A Copycat Killer

Born on February 29th, 1948, in Fukuoka Prefecture, Jiro Akagawa is one of Japan’s most prolific and celebrated mystery writers. In a career that spans several decades, he has written over 650 books and sold more than 330 million copies. Working as a salaried employee for twelve years after graduating high school, he won the All Yomimono New Mystery Writers' Prize for a short novel titled Ghost Train while working a full-time job. In 1978, he became a bestselling novelist with the Mikeneko Holmes no Suiri which recounts the adventures of a detective and his adopted cat; the beloved series continues today with over fifty-five novels, seventy including short stories. It was only then that he quit his corporate job and turned his full attention to writing. He won the Kadokawa Novel Prize in 1980 with Requiem for an Evil Wife, the Japan Mystery Literature Award in 2005, and the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for Literature in 2016 with Tokyo Year Zero. Many of his hit titles have been adapted for the screen and stage, including award-winning films such as Sailor Suit and Machine Gun (1981), Detective Story (1983), Early Spring Story (1985), Who Do I Choose? (1989), and Chizuko’s Younger Sister (1991). The first Mikeneko Holmes book has also been made into a film and two television series that aired from 1979 to 1984, as well as in 2012.