Translated from Japanese, below is a collection of both acclaimed works of mystery – more specifically, hongaku – as well as other recent, and celebrated, contemporary works of Japanese crime fiction. These translated works are all uniquely compelling and will keep you awake and guessing until their final pages.

Lady Joker (Volume 1) by Kaoru Takamura (translated by Allison Markin Powell and Marie Iida)

Tokyo, 1995. Five men meet at the racetrack every Sunday to bet on horses. They have little in common except a deep disaffection with their lives, but together they represent the social struggles and griefs of post-War Japan. Intent on revenge against a society that values corporate behemoths more than human life, the five conspirators decide to carry out a heist: kidnap the CEO of Japan’s largest beer conglomerate and extract blood money from the company’s corrupt financiers.

Inspired by the unsolved true-crime kidnapping case perpetrated by 'the Monster with 21 Faces,' Lady Joker has become a cultural touchstone since its 1997 publication, acknowledged as the magnum opus by one of Japan’s literary masters.

Three Assassins by Kotaro Isaka (translated by Sam Malissa)

Suzuki is just an ordinary man until his wife is murdered. When he discovers the criminal gang responsible he leaves behind his life as a maths teacher and joins them, looking for a chance to take his revenge. What he doesn’t realise is that he’s about to get drawn into a web of unusual professional assassins, each with their own agenda.

The Whale convinces his victims to take their own lives using just his words. The Cicada is a talkative and deadly knife expert. The elusive Pusher dispatches his targets in deadly traffic accidents. Suzuki must take each of them on, in order to try to find justice and keep his innocence in a world of killers.

Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight by Riku Onda (translated by Alison Watts)

Set in Tokyo over the course of one night, Aki and Hiro have decided to be together one last time in their shared flat before parting. Their relationship has broken down after a mountain trek during which their guide died inexplicably. Now each believes the other to be a murderer and is determined to extract a confession before the night is over.

Who is the murderer and what really happened on the mountain? In the battle of wills between them, the chain of events leading up to this night are gradually revealed in a gripping psychological thriller that keeps the reader in suspense to the very end.

The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo (translated by Louise Heal Kawai)

In the winter of 1937, the village of Okamura is abuzz with excitement over the forthcoming wedding of a son of the grand Ichiyanagi family. But amid the gossip over the approaching festivities, there is also a worrying rumour - it seems a sinister masked man has been asking questions about the Ichiyanagis around the village.

Then, on the night of the wedding, the Ichiyanagi family are woken by a terrible scream, followed by the sound of eerie music - death has come to Okamura, leaving no trace but a bloody samurai sword, thrust into the pristine snow outside the house. The murder seems impossible, but amateur detective Kosuke Kindaichi is determined to get to the bottom of it.

The Tattoo Murder by Akimitsu Takagi (translated by Deborah Boehm)

Can you solve the mystery of the tattoo murder? Tokyo, 1947. At the first post-war meeting of the Edo Tattoo Society, Kinue Nomura reveals her full-body snake tattoo to rapturous applause. Days later she is gone. A dismembered corpse is discovered in the locked bathroom of her home, but her much-coveted body art is nowhere to be found. Kinue’s horrified lover joins forces with the boy detective Kyosuke Kamizu to try to get to the bottom of the macabre crime, but similar deaths soon follow. Is someone being driven to murder by their lust for tattooed skin, and can they be stopped?

Set in a seedy Tokyo of bomb sites, dive bars and Yakuza gangs, The Tattoo Murder is one of Japan’s most ingenious and legendary whodunits.

The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji (translated by Ho-Ling Wong)

The members of a university mystery club decide to visit an island which was the site of a grisly, unsolved multiple murder the year before. They’re looking forward to investigating the crime, putting their passion for solving mysteries to practical use, but before long there is a fresh murder, and soon the club-members realise they are being picked off one-by-one. The remaining amateur sleuths will have to use all of their murder-mystery expertise to find the killer before they end up dead too.

This is a playful, loving and fiendishly plotted homage to the best of golden age crime. It will delight any mystery fan looking to put their little grey cells to use.

My Annihilation by Fuminori Nakamura (translated by Sam Bett)

What transforms a person into a killer? Can it be something as small as a suggestion?

With My Annihilation, Fuminori Nakamura, master of literary noir, has constructed a puzzle box of a narrative in the form of a confessional diary that implicates its reader in a heinous crime. Delving relentlessly into the darkest corners of human consciousness, My Annihilation interrogates the unspeakable thoughts all humans share that can be monstrous when brought to life, revealing with disturbing honesty the psychological motives of a killer.