''The Summer of the Ubume'' (姑獲鳥の夏, ''Ubume no natsu'') is a Japanese novel by
Natsuhiko Kyogoku
is a Japanese mystery writer, who is a member of Ōsawa Office. He is a member of the Mystery Writers of Japan and the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan.
Three of his novels have been turned into feature films; ''Mōryō no Hako'', which w ...
. It is Kyogoku’s first novel, and the first entry in his Kyōgōkudō series about
atheist
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
onmyōji Akihiko "Kyōgokudō" Chūzenji. It has been turned into a live-action feature film.
Story
''The Summer of the Ubume'' is told from the perspective of freelance writer Tatsumi Sekiguchi, who is investigating rumors of a woman at the Kuonji Clinic who has remained pregnant for twenty months after the disappearance of her husband. He seeks advice and help from his close friend Akihiko Chuzenji, whom Sekiguchi refers to by the name of his bookstore ("Kyōgokudō"). Sekiguchi is further drawn to the case when he meets the pregnant woman's beautiful sister, Ryoko Kuonji, and she asks for his help in solving her brother-in-law's disappearance from a locked, sealed room. With the help of his friends - Kyōgokudō, private eye Reijiro Enokizu, police detective Shujiro Kiba, and fellow reporter Atsuko Chuzenji (Kyōgokudō's sister) - Sekiguchi attempts to discover the disappearing husband's fate, but he soon learns that there is much more to the Kuonji Clinic than meets the eye, and that his own involvement with Makio Kuonji's disappearance may run deeper than he thinks. Only Kyōgokudō's knowledge of Japanese folklore - and specifically the legend of the ''ubume'', often associated with death in childbirth - can make sense of the conflicting evidence, and Kyōgokudō agrees to perform an exorcism that will solve the mystery once and for all.
Publication
The novel was first published in 1994 by
Kodansha
is a Japanese privately-held publishing company headquartered in Bunkyō, Tokyo. Kodansha is the largest Japanese publishing company, and it produces the manga magazines ''Nakayoshi'', ''Afternoon'', ''Evening'', ''Weekly Shōnen Magazine'' an ...
. In 2009, an English-language edition was published by
Vertical.
Film adaptation
The novel was adapted into a live-action feature film in 2005.
See also
*
Tozai Mystery Best 100 is a list published in the Japanese magazine ''Shūkan Bunshun'' (the Weekly Bunshun) in 1985 by Bungeishunjū. This list was also published in book form in 1986.
508 people who love mystery novels, including the 123 members of Mystery Writers of ...
(The Top 100 Mystery Novels of the East and the West)
External links
English-language publisher's official novel websiteOfficial movie website*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Summer of the Ubume
1994 novels
Japanese horror novels
Japanese mystery novels
Japanese novels adapted into films
Novels set in Tokyo
Vertical (publisher) titles
Kyōgōkudō series