Strange Houses by Uketsu

A sinister hidden room. A dead space squeezed between two walls. A sealed cellar nobody talks about. A child's face glimpsed at a window that shouldn't have anyone behind it. Strange Houses turns a series of ordinary-looking floor plans into a set of puzzles, each one hiding a dark family secret that the reader has to work out alongside the story. It's the second book from Uketsu, the anonymous, mask-wearing Japanese YouTuber whose puzzle-mystery format made Strange Pictures a bestseller, and this one leans even further into visual clue-hunting - readers are given actual floor plans to study, with the unsettling details hidden in plain sight. Translated by Jim Rion, it keeps the fair-play whodunit structure and steady escalation of dread that Uketsu's fans have come to expect, building toward secrets that are, in the book's own words, far darker than others. A strong pick for mystery lovers who enjoy solving along with the detective, fans of Japanese fiction in translation, and anyone who enjoyed Strange Pictures and wants more of the same clever, creepy format.