Winner of the 36th Ayukawa Tetsuya Award. Selected from 209 entries submitted by the October 31, 2025 deadline, this previously unpublished full-length mystery novel is scheduled for publication by Tokyo Sogensha in October 2026. The Tokushima Shimbun reported it as a mystery set in a fantasy world.

Emergency physician Satoru Aiba is confronted with an unidentified drowning victim who looks exactly like him. As he investigates, he uncovers a forbidden experiment from the early days of in vitro fertilization and a hidden truth about his own origins. A winner of the 35th Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, this medical mystery probes bioethics and the bonds of family.

A body with the same face as mine was pulled from the river.

A classic whodunit about impossible crimes aboard a sailing warship bound for the North Sea.

The award-winning work was retitled “The Murder of the Sailing Warship” on publication.

An orthodox mystery about a series of murders under extraordinary conditions, awarded the Ayukawa Tetsuya Prize (Excellent Award).

An extraordinary setting and a grim declaration draw the case forward.

One of the final nominees for the 31st Ayukawa Tetsuya Award; no standalone book publication has been confirmed.

An unpublished finalist that drew attention in the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award selection.

A full-length mystery selected as a final nominee for the 31st Ayukawa Tetsuya Award; no standalone book publication has been confirmed.

An unpublished mystery about chocolate that remained among the finalists.

A final nominee for the 31st Ayukawa Tetsuya Award; no standalone book publication has been confirmed.

An unpublished mystery finalist chosen for the shortlist.

A final nominee for the 31st Ayukawa Tetsuya Award; no standalone book publication has been confirmed.

An unpublished finalist centered on a ninja running through London.

To save his dying wife, the protagonist time-travels to 1960. He has four days to uncover the truth behind a tragedy that struck her ancestors, in an award-winning novel blending time-travel SF with classic mystery.

He travels through time to expose the truth behind a catastrophe.

Set in Sapporo, a girl reunites with her childhood friend and detective, Torikai Ayumu, who no longer attends school, and faces everyday mysteries. This coming-of-age mystery is built from four stories and was published after winning the award.

Boys and girls grow a little through the mysteries they encounter.

Recorded as a finalist for the 28th Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, but no standalone book publication could be confirmed in public bibliographic sources.

A finalist work with no confirmed standalone publication in public bibliographies.

Recorded as a finalist for the 28th Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, but no standalone book publication could be confirmed in public bibliographic sources.

A finalist work with no confirmed standalone publication in public bibliographies.

Recorded as a finalist for the 28th Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, but no standalone book publication could be confirmed in public bibliographic sources.

A finalist work with no confirmed standalone publication in public bibliographies.

A linked mystery set in a Kyoto clerical clothing shop, where a missing-item request escalates into a locked-room murder. The finalist work Red Casablanca was later published as 431-Second Murder: Kyoto Tsuji-uranai Detective Rokkaku.

The finalist work was later published as 431-Second Murder.

A murder at a university summer retreat is investigated by Kenzaki Hiruko and Akechi Kyosuke. The novel layers zombie-like catastrophe over the tension of a closed-circle mystery in a striking debut.

At the lodge where the group is staying, an unimaginable tragedy begins.

A serial killer and a newspaper reporter confront each other through a public debate in print. The novel tensely portrays the structure of a stage-managed crime and the mechanics of the media.

A newspaper battle begins with the line, “Stop my murders with words.”

Recorded as a finalist for the 27th Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, but no standalone book publication could be confirmed in public bibliographic sources.

A finalist work with no confirmed standalone publication in public bibliographies.

At a high school cultural festival haunted house, the class committee member playing a ghost is murdered. The story narrows down the culprit through minute-by-minute verification and was later published as Ghosts’ Alibi.

When did the girl playing the ghost become a real corpse?

Recorded as a finalist for the 27th Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, but no standalone book publication could be confirmed in public bibliographic sources.

A finalist work with no confirmed standalone publication in public bibliographies.

