Kyotaro Nishimura

japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edogawa Rampo

Japanese Fictional Crimes and Criminal Fictions

By Ho-Ling Wong

August 12, 2011

It is commonly said that truth is stranger than fiction, and while I won’t go quite that far, I have to admit that the truth can be quite strange at times. Criminals can be extremely creative, with the most creative often being the most successful. As G.K. Chesterton wrote in his Father Brown story “The…

Ellery Queen dynamic duo: Manfred B. Lee and Frederic Dannay

Ellery Queen is Alive and Well and Living in Japan

By Ho-Ling Wong

May 28, 2011

Crime novel critic Kiyoshi Kasai focuses in his books on “orthodox” detective novels, which refer to the Golden Age detective novels in the Christie-Queen-Carr tradition. He identifies three distinct “waves” in the development of the orthodox detective novels in Japan , the first (1920-1940s) being the one represented by Edogawa Rampo, while the second is…