The Rules of the Great Detective

The Rules of the Great Detective (Japanese original: Meitantei no Okite, published 1997) is one of Keigo Higashino's more unconventional works, structured as a linked short-story collection: an introduction, twelve chapters, and an epilogue, with multiple cases linked together in an episodic format. The narrator is police officer Banzō Ōkawara, who for years has served as sidekick to the self-styled "great detective" Daigorō Tenka; the book unfolds through this inspector's perspective and abundant grumbling. Daigorō Tenka wears a wrinkled suit, has messy hair and a battered cane, and at every case gathers everyone, points his cane at someone, and declares, "You are the murderer." Ōkawara's job is to play along and serve as foil to the protagonist. Yet the autopsy report will say the victim died by accident, or the murderer will tearfully beg the detective to see through a carefully constructed alibi, and the roles of lead and sidekick are thrown into complete disarray. The work employs classic elements of honkaku mystery—locked rooms, isolated mansions (the snowstorm villa), dying messages, timetable tricks, dismembered corpses, nursery-rhyme killings, headless bodies—while laying each trope bare and mocking it, even having characters realize they are inside a detective novel and converse directly with "the author." Readers often regard it as Keigo Higashino's tongue-in-cheek love letter to honkaku mystery and an important work for understanding his creative transition.