妖怪博士

少年探偵 #3

by Edogawa Rampo

少年侦探团团员泰二发现一名怪异的老人蹲在十字路口画着奇怪的记号，便一路尾随，不料却落入了妖怪博士设下的陷阱。随后，少年侦探们一个接一个地下落不明，原来是他们接连破获大案，歹徒们怀恨在心，伺机报复。为了救出少年侦探们，大侦探明智小五郎大展身手，终于再次挫败了二十面相的阴谋。

Genres: Japanese Literature, Mystery

265 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1964

About the author

Hirai Tarō (平井 太郎), better known by the pseudonym Rampo Edogawa ( 江戸川 乱歩), sometimes romanized as "Ranpo Edogawa", was a Japanese author and critic who played a major role in the development of Japanese mystery fiction.

Reviews

[Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read 6 of this series now and this is my favorite. Edogawa Ranpo writes prime pulp that wouldn't have been out of place in American mystery magazines of the era. I love the imagery in this one, the creepy old house, the fiendishly disguised old man, the secret passages, the snakes. The climax in the caves with the mysterious creature... classic! It's distinctly Japanese but also quite gothic as well. It's incredibly derivative of both Ranpo's previous works and classic western mystery but that's what makes it so fun. The 少年探偵団 series are real page turners.

[Angel 一匹狼 · Rating 3 out of 5]

So here I am, with my second Edogawa Rampo novel. This is the third in the Shônen Tantei series for young readers (I couldn't find the second, and I had to settle for the third, but it is not something that really matters as every novel is a different story).

If you compare with the first of the series, this is obviously worse. There are some reasons for that. First, it is a redux of the first novel: you have the same bad guy (the twenty-faces thief, that also seems to pop up in the second one and most probably in later ones) and some similar situations. Around the middle of the book it seems to pick up steam, but the ending is... well, a little bit strange (I'm not going to delve into it, but let's say it has some surprising appearances, and it goes a little bit for horror; not a bad idea, though). On top of that, the style doesn't seem so worked as with the first one. Some sentences are repeated almost in the same page and the vocabulary seems way easier (I basically didn't need to use the dictionary with this one). Also, where with the first one you had three clear moments, three cool fights with the bad guy, here are more of a series of random encounters. Also it should be noted that cool characters meitantei Akechi Kogorou and Kobayashi-kun are more of the sidekicks than central figures (specially the second). The novel is centered around the young ones of the Shônen Tantei, the eleven kids that form the group and how twenty-faces tries to ijime (be mean) to them.

Easy to read, not very complicated for non-native speakers, and with some cool situations. But not specially good.

6