Student Taneda Shizuma visits the secluded hot spring village Sugarumura to commit an allegedly romantic suicide. Before his awaited first snow falls though, he encounters the detective-in-training Misasagi Mikage, a 17 year old girl who wants to succeed the name of her deceased mother, a rumored and famous great detective. Soon they wind up in serial murders in the Kotosaki family, the religiously rooted governing family of the village. Mikage sets out for her first case and points out the correct culprit at last. Or so it seems until Shizuma visits the village once more 18 years later...
Collection by Ayukawa Tetsuya who set the standard for the orthodox renaissance movement. This is the first of two volumes which gather all of the short stories featuring classical detective Hoshikage Ryuuzou; works that made me realize Ayukawas huge influence on late 80s and early 90s writers once again and even more.
6 students visit Villa Lilac to spend their summer vacation when suddenly superintendent Yuki shows up and informs them about the corpse of a man wearing one of the students raincoats who was found under a cliff near the mansion with an ace of spades lying next to him. This incident is only a forewarning of a series of murders yet to come, each one attached with a new card and clouded in alibis. The police find themselves in a dead end which forces them to get the help of "amateur" detective Hoshikage Ryuuzou.
Tamiya Yasaburou brought his german wife Elisabeth over to Japan during the Meiji period and built a whole mansion for her. Their shared happiness did not last long though and she left him and their daughter returning to her homeland. Ever since the mansion has become a baneful stage for 2 murders with numerous victims.
On a late autumn day dramaturge Yarinaka Akisaya, his 7 actors and his friend, the novelist Rindou Ryouichi, have to take shelter from a snow storm in a western mansion that suddenly appears from the depth of mist that ascends from a lake. They don't seem to be welcomed by the inhabitants but each get their own room designated. Even so they are continuously reminded by the servants that Kirigoe Mansion is not a hotel and that they shall not sneak about too much, especially they shall not enter the 3rd floor at all...
Prominent mystery writer Miyagaki Youtarou invites his 4 disciples, a literary critic, an editor and his wife and mystery maniac Shimada Kiyoshi to his underground labyrinth mansion. However he is found dead when they arrive and a tape tells his disciples of his wish to improve their skills under the condition of being locked into this closed circle situation and write themselves into their works using his mansion as location. Their works are to be evaluated by the critic and the editor and the winner is going to inherit Miyagaki's entire fortune. The authors begin to write their individual stories and it does not take long until murders happen according to those scripts.
When the detective Kisarazu Yuuya and his companion and mystery writer Kouzuki Sanetomo arrive at the medieval-ish mansion Souajou, Kisarazu's client has already been killed, just as this client's son, with their heads being cut off and swapped with one body and head found in a locked room. For what sake do the serial murders in the Imakagami family continue? Why all the incomprehensible staging of the murders? And why was Kisarazu hired in the first place?