Beast in the Shadows

About

A mystery writer befriends a married woman and suspects her reclusive husband is plotting something sinister. As the writer investigates — or believes he's investigating — the line between detection and obsession blurs, and the question of who is hunting whom becomes the novel's real puzzle. Rampo builds a mystery where the detective's certainty is the most suspicious thing in the story. This is Rampo at his most psychologically unsettling — a tale where the conventions of detective fiction become weapons, and the reader can't be sure whether the narrator is solving a crime or committing one. The atmosphere is claustrophobic, paranoid, and deeply satisfying. A mystery about a mystery writer who may be the villain of his own story — and the reader who can't trust a word he says.