A magistrate’s officer and his son, Toda Sozaemon, solve cases spanning the transition from Edo to Meiji. This is a four-story historical mystery collection later published in paperback.

A linked collection in which father and son solve mysteries in late Edo Japan.

During the final trial of the small airship Jellyfish, built with special technology, a dead body is found in the sealed cabin. The development team becomes trapped in the snow mountains and must face a sequence of tragedies in an inescapable classic mystery.

Inside a trapped airship in the snow mountains, death and mystery begin to cascade.

A work announced as a finalist for the 25th Ayukawa Tetsuya Prize, but no standalone book edition could be confirmed in public bibliographic records.

A finalist for the 25th Ayukawa Tetsuya Prize.

A work announced as a finalist for the 25th Ayukawa Tetsuya Prize, but no standalone book edition could be confirmed in public bibliographic records.

A finalist for the 25th Ayukawa Tetsuya Prize.

A work announced as a finalist for the 25th Ayukawa Tetsuya Prize, but no standalone book edition could be confirmed in public bibliographic records.

A finalist for the 25th Ayukawa Tetsuya Prize.

A work announced as a finalist for the 25th Ayukawa Tetsuya Prize, but no standalone book edition could be confirmed in public bibliographic records.

A finalist for the 25th Ayukawa Tetsuya Prize.

An armchair-detective mystery in which graduate student Chuo works at a billiards hall run by a former world champion and gets drawn into the arguments and a suspicious death that occupy the regulars.

Idle talk at a billiards hall becomes the key to solving the case.

A long-form mystery in which the legendary detective Keijiro Yashiki, once a dominant force in the mystery world, takes on a threatening letter and a locked-room case alongside the young detective Hanako Mikan.

An aging detective and a young detective face the case together, each staking their revival on the outcome.

A school-set orthodox mystery in which Yuno, a girls' table tennis club member, asks the campus genius Tenma Urazome to solve the murder of the broadcasting club captain in the old gymnasium of Fuurigaoka High School.

A campus genius takes on a locked-room murder in an old gymnasium.

The protagonist loses eight years of memory and, while feeling as if she has returned to her high school days, begins to investigate the past events surrounding the drama club production of Megane-ya wa Kieta. As the culture festival approaches, the truth behind a bittersweet and painful incident gradually comes together.

Beyond the missing eight years, the past and present of the drama club intersect.

1967年、東京都生まれ。千葉県在住。都立墨田川高校中退。ライターとして活躍後、2011年、『眼鏡屋は消えた』で第21回鮎川哲也賞を受賞しデビュー。

A work recorded as a finalist for the 21st Ayukawa Tetsuya Award. Public information does not confirm a standalone book edition or detailed synopsis, so the bibliographic record mainly captures its status as a finalist.

A finalist work on record.

A work recorded as a finalist for the 21st Ayukawa Tetsuya Award. Public bibliographic sources do not confirm a standalone book edition, and no synopsis is available, so the record focuses on its position as a finalist.

A title that survives as a finalist record.

A work recorded as a finalist for the 21st Ayukawa Tetsuya Award. Public sources do not confirm a standalone book edition, and no detailed synopsis is available, so the bibliographic record remains as a finalist entry.

A finalist preserved in the public record.

Two detectives receive a strange request to spend the night in a certain house. The morning after they fall asleep drunk, the scene is left with the traces of an inexplicable murder, and the case takes an unexpected turn.

A simple overnight request leads into the mystery of a gruesome crime.

1964年、東京都生まれ。神奈川県在住。東京歯科大学卒。歯科医師。2010年、『ボディ・メッセージ』で第20回鮎川哲也賞を受賞しデビュー。

Julian transfers to a boarding school for girls in New Zealand carrying a memoir left by her grandmother and an old letter. On the night of a traditional ceremony at the chapel, a tragedy unfolds that seems to echo a past case, revealing a truth that had long been buried.

A grandmother's memoir and an old letter connect a tragedy at a girls' school to the past.

