Strange Pictures by Uketsu

 

From Goodreads

The spine-tingling bestseller that has taken Japan by storm—an eerie fresh take on horror for fans of Hidden Pictures and Junji Ito, in which a series of seemingly innocent pictures draws you into a disturbing web of unsolved mysteries and shattered psyches.

An exploration of the macabre, where the seemingly mundane takes on a terrifying significance. . . .

A pregnant woman's sketches on a seemingly innocuous blog conceal a chilling warning.

A child's picture of his home contains a dark secret message.

A sketch made by a murder victim in his final moments leads an amateur sleuth down a rabbit hole that will reveal a horrifying reality.

Structured around these nine childlike drawings, each holding a disturbing clue, Uketsu invites readers to piece together the mystery behind each and the over-arching backstory that connects them all. Strange Pictures is the internationally bestselling debut from mystery horror YouTube sensation Uketsu—an enigmatic masked figure who has become one of Japan's most talked about contemporary authors.

My thoughts

I borrowed a copy of this from my local Library.  A lot of the books I read I can't really remember where I hear about them and this certainly fits that bill.  It's probably from an online notice, from one source or another.

This is an unusual book to review in some ways, it's fiction yet at times you could be mistaken for thinking that it is factual due to the way that it is written.  The reader is taken on a journey that begins with a child's sketch of his home, it is what is contained within that is the important thing.

The reader is encouraged to help solve the crime with the aid of the drawings that each contain a clue. 

This is a slow burner in my opinion, that is a story that bridges several genres.  I enjoyed the way the story was written and will keep an eye out for others by him.