{"product_id":"the-inugami-curse-isbn-9781782275039","title":"The Inugami Curse","description":"\u003cb\u003eA fiendish classic murder mystery, from one of Japan's greatest crime writers, featuring the country's best-loved detective\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1940s Japan, the wealthy head of the Inugami clan dies, and his family eagerly await the reading of the will. But no sooner are its strange details revealed than a series of bizarre, gruesome murders begins. Detective Kindaichi must unravel the clan's terrible secrets of forbidden liaisons, monstrous cruelty, and hidden identities to find the murderer, and lift the curse wreaking its bloody revenge on the Inugamis.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Inugami Curse\u003c\/i\u003e is a fiendish, intricately plotted classic mystery from a giant of Japanese crime writing, starring the legendary detective Kosuke Kindaichi.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Yokomizo is perhaps the most popular and feted crime writer in his country’s history. His richly atmospheric classic mysteries are a treat for any fan of Golden Age whodunits, taking the reader all over post-war Japan, from remote mountain villages to pirate-plagued islands and the bustling streets of Tokyo. Yokomizo loved to craft ingenious puzzle plots, inspired by the greats of British and American crime, such as John Dickson Carr or Agatha Christie, while his detective, Kosuke Kindaichi, is everything a reader could want from a sleuth: brilliant, eccentric, charming, and unassuming enough to be fatally underestimated by many a murderer. . .\"The diabolically twisted plotting is top-notch.\" -- \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[A] stellar whodunit. . . Yokomizo creates a palpable sense of menace throughout with grim foreshadowing of the carnage to come. The solution is a perfect match for the baffling puzzle. Fair-play fans will hope for more translations of this master storyteller.\" \u003cb\u003e— \u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘Japan's Agatha Christie  . . . It’s an absolute pleasure to see his work translated at last in these beautifully produced English editions.’ — \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Sunday Times\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'This is Golden Age crime at its best, complete with red herrings, blind alleys and twists and turns galore... A testament to the power of the simple murder mystery and its enduring appeal.'\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e — The Spectator\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'One of Yokomizo's best-loved detective tales -- Kindaichi must solve a slowly growing string of gruesome murders all connected to the mighty Inugami Clan, and uncover the deeply hidden secrets of the clan along the way.' \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e-- Metropolis Japan\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘2020 may be the year of Seishi Yokomizo . . . Both [\u003ci\u003eThe Honjin Murders \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Inugami Curse\u003c\/i\u003e are] set in the late 1930s\/early 1940s, they promise to be atmospheric, exciting and knotty whodunits. The covers alone are enough to get any fan of the genre salivating.’ \u003cb\u003e— \u003ci\u003eJapan Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'The master of Japanese crime.' \u003cb\u003e— \u003ci\u003eTuttolibri\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eSeishi Yokomizo (1902-81) was one of Japan's most famous and best-loved mystery writers. He was born in Kobe and spent his childhood reading detective stories, before beginning to write stories of his own, the first of which was published in 1921. He went on to become an extremely prolific and popular author, best known for his Kosuke Kindaichi series, which ran to 77 books, many of which were adapted for stage and television in Japan. \u003ci\u003eThe Inugami Curse\u003c\/i\u003e is one of Kindaichi's most famous mysteries and has twice been adapted for film in Japan.The Tale Begins\u003cbr\u003e In February 194_, Sahei Inugami—one of the leading businessmen\u003cbr\u003e of the Shinshu region, the founder of the Inugami\u003cbr\u003e Group, and the so-called Silk King of Japan—died at his\u003cbr\u003e lakeside villa in Nasu at the venerable age of eighty-one.\u003cbr\u003e After his death, the rags-to-riches tale of this self-made\u003cbr\u003e man, already related over several decades in various newspaper\u003cbr\u003e and magazine articles, was published by the Inugami\u003cbr\u003e Foundation in its most detailed version to date.\u003cbr\u003e According to this book, The Life of Sahei Inugami, Sahei\u003cbr\u003e was orphaned at a young age and drifted to the Lake Nasu\u003cbr\u003e region when he was seventeen. He had no idea where he\u003cbr\u003e had been born, who his parents were, or even whether his\u003cbr\u003e unusual surname, literally “dog god,” had been inherited\u003cbr\u003e from his ancestors or conferred by someone with a fertile\u003cbr\u003e imagination.