1978年、神奈川県生まれ。東京芸術専門学校卒。2010年、『太陽が死んだ夜』（応募時ペンネーム：月原少年）で第20回鮎川哲也賞を受賞しデビュー。

After entering high school, Sugawa falls for a girl named Torino Hatsu, only to learn that she is a magician who hones her skills after school at the restaurant-bar Cendrillon. As strange incidents unfold at school, he works with her to solve them and gradually draws closer to her.

At the after-school bar Cendrillon, magic and romance quietly begin to move.

Set in the children’s home Nanami Gakuen, this lyrical classic mystery links a chain of eerie incidents and the children’s stories into a connected sequence of tales. Each individual puzzle ultimately converges on one larger truth.

Beyond six mysteries, the outline of a seventh truth emerges.

Recorded as a candidate for the 18th Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, but no standalone book publication could be confirmed. No bibliographic identifiers were found, and the work’s full content cannot be verified from the public primary sources available.

At present, only the title preserved in the selection record is a verifiable clue.

Recorded as a candidate for the 18th Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, but no standalone book publication could be confirmed. No bibliographic identifiers were found, and the work’s full content cannot be verified from the public primary sources available.

At present, only the title preserved in the selection record is a verifiable clue.

A coming-of-age mystery that follows the strange events surrounding Chinatsu Arima after she returns to her family home, including disappearances and UFO rumors. The double possibility of supernatural incident or crime heightens the unsettled feeling of late summer.

Were the events of that summer supernatural, or were they crimes?

A classic adventure mystery built around a prison-break warning from an underground cell in the Shiobara mine town and a series of murders, with two detectives and a lawyer taking on an astonishing escape trick. It uses a grand setup involving an enigmatic villain and a mining town, then solves it through careful logic.

A warning from a man who vanished from a prison cell sets the murder drama of the mining town in motion.

Set in a university anatomy lab, this medical mystery gradually reveals the shape of a hidden secret and a revenge plot through a tube found in a corpse and a sinister four-line poem. It is a debut novel that turns specialist knowledge into narrative drive.

A four-line poem dropped into the dissection room throws the lab’s darkness into relief.

A coming-of-age mystery that follows events in the school arts building, where rumors of a ghost swirl before a farewell concert by the brass band. It combines the atmosphere of school life with the pleasure of puzzle-solving, beginning from an attempt to verify the ghost story.

On a night of ghost rumors, a high school student is called in as a neutral witness and faces the truth.

A full-length mystery in which a story about people fascinated by poison eerily resonates with an actual crime. Its structure, in which the embedded fiction and the outer case begin to slip apart, gives the book a distinctive aftertaste shaped by its delayed publication.

The story’s own "Dokusatsu Club" seems to draw real-world events toward it.

Set in a small shopping mall near Osaka, this breezy long-form mystery follows a man acting as a detective who gets caught up in strange incidents while searching for a runaway.

Rokugatsu no Yuki was published as Seikimatsu Dai(Gran) Bazaar: June Snow.

Recorded as a candidate for the 15th Ayukawa Tetsuya Prize, but no standalone book edition could be confirmed in public bibliographic sources.

Gunjō could not be confirmed as a standalone publication in public bibliographic records.

Set on an isolated island in the postwar period, this classic mystery follows a young detective as a locked-room murder and a series of strange deaths lead toward an astonishing mechanism.

Tsukiyogaoka was published as Oni ni Sasageru Yasokyoku.

The truth behind a disappearance and the mystery hidden in a painting are revealed through a sequence of locked-room murders in this classic mystery.

Shin no Tarinai Misshitsu was published as Misshitsu no Requiem.

Set in the imperial court of the Heian period, this courtly mystery follows Murasaki Shikibu as she investigates a missing cat and the mystery of the lost chapter from The Tale of Genji.

Murasaki Shikibu takes on a disappearance tied to the lost chapter of The Tale of Genji.

Set in postwar Germany, this classic mystery layers a murder in a snowbound castle with a battle of wits surrounding an embedded story. Letters, memoirs, and other clues are folded together into a structure that invites readers to enjoy the act of being misled.

