Tarō Hirai, better known by the pen name Edogawa Ranpo was a Japanese author and critic who played a major role in the development of Japanese mystery and thriller fiction. Many of his novels involve the detective hero Kogoro Akechi, who in later books was the leader of a group of boy detectives known as the "Boy Detectives Club".
Sano Shōichi, know by his pen name Unno Jūza, was a Japanese novelist who was the founding father of Japanese science fiction.
The Castle is the last novel by Franz Kafka. In it a protagonist known only as "K." arrives in a village and struggles to gain access to the mysterious authorities who govern it from a castle supposedly owned by Count Westwest.
Sandringham House is a country house in the parish of Sandringham, Norfolk, England. It is one of the royal residences of Charles III, whose grandfather, George VI, and great-grandfather, George V, both died there. The house stands in a 20,000-acre (8,100 ha) estate in the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The house is listed as Grade II* and the landscaped gardens, park and woodlands are on the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
Oskar Lafontaine is a German politician. He served as Minister-President of the state of Saarland from 1985 to 1998, and was federal leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) from 1995 to 1999. He was the lead candidate for the SPD in the 1990 German federal election, but lost by a wide margin. He served as Minister of Finance under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder after the SPD's victory in the 1998 federal election, but resigned from both the ministry and Bundestag less than six months later, positioning himself as a popular opponent of Schröder's policies in the tabloid press.
Miyuki Miyabe is a Japanese writer of genre fiction. She has won numerous Japanese literary awards, including the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for New Writers, the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for Literature, the Shiba Ryotaro Prize, the Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize, and the Naoki Prize. Her work has been widely adapted for film, television, manga, and video games, and has been translated into over a dozen languages.
Edgar Wallace (1875–1932) was a British novelist and playwright and screenwriter whose works have been adapted for the screen on many occasions.
Seishi Yokomizo was a Japanese mystery novelist, known for creating the fictional detective Kosuke Kindaichi.
Keigo Higashino is a Japanese author chiefly known for his mystery novels. He served as the 13th President of Mystery Writers of Japan from 2009 to 2013. Higashino has won major Japanese awards for his books, almost twenty of which have been turned into films and TV series.
Gerhard Herm was a German journalist and writer.
Soji Shimada is a Japanese mystery writer. Born in Fukuyama City, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan.
Stefan Haenni is a Swiss painter and a crime novel writer.
Alexander, Count of Schönburg-Glauchau, known professionally as Alexander von Schönburg, is a German journalist and writer. He is, after his older brother Carl's abdication, the current head of the comital branch of the princely House of Schönburg.
Ernst Werner Techow was a German right-wing assassin. In 1922, he took part in the assassination of the Foreign Minister of Germany Walther Rathenau. After his release from prison Techow initially joined the Nazi Party, but soon fell out with the movement and dropped into obscurity. Late in World War II he joined the Volkssturm. He was killed after being captured by the Soviet Red Army near Dresden on 9 May 1945.
Birgit Vanderbeke was a German writer.
St Mary Magdalene Church is a church in Sandringham, Norfolk, England, located just to the southwest of Sandringham House. Members of the British Royal Family attend services when in residence at Sandringham, which normally includes Christmas. The church is dedicated to Mary Magdalene, a disciple of Jesus. The rector is the Reverend Canon Paul Williams.
Hans-Michael Bock is a German film historian, filmmaker, translator and writer.
The royal corgis are the Pembroke Welsh Corgi dogs formerly owned by Queen Elizabeth II and her parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. Fond of corgis since she was a small child, Elizabeth II owned more than 30 corgis from her accession in 1952 until her death in 2022. She owned at least one corgi throughout the years 1933 to 2018.
Milena Moser is a Swiss writer. Her first language is Swiss German. She has emigrated to the United States twice, in 1998 and again in 2015, but German remains the language in which she writes, and in which by 2018 more than twenty of her novels had been published.
Jochen Schmidt was a German journalist and book author, especially as a dance theatre expert. He became known through more than 30 years as a critic in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, reviewing also non-fiction books on dance and crime novels, and working for other papers and broadcasters. He closely watched Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal, and published a biography of her. He wrote a book about the history of dance in the 20th century, observing mainly European, but also international innovations.
