earlier stage
From 1985 to 1990, Keigo Higashino focused on campus case-based reasoning, emphasizing solving puzzles and logical reasoning. The works of this period mainly describe criminal techniques, involving elements such as secret rooms, nursery rhymes and passwords in traditional novels. There are many traces of imitation in the artistic techniques of novels, which are mainly based on the single-line structure of Freeman's classic model of "asking questions, showing data, knowing the truth and verifying the ending". Representative works of this period include After School, Killing Game Before Graduation, Blinking Toast, Eleven-character Killing Game, etc. "After School" and "Killing Game Before Graduation" depict the complex interpersonal relationship between teachers, students and classmates with the campus as the background. A toast in the blink of an eye uses the classic elements of the secret room in traditional mystery novels, with Xiangzi Oda, a vain heroine who worships money, as the heroine. Eleven people in the eleven-character killing game died one after another, and their heads were all injured by heavy weapons. Before they died, they would receive a note that read "Full of murder from an uninhabited island" ... These plots are often used in traditional mystery novels. Like Edgar Watt Lapol, Dongye's works in this period attributed "criminal motive" to personal reasons, either for material life or to cover up the unknown past. The works of this period lay particular stress on logical reasoning, with thin content, and fixed "surprise" on "who is the murderer". For example, "School is over", the whole article focuses on the contradiction between teachers and students, but the ending is that the wife is the murderer. This layout gives people a deliberate and abrupt feeling. The author said in "The Murder of Baima Villa" published by 1986: "My favorite settings are the secret room and password. These so-called classical props fascinate me. Even if I am regarded as a laggard by ordinary readers, I will continue to indulge in it. " Keigo Higashino's early works are undoubtedly based on case reasoning, from attaching importance to case elements to emphasizing logical reasoning, and then to personal manifesto.
middle period
From 65438 to 0990, Keigo Higashino wrote Destiny, which was regarded as the watershed of Dongye's literary style by the reasoning circle. In Destiny, the author said: "It is certainly good to set up such a mystery about what gorgeous and wonderful tricks the prisoner has played, but I hope to create other types of accidents." Dongye is no longer constrained by killers and tactics. The so-called "other types of accidents" refers to why, that is, "criminal motive", and the author "contains mysteries in social reality" During this period, the author began to deal with social problems, such as abuse of power and science, child abuse and so on. Stories usually start with a murder case, which unexpectedly leads to another shocking story, such as fate, cloister killing, my dead home in the past, love stories in parallel worlds, etc. In the narrative mode, the author tries to use a more complex structure instead of the simple classic mode in the early stage. For example, Destiny has two main lines, one is the road to growth with Cang Yong, and the other is the murder of Xu Bei Zhengqing. The murder case leads to the story that the Japanese government implanted metal into the human brain for brain science research in order to train spies after World War II. The victim of this research, Hino Zaomiao, is the biological mother of Yongzuo and Huangyan, and Zhengqing in northern Jiangsu was murdered just to reopen this research. Such a plot arrangement really gives people a surprise. High-level government officials despised life for their own selfish interests, which brought tragic memories that three generations could not calm down. The novel attributed the root of the tragedy to the abuse of power by the Japanese government, which achieved the purpose of exposing and criticizing society. Instead of focusing on the case, the author deeply analyzes the causes of the case, and sometimes it doesn't even involve murder, such as Love Story in a Parallel World. It creates suspense through a unique narrative perspective, alternately adopts first-person and third-person narratives, focuses on complex interpersonal relationships based on vague or lost memories, and embodies "humanity" with "relationships".
Dongye novels in this period have the characteristics of "New Social School". On the one hand, he pays attention to society and humanity, on the other hand, he constantly innovates in narrative skills, and uses a unique double-line parallel cross structure to create a successful attempt for the emergence of the "realistic Ben Gur School" style.
