Mine Your Own Business

"Moria. You fear to go into those mines. The dwarves delved too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm. Shadow and flame."

"The Fellowship of the Ring"

It's not actually set in the city of Fukuoka, but it is set in the Chikuhou region within the prefecture and plenty of characters use the local dialect, so I count it as my "I try to read at least one story set in Fukuoka once a year" story for this year!

When Motoroi Hayata first arrived at the prestigious Kenkoku University in Manchukuo, he believed in its ideals of ethnic harmony and a greater East-Asian power sphere, but his time there left him disillusioned, as he soon realizes there was no harmony here: Japanese students and teachers were treated as being superior, while the people from other locations like the Korean peninsula were treated as second-rate, only there to serve the Japanese. This hypocrisy of the Japanese empire's goals became painfully clear to Hayata. After the war, he found a steady job in Osaka, but one day, he just gives up and decides to just quit his job and take the train south (because the north is cold). He has no destination in mind, but decides to get off the train at Ketsune in the Chikuhou region in Fukuoka, as the view reminds him of his time in Manchukuo. He's barely out on the station, when he is approached by a man who wants to recruit Hayata as a miner. Hayata is almost forced inside a truck ready to go, but is saved by a man pretending to know Hayata. His savior introduces himself as Aizato Minoru, who explains that during the war, he