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Murder at Lake Ashinoko

By Shizuko Natsuki
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Brief Description
A classic mystery from Japan's Queen of Crime, the Sunday Times bestselling author of Murder at Mount Fuji. At an elegant hotel on a stormy night, travelling businessman Kohei Daigo meets a shadowy yet captivating woman, Fumiko. Their faces obscured in the darkness, they pass the... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$3800
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Releases 23rd February 2027 (Approx. Date) Pre-order  "Murder at Lake Ashinoko" now to secure your copy from our first shipment

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A classic mystery from Japan's Queen of Crime, the Sunday Times bestselling author of Murder at Mount Fuji.

At an elegant hotel on a stormy night, travelling businessman Kohei Daigo meets a shadowy yet captivating woman, Fumiko. Their faces obscured in the darkness, they pass the hours by talking. Until the night takes an unexpected turn, and the strangers make a confession. They both have good reason to want someone dead.

They fantasise about the perfect murder: each one enacting cold-blooded revenge on the other's enemy, with nothing to tie them to the crime.

In the light of day, Daigo resolves to put the unsettling night behind him. But back home in Fukuoka, he soon receives news of a tragic accident. To his horror, it appears that Fumiko has followed through on her side of their deadly bargain - and now it's his turn.

Brimming with atmosphere, and with a dark, twisty mystery at its heart, Murder at Lake Ashinoko is the perfect, nostalgic, rediscovered novel for fans of Japanese translated fiction and classic crime.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781529997286

Publisher: Cornerstone

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 12 November 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Hutchinson Heinemann

Contributors:

  • Translated by Robert B. Rohmer

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 20.0mm

Width: 135.0mm

Height: 216.0mm

Weight: 300g

Pages: 256

Collections

Classic Crime & Mystery Fiction Classic Fiction Coming Soon in Fiction Crime & Thriller Fiction Fiction in Translation General Fiction Penguin Books Pre-order Books Pre-Order Crime & Thriller Pre-orders Pre-orders by Release Date Shizuko Natsuki

About the Author

Shizuko Natsuki was born in Tokyo in 1938. She graduated from Keio University with a degree in English literature, marrying in 1963 and moving to Fukuoka, where she lived throughout most of her life. Natsuki is not only one of Japan's bestselling mystery writers but also one of the most prolific, having written more than eighty novels and short story collections in her lifetime. More than forty of her novels and stories have been made into films. She died in 2016.

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