later stage
From 65438 to 0996, Keigo Higashino created The Code of a Famous Detective and The Curse of a Famous Detective. The first film subverts the classic elements of "Benguer School" with irony, and sets out the secret room, password, nursery rhymes, alibi and dismemberment from a new perspective. In terms of artistic techniques, the novel creates a feeling of stage play. While playing the role of detective and policeman, the two leading characters, one of the world's leading men and the Okawara Police Department, occasionally jump off the plot and start a cross talk with readers. These dialogues not only involve the plot development of the story, but also often use topics to comment on contemporary reasoning writers and works, and sometimes even ridicule them. The latter expounded his creative theory in the form of novels. In fact, the "murder case in the secret room" pursued by the fifteenth largest man in the world was caused by the door being touched and the killer's footprint being covered by heavy snow overnight. The work puts many accidental events together with the detective's "meticulous" logic, which makes the reasoning ridiculous. In this way, Dongye expressed his questioning attitude towards his previous remarks. In The Curse of Famous Detectives, the author's description of "Benguer School" is more straightforward. The novel is set in a small town in the future world, and the "Benguer School" has disappeared. The hero Ichiro criticized Ben Gul's novels: "This kind of boring, naive, unrealistic and unnatural thing" made him realize that authenticity, modernity and sociality are the three pillars of the novel, otherwise it would be difficult to survive in the future world of mystery novels. Keigo Higashino expressed his new view on mystery novels through the mouth of the 15th man in the world, and he decided to give up the creative road of "Benguer School". There are also many people who oppose the "social faction." He believes that Seicho Matsumoto's works are no longer suitable for readers' tastes because of "the problem of expression, that is, using the same materials, cooking methods are different, and the taste is different." In the author's view, the works of "Benguer School" will be eliminated by the times because they are divorced from reality, and the expression of "social school" is backward and can no longer meet the needs of readers. Excellent works that truly meet the needs of the times emphasize both realism and techniques, so he founded the "Realistic Ben Gur School".
Under the guidance of his own theory, Dongye's mystery novels caused great repercussions in Japan, and almost all the works created during this period were bestsellers, including Malicious, Secret, Detective Galileo, Nocturnal Travel, Predicting Dreams, Shinto, Fantasy Night, Salvation of the Saint, Lakeside and so on. This novel is set in Tokyo and Osaka, two modern metropolises during the Great Depression in the 1990s. Through artistic treatment, real cases in social life are integrated into novels, such as game tape theft, credit card forgery, information crime, jewel robbery in Magic Night and scientific crime in Galileo, so as to achieve "authenticity" and "modernity". Among them, Galileo is a typical science and engineering reasoning. There are five short stories in the book, and each story begins with a picture of a crime scene. Next, it's the turn of the police and detectives to decrypt it. The focus of this book is not motivation, but modus operandi, either high-tech crime or the deformation of some incredible physical phenomena. See through the modus operandi and criminals will surface. However, unlike American criminal investigation dramas, which completely pursue murderers with high technology, Dongye draws a conclusion by logical reasoning and dissecting human nature.
During this period, the center of Dongye story gradually shifted. Different from previous mystery novels, the author downplays the mystery and the identity of the murderer, and focuses on "criminal motive". In less than a third of malice, the murderer admitted his crime, but was vague about the motive of the crime. In the next two-thirds of the space, "criminal motive" becomes the only suspense, exposing the deep hatred in "human nature" to readers, which makes people shudder. The same is true of Lakeside published in 2002. Dongye's main purpose is to expose the hidden motives behind the murder and criticize the distortions in Japanese society, family and education. Four small families, seemingly calm, because the children want to take an examination of private junior high schools and get together for tutoring, but under the surface of harmony, there is an undercurrent. For the sake of children, parents have repeatedly sacrificed themselves and even crossed the moral bottom line. In addition, this work also has a unique feature, that is, it does not describe the psychological activities of any appearance characters. Including the central figure Shunsuke, the author objectively and fairly described the words and deeds of all the characters. Therefore, the famous Japanese mystery novel critic Jing commented that it was "created as a stage play".
During this period, Dongye involved many social and humanistic issues, from the bubble economy to the Hanshin earthquake, from the change of family structure to the promotion of women's status, from the moral decline of young people to the crisis of social trust. Almost all the major events and ideological changes in Japanese society in the 1990s can be found in his novels. "These are propositions that human beings always need to pay attention to, and they will never be out of breath." The root of human tragedy is attributed to the chronic diseases of society and times, and Dongye's novels have achieved "sociality" and become a panoramic view of Japanese society in the 1990 s.