THE BLACK LIZARD AND BEAST IN THE SHADOWS, by Edogawa Rampo, translated by Ian Hughes, introduction by Mark Schreiber. Fukuoka: Kurodahan Press, 2006, 284 pp., $15.00 (paper).

Edogawa Rampo, the pen name Taro Hirai (1894-1965) adopted in homage to Edgar Allan Poe (think phonetically), is the father of the Japanese mystery. He remains a cultural icon, his oeuvre a mother lode of film ideas. Few of his works have been translated, however. So the publication of two admirably rendered Rampo novellas is welcome. One even lives up to its author's namesake.

"The Black Lizard" features Rampo's main detective, Kogoro Akechi. Akechi is a super sleuth, highly respected by the Police Investigative Unit, and a master of disguise.

So is his nemesis, the Black Lizard. This siren with a taste for black clothes and expensive jewelry has on her upper left arm a tattoo of a black lizard. Nowadays mom with child in tow at the local pool may sport a tattoo in the small of her back, but in 1934, the story's year of publication, a tattoo marked a woman as an outlaw. The Black Lizard kills for what she desires.