In 1925 Edogawa Rampo (pseudonym of Taro Hirai), dean of Japanese detective-story writers, published his first book――THE PSYCHOLOGICAL TEST AND OTHER STORIES (Tokyo: Shunyo-Do, 1925), about detective Kogoro Akechi. Although one of the least prolific of contemporary mystery writers in Japan, Rampo has already produced more than thirty full-length books, containing novels, novelettes, and short stories, and half a dozen volumes of detective-story criticism. Other representative titles, among his short-story collections, are FRUITS OF POMEGRANATE (Tokyo: Ryukoo Shoin, 1935) and MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION (Tokyo: Hanga-Soo, 1937). If you say the name Edogawa Rampo aloud, and keep repeating it, the name will seem to grow more and more familiar: and it should, because it is a verbal translation of the Japanese pronunciation of Edgar Allan Poe.
Detective fiction readers in the United States have their Mike Hammer, In England, Sherlock Holmes in all the rage. And in Japan, a shrewd detective named Kagoro(ママ) Akechi plays the role of the nation's champion detective.
This hero of the Japanese mysteries is the product of the imagination of Taro Harai(ママ), or Edogawa Rampo, as he is better known to his reading public.
In all the stories, Akechi works with smoothness of operation that would make most "private eyes" green with envy. The best part of the detective's makeup is that he doesn't have to get thumped on the head or bang up his hands on the villain's jaw. Instead, he depends upon his quick wit and brilliant deduction to bring a culprit to justice.