Description

The prize-winning debut mystery from one of Japan's best-loved crime writers

The K Apartments for Ladies are occupied by over one hundred unmarried women, once young and lively, now grown and old--and in some cases, evil.

Their residence conceals a secret connecting the unsolved 1951 kidnapping of four-year-old George Kraft to the clandestine burial of a child's body in the basement bath-house. So, when news comes that the building must be moved to make way for a road-building project, more than one tenant waits with apprehension for the grisly revelation that will follow. Then the master key is lost, stolen and re-stolen--and suddenly no-one feels safe.

Fiendish intrigue, double identity and an ingenious plot make this a thriller worthy of comparison with the work of P.D. James.

The Master Key is the seventeenth book in the Pushkin Vertigo line of crime fiction but can be read as a standalone novel.