The House Labyrinth Murders has a very eye-catching cover and some intriguing elements like the labyrinth maps and insights into the use of author pseudonyms in Japanese literature. But, the reading experience didn’t quite land for me. The book-in-a-book structure - multiplied four times - felt excessive, making the narrative unnecessarily convoluted rather than alluring and captivating.

One of my biggest gripes was the infamous “bull head” reveal, which felt like a cringeworthy example of men writing women in ways that simply don’t make sense. The writing style didn’t help either - straightforward to the point of being dry, with an ending that overexplains everything instead of leaving room for nuance or imagination. Adding to the frustration, this isn’t a true “fair play” mystery, as some key details are deliberately kept from the reader, making the resolution feel cheap rather than satisfying.

While I can see how this might have been groundbreaking decades ago, it didn’t hold up for me. If you’re a fan of classic Japanese mysteries or Ayatsuji’s other works, you might still enjoy it, but personally, I struggled to stay engaged.

I simply can't put this book down. I think this may be Yukito Ayatsuji's best work that I have ever read. I love the layout of the house and the Greek mythology references. Some things were quite confusing but rewarding once we figure things out.

This murder mystery had a very classic feel to it! As someone who read And Then There Were None in my formative years, this felt right up the same alley.

I enjoyed the puzzles and while I solved some minor mysteries within the mystery before the characters did, other twists surprised me. The turducken of a book within a book and a solve within a solve confused me a little, but it was most likely in part due to the textual layout of the ARC.

It took a while to pick up, but once it did, it was properly unnerving. That first murder scene really set the tone for the story!

A well-done whodunit murder mystery structured as a book within a book. It also contained a good deal of Greek mythology, which was very fascinating. It was, unfortunately, the epilogue that ruined it for me. I felt the big plot twist was a bit misogynistic.

The third book in the locked house murder mystery series and as is the norm with this series it is so fun. The twists and the turns of this series that takes place in an underground Labyrinth house (as in the name) are incredibly compelling. It was hard to put this book down.

After visiting the Decagon and the Mill houses, this third entry brings us the fabulous Labyrinth House. All three were designed by the same architect, and I’d really love to visit them if they existed. This one is very well described, adding to the element of dread and claustrophobia. Both, house and plot, are filled with impossible turns and twists. I figured out some parts, but the main reveals were unexpected. Unlike other Japanese novels, I didn’t have such a hard time keeping track of the characters. Their names were hard for my Spanish-wired brain to remember, but the characters are distinctive enough that I could follow along. This is mostly a fair-play mystery that pays homage to the classics, and I was able to identify most of the easter eggs hidden throughout. I imagine that the original text is well written because the translation was excellent. This one also feels a little less dated than the others, even if it was also written in the 80’s. The ending is, as usual, unexpected and amazing.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/Pushkin Vertigo.

The third (in terms of English translations) in the house murder mysteries, “The Labyrinth House Murders” by Yukito Ayatsuji is, like the previous two books, a clever homage to the golden age's "fair play" and "locked room" mysteries, with a Japanese twist.

The setting is similar to the previous “The Mill House Murders”, an odd house (built by the same architect as the previous two houses) out in the country, inhabited by an eccentric. The owner of the house, Miyagaki Yotaro, invites a select group of guests for a weekend: four of his protégé authors, a famous literary critic, a mystery editor and his wife, and Shimada Kiyoshi, who readers will remember as the amateur sleuth from the previous books. The house itself is built underground and based on the Greek mythological tales of the Labyrinth, with maze-like corridors, rooms named after Greek figures, and a menacing bull’s head hanging on the wall. Soon after the arrival of the guests the surprises start: Miyagaki has committed suicide and has left instructions for an interesting contest to determine which of his proteges will get his billions. Each of the four authors has 50 hours to write a murder mystery, set in the Labyrinth House, with themselves as the victims. The remaining three will act as judges to determine the winner. Everyone will be locked in the house with no communication with the outside world.

And so it begins. As each author scrambles to write their story, very quickly one of them is found gruesomely murdered, with the bull’s head where their head once was. On the author’s word processor was the start of his story, which was the exact prediction of how he died. And the owner’s assistant, the only one with keys to exit the house, has gone missing, the phone lines are cut. Before the night is done, there will be more mysterious murders, each predicted from the victim’s short story. Can Shimada and the editor solve the mystery and find the killer before they become the next victims?

An interesting glimpse into a different culture, time, and place. The mystery isn’t too intricate, most readers will be ahead of our amateur sleuths in figuring out who and how, but be prepared to be shocked in the very last epilogue.

I requested and received a free advanced electronic copy from Pushkin Press - Pushkin Vertigo via NetGalley. Thank you!

This was such a fun read! The concept and the resolution were not exactly unexpected however it didn’t take away from the story and the twists and turns along the way.

