Published 16th January 2020 by Bitter Lemon Press.
Read February 2020.
Japan, 1970s: One oppressively hot and stormy night, the highly respected Aosawa family, owners of a local hospital, held a party to celebrate the birthdays of three generations of the family, in their splendid villa on the Sea of Japan.
A party that turned into the most awful tragedy, as seventeen people died from ingesting drinks that had been spiked with cyanide.
There were only two survivors - a housekeeper, who was so busy she only had a sip of the deadly drink, and the enigmatic, beautiful and blind, daughter of the house, Hisako, who was completely unharmed.
The only clue to who might have carried out these horrendous murders was a mysterious and poetic note left at the scene, and the police were stumped until a suspect emerged in the form of a troubled young man who delivered the poisoned drinks to the Aosawa house - a man who committed suicide before he could be questioned.
Inspector Teru, who headed up the police investigation, was convinced that Hisako herself was involved in the deaths - but he was unable to find any concrete evidence linking her to the delivery man. Instead he was left to wonder for ever about this case - and the girl he believed got away with murder.
Ten years after the infamous murders, a childhood friend of Hisako's, Makiko Saiga, decided to write about the mysterious case. She had been unable to shake a longstanding obsession with the murders of her friend's family and was compelled to work through the events by interviewing those connected with the tragedy. She produced a book called The Forgotten Festival, which attracted both critical acclaim, and criticism for the use of the word "festival" associated with such a dark and devastating incident. Although, Makiko drew no conclusions in her book, it was an instant bestseller, but despite its success, she never wrote another.
Decades later, The Aosawa Murders takes us on a new journey to examine the testimonies of Makiko, family members, witnesses and neighbours, police investigators and the beautiful Hisako herself to piece together the tragic events of so long ago...and to finally get to the truth behind the murders.
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The Aosawa Murders by Riku Onda is my first translated Japanese work and it will certainly not be my last. You can almost feel yourself becoming immersed in the Japanese psyche as the story progresses, which has been ever so skillfully wrought by the translator Alison Watts.
The story winds intriguingly back and forth in time, through the eyes and voices of those associated with the terrible events of that summer day so long ago - told in the form of interview responses. We do not find out the identity of the interviewer until well into the book, which was very cleverly managed, and leads to a most pleasing little twist at the end.
Each interview offers us a glimpse into the past, especially the mysterious Makiko and the bewitching Hisako, often with added details that were not revealed at the time of the original investigation. This gives us a myriad of puzzle pieces to fit together and builds up layer upon layer until we are able to see the whole, disturbing picture, much like standing in the shoes of the wonderfully shrewd Inspector Teru, who I absolutely adored (I would love to see more about him!).
There is almost a languorous, slow-building, heavy atmosphere over the whole proceedings, which beautifully echoes the oppressive weather at the time of the murders (and interestingly, at the time of the current interviews). This is quite captivating and serves to keep the tension running high throughout the whole book.
This is a book that completely draws you in. It is addictive, with dark and chilling undertones, and one that I will be thinking about for a long time to come.
The Aosawa Murders is available now from your favourite book retailer, in paperback and ebook formats.
Thank you to Bitter Lemon Press for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an hoenst review, and to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
From the cover of the book:
On a stormy summer day in the 1970s the Aosawas, owners of a prominent local hospital, host a large birthday party in their villa on the Sea of Japan.
The occasion turns into tragedy when 17 people die from cyanide in their drinks.
The only surviving links to what might have happened are a cryptic verse that could be the killer's, and the physician’s bewitching blind daughter, Hisako, the only family member spared death.
The youth who emerges as the prime suspect commits suicide that October, effectively sealing his guilt while consigning his motives to mystery.
Inspector Teru is convinced that Hisako had a role in the crime, as are many in the town, including the author of a bestselling book about the murders written a decade after the incident.
The truth is revealed through a skillful juggling of testimony by different voices: family members, witnesses and neighbors, police investigators and of course the mesmerizing Hisako herself.
“This spine-chilling masterpiece will make you aware of the dark places in your own heart.” Hokkaido Shimbun
• The Aosawa Murders won the 59th Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Best Novel.
• Part Kurosawa’s Rashomon, part Capote’s In Cold Blood. The mass murder at the centre of the novel also evokes David Peace’s critically acclaimed novel Occupied City, based on the Teikoku Bank Massacre in Tokyo in 1948 during the US occupation.
• Takes the classic elements of the crime genre with a twist, providing a multi-voiced insight into the psychology of contemporary Japan, with its rituals, pervasive envy and ever so polite hypocrisy. But it’s also about the nature of evil and the resonance and unreliability of memory.
About the author:
Riku Onda, born in 1964, is the professional name of Nanae Kumagai.
She has been writing fiction since 1991 and has won the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for New Writers, the Japan Booksellers' Award, the Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Best Novel for The Aosawa Murders, the Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize, and the Naoki Prize.
Her work has been adapted for film and television. This is her first crime novel and the first time she is translated into English.
Alison Watts is an Australian-born Japanese to English translator and long time resident of Japan. She has translated Aya Goda’s TAO: On the Road and On the Run in Outlaw China (Portobello, 2007) and Durian Sukegawa’s Sweet Bean Paste (Oneworld Publications, 2017), and her translations of The Aosawa Murders and Spark (Pushkin Press, 2020) by Naoki Matayaoshi are forthcoming.
Thanks so much for the blog tour support xx
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