Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama – the crime thriller that is a publishing phenomenon in Japan

The plot would grip in any language, but, for readers in the west, there is an extra fascination to this prime example of the ‘box set novel’

Crime fiction is a form of tourism that shows a country at its worst, showcasing mayhem in Scandinavia and previously unsuspected body counts across Oxfordshire and Suffolk. This season’s must-not-go location for English-language whodunnit readers is Japan. Six Four, the sixth novel by Hideo Yokoyama but his first to get an English translation, sold in his home country at the Rowling-like rate of a million copies in six days, making the author a potential successor to Stieg Larsson, Jo Nesbø and Gillian Flynn.

Those hoping for something different from translated whodunnits may find it ominous that the opening pages establish not just one but two gone girls. In 1989, Shoko, the seven-year-old daughter of the owners of a Tokyo pickle business, was kidnapped and, after a botched ransom handover, found murdered.

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