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description=The editor of EQMM and guests blog about suspense, short stories, and the mystery-fiction scene.;

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imprint of tokyo sogensha each book s cover had a symbol indicating the style of the work reading from right to left the labels for these symbols are honkaku mystery fiction image of a detective with question mark hard boiled image of a pistol thriller suspense image of a cat and other mystery fiction courtroom mystery inverted mystery etc clock image interestingly while most of agatha christie s works are included in the honkaku category the publisher labeled why didn t they ask evans and the seven dials mystery under the category of thriller suspense the publisher took these definitions seriously works that didn t have solution of a mystery as their main focus were excluded from the honkaku genre thus readers who enjoy the process of solving mysteries and care about fair play needn t worry about the author s name all they needed to do is read books that have the word honkaku written on the cover writers who cared about the process of solving mysteries and playing fair with the readers also began to label their books as honkaku and so the honkaku genre flourished in japan from the collection of steve steinbock the scope of honkaku authors whose books have been labeled h onkaku by the sogen mystery library include arthur conan doyle g k chesterton agatha christie freeman wills crofts s s van dine ellery queen and john dickson carr all of whom have great popularity in japan in fact there is likely no other subgenre that includes as many popular authors the honkaku label isn t limited to golden age authors in a 1948 essay edogawa rampo introduced authors such as michael innes nicholas blake and margery allingham and collectively referred to them as the british new honkaku school in japan scope of the honkaku subgenre has come to include works in the style of innes and others so far we ve only discussed western authors and their works and have neglected japanese authors after world war ii authors such as seishi yokomizo akimitsu takagi and tetsuya ayukawa wrote many excellent detective stories which were heavily influenced by the honkaku authors of the golden age such queen carr and crofts for this reason their style has come to be an integral part of honkaku a seismic shift in japanese mystery fiction occurred in the early 1960s brought about by the detective stories of seicho matsumoto which explored human psychology corruption and societal malaise matsumoto s novels became bestsellers and attracted many fans this style of writing came to be called social mystery it seemed at the time that the social mystery genre had eclipsed and driven out honkaku mysteries but the truth is that honkaku and social mysteries are not incompatible social mysteries for example don t ignore the importance of solving the mystery or playing fair with the readers matsumoto s first novel ten to sen 1958 translated as points and lines recently published in a new translation as tokyo express is highly regarded as a honkaku mystery many people assume that matsumoto was critical of honkaku mysteries in some of his essays however this is not accurate if you read matsumoto s essays carefully you will see that he was rejecting only one aspect of the honkaku mystery genre not the entire genre let me explain this in more detail at the time that matsumoto began writing honkaku mysteries tended to rely on certain plot devices misdirection illusions playing with the reader s perception which in japanese we refer to as torikku from the english trick in japan works that use original tricks were highly valued matsumoto rejected works in which the author focused too much on gimmicks which neglected the culprit s motive for using those tricks to commit murder within the world of the novel the person who devised the trick is the culprit not the author the culprit devised and used the trick not to boast about the originality of the trick but to avoid being suspected for example in matsumoto s ten to sen the culprit devised a false alibi to make the murder of two people look like the double suicides of two lovers this deception was consistent with the culprit s motive to discourage the police from conducting a detailed investigation matsumoto was critical of honkaku mysteries in which the authors did not consider these things and neglected the culprit s motive there s another important proof that matsumoto didn t reject the entire honkaku mystery genre itself in 1966 matsumoto served as the supervisor and editor of a series published by the yomiuri shimbunsya which he named shin honkaku suiri shosetu zenshu new honkaku mystery novel collection the tradition of honkaku mysteries continues into the present in 1987 yukito ayatsuji made his debut with the decagon house murders published in english by locked room international in 2007 many other authors followed suit and made their debuts when ayatsuji and others were young they were avid readers of the honkaku branded works in the sogen suiri bunko they succeeded in writing honkaku mystery novels in the style of christie queen and carr their works and the works of their disciples came to be called shin honkaku new honkaku mysteries and so the honkaku mystery movement has spread and continues to be popular in the japanese publishing world yusan iiki is a translator critic and scholar of traditional detective fiction considered the foremost authority on the works of ellery queen his nom de plume when sounded out in japanese comes out as eq3 or ellery queen the 3rd he is three time winner of the honkaku mystery award in the category of best criticism and research for his books including ellery queen theory 2010 ronsosha publishing the charm of honkaku mysteries 2017 nanundo publishing and the mathematician s and philosopher s locked room 2020 nanundo publishing his translations from english to japanese include francis m nevins ellery queen the art of deduction and joseph goodrich s blood relations the selected letters of ellery queen as well as the two ellery queen story collections the tragedy of errors and other stories and the adventure of the murdered moth and other radio mysteries his works also include the complete guide to ellery queen 2021 seikaisha shinsho the locked room mystery guide 2023 seikaisha shinsho and the detective guide 2024 seikaisha shinsho posted in uncategorized leave a comment a cursed story title by herbert de paepe posted on may 8 2026 by somethingisgoingtohappen herbert de paepe returns to eqmm in our may june issue with the defixio murders another spine tingling mystery translated from the dutch by josh pachter here herbert discusses how a trip to the rome of the north along with some mysterious artifacts helped inspire this latest piece my story in ellery queen s mystery magazine s may june 2026 issue is titled the defixio murders now don t feel bad if you don t know what defixio means because up until last summer i didn t either last summer is when i visited the city of trier in germany located just a few hours from belgium where i work and live trier is the oldest city in germany one of the four capitals of the roman empire during the tetrarchy period in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries it s aptly nicknamed the rome of the north not because of its size which is modest but because of the overwhelming concentration of well preserved roman ruins in the very city center as a history buff my visit to trier was long overdue