猟奇の果

明智小五郎事件簿 #4

by Edogawa Rampo

銀座の陰気なカフェーでポン引き紳士にさそわれて、猟奇の徒・青木愛之助は「秘密の家」に案内された。そこで見たものは、友人・品川四郎そのままの幽霊男であった。幽霊男が出没するところ怪奇な事件は続く。――妖美幻想の世界を万華鏡のプリズムを通して描く「猟奇の果」。

Paperback Bunko

First published August 10, 1987

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

[Angel 一匹狼 · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my last review of a book by Edogawa, "少年探偵団", I said, that, while enjoyable, the book suffered from some of the shortcomings that permeate the whole of his young boys series: repetition of situations, the characters that are amazing at dressing up as other characters (not as random characters, but as characters we have already met and whose face is supposed to be easy to recognize), the same nemesis as always, a kind of rushed ending... And I recommended his works for 'adults'. I was reading this book while writing that review and I was really enjoying "猟奇の果" and being surprised by it constantly.

Now, after finishing it, I have to say that the book is amazing, even if it has some of the shortcomings that I was complaining about in his young adult. But the level of writing, tongue-in-cheek moments, and the imagination and atmosphere creation is way better and brings the novel to a whole new level.

Here we have Aoki, a young bored man with too much free time and money and little to do with it. He is attracted to the bizarre, the strange, the dangerous... One day, while enjoying a carnival of your run-of-the-mill woman with beard and all those typical 'bizarre' characters (it was another era when this book was written), he watches one of his friends (who would never go to a place like this) doing strange things, and hiding something under a rock. He checks what his friend has hidden and discovers some empty wallets. Is his friend a thief on the weekends? The next time he meets this friend, Shinagawa, he asks him about the carnival. But Shinagawa denies any knowledge of what Aoki is asking about and tells him that he was never there. Aoki becomes more and more intrigued about his friend's behavior, till he discovers, to his surprise, that Shinagawa has a doppelganger who seems to be involved with the dark side of humanity.

What follows, in the first part of the book, is an amazing story around fear, curiosity, our desire to be thrilled, and a web of strange coincidences that evolve, envelop and involve our 'hero' to some surprising and quite creative developments. And then, even if he is in the title, he appears only for a while in the second part of the book; he is the hero in a book where he is actually a side character great detective Akechi comes to the rescue and to untangle all the threads that Edogawa has been weaving in the first part of the book. And here is where it all goes a little bit out of rails. A rushed ending, loose ends to talk about for hours on end, a not very clear motivation for many of the characters that have appeared before... The first part of the book is great, but the ending of the book is rushed and kind of a letdown.

The best: the first part of the book, Akechi's appearance, the constant twists and surprises, the dark and moody atmosphere, the tongue-in-cheek writing style

The worst: the ending, the repetition of some situations, like the characters easily disguising as other known characters, the many loose threads left without answering...

Other options: almost any of his other books for adults is a great option, like "孤島の鬼", "一寸法師", "盲獣"...; Natsuo Kirino or Kishi Yusuke would be modern options for the reader; you can also go Stephen King or similar for some 'dark' stories...

8/10

(Japanese Original)