One of The Guardians Top 10 Locked Room Mysteries An amateur detective races to solve a decades-old murder mystery in this bloody and bizarre Japanese crime novel with a twist hailed as one of the most original (Daily Mail). Astrologer, fortune teller, and self-styled detective Kiyoshi Mitarai must solve a macabre murder mystery that has baffled Japan for 40 yearsin just one week.   With the help of his freelance illustrator friend, Kiyoshi sets out to answer the questions that have haunted the country ever since: Who murdered the artist Umezawa, raped and killed his daughter, and then chopped up the bodies of six others to create Azoth, the perfect woman?   With maps, charts, and other illustrations, this story of magic and illusionpieced together like a great stage tragedychallenges the reader to unravel the mystery before the final curtain falls.   This quintessential Japanese logic mysteryeerie, gory, and intriguingcombines the puzzle-solving of Golden Age Western detective fiction with elements of shocking horror and dark humor.