魔女たちのたそがれ

by Jirō Akagawa, 赤川次郎

津田は小さな雑貨の卸売会社に勤める28歳の独身男性。今日は、15人の社員のうち５人が休みで、目のまわるような忙しさだ。奇妙な電話は、そのさなかに掛かってきた。「助けて……殺される」あの声は、幼なじみの依子。確か山の中の小さな町で小学校の教師をしている筈なのに……。閉鎖された町で連続して起こる、動機不明の殺人事件。狂気、憎悪、蔑視、混乱の果てに隠された恐るべき事実と結末。意外な犯人の素顔は？

305 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 2, 1986

About the author

Associated Names:
* 赤川次郎 (Japanese & Traditional Chinese)
* อาคากะวา จิโร (Thai)

Best known for his humorous mysteries, Akagawa's first short story, "Ghost Train", was published in 1976 and went on to win the annually granted All Yomimono New Mystery Writers' Prize by Bungeishunjū, a Japanese literary publishing company. Other works of his, The Incident in the Bedroom Suburb (ホームタウンの事件簿 私語を禁ず Homu Taun no Jikenbo: Shigo o Kinzu?) and Voice from Heaven (天からの声 Ten kara no Koe?), were later made into anime, while Sailor Suit and Machine Gun (セーラー服と機関銃 Serafuku to Kikanju?) was made into a popular live action movie. His most recognized works to date pertain to his Mike-neko (or Calico cat) Holmes series. He is extremely prolific; as of August 2006, he had written more than 480 novels in the course of his thirty year career, over 300 million individual published volumes.

Reviews

[Annick · Rating 5 out of 5]

One day Tsuda gets a call at work from an unknown woman who says she's going to be killed. After thinking for a while, Tsuda thinks he recognizes the person's voice and decides to go visit her because he's worried. He find the woman and takes her to a hospital in a (small) city. Once there she starts telling her scary story to a police inspector, but in the meanwhile something's going on in the city too...

I really really enjoyed this book. I had such a hard time putting it down once I picked it up. My only complaint is that I had still too many questions at the end of the book. I expected another ending, one that didn't leave me guessing as much. Luckily there's a second book, I will definitely read it and hope to get more answers from that one.