and i was not disappointed one of the most striking archeological sites is trier s amphitheater where gladiators fought fierce beasts and each other on the theater grounds dozens of small lead plates were excavated inscribed with ancient spells in latin these plates were called defixiones meaning curse plates thrown into the arena by spectators when soiled with gladiator blood the cruel and colorful spells on the plates often aimed at an unfaithful spouse a toxic boss or a debtor refusing to pay up were supposed to come true i was so impressed that i got a story idea on the train back home what if i infused a contemporary serial murder case on the streets of trier with a whiff of classical roman mystery by making the local detectives find a defixio on the body of each of the victims wouldn t that be intriguing veteran crime writer josh pachter who d already translated several of my earlier stories for the magazine s passport to crime department certainly thought so he liked the story translated it and agreed to pitch it to ellery queen s mystery magazine but he wasn t sure about the working title defixio although an enthralling word he thought it might be too unfamiliar and asked me to come up with a different title i suggested roman curse but that was probably too obvious now using an esoteric word in a title doesn t have to be an editorial curse or else a bestselling novel like the quincunx should have been a major flop which it definitely wasn t so josh came up with the defixio murders keeping the cool latin word which made me happy but at the same time making the title instantly appealing to the crime loving readers of the magazine whom i hope will enjoy this cursed trip to the blood soaked streets of the rome of the north herbert de paepe is a journalist and fiction writer who lives and works in ghent belgium he is currently working on his 9th crime novel his short stories have appeared in eqmm the short story collection dutch treats and in tenebris a belgian fantasy fiction magazine posted in uncategorized leave a comment marchland and company by david dean posted on april 29 2026 by somethingisgoingtohappen eqmm regular and readers award winner david dean shares some of the background and thought behind the stories in his dr marchland stories with the most recent being marchland s missing patient from our march april issue when eqmm contacted me about writing a blog the request contained a list of prompts to aid the writer in selecting a subject such as how did you come to write this story in the past i ve not paid much attention to these but struck out on my own this time however since the march april issue contains a story of mine marchland s missing patient i thought i would take the opportunity to introduce you to the story s characters and the world they live in as to how i came to author the marchland stories they form a series is simply told during the covid lock down i took the opportunity to read or re read classic novels and short stories from the victorian and edwardian eras being a crime fiction writer i now viewed them through a different lens and saw crimes woven throughout many of them the opportunity for re interpretation abundant and beckoning all that was needed was a victorian alienist to take them on enter dr marchland both the stories and their creators are introduced at the beginning of each case with a quote from the work and attribution to the writer hence mrs hyde march april 2023 is inspired not surprisingly by robert louis stevenson s the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde crown v marchland july aug 2023 takes flight from de maupassant s the diary of a madman and the carfax lunatic society jan feb 2024 from bram stoker s dracula the current story very loosely from wilke collins the woman in white each of these revisited by our very own dr marchland who takes us along for a romp through murder mystery and twisted psychology victorian style patient is the seventh installment in the ongoing saga of dr beckett marchland of london in this bygone age of developing interest and study of the human psyche marchland maintains a lucrative private practice while moonlighting as an expert witness this last entails examining prisoners for psychological fitness for trial by her majesty s criminal court or conversely hiring out to solicitors and barristers who wish to introduce mitigating factors for their clients defense often he simply stumbles into cases as when he s invited to a country house in lincolnshire in aswarby hall march april 2025 a liberty i take with these stories is the coming and going of both historical personages of the era and fictional ones from the same marchland encounters both oscar wilde and count dracula m r james and dr jekyll victorian fiction blending with victorian reality in her comments regarding shall i be mother july august 2024 editor jackie sherbow described marchland as a person of whimsical sensibilities and she was right of course marchland takes himself quite seriously he is a man of his time and place and blinkered by many biases as a result he is often wrong in whole or in part in his endeavors which are altruistic in the main neither does he have trouble in seeing himself as a victim and sometimes really is one as in crown v marchland in such situations he must rely on a number of people as the reader arrives at or begins the current story marchland s very large and somber butler owens has been a constant presence his welsh ogre as marchland has referred to him is a retired army color sergeant the late colonel marchland described him as the most dangerous man in my regiment owens is a fixture and condition of beckett s inheritance however marchland does not view the perpetually disapproving owens as an asset at least not publicly but rather a watchdog set upon him by a stern and distant father who had little understanding of his intellectual and frivolous son owens confirms this suspicion in the carfax lunatic society when he says your father the colonel good man that he was said that i was to stay close to you sir whenever you might be in danger or embarked on some foolishness as might be in your nature marchland s response did he owens well really what an irritating person he could be however reluctant marchland may be to admit to any virtues that owens might possess he is rarely without him which has proved most fortunate for him on a number of occasions also in residence is mrs owens mrs o to marchland who heads up the cooking staff in his household it is she who provides an island of comfort and normalcy in her warm and busy kitchen marchland is often to be found at her cluttered table being fed scones and jam or other sweets as if he were a lost waif wandered in from the street yet far from being isolated from the outside world mrs o is a fount of information having members of her large family in service in households all over the city marchland gratefully mines these resources as is demonstrated in the current story in the first of the series mrs hyde marchland rescues a boy from the dangerous streets of london jamie having barely escaped being murdered by his own father still bears the scar round his neck as proof he lives by theft and sleeps in sheds and cellars that he breaks into at night and slips out of at first light the owens s take him in hand his hard earned street skills prove useful to marchland s investigations there are yet two more added to the cast in the fifth installment one in the person of lydia houghton late of dublin and kilkenny this lovely young woman first appears i...