Related Authors (1)
Peter Langley | Known for their chillingly plausible scenarios involving bioterrorism and global pandemics.
Related Cases (3)
Related Novels (31)
Related Chapters (29)
The Special Allocation
Words: 2798 · Source Novel:: Clean Hands
Kaizu City sues the Ministry of Home Affairs over a disputed special local allocation tax grant. Seasoned investigator Kurosawa Ken is assigned to review the financial data, a task he accepts with empty cynicism after witnessing years of bureaucratic cover-ups. Meanwhile, Yumi, the daughter of a city accountant involved in the lawsuit, is found dead in an apparent suicide. A cryptic phone log points to a charismatic tax consultant, Sanada Ryo, as her last contact. Ken notices a subtle, irregular transaction buried in the allocation schedules that links the city’s finances to Sanada, sparking a weary curiosity he cannot ignore.
The Mark
Words: 2987 · Source Novel:: The Empty Collar
Andres Voss, a career con man who only steals from high-end criminals, assembles his crew in a rented New Essex warehouse. The target is Arcadia Crafts, a homespun retailer that is really a laundering front for the Volkov syndicate. The entry point: a fabricated disability claim. His operative Elena Voss, a former combat medic turned grifter, will pose as a veteran with severe PTSD and rely on a trained Malinois service dog named Hex. The plan is to infiltrate, document a refusal of accommodation, and threaten a federal ADA lawsuit unless Arcadia pays a massive “settlement” in untraceable digital assets. Andres has no idea that Arcadia’s CEO, Sebastian Kroll, a man whose cold curiosity outweighs any greed, has already flagged their encrypted comms on a darknet marketplace.
The Man Who Sold Ashes
Words: 2948 · Source Novel:: Requiem in the Ashes
Driven by morbid curiosity, Elena arrives at a derelict crematorium. The man waiting for her isn't a ghost; he is flesh and blood, calling himself Cole. He possesses Jasper’s face but a hollow, violent survival instinct. He forces Elena at gunpoint to listen to the “unpublished edits” of her story. He reveals that the real fraud wasn't just financial—the company swapped out premium coffins for plywood boxes and dumped the replaced bodies in mass graves to save on maintenance costs. Cole was not the hero who died; he was the "cleaner" who made the bodies disappear, and her book just exposed a false narrative that will get him killed.
The Conservator's Secret
Words: 2437 · Source Novel:: Silence of the Replica
Driven by guilt and curiosity, Adrian investigates Lina's final days. He learns she had secretly authenticated a private collection for the powerful Khaldun family, who trade in illicit antiquities. Her forbidden love affair with a man from a lower social order, which caused the supposed honor killing, was a cover. Adrian breaks into her studio and finds a hidden notebook filled with chemical analyses of pigments that prove multiple Old Masters in the Khaldun vault are modern forgeries. The last page holds a single, chilling sentence: "The most perfect replica still remembers the original's blood." He realizes she was killed to protect a multi-million-dollar forgery ring.
The Encyclopedia of Agony
Words: 3178 · Source Novel:: The Interrogation Artist
A second body is found—a curator of antiquities—suspended in a web of leather straps that mirror a Han dynasty interrogation rack. A manifesto surfaces online, signed by “The Interrogation Artist,” who claims to be the reincarnation of Man Chong, perfecting the art of extracting essence from human clay. Lin Han becomes obsessed, alienating her partner and sleeping in the evidence room. She interviews a forensic historian who reveals that the original Man Chong used torture not only to break the body but to dismantle a soul’s narrative. The killer now phones Lin Han directly, praising her “pure curiosity” and inviting her to witness the next composition.