their very imaginative nicknames (names of famous crime authors) which take away from the characters themselves…while I never go into a murder mystery expecting nuanced characters it would have been nice for the cast of characters to be at least entertaining, and caricatures can be engaging as Agatha Christie demonstrated time and again (the rapport between her characters is nearly-always amusing, The theatrical nature of many of them adds a comical quality to her mysteries). There’s an eager beaver character who inserts himself into the former club members’ investigation, and in some ways ends up running it. As much as I enjoy this book, I admit there is a big fat dead giveaway early in the story al la la out of the seven students, one student had gone up to the island earlier than the rest.

You need to be the person who sits there puzzling over every line and trying to think outside the box… those here for the story will likely leave unfulfilled, those here for the “game” of it, they may find something special.

It tells the story of a group of seven university students who travel to a deserted island where a strange decagonal mansion stands.

Perhaps there was some elegancy that was lost in translation, but I found the character interactions to feel stilted and unnatural. The second mystery is an older one but also set on the island and we know that it involves our characters, so we get to suspend the tension of the island's action while fleshing out the question of why this is all happening and how we got here.

Widely regarded as a Japanese cult classic, The Decagon House Murders is a 1987 dark mystery by Yukito Ayatsuji. As the back-cover blurb reveals, they will all have to use their "murder-mystery expertise" to find out why and by whom they are being "picked off, one by one. Initially, the story felt somewhat dry, formulaic, but once the characters were set and the layout established, the pace and intensity picked up. Here in Japan of 1986, several college students are on a boat to an island to spend a week indulging in their common enjoyment. The students all have nicknames based on Golden Age mystery authors - Ellery, Carr, Leroux, Poe, Agatha, Orczy and Van Dine.