The Moai Island Puzzle Paperback – March 15, 2016

Smidge dry maybe, but if that doesn't bother you, the clues and the reasoning around them are a lot of fun. It's really cool how much you can extract from one small item.Hmm, my main complaint is that solving the titular "puzzle" would require you cutting a page out of the book. But most people won't bother, and it's not actually the main mystery anyway, so I don't really mind.

I mostly read non-fiction, so my baselines may be totally off; however, I had a lot of fun reading the story. The number of details made it a bit difficult to keep track of which ones were important. I was able to guess suspect/motive, but I could not figure out the opportunity until it all came together. Fun read, I will look at other Japanese honkaku authors as well.

While the plot was good, the 'who done it', a surprise, this was a very hard book for me to finish. Rambling, Rambling the book, could have been done in half the time and without the long and agonizing reading.

Three university students who belong to the college mystery club spend their holiday on an isolated island. Maria Arima, whose uncle owns the island, is the only female member. The author gives his name to the youngest member of the group. It took me a while to get used to a young man called Alice, but none of the Japanese characters in the book seem to think anything of it. The eldest of the three students, Egami, has the sharpest intellect.Sharp reasoning will be needed. The grandfather who first bought the island, was an eccentric who loved puzzles. He had twenty-five Moai statues carved and placed all over the island. He also hid a fortune in diamonds somewhere on the island, inviting anyone who could find the treasure to keep it. The students plan to try their wits on the treasure hunt.Death enters the picture in the form of a locked room mystery. The three students, despite their extensive reading of crime novels, are thoroughly perplexed. Meanwhile the island is well stocked with guests, most of them relatives. Among them lurks a murderer. Since the island is cut off from communicating with the mainland for days, it's up to the students to find the killer.The personalities of the three students are appealing. They are all articulate, intelligent in different ways, and acutely observant. And the narrator Alice is charmingly self-effacing.I was not up to solving the mystery, which is quite complicated, but I thoroughly enjoyed the amateur sleuthing.This is my first experience of "shin honkaku," the Japanese form of the Golden Age puzzle mystery. It's fun to find so many Golden Age conventions in a Japanese novel. The introduction by an author I especially admire, Soji Shimada, is very informative on various developments in crime fiction both East and West.

What starts out as a week-long treasure hunting lark on an isolated island for three students who belong to a mystery club at school devolves into a real life murder mystery as guests on the island are killed. A storm prevents rescue and the elder of the students sets out to solve the murders. An enjoyable golden-age-type murder mystery, written (or translated from the Japanese) in a breezy manner. It has all the elements of the classic tale: a locked room, a map of the island, a diagram of the locked room, charts that help solve the treasure hunt, and a list of characters, which is very helpful if you are not familiar with Japanese names.

The Moai Island Puzzle, first published in Japan in 1989 by Alice Arisugawa, is a revered masterpiece in the world of Japanese mystery fiction. Thanks to the diligent efforts of John Pugmire’s Locked Room International and translator Ho-Ling Wong, English readers can now enjoy the intellectual thrill of solving this ingenious puzzle. As with Yukito Ayatsuji’s The Decagon House Murders, Ho-Ling Wong has flawlessly translated the work and made it easily accessible and wonderfully readable.Alice, Maria and Egami, three university students in a mystery fiction club, head to an isolated tropical island filled with moai statues all pointing in different directions. The statues seem to hold the key to locating a wealth of diamonds hidden by Maria’s grandfather. Waiting on the island are eight members of Maria’s family as well as two family friends. Arisugawa does an excellent job in introducing the cast and island, creating a lighthearted game-like atmosphere to locate the treasure. However, the fun ends when a typhoon hits the island and a series of murders begin to occur. With the radio destroyed and contact to the mainland impossible, the members of the island quickly realize the murderer is among them. The mysteries in the novel are reminiscent of puzzle plots done by Ellery Queen and John Dickson Carr. It’s an absolute treat for any hardcore mystery fan because you’re provided with all the clues and can engage in a faithful deduction game. Similar to Soji Shimada’s The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, Arisugawa makes sure to include a challenge to the reader right before the denouement. The Moai Island Puzzle is an addictive and incredibly absorbing read, highly recommended to every mystery fan.

Is like a combination of Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen.Not bad,keeps you interested and has its moments of love story and of logic,plus you can see a little about Japanese customs.

This is a great example of the Japanese interpretation of the fair play whodunit. It rivals any of the best of Ellery Queen .