IAt an elegant hotel on a stormy night, travelling businessman Kohei Daigo meets a shadowy yet captivating woman, Fumiko. Their faces obscured in the darkness, they pass the hours by talking. Until the night takes an unexpected turn, and the strangers make a confession.

They both have good reason to want someone dead. They fantasise about the perfect murder: each one enacting cold-blooded revenge on the other’s enemy, with nothing to tie them to the crime. In the light of day, Daigo resolves to put the unsettling night behind him.

But back home in Fukuoka, he soon receives news of a tragic accident. To his horror, it appears that Fumiko has followed through on her side of their deadly bargain – and now it’s his turn. Brimming with atmosphere, and with a dark, twisty mystery at its heart, Murder at Lake Ashinoko is the perfect, nostalgic, rediscovered novel for fans of Japanese translated fiction and classic crime.