Broadway Malady

"The show must go on"

Phrase in show business 

Note to self: typing with just one hand because of a broken elbow is time consuming. That is why this post is a bit shorter than usual.

Detective Conan volume 106 was released in October 2024, about six months after the 2024 film Detective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram, but it's main story is closely related to that film's plot and functions as a kind of epilogue, so it is worth it to first watch the film before reading this volume to get the intended effect. However, the volume itself starts with a fairly normal story: The SOS Message Delivered by Torakage started in the previous volume and has Conan and the gang notice a neighborhood playing with a piece of paper, on which someone called Saori asks for help. Meanwhile, Inspector Sato and Takagi are chasing after a kidnapper, who manages to escape, get rid of his jacket and disappear in a restaurant in the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse. Because the kidnapper saw Sato, it's Takagi and Shinagawa traffic police officer Chihaya who enter the restaurant (posing as a couple) to find the kidnapper.

As you can guess, this story develops on two fronts: Conan and the Detective Boys found a note signed by the kidnapped Saori, meaning she should be nearby, while the plot set in the Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse is a classic "which of the three suspects" set-up. I have to admit nether side really managed to impress me: the ultimate step to determine who the kidnapper is, is something the reader can't predict (any of the three could have been the kidnapper even with the decisive clue obtained), so it doesn't really feel fair, while the plot about the search for the kidnapped girl rvolves a lot around coded messages, and those often feel just like trivia storiees, like it did here.

The Enamoto Azusa Abduction Case starts in Cafe Poirot, where Ran, Sonoko, Sera and Conan are having a drink while watching Azusa and Amuro helping the other customers, When they run out of a certained herb-infused salt, Conan says he knows a shop in the neighboring district that stocks it, so he and Azusa go out for groceries, but they soon realize they're being followed. They try to make it back to Poirot, but are abducted right in front of Amuro and the others. A bystander overheard Conan and Azusa cry out the kidnapper was someone with a cough who was just now in the cafe: three men appear the main suspects: one who seemed intent on getting the recipe for Poirot's beef stew, another customer who asked Azusa to keep something secret and a man who was having coffee at the counter. Meanwhile, Azusa wakes up to find herself and Conan chained in a dark room and to her great surprise.... she sees a decapitated head in a glass jar. Have they been kidnapped by the notorious serial killer who's been terrorizing the city lately?

This was a simple, but okay story, considering its limited space. When Azusa wakes up, she uses Conan's Detective Boys badge to contact the people at Poirot, just as the abductors enter the room. Amuro and Sera overhear the culprits mentioning they will get rid of Azusa and Conan in four hours, once it's midnight, but then the kidnappers notice the badge and destroy it. However, this does allow for the story to do some  The Nine-Mile Walk-esque deductions about what's so special about midnight and how it could pertain to the three suspects. Ultimately, the story is not that grand and many may easily guess where it's going, but I liked it. I wonder if the story's plot came from sonething Aoyama himself experienced....

 The Curse of The Demon Puppeteer is a long story and the sequel to volume 102's Kyoto Sweets and Poison. The stage play based on Mouri Kogorou and Hattori Heiji has finally been performed, despite the death of the director in the previous story. Kogorou, Ran and Conan, as well as Hattori and Kazuha are of course present in the audience as the show is done in Osaka. After the succesful show however, one of the actresses falls of a building, followed by her phone falling next to her, with a message signed by "the Demon Puppeteer", the nickname of the deceased director because of he controlled his actors. It seems a lot of jealousy is going around backstage among the actors, and soon more deaths follow, all signed by the the Demon Puppeteer...

Oh, and there's of course still that subplot where Hattori is looking for the perfect place to confess his love to Kazuha...

I'm torn on this story! It's not one to be really memorable on its merits of plotting and tricks per se: as a mystery, the elements Aoyama used are likely to feel familiar one way or another and I don't like the clewing that much. On the other hand, I defintely liked how this tale built further on Kyoto Sweets and Poison and introduced an interesting cast (literally) for this series of murders. The story also has some implications for the ongoing story and introduces a new character in a way that is probably not as surprising as intended. So a story I can appreciate for its story/characters, but I had hoped for something grander trick-wise, as lately, a lot of the stories seem to rely too much on trivia or otherwise using the latest fad.

I can't say Detective Conan volume 106 really managed to overturn the trend of somewhat mediocre stories mystery-wise the last two years or so, but I think I liked it better than the previous one on the whole. The next volume has no official release window announced by the way, so I guess it'll release around April when the 2025 film hits the theaters... Really looking forward to that film by the way, so I'll try to review it as soon as I can!

Original Japanese title(s): 青山剛昌 『名探偵コナン』第106巻 

The Vanishing Victim Mystery

In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee.

"Luke" 24:5-6 (New International Version)

 

Okay, it's only after writing this post I realized there's actually a boulder on the cover of this book...

An Egyptian interpreter who is part of a travelling merchant troupe arrives in Jerusalem, where they keep hearing rumors about a certain Jesus of Nazareth, who has been gaining support of the population. The interpreter becomes interested in this Jesus, who is apparently slowly travelling towards Jerusalem too. He decides to visit an old friend to see what he can tell him about Jesus, but it turns out many people have different opinions about the man. Some consider him a messiah or even think he should overthrow the Roman rulers, others a fraud and confidence trickster or lament their children, who have become followers of Jesus. The Egyptian records all of his interviews in his diary, but sadly enough, he and his troupe are leaving Jerusalem just the day before Jesus is about to arrive here. The Eygptian doesn't return to the city until half a year later, and the first thing he does is ask about what happened to Jesus after he left, and he is shocked to learn that not only was Jesus captured and put on the crucifix to die... there are also rumors Jesus had resurrected. The Egyptian once again starts asking questions and learns the circumstances behind Jesus' arrest, how he was crucified and how his body not only disappeared from the locked location where his body was being kept, there are multiple witnesses who state they did see Jesus after his supposed death. But has there really been a miracle, or could this also have been done by a human? That is the mystery in Komori Kentarou's Jesus Christ no Misshitsu ("The Locked Room of Jesus Christ", 1997).

