The Secret of the Skull and Other Stories

A skeleton unearthed in a mountain landslide seems to confirm a terrible accusation. A scientist's death threatens to expose a secret formula. A young woman looking for her dog's medicine discovers a diary that makes her own home suddenly frightening.

In these three tales, Kosakai Fuboku makes the smallest bodily details matter: a skull beneath a school cap, a few short hairs, an unsettling nose. Two stories follow Tsukahara Toshio, a young detective whose confidence and appetite for experiments unsettle the adults around him. The third moves inward, exploring the distance between a private fantasy and an actual crime.

A physician and an early Japanese mystery writer, Fuboku combines scientific explanation, ingenious deception, and suspense. These stories appeared between 1925 and 1929 and retain their period assumptions and political language. This new English translation includes all supplied story text, brief notes, and publication information. Captions and descriptions are retained for three original diagrams whose image files were unavailable. AI-assisted translation, prepared and edited by Valentin Sarić.