A memoir sealed inside a snowbound castle sends the detective game deeper into the maze.

This psychological suspense begins with a confession in a university seminar, centering on a female college student. A classic-mystery-style locked-room setup is layered with the protagonist's relationship with her senior and the shifting currents of their emotions.

A confession and a locked room push the protagonist and her senior toward the edge.

This title is recorded as a finalist for the 12th Ayukawa Tetsuya Prize, but no standalone book edition of the Kishida Ruriko version could be confirmed in public bibliographic sources. There was not enough primary information available to verify the text or its formal bibliographic details.

No public work synopsis could be confirmed.

At a girls' school with a junior-high and high-school division, a series of fatal falls among art club members leaves behind an unpublished manuscript, a locked-room puzzle, and a vivid portrait of the instability and unease of adolescence.

I want to become something transparent and ordinary. A full-length mystery that vividly captures the shifting psychology of adolescent girls.

Set in a building under construction, this orthodox mystery assembles the puzzle of three dismembered, numbered corpses and a vanishing person through the reasoning of detective Keiji Kuchimate. The work won the award under the title Human-Eating Building, and was later published as Architectural Corpse.

Numbered corpses are assembled into a grim puzzle inside a building still under construction.

Set in a building under construction, this orthodox mystery assembles the puzzle of three dismembered, numbered corpses and a vanishing person through the deductions of its detective protagonist. Its use of a sealed construction site and its strongly grotesque setup leave a vivid impression.

A dismantled body is eerily put together inside a building still under construction.

This work is recorded as a finalist for the 11th Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, but no standalone book edition could be confirmed through Amazon JP, NDL OPAC, or the publisher's official site. Public information is limited, so a more detailed synopsis based on the text itself cannot be produced at present.

A piece that remains on record as a finalist.

This work, submitted under the pen name Kujo Shobu, remained a finalist for the 11th Ayukawa Tetsuya Award. No standalone book edition could be confirmed through Amazon JP, NDL OPAC, or the publisher's official site, so the public record is limited to its finalist status.

A finalist with very limited public information.

Curator Naoki Yabe becomes fascinated by two paintings left by the late artist Tojoji Kei, who worked obsessively before taking his own life. Using iconography to decode their hidden meanings, Yabe is led to the truth behind a double locked-room murder that occurred on Christmas Eve twenty years earlier. This debut novel, winner of the 9th Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, incorporates paintings created by the author himself, weaving art history and detective fiction into a seamless whole.

A double locked-room secret hidden within the final works of a painter who created obsessively before ending his own life.

Kitsumori Koun's debut full-length mystery centers on the riddles surrounding the famed onnagata Sansei Sawamura Tanosuke and Kawanabe Kyosai's ghost painting, unfolding into a series of murders in the early Meiji kabuki world. Its interplay of obsession, stagecraft, and historical atmosphere makes it rewarding both as period fiction and as a classic mystery.

A tragic onnagata and a ghost painting draw a string of murders into early Meiji kabuki.

The author’s debut novel, a classic mystery built around an elaborate trick.

An elaborate trick anchors the story’s core.

A debut novel set on a remote island, where warped relationships and unsettling events gradually spread.

Beneath the island’s quiet, unsettling events spread.

A linked mystery novel in which college student Komako exchanges letters over a book and gradually unravels small mysteries hidden in everyday life.

A girl drawn to a single book moves closer to the shape of a case through an exchange of letters.

A classic whodunit that follows a string of murders at a shared university boarding house, packed with film references and inside jokes.

As the victims mount one by one, the atmosphere inside the house begins to collapse.

A full-length mystery in which Nikaido Ranko unravels a case of threatened murder and two tragedies surrounding an old family house.

In a snowbound old mansion, the mysteries of the locked room and the murderer without footprints overlap.

A detective mystery in which three campus friends investigate a fall death that occurs on Christmas Eve.

Behind the comedic detective work, the relationship among the three gradually takes shape.