甦れ！探偵物語 (Yomigaere! Tantei Monogatari)

This book contains info on the episodes and characters in the Tantei Monogatari TV series.

There is an interview with most of the cast members, with the very noticeable exception of Nancy and Kaori. However, there are lots of photos of them, including a page of quite nice photos of Nancy, Michihiro Yamanishi, who played Detective Matsumoto, and Yusaku Matsuda attending a "hand shaking" event at the end of the book. There are also three interviews with Ryo Ishibashi, Masaya Kato, and Yoshio Harada, all three of whom seem to have nothing to do with the TV programme.

It's a cheaply produced TV book. Some of the interviews are quite interesting, notably Ryuji Katagiri and Koichi Iwaki, who apparently gave the idea of using a Vespa, and some of them are from people who don't seem to remember the TV show that well, like Mitsuko Baisho, who played Masako Aiki and Mako Midori (who starred in episode 1). There is also a long interview with Miyuki Matsuda. Unfortunately Mikio Narita, who played Detective Hattori, was already dead when the book was produced.

The production quality and the research is quite sloppy. For example, in the back of the book there is a page on the items used in the show, where it claims that Shunsaku smokes Marlboro cigarettes, because of the Marlboro ashtray on the desk. However, in the TV programme he only smokes the Camel brand.