Spouse: Fuyumi Ono
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Wikipedia (jp)Novelist who specializes mostly in mystery & horror. He wrote ten short mystery novels like his early study "Shonen Tanteidan" during the summer vacation of his sixth year of elementary school.
After graduating from Kyoto Prefectural Katsura High School in 1979, he entered the Faculty of Education at Kyoto University. He was a member of the Kyoto University Mystery Story Study Group. Among his classmates in the club was Fuyumi Ono, whom he would later marry, as well as Takemaru Abiko and Rintaro Norizuki (法月綸太郎), who would become authors. In the winter of his fourth year at university, he entered the Edogawa Rampo Prize with a work that was the prototype for the later "Jukkakukan no Satsujin," and was selected in the first round.
In 1984, he entered the Graduate School of Education at the same university, majoring in deviant behavior theory, and married Fuyumi Ono in 1986. The following year, while still in school, he made his debut as a writer with "Jukkakukan no Satsujin". The editorial department of Kodansha Novels named it a "New Authentic Mystery". He completed his master's degree in two years and went on to study for a doctorate for three years, but then took a leave of absence for three years and withdrew with credits without writing a doctoral thesis. In March 1992, he became a full-time writer., and in the same year, he won the Mystery Writers Association of Japan Award in the feature story category for "Tokeikan no Satsujin".
As of February 2012, the total number of copies of his representative works, the "Kan series," has exceeded 4.09 million. It consists of 9 novels:
- Jukkakukan no Satsujin (十角館の殺人) - 1987
- Suishakan no Satsujin (水車館の殺人) - 1988
- Meirokan no Satsujin (迷路館の殺人) - 1988
- Ningyokan no Satsujin (人形館の殺人) - 1989
- Tokeikan no Satsujin (時計館の殺人) - 1991
- Kuronekokan no Satsujin (黒猫館の殺人) - 1992
- Ankokukan no Satsujin (暗黒館の殺人) - 2004
- Bikkurinkan no Satsujin (びっくり館の殺人) - 2006
- Ki menkan no Satsujin (奇面館の殺人) - 2012
