Edogawa Ranpo

Tarō Hirai/平井 太郎/Hirai Tarō (October 21, 1894 – July 28, 1965), better known by the pseudonym Edogawa Ranpo/江戸川 乱歩, was a Japanese author and critic who played a major role in the development of Japanese mystery fiction. Many of his novels involve the detective hero Kogoro Akechi, who in later books was the leader of a group of boy detectives known as the "Boy Detective's Gang"/少年探偵団/Shōnen tantei dan.

Ranpo was an admirer of Western mystery writers, and especially of Edgar Allan Poe. His pen name is a rendering of Poe's name. Other authors who were special influences on him were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whom he attempted to translate into Japanese during his days as a student at Waseda University, and the Japanese mystery writer Ruikō Kuroiwa.