Biography
Best known for his humorous mysteries, Akagawa's first novel, Ghost Train, was published in 1976 and went on to win the annually granted All Yomimono New Mystery Writers' Prize by Bungeishunjū, a Japanese literary publishing company. Other works of his, Incident in the Bedroom Suburb and Voice from Heaven, were later made into anime, while Sailor-fuku to kikanjū was made into a popular live action movie. His most recognized works to date pertain to his Mike-neko (or Tortoiseshell Cat) Holmes series. He is extremely prolific; as of August, 2006, he had written more than 480 novels in the course of his thirty year career, over 300 million individual published volumes.
Reference
AKAGAWA, Jiro International Who's Who. accessed September 1, 2006.