Shadow Beast

…While he was a student, he became interested in British and American detective novels, and after graduation he worked in more than a dozen different professions. In 1923, he published Two-Sen Copper Coin, which laid the foundation for original detective novels in Japan. He then established a new genre of detective novels with works such as Psychological Test (1925), In Beast (1928), and Pomegranate, which were based on deduction, the bizarre Human Chair (1925), Mirror Hell, and Strange Tale of Panorama Island (1926-27), and the fantastical Man Traveling with a Pressed Picture (1929). Meanwhile, his thriller novels such as Spider Man (1930) and Golden Mask were filled with intense suspense, and were enthusiastically received by general readers, popularizing the interest in detectives. …

*Some of the terminology explanations that refer to "Shadow Beast" are listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…在学中から英米の探偵小説に関心を抱き，卒業後十数種の職業についた。1923年に《二銭銅貨》を発表し，日本における創作探偵小説の基盤を築き，続いて推理を主軸にした《心理試験》(1925)，《陰獣》(1928)，《石榴（ざくろ）》，怪奇的な《人間椅子》(1925)，《鏡地獄》《パノラマ島奇譚》(1926‐27)，幻想的な《押絵と旅する男》(1929)などで，探偵小説という新分野を確立した。一方《蜘蛛（くも）男》(1930)，《黄金仮面》などのスリラー長編は，強烈なサスペンスにあふれ，一般読者から熱狂的歓迎をうけ，探偵趣味を普及させた。…

※「《陰獣》」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第２版について | 情報