29 works across 26 centuries, back to Gospel of John and Book of Job.
Following one thread, 5 works from Death Note to Monsieur Lecoq. Back to all 29 works
2003
Tsugumi Ohba
Heisei. Japan. Written in Japanese.
Death Note (2003-2006), written by Tsugumi Ohba and drawn by Takeshi Obata for Weekly Shonen Jump, follows a student, Light Yagami, who finds a shinigami's notebook that kills anyone whose name is written in it, and the detective L who hunts him. It joins a cat-and-mouse detective duel to a Faustian bargain with a death god and a Raskolnikov-style theory of justified murder.
1936
Edogawa Ranpo
Shōwa. Japan. Written in Japanese.
Serial novel in which the detective Kogorō Akechi duels a master criminal of disguise, starting a long Japanese series of detective-versus-criminal contests.
Disputed link, conjectural.
Ranpo's serial duels between the detective Akechi and a criminal genius made the battle of wits between two masterminds a staple of Japanese popular fiction. Death Note restages that duel with both sides hidden behind aliases. No direct statement by Ohba ties his series to Ranpo.
1908
Maurice Leblanc
Belle Époque. France. Written in French.
Linked stories pitting the gentleman thief Arsène Lupin against a thinly renamed Sherlock Holmes in a duel of wits.
Direct source, well documented.
Ranpo modeled the Fiend with Twenty Faces on Arsène Lupin: a courteous master of disguise who announces his thefts in advance and avoids killing. The repeated duel with Akechi follows the Lupin-versus-detective format, which Ranpo read in translation.
1887
Arthur Conan Doyle
Victorian. England. Written in English.
First Sherlock Holmes novel, introducing the eccentric consulting detective and his chronicler Dr. Watson.
Thematic kinship, probable.
L is a reclusive genius detective with odd habits, deductive leaps and a contempt for ordinary police work, a type Doyle fixed with Holmes. L's aged assistant Watari, who handles his practical affairs, occupies a Watson-like position. The detective genre conventions reach Death Note through this line rather than through any stated debt.
Direct source, well documented.
Leblanc borrowed Holmes himself, with Watson, renaming them Herlock Sholmes and Wilson after Doyle objected. The book sets the master thief against Doyle's detective in a series of matched contests.
1869
Émile Gaboriau
Second Empire. France. Written in French.
Novel of a young police detective who reconstructs a crime from footprints and traces, a key model for the scientific detective.
Direct source, well documented.
Gaboriau's detective, who reconstructs events from footprints in snow, gave Doyle a model for scientific trace reading. Holmes names Lecoq in A Study in Scarlet and calls him 'a miserable bungler', acknowledging the model while claiming to surpass it.
The line stops here: minor branch.
