Murder in the Crooked House (斜め屋敷の犯罪)
About This Book
The Book That Made Me a Mystery Addict - My Honest Review
This is the book that changed everything for me. Before reading Murder in the Crooked House (『斜め屋敷の犯罪』), I was a casual mystery reader at best. After finishing it, I became completely obsessed with Japanese detective fiction. If you're wondering whether this bizarre premise—murders in a house built on a 45-degree angle—is worth your time, let me tell you: it absolutely is, but not for the reasons you might expect.
This book taught me that mystery novels don't have to be realistic. They don't even have to be plausible. What they need is internal logic, fair play, and the audacity to commit fully to their absurd premises. Shimada doesn't just ask you to accept a tilted house; he builds an entire impossible crime scenario that could only work in this ridiculous setting, then solves it with a trick so outrageous that I still remember my shocked laughter when I first read the solution.
What Makes This Special
The Most Absurd Setting in Mystery Fiction
Let's be honest about what we're dealing with here: a house built on a 45-degree slope where the floors are tilted, the furniture is specially designed to compensate, and merely walking from room to room is an adventure. It's completely impractical, utterly unrealistic, and absolutely perfect for a mystery novel.
Shimada doesn't try to justify why anyone would build such a house beyond "an eccentric millionaire wanted it." He doesn't need to. The tilted house isn't just a gimmick—it's integral to every aspect of the mystery. The murders that occur can only happen in this space, the clues only make sense in this context, and the solution depends entirely on the unique physics of this impossible architecture.
The One-Trick Wonder That Works
I'll be completely honest: the solution to this mystery is what I call a "one-trick pony"—a single, audacious gimmick that would probably fail spectacularly in real life. It's the kind of trick that makes you simultaneously groan at its absurdity and applaud its brilliance. It's ridiculous, improbable, and requires several things to go exactly right for it to work.
And yet, it's absolutely fair. Every clue is there. The logic, within the world Shimada creates, is impeccable. When you see how it all fits together, you can't help but admire the sheer chutzpah of it all. This is mystery fiction that knows it's playing a game and invites you to play along.
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📚 Get Your Copy on AmazonWhy This Book Created a Mystery Addict
What struck me most when I first read this book wasn't just the cleverness of the solution—it was the pure joy of the puzzle. Shimada showed me that mysteries don't have to be dark psychological studies or gritty realistic crime stories. They can be playful intellectual exercises, games between author and reader where the only rule is fair play.
The shock I felt when I understood the trick wasn't disappointment at its absurdity—it was delight at its audacity. In that moment, I understood what Golden Age mystery fans had been saying all along: sometimes the most outrageous solution is the most satisfying one, precisely because you never saw it coming yet it was hiding in plain sight all along.
Cultural Context That Matters
The Japanese Approach to Space: Japanese architecture often deals with unusual spaces and creative solutions to limited land. While the tilted house is extreme, the idea of architecture that challenges conventional living isn't entirely foreign to Japanese readers.
The Shimada Touch: By this point in his career, Shimada was known for grand, impossible scenarios. Japanese mystery fans came to his books expecting the outrageous, and he never disappointed. This book represents him at his most playful and experimental.
The Fair Play Tradition: Despite the absurd premise, this follows strict fair-play rules. Japanese mystery readers take these rules seriously—every clue must be available to the reader, and the solution must be logically deducible.
Translation and Accessibility
Louise Heal Kawai's translation captures both the playful tone and the precise technical details necessary for the mystery to work. The descriptions of the tilted house's layout are clear enough to follow but strange enough to maintain the surreal atmosphere. Some Japanese wordplay is lost, but the essential experience remains intact.
The book includes helpful diagrams of the house layout, which are essential for following the mystery. Don't skip them—they're not just decoration but crucial clues to understanding the solution.
The Influence and Legacy
This book, along with Shimada's other works, helped establish that mysteries could be purely about the puzzle without sacrificing entertainment value. It showed that embracing the artificial nature of the mystery novel—rather than trying to hide it—could lead to even more satisfying stories.
Many modern Japanese mystery writers cite this book as an influence, not necessarily for its specific trick but for its fearless commitment to an absurd premise. It gave permission for mysteries to be weird, playful, and unrealistic as long as they played fair with readers.
Reading Notes for Maximum Enjoyment
- Embrace the absurdity: Don't waste time questioning why anyone would build this house. Just go with it.
- Study the diagrams: The house layout is crucial to understanding the mystery.
- Think literally: The solution depends on the specific physics of the tilted house.
- Expect the unexpected: The trick is more outrageous than you're probably imagining.
A Word of Warning
This is not a mystery for readers who demand realism. If you need your detective fiction grounded in psychological realism or police procedure, this will frustrate you. But if you're willing to embrace the game-like nature of classic puzzle mysteries, if you can appreciate audacity over authenticity, then this book offers one of the most memorable experiences in detective fiction.
Final Verdict
Murder in the Crooked House is the book that taught me mysteries could be pure fun. It's an ridiculous premise with an even more ridiculous solution, and it's absolutely glorious in its commitment to its own absurdity. Years later, I still remember the shock and delight of that first reading, the moment when the impossible suddenly became inevitable.
Is it realistic? Not remotely. Would the trick work in real life? Almost certainly not. Does any of that matter? Not one bit. This is mystery fiction that celebrates its own artificiality, that revels in the impossible, and that delivers one of the most audacious solutions in the history of detective fiction.
For readers seeking something different, something that will either delight or infuriate you (possibly both), this is essential reading. It's the book that turned me from a casual mystery reader into a devoted fan of the genre. It might do the same for you—or it might convince you that Japanese mysteries have gone completely off the rails. Either way, you won't forget it.
Murder in the Crooked House
Translated by Louise Heal Kawai
The tilted house mystery with the most audacious trick in detective fiction. The book that turns skeptics into mystery addicts.
If You Enjoyed This...
Try The Tokyo Zodiac Murders for another Shimada impossible crime, or explore The Decagon House Murders for more audacious mystery plotting.