Hirai wrote under the pen name Edogawa Rampo, a rough transliteration of Edgar Allen Poe. The very first honkaku story is usually attributed to Tarō Hirai, who published The Two-Sen Copper Coin in 1923.
Honkaku writers were scrupulous about “playing fair”, so clues and suspects were woven through the plot, giving the reader a fair chance of solving the mystery before the detective does.Įdogawa Rampo: honkaku author Tarō Hirai’s pen name was inspired by Edgar Allen Poe. In honkaku, everything is transparent: no villains suddenly appear in the last chapter, no key clues are withheld until the final page. Honkaku stories have more in common with a game of chess than some modern thrillers, which can be filled with surprise twists and sudden reveals. Writer Haruta Yoshitame, who is credited with defining honkaku, described it as “a detective story that mainly focuses on the process of a criminal investigation and values the entertainment derived from pure logical reasoning”.
Honkaku translates as “orthodox”, and refers to the crafting of fiendishly clever and complex puzzle scenarios – such as a murder in a locked bedroom – that can only be solved through logical deduction. It is also a perfect example of a honkaku mystery: a fascinating form of crime writing that first emerged in Japan in the 1920s and, thanks to a recent raft of translations and republications, is now enjoyed by English readers more than ever.
First published in 1946, it was the first of his books to be translated to English, in 2019 (one more has followed, with two more on the way). This is the chilling opener of The Honjin Murders, a masterful detective novel by Japanese writer Seishi Yokomizo.
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