Although mainstream mystery writers have in the past stayed away from unscientific elements such as superhuman powers and ghosts, the most recent trend in Japan is to have detectives in stories solve cases using supernatural powers. This is a reaction to the impossibility of problem-solving by inference within the limits of information given in one story, which detective fiction fans commonly refer to as "issues related to the later works of Ellery Queen." It is important to note that this trend of incorporating supernatural powers was a way to overcome the limitations placed by the rigor of inference expected by the reader. This study closely examines one of the latest such examples, Detective Fantasy : Nanase with a Steel Bar (2011) by Shirodaira Kyo, and offers an insight into how the structures of conventional mysteries have been abandoned, and what kinds of new issues contemporary writers are facing now.

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