Then seven plates appear on the table in the centre of the Decagon House – five of them display the words ‘First Victim, ‘Second Victim’ and so on. One reads ‘Murderer’ and another says ‘Detective’.
Since the murder the previous year, there has been little human contact with the island, and group will be out of touch with the mainland for a full week.
Shortly after arriving on the island each takes their own room in the Decagon House, where they will be spending the week. Following Van Dine’s rules, each is a caricature rather than a fully formed character. We have Van Dine, Ellery, Carr, Orczy, Agatha, Leroux and Poe. The seven mystery fans each go by nicknames. While these events fill the group with curiosity, the main reason they are traveling to the island is to see the Decagon House, a strange 10-sided annex to the original mansion, in which they plan to spend a week writing. An eccentric architect, his wife, and another couple were found dead in the burnt-out ruins of the architect’s mansion and it was blamed on the gardener, who disappeared… presumably lost at sea. The novel opens with a group from a university mystery writing club discussing their practice as they travel to an island where a murder was committed the previous year. The Decagon House Murders is Ayatsuji’s second work to appear in English, and the first of his honkaku mysteries. But for years the Shin Honkaku (New Orthodox) group in Japan, of which Yukito Ayatsuji is a prominent member, have been putting out mysteries following Van Dine’s formula, shying away from new science or gimmicks in favour of good old honest mysteries.
It’s become rare for a novel written in English to follow SS Van Dine’s rules for the writing of a mystery novel, the most well-known and thorough of several different sets of ‘rules’ that defined the Golden Age of detective fiction. Translated by Ho-Ling Wong - My advice to anyone who picks up this intriguing little pastiche of the Golden Age is don’t get too attached to any of the characters.
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