The Tattoo Murder

Can you solve the mystery of the tattoo murder? Tokyo, 1947. At the first post-war meeting of the Edo Tattoo Society, Kinue Nomura reveals her full-body snake tattoo to rapturous applause. Days later she is gone. A dismembered corpse is discovered in the locked bathroom of her home, but her much-coveted body art is nowhere to be found. Kinue's horrified lover joins forces with the boy detective Kyosuke Kamizu to try to get to the bottom of the macabre crime, but similar deaths soon follow. Is someone being driven to murder by their lust for tattooed skin, and can they be stopped? Set in a seedy Tokyo of bomb sites, dive bars and Yakuza gangs, The Tattoo Murder is one of Japan's most ingenious and legendary whodunits.

AKIMITSU TAKAGI was born in Japan in 1920 and went on to work as an aeronautical engineer until the end of the Second World War. He later decided to become a mystery writer on the recommendation of a fortune teller. He went on to become one of the country's most popular crime authors, winning the prestigious Mystery Writers Club Award. The Tattoo Murder was Takagi's debut and is considered one of the great classic Japanese whodunits. Takagi had a lifelong fascination with the underground world of traditional Japanese tattoos and took many fascinating photos of tattooists and their subjects which are available for features. The Tattoo Murder was first published in 1948 but has never been published in the UK until now.