\u003cbr\u003e Most men embellish their family trees when they become\u003cbr\u003e rich or famous, but Sahei Inugami made no attempt to do\u003cbr\u003e so. “We’re all born without a stitch on our backs” was his\u003cbr\u003e constant declaration to those around him. “Until I turned\u003cbr\u003e seventeen, I was like a pauper, drifting from place to place,”\u003cbr\u003e he would say without hesitation. “It was only when I found\u003cbr\u003e my way to Nasu, and Mr. Nonomiya took me in, that fortune\u003cbr\u003e finally smiled on me.”\u003cbr\u003e Daini Nonomiya was the priest of Nasu Shrine, a Shinto\u003cbr\u003e complex that graced the shores of Lake Nasu. Sahei felt\u003cbr\u003e he owed him a lifelong debt. So etched in his mind was\u003cbr\u003e Daini’s generosity that the usually bold and arrogant Sahei\u003cbr\u003e would always sit up straight in humble respect whenever\u003cbr\u003e Nonomiya’s name was mentioned. Yet, while his unchanging\u003cbr\u003e gratitude and devotion to the priest’s family were certainly\u003cbr\u003e commendable, Sahei failed to realize that everything—even\u003cbr\u003e gratitude—has a limit that should not be exceeded, and\u003cbr\u003e that his excessive gratitude toward the Nonomiya family\u003cbr\u003e would embroil his own kin in a series of bloody murders\u003cbr\u003e after his death. Let it be a lesson to us all that even good\u003cbr\u003e intentions can lead to great tragedy if not executed with\u003cbr\u003e the utmost care.\u003cbr\u003e When the two men first met, young Sahei was, as he later\u003cbr\u003e recounted, an indigent drifter. One day, he lay exhausted\u003cbr\u003e under the raised floor of the worship hall of Nasu Shrine. It\u003cbr\u003e was late autumn and impossible to live without heat in this\u003cbr\u003e bitterly cold lakeside region, but Sahei was dressed only in\u003cbr\u003e the flimsiest rags, tied around him by a rope, and he had\u003cbr\u003e eaten hardly anything for three days. Starved and freezing,\u003cbr\u003e he knew he was dying. In fact, if Daini had found him any\u003cbr\u003e later, Sahei probably would have died there like a dog.\u003cbr\u003e Astounded to discover a young pauper beneath the floorboards\u003cbr\u003e of the worship hall, Daini carried him back to his\u003cbr\u003e house so his wife, Haruyo, could tend to him. And thus began\u003cbr\u003e the unusual relationship between the two men. According\u003cbr\u003e to The Life of Sahei Inugami, Daini was forty-two at that time,\u003cbr\u003e while Haruyo was a young woman of twenty-two. Sahei would\u003cbr\u003e later say that she was as kind-hearted as a saint and as lovely\u003cbr\u003e as an angel.\u003cbr\u003e Sahei had a naturally sturdy constitution, and thanks\u003cbr\u003e to the couple’s generous ministrations, he soon recovered\u003cbr\u003e completely. Daini, however, did not wish to see him go and,\u003cbr\u003e learning of Sahei’s wretched circumstances, urged him to\u003cbr\u003e stay. Because Sahei, too, was loath to leave the warm nest\u003cbr\u003e he had found, he continued to live with the priest of Nasu\u003cbr\u003e Shrine and his wife, not quite a freeloader but not quite a\u003cbr\u003e servant. Realizing that Sahei had never spent a day of his\u003cbr\u003e life in school and that he was totally illiterate, Daini took\u003cbr\u003e him under his wing and educated him diligently, as a father\u003cbr\u003e would a son.\u003cbr\u003e Why did Daini so lavish his attentions on Sahei? True, he\u003cbr\u003e may have perceived the future that Sahei’s sharp intelligence\u003cbr\u003e promised, but there is said to have been another, darker\u003cbr\u003e reason, not mentioned even in The Life of Sahei Inugami:\u003cbr\u003e Sahei was an extraordinarily handsome young man. He was\u003cbr\u003e radiantly handsome and would retain traces of that attractiveness\u003cbr\u003e even in his declining years. Because of this youthful\u003cbr\u003e radiance, Daini was drawn to Sahei. People whispered of a\u003cbr\u003e homosexual relationship between them and pointed out\u003cbr\u003e that Haruyo, as softhearted and understanding as she was,\u003cbr\u003e left Daini a little more than a year after Sahei’s arrival and\u003cbr\u003e returned to her parents’ home for a time. Daini, as rumor\u003cbr\u003e had it, was so infatuated with Sahei that he completely\u003cbr\u003e ignored her.","brand":"Pushkin Vertigo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304586563813,"sku":"NP9781782275039","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781782275039.jpg?v=1767739964","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-inugami-curse-isbn-9781782275039","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}