If you are a loyal book fan of Keigo Higashino, you know his writing career very well, and you can talk about the style of each of his works in detail, you may wish to skip this introduction and read the main text directly.I believe that you who love Keigo Higashino will not be disappointed. However, if you are interested in watching or waiting for film and television works, and start reading the original novels to get to know the writer Keigo Higashino, I think this article can let you know more about his creative process and background. A friend of mine who is familiar with the Japanese publishing industry said that there are two special awards for the Japanese, one is the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the other is the Naoki Thirty-five Awards for short.The difference between them and other awards is not the level of status, but "the degree of public awareness".The Nobel Prize is an international award, and the winner naturally attracts the attention of people all over the world, and the winner of the Naoki Award also attracts attention in Japanese society. As long as a writer wins the Naoki Award, his name will become a household name and become a bestseller. list of writers.

Keigo Higashino won the 134th Naoki Award in 2006, which expanded his name from book fans to all walks of life in Japan. Movies and TV series adapted from his works were released one after another. , without interruption. Although Keigo Higashino's works ignited a boom, his road to success was bumpier than many famous writers.Even if you don't mention his famous record of "15 failed elections", just focusing on his award-winning experience is quite thought-provoking.Higashino Keigo won the 31st Edogawa Rampo Award in 1985, and then won the 52nd Japan Mystery Writers Association Award in 1999 for his breakthrough in popularity, and then won the 2009 In 2006, he won the Naoki Award, establishing his current status.In 2006, he won the reputation of "Five Crowns". In addition to the Naoki Award, he also won the 6th Benge Reasoning Award and ruled the roost in three reasoning rankings.Maybe you don't think this list is bad, there are no "bumps", but I want to say, please pay attention to the time between Keigo Higashino's first two awards - he won the first title "Edogawa Rampo Award" After that, the second award was won fourteen years later.

Let me first talk about the origin of the Edogawa Ranpo Award.The Edogawa Ranpo Award was founded in 1954 with the purpose of promoting the creation of mystery novels in Japan and discovering outstanding new writers.Unlike the Mystery Writers Association Award or the Naoki Award, which rewards excellent novels that have been published that year, the Edogawa Ranpo Award is an essay award. In addition to awards and bonuses, the winners' works will be published by Kodansha. The best ticket for a newcomer to enter the world of reasoning and reasoning once he ascends the Dragon Gate.After receiving the Edogawa Ranpo Award, Higashino Keigo devoted himself to writing, resigned from his job as an engineer, and became a full-time writer. However, until he achieved a breakthrough in popularity, he could only work silently, and had no chance of being named a "best-selling author" .Although he did not stop writing during this period, his works continued to lose various fiction awards, and the sales volume was not satisfactory.We can easily describe his experience in more than a hundred words, and add a sentence of "suffering and rewarding", but from Keigo Higashino's point of view, the only thing he can do during these long and heavy 14 years is to work hard to create , experiment with different styles, and pray for the favor of readers (and book critics).

Keigo Higashino's works today have accumulated more than 20 years of writing experience.His prolific output and the variety of his work stem from these honings, which pave the way to success in the face of repeated failures and repeated adversities.Once upon a time, the "Keigo Higashino route" was synonymous with "always participating and always losing", but today we know that the end point (maybe not the end point but the halfway station) of this route has a happy result.Some people say that if you want to know a writer, you might as well read his famous works carefully, because he "starts" from this work.In this way, the winner of the Edogawa Ranpo Award should be called the "starting point" of Keigo Higashino.

So, what about this work?Is it the early works of Keigo Higashino after "starting"? Yes, it is an early work, but it is not "after the start", but "before the start". Before Keigo Higashino won the 31st Edogawa Rampo Award, he had submitted entries for the 29th and 30th competitions.The first submission passed the second preliminaries, and the second time it entered the competition, it was shortlisted for the final candidate—this "final candidate" work, that is.After Higashino Keigo made his debut, it was revised and published by Kodansha in 1988. It is a youth mystery novel intertwined with high school baseball and murder.The time and space of the story is set in 1964, when Japan joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Tokyo hosted the 18th Olympic Games, the world's first passenger high-speed railway, the Tokaido Shinkansen, opened to traffic, and Sadaharu Wang of the Giants set a record He hit a Japanese professional baseball record of fifty-five home runs in a single season, and the monster special effects movie of "Mothra vs. Godzilla" was playing in theaters.Prosperity and depression alternate rapidly, and the people are full of longing for the future, but also permeated with some anxiety. There are still many poor families in society, but as long as they seize the opportunity, poor people can also find a way to become rich.For post-war Japanese society, compared with the "mature" period of stable economic growth, this is a period of youthful "youth" - the young protagonists shed sweat and tears in this era, experiencing Lives the ruthless and precious years of youth.

If the youth mystery novels that let Keigo Higashino step into the reasoning literary world are the "starting point", it is his projection before the starting line.Perhaps this work is not as mature as the author's later works, but readers can see the enthusiasm shown by Keigo Higashino when he started writing. It is a kind of unadorned, youthful and ambitious. Show your courage. When I received a letter from the editor inviting me to write this guide, I just saw the news that Keigo Higashino was nominated for the best novel in the 2012 Edgar Awards for his English version.This is the second time a Japanese reasoning work has been shortlisted after Kirino Natsuo's "OUT Housewife Murder Case" in 2004. Regardless of whether it wins an award or not (you will probably know when you read this article), I can also say that, Keigo Higashino has already gone to the international circuit, discussing with European and American reasoning writers, so that readers all over the world pay attention to his works.At this time, it is very interesting to read this book before the starting line, and it also gives us a glimpse of the figure of this world-class writer before the starting line.