FROM ONE OF JAPAN'S GREATEST CRIME WRITERS—THE AUTHOR OF THE HONJIN MURDERS : Nothing at The Black Cat Café is as it seems. . . In order to solve this sensational stand-alone murder mystery, scruffy detective Kosuke Kindaichi will have to untangle a complex web of love, jealousy, and betrayal In post-war Tokyo, still recovering from the devastating wartime bombing raids, a patrolling policeman passing The Black Cat Café makes a gruesome discovery: the body of a woman, lying in a hastily dug hole, with a dead black cat by her side. The woman’s face is disfigured beyond recognition, and the café’s black cat seems alive and well, so where did the two corpses come from, and why were they buried in the café’s garden? As the legendary scruffy sleuth Kosuke Kindaichi investigates, he realizes the café’s enigmatic madam, Oshima, has a past shrouded in secrecy, and what exactly is her relationship with the owner, Itoshima? Murder at the Black Cat Café is the latest instalment in the Kosuke Kindaichi mysteries—the classic series that made Seishi Yokomizo Japan’s greatest and best-loved crime writer of all time. This edition also includes a bonus story, ‘The Well Wheel Creaks’. "Fans of Golden Age mysteries will enjoy trying to solve Kindaichi’s whodunit alongside the rumpled detective, as well as exploring the details of the novel’s postwar Japan setting." — Library Journal "Playful puzzles solved by a brilliant, laconic sleuth." —Kirkus Reviews "Almost a half century after his death, Yokomizo remains an evergreen favorite for his skillfully constructed multilayered puzzles, expertly keeping readers' suspicions twisting and turning." —Shelf Awareness "For fans of Japanese detectives, historical fiction, puzzle mysteries, and novellas!" —Book Riot "His novels are the literary equivalent of a Rubik’s cube: all the bits of the puzzle are there, but it’s up to you to get them in the right place" —The Times (UK) "Excellent stories with much puzzlement" —The Critic (UK) "Seishi Yokomizo has been likened to Agatha Christie, and Murder at the Black Cat Cafe [is] impeccably plotted" — Financial Times "The story is as spare and streamlined as any of Inspector Maigret’s investigations, and as fiendishly complicated as a Sherlock Holmes puzzler" —Irish Times " Murder at the Black Cat Cafe serves up two sinisterly cerebral cases cracked by Kosuke Kindaichi, Seishi Yokomizo’s sublime series detective... showcasing Yokomizo’s talent for atmospheric mysteries, multilayered puzzles and brilliant deductive leaps" —Crime Fiction Lover Seishi Yokomizo (1902-81) was one of Japan's most famous and best-loved mystery writers. Born in Kobe and spent his childhood reading detective stories, before beginning to write stories of his own, the first of which was published in 1921. He went on to become an extremely prolific and popular author, best known for his Kosuke Kindaichi series, which ran to 77 books, many of which were adapted for stage and television in Japan. The Honjin Murders , The Inugami Curse, The Village of Eight Graves , Death on Gokumon Island , The Devil’s Flute Murders and The Little Sparrow Murders are also available from Pushkin Vertigo. Bryan Karetnyk is a translator of Japanese and Russian literature. His recent translations for Pushkin Press include Seishi Yokomizo’s The Village of Eight Graves , Futaro Yamada’s The Meiji Guillotine Murders , Taku Ashibe’s Murder in the House of Omari and Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s Murder in the Age of Enlightenment .