The Moai Island Puzzle

The Moai Island Puzzle (孤島パズル, Kotō Pazuru, "Solitary Island Puzzle") is a 1989 Japanese mystery novel by Alice Arisugawa that falls into the honkaku (本格) subgenre of Japanese detective fiction.[1] The novel is the second in a series featuring Jirō Egami as detective and details the strange events that befall a group of vacationers on an island off Japan's coast. Like other novels of the same series, Alice acts as the narrator.

The novel was ranked #16 on Kono Mystery ga Sugoi! 1989, an annual mystery fiction guide book published in Japan, and #95 on Tozai Mystery Best 100 in 2012.

The first English-language translation was published by Locked Room International in 2016.[2]

Plot summary

During a university holiday three students—Egami, Alice, and Maria—decide to spend a week on the island owned by Maria's family. Many years earlier her grandfather, who was obsessed with puzzles, supposedly hid a fortune on the island and constructed a game pointing to where the treasure was buried, but no one has thus far been able to find it. The students decide that hunting for the treasure would be an amusing way to pass the time, but the only clues the old man left behind center around a series of miniature moai statues that dot the island's landscape.

But soon after their arrival the guests are confronted with a double murder, one that is seemingly impossible for anyone to have perpetrated. Egami ultimately theorizes that these killings are related to the death of Maria's cousin, who died on the island three years ago in an apparent drowning accident. And when even more people start to turn up dead, the other guests begin to fear that he may be right.

References
  1. "The Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan". Honkaku.com. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  2. "The Moai Island Puzzle". GoodReads.com. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
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