Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight

"A Quicksilver Mystery That Flickers, Flashes, Twists And Turns." New York Times, 21 July 2022. From the author of The Aosawa Murders, one of the NYT Notable Books of 2020. 

Set in Tokyo over the course of one night, Aki and Hiro have decided to be together one last time in their shared flat before parting. Their relationship has broken down after a mountain trek during which their guide died inexplicably. Now each believes the other to be a murderer and is determined to extract a confession before the night is over. Who is the murderer and what really happened on the mountain?

In the battle of wills between them, the chain of events leading up to this night is gradually revealed in a gripping psychological thriller that keeps the reader in suspense to the very end.

Riku Onda, born in 1964, has been writing fiction since 1991 and has published prolifically since. She has won the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for New Writers, the Japan Booksellers' Award, the Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize and the Naoki Prize. Her work has been adapted for film and television.

 

Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight is her second novel to be published in English. The first was The Aosawa Murders which won the prestigious Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Best Novel and was selected by The New York Times as a Notable Book for 2020.

Alison Watts is an Australian-born Japanese to English translator and long time resident of Japan. She has published the translation of The Aosawa Murders, Aya Goda's TAO: On the Road and On the Run In Outlaw China and of Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa, released in October 2017.