Original title:
名探偵のままでいて
Original language:
Japanese
Publication info:
Takarajima
7 January 2023
352 pages in Japanese
Genre:
Cosy mystery
Rights handled by New River:
Foreign rights outside Asia
Rights sold:
China (Xiron)
France (Calmann-Lévy)
Germany (Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2 books)
Italy (Garzanti, 2 books)
Korea (Vega Books)
Poland (Czarna Owca)
Portugal (Presença)
Russia (AST)
Taiwan (Sun Colour Culture)
WEL (Pan Macmillan, 2 books)
World Spanish (Duomo)
My Grandfather, the Master Detective
by Masateru Konishi
On its 5th print run with 70,000 copies sold in under two months. Winner of Japan’s prestigious ‘This Mystery is Amazing!’ Award
As a lover of classic crime stories, it’s perhaps no surprise that 27-year-old schoolteacher Kaede encounters everyday mysteries more often than your average person. Solving them is another matter though, and the person she always heads to for guidance is her beloved grandfather who, despite having dementia retains a keen sharpness of mind. From impossible locked room murders to confounding missing person cases, the granddaughter and grandfather team ‘weave stories’ to get to the bottom of a variety of cases. All the while, a shadow slowly closes in on Kaede, posing a graver threat…
Steeped in references to classic crime from Christie to Chesterton to Poe, My Grandfather, the Master Detective playfully nods to the forebears of the genre, while also bearing the light-hearted, escapist hallmarks of cosy crime books which have recently captured readers’ imaginations. Meanwhile, its charming characters and warm focus on relationships bring to mind heart-warming Japanese titles such as Before the Coffee Gets Cold.
About the author
Masateru Konishi (1965-) graduated from the Department of English and American Literature at Meiji University, and now works in Tokyo as a writer for well-known TV and radio shows. He has previously written for the stage as well as a manga story, but My Grandfather, the Master Detective is his debut novel. He is currently working on a sequel with an estimated first print run of 30,000 copies.