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056650

The D-Slope Murder CaseAuthor: Edogawa Ranpo

Original TitleD坂の殺人事件
Author江戸川 乱歩
GenreDetective & Mystery
Author TypeMale Author
SummaryOn a sweltering September evening in Tokyo’s D-Slope district, an idle graduate frequents a café, drawn to a shabby used bookstore across the street. Rumors swirl about the owner’s wife—a haunting beauty with unexplained injuries—who vanishes one night behind a mysteriously closed shoji screen. When the narrator and eccentric detective enthusiast Akechi Kogorō investigate, they discover her strangled corpse in a locked room with no trace of entry or escape. Witnesses offer baffling contradictions: a glimpsed figure clad in black *and* white, yet no one recalls screams or suspicious activity. As police flounder, the narrator’s suspicions twist toward Akechi himself, citing fingerprints and a striped yukata—only for Akechi to unravel a darker thread. Delving into psychological depths, he exposes hidden desires festering beneath the neighborhood’s ordinary facade, where secrets defy logic and crimes blur consent. Atmospheric and claustrophobic, this classic locked-room mystery weaves voyeuristic tension with unsettling human truths, challenging readers to question every shadow in D-Slope’s labyrinthine alleys.