Cover Image

The Aosawa murders

by Onda, Riku, 1964-

Format: Print Book 2020
Availability: Available at 8 Libraries 8 of 8 copies

Available (8)
Location Collection Call #
Carnegie Free Library of Swissvale Fiction Fic Ond
Location  Carnegie Free Library of Swissvale
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  Fic Ond
 
 
Cooper-Siegel Community Library - Sharpsburg Mysteries MYS FIC OND
Location  Cooper-Siegel Community Library - Sharpsburg
 
Collection  Mysteries
 
Call Number  MYS FIC OND
 
 
Crafton Public Library Adult - Fiction F ONDA 2020 CRAFTON 01/21
Location  Crafton Public Library
 
Collection  Adult - Fiction
 
Call Number  F ONDA 2020 CRAFTON 01/21
 
 
Mt. Lebanon Public Library Fiction ONDA Riku
Location  Mt. Lebanon Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  ONDA Riku
 
 
Northland Public Library Fiction FIC ONDA
Location  Northland Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FIC ONDA
 
 
Robinson Library Fiction FIC ONDA
Location  Robinson Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  FIC ONDA
 
 
Sewickley Public Library Fiction M OND
Location  Sewickley Public Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  M OND
 
 
Shaler North Hills Library Fiction ONDA pbk
Location  Shaler North Hills Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  ONDA pbk
 
 

Summary

Selected by NYT as one of MOST NOTABLE BOOKS of 2020.


On a stormy summer day the Aosawas, owners of a prominent local hospital, host a large birthday party. The occasion turns into tragedy when 17 people die from cyanide in their drinks. The only surviving links to what might have happened are a cryptic verse that could be the killer's, and the physician's bewitching blind daughter, Hisako, the only person spared injury.


But the youth who emerges as the prime suspect commits suicide that October, effectively sealing his guilt while consigning his motives to mystery. The police are convinced that Hisako had a role in the crime, as are many in the town, including the author of a bestselling book about the murders written a decade after the incident, who was herself a childhood friend of Hisako' and witness to the discovery of the murders. The truth is revealed through a skilful juggling of testimony by different voices: family members, witnesses and neighbours, police investigators and of course the mesmerizing Hisako herself.

Published Reviews
Publisher's Weekly Review: "Japanese author Onda makes her English-language debut with an enigmatic and haunting crime novel. In 1973, 17 people die at the Aosawa villa on the Sea of Japan in the city of K--, including members of three generations of the Aosawa family, after drinking spirits and soft drinks that were delivered to the house as a gift. The massive police inquiry settles on the delivery man as the culprit. He later hangs himself and leaves behind a note confessing to the mass poisoning, which he carried out after he got a "notice that he had to kill the Aosawa family." In 2003, Makiko Saiga, who was a neighbor of the Aosawas and the author of a book about the murders, talks to an unidentified interviewer. That's followed by testimony from other people with a link to the case, including the police detective obsessed with it. Onda's unusual narrative technique, which presents differing perspectives by giving only the responses to the interviewer's questions, enhances the nesting-doll plot. American readers will appreciate why this puzzle mystery won the annual Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Fiction. (Feb.)"
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Additional Information
Subjects Teenage girls -- Japan -- Fiction.
Blindness -- Fiction.
Poisoning -- Fiction.
Murder -- Investigation -- Japan -- Fiction.
Nineteen sixties -- Fiction.
Japan -- Fiction.
Detective and mystery stories.
Detective and mystery fiction.
Thrillers (Fiction)
Japanese fiction.
Publisher London :Bitter Lemon Press,2020
Other Titles Yūjinia.
Contributors Watts, Alison, translator.
Language English
Notes First published in Japanese in 2005 as Eugenia by Kadokawa Corporation, Tokyo.
Description 315 pages ; 20 cm
ISBN 1912242249
9781912242245
Other Classic View