The Mysterious Bite and Other Tales

A prosperous jeweler is found dead beside his fireplace, with unmistakable teeth marks on his throat. A bobbed-haired employee, an embroidered handkerchief, and a grieving craftsman lead Inspector Kirihara toward an extraordinary explanation—and toward a truth he cannot fully prove.

In “Heredity,” a scar on a scholar’s neck opens onto a courtesan’s hidden past and a devastating inference from a single provision of criminal law. “Alchemical Fraud” follows the long partnership between the hunger for gold and the ingenuity of swindlers, from aristocratic patrons to elaborate modern laboratory demonstrations. In “The Struggle,” a seemingly settled suicide becomes a contest between rival scientific minds, with a cryptic newspaper advertisement marking its dangerous resolution.

Kosakai Fuboku (1890–1929) was a physician whose medical knowledge helped shape early Japanese detective fiction. These four works, first published between 1925 and 1929, expose the uneasy boundary between explanation and conjecture, intellectual ambition and human cost. This complete new English translation preserves their period assumptions and unsettling ambiguities, with brief notes on medical terms, historical claims, and the Japanese word puzzle. AI-assisted translation, prepared and edited by Valentin Sarić.