A group of university students who are also fans of mystery novels travels to a desert island where a horrific act of violence recently took place. The students, who all refer to each other by nicknames derived from Golden Age mystery novelists, take a macabre interest in the crime and in the unusual house where they are staying. Designed by a mad architect who perished in the violence, the Decagon House is ten-sided, with ten of everything inside, from rooms to coffee cups.
In a deliberate homage to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, the students begin dying off one by one. As their number dwindles the remaining students are horrified by the idea that one of their own may be killing them off so sadistically. In a parallel narrative, a former member of the club receives an unusual letter. Purportedly sent by the dead architect of the Decagon House, it blames the club for the death of his daughter, a junior member who passed away from alcohol poisoning after a party. After getting the letter, he gathers a friend and a strange new acquaintance and begins investigating the earlier murders, not realizing what is currently happening to his friends on the island.
Though the set-up is strong, the delivery is less appealing. Whether the blame is to be placed on the author or the translator is unclear to me, but the language here is excessively stilted and formal, especially considering the ages of the characters and their relationship as good friends. Beyond the lackluster prose, Ayatsuji is too interested in the puzzle and not nearly invested enough in creating realistic characters or in dramatizing the events of the novel. Even as the plot unspools and secrets are revealed, there is little resonance for the reader. Events seem to happen exclusively to advance the plot as opposed to telling a human story.
I was also bothered by the novel’s somewhat casual attitude toward death. I know some people feel that way about all murder mystery novels, but here the attitude towards death bordered on flippant. Though it occasionally feels consistent with the club’s obsession with murder, on the whole Ayatsuji is ineffective at portraying the real terror present his characters should be feeling.
It’s tough to talk about the ending of a mystery novel without spoiling, so suffice it to say that I found that too unsatisfactory and wondered what the name-checked legends of the genre would think of his solution.
