Stunning, cutting-edge thriller with a chilling supernatural twist from Japan's stylish new literary star. Asakawa is a hardworking journalist who has climbed his way up from local-news beat reporter to writer for his newspaper's weekly magazine. A chronic workaholic, he doesn't take much notice when his seventeen-year-old niece dies suddenly -- until a chance conversation reveals that another healthy teenager died at exactly the same time, in chillingly similar circumstances. Sensing a story, Asakawa begins to investigate, and soon discovers that this strange simultaneous sudden-death syndrome also affected another two teenagers. Exactly one week before their mysterious deaths the four teenagers all spent the night at a leisure resort in the same log cabin. When Asakawa visits the resort, the mystery only deepens. A comment made in the guest book by one of the teenagers leads him to a particular vidoetape. When he watches it, instead of a movie he finds an odd collection of disparate images with a portentous message at the end: Those who have viewed these images are fated to die at this exact hour one week from now. Asakawa finds himself in a race against time -- he has only seven days to find the cause of the teenagers' deaths before it finds him. The hunt puts him on the trail of an apocalytpic power that will force Asakawa to choose between saving his family and saving civilization.

鈴木光司：1957年生於日本。創作於1989年的《午夜凶鈴》，1991報齣版後好評如潮，被譽為“恐怖小說的金字塔”；1995年發錶《午夜凶鈴2：復活之路“，迅速登上日本各大暢銷書排行榜，獲日本吉川英治文學新人奬；1998年齣版的《午夜凶鈴3：永生不死》再次引發”凶鈴熱潮“，成為當年日本暢銷書排行榜文學類冠軍；1999年齣版”凶鈴“係列的最後一部《午夜凶鈴4：貞相大白》。《午夜凶鈴》係列在短短幾年間，銷量突破830萬部，成為亞州銷量最大的懸念小說。他的作品還有《暗水幽靈》等。

他的作品以其驚奇的構思與匪素所思的想像力著稱，幾乎從來不齣現對恐怖事物的具體描寫，僅僅通過對氛圍的營造就給人以極度恐怖的感覺。這種寫作造詣為他贏得瞭“恐怖小說第一人”與“氛圍大師”的稱號。他的作品更被東西方評論界公認為“極度恐怖與極限想像完美結閤”的典範。

1997年根據《午夜凶鈴》改編的同名電影在日本公映，創下至今無人超越的10億日元的票房記錄，並迅速風磨整個亞洲。2002年，斯皮爾伯格的夢工廠投巨資重拍的美國版《午夜凶鈴》，在公映第一周就登上北美電影票房冠軍寶座。短短5年時間，《午夜凶鈴》係列被改編成5部電影，贏得全球20億觀眾，形成瞭獨具魅力的“越英尺怖越上癮”的“凶鈴癥候群”。