Translated from the Japanese by Jim Rion.
Published 12th February 2026 by Pushkin Vertigo.
From the cover of the book:
One week to escape.
High in the mountains, a sudden rockslide traps ten hikers in an abandoned bunker, nicknamed 'The Ark'. Then it starts to flood.
One person will be sacrificed.
There is only one chance of survival - in order for the rest of them to escape, someone must be left behind.
But one of them has other plans.
As they struggle to decide who to abandon, the group is torn apart by a brutal murder. And it won't be the last.
Can they unmask the murderer and reach safety before the water rises? Or will The Ark become their tomb?
***********
A group of seven friends, reuniting after university days, decide to set off on a hike into the Japanese countryside to find an abandoned underground complex, called The Ark. Yuya, the only member of the party who has seen the structure, assures them their minds will be blown by what they will see there.
After hours searching for the location out in the wilds, traversing mountainous landscape and a very unstable foot-bridge, they arrive at the Ark weary and fed-up. Although most of them are grumpy at this point, they decide to check out the creepy structure, with its multiple rooms and weird contents, finding that the lowest level of the three floors is flooded. As night begins to fall, the group decides to camp out here, and are shortly joined by a family party (father, mother, and son) who claim to have become lost while out mushroom-hunting.
During the night, an earthquake traps them all underground. As the water level begins to rise, they must find a way to escape - and if that was not enough to occupy them, someone decides that resorting to murder will make the whole enterprise a lot more exciting...
This Japanese horror-meets-locked room-murder mystery is narrated by Shuichi, one of the university friends, who has brought along his cousin Shotaro as a guest. When the group becomes trapped, they have to work out the best way to free themselves from impending doom by considering aspects of the structure's quirky design, and the limitations it puts on their escape options - carefully considering its decrepit state, and the odd array of items its former occupants have left behind.
The danger of the situation is ramped up by a murdering spree on the part of one of them, who begins picking off their fellow inmates in gruesome ways only hours into their forced sojourn in The Ark, starting with cocky Yuya. It is delciously Agatha Christie-esque, and the Christie vibe continues in a very entertaining amateur detective vein too, with cool-headed Shotaro taking on the role of sleuth in the company of Shuichi as his more impulsive side-kick.
Slow-burn is the name of this game, as the hours countdown, the water rises, and the inmates eye each other with increasingly panicked suspicion. Typically Japanese conversational scenes, pregnant with carefully guarded secrets and simmering emotions, segue into brutal murder scenes, with everything tied together by Shotaro and Shuichi's search for clues - and there is a lovely thread about morality and punishment that brings the characters together over a solution to their problem.
The tension builds steadily, drawing you in, and culminates in a very Poirot-reveals-the-murder kind of way, which I thoroughly enjoyed. But do not forget that this is Japanese crime, because there is a final unsettling kick to the piece that will set you reeling.
The translation by Jim Rion (also the translator of Uketsu's mind-bending mysteries) flows well, and kept me turning the pages all the way through a very cinematic novel that is definitely deserving of a film adaptation - which I hope is in the works!
The Ark is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats.
Thank you to Pushkin Vertigo for sending me a review copy of this book.
About the author:
Haruo Yuki is a mystery and science fiction writer based in Japan. He is the author of three standalone novels and several continuing mystery stories currently serialized in Japan. His true identity remains a mystery.
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