鳴子こけし殺人事件

A couple of weeks ago I was delighted to see that a new kokeshi-themed book has just come out, though this one's a bit different than what we typically see. It's actually a novel called The Naruko Kokeshi Murder Incident 鳴子こけし殺人事件 by author Mr. Nishimura Kyotaro 西村京太郎さん. Naoko says Mr. Nishimura is quite popular, and a quick check of his other novels shows that he writes lots of similar stories, usually related to trains. Anyway, I would guess that this is the world's first murder novel involving kokeshis, and proves without a doubt that kokeshis are, as we say in America, hot! As for the story, well, it starts off with the discovery of a man murdered in his Tokyo hotel, and the only thing found at the murder site is a single Naruko kokeshi by a famous craftsman. After that are more murders and more kokeshis. I haven't read The Naruko Kokeshi Murder Incident so I have no idea what happens in the rest of the story, or even if the book's any good, but there are kokeshis on the cover so that's good enough for me. Hopefully it will be turned into a movie starring plenty of kokeshis!
If you would like to buy the book, or learn more about it, one good place to start is Amazon.