The Clock House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji Translator: Ho-Ling Wong
Narrator: Jonathan Yen
Series: The Bizarre House Mysteries #5
Published by Tantor Media on June 2, 2026
Source: NetGalley
Genres: Mystery
Length: 14 hrs 14 mins
Pages: 416
Format: Audiobook
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Rumor has it that the mysterious Clock House—a remote mansion built by notorious architect Nakamura Seiji for a long-dead clock enthusiast— is haunted by the ghost of a young girl, who died there 10 years earlier. No one is more intrigued by this than the investigating team from the paranormal magazine CHAOS. They decide to visit the mansion, along with a psychic medium, in an attempt to make contact with the spirit.
The plan is for the group of investigators to spend three days locked in the house, but their stay has barely begun when a gruesome murder is committed. And then the survivors find that they are trapped in the house, with no possibility of escape…
Meanwhile, the brilliant detective Shimada Kiyoshi is investigating the enigma of The Clock House from the outside, eager to unravel the mystery of another of Nakamura Seiji’s twisted architectural creations.
But as his investigation proceeds, the team inside the house are being slaughtered one-by-one. Will Shimada crack the puzzle of the Clock House before all of them are dead?
The latest installment in Yukito Ayatsuji’s thrilling Bizarre House Mysteries series, this stand-alone puzzle mystery is par-excellence by a master of the form, packed with twists and culminating in a jaw-dropping, unforgettable solution.
A group of paranormal investigators, mostly college students along with a medium and two magazine employees, have gone to a remote mansion called the Clock House that is supposedly haunted by a teenage girl who died 8 years ago. They’re locked into the old part of the mansion and, of course, there’s a murder. Note: Don’t get locked in at remote mansions. At the same time, the series amateur sleuth/mystery writer, Shimada Kiyoshi, is visiting the house with another college student who wasn’t able to make the trip originally. So, inside the house, people are being killed in locked rooms surrounded by hundreds of ticking clocks with no way to escape – and yes they do try, while on the outside, Kiyoshi is trying to solve the riddle of the house and what happened 10 years ago.
This is the first I’ve read in the series and it worked fine as a stand alone. There were some references to previous cases, but I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything, except for why people keep going to houses designed by Nakamura Seiji. I will say there were a lot of characters, both dead and alive, and it got a bit confusing for me. The author did give us reminders of who was who throughout, and the fact that they were all Japanese names probably made it a little harder, especially on audio. The narrator did do a great job bringing the story to life, though.
It’s a very, maybe overly, clever mystery. I could guess who the killer was but had no idea of the how and only a piece of the why. I will say that the wrap-up took too long, though. Every little detail of what happened was explained as a monologue, which made me feel like the author either doesn’t trust the reader or doesn’t think they laid enough crumbs out along the way. I love a good denouement, but not one that’s overly extended.
About Yukito Ayatsuji
Naoyuki Uchida (born December 23, 1960), known by his pen name Yukito Ayatsuji, is a Japanese writer of mystery and horror. He is one of the founders of Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan and one of the representative writers of the new traditionalist movement in Japanese mystery writing. His wife is Fuyumi Ono, a Japanese fantasy and horror writer who is known for her fantasy series The Twelve Kingdoms.
His first novel The Decagon House Murders was ranked as the No. 8 novel on the Top 100 Japanese Mystery Novels of All Time.
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