Gold Mask - Edogawa Rampo

Gold Mask by Edogawa Rampo / 272-page paperback published in 2024 in the Penguin Modern Classics Crime & Espionage Series / ISBN 9780241687369

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Can an ace detective outwit a thief with many faces?

They call him ‘Gold Mask’: a fiendishly clever master of disguise whose crime spree has shocked Tokyo. The dogged detective Akechi Kogoro is on the trail, and soon the two become locked in a frenzied battle of wits as his seemingly superhuman nemesis leads a chase across Japan, gleefully tricking the police at every turn. Will this ingenious villain’s true identity be revealed – and will he, eventually, make a mistake?

Edogawa Rampo was the pseudonym of Taro Hirai (1894-1965), generally viewed as the greatest of all Japanese suspense and mystery authors. He was a prolific novelist and short story writer. Much influenced by writers such as Conan Doyle, Chesterton and Wells, his pseudonym is a Japanese transliteration of Edgar Allen Poe's name. Many of his works have been made into films. Perhaps his most famous stories outside Japan are 'The Caterpillar' and 'The Human Chair'.