You Sano


Ichiro Maruyama, who wrote under the pen name You Sano, was a Japanese mystery writer and critic.

Early life

Maruyama was born in Omori, Tokyo City. In 1953, he graduated from the University of Tokyo Department of Psychology and began work as a part-time writer in Hokkaido for Yomiuri Shimbun.

Writing career

In 1958, Maruyama submitted essays to a weekly essay contest co-sponsored by Asahi Shimbun, for which he won third and second prizes. The following year, he published a novel titled A Lead, his official debut in the detective genre. In 1959, he left the newspaper. He produced over a thousand short stories, many of which were made into bunko, but the introduction of a consumption tax led to price revisions, and many publishers stopped printing them.
Jugo Kuroiwa criticized his writing and described it as "novels that do not shed blood and sweat", that go through mystery as an intellectual game but in which, on the other hand, the patterns of work repeatedly become mannered, eliminating eccentric and large-scale crimes, creating realism and a characteristic moderation.
Maruyama named Paul Winterton his favorite writer. He befriended other writers and maintained those friendships. Aside from close friend Jugo Kuroiwa, his other friends included Kyo Takigawa, Tensei Kono, Shinichi Hoshi, Tsutomu Mizukami and Shoji Yuki, young artists who formed a friendship ring they called a "murder club." The group later included Saho Sasazawa, Haruhiko Oyabu, Michio Tsuzuki, Jiro Ikushima, and Masako Togawa.
He won the Japan Mystery Literature Award in 1997 and the Kikuchi Kan Prize in 2009.
On April 27, 2013, he died of pneumonia in hospital at Kawasaki City. He was 84 years old.

Works (approximate translations)

Short Works Compilations

  • Copper Wedding
  • Transparent Assassination
  • Metal Sound Disease Incident
  • Murder Letter Collection
  • Important Parties
  • Secret Inn Series
  • *Secret Inn
  • *Masked Guest
  • *Similar Beard
  • *Surrounding People
  • *After the Turbulence - Best Selection of Secret Inn
  • Gynecologist
  • A Whore Prostitute
  • Momentary Murderous Intent
  • It Opens the Darkness
  • A Living Woman
  • Barking Flame
  • Replaced Blood
  • Accusation of Darkness
  • Large Chamber
  • You Sano Mystery Masterpiece collection
  • *Right Outside the Storm
  • *It Jumped, It Fell
  • Mystery Evades
  • Hidden Fangs
  • Haunted House
  • Great Glide
  • Odorous Skin
  • Divorce Notice
  • Jisen Short Series
  • *A Sunny Murder
  • *Foolish Crime of a Wise Person
  • *A Trivial Crime of Ordinary People
  • *Canned Murder
  • *Murders of Friends
  • *Well, Now...
  • *Homicide Rank
  • *They Are Reliable
  • Complete Crime Study
  • A Testimony of a Handbag
  • Mystery Training Novel
  • Unfamiliar Skin
  • Crime General University
  • A Woman as an Award
  • Two Corpses
  • Perfume and Gloves
  • Red Milk
  • Collapsed
  • Dogs and Murders and Dogs Mystery Masterpiece Collection
  • Willingness to Appear
  • Phone of the Dead
  • Mahjong Case Files
  • Blood Betrayal
  • One Short Per Year × 25
  • * Miscarriage
  • * Stolen Car
  • * Last Night
  • Various Eyes
  • Emergency Board Meeting
  • My Version · Criminal White Paper
  • Old Wound
  • Police Disappearance
  • Catastrophe of a Dream
  • Occasional Series
  • *Occasional Murder
  • *Occasional Crime
  • *Occasional Incident
  • *Occasional Hatred
  • Woman Next Door
  • The Same Women
  • The Lost Month
  • Voice in the City Series
  • *A Woman Headed to Bury
  • *A Woman Who Burst Into Tears
  • Oddly on the Same Day...
  • Series of Dolls That Began to Walk "Articles in Red Frames"
  • * Puppet Walked Out
  • I Hesitate at Midnight
  • Dry Skin
  • The End Result as Desired - short work collection
  • Blue Memory
  • Fun Crime
  • Missing People
  • Phantom Murder
  • Nine Divorces
  • Invitation of Skin
  • Scary Message
  • Forever Yesterday
  • Katsu! 42 years old
  • Unrelated Relationship
  • Various Parting
  • Mr. F's Clock
  • Discussion of Verbs
  • Sumo Fondling Woman - White Detective
  • * White Detective
  • Passing
  • The Role of the Lips
  • Northeast Southwest Detective House
  • *Northeast Southwest Detective House
  • * Coincidental Witnesses - Northeast Southwest Detective House
  • *Shy Discoverer - Northeast Southwest Detective House 2
  • Ten-Year Story
  • Chest Play - New and Human Body Story
  • Four Thousand Characters Golf Club - Golf novel collection
  • Gleaming Sand
  • You Sano Short Detective House paperback original latest 14 installment
  • Inexplicable Messenger
  • The Rabbit's Secret of a Long-Ago Mystery
  • Misconception of the Cicada Insectarium Mystery
  • Irregular Weapon Contemporary Replacement
  • The Incident of the Tree Ring
  • Funeral Song
  • Unsteady Retirees
  • Walk, Walk
  • Culture of an Election
  • Seven-Colored Closed Room
  • A Burned Finger Near the Old Mystery
  • Sparrow Feast
  • The Best of the Best from the Mystery of the Thousand
  • ''The Final Rarity''

