Hannya: Masks and Faces

This audiobook is narrated by an AI Voice.
Years later, a carnival is held on an island again. People parade in plague masks, and among the crowd the faces of Hannya, the Japanese demon, begin to appear. A few days later a faceless baby is found near the animal market, a Hannya mask on its face. The case of Oni, an immigrant detective who cannot remember where he came from, is only one of the eleven investigations in this book.

Images blur into one another: ravens hung over a cornfield, a rookie policeman whose face keeps peeling, an insurance clerk who cannot make out anyone's face, a child who smells blood everywhere, an Oni tattoo that covers a back in a single night, a virtual reality game in which you can become the criminal. And a gypsy detective who sees the colours of Zeugma in a woman's blood. Each detective sets out with a flaw in their body and follows the trail through mirrored towers, castle staircases that lead to infinity, and the corridors of the state. But every trail also leads into a restless sleep. The mask does not merely hide the face; it becomes it. "People had created the mask."

The Hannya series begins with these eleven stories.