Death Within the Evil Eye / 魔眼の匣の殺人

It’s difficult to succeed genius. Chrono Cross isn’t as good as Chrono Trigger, Bioshock 2 isn’t as good as Bioshock, and National Treasure 2—okay, that one is basically perfect. When you create something truly special, you’ve set a high bar for yourself, which makes it that much more difficult to overcome. And yet Death Within the Evil Eye… succumbs to this pitfall, as it’s good, but just doesn’t quite have the same magic as Death Among the Undead.

Death Among the Undead / 屍人荘の殺人

Sometimes it feels like orthodox detective stories belong to a dead genre. The "Golden Age" came and went a century ago, and that really does seem like it was the perfect time period for classic puzzle plots. Forensics could provide basic information about a crime, but technology hadn't progressed so far that nearly any physical trace could blow a trick wide open. Plus, as the genre has developed and readers have become more savvy, it's become more and more difficult to develop original tricks that will surprise and delight readers.

But then every once in a while you get a work like Imamura Masahiro's debut novel Death Among the Undead which, through sheer originality and style, kindles hope that the genre can be reanimated.