Keisuke Matsuoka - Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Japan

“Ah, Colonel!” said Holmes, arranging his rumpled collar. “‘Journeys end in lovers’ meetings,’ as the old play says. I don’t think I have had the pleasure of seeing you since you favoured me with those attentions as I lay on the ledge above the Reichenbach Fall.”

The colonel still stared at my friend like a man in a trance. “You cunning, cunning fiend!” was all that he could say.

“I have not introduced you yet,” said Holmes. “This, gentlemen, is Colonel Sebastian Moran, once of Her Majesty’s Indian Army, and the best heavy-game shot that our Eastern Empire has ever produced. I believe I am correct, Colonel, in saying that your bag of tigers still remains unrivalled?”

Keisuke Matsuoka was born in 1968. A novelist and screenwriter, he sold over a million copies with his 1997 debut psycho-thriller Saimin (Hypnosis). In quick succession followed the massively successful Senrigan (Clairvoyance) and its sequels, featuring an Air Self-Defense Force fighter pilot turned clinical psychologist. He is also the author of The Appraisal Case Files of the Omnicompetent Q series.

Shaarokku Homuzu tai Ito Hirobumi © 2017 Keisuke Matsuoka

All rights reserved.

First published in Japan in 2017 by Kodansha Ltd., Tokyo

Publication rights for this English edition arranged through Kodansha Ltd., Tokyo

English language version produced by Vertical, Inc.

Published by Vertical, Inc., New York, 2019

Cover design: Zak Tebbal

This is a work of fiction.

Ebook ISBN 9781949980257

First Edition

Vertical, Inc.

451 Park Avenue South

7th Floor

New York, NY 10016

www.vertical-inc.com

v5.4

a

Now known as the Strait of Shimonoseki.

Joui (攘夷) is a nationalist slogan from 19th century Japan meaning “expel the barbarians.”

He changed his name from 俊輔 to 春輔, which both read as “Shunsuke.”

Takamori Saigo was an influential samurai and one of the Three Great Nobles of the Meiji Restoration.