2.5
The Rope Artist
ByPublisher Description
The aftermath of the murder of a bondage teacher reveals the darkest corners of the human mind in this chilling new mystery from the master of Japanese literary noir.
Two detectives. Two identical women. One dead body— then two, then three, then four. All knotted up in Japan’s underground BDSM scene and kinbaku, a form of rope bondage which bears a complex cultural history of spirituality, torture, cleansing, and sacrifice.
As Togashi, a junior member of the police force, investigates the murder of a kinbaku instructor, he finds himself unable to resist his own private transgressive desires. In contrast, Togashi’s Sherlock Holmesian colleague Hayama is morally upright to a fault, with a stalwart commitment to the truth and nearly superhuman powers of deduction. When Hayama notices a dangerous measure of darkness within Togashi, he embarks on a parallel investigation, which soon spirals out of control.
Unflinching in its flayed-raw treatment of identity, violence, sexuality, power, the occult, and the divine, The Rope Artist is both viscerally painful and unexpectedly hopeful—a genre homage that shines a light on the most dangerous elements of the human psyche.
Two detectives. Two identical women. One dead body— then two, then three, then four. All knotted up in Japan’s underground BDSM scene and kinbaku, a form of rope bondage which bears a complex cultural history of spirituality, torture, cleansing, and sacrifice.
As Togashi, a junior member of the police force, investigates the murder of a kinbaku instructor, he finds himself unable to resist his own private transgressive desires. In contrast, Togashi’s Sherlock Holmesian colleague Hayama is morally upright to a fault, with a stalwart commitment to the truth and nearly superhuman powers of deduction. When Hayama notices a dangerous measure of darkness within Togashi, he embarks on a parallel investigation, which soon spirals out of control.
Unflinching in its flayed-raw treatment of identity, violence, sexuality, power, the occult, and the divine, The Rope Artist is both viscerally painful and unexpectedly hopeful—a genre homage that shines a light on the most dangerous elements of the human psyche.
Download the free Fable app
Stay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
Rate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
Curate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesStay organized
Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.Build a better TBR
Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building toolRate and review
Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tagsCurate your feed
Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Rope Artist Reviews
2.5
Samantha Gonzalez
Created about 1 month agoShare
Report
zie
Created 2 months agoShare
Report
“im…. confused? took me a while to finish reading this because i was hit by a reading slump in the middle of reading the book but i wasnt able to grasp the plot completely. i thought the premise of the story was really interesting, hence why i picked it up in the first place but i felt… disappointed? the pacing was quite slow to my liking, and there was just a lot of droning that made me lose interest quickly. overall, not really sure how i feel about this book.”
Jackson Duro
Created 3 months agoShare
Report
Hailey Maxwell
Created 4 months agoShare
Report
About Fuminori Nakamura
Fuminori Nakamura was born in 1977 and graduated from Fukushima University in 2000. He won the 2002 Shinchō Literary Prize for New Writers for his first novel, The Gun; the Noma New Literary Prize for Shade in 2004; and the 2005 Akutagawa Prize for The Boy in the Earth. The Thief, his first novel to be translated into English, won the 2010 Kenzaburo Ōe Prize, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was a Wall Street Journal Best Fiction of 2012 selection. He also won NoirCon’s David L. Goodis Award in 2014, the Bunkamura Dumago prize for My Annihilation in 2016, the Chunichi Cultural Award in 2020, and the Noma Literary Prize for The Line in 2024. His novels have been turned into 7 movies and translated into 15 languages.
Sam Bett is a fiction writer and Japanese translator. His translation work has won the Japan-US Friendship Commission Prize and been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.
Sam Bett is a fiction writer and Japanese translator. His translation work has won the Japan-US Friendship Commission Prize and been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.
Other books by Fuminori Nakamura
Start a Book Club
Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!FAQ
Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?
Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?
How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?
Do you sell physical books too?
Are book clubs free to join on Fable?
How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?
Books Similar to The Rope Artist
Save to a list
0
/30
0
/100
Private List