What do you think?
Rate this book
十津川警部
The Mystery Train Disappears
After the Tokyo mystery train, which regularly takes four hundred passengers on a weekend trip to an undisclosed destination, disappears without a trace, the railway officials receive a demand for a one billion yen ransom
246 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 1982
1 person is currently reading
188 people want to read
About the author
Kyōtarō Nishimura
338 books18 followersKyotaro Nishimura (pseudonym of Kihachiro Yajima, born 6 September 1930 in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese writer of mystery stories. Nishimura is best known for his "train series" mysteries. He won the Mystery Writers of Japan Award in 1981 for The Terminal Murder Case.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 26, 2025
WOW! What a great mystery novel ... The story revolves around police efforts to find the passengers of a train that disappeared while on tour. It is a crime novel as much as it is a mystery. Aside from enjoying the novel, which is by far one of the best that I have read, you will learn about the train system and the police hierarchy in Japan. It is difficult to say more without revealing a spoiler, but let me say that this novel is much more than a simple mystery about a train that disappeared. It is a far more complex crime/thriller novel with lots of twists, which makes it truly a joy to read.
June 23, 2019
Title pretty much tells the story of this 1982 Japanese detective plot. Perpetually bankrupt Japanese National Railway started to run special mystery trains for railway enthusiasts using their elite sleeper car trains as a way to make money. Destination is a mystery, those winning the lottery application process get tickets to show up at station in Tokyo to board with no idea where they will go and what they will do. And then one with 400 passengers disappears, a ransom is demanded, and the clock starts ticking for police detectives to solve all, rescue the hostages, arrest the kidnappers, and save the ransom money.
This was clever, fun, and not an obvious solution from the begining. There was some wit to it as well, such as everyone's disbelief that the train had disappeared because after all, it left on time! However...the writing was often stilted which may be the result of the translation or could be the style these mysteries are written. And several times I was thinking that obvious and even routine lines of investigation were being ignored until very late in the book, making the police detectives look incompetent.
The author Nishimura is one of Japan's most prestigious mystery writers, and this is the first English translation (from 1990) of one of his more popular series featuring trains. I don't think many of these have been both translated and remain in print, but should I find any, I will read them!
This was clever, fun, and not an obvious solution from the begining. There was some wit to it as well, such as everyone's disbelief that the train had disappeared because after all, it left on time! However...the writing was often stilted which may be the result of the translation or could be the style these mysteries are written. And several times I was thinking that obvious and even routine lines of investigation were being ignored until very late in the book, making the police detectives look incompetent.
The author Nishimura is one of Japan's most prestigious mystery writers, and this is the first English translation (from 1990) of one of his more popular series featuring trains. I don't think many of these have been both translated and remain in print, but should I find any, I will read them!
July 3, 2019
Promosso!
Un bel thriller, sebbene a volte sia difficile orizzontarsi nella mappa del tracciato, sarebbe stata comoda una piccola cartina dell'itinerario del treno, qualche schizzo delle stazioni, capisco che per l'edizione supereconomica in mio possesso ciò fosse fuori discussione, ma davvero avrebbe aiutato. Interessante e avvincente la trama, un po' meno coinvolgenti i personaggi (e non molto intelligenti e deduttivi alla Sherlock Holmes, si limitano a seguire tutte le indicazioni dei rapitori senza colpo ferire).
Penso che questo libro sarebbe un ottimo spunto per una puntata televisiva di genere giallo e mi piacerebbe vederla sia nell'originale ambientazione giapponese che, magari, in una italiana tra i treni di periferia.
Considerando l'andamento delle ferrovie giapponesi, la loro puntualità, pulizia e quant'altro, fanno sorridere i commenti disincantati di certi personaggi sul come siano gestite male, capisco che abbiano dei buchi di bilancio, ma vogliamo parlare di Trenitalia? In questo libro i treni vengono lavati ogni giorno... in compenso si scopre che anche nel civile Giappone la clientela maleducata getta le lattine nelle aiole e binari e non nei bidoni, tutto il mondo è paese.
Un bel thriller, sebbene a volte sia difficile orizzontarsi nella mappa del tracciato, sarebbe stata comoda una piccola cartina dell'itinerario del treno, qualche schizzo delle stazioni, capisco che per l'edizione supereconomica in mio possesso ciò fosse fuori discussione, ma davvero avrebbe aiutato. Interessante e avvincente la trama, un po' meno coinvolgenti i personaggi (e non molto intelligenti e deduttivi alla Sherlock Holmes, si limitano a seguire tutte le indicazioni dei rapitori senza colpo ferire).
Penso che questo libro sarebbe un ottimo spunto per una puntata televisiva di genere giallo e mi piacerebbe vederla sia nell'originale ambientazione giapponese che, magari, in una italiana tra i treni di periferia.
Considerando l'andamento delle ferrovie giapponesi, la loro puntualità, pulizia e quant'altro, fanno sorridere i commenti disincantati di certi personaggi sul come siano gestite male, capisco che abbiano dei buchi di bilancio, ma vogliamo parlare di Trenitalia? In questo libro i treni vengono lavati ogni giorno... in compenso si scopre che anche nel civile Giappone la clientela maleducata getta le lattine nelle aiole e binari e non nei bidoni, tutto il mondo è paese.
July 23, 2011
Reflecting the real police work. Tedious.
August 22, 2011
Un mystère ferroviaire : le train disparaît. Pas mal même si ça sent le roman-mystère écrit à la chaîne
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews