The are presented every year by the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. They honor the best in honkaku (i.e. authentic, orthodox) mystery fiction and critical works published in the previous year.
| Year | Winner | Title | Available in English Translation | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2001 | Jun Kurachi (ja) | |||
| 2 | 2002 | Masaki Yamada | |||
| 3 | 2003 | Kiyoshi Kasai (ja) | |||
| Otsuichi | Goth: A Novel of Horror | ||||
| 4 | 2004 | Shogo Utano (ja) | |||
| 5 | 2005 | Rintaro Norizuki | |||
| 6 | 2006 | Keigo Higashino | The Devotion of Suspect X | ||
| 7 | 2007 | Shusuke Michio (ja) | [1] | ||
| 8 | 2008 | Alice Arisugawa | |||
| 9 | 2009 | Masaki Tsuji | |||
| 10 | 2010 | Shinzo Mitsuda (ja) | |||
| Shogo Utano (ja) | |||||
| 11 | 2011 | Yutaka Maya (ja) | |||
| 12 | 2012 | Kyo Shirodaira (ja) | |||
| Hiroko Minagawa | The Resurrection Fireplace | ||||
| 13 | 2013 | Seiichiro Oyama (ja) | |||
| 14 | 2014 | Tomoki Morikawa (ja) | |||
| 15 | 2015 | Yutaka Maya (ja) | |||
| 16 | 2016 | Hiu Torikai (ja) | |||
| 17 | 2017 | Kenji Takemoto (ja) | |||
| 18 | 2018 | Masahiro Imamura (ja) | Death Among the Undead | ||
| 19 | 2019 | Amon Ibuki (ja) | [2] [3] | ||
| 20 | 2020 | Sako Aizawa (ja) | |||
| 21 | 2021 | Tomoya Sakurada (ja) | [4] | ||
| 22 | 2022 | Taku Ashibe | [5] | ||
| Honobu Yonezawa | The Samurai and the Prisoner | ||||
| 23 | 2023 | Tomoyuki Shirai (ja) |
| Year | Winner | Title | Available in English Translation | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2001 | Manji Gonda (ja) Hirohisa Shimpo (ja) | (Dictionary of Japanese mystery writers) | ||
| 2 | 2002 | Tadashi Wakashima (ja) | (Critical essay) | ||
| 3 | 2003 | Kiyoshi Kasai (ja) | (Studies on Honkaku mystery) | ||
| 4 | 2004 | Akiyuki Sengai (ja) | (Studies on honkaku mystery) | ||
| 5 | 2005 | Hajime Amagi (ja) | (Theory and practice of Locked room mystery) | ||
| 6 | 2006 | Kaoru Kitamura | (Pastiche of Ellery Queen) | ||
| 7 | 2007 | Masaaki Tatsumi (ja) | (Studies on honkaku mystery) | ||
| 8 | 2008 | Kentaro Komori (ja) | (Studies on honkaku mystery) | ||
| 9 | 2009 | Toshiaki Endo (ja) | (Studies on honkaku mystery) | ||
| 10 | 2010 | Motoi Taniguchi (ja) | (Studies on Japanese heterodox literature) | ||
| 11 | 2011 | Yusan Iiki (ja) | (Studies on Ellery Queen) | ||
| 12 | 2012 | Kiyoshi Kasai (ja) | (Studies on mystery fiction) | ||
| 13 | 2013 | Kenta Fukui (ja) | (Studies on honkaku mystery) | ||
| 14 | 2014 | Ryuzo Uchida (ja) | (lit. Why Is Roger Ackroyd Killed?) | ||
| 15 | 2015 | Aoi Shimotsuki | (lit. The Definitive Guide to Agatha Christie) | ||
| 16 | 2016 | Shinobu Asagihara (ja) | (lit. The Guide to Complete Works of Mikihiko Renjo for Mystery Readers: Enlarged and Revised) | ||
| 17 | 2017 | Masahiko Kikuni (ja) Yuka Kuniki (ja) | (lit. The Might of Honkaku: A Shelf Detective's Mystery Book Guide) | ||
| 18 | 2018 | Yusan Iiki (ja) | (lit. Being Absorbed to Honkaku) | ||
| 19 | 2019 | Shosaku Naka (ja) | [6] (lit. Ranpo Mystery Solving Chronicle) | ||
| 20 | 2020 | Yasuo Nagayama (ja) | (lit. The Era of Modernism Mystery) | ||
| 21 | 2021 | Yusan Iiki (ja) | (lit. The Locked Room of a Mathematician and a Philosopher) | ||
| 22 | 2022 | Osamu Komori (ja) | |||
| 23 | 2023 | Tatsumi Atsukawa (ja) |
The award is presented irregularly.
The Best Honkaku Mystery Novel translated into Japanese in the last decade.
Winners (in bold) and shortlisted titles.
| Author | Title | Translator | Orig. Pub. Year | Region | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jack Kerley | The Death Collectors | Kazuyo Misumi | 2005 |  United States | |
| Sarah Caudwell | The Sibyl in Her Grave | Kazuyo Haneji | 2000 | ||
| Michael Connelly | Blood Work | Yoshimichi Furusawa (ja) | 1998 | United States | |
| Thomas H. Cook | Instruments of Night | Kiyoshi Muramatsu (ja) | 1998 | United States | |
| Jeffery Deaver | The Cold Moon | Makiko Ikeda (ja) | 2006 | United States | |
| Minette Walters | The Shape of Snakes | Hiroko Narikawa | 2000 |
| Author | Title | Translator | Orig. Pub. Year | Region | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthony Horowitz | The Word Is Murder | Ran Yamada | 2017 | ||
| Michel Bussi | Black Water Lilies | Atsushi Hiraoka (ja) | 2011 |  France | |
| Chan Ho-kei | The Borrowed | Kentaro Amano (ja) | 2014 |  Hong Kong | |
| Frances Hardinge | The Lie Tree | Atsuko Kodama | 2015 | ||
| Kate Morton | The Secret Keeper | Junko Aoki (ja) | 2012 |  Australia | |
| Stuart Turton | The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle | Kazuyo Misumi | 2018 |