By Ryoko Ando and Sho Hirakawa,
Once underrepresented in English-speaking countries, Japanese mystery crime novels are gaining a stronger presence in Britain's thriller category.
Leading the charge is mystery writer Kotaro Isaka, whose works have been shortlisted twice in three years for Britain's Crime Writers' Association awards.
This year, his novel "Ax" ("The Mantis" in English) was nominated for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award, which honors outstanding mysteries, including espionage and adventure fiction.
British publisher Pushkin Press, known for producing Japanese works by mystery writer Seishi Yokomizu and others, won the CWA Daggers award in the publisher category this year, boosting Japanese mystery novels' presence overseas.
In May, Japanese mystery enthusiasts celebrated when the CWA nominated Isaka's "Ax" for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, one of the most coveted of the 13 internationally renowned Dagger awards. Four of the six finalists in this category were U.S. authors, with Missouri-born Jordan Harper winning for his Hollywood-set novel "Everybody Knows." The Steel Dagger category was established in 2002 to honor Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond series.
Although no Japanese author has ever won a CWA Dagger award, Isaka is edging closer to the accolade after also being nominated for his novel "Maria Beetle" ("Bullet Train"), which was shortlisted for Crime Fiction in Translation in 2022. "Bullet Train" was adapted into a film starring Brad Pitt and directed by David Leitch.
"It was very rare for an Asian work to be a finalist in the Steel Dagger category," said book reviewer Matsukoi Sugie about "The Mantis," which features a witty portrayal of a henpecked salesman living a double life as a skilled assassin.
"Ever since I started reading mysteries, I saw the Daggers as an amazing award from a distant land. It feels like a dream come true to be shortlisted (again)," Isaka said in a statement.
Sugie noted that the setting for "The Mantis" is "very acceptable" in Britain and praised the work for its humanism and vivid foreshadowing, hallmarks of Isaka's writing.
While contemporary Japanese writers like Haruki Murakami and Mieko Kawakami are popular in Britain and the U.S., Japanese mystery novels, with their intricate crime plots, have typically struggled to gain traction abroad.
However, in an era of global content consumption through streaming services and other means, foreign titles in the mystery genre are becoming more widely accepted.
Last year's Dagger awards saw two unexpected Japanese nominees in the Crime Fiction in Translation category: Kaoru Takamura's "Lady Joker" (1997) and "The Tattoo Murder" by Akimitsu Takagi (1948).
"Lady Joker" explores a fictional story inspired by the real-life corporate extortion case of the Ezaki Glico confectionery company in the 1980s, offering a bleak portrait of postwar Japan.
In contrast, "The Tattoo Murder" is a legendary Japanese whodunit of the "locked-room" variety, featuring a crime committed under extraordinary circumstances where the perpetrator enters and leaves the crime scene undetected.
Pushkin Press, which translates and publishes "The Tattoo Murder" and works by Yokomizo, best known for the Kosuke Kindaichi detective series, including "The Honjin Murders" and "Death on Gokumon Island," won this year's Dagger Award in the publisher category.
Pushkin's Daniel Seton believes interest in Japanese mysteries in Britain is only growing. "Japan has such a rich crime-writing culture -- there is still so much more for British readers to discover, and we aim to help them do so," Seton said.
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