Tokyo Express (Penguin Modern Classics)

An absolute corker of a read — so brilliantly shrouded in mystery that it was impossible to put it down’ – Lisa Hall, author of Between You and Me

A perfectly plotted, cosy detective story from Seicho Matsumoto, Japan’s master of mystery

‘It was a puzzle with no solution. But he did not lose heart.’

In a rocky cove in the bay of Hakata, the bodies of a young and beautiful couple are discovered. Stood in the coast’s wind and cold, the police see nothing to investigate: the flush of the couple’s cheeks speaks clearly of cyanide, of a lovers’ suicide. But in the eyes of two men, Torigai Jutaro, a senior detective, and Kiichi Mihara, a young gun from Tokyo, something is not quite right. Together, they begin to pick at the knot of a unique and calculated crime…

Now widely available in English for the first time, Tokyo Express is celebrated around the world as Seicho Matsumoto’s masterpiece – and as one of the most fiendish puzzles ever written.