"Kuro Tokage" (Black Lizard) by Edogawa Ranpo. A crime thriller involving a notorious female villain.
Black Lizard is the nickname given to the title antagonist, due to the tattoo on her arm. A female villain in this genre is relatively rare, the first other female villain that came to mind might be Irene Adler who appeared in "A Scandal in Bohemia" from the Sherlock Holmes universe. Black Lizard takes up a similar role in the Akechi Kogorou universe, where the established detective matched his wit against the intelligent villain, and it was obvious that they would have gotten along quite well if it was not his job to catch her. This friendly rivalry made Black Lizard a popular character in later derivative works, such as the 2015 anime series "Ranpo Kitan".
The main plot revolves around Black Lizard's clever kidnapping schemes to force ransom of a famous diamond, and also Akechi's countermeasures to thwart these schemes. The methods for which the Black Lizard and Akechi employed were more for theatrical than practical reasons, and the final scenes were especially silly, but this is the charm of Ranpo's writing style. The best part about this book is how much of it reads like a performance between dueling magicians, each trying to out do the other with a better deception.
The bonus story that came with this book is "Kohantei Jiken" (Kohantei Incident), an interesting mystery even without the famous personalities from the main story. It might seem like a contrived way to link voyeurism into a murder mystery at first, but the ending reveals a more subtle mystery than initially seen.
This has been an excellent double feature of personalities and illusions.
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