po's sixth novel featuring detective Akechi Kogorō, as he investigates the crime spree of the uncanny costumed "Gold Mask." Lovers of crime fiction will be delighted to discover that this resourceful thief, confounding Akechi's every move, is none other than Maurice Leblanc's famous "gentleman burglar," Arsene Lupin! Given Lupin's obvious influence on Rampo's own Fiend with Twenty Faces, this work serves as a fascinating precursor to his Boy Detectives series, and marks another major step in the development of Japanese detective fiction in the period between the Wars.

The novel was originally published as a newspaper serial in 1930-31, and has since been collected and released by a variety of publishers, including a revised children's edition from Poplar as part of the Boy Detectives series and in the definitive Kobunsha edition of Rampo's complete works, on which this translation is based.