番外編：Death of the Living Dead

2020 saw the release of two new Japanese mysteries translated by me, being Ayukawa's story collection The Red Locked Room and Higashigawa's locked room mystery Lending the Key to the Locked Room both from Locked Room International, as well as a new release of The Decagon House Murders by Pushkin Press. Three releases is definitely not the norm for me though, so I guess most people would assume that Imamura's Death Among the Undead some months ago would be my only contribution to the world of translated Japanese mysteries this year. To be honest, I wasn't sure myself!

I have to admit that even I was caught off-guard by the official announcement that Ammo will be publishing my English translation of Masaya YAMAGUCHI's Death of the Living Dead in December 2021, with the preorders on Amazon for the e-book having started yesterday on Halloween. Originally published in 1989, Yamaguchi's original debut novel was a smash hit by being one of the earliest and definitely one of the best Japanese mystery stories that utilized a supernatural setting to present a fair play puzzle plot detective. Set in the eighties in New England, US, the story follows Grin, a rock punk who after a short period where his life had gone off rails, returns to his family home: the famous Smile Cemetery. Grin is welcomed by his grandfather Smiley Barleycorn, the person who brought the Barleycorn funeral directing family business from the UK to the States and built the empire that is the Smile Cemetery. However, Smiley doesn't have long to live anymore and his sons all have different ideas what to do with the business once Smiley is gone. Meanwhile, a strange phenomenom has been plaguing the world, as the dead have started to rise. For some reason, there have been several cases across the world where people just "wake up" from their death and are still able to act basically as if they were alive, save for the rotting of their corpses. It's amidst these circumstances that mysterious deaths occur among the Barleycorns at the Smile Cemetery, and it's up to young Grin to solve these deaths, but what's a detective going to do in a world where death isn't as decisive as it used to be?

I read the original book back in 2014, and I absolutely loved the work, as Death of the Living Dead used the supernatural setting to bring an absolutely original detective story, combined with both witty comedy as well a surprisingly deeply worked out look at the theme of death. The book has consistently ranked very high in Japanese mystery rankings and has been available in various (mostly Asian) regions already, where it apparently also garners a lot of praise, so it's widely considered to be one of the more important works of early shin honkaku mystery fiction. Yamaguchi had been trying to get the book out in English for a long time, so I was very honored when he asked me to work on the translation. This happened a few years ago by the way, but due to a revised Japanese edition releasing after I had worked on the translation, I was informed that translation advisors/editors worked on my translation afterwards to incorporate the revisions, so while the base is my work, I also have to say thanks for all the hard work to all the people who worked on my text! But that's also why I didn't have exact information on the release window, and me being surprised at the official announcement the book was coming!

It might seem very natural to draw parallels with this year's release of Death Among the Undead which I also translated, but ultimately the works are very different, with the former focusing more on the horror-side, while Death of the Living Dead focusing much more on the question of what death means for us humans, and there's a lot of discourse and discussion going on the theme of death across the centuries, and you'd be surprised how well-researched this book is on the theme of thanatology, without compromising the brilliant puzzler that is at the core of this novel. It's also quite bit longer than the other books I've translated until now, allowing it to go a bit deeper.

Anyway, I can wholeheartedly recommend this novel, not just as someone who worked on this specific release, but simply as a huge fan of Death of the Living Dead itself. It's a fantastic piece of detection that has earned a place in the history of modern Japanese mystery fiction and well worth the read. Be sure to visit the official website of Death of the Living Dead and I hope you'll enjoy the book when it's finally out!