★ A new honkaku (orthodox puzzle) mystery from Jun Kurachi, winner of the 1st Honkaku Mystery Award. A repeated Mystery Writers of Japan Award shortlistee, widely respected in the field, he brings his trademark deductive rigor to intricate puzzles and deftly planted clues — a feast for puzzle readers.
★ A ragtag pair can crack a big case. No heroic aura: two temps on irregular contracts, there only to file a one-day experience report, ready to clock off once paid. Yet, paid to slack off, they see straight through the killer’s staged impossible crime — the contrast is the point.
★ A mutilated body, a puzzle dropped out of nowhere, four honkaku short mysteries. A freelance writer and his offbeat friend become “outsourced detectives”: in one day of trial investigation they peel off the crime’s layers of disguise with hard-edged deduction, at a pace that never lets up.
★ Absurd black comedy lands on how working people mock their own precarious status. Under the unlikely shell of “outsourced investigation” sits a sharp reading of justice and human nature: a light, funny read and a social fable that resonates with anyone who has worked a temp job.
★ Rights sold: Traditional Chinese and Korean.

At the crime scene, the killer’s own freshly severed head turns up?
Faced with a brutal murder, the victim’s head and limbs cut off,
the irregular investigators known as “dispatched workers”
crack the whole case in a single day!?
From the maverick mystery writer Jun Kurachi,
a honkaku mystery with a streak of black comedy!
High-difficulty reversals beyond anything you imagine,
absolutely leaving you open-mouthed!?

Freelance writer Koichi Orimoto and his somewhat unworldly friend Keitaro Kuze take posts as “irregularly employed investigators,” running a one-day trial investigation and submitting a report.

This time the scene is a private house where a vicious robbery-murder took place.

Ten days after the crime, a freshly severed head, apparently the killer’s, is placed on the gatepost of the house without anyone noticing.

Is this the secret judgment of a self-appointed “executor of justice,” or merely a prank by a yukaihan — someone who commits crimes for amusement?

Just as the case seems beyond solving, Kuze, fresh from the day’s investigation, calmly announces: “I already know the truth.” — Watch this “temp detective duo” unravel the layers of a macabre case at their own unhurried, easy pace, with unhurried grace!

A honkaku mystery full of humor!

Included stories:
- The Killer Only Sends (the Head) Back to the Scene ~ The Beheader ~
- A Hand Can Reach (the Extra) Itchy Spot ~ The One Who Severs Arms ~
- Bad News Travels a Thousand Miles (on Just One Foot) ~ The One Who Amputates a Leg ~
- Between Life and Death, (Heads and Limbs) All Scattered ~ The Dismemberer ~

Jun Kurachi
Born in 1962 in Shizuoka Prefecture. Graduated from the Department of Drama, Nihon University College of Art. Debuted in 1994 with “I Don’t Want to Go Out on Sunday Nights.” “The Starfall Villa Murders” was shortlisted for the 50th Mystery Writers of Japan Award (Novel Division) in 1997. In 2001 he won the 1st Honkaku Mystery Award for “The Heaven Within the Jar.” In 2025, “Adults, Don’t Joke About Corpses” was shortlisted for the 78th Mystery Writers of Japan Award (Novel Division).