A collection of short stories written to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the professional debut of Alice Arisugawa, a prolific mystery novelist and founder and first president of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. Each story was written by a different young author, using characters, settings, and concepts appearing in Arisugawa’s stories.

Featured stories:

Rope, Cable, Cord by Yugo Aosaki: The police ask professor of sociology and “Consulting Criminologist” Hideo Himura – and Himura in turn asks his friend, mystery novelist Alice Arisugawa – for assistance in an investigation. The victim of a robbery-mu*der is found, covered in marks due to having been bound by a rope, but no rope is left behind. Security camera footage shows that three people threw away objects that could have been used to tie her after the mu*der, but which of them was the culprit’s tool: the rope, the cable, or the cord?

Enclosed in Clothes by Michi Ichiho: Alice is asked by his neighbor Saori Mano, a teacher at an all-girls school, to help her with a problem. She is substituting as advisor to the Drama Club, and one of her students had her uniform stolen during club activities. The police can’t be involved due to the administration’s fear of scandal, so going to outside help is her only option. But even if they’re able to set foot on school grounds during the school festival, can two 34 year old men solve a case in the foreign land of a school for girls?

The Ghost Story Dedicated to Hideo Himua by Kyoya Origami: A fan of scary stories Alice met at a publishing event regales him and Himura with a series of true stories about horrifying events that happened to him. Himura and Alice attempt to come up with rational explanations for all his tales.

Black Mirror by Tomoyuki Shirai: The narrator, an arrogant yet neurotic man, is called out of the blue by an old college friend, Eiji Kagami, who will be in his area in a few months and wants to go out to eat. But at the meeting, Eiji behaves oddly, and the next day, the police call the narrator in for questioning. Eiji’s stepfather, a marriage fraudster who drove Eiji’s mother to su*cide, was mu*dered the day of their meeting, and the police suspect Eiji and his identical twin brother Koichi. But both brothers appear to have solid alibis…

The Man Who Read (And Disliked) Alice Arisugawa by Haruo Yuki: Mystery novelist Haruo Yuki is on a “research trip” (which he treats more like a paid vacation) to a small hot spring town in the mountains, where he meets a waitress with an unusual story: her cousin hates the works of Alice Arisugawa with a fiery, all-consuming passion, and yet he’s read everything the man ever published. Why has her cousin read over fifty stories by an author he knows he doesn’t like?

The Panic of Mountain Monk Jizō by Tatsumi Atsukawa: Twenty years ago, Ryoji Aono would go to Bar April every Sunday and meet with his friends to listen to the tales of Jizō, a man who dressed like a mountain ascetic and who claimed to come across tales of mystery everywhere he went. But Jizō hasn’t shown his face in two decades, and now, Ryoji’s video rental business has also closed down. Deciding to take some time off at a new bar, Ryoji is stunned to see Jizō once again, having not aged a day since their last meeting …So why is he so much worse at telling stories now?

The Molded Corpse Speaks by Masahiro Imamura: At a job-hunting event, Kōjirō Oda of the Eito University Mystery Club meets a man from another school with an interesting story: a member of his own school’s mystery club once pranked him by leaving a chalk outline and a dying message in his apartment while he was out. The members of the Eito U. Mystery Club put their heads together in an attempt to unravel the dying message, which was never solved, and uncover a much deeper truth than they suspected.

Latest Release