The Labyrinth House Murders (1998/2024) by Yukito Ayatsuji (translated by Ho-Ling Wong)

The Labyrinth House Murders is the debut novel of Shishiya Kadomi. Rather ambitiously for a first book, Shishiya bases it off the actual brutal murders in the titular house. The Labyrinth House was home to Yotaro Miyagaki, a famous mystery writer who had effectively gone into retirement. For his sixtieth birthday, he invited his four “disciples,” as well as an editor and his wife, a critic, and a mystery fan to his home. Note that the name isn’t a metaphor: The house is an actual underground labyrinth with rooms named after characters from the myth of the Minotaur. Is this plausible? Could a mystery author really afford to build this thing? Who cares, it’s cool.

Anyway, the viewpoint character is editor Hideyuki Utayama, who’s hoping that Miyagaki is planning on writing another book soon. Instead, he and the others are treated to a shocking announcement from Miyagaki’s secretary: The great author has committed suicide. And he’s left a last will where he lays out his wishes. He plans on giving half of his fortune to a prize for mystery writers, but the other half will go to one of his disciples. They have five days to write a mystery story of their own, which will be judged by the other guests. The winner gets the prize. Each story must be set in the Labyrinth House. No one can leave until the contest is over (and yes, the doors are locked). And each author must make themselves the victim. It’s a borderline sick contest, but half of Miyagaki’s fortune is tempting. Very, very tempting.

During the first night, Utayama is woken by one of the other guests. One of the authors has been killed in the library. Not just strangled to death, but decapitated, with a bull’s head put on his stump. Horrifying enough, but when they go to search his room, they find a copy of his story, “The Minotaur’s Head.” It’s about a body with a bull’s head placed over his own…

And the phone lines have been cut. And no one can find the secretary, the only guy with the keys. And one of the authors is insistent that the competition go on. But what else do you expect to happen in a house built by eccentric archetic Seiji Nakamura? Luckily, the guests do have some hope, as the general mystery fan invited to the house is none other than Kiyoshi Shimada…

Because The Labyrinth House Murders is also the third novel by Yukito Ayatsuji and is not based on any real murders. If you thought The Decagon House Murders was meta, whew boy are you in for it here. We have an in-universe fictional text about authors who get killed according to their own in-universe fictional stories. And Ayatsuji pulls out all the stops. There’s a clever death trap. There’s a dying message. There’s a locked room murder. If you’re the kind of person to whom “Brutal series of murders in a house that no one would ever live in” is a hook, there’s something in here for you.

These ideas are all executed pretty well. Ayatsuji is also a horror author, and while he doesn’t really lean into that here, you can see him feeling out the potential of this literal maze of a house, with creepy masks lining the walls. I will say that the locked room is a pretty minor part of the story, with a really simple solution, but Ayatsuji/Kadomi makes up for that with a really good reason why the locked room came about. There’s also another fascinating meta-mystery: Kadomi mentions in the Afterword that they were actually in the house during the massacre, meaning the reader is not only trying to solve the mystery, but try and pick out who of the survivors will later write the events down…and why they’d do it in this way. “This is nothing more than a murder mystery, a piece of entertainment that allows the reader to escape the boredom of daily life,” they swear, and while that might be Ayatsuji’s intent with his book, Kadomi has something else in mind…

Of course, the book isn’t perfect. One of my issues is a structural one. The set-up is great, giving us time to dwell on how bizarre this whole situation is. The bit after the first murder is great, with Ayatsuji giving us a great motive to decapitate someone. But then the other murders come thick and fast, and we really don’t have time to let them breathe. Part of the appeal of these sorts of And Then There Were None-style stories is the downtime between the deaths as the survivors dwell on what’s happening. Seeing how big the house was, you could have had some great moments of panic as everyone know there could be someone slinking around the labyrinth. It felt like it needed about 25-30 more pages. I also felt at first that the motive was a bit weak, but some added context made it work for me.

The book’s main claim to fame is its final twist, where Shimada confronts Kadomi about the book. I admit, I was fooled. I was filled with rage. I hated the book (laudatory). It’s a neat reveal. “I don’t care how well-rounded a story feels or whether it will sell or not…What matters to me is the degree in which some excessive, over-the-top element in the work resonates with me,” says Utayama, and he’s obviously speaking for Ayatsuji there. But I admit this twist didn’t fully resonate with me. Although Shimada cites some clues about it, they’re pretty vague. It’s hard to explain without spoilers, but it’s a reveal you pick up on through vibes more than hard clues. It’s good, but I do think it leaves the book open to accusations that it’s more “clever” than “good,” and I can’t totally disagree. The in-universe reason for this is…weird. Surely there were more direct ways of doing X? In the end, I liked it, but I can see someone thinking otherwise.

But if all this book is is “clever,” then Ayatsuji at least hit a home run there. This is a really fun murder mystery. I also have to give full kudos to the translation by Ho-Ling. He has an article on his blog talking about the translation choices, and it’s really interesting (and amusing how the dying message gave him the most trouble). While I can’t give it my highest recommendation, I do think it’s very much worth your time. A low four-stars. Recommended. 

Other Reviews: The Case Files of Ho-Ling, Criminal Musings, Beneath the Stains of Time, Bad Player's Good Reviews, Ah, Sweet Mystery, Countdown John's Christie Journal, The Invisible Event, Volt's Vault (spoiler analysis).