The works included in this collection belong to Ranpo’s early period, which many researchers consider his most vivid, rich, and diverse. In the author’s stories and novellas, the Western detective tradition—after all, the writer chose a pseudonym that echoes the name of the founder of the genre, Edgar Allan Poe—intertwines with Japanese originality, and the scientific method of investigation collides with intuition. Fans of the genre will find Ranpo’s texts full of twists and turns, unpredictability, and completely unexpected endings, where events flip upside down not once or twice, but even three times.