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Nonami Asa's Freezing Fang ( Kogoeru Kiba ) is perhaps her most complex work to date. The dynamic female detective at the heart of this and other stories, Otomichi Takako, struggles not only with the case at hand, but also with the patriarchal structures of the police force and with attempts to retain her femininity. Otomichi's role goes beyond that of her Western counterparts, as she ventures to 'infiltrate another culture' (Klein 1988: 174). Through Otomichi, the author pushes off centre the whole male/female and public/private dichotomy and adds to the ongoing Japanese debate over the subjective division between pure ( jun bungaku ) and popular literature ( taishū bungaku ). This article examines, through a close reading of Nonami's text, how female writers of this detective literature genre deal with the categorization that essentially designates writing by women as secondary literature in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]