Edogawa Ranpo, Gold Mask (1930).
Good Reads meta-data is 240 pages, rated 3.38 by 168 litizens.
Genre: krimi.
DNA: Japan.
Verdict: A Nō pastiche with added Gaulic. (Get it?)
Tagline: Arsène did it
He’s here. He’s there. He’s everywhere. Gold Mask is supervillain. The amazing he does immediately. The impossible takes no longer. Acrobatics. Ventriloquism. Legerdemain. Sleights of hand. Plans made years in advance. He learned a lot from Fantômas, all 32 volumes.
He’s altogether too bad to be true as he runs rampant in Tokyo. He is Arsène Lupin of 24 novels.
Comes complete with footnotes to Leblanc stories.
The dialogue put me in mind of silent movie inter-title cards.
The feline cognoscenti say it is not his best work.
The book was recommended by Snowy the cat who is usually a more reliable source than Good Reads reviews.