A middle-aged salaryman living with his wife and daughter wakes up at an intersection in Kyoto the morning after a company drinking party, with no memory of how he got there. Upon returning home, his daughter says something completely unexpected, sending him on a quest to uncover what really happened the night before. Winner of the 3rd Sogen Mystery Short Story Award.

The morning after the party, I woke up at a Kyoto intersection. That was only the beginning of something extraordinary.

A film photograph of the protagonist's late father is discovered on the occasion of a memorial service seven years after his death. Yet the date imprinted on the photo is the day after he died. Bewildered by the existence of a photograph that should not exist, his daughter Anri seeks advice from a young photography shop owner. A finely crafted mystery short story that probes the very nature of photography as a medium of record.

"A photograph is a trace. It bears witness to the fact that a person was once there."

On the day of middle school graduation, the protagonist Moe recalls the incident two years ago that led her best friend Mio to stop attending school. A coming-of-age mystery short story that vividly portrays the memories and enigmas resurfacing at this milestone. Winner of the 2nd Sogen Mystery Short Story Award.

On graduation day from middle school, Moe finds herself remembering the incident two years ago that caused her best friend Mio to stop coming to school...

On her graduation day, Moe is reminded of an incident from two years earlier. Set in a junior high school, this is a coming-of-age mystery short story where friendship and a riddle intersect.

On graduation day, an unforgettable incident from two years ago comes rushing back.

a linked short-story collection that follows a young Edogawa Rampo through the mysteries surrounding the antiquarian bookstore "Sannin Shobo"

A young Rampo and the mysteries of the bookshop become one connected tale.

a short story in which cleaning a single apartment unit brings back old memories

Work in a housing complex apartment quietly opens the door to the past.

a short story where a ghost-story writer sister and her brother's investigation cross paths with a haunting and a locked-room murder

A locked-room murder at a fieldwork site pulls in yet another mystery.

a quiet short story that traces the reason a man with dementia bit someone

One bite from a man who can no longer speak changes the shape of the case.

a short story that uses twenty thousand viewers as the key to an alibi puzzle

Twenty thousand witnesses stand behind a single alibi.

a historical mystery short story built on the legend of Saito no Tokiyori and the Tale of the Heike

Among five corpses, someone must find the remains of a single warrior.

a light-footed short story selected as an excellence prize winner in 2017

An encounter with the unknown takes an unexpected turn.

a historical mystery set in an early Meiji prison, following the puzzle of a condemned man's death

There is a deeper reason behind the murder of a prisoner moments before execution.

a short story that stages a deadly, retaliatory showdown within fifteen seconds

The fifteen seconds granted by a death god become time for counterattack.

a medical mystery that draws on a clinician's perspective and an oddly vanished lesion

A class-wide challenge begins over the reason a brain lesion disappeared.

a linked short-story collection in which insect-loving Erisawa Sen solves uncanny incidents around town

A gaze drawn to insects somehow reaches the truth behind the crimes.

a short story about a man who, after being killed, inhabits a fetus and experiences an uncanny period of time

A man who should be dead awakens as a fetus.

a short story by a 2012 prize finalist, published in a single issue

Inside the issue, the meaning of a round symbol slowly comes apart.

a fine short story marked by an intellectual exchange around Buddhism

A monk's words and the shape of the mystery rise quietly from the page.

a dark linked short-story collection about a beautiful pair of sisters and a warped narrator

The malice growing between the sisters slowly takes shape.

a compact short story published in the 2012 issue

Within the pages, the crack between commerce and vows comes into view.

a short story from the 2012 issue, notable for the vivid presence of its heroine

The girl's presence and the story's unease remain vividly on the page.

an award-winners' collection that gathers the starting points of several emerging writers

A single volume collecting the award-winning starts of five emerging writers.

a humorous mystery set in a university literary circle, full of brisk dialogue and puzzle-solving

Amid the bustle of a school festival, one strange case after another comes unraveled.

a strange and charming linked short-story collection that begins at an unstaffed mountain station

A light on at a late-night barbershop leads into an unexpected mystery.

a Chinese mystery set in a world reminiscent of the Water Margin era, where wit and ingenuity rescue the weak

In a corner of a Chinese-inspired world, a girl and an old hero begin their investigation.

a linked short-story collection starring rural detective Kurokawa Suzuki, balancing light humor and mystery-solving

In a peaceful rural town, impossibly tangled cases keep cropping up.

a historical mystery that reassembles the truths behind Ganryu Island and the Ikedaya Incident by shifting established history

Another truth rises beneath the history everyone thinks they know.

Kato Mitsuaki's debut work, expanded into a linked short-story collection set around a bar

Mysteries slowly unravel among the people who gather at a bar after dark.

a linked mystery set in an imaginary dynasty, connecting uncanny events with the puzzle of a forbidden book

A forbidden book at court opens into an expansive linked mystery.

a short story that delicately catches the sense of unease in everyday life

In the autumn issue, a familiar landscape tilts ever so slightly into unease.

a strongly fantastical short story published in "Sogensui 21 (Winter 2001)"

A fantastical and cruel aftertaste lingers in the winter issue.

a short story with a ghostly atmosphere, published in "Sogensui 20: Doll's Dream"

A faint sense of the uncanny slips into a volume built around doll-like dreams.

a quiet short story that inherits the atmosphere of classic detective fiction

A quiet mystery that retains the scent of classic whodunits.

Set in Tokyo in 1909, this linked mystery follows Takuboku Ishikawa and Kindaichi Kyosuke as they take on a ghost incident at Asakusa's legendary Twelve-Story Tower. Including the work that won the 3rd Sogen Mystery Short Story Award, it balances period atmosphere with the pleasures of deduction.

A ghost incident at Asakusa's Twelve-Story Tower sets Takuboku and Kyosuke's detective tale in motion.

A legal-mystery collection in which a young lawyer, together with a trusted friend, untangles the cases brought to him. Its logic is razor-sharp.

The more resigned a client seems, the more complicated the story becomes.