Ring is a chillingly told horror story that begins with a mysterious videotape warning that the viewer will die in one week unless a certain, unspecified act is performed. Exactly one week after watching the tape, four teenagers die one after another of heart failure.

Asakawa, a dedicated journalist, becomes intrigued by his niece's inexplicable death. His investigation takes him from a bustling metropolitan Tokyo, filled with modern society's fears, to rural Japan—a mountain resort, a volcanic island, and a countryside clinic—haunted by the past.

Asakawa's attempt to solve the tape's mystery before it's too late—for everyone—assumes an increasingly deadly urgency. This novel is a masterfully suspenseful mystery and a post-modern trip.