The Goddess Shines on America

The dinner was held in the garden, an independent gazebo was built on the green lawn, and the long solid wooden table was filled with Italian specialties. There is no need to say much about the pizza covered with thick cheese. The traditional meat sauce and seafood black pepper pasta are filled with large iron plates. The fragrance of soft French fries is also extremely charming. Not to mention that there are all kinds of thick soups being served continuously, and the whole table is full of milky fragrance.

"Ashley, you have to learn more from Alice, whether it's "Jurassic Park" or this "Ghost Story", look how talented she is! Alice, forgive me, no Speaking of the box office revenue of the movie, the publication of this science fiction novel alone may have already earned you millions of royalties, right?"

Alice blinked, and facing the gazes of the whole table, she smiled embarrassedly: "Actually, I didn't pay much attention, because I have been busy with other things for a while, but the million-level must have arrived. Not long ago, Shorty Chicken sent me an email, saying that the total sales in the United States have exceeded 500,000 copies. For overseas markets, the Japanese version is the first to be released, and German, French and Italian are also stepping up production. "

Ashley's father, Olaer's father said to his wife: "See, Japan's strength is getting more and more terrifying. From this aspect, it can be seen that the first batch of overseas editions were translated for those Japanese. .However, people of their ethnicity do love reading, which is a huge market.”

At this point in the topic, Alice's heart suddenly moved, and she opened her mouth and said: "Speaking of the Japanese book market, they have fully developed the mystery novels that originated in England. Mr. Olaer, what do you know about the current Japanese mystery novelists?"

Mr. Olaer pondered for a while, and said: "The originator of Japanese mystery literature, of course, is Edogawa Ranpo. The industry's highest award for mystery fiction, the Edogawa Ranpo Award, was established in his name. Then, The ones from the 1950s and 1960s are all antiques to you, and the current mystery novelists..."

This seems to be a difficult question. Mr. Oleil thought about it carefully, but he still said: "I can't think of it, there is no one who can attract my attention..."

Ashley's mother is the real goal of Alice's trip. As a design consultant for three of the world's top brands, of course she not only dresses beautifully, but also takes good care of her skin. Sitting next to their fourteen-year-old daughter, they are like a pair of sisters, even mother and daughter are not enough.

When her husband finished the last sentence, she sipped the seafood butterscotch lightly and said with a soft smile: "My husband is very interested in mystery literature. He has works by Sherlock Holmes, Agatha and Edgar Lumpo. .”

In this way, Alice lowered her eyes and said, "If you look at it that way... Which newcomers won this award last year and this year?"

This point, after all, is worthy of a person who loves reasoning literature, Mr. Olaer opened his mouth and said two names.

"That's it..."

So, after hearing two completely unfamiliar names, Alice's eyes rolled silently.

Edogawa Rampo Prize...

This award was established in 1954 to celebrate the 60th birthday of Edogawa Ranpo, the originator of Japanese mystery novels. It was first held in 1955 and will be held every year thereafter. The first two awards were for thematic studies of mystery novels, and since the third edition in 1957, it has become an award dedicated to encouraging new writers.

From the point of view of status, it is the highest honor for Japanese mystery novels. At the same time, there are famous awards, such as Henggou Masashi Award and Japan Reasoning Association Award.

As for the submissions for the Edogawa Ranpo Award, the submissions are limited to unpublished ones. Each jury is composed of five people, who are re-hired every year, and some people are hired repeatedly. As a prize winner, his work will be published by Tansha, a well-known large-scale publishing house in China.

The greatest value of this award is that most of the award-winning new writers later grow into masters of mystery novels.

And Alice's question focuses on a certain newcomer who should have won the award in 1985.

Keigo Higashino.

Of course, as a Japanese mystery novelist, one cannot expect the mainland people in the 21st century to know him well. After all, people at that time often focused on success studies and teaching supplementary materials. People who can read reasoning literature in the mood, Relatively speaking, there are very few.

But Alice happened to know him very well. In fact, any reasoning literature lover in the 21st century, and even more broadly, all literature lovers, it is impossible not to have heard of the name of Keigo Higashino.

Keigo Higashino was born in Osaka in 1958, and his specific birthday was only ten days away from Valentine’s Day. He majored in electrical engineering at university, and then worked as a production technical engineer at a famous auto parts supplier, and wrote mystery novels. Then in 1985, he won the Edogawa Ranpo Award for his debut novel "After School", and began his professional writing career.

Most of his early works are exquisite and meticulous reasoning, just like every episode of "Detective Conan". In the later period, the writing skills became more sophisticated, the writing was less refined, the narrative was concise and fierce, the plot was ups and downs and weird, the story structure was almost unimaginable, and he was good at writing extremely reasonable stories from extremely unreasonable places, and his style gradually surpassed traditional mystery novels The framework began to transform to the socialist school, focusing on describing the case while paying attention to the good and evil of society and human nature.

As such a rising star in the literary world, his books inevitably entered the mainland market, and he even made it to the top of the "Rich List of Foreign Writers" issued by the mainland in one fell swoop, with millions of dollars in royalties. With the subject matter of mystery novels and the identity of a Japanese writer, he can achieve this level in the Chinese mainland market, one can imagine how powerful he is.

But now, for the 33rd Edogawa Rampo Award, which should have allowed Keigo Higashino to rise, Mr. Olaer has named a completely unfamiliar name?

And there was no Keigo Higashino last year.

"Is it because of the butterfly effect that he was late in writing the book, or did he stop writing at all? Or is there simply no such person in the world?"

It was night, after dinner, Alice wandered alone in Olaer Manor. Although the maid could be seen busy everywhere, she didn't care at all and was just thinking about her own problems.

"That's right. After all, at the beginning, he was writing while working in an auto parts factory. Maybe he suddenly fell in love with the job of an engineer and was too lazy to write a book. In this way, don't I have a chance to write his book?" Copy the book once and earn some extra money in Japan?"

God knows, Alice bought the complete works of Keigo Higashino in her previous life, but she is still a prolific writer. There are as many as fifty or sixty works with Chinese translations alone. It would cost thousands of yuan to buy a complete set. of!

"Making money is secondary. As a human being, as talented as I am, the pursuit must be higher. Anyway, copying a few books doesn't take much physical effort. Mixing the identity of a god-level best-selling author, and matching The title of the richest man in the world without any suspense... oh, how should Baidu Encyclopedia be compiled in the future? Oh, it's really worrying~"

Just when Alice was about to drool, Ashley ran into the garden and said to her, "Hey, Alice, let's go to the living room, it's time to talk about business after dinner!"

Alice looked at her watch. It must be nine o'clock at night. Although Hannah had already slipped into the bedroom in a daze, this time was just the beginning of struggling with a lot of homework even for students in private middle schools. It's not too big, and it's nothing to hold a simple meeting.

In this way, Alice took Ashley's arm, walked towards the house, and said with a smile: "Do you want to sleep with me tonight?"

Seeing Ashley's exaggeratedly raised eyebrows, Alice smiled wickedly.