The Black Swan Mystery – Tetsuya Ayukawa (1960 trans. Bryan Karetnyk 2024)

Towa Textiles company director Gosuke Nishinohata is a man with many enemies. So when his body is found dumped by the side of the railway tracks, there are many suspects. But the most obvious candidates have alibis - might the true killer be someone with a more hidden motive? Not that that means they should skimp on the alibi…Inspector Sudo, assisted by Constable Seki, investigates, but it's Inspector Onitsura who travels far and wide across Japan by train to bring the case to its…

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Mr. Splitfoot – Helen McCloy (1968)

Fifteen year old Lucinda's parents Francis and Folly are hosting a dinner party at their mansion high in the Catskill Mountains; the invited guests are Francis' literary agent David Crowe and his wife Serena, and the head of the publishing house Bradford Alcott and his wife Ginevra. Resentful of the adults - particularly her stepmother Folly - Lucinda plots with her friend Vanya to scare them with a supernatural manifestation of "Mr Splitfoot". But things don't quite go to plan. First, Dr. Basil Willing…

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The Red Locked Room – Tetsuya Ayukawa (2020, trans. Ho-Ling Wong)

Tesuya Ayukawa was, as the introduction to this collection says, the foremost proponent in his time of the honkaku, or "orthodox" mystery story. These puzzle-centric mysteries were the inspiration for the later stories by Yukito Ayastuji and Taku Ashibe (who wrote the introduction). In fact Ayukawa lived to see the shin honkaku ("new orthodox") movement begin, and also helped many younger writers make their start. This selection of short stories - his best ones, apparently - features two very different detectives. First is the…

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