I met Lin Siyan for the first time because of my work. At that time, I asked him to write a manuscript as the editor of "Years·Inference" magazine, so I added MSN to each other.In fact, before this, I have read several short stories by Lin Siyan on the recommendation of my friends, among which I particularly like "The Miracle on Christmas Eve" and two, and I am also very concerned about this author. Lin Siyan was born in Chiayi, Taiwan in 1983. After graduating from the English Education Department of Hualien Normal University (now Donghua University Meilun Campus), he worked as a teacher for a period of time, and later was admitted to the Institute of Philosophy of Chung Cheng University. In 2003, he won the Excellent Work Award of the First Human Wolf City Reasoning Literature Award for his short stories (the first prize was never available), and in 2004, he won the first prize of the second Human Wolf City Reasoning Literature Award. Since 2005, Xiaozhitang Culture Company has successively published its long mystery novels "Mystery of the Phantom of the Nile" and "The Mystery of the Phantom of the Nile". Since 2008, his short works have been published in the magazine "Time · Reasoning".

When I met Lin Siyan, he was already a well-known author of mystery novels in Taiwan, so after getting to know each other, we often exchanged some opinions and experiences about mystery novels on the Internet.For the creation of mystery novels, most of our views coincide, which is probably because Lin Siyan and I are not trick-winning authors. After the publication of my book "Purely Fiction", I sent a copy to Lin Siyan. Not long after, he wrote a book review, and he did not hesitate to comment on my short story. There are many passionate words in the text.I blushed for a long time when I read this book review, and thought: "Ah, is my novel so good?" So I made up my mind that when Lin Siyan's works are published in mainland China, I must write a book review. Yun: "Throw me a peach, and give me a plum" is exactly what it means.

Later, I started to work on the publishing planning of mystery novels. After researching and discussing with the editor-in-chief, I decided to introduce Lin Siyan's novel "Mystery of the Phantom of the Nile" already published in Taiwan to the mainland.Just at this time, Lin Siyan told me that he still had a completed book manuscript in his hand, called "The Book", and asked me if it could be published together. After receiving the electronic manuscript from Lin Siyan, I printed it out, because I hadn't read "Phantom of the Nile" and "The Phantom of the Nile" at that time, so this was the first time I read Lin Siyan's long-form works.

A photographer was assassinated in the darkroom of his house. After investigation by the police, it was discovered that the photographer specially fabricated supernatural photos. The reason for the deceased’s murder seemed to be related to a supernatural photo he took in Thailand. The ghost photos are not fake, but taken at the real ghost scene! It turned out that during his previous trip to Thailand, the photographer actually witnessed a supernatural event that shocked Pattaya: a man jumped from the tenth floor of the hotel, his body was burned by will-o’-the-wisps, he fell into the swimming pool and died again Didn't climb out either, disappeared out of thin air after the witnesses surrounded the pool...was he burned by will-o'-the-wisps?Or was it swallowed by the pool?The photo taken by the photographer is the moment when a "spiritual body" pushed the man off the balcony, but according to eyewitness testimony, there was no one on the balcony at that time...

In order to solve the mysteries of ghost photos, the mystery of the disappearance of the pool room and the mystery of the murder case, the philosopher and detective Lin Ruoping went to Pattaya, Thailand to investigate, but this time he encountered a big nail... Just reading the above brief introduction already makes people's blood spurt. This novel with the theme of impossible crime also has many descriptions of the customs of Thailand, which can be regarded as travel reasoning in the category of mystery novels.Allow me to say a few words here, to introduce impossible crime and reasoning to general readers.

The so-called impossible crime refers to a crime that is logically impossible to complete. Take this movie as an example: a man was burnt by a will-o'-the-wisp and jumped from the tenth floor of a hotel, but disappeared surrounded by witnesses after falling into the swimming pool gone!Logically speaking, this is impossible, but it did happen in Lin Siyan's novel, and the final answer is in line with the laws of natural science, and there is nothing strange about it.This seemingly "impossible" solution and the answer that ultimately conforms to the laws of natural science are a pair of contradictory unity. Impossible crimes in mystery novels have conquered countless readers by virtue of this contradictory and unified charm.

The so-called travel reasoning refers to the reasoning novels that the story stage is set during a journey and contains a large number of descriptions of the customs and customs along the journey.Generally speaking, these local conditions and customs must exist in reality, and cannot be allowed to be fabricated by the author.This category of travel reasoning is very broad, and it can include both original puzzle mystery novels and social mystery novels.In Japan, there are many writers who are famous for creating travel reasoning, such as Uchida Yasuo, Nishimura Kyotaro, Tsumura Hidesuke and so on. "Mystery of the Malay Railway", which won the Japan Mystery Writers Association Award in 2003, is a travel reasoning novel that focuses on solving puzzles.

