By chance, a number of complete strangers find themselves stranded in Yoshima, a remote mountain village of Japan bounded by waterfalls. Separately, they make their way to the only visible shelter, a windowless building across the river known as the Box of the Evil Eye.

The sole occupants of the Box for many years have been a seer, revered by the villagers for her infallible prophecies, and her guardian. Also making their way to the box are the detectives of Death Among the Undead, convinced that the Box contains the research laboratories of a terrorist organisation.

Once everyone is inside, the infallible seer issues a prophecy that two men and two women will die in the next two days.  The plot, one of the most tortuous ever written, twists and turns, but the constraint of two men and two women remains unchanged. The solution is another triumph of logic.