Ellery Queen'S Japanese Mystery Stories

As an anthologist, Ellery Queen is without peer, his taste unequalled. As a bibliographer and a collector of the detective short story, Queen is, again, a historical personage. Indeed, Ellery Queen clearly is, after Poe, the most important American in mystery fiction. -- Otto Penzler, from Detectionary: A Biographical Dictionary of Leading Characters in Mystery Fiction A newspaper receives a letter from a man claiming to have been murdered--it's impossible but the truth is not so simple; five strangers who share the same initials are invited to spend the night in a luxury hotel but one of them is a murderer. The 12 stories in this book will lead you through dramatic twists and unexpected turns. The legendary Ellery Queen selected these stories by award-winning Japanese authors from among many thousands published in postwar Japan. Each story features an unusual crime and a complex set of clues investigated by a diverse and colorful cast of characters that includes a calculating inspector, a tenacious journalist, and a determined scientist. The thrilling stories in this volume include: Perfectly Lovely Ladies by Kawabata Award winner Yasutaka Tsutsui: Eight women fight the high cost of living using violent means but will they get away with murder?The Cooperative Defendant by Akutagawa Prize winner Seicho Matsumoto: After a man confesses to a killing, he retracts his confession and accuses the detectives of coercion. But who is right?Devil of a Boy by Edogawa Rampo Prize winner Seiichi Morimura: A schoolboy may still be very young but he is as sinister as the most hardened of criminals...or is someone else involved?