Why did I mention "The Mystery of the Malay Railway" by Arisukawa Yusu separately, because I think there are at least four similarities between this and "The Mystery of the Malay Railway". Please allow me to share them one by one: 1. It's all reasoning.It is about detective Lin Ruoping going to Pattaya, Thailand to investigate a supernatural event related to a murder case, while "Mystery of the Malay Railway" describes a series of murders encountered by detective Hideo Himura and his assistant Arisugawa Arisu when they traveled to the Malay Peninsula . 2. The detective profession is the same.Detective Lin Ruoping is an assistant professor in the Philosophy Department of Tianhe University, while Hideo Himura, the detective in The Mystery of the Malay Railway, is a professor of criminology at Eide University, and both Lin Ruoping and Hideo Himura are written by their respective authors Series detective characters.

3. They are all based on solving puzzles in this case.Lin Siyan, the author of "The Mystery of the Malay Railway", and Arisugawa Yusu, the author of "Malay Railway Mystery", both seem to focus on the field of solving puzzles, and their works are based on this. 4. Both include the impossible crime.Needless to say, as mentioned earlier, it includes an impossible crime in which a man on fire disappears from a swimming pool, and "Mystery of the Malay Railway" challenges a well-known impossible crime model in the history of mystery novels, that is, Closed chamber with doors and windows sealed from the inside with tape.

They are also travel reasoning novels that mainly focus on solving mysteries, and they all include the mystery of impossible crimes. I think it is a work comparable to "The Mystery of the Malay Railway".Regardless of the answer to the impossible crime, the addition of ghost photos and ghostly legends to the mystery makes it more attractive than the "Malay Railway Mystery" that relies solely on impossible crimes. and readers interested in horror stories.In terms of travel description, Lin Siyan is not inferior to the professional writer Arisukawa Yusu who has debuted for many years. Through the author's delicate brushwork, I, who has never stepped outside the country, fully appreciate the unique and mysterious customs of exotic Thailand.The description of the legend of "Ghost Wife" made me feel the coldness in the hot and humid air in Thailand.If "Mystery of the Phantom of the Nile" is still a little immature, then this work can be described as quite mature in terms of writing.In terms of the answer to the impossible crime, I also think that it is not inferior to "The Mystery of the Malay Railway", because the preface should not reveal too much, so I will not expand here. Interested readers can read the two chapters Compare them yourself later in the book.

"Mystery of the Malay Railway" was written in 2002 and completed in 2006. The difference is only four years, and it can basically be regarded as a work of an era.In other words, although Chinese reasoning is still relatively weak overall, it may not be impossible to write one or two works that are comparable to contemporary Japanese reasoning.Friends who are interested in this need not underestimate themselves. Given time, I think it is unknown whether Chinese reasoning can even produce masterpieces that surpass Japanese reasoning at the same time.Mr. Shoji Shimada once sent a letter to Chinese reasoning fans: "I look forward to the talented people in China. Maybe one day in the future, even in the field of basic reasoning, they can lead the world!" In March of this year, Lin Siyan privately sent me to read the novels he submitted for the first Shoji Shimada Mystery Fiction Award held by Crown Publishing House.This is Lin Siyan's latest puzzle-solving work. It tells the story of a series of murders in a snowstorm villa. Of course, it also includes many impossible crimes.In terms of impossible crime mysteries and solutions, this one is more complicated and fascinating.But comprehensively, it is still my favorite long-form work of Lin Siyan-I also talked about this point in the discussion with Lin Siyan.I think that whether it is an original reasoning work from the mainland or Taiwan, there are no major obstacles for mature authors in terms of tricks and layout, but the most important problem that needs to be solved is the localization of reasoning novels.In comparison, it is a pity that it lacks the uniqueness of time and place. It makes people feel that the same story can happen in Beijing, Shanghai, or Chengdu, and it is no different from what happened in Taipei.Although the Impossible Crime Mystery is a bit weak compared to the solution, it makes me feel that this is indeed a story that happened in the hot and humid air of Thailand. I like such works. So after reading this book, I immediately decided to include it in this publishing plan.It is my duty as a media publisher to make such an excellent mystery novel available to mainland readers as soon as possible, and it also makes me feel extremely honored and proud. Ah, after talking so much about Lala Zaza, I even changed the topic several times before I knew it. ——"Hey, why is this preface so long, there is no end to it." ——"It's not that the author of the preface intentionally cheated on the manuscript fee." I am afraid that some readers are already impatient, so please quickly enter Lin Ruoping's reasoning world to appreciate the unique and mysterious style of Thailand. I wish you a happy reading!