Japanese puzzle mysteries (honkaku) books

Japanese puzzle mysteries (honkaku) books to start from. Open one to see books like it, or tell BookSense what you loved for four picks made for you.

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New to the genre? These 5 are the books to read first.

The Decagon House Murders
Yukito Ayatsuji
Inaugurated the modern shin-honkaku wave by setting an homage to Agatha Christie among university mystery club students on an isolated island.
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The Honjin Murders
Seishi Yokomizo
Introduced detective Kosuke Kindaichi and established the classic postwar Japanese locked-room tradition in a traditional rural estate.
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Murder in the Crooked House
Soji Shimada
Uses an architecturally tilted mansion in northern Japan to create mechanical impossible-crime puzzles.
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The Moai Island Puzzle
Alice Arisugawa
A prime example of the shin-honkaku student-detective tradition featuring rigorous fair-play deduction on an isolated island.
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The Tattoo Murder Case
Akimitsu Takagi
A landmark post-war impossible crime involving dismembered bodies and forensic deduction in occupied Tokyo.
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Chosen and described with AI from our notes on the genre.