Kōji Suzuki

A selection of deliciously spooky short stories from the Japanese master of suspense, the acclaimed author of RING. The film DARK WATER is based on the first story in the collection.Suzuki demonstrates the power of his psychological insight into the mechanics of fear in this highly atmospheric collection of stories unified by the theme of water.Following her divorce, Yoshimi Matsubara lives with her five-year-old daughter Ikuko in a depressing and damp apartment block on reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay. But when a child's red bag keeps turning up in unexpected places, Yoshino's sanity seems to be threatened, and she soon begins to fear that her daughter's life is at risk.Kensuke Suehiro jumps at the chance to visit a restricted island in Tokyo Bay, about which he once heard a rather strange story. But when he arrives, he finds far more than he bargained for.Fisherman Hiroyuki is embittered and unhappy in his marriage. But getting rid of his wife turns out to be anything but easy, especially when his own boat seems to be against him.Family man Sugiyama finds himself trapped in an underwater cave. Can he find a way to communicate with his beloved son one last time?Just four examples from this beautifully crafted collection of stories filled with suspense, tension and drama. A perfect introduction to one of Japan's top literary stars.

Born in East Africa, Yusuf has few qualms about the journey he is to make. It never occurs to him to ask why he is accompanying Uncle Aziz or why the trip has been organised so suddenly, and he does not think to ask when he will be returning. But the truth is that his 'uncle' is a rich and powerful merchant and Yusuf has been pawned to him to pay his father's debts. Paradise is a rich tapestry of myth, dreams and Biblical and Koranic tradition, the story of a young boy's coming of age against the backdrop of an Africa increasingly corrupted by colonialism and violence.

The outer crust is under attack by the subterranean Styx who are turning ordinary humans into walking bombs and incubators for their eggs, and only Will Burrows and his band of retired commandos stand in their way--but the Styx also have problems of their own.

Stunning Japanese novel with a chilling twist – the follow-up to Ring and Spiral.Kaoru's father, Hideyuki, lies dying in a Tokyo hospital, his body ravaged by viral cancer. This nightmarish incurable disease has sprung out of nowhere and has begun to affect organisms all over the planet.Twenty years ago Hideyki worked on a virtual reality project which replicated evolution on earth, called the Loop. The project failed when the organisms within it inexplicably stopped reproducing normally and started cloning. Nearly all of the other scientists who worked on the Loop are already dead – from cancer.To get to the heart of the mystery, Kaoru must travel to the other side of the planet, to the Mojave desert. The secret he encounters there will overturn everything he thought he knew about the world – and his own identity.In this suspense-filled follow-up to 'Ring' and 'Spiral', Suzuki masterfully confounds the reader with a stunning new twist on the Ring mythology.

Somewhere in a future time and place, people have no names. Lovers find this inconvenient, so they begin naming each other. The two main characters settle on the following names: the woman is the Nakajima Miyuki Song Book, and the man, who teaches at a poetry school, is Sayonara, Gangsters. Their cat, who prefers milk-and-vodka and is a great fan of Aristotle, is named Henry IV. The first of the book's three parts tells the story of Sayonara, Gangsters's former lover, "the woman," and their daughter, named both Caraway and Green Pinky. In the second section, Sayonara, Gangster explains his work at the poetry school. The last section is an action-filled account of three gangsters who come to be taught poetry and who are killed after a gunfight with a detachment of armored police.