#BookReview ‘Strange Buildings’ by Uketsu trans by Jim Rion

About the book…

From the bestselling author of ‘Strange Houses’  and ‘Strange Pictures’ comes a mesmerizing novel of eleven strange buildings and one terrible secret.

A lonely hut in the woods.
A murder house.
A hidden chamber.
A mysterious shrine.
A home in flames.
A nightmarish prison. . . .

Each of the buildings in this book tells a chilling story. Each one is part of a puzzle. Look closely . . . and you’ll see that everything is connected. All leading to a revelation so horrifying you won’t want to believe it.

Millions have become addicted to solving Uketsu’s dark mysteries. Strange Buildings is the strangest, and darkest, of them all.

My thanks to Nikki at Pushkin Vertigo publishing for my gifted review copy of my first Uketsu read, ‘Strange Buildings’, which is out now from all good bookshops.

It covers 11 ‘files’, or ‘cases’ from which the author/narrator extrapolates floor plans that help him decipher the core mystery which connects them all.

He starts by mentioning he has been sent many, many stories about buildings since the publication of ‘Strange Houses’, that he has started with an interview where he details a mystery of a hallway , where a hallway shouldn’t be.

Some of the files are research or snippets of books that have some not necessarily overt connection with the proceeding stories, there is a lot of faith placed in the author, by not only the interview subject, but also the reader that they are honestly transcribing the interviewees words, but also that the drawings accompanying them are accurate.

There is this sense of whilst they are telling their stories, some recent, some going back almost a century, a house is being constructed, a house where the truth will be revealed.

Conversely, each of the maps of the buildings/structures which the author investigates, are illustrating how the layout of a home can be instrumental to the development of family relationships, the creation of generational trauma, and how the every day is observed through different eyes over the course of time.

Murder, intentional and accidental, are explored through a Japanese lens of culture based around power and wealth, a caste system which is uniquely from there, but also instantly recognisable as transferable to other cultures-for example, the way the two girls in one of the files feel obliged to have each other for sleepovers, and the poorer girl is instinctively shamed to invite her richer friend to her more modest house.

As each layer is both peeled away, and constructed , the reader notes several key factors -names, construction companies, correlating incidents-but I would defy anyone to place all of the aspects of the stories in a coherent timeline because there is so much detail, so many characters and the denouement is both dark, chilling and utterly human that it left me feeling deeply uneasy.

I did not set out to work the twist out, I don’t with mystery novels, my personal view is to work with, not against the author and go along for the ride, and whilst I put some of the pieces in the right order, I had no evidence to show the final conclusion which the author and his architect friend managed to come to, following an examination of all 11 files.

It was a book that once started, I couldn’t finish because I wanted to move through the stories, almost walking through this haunted house of mysteries, until I safely reached the other side.

The other 2 books are on my bookshelf, I am definitely going to read them, as usual, let me know in the comments what you think of the enigmatic Uketsu, his books and whether you will pick up the forthcoming Strange Maps.

About the author….

Hidden behind a white papier-mâché mask, wearing a black bodysuit and speaking in a modulated voice, Uketsu is a Japanese Youtuber who rose to literary fame with his mystery-horror books. Very little is known about him, only that he is a man, lives in Tokyo and that he was working at a supermarket at the time he began posting YouTube videos.

Uketsu became an internationally bestselling sensation with Strange Pictures, Strange Houses and Strange Buildings, a series of fiendishly clever and disturbing interactive mysteries which blend crime fiction and horror, and are translated into English by Jim Rion, with Strange Pictures earning a place on the shortlist for the Waterstones Book of the Year 2025.

About the translator…

Jim Rion has lived in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan since 2004. He began professionally translating Japanese to English in 2015, primarily in cultural and travel fields. From 2018, he began working with local sake brewers on international expansion, and in 2022 Stone Bridge Press published his book Discovering Yamaguchi Sake, a guide to all the sake breweries in his home prefecture.

He has published translations of two horror/Cthulhu mythos books with (now defunct) publisher Kurodahan Press, and from 2022 began working with Pushkin Vintage on translating Japanese horror, crime and mystery fiction into English. The first work, The Devil’s Flute Murders by Yokomizo Seishi, was published in 2023. His translation of Strange Pictures by Japanese horror/crime writer Uketsu, was published in January 2025 and its spiritual companion work, Strange Houses, came out in June 2025.

Links-https://jimrion.com/