Chapter 134: The Judges

9:00 AM, Tokyo, Setagaya Ward, Mystery Writers Association.

"Dear judges, these 3 works are the shortlisted works for this Mystery Writers Newcomer Award. I hope you can appreciate them and make corresponding evaluations."

The man speaking was a man in a suit wearing glasses. His name was Kawai Shinta, and he was the vice president of the Mystery Writers Association.

The planning of this "Mystery Literature Newcomer Award" and the selection of the final shortlisted works were directly responsible by him.

After Kawai Shinta finished these words, he looked around at the 5 judges in the conference room.

To ensure the fairness and justice of the selection, Kawai Shinta specially invited one person each from the Honkaku school, Social school, Neo-Honkaku, Suspense school, and Hard-boiled school from the many members of the Mystery Writers Association.

This was to avoid excessive favoritism of the judges for a certain work.

And there is another very important point, that is, in recent years, the power of the Honkaku school has become increasingly huge, so much so that more and more awards have been awarded to Honkaku school works, causing great dissatisfaction among other schools.

Therefore, Kawai Shinta chose 1 person from each school. Although this is not necessarily very fair, it can at least avoid leaving handles.

After Kawai Shinta finished these words, he let the assistant on the side distribute the photocopies of the 3 works to the writers on the field, and then began to wait patiently.

Let's see which lucky person can win the favor of these writers!

On the other side, Neo-Honkaku writer Morioka Yuho, who was a judge this time, got three books.

She simply looked at the covers of the three works and found that they were called *Negligent Homicide*, *Spiral Staircase*, and *The Third Person Behind*.

Just looking at the names, she had simply analyzed the styles of these three works.

The first one only talked about the motive for the crime, so it might be the Social school or the Honkaku school.

The second one, just looking at the name, you can see a hint of mechanism, and it is likely to be Honkaku or Neo-Honkaku.

The third one, keywords like "behind" and "third person" are a bit thrilling. If there are no accidents, it should be the Bizarre school.

Besides that, the three books did not include the author's name except for the title.

Morioka Yuho was not surprised, because if the author's name was included, it could often reveal a lot of information, such as the writer's publisher, relevant connections, and debut work.

And these external factors would become the choice that affects the judges.

So in order to make this Mystery Literature Newcomer Award fairer, the organizing committee hid the author's name and only gave the judges works to watch...

Morioka Yuho thought for a while, then picked up *Spiral Staircase* and read it first.

No matter what, as a Neo-Honkaku writer, she still hopes that the works of her school can be carried forward and accepted by more readers.

She opened the book and then carefully studied the plot.

"The protagonist and his party came to a villa in the deep mountains. This villa was built in the Taisho era and has a long history. And in this villa, there is a staircase that can lead to different rooms. On the third day, a person died on the staircase. On the fourth day, another person died in the same position. To find out the truth and protect themselves, the protagonist decided to check who the real murderer was."

After reading for 3 hours, she closed the book and felt admiration in her heart.

Sure enough, it is the Honkaku school. In this book, the murderer used visual errors to make the victims and others think that the two dead people were in the same position, but in fact, one person's death was at the second scene. And the target the murderer really wanted to kill was the second person who died.

As for the first person, it was just to frame someone else to achieve the purpose of covering up himself.

This *Spiral Staircase* has an unexpected murder method and contains rich ingenuity. It seems it can be classified as Neo-Honkaku.

In this case, can I not read the other two books and just vote for it...

No matter what, she is also a member of Neo-Honkaku.

She lowered her head and fell into thought.

At this time, Vice President Kawai Shinta knocked on the table, attracting her attention.

"Dear teachers, the morning review will come to an end for now. Let's go to dinner first. The dining location is downstairs. We have hired a chef from the 'Takeshi' restaurant in Kyoto to make dishes for everyone."

Hearing these words, Morioka Yuho put down her thoughts and decided to eat lunch first, rest for a while, and then take a look.

12:30 PM, Mystery Writers Association, Guest Lounge.

"Morioka-sensei, which work do you think should be awarded the Newcomer Award this time?"

