The Time Traveler's Hourglass

Released in 2019, The Time Traveler's Hourglass was the winner of the 29th annual Tetsuya Ayukawa Award and instantly labeled its author as a name to know in mystery fiction. It is the first book in the Ryuuzen Clan series.

In 1960, the Ryuuzen Clan was thought annihilated, the family vacation home buried under tons of earth following a landslide. But even more unnervingly, forensic analysis of the recovered bodies confirmed that even before the rocks fell, the family had already been the subject of a massacre. A surviving heir was found, but as though the family were under a curse, she and her descendants continued to die at young ages.

The once prestigious family has now been reduced to one member: Kamo Rena, who herself lies in a hospital bed, days left to live. Her husband, Kamo Touma, was once just another of the endless parade of sleazy tabloid journalists looking to exploit a prominent family's misfortune to sell magazines. Unlike most of his ilk, however, Kamo found his conscience in Rena's innocence, eventually marrying her and quitting his job to become a more respectable investigative journalist.

Seeing his wife fading before his eyes, Kamo prays for a miracle, and gets an answer: The Hourglass of Miracles, a rumored artifact capable of granting they who hold it one wish. The hourglass's "guide", a mysterious figure calling himself Meister Hora, tells Kamo that the curse on her family is very real, and if he wants to break it, there is only one way:

Kamo must time travel back to 1960, and catch the original culprit behind the Ryuuzen family massacre.

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Cast of Characters

Maps and Figures

A Foreword from Meister Hora

Prologue

Chapter One

Part One

Part Two - The Diary of Ryuuzen Ayaka