Originally published as a serial novel, “The Vampire” belongs to the series of cases investigated by Akechi Kogoro, a great Japanese detective created by Edogawa Ranpo.
The great beauty Shizuko Hatayanagi, a woman driven by money, once abandoned her poor lover to marry a dishonest businessman. She later became a widow and now has a relationship with a youth called Mitani. A duel over Shizuko by taking a poison had taken place, and the young Mitani had won her. From that time on, a mysterious man without lips suddenly started to attack her. After a dramatic event where Shizuko and her six-year-old son were kidnapped, Akechi Kogoro finally makes his appearance. Akechi quickly discovers that there are many mysteries in the case, and that the truth is hidden by falsehoods….
Rather than a detective novel, this work is a quick-paced adventure novel. I tried to reproduce its rhythm and flavor. I also paid great attention to the dialogues. Because the detective’s rather sarcastic irony must be expressed in the words he utters, and Akechi is not as conceited as Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot, I had to be careful not to overdo it. Translating the book was a real pleasure for me, an admirer of serial novels and Gaston Leroux. That does not mean that the project was easy. There was nothing difficult with the novel genre, but I quickly ran into the problem of lack of knowledge about Japanese culture. Take Kabuki, for example. Much research was needed to fill in these gaps, but its results have been added as comments.
“The Vampire” is the third full-length novel featuring Akechi Kogoro. Theoretically, I might have had to publish this series starting with “The Spider-Man” followed by “The Conjurer,” but, in the end, “The Vampire” seemed the most sensible choice. Because, first of all, this book is one of my favorite works by Edogawa Ranpo. In addition, the work has everything that readers of Edogawa Ranpo love so much: a charismatic detective, a beautiful woman with a moral sense that makes you tilt your head in disbelief, a physical and moral monster, a good-looking man reminiscent of Dorian Gray, an artistic murder, a psychedelic chase, and a fusion of a mysterious atmosphere and some humor. This is the work where Akechi’s young assistant—Yoshio Kobayashi, the main character in the “Boy Detectives Club” series—appears for the first time.
In addition to being fun as a serial novel, “The Vampire” is full of scenes that have strong symbolism. This is especially evident in the chapters where the victim Shizuko is trapped in different places, one after another: at the bottom of a well, in a coffin, at a crematorium, and in an ice machine. The reader must have seen the young woman coming out of her living hell and wondered if she had gone that far, achieved atonement, and mended her ways. Regrettably, like the protagonist of the Spider’s Web, a short novel by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, she lets slip chances that have come her way and, after a string of failures, is carried to a natural conclusion. Legendary vampires are portrayed as cruel beings that suck their victims dry of their life force. In that sense, I wonder whether Shizuko, who destroys men, is the true “vampire,” that is, the “vamp” of the story.