Novels

  • One Lead
  • Fourth Relationship
  • Exorbitant Compensation
  • Season of Betting
  • Invitation of Brain Waves
  • Murder by Two People
  • Incomplete Will
  • Chastity Examination
  • Monologue
  • Secret Party
  • The 112 Plan
  • * Plan No. 112
  • Perfect Game
  • Missing Article Newspaper Murder Case
  • * An Unknown Article
  • Professional Baseball Series
  • *Batter No. 10
  • *Underground Stadium
  • Unfortunate Weekend
  • Distant Voice
  • Invalid Match
  • Heavy Wad of Cash
  • Remarriage Trip
  • INS Detective Office
  • Apprentice Angel
  • Honey Nest
  • A Golden Mourning
  • Skin of Light
  • Brilliant Scandal -
  • Stolen Shadow
  • Transparent Conception
  • Dead Time
  • The Walls Whisper
  • Crazy Signal
  • You Sano Series 1-6 Kodansha, 1966-1967
  • Red Hot Sea
  • Shadow to Travel
  • Panting Pantyhose
  • * Jewelry and Their Murderous Intent
  • Infrared Music - Dramatized in NHK 'Shonen Drama Series' in 1975.
  • Runaway
  • 300 Million Yen Case
  • Experimental Education
  • The 6th Laboratory
  • * The 6th Laboratory
  • Sand Stairs
  • Murderous Intent of the Hoof
  • Baseball That Killed
  • Four People of the Same Name Are Dead
  • Cute Eyewitnesses
  • White Heavy Blood
  • One-wing Flight
  • Human Monkey
  • Killing of Orizuru
  • You Sano Murder Race Bestsellers 1975
  • It Disappears to the Pasture
  • Forbidden Reins
  • Elegant Wrongdoing
  • Seven-Colored Closed Room
  • Beautiful Death Penalty
  • Fang Crossing the Sea - edited serial shorts
  • But the Murder Is...
  • The Day the Sky Shakes
  • Stolen Lie
  • Night and Day
  • Silvery Claw
  • Late Night Neighborhood Series
  • *Walking Bank Notes
  • *Loathed Name
  • Victim in Cage
  • Mirror's Words
  • Sudden Margin
  • Northern Case Book
  • Adult Smell
  • D Bureau Chief of Case Files "Just a Single Man" - edited serial shorts
  • * D Bureau Chief of Case Files
  • A Buried Letter
  • Defendant Who Is Too Quiet
  • One and Only That
  • The Last Voice
  • SN9 Flight from Haneda - edited serial shorts
  • Former Tribunal Judgment
  • Private Detective
  • Living Ash
  • A False Skin
  • Sneaky Ears
  • 2 Story
  • Private Vacationer Leaves White Paper - edited serial shorts
  • Flying Detective Crow's Cork Big Success - Juvenile fiction
  • Afternoon of the Prosecution Board - edited serial shorts. Dramatized as "Incident / Citizen's Ruling" by TV Tokyo.
  • Dangers Carried
  • Circumstances of An Affair
  • Justice Alliance - edited serial shorts
  • Infectious Love Affair
  • Professor Furuzu Series - edited serial shorts
  • *Elegant Inference by Professor Furuzu
  • *Reverse Relations of Professor Furuzu's Gender Sociology
  • Chain of Bother - edited serial shorts
  • Dual Role Era - edited serial shorts
  • Age of Fingers
  • Paper Crane of Mourning
  • Cemetery Garden and Nobel Prize Life Record of Ms. Iwakuni - edited serial shorts

Reviews and Other Works

  • Reasoning Journal
  • *Reasoning Journal You Sano Mystery
  • *New Reasoning Journal Review
  • ** Reasoning Journal Part 2
  • *Reasoning Journal Part 3
  • *Reasoning Journal Part 4
  • *Reasoning Journal Part 5
  • *Reasoning Journal Part 6
  • *Reasoning Journal Part 7
  • *Reasoning Journal Part 8
  • *Reasoning Journal Part 9
  • *Reasoning Journal Part 10
  • *Reasoning Journal Part 11
  • *Reasoning Journal FINAL
  • "Thoughts On Capital Punishment or Innocence or Penalty" - Co-written with Katsuhiko Nishijima
  • Lipstick and Crime - Essay Collection
  • Mystery Three-Sided Mirror
  • Poetry In a Cage Nonfiction / Futawa Ri Incident
  • Anger of the 'Small Insects'
  • Destroy and View - Essay Collection
  • Golf Narrow Road to the Deep North - Essay
  • ''Half a Century with Mystery''

TV