A slow burn but very enjoyable, have not read this authors work before but I shall definitely look out further work .
From the start of the book , I had a sense of the board game Cluedo , I enjoyed each character from their different backgrounds
8/10 from me

OMG! What an excellent read! I thought I was soo clever to have guessed what was going on.... oh girl.. I was soo wrong! I loved every page! If you are a fan of Agatha Christie and locked-house/isolated mysteries.. this one is for you. I have enjoyed all the books from this author, but this one is my favourite so far.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for my honest opinion!

I didn't realize this was the fourth book of interconnected stories, the Bizarre House Mysteries series. This book has definitely made me want to read more of them, ESPECIALLY the twisty ending.

The Labyrinth House Murders is a Japanese locked room murder mystery novel that has been translated to English and republished.

Written as a book within a book, an unknown character receives the novel detailing the true story of the Labyrinth House Murders committed the year earlier. As he starts to read the book, we find out that a group of writers and esteemed guests have been invited to the Labyrinth House by its owner on the pretext of a party. Things go downhill from there when they discover his death, along with a challenge to come up with a perfect murder mystery story to win his fortune.

Until more people start showing up dead.

While the story is twisty and sets you up in a direction to believe what you are presented with, and even make you think you have guessed the whole plot... you would be mistaken.

It is not until the epilogue of the novel, and followed by the epilogue of the unknown character reading said novel, that we finally see the real picture.

This book, originally published in 1988 and republished this year, is a clever whodunnit with lots of twists and stories within stories. Four writers and a few critics are invited to the house of an elderly crime writer, the Labyrinth House, built by a famous architect known for his clever designs and houses full of surprises and mysteries. Having just arrived, they learn that the older writer has just died and that they are now competing for his fortune and must come up with a crime novella set in the house and where they are the victim.
It was clever in its construction of a story within a story, and every time I thought I had reached the last layer there was another one. The issue with labyrinths is that they are hard to follow and this was true of this story... Following the whereabouts of each suspect when the rooms all connect through a labyrinth was tricky. And I won't say much more not to spoil the story, but clearly the author doesn't have a very good knowledge of women or of female anatomy, which ruined some parts of the book for me.
But overall it was a clever detective novel and I enjoyed reading it.

I devoured this book in two sittings.
It was fun and so clever and kept me guessing every step of the way. The author did an amazing job at building suspense and making you doubt absolutely everyone in the story.

Wow! This was original and a mystery that keeps giving. Nothing is what it seems to be. The truth? Who knows... You can't trust anyone.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for thos eARC in exchange for my honest opinion. All words are my own.

Thanks to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for the ARC.

A nice puzzle of a whodunnit with distinct personalities driving the mystery and a likable amateur sleuth to guide us to the answer. It also features a frame narrative of a mystery book published in this world, read by someone who knows the detective, and that is a key detail to solving the mystery. I really thought I had it. My predictions turned out right at first, I thought I was so clever, but I forgot about the frame narrative! It changes everything, and it's not that the clue was even hidden, I noticed it, but I completely dismissed it at the time! It's such a smart move on the author's part, and very enjoyable.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!

I understand that there is a certain level of derivativeness that attaches to this story, and it is, perhaps, something the author has done before. This is, however, my first foray into the world of this particular author’s brand of creepy house murders, and it’s wholeheartedly enjoyable.

The story puts across a distinct sense of security in the twists and working out what is where, but there is always a little extra nugget of intrigue lurking in the background. The payoff for this, of course, is in the epilogue, which throws a nice little curveball for the more self-confident mystery solver.

The characters aren’t necessarily overly well developed, but that doesn’t really matter here. They’re better construed as pawns in a wider game, and, in a way, the less we know about them, the better. The deaths were nasty and definitely had an element of menace about them, which made for a far grittier story than a lot of other locked room mysteries. This book was a fun one, and definitely well worth the read!

Thank you to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for the eARC. All opinions are my own.
4,5/5
The Labyrinth House Murders is the third book in the Bizzare House mysteries series. The story is inspired by And Then There Were None, as a mystery writer invites his mentees to his 60th birthday party - only for them to realized that they are being killed off one by one in a locked-house setting. The house itself is inspired by Greek mythology, which I really enjoyed. Even though I was able to guess some details, the plot twist at the end still took me by surprise. I haven't read the other books in the series yet, but after finishing this one, I definitely plan to.
Unfortunately, the Kindle format from NetGalley wasn't well done, and I struggled to realize that this was a book within a book.

This book was not my taste. It was all over the place, but not in a good way. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

Another complicated house mystery from Yukito Ayatsuji! I love this series and I know my patrons will love this newly-translated addition to it. Although I thought I had this story figured out, the ending floored me and made me look at the whole story in a new light!