Morioka Yuho was sitting on the sofa closing her eyes and resting, when she suddenly heard a low male voice.

She opened her eyes, looked up, and found it was another judge—Honkaku writer Takaoka Haruto.

This kind of topic is not suitable for public discussion, right?

She was a bit surprised, then looked around, and found that except for herself and Takaoka Haruto, there were no other writers on the field, only a staff member standing at the entrance of the door far away.

At that distance, it is estimated that he couldn't hear the conversation between the two.

It seems there is no problem.

Morioka Yuho thought for a while, then lowered her voice and asked: "Takaoka-sensei, what do you think?"

Takaoka Haruto shook his head, then sat down beside Morioka Yuho. "In my view, as long as the trick is designed reasonably and brilliantly, no matter which work it is, it's fine."

Hearing this explanation, Morioka Yuho was a bit amused.

You might as well just say you want the work of the Honkaku school to win.

The Suspense school focuses on the suspense of the puzzle, the Hard-boiled school focuses on the expression of action and social observation, and the Social school delves into human nature.

Therefore, only the Honkaku school and Neo-Honkaku will care whether the trick is brilliant and reasonable.

She was too lazy to sell the trick, so she replied directly: "Takaoka-sensei, there is no one else here, you don't have to sell the trick."

Takaoka Haruto smiled and replied: "In short, I will not vote for the work *The Third Person Behind*."

Morioka Yuho nodded. This work sounds like a work of the Suspense school, and the trick design must not have any special features.

But she was still curious about the content inside, so she asked: "Did you read this work in the morning?"

Takaoka Haruto replied: "Hmm, this work is relatively short, I read it very quickly in the morning, I will probably describe it to Morioka-sensei."

Then, he began to describe it, and Morioka Yuho also learned about the story background in his description.

This *The Third Person Behind* tells about a series of very bizarre girl murder cases in a city, and after they were killed, their corpses were often placed in strange postures, which can be said to be extremely tragic.

The police then began to investigate, but they found that the interpersonal relationships of these victimized girls were different, and there was no social interaction in life. Just then, a detective who was also chasing this case found a key clue...

Hearing all this, Morioka Yuho suddenly became interested. "What is the murderer's final purpose and method?"

Takaoka Haruto shrugged and explained: "The motive is not well designed. It is purely because of emotional disputes. The murderer killed his cheating ex-girlfriend and then buried her corpse. In order to avoid being targeted by the police, the murderer concocted a series of serial murder cases and specifically killed women who had rumors of cheating."

"Hiding wood in the forest?"

Morioka Yuho shook her head. She felt that this story was not designed well enough.

If she were to write it, it should be that the murderer used the opportunity of serial murder cases to cover up the truth of his murder, and finally pointed to two murderers.

Takaoka Haruto waved his hand. "So this work combines the characteristics of the Suspense school and the Social school. Maybe it can get these two votes. As for the Hard-boiled school, maybe it is also possible to vote."

He paused and said in a firm tone: "Morioka-sensei, so I think we should concentrate our 2 votes together to avoid the honor of this Mystery Literature Newcomer Award being taken away by works other than the Honkaku school."

Morioka Yuho was silent for a while and fell into hesitation.

After a long while, she said to herself: "If there are no accidents, I will recommend that *Spiral Staircase*. I think the trick inside is designed very brilliantly."

"Eh?" Takaoka Haruto asked suspiciously.

"Is there any problem?"

"Did you not read the work *Negligent Homicide*, Morioka-sensei?" Takaoka Haruto asked back.

Morioka Yuho shook her head. She likes to read books slowly, so she is much slower than other writers.

Takaoka Haruto thought for a while and said: "Let's do this, wait until Morioka-sensei reads this work, and then make this decision. After all, there is still a certain amount of time for voting."

Morioka Yuho thought about it and felt it was the same, so she agreed immediately.

But what is so brilliant about this work that it is worth Takaoka Haruto's recognition, and even denies the *Spiral Staircase* she thinks is very excellent?

Her heart was full of doubts. ===== CHAPTER 135 =====