Japanese YouTuber Uketsu returns with a new mystery in Strange Buildings (Pushkin Vertigo), translated into English by Jim Rion. The book reads like a game with clues hidden in the detailed blueprints of oddly-planned buildings. It follows the success of Strange Houses, the author’s first mystery novel, which was based on a YouTube video he had posted five years ago.
The floor plan with the strange passageway
Eleven files are discovered by the narrator. Each contains a story with missing answers, presented through interviews, diary notes, or articles from magazines. Later, we meet the narrator’s friend Kurihara, an architectural draughtsman known for his deductive reasoning prowess, who begins piecing the puzzle together. We learn that in the past, he has been able to make sense of a mystery concerning a house “simply by looking at the floor plan”.
The separation of the story from Kurihara’s input allows readers time to make their own speculations with the narrator. Moreover, the possibility that Kurihara’s resolution could be faulty keeps the readers thinking about the chilling stories even after they’ve finished reading the book.
What’s most fascinating about the novel is that it introduces contemporary readers to several glimpses from Japan’s history, particularly the 1980s. Many traces of the period which gave birth to a spiritual boom can be found; these are sprinkled with Japanese folklore, such as the origin story of the Fukusuke dolls. Unlike many mystery novels, the guided illustrations and maps in the book are central to the reading experience. They help us visualise what makes these buildings strange, their halls misshapen, and their rooms unusually crowded.
Uketsu studies the floor plan in a video that inspired his first book. Pic Courtesy/YouTube
With no author information, Uketsu’s identity remains anonymous throughout the book, serving as stagehands in theatre, dressed in all-black to camouflage with the backdrop, change the scenes, and present the mystery to us.
Available Leading bookstores and e-stores
Cost Rs 599
Other recent mystery reads to check out
»Good People by Patmeena Sabit
»The Dentist by Tim Sullivan
»The Hachette Book of Indian Crime Fiction, edited by Tarun K Saint
»The Samurai Detectives by Shotaro Ikenami
