The Man Who Died Seven Times

First published in Japan in 1995, The Man Who Died Seven Times is a genre-defying crime thriller of murder, greed, and fractured family loyalties.

Hisataro has been born with a curse. At any point, and beyond his control, Hisataro will be stuck in a time loop, forced to relive the same day nine times. As if that wasn’t trouble enough, Hisataro is also the youngest member of the wealthy Fuchigami family – a family constantly bickering and competing with each other as their patriarch, Hisataro’s grandfather Reijiro Fuchigami, remains flippant about choosing an heir to inherit all his wealth.

So when Reijiro is found murdered on New Year’s Day, one day after announcing he has chosen his heir, Hisataro sees his curse as a blessing. He must solve his grandfather’s murder in nine days before the loop ends, or he may never discover which of his family members is a murderer.

Groundhog Day meets Succession in this inventive and unsettling mystery, at once darkly humorous and uncomfortably plausible. Many novels explore the strength of family bonds against any adversity, but when wills and inheritance are mentioned, nothing can split a family apart more quickly. Beneath the novel’s twists and revelations lies a sobering inquiry into the nature of loyalty and the corruptive influence of wealth, asking just how thick blood really is when it comes up against money, and how far one can drive the other, even to the point of death.

With an eccentric cast of characters, shocking secrets and backstabbings, and an unexpectedly clever ending, Yasuhiko Nishizawa’s whodunnit is one you’ll wish had been translated sooner. It’s a sharply constructed puzzle-box of morality and greed, where every revelation deepens the absurdity of human ambition. Clever, cruel, and darkly funny, it’s a reminder that time may repeat itself, but our worst impulses rarely change.