I discussed a Komori novel early this year, so why not have one in December too, especially one that has a tie to Christmas? Like Nnwenre no Serdab ("The Sealed Chamber of Nnwenre", 1996), Jesus Christ no Misshitsu has an Egyptian theme as the book mostly revolves around a two-part account of an Egyptian who was in Jerusalem before Jesus arrived there, and who investigated the resurrection of Jesus several months later: this account is book-ended by the tale of the person who stumbled upon the papyrus rolls. As a mystery, the resurrection of Jesus is of course easily reimagined as a locked room mystery: if the tomb where Jesus' body was being kept in was sealed and guarded, how did he escape? Some years ago, I reviewed Kujira Touichirou's Yamataikoku wa Doko Desuka? ("Where is Yamatai-koku?" 1998), which contained the short story Kiseki wa Dono You ni Nasareta no ka? ("How Was The Miracle Accomplished?") where the characters refer to the bible and reinterpret the sources to give a rational explanation to the Biblical resurrection of Jesus. That series is set in contemporary times, with (amateur) scholars using quotes from real-life sources to offer new insights/theories regarding history. In that respect, Komori's book is quite different, as it is portrayed as the story of someone who was there at the time.

The first third/half of the book is set before Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, but the Egyptian interpreter has already heard many rumors about him, so he sets out to interview people from various circles in society to see what they think of Jesus. We get to see a lot of very short portraits of Jesus, with some people thinking very highly of him, while others see Jesus as nothing but a nuisance. Komori quotes a lot from the various bible books, refering to certain episodes that help shape all the different images people have of Jesus. Personally, I found this part a bit boring, as while this may work for say two or three times, I felt Komori was just overdoing it by the time we're reading like the fifteenth different opinion on Jesus. What's more, all of this doesn't have a direct connection to the later mystery: it's just presenting the different views people have of Jesus, and I guess this part is important for people who aren't that familiar with the bible, but even then, I couldn't help but feel like this was just padding (and the book itself is actually already quite short).

In the second half, the Egyptian interpreter returns to Jerusalem only to learn about Jesus' supposed resurrection and about how he disappeared from the tomb. The mystery here is two-fold: there are witnesses who say they saw Jesus after his death, so it appears he did ressurect, but how? And how did he escape the place where his body was being kept after being crucified? While the set-up is interesting (and one many, many people on this world will be familiar with), I have to say there are few times I was so disappointed. For even though Komori referenced the bible extensively in the first part of the boook, the setting for this mystery as painted by Komori is quite dissimilar to what you'd usually associate with the episode of the empty tomb. In this book, Jesus' body wasn't even actually kept in a tomb, but a cave that was sometimes used as a toilet (and now used as a temporary morgue) and there wasn't even a boulder in front of the cave to seal it, but just a door that could be locked! At this point, it felt like there were so many elements that strayed from what I would assume to be the mystery of the empty tomb from the bible, I have to admit I lost my investment in the story. The way the interpreter arrives at his solution to how Jesus could have resurrected, and also how Jesus' body could've disappeared from the tomb even though it was kept locked and there was only one key in possession of someone who would not have any reason to help Jesus and his disciples, actually has clever parts to it, and you can see Komori really did do proper research regarding the bible, the (theological) culture and time period, but so much of it is not part of the commonly known story of the empty tomb, and at that point, it might as well have been not about Jesus Christ. And again, the book is very short, so I feel like a short story, set in this period but not based on the bible, could have worked even better.

So I can't say I really enjoyed Jesus Christ no Misshitsu very much. Mystery-wise, it didn't really make use of the fact it was based on a well-known episode from the bible, introducing all kinds of original elements in order to make the mystery work. While Komori obviously did do his homework before writing this book, it seems like creating a properly clewed locked room mystery based on the New Testament was a bit too tricky, forcing him to add in more elements to flesh the setting out, but by doing so, it feels he strays too far from the basic setting.

Original Japanese title(s): 小森健太郎『神の子（イエス・キリスト）の密室』

Steal Me a Story

"There is no agony like it. You sit in a room, biting pencils, looking at a typewriter, walking about, or casting yourself down on a sofa, feeling you want to cry your head off."

"The Writing Habits of Agatha Christie"

The faces on the covers for Mitsuda's books published by Kodansha are always really creepy...

Horror novelist Mitsuda Shinzou receives a call one day from a friend, who is not only a succesful mystery novelist, but also acts as reader for a a Newcomer's Award for manuscripts by unpublished writers: this friend is not a judge, but he helps out in the first round by at least selecting the manuscripts that are actually complete novels and not half-hearted entries. While highly unusual, his friend decided to contact Mitsuda, because among the manuscripts he's reading, he has one that is sent in by someone called Tsuguchi, but the manuscript is written in the name of Mitsuda Shinzou! The story is also based on the horror stories Mitsuda has been collecting on his personal homepage, making it seem like he actually sent the manuscript, but Mitsuda assures his friend he has nothing to do with this. Meanwhile, Mitsuda finds a very creepy abandoned, classic British-style house: the house can not be reached via the street (which is already a dark place), but is reached via some back-alleys and having to go through the grounds of the neighbors: apparently, the house has been abandoned for decades now, with houses being built around it until it was "locked" in by the surrounding houses, making it nearly unreachable. Mitsuda is captivated by the house and goes great lengths in finding the real estate agent handling the property and manages to rent the place.  The house serves as the inspiration for his new serialized story, where a family moves into a house with a dark history. But as time passes by, the story start to develop on its own, beyond Mitsuda's control, and with sightings of ghosts in the vicinity, the mysterious writer using Mitsuda's name hanging about and the house's history slowly being uncovered, all leading to a catastropic finale in Mitsuda Shinzou's Ikan - Horror Sakka no Sumu Ie ("The Ominous House - The House Where a Horror Writer Lives", 2001).

I have read a lot of Mitsuda Shinzou's work in the last few years and have become a great fan of his work, but with a caveat: save for a short story I never reviewed here, all I have read by him is his Toujou Genya series, where he mixes folklore and horror with insanely brilliantly plotted mysteries. I can't overstate how crazy the quality level remains throughout the series, and the books always end up in my favorite reads of the year. Ikan is the first novel I have read by Mitsuda that isn't part of that series and it is also Mitsuda's debut novel: it was originally published with the title Horror Sakka no Sumu Ie (The House Where a Horror Writer Lives), which is now the subtitle of the book, and it is the first entry in a three-part series. Being up-to-date with the Genya series currently, I decided to fan out, and I figured, why not with his debut work? 

Ikan is a tale of horror told in a rather complex manner: besides the narrative of Mitsuda finding the titular house and slowly encountering more and more odd situations and people, there is also a narrative-within-a-narrative structure, as we also get to read all the installments of Mitsuda's serialized story as it is published each time: his story is based on his experiences in the house, and tells the story of a core family moving into a British-style house as seen from the POV of the younger son. The younger son soon finds hidden compartments in the house, and even a strangely built doll house that seems to be a copy of the very house they are living in. And oddly enough, Mitsuda too comes across the very things he writes about in his serialized story... 

The mystery of how all of this is connected and how both the narrative-within-a-narrative, and the "outside" world narrative will end is suspenseful, but also told in a manner that can at times make it difficult to keep track of everything. Many "puzzle pieces" are constantly being introduced, but often, they don't even feel like from the same set, and so you feel like there's too much chaos in the plot. While things do come together in the end, it is definitely not the "densily clewed mystery with lots of synergy" we've learned to expect from the Genya series. The Genya series features a lot of the horrendous and mysterious events that are eventually given a rational meaning via either the core mystery plot, or folklore analyses, but in this book, a lot of the core horror elements remain unexplained, and in that sense, I do feel the book is less satisfying. Especially the events in the narrative-within-a-narrative feature a lot of events that are not explained in detail, and while they may not be directly connected to the core mystery, it leaves you with so many questions that seemingly are only answered by "yes, the supernatural exists": I am not against the supernatural in mystery fiction, but without clear rules, you just have no idea what to expect and not, and here, the horror elements remain shrouded in the shadows. So Ikan is definitely leaning more into the horror than the Toujou Genya series and the conclusion is more like the twist ending (with foreshadowing) you'll expect from conventional horror mysteries, rather than a dense honkaku puzzle with a surprising, yet convincing twist.

I believe the epilogue is only available in the current version from 2008 (which I read), which tries to flesh out the background a bit more, but don't expect too much of it. 

Ikan - Horror Sakka no Sumu Ie can be read as an entertaining horror novel, with a mystery writer slowly being absorbed by his own fictional creation, but I wasn't really looking for that, so in that sense, it's a bit of a disappointment: it is certainly not in any way a proto-Toujou Genya novel in any way. While there are more books in this particular series, Mitsuda Shinzou has many other series available, so I will probably try those out first to see if he has other books that can give me Genya-esque experiences.

Original Japanese title(s): 三津田信三『忌館　ホラー作家の棲む家』

Triple Death

"Our three weapons are fear, and surprise, and ruthless efficiency... and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope... Our four... no... Amongst our weapons... Amongst our weaponry... are such elements as fear, surprise... "

"Monty Python's Flying Circus"

The Honkaku Suiri ("Orthodox Deductive Fiction") and Shin Honkaku Suiri ("New Orthodox Deductive Fiction") anthologies were published between 1993 and 2009 by Kobunsha and were conceptualized as a place where amateur writers could send in their short stories to: publisher Tokyo Sogensha currently has the Sogen Mystery Short Story Award (formerly known as the Mysteries! Newcomer Award) as a counterpart to the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, which focuses on novel, but that didn't exist yet back in 1993. The original series was edited by Ayukawa Tetsuya, and the Shin series by Nikaidou Reito and supervised by Ayukawa Tetsuya (until he passed away in 2002) and in the fifteen or so years the anthology existed, a lot of people were selected who'd later on become well-known mystery writers, like Mitsuda Shinzou, Ooyama Seiichirou, Ookura Takahiro, Kirisha Takumi, Kuroda Kenji, Tsukatou Hajime and more. Interestingly, I don't think most of them consider having their stories published in these anthologies as "their debut moment", even though it'd be their first "formal" publication. In a very far-away past, I read the last Shin Honkaku Suiri anthology, which was actually one of the earliest books I read in Japanese.

Shin Honkaku Suiri 3 ("New Orthodox Deductive Fiction 3") was published in 2003 and features the subtitle The Heirs to Villa Lilac, a reference to one of Ayukawa's novels. This third entry in the Shin series would also be the final volume supervised by Ayukawa, as he passed away a few months before this book was published (I assume his work had already been finished by then). While I usually review all, or at least most, stories in an anthology, I'll only discuss three of the eight stories (+ essays) included in this book this time: not because the others are bad, but because I was borrowing this book and only had time to read three of them before returning it! So I might return to this other stories in this book in the future, but that's no promise, though going by the quality of the stories I did read, I probably really should read them.

This book features the first time Onuki Kazaki was ever selected for the anthology, but interestingly enough, they got selected three times: three of the eight stories in this book are penned by them. The book also opens with one of them: Tomurai Tetsudou ("The Mourning Railway"), a title reminiscent of Oosaka Keikichi's Tomurai Kikansha ("The Mourning Locomotive"). The story opens with Kasuga Karin sitting all alone on a bench at the station of Inone, a small village. Earlier that day, she attended the funeral of an uncle and was now on her way back home, when she fell asleep in the train. When she woke up, she thought she was at the station Noboribou, where she needed to transfer, so she jumped out. Unfortunately, she got out one station too early. Because it was the late afternoon, she figured more trains would follow... only they didn't, and the busses to Noboribou had also stopped. By the time she figured that out, it was already night and rain had started to fall, making it dangerous for her to walk the way to Noboribou and because the village of Inone is so small and surrounded by the forest, no cars pass by to pick her up. A young man approaches her suddenly and quickly guesses why she's sitting with such a hopeless expression on her face at the station. He offers to pay for her stay at the inn where he'll also be staying. She's a bit suspicious of him, but ultimately accepts his offer. She learns he's interested in a terrorist who's been bombing train lines lately that are financially unviable. Rumors have it they might strike on the train line connecting Inone and Noboribou. That evening, Karin notices the young man went out in the night, and returned... with a bomb. What is he exactly and what is his true motive for helping Karin?

Like I mentioned, the title invokes the famous Oosaka story, and in a way, it has a similar set-up in the way there's no clear mystery in this story. The young man acts suspiciously, but Karin can't figure out whether he's the bomber or not, but the story doesn't focus on Karin trying to investigate that: the story continues the next day, when everyone has to take public transport to Noboribou, and it's then the story reveals its true nature. It's a very clever plot, that might remind people of Father Brown stories, A Aiichirou stories or The Nine Mile Walk, where you don't really know what's going on mystery-wise, until it's suddenly revealed something sinister was going on, based on clues that seem very vague at first. The revelation in Tomurai Tetsudou is brilliant, and really dark, and I can definitely see why it was selected for publication. Cleverly plotted, and theme-wise very, very memorable.

Sonoda Shuuichirou is an author who is featured in several of the (Shin) Honkaku Suiri volumes, but he never made a major debut as a professional writer, nor have his stories been collected in a single collection. I suspect he was a Kyoto University Mystery Club member, but am not 100% sure. I loved the story I read by him in the last Shin Honkaku Suiri anthology, so I was very curious to see what the story in this volume would be about. Dokusha Yo Azamukarurunakare ("Reader, Don't Be Fooled") starts with a segment where the narrator Sonoda discusses Chesterton's The Invisible Man with his friend Kurashina, a huge mystery buff who thinks very little of the trick of that story. When challenging Kurashina to come up with something better himself, Kurashina admits he already has a similar, but better idea in his mind, and soon after, Kurashina presents Sonoda with a whodunnit script with a Challenge to the Reader, explaining his story tackles the same themes of The Invisible Man, and challenging Sonoda to find the culprit.

The story-within-a-story is set at the building of the Engineering faculty of a university. It's the last day of the academic year, so the building is nearly empty, as classes have already ended about a month earlier and there are only a few professors here and students working on projects with those professors. That is why one of the two guards of the building finds it weird when a humanities student enters the building. Shibata Hirotaka has a student ID, so he can walk in freely of course, but he can't shake the feeling something's off, which seems confirmed when his co-worker mentions he didn't see Shibata when making his rounds, even though they have no record of him leaving the building. The guard makes another round, making sure to check who is in what room. He's at the third of the fourth storey, when he hears the alarm that goes off when a window is opened. He realizes it comes from above, but the next moment, he hears a loud crash, and he already knows what's happened: when he arrives at the open window on the fourth floor, he looks down and sees Shibata lying on the ground below. The police come questioning everyone in the building, and three of the students turn out to know Shibata from their theater group, but it appears they have a perfect alibi, so then who is the killer?

Well, I sure give it to Sonoda: this was an interesting take on The Invisible Man, a killer who is visible in the story, but also not. It only works if you make a very rigid assumption regarding how people talk, but I think it works here and it is absolutely fair. If you assume this story is 100% fair to the reader, then the method with which the killer is hidden works absolutely, but if you have even the slightest doubt about that, this story might feel unconvincing. As a whodunnit with a Challenge to the Reader though, it works, and that means I will have to read those other Sonoda stories that were included in these anthologies too, because that's two good stories out of two read now...

The final story I'll discuss this time is by Ooyama Seiichirou, and this is kinda technically his debut work, I guess, as this was the first story by him that got published in a 'proper' publication. His "author introduction" literally just says this is the first time he got selected. Saint Dionysus no Puzzle ("The Puzzle of Saint Dionysus") introduces us to the narrator (a detective writer), who is the Watson to Sakaki Kousuke, a private detective. Sakaki is asked by Kobayakawa Masatsugu to bring his sister back home: she is a member of a cult run by Kurusu Tokuzou, who thinks he's the reincarnation of Saint Dionysus (Saint Denis of Paris). The sister is actually one of his grand disciples and Kobayakawa tells Sakaki Kurusu and his grand disciples are currenlty staying on an island, marking the perfect opportunity to get to her, as she's usually in one of the well-guarded facilities of the cult. He suggest they use an inflatable raft to make their way there and rescue his sister. Sakaki and the narrator do as suggested and make their way to the island, but are immediately found by guards. The sister hysterically cries she has enough of her brother, and that she's here by her own free will. Sakaki and the narrator are thrown in a cell for the night, but the following morning, the grand disciples bring shocking news: Kurusu has been murdered! The head of the cult was found in the Meditation Chamber, with his head cut off and placed in his arms, just like Saint Denis of Paris. The grand disciples ask Sakaki to figure out who the murderer is: it has to be one of the grand disciples, as the lower-rank members all sleep together, there were guards making sure nobody would enter the island, and Sakaki and the narrator were locked up. Meanwhile, the remains of Kurusu are placed in the Heavenly Chamber, a private room for meditation for the head of the cult, set up at the highest point of each of the cult's bases. Sakaki and the narrator interrogate the grand disciples, of which none seem to have a good alibi for the night. The following morning, shocking news arrives again: the body of Kurusu was found in the Meditation Chamber again, holding his own head in his hands. Did he walk out of the Heavenly Chamber after being decapitated, just like Saint Denis of Paris? If not, why was his body moved?

A story with a very cool set-up with the cult and the ties to the story of Saint Denis of Paris, and while it might sound obvious now, but as this was Ooyama's first published story, I guess readers back then couldn't have known Queenian problems would be one of Ooyama's trademarks. And yep, we have that here too. While a tale about a corpse that leaves a room and walks in the night could easily have focused more on the horror or seemingly impossible aspects of the problem, Ooyama here focuses on the conundrum as a logical issue: why was the body and the head moved? The solution is of course brought by a logical process that focuses on the actions the murderer took and the motives behind it, and while the basic idea is pretty simple, it is a deliciously Queenian approach to the set-up, and I like the story a lot. I have a feeling Ooyama "now" would have planted more physical clues to facilitate the trail to the solution, but it's still very solvable while also making clever use of the story behind Saint Denis.

Anyway, these were only three of the eight stories in Shin Honkaku Suiri 3, but I enjoyed all three of them a lot, so I'll try and get around to discussing the remaining five stories in the future. I probably should try read more of the (Shin) Honkaku Suiri anthologies anyway: I have only read about 1.5 volume, but the quality of the plots is generally really high, and if all 20+ volumes of this series retain that level...

Original Japanese title(s): 鮎川哲也（監修）二階堂黎人（編）新・本格推理 03 りら荘の相続人』: 小貫風樹「とむらい鉄道」/ 園田修一郎「作者よ欺かるるなかれ」/大山誠一郎「聖ディオニシウスのパズル」

Remember to Ring Twice

"I'm going slap happy"

"South Park"

I always think of white and blue when I think of the covers for the Koigakubo Academy books, even those are not even the primary colors for every cover...

Disclosure: I translated Higashigawa Tokuya's Lending the Key to the Locked Room. If you haven't read it yet... read it! 

Higashigawa Tokuya first introduced his readers to the fictional school of Koigakubo Academy, located in Kokubunji, Tokyo, in 2002 with Manabanai Tantei-tachi no Gakuen. In that book, we followed the members of the Koigakubo Academy Detective Club as they tackled a murder case that happened at school. After the first book about the Detective Club, we have seen other books featuring the Detective Club too, but interestingly enough, Higashigawa also started to feature the high school in other books that weren't about the Detective Club exclusively. First we had the Kirigamine Ryou series, which featured the vice-president of the Detective Club who for some reason very seldomly met the characters of the main series, but still often came across mysteries herself. Four years ago, Higashigawa wrote Kimi ni Yomasetai Mystery ga Arunda, a wonderful short story collection about the Second Literature Club of Koigakubo Academy. And 2024, the twentieth anniversary since the first book with the Koigakubo Academy, brought us another new series about the school where so many odd happenings happen, both criminal and not. The binding element between all these series is the school itself, with some characters like the teachers or a delinquent student appearing in several series, while usually the main characters of each series remains in their own 'part' of the world.

Asahina-san to Himitsu no Aibou ("Miss Asahina and the Secret Buddy", 2024) is a short story collection which presents us with another detective character in the school: Asahina Reika is the daughter of the school's chairman, which basically gives her a lot of informal authority. That is why some students sometimes go directly to her to ask for help when nobody else can help them: Asahina is actually quite involved with the school's reputation and how it's run, and basically acts as a 'shadow chairman' under the auspices of her father. That is why Ishibashi Mamoru comes to her when he's accused of theft by his fellow Mystery Club members: one morning, Ishibashi was the first to retrieve the padlock key from the teacher to open the club room. When he noticed one locker door was open and approached it, the harm had been done: the user of that locker saw Mamoru standing in front of it, and it turned out a manuscript for a detective story he was writing, had disappeared from the locker. He had put it in the locker the day before, and other members were present when they all left the club room together, put the padlock on the door and returned the key to the teacher. This means nobody could've gained entry into the club room and stolen the manuscript from the locker, until Ishibashi asked for the club room key this morning. Mamoru swears he's innocent, and wants Asahina's help, who's secretly more than thrilled, because she's a huge mystery buff and realizes she might be dealing with a genuine locked room mystery. Her guesses however are shot down very swiftly, and it seems Mamoru won't be able to escape the shadow of suspicion, until Asahina accidentally slaps Mamoru in the face, and he.... turns into his deceased brother Wataru!  For some reason, Wataru's personality takes over each time Mamoru's slapped in the face. Wataru's a lot sharper than Mamoru and Asahina, and he quickly solves the case of the theft, even though Mamoru seems not to be aware of Wataru taking over his body and has no recollection of solving the case (he thinks Asahina did it). Asahina and Mamoru/Wataru's paths cross more often, and their encounters only make Asahina more interested in Mamoru and Wataru's odd relationship.

The first tale, Meitantei, Misshitsu ni Arawaru  ("The Great Detective Appears in the Locked Room"), introduces us to the main characters of Asahina, Mamory and Wataru, and also shows a bit of Koigakubo Academy's Mystery Club, which we have seen previously in the second Kirigamine Ryou short story collection. The problem involves a theft from a club room: the club members all saw how the manuscript was left in a locker in the room and they left the room together, saw how the padlock was put on the door and one of them returned the key to the teacher in charge. The key is specially made and can't be copied, and the teachers keep club room keys in a room with camera surveillance, so it appears only Mamoru, who took the key the following day, could've stolen the manuscript in the morning. Asahina presents a few fairly simple theories which are discarded fairly easily, which is perhaps also why the actual solution to the conundrum is also fairly simply: this solution is basically of the same level Asahina could and should have presented herself, and should've been shot down too. So to have the mysterious Wataru appear only to point out a simple solution.... 

Satsujin ga Misui Datta Hanashi ("A Story About an Attempt at Murder") starts with Asahina hearing the shocking news a student of Koigakubo Academy had been assaulted the previous night. The girl had been to a concert of Tamaranzaka 24 and had been on her way home, crossing a grove near the station, when she was attacked and stabbed in her stomach. She was found by a classmate who quickly called the emergency line. Because the girl's a classmate of Mamoru, Asahina decides to use him as her Watson to learn more about the case. They visit the mother of the victim, and learn the daughter didn't quite get along with the mother's boyfriend, but he has an alibi for when the girl was assaulted. While the actual truth behind why the girl was attacked is not very surprising or original on its own, I love the deduction chain Higashigawa laid out for the reader. The clue that leads to the revelation of how it was done is really good, and expertly hidden, and easily one of my favorite clues of the whole book. 

Asahina Reika is the honorary student council president, which means she supervises the board meetings once in a while (when she feels like it), and the other members just have to dance to her tune. the day after another meeting, Asahina visits the board office to use her locker there, when she notices a window was left open. She then realizes someone has moved some of her books in her locker, so she summons Mamoru (and Wataru) to help her find the insolent person who dares go through her stuff in Seitokaiyakuinshitsu no Koubou ("Offence and Defence in the Student Board Office"). After a good slap, we see Wataru's observations of a few clues that ultimately lead Asahina and Wataru to a rather surprising discovery, which shows there was something far more sinister going on in the student board office than just a theft. Not a huge fan of the story to be honest: the first half the mystery-solving is more focused on reverse-engineering Wataru's deductions about the intruder's actions, rather than doing that ourselves and in the second half, we investigate a mysterious message that... probably would have been more interesting in a visual medium, but not in a prose form.

Tenshi wa Poolside ni Ukabu ("Angels Floating at the Poolside") is set during a summer evening: students are still around at school because of two events: geography teacher Ikegami is supervising a group to watch the stars (she herself is actually a huge believer of UFOs), while another group of students are playing night baseball on the school grounds. A guard meanwhile is making his rounds, when he senses something's wrong with the school's pool. While the fence is properly locked and barbed wire ensures nobody can climb inside (or as some swimming club members say, it's to prevent members from fleeing training), the guard still can't shake the feeling someone is inside, so he unlocks the pool gate and has a look around. His attention is drawn to one of the diving boards, so he climbs the ladder. He's nearly at the top when he suddenly feels something hard hit his head, and he falls of the ladder, hits his head on the ground and is knocked out. But just before he passes out, he's sure he saw a winged angel flying in the sky above him... The guard is later found by students passing by. Asahina of course can't help herself and decides to investigate herself (with Mamoru/Wataru as her Watson). This is another story where I think it would've been better had it been created in a visual medium. While I think the solution on its own is okay, I think asking the reader to deduce it based on the hints is a bit too much, while it would've been much more natural if the story had been told in a visual format. The attack on the guard (which is kinda impossible because he was hit on the head while climbing up the ladder and he didn't see anyone on the diving board before he was knocked out) is connected well to the guard seeing floating angels, but it's still a story that has trouble feeling really satisfying. 

The final story, Chashitsu ni Kieta Shoujo ("The Girl Who Disappeared In the Tea-Ceremony Room"), has Asahina wondering whether he should tell Mamoru about Wataru taking his body over each time he's hit on the head, but before she can make a decision, she and Mamoru stumble upon a new case, and a very personal one too: Asahina sees a brown-haired girl rummaging through her desk in the classroom! Asahina and Mamoru give chase, and they eventually find the girl running into a remote part of the campus, which is walled off and ends in a cul-de-sac where the tea-ceremony room is, a small building used by the tea ceremony club. Mamoru is sent inside the room by Asahina, but it appears there's only a tea ceremony club member inside, who is far too tall to be the girl Asahina saw. A swift look across the room also shows there's no place for the brown-haired girl to hide inside. Asahina then decides to check behind the tea-ceremony room too (she makes sure Mamoru goes the other way around the building), but they only find a delinquent student trying to smoke in secret. But as this part of the campus is completely walled-off, how did the girl escape if she's not in the tea-ceremony room nor behind it? Impossible disappearances are pretty much a staple of the mysteries set at Koigakubo Academy, as other books also feature them (especially the Kirigamine Ryou series), and even with that in mind, I'd say this is a pretty good story. The solution is very simple, but also quite clever: it would have been pretty interesting on its own as it makes good use of the unusual setting, but Higashigawa manages to tie a very unique clue to it too, giving it another level of depth. Just don't come here expecting some real resolution regarding the Mamoru/Wataru plotline.

Overall though, I'll need to be honest and say that Asahina-san to Himitsu no Aibou is probably my least favorite short story collection set at Koigakubo Academy until now. I love the Kirigamine Ryou stories with the overly-enthusiastic Kirigamine and the weird disappearances and other impossible crimes(?) she encounters, and I was really surprised by how fantastically Kimi ni Yomasetai Mystery ga Arunda was set-up with multiple meta-level stories, but in comparison, the plots of Asahina-san to Himitsu no Aibou seemed a lot simpler, with less finesse going on in regards to how the mysteries were planned. And I guess I never got really invested in the Ranma 1/2 / Touch-esque subplot of Mamoru and Wataru (hmm, now I think about it, it does have a Shonen Sunday vibe to it), so that wasn't really something that kept me interested. I'm always in for more stories set at Koigakubo Academy, and it was fun seeing familiar faces pop up in the background, but I guess I did expect something more 'grand' for the twentieth anniversary of the setting. Let's hope the next one is more memorable.

Original Japanese title(s): 東川篤哉『朝比奈さんと秘密の相棒』：「名探偵、密室に現る」/「殺人が未遂だった話」/「生徒会役員室の攻防」/「天使はプールサイドに浮かぶ」/「茶室に消えた少女」

Fear of the Fire Beast!

胸を焦がす Fire...
恋人も 燃える

『逆転裁判4』

 

Fire... charring my heart

Burning even my love

"Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney"

Yes, the title of today's book makes it very, very hard to look up in its romanized form. At least in Japanese, it's a kanji you don't see that often so that makes things easier...

After the traumatic experience on Kazune Island, where a group of friends were murdered one after another, Uyuu has mostly recovered. At least, physically, that is. However, after being saved and recovering at the hospital, he slipped on a banana peel, and hit his head, which caused him to lose his memories of his time on Kazune Island, though he still remembers everything before it: Uyuu remembers he was working part-time for a local culture magazine, how he's friends with Touri, a high school student who often swings by the magazine's editorial department, how the two were sent to Kazune Island to do an article on a gathering there.... but he doesn't remember what happened on that island, he only knows of it from the news. Which is why he also has no recollection of Touri and him becoming a couple on the island, even though Touri insists that is what happened. Uyuu has been given a full-time contract now, which his co-workers suspect might be because he underwent such ordeals because he had been sent to the island for work, and now Uyuu finds himself working on several articles, like one on shrines in their town of Kyoto and a series on local modern artists. This brings him into contact with Mikogami, who creates litera-art (art using written words), and his assistant Wapiko. Uyuu becomes friends with Wapiko, occasionally meeting her outside of work, with her telling him about studying under Mikogami and her own litera-art. But one night, Uyuu suddenly wakes up and finds himself standing near a temple, holding a lighter and burnable materials. While he is conscious of what he is doing, he can't help himself setting the temple on fire and ends up fleeing on his bicycle. The following morning, he is shocked to learn this is not just a case of arson however: a murdered man was found lying inside the temple that was burned down. Uyuu has no recollection of committing such a murder, nor does he know the victim, but he can't believe it's just a coincidence the fire and the murder happened at the same place and time. He visits a club for mystery fiction afficionados to hear the member's thoughts about the arson case, and among the members are the famous detective Kisarazu and his Watson Kouzuki, who seem to have some rather sharp observations regarding the case. Uyuu also runs into the detective Mercator Ayu, whom he met earlier briefly in the aftermath of the Kazune Island incident: Mercator has taken an interest in Uyuu, and seems to want to nudge him into a career of detection. However, Uyuu has other things to worry about, as he finds himself committing arson more often, and each time, a dead body is found at the site. Can he evade both Mercator and Kisarazu as he tries to figure out what's wrong with him in Maya Yutaka's A ("Disease", 1995)?

Maya Yutaka's work is seldom straightforward, but that holds especially for this book: A is a direct sequel to 1993's Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata ("A Sonata for Summer and Winter", also known as Parzival), starring once again Uyuu as he deals with the trauma of the events of the previous book. And at the same time, this book is a crossover book, as Maya's series detectives Mercator Ayu and Kisarazu Yuuya make appearances too, each taking an interest in Uyuu in their own ways. And that is not all, for A is actually also a kind of prologue to Maya's debut work Tsubasa Aru Yami - Mercator Ayu no Saigo no Jiken ("Darkness with Wings - The Last Case of Mercator Ayu"). Oh, and let me warn you right now: A also contains spoilers for both of these books. Yes, you had perhaps expected spoilers for Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata, as A is a sequel to that book. For the most part, A functions as a prologue to Tsubasa Aru Yami, but one part is set after that book, and Maya decided to just spoil a major event happening in Tsubasa Aru Yami in A too, because...

I don't know why actually. I think A is simply not written for a general reading audience who want to pick a random mystery novel and enjoy it as is. A is clearly meant to be read as part of Maya's oeuvre, as part of the Uyuu/Mercator/Kisarazu series and I'd say that is also the only reason why I'd recommend this book to people, as on its own, standalone merits as a detective novel, A is really not one I'm very positive about. 

For those invested in seeing how Uyuu turned out after the events in Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata, sure, this is a pretty interesting book. The incident on Kazune Island ended in a catastrophic manner, offering an ending that not only seemed very suggestive towards future events, but also leaving a lot of questions unanswered. A does not contain the answers you'll be looking for, but it does, very subtly, build further on the suggestive implications of the ending. The book is very focused on Uyuu's mental struggles as he tries to move on with his life, but finds himself, without understanding why, committing arson and as the stories unfolds, he sees things around breaking down once again. Meanwhile, we see how both Kisarazu and Mercator show interest in Uyuu: Kisarazu is a member of a club for mystery fiction fans and they all have some discussions on not only the arson cases, but also about mystery fiction in general. Kisarazu also realizes Uyuu is indeed the survivor of the Kazune Island incident and hopes to learn more about it once Uyuu has recovered fully mentally. At the same time, Mercator is being his usual suggestive self, seemingly being of the opinion Uyuu is a rather sharp person and could be shaped in a detective himself and therefore (as always, somewhat forcefully) dragging Uyuu along while he's investigating another incident. For those interested in the Maya literary universe, seeing these characters all interact is quite interesting.

However, as a mystery, A doesn't fare as well. Some parts of the mystery, like the underlying reason why Uyuu is committing these arsons, are fairly relatable and I find perfectly fine, but the exact reasons why the murders were committed at the same temples Uyuu was setting on fire, and the mechanics behind it are far for satisfying: it is the kind of trick that is basically unfair, and while that can be kinda expected considering the things Maya pulled off in Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata, I still found that one more convincing that what's done in A. I do have to say Maya did attempt to hint at it properly, and it works better because of the focus on Uyuu, but still... There's also a whodunnit aspect to the book that is set-up better, with multiple hints and some well-executed misdirection, but it is a relatively minor part compared to the 'why is Uyuu committing arson and why are people being murdered at the same place' mystery. Some parts of the mystery might seem outdated though by today's standards, even if this is a book from 1995. 

I thought this book was long out of print by the way, and there's no digital version either, so when I saw a (rather large) bookshop had a new copy in stock, I was rather surprised. And then I was shocked it was actually a relatively new print run from 2019. Interesting how even in 2019, they did have a new paper run of the book, but still didn't release it digitally. I wonder if they lost the text data or something, because the printing quality is a bit weird (it looks faded), and it almost looks like they scanned the pages of the original pocket and printed that, suggesting the publisher doesn't have the actual text data anymore. Then again, if that was true, the faded ink would only hold for the original parts, but the updated parts (like the copyright/print run info page) also look faded...

If you liked both Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata and Tsubasa Aru Yami, I think A is a book worth reading, as it ties things together and considering what happened in Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata, I can imagine readers being curious as to how Uyuu coped with all of that, and in that sense, A does deliver, even if it's certainly not a really hopeful story. I however can't recommend this book seperate of that context: if you have not read the two books above, not only are you going to encounter some major spoilers, but A as "just" a mystery novel just feels unfair, and hardly satisfying. So it's really just a book for the Maya Yutaka fans. I am glad I read it because I did read the other two novels, but I wouldn't tell you to go out of your way or spend a lot of resources to track a copy of A.

Original Japanese title(s): 麻耶雄嵩『痾』

A History of Murder

Step by Step あせることなんてないのさ

「Step by Step」(Ziggy)

 

 Step by Step, no need to be impatient

"Step by Step" (Ziggy)

Personally, when it comes to titles of short story collections, I actually prefer those with an original title, rather than being named after a story featured in the collection.

Sashichi is an okappiki, a kind of private detective who is hired by a doushin, the official Edo-period police detective, to serve as the doushin's eyes and ears on the ground in the capital of Edo. The woman-loving Sashichi works in Kanda and is known all around as 'the doll Sashichi', as his handsome face resembles those of Kyoto dolls (kyouningyou). Married to an older woman, with whom he often bickers, Sashichi runs around town, solving mysterious crimes as they happen, usually assisted by his two footmen Tatsugorou and Mameroku. The crimes Sashichi encounters are set in the world of the lowest classes, from merchants, actors to simple restaurant owners, but that doesn't make his mysteries less appealing: from a serial killer who targets women who have lately become models for illustrations hagoita paddles, to a series of murders that appear to mimic a serialized story, there's more than enough to do for Sashichi in Yokomizo Seishi's short story collection Meigetsu Ichiya Kyougen - Ningyou Sashichi Torimono-chou Kessakusen ("Kyougen on A Full Moon's Night - The Doll Sashichi Torimono-chou Masterpiece Selection", 2023). 

While Yokomizo Seishi is now best known for his creation Kindaichi Kousuke, and the books starring him, Yokomizo had other long-running series before he created Kindaichi after World War II: one of them is Yuri Rintarou, but his greatest success, and the series people knew him best for, was the Sashichi series. This is a so-called torimono-chou series, a historical detective series starring a character in a role close to what a modern police detective is. Readers of Japanese fiction in translation might know Okamito Kidou's Hanshichi series, which was the pioneer in that genre. Mind you, when I say historical, I don't mean Yokomizo really minded historical accuracy very much. While the 17(!) stories found here are definitely set in the past, and often do interesting things because they're not taking place in the modern world, the language used is fairly modern, and these stories are really easy to read. 

The Sashichi stories are really short, meaning they were pretty easy to write, and Yokomizo wrote 180 of them between 1938 and 1968! For this volume, editor Suekane Yoshimi selected the 17 stories he deemed as the best ones mystery-wise, and he also penned a very informative afterword, where he goes over every single story and explains precisely why they were chosen for this book and the unique points of each of them. Usually, I discuss all stories in a short story collection in detail, but 17 are just too many, and while the selection itself is varied enough, the stories are usually very simple in set-up and besides a core plot, feature a lot of "series tropes" (Sashichi being a womanizer, him bickering with his wife etc), so it's pretty hard to say something substantial about them without basically telling the whole story.

But I think Suekuni's afterword does a fantastic job at pointing out the more interesting points of these stories. Most importantly, or at least, what I thought the most engaging, is the fact that you can recognize ideas in some of these stories that would later be developed further in some of the more famous Kindaichi Kousuke novels. Some of these tricks in the Sashichi series are a bit simple, and because of the very short length of the stories, often it feels like clues are introduced just moments before the denouement, but at the very least, they are plotted as proper mysteries and often feature just enough of unique historical elements, ranging from popular culture like kabuki to women's sumo wrestling, to keep the reader engaged. But it is really seeing how for example one of these stories utilized a trick that you'd later see developed in much more interesting form in the Kindaichi Kousuke novel Gokumontou. Mind you, I don't really mean you see "proto-versions" of the trick in these stories, like how Agatha Christie's The Second Gong became the longer Dead Man's Mirror, but it's more like you see Yokomizo tackling a trope from mystery fiction here, which you'd also would see in a Kindaichi novel later on in his career. You can thus see him grow as a mystery writer, trying ideas out here and returning to them a decade, or more, later. 

And Yokomizo does also come up with interesting situations with his historical settings. In a few cases for example, there's a killer who removes the arm or hand of a victim, but in a world where you don't have fingerprints or DNA testing, why would a killer remove such part? In a contemporary world murderers might do that to hide the identity of their victim, but why would someone do that in the Edo period? Some of the answers provides are memorable because they are based on historical facts, so that make these stories feel firmly set in this setting, while others feel like they could have been easily rewritten to have taken place in a contemporary setting. Among the 17 stories are for example the first Sashichi story Hakoita Musume ("The Girls on the Hakoita"), where three young women have been featured as models for the art on hakoita paddles die one after another, with their own paddle lying next to thier bodies. In Ikiteiru Jiraiya, a thief thought to have died returns, but this time, the "non-violent thief" has committed murders. Or did he? In the title story Kyougen on A Full Moon's Night, Sashichi visits a party, where he is asked by a mysterious woman to pass on a note to one of the other guests, but later this guest is found dead, and three different clues found on his body, point to three different suspects. Horimonoshi no Musume deals with someone trying to identify his granddaughter, whom he has not met but does know has a certain tattoo on her back, but then two women with that tattoo appear before him. As Suekuni also points however, sometimes the underlying trick/solution does feel familiar to some classical Western mystery fiction, with Yokomizo adapting similar concept to the Edo era.

Personally, I thought having 17 of these stories in one volume was a bit overkill, but overall, Meigetsu Ichiya Kyougen - Ningyou Sashichi Torimono-chou Kessakusen is a fun, and especially very readable short story collection, that gives you a good idea of the torimono-chou subgenre and whereas Okamoto Kidou's Hanshichi series felt rather Holmesian, I would say Yokomizo's plotting in this selection of stories, is definitely closer to the puzzle-type plotting like Christie. Personally I found this book especially interesting having read a lot of Kindaichi novels, because you could really tell how Yokomizo first experimented with some ideas he'd later revisit, but even without that knowledge, the stories here are entertaining, even if quite simple. On the other hand, if these are really the best of the best in terms of mystery plotting of Sashichi, I can't say I am very interested in reading the other 150+ stories.

Original Japanese title(s): 横溝正史『名月一夜狂言  人形佐七捕物帳ミステリ傑作選』:「羽子板娘」/「名月一夜狂言」/「戯作地獄」/「生きている自来也」/「出世競べ三人旅」/「鶴の千番 」/「春色眉かくし」/「彫物師の娘」/「春宵とんとんとん」/「狐の裁判」/「当り矢」/ 「風流女相撲」/ 「たぬき汁」/ 「遠眼鏡の殿様」/「呪いの畳針」/「ろくろ首の女」/「初春笑い薬」