My Grandfather, the Master Detective

A Japanese The Thursday Murder Club, taking healing fiction for a mystery-filled spin with this bestseller that has sold more than 200,000 copies in Japan.

He's not your average Grandpa.

As a lover of classic crime stories, it's no surprise that schoolteacher Kaede encounters everyday mysteries more often than your typical twenty-seven-year-old.

Solving them is another matter, though. For that, she turns to her beloved grandfather, who retains a keen sharpness of mind despite his dementia, and who was once a key member of The Waseda Mystery Club. From impossible locked room murders to confounding missing persons cases, the grandfather-granddaughter duo "weave stories" to get to the bottom of every mystery. But all the while, an insidious shadow from Kaede's past slowly closes in on her...

Steeped in references to classic crime from Christie to Chesterton to Poe, My Grandfather, the Master Detective plays with the genre, capturing readers' imagination in this Tokyo-set escapist mystery. Its charming characters and affectionate focus on relationships echo heartwarming Japanese titles such as Before the Coffee Gets Cold.