Demon From the Four Squares (it's a very rough translation, mind you) by Shinzo Mitsuda tells the tale of a handful of college students (who are members of a paranormal interest group) and their ill-fated encounter with 'the supernatural'. In one summer, they decided to play a forbidden 'Ritual of the Four Squares' (or 'Four Corners', it is a paranormal game which is popular/infamous the East) in their dormitory's basement, in the middle of the night, just for the sake of seeing what will happen.
Did I mention 'four' sounds the same like 'death' in both Japanese and Chinese?
So the five students play the game in the basement in complete darkness, circling a squared room from one corner to the next (everyone needs to touch their peer's shoulder from behind when they reach the next corner), supposedly this ritual can summon demon (who will grant one of them a wish) but something has gone terribly wrong: one of the female students is found dead by the end of the ritual, with an expression of absolute horror frozen on her face...
Did someone 'curse' the students? Or was the mysterious death caused by the revengeful spirit of a female student, who died during one of the paranormal interest group's activities last year? When one of the students seeks help from the Detective of the Omens of Death, the detective has to get to the bottom of the mystery in order to save his client's life.
This book is....okay I guess, The description about the students' daily lives and how the forbidden ritual takes place, and the urban legend feeling to the overall story is great, the explanation for 'the curse' is perfectly believable and logical, but the ending feels a bit weak, comparing with the strong opening. So, 3.5 stars only.