Break Out Your Magnifying Glass For These 28 Great Japanese Crime Novels

The day before he is set to leave Japan, Kunihiko Hidaka, an acclaimed novelist, is found dead in a locked room in his locked house with just his wife and best friend who have, apparently, rock-solid alibis.

Police Detective Kyochiro Kaga recognizes Osamu Nonoguchi, Hadaka’s best friend and fellow writer. As he investigates, Kaga discovers their relationship was very different than they portrayed. He knows who and how things happened, now he just has to figure out why.

This is two classic Japanese crime novels combined into one, originally published in 1934 and 1928 as magazine serials.

The Black Lizard features Akechi Kogoro, the detective, and The Black Lizard herself, the femme fatale with a charged relationship with Akechi. Boundaries are blurred and the hunter is hunted in this classic story.

Beast in the Shadows is from the height of Rampo’s grotesque period. It’s a tale of secret identities, violent sexuality, and dark crimes.

Yasuko is a divorced single mother who thought she finally escaped her abusive husband Togashi. When he shows up to extort money from her, it turns violent and he ends up dead on the floor.

Her neighbor, a high school math teacher, overheard the commotion and offered to help get rid of the body and cover up the crime. When the body is uncovered and identified, Yasuko is under suspicion but Detective Kusanagi can’t find any holes in her alibi even though he knows something is off.

He calls in the help of his old friend and physicist Yukawa, known as Professor Galileo, to help get to the bottom of everything.

This is the story of a young mother working in the suburbs of Tokyo placing boxed lunches who strangles her abusive husband and looks for help from a coworker to dispose of the body.

Masako soon realizes this killing is just the beginning of a dangerous foray into the violent underbelly of Japan.

This is a Japanese horror novel I’ve seen quite a few times and I just added it to my TBR now.

Kiyoshi is an astrologer, fortune teller, and self-styled detective who has to solve a 40 year old murder mystery in just one week.

With the help of his illustrator friend, they set out to find who murdered the artist Umezawa, raped and killed his daughter, then chopped up the bodies of six others to create Azoth, the perfect woman.

It sounds like this might be an epistolary novel with maps, charts, and illustrations which makes me want to read this even more!

Kosuke Kindaichi is investigating a gruesome series of murders among a feuding family of a troubled composer whose most famous work chills all who hear it.

It sounds like this one is a locked-room mystery so if you like those, this Japanese crime novel may be perfect for you.

Here is another locked-room mystery for you!

Like they do every year, a small group of friends have gathered at the castle-like Water Mill House. It’s the home of Fujinuma Kiichi, the reclusive son of a famous artist who has lived behind a mask after a disfiguring car accident.

However, this year is disrupted by by a disappearance, a painting theft, and a series of baffling murders. Kiyoshi Shimada arrives to investigate the Mill House Murders.

A family of four are found murdered in their own home with a black sun panted and still dripping while the killer walks away in broad daylight. The first detective died while trying to solve it, apparently by suicide, but this is only the beginning as Inspector Iwata and his partner must find the murderer.

I would really like to read this one! It sounds like the perfect Japanese crime novel, reminiscent of Nordic Noir that I love.

This is actually four books in the series all in one here. Smith is an American business man who spends his nights lingering in pachinko parlors where he meets Misa, a hostess working there. Soon he finds out she’s wrapped up in a web of gang–controlled operations and he gives her his winnings to help her change paths. Instead, it incriminates them in a false accusation of sex trade.

Tanaka is a director investigating the death of his idol filmmaker, Sergey Ribery, who happened to film Misa in his last work where she was seemingly strangled to death. He seeks help from a psychologist to untangle the web of characters but the doctor is later murdered.

When the wealthy head of the Inugami clan died, the family eagerly awaited the reading of the will. When the details are revealed, a series of gruesome murders start and Detective Kindaichi is left to unravel family secrets and hidden identities to find the murderer and lift the bloody curse from the family.

Kinue Nomura survived World War II only to be murdered in Tokyo. Her severed limbs were found in a room locked from the inside, but her beautiful tattoos were gone.

Kenzo Matsushita is the young doctor who was the first to discover the crime scene. He feels compelled to help his detective brother with the case but what his brother doesn’t know is that Kinue was his lover.

The members of a university detective fiction club have gathered on Tsunojima Island, home of an eerie ten sided house, the site of vicious murders that happened the year before. The curiosity, though, will be their undoing.

A fresh round of deaths begin as the students are picked off one by one. The investigation of the previous murders is intertwined as the new deaths happen.

I would like to read this one!

Starting a new life in Tokyo, 6000 miles from home, seems like the perfect way to make Alex’s life better. He is transfixed by the city which feels like an unsolvable puzzle.

Then he meets Naoko and the peace he sought slips even farther away. He’s about to learn there is no rock bottom, that things can always get worse.

I’m intrigued. I would really like to read this one!

If you’ve watched the movie The Ring, then you’ll definitely want to read this one. I know I do.

Unless you perform an unspecified act, you will die seven days after watching this videotape like the four teens who died of heart failure one after another.

Asakawa is a journalist who is intrigued by his niece’s death. His investigation brings him from Tokyo to rural Japan as he tries to solve the mystery of the tape before it’s too late.

I need to read this one. I have a pair of earrings of the girl from The Ring climbing out of a TV and I love it.

It’s 1937 and Okamura is buzzing with anticipation of the wedding for the son of the grand Ichiyanagi family. Amid the gossip, there is a worrying rumor of a sinister masked man asking questions around the village.

On the night of the wedding, the family is awoken by a terrible scream followed by eerie music. The only trace of death is a bloody samurai sword in the pristine snow outside of the house.

Detective Kindaichi arrives on Gokumon Island with the tragic news of a friend’s death in the second world war. He is the bearer of bad news and must share that the dying man warned his three step-sister’s lives would now be in danger as well.

More murders follow as he attempts to unravel the secrets of the island. Soon he finds himself in mortal danger from both the killer and the clannish locals.

A man is found dead in an abandoned Osaka building in 1973. Detective Sasagaki is on the case but unable to find the murderer.

The story is told from the perspective of two teens, Ryo and Yukiho, who were most affected by the crime, and Sasagaki as he obsesses over the crime to find the truth.

The only way out of the insurmountable debt to underground creditors may sometimes be death. When a young woman vanishes, detectives find out she isn’t who she said she was. Is she a victim, killer, or both?

The parents of a kidnapped school girl listened to the demands of her kidnapper for five days. They never found his identity, or their daughter.

Fourteen years later, the crime is still unsolved. Yoshinobu Mikami is a former detective who worked on the original case now has a missing daughter of his own and is forced to revisit the botched investigation.

He has no intention of solving the crime but when he looks back at the files he spots an anomaly and uncovers secrets he never imagined.

Yoshitaka is about to leave his marriage when he dies from arsenic poisoning. His wife is the logical suspect but she was hundreds of miles away when it happened. Detective Kusanagi is smitten with her immediately and refuses to believe she could be responsible.

His assistant, however, is convinced she is guilty, but the facts don’t quite say so. She calls in Dr. Yukawa to help but even he is stymied. Now he must find a way to capture the murderer.

Satoshi looks like an innocent schoolboy but is really a devious assassin. Thanks to Satoshi, Kimura’s young son is in a coma. He tracks him on a bullet train leaving Tokyo to exact his revenge but soon learns they’re not the only dangerous passengers.

Nanao is put on the bullet train by his boss to steal a suitcase full of money before getting off at the first stop. Tangerine and Lemon are also on the train, another deadly duo, and the suitcase leads others to show their own deadly hands. Why are they all here, and who will make it off alive?

Yuriko and her unnamed sister exist at opposite ends of the prestigious Q High School for Girls in Tokyo, with Kauze Sato trying to fit in among them. Years later Yuriko and Kauze became prostitutes and were killed. Their stories are woven together within the conventions and restrictions of Japanese society.

I would like to read this one!

A young woman is found strangled at Mitsue Pass and her friends and family are shocked, yet terrified. The pass has an eerie history of robbers, murderers, and ghostly creatures lurking at night.

A young construction worker becomes the primary suspect as the investigation unfolds. Events leading up to the murder come into focus and it becomes clear Mitsuyo fell for the wrong man online.

Yuko is left with just her four-year-old, Manami, after calling off her engagement. After an accident where she teaches middle school, she gave up and resigned from her job.

But she has one last lecture to give that upends everything her students thought they knew as a diabolical plot for revenge is set into motion.

Miwako Sumida is a sophomore at university and she has left those around her reeling when she hangs herself. Leading to her death she was hiding away in a mountainside village.

Ryusei is a fellow student who had feelings for Miwako. After her death he convinces Chie, his best friend, to take him to the village where she spent her final days.

While he is gone, his older sister, who took Miwako on as an apprentice in her art studio, receives an unexpected guest at her Tokyo apartment, distractiing her from her fear that Miwako’s death may ruin what is left of her brother’s life.

The only person with the courage and connections to catch the serial cop killer in Shinjuku is The Shark.

If you want a Japanese crime novel that has a typical crime book feel, this sounds like a good choice.

The Crooked House sits on a cliff at the remote northern tip of Japan. The location is strange but the house is even stranger with sloping floors, odd staircases, creepy masks, and life-size dolls.

The police are called when a man is found murdered in an impossible way inside. They can’t solve the puzzle or protect the guests as more bizarre deaths follow.

In the sixteenth century eight samurais took refuge in mist shrouded mountains with a treasure. They were murdered by the inhabitants, bringing a curse on the village.

Centuries later Tatsuya arrives in town with a slew of deadly poisonings following and it’s up to Kosuke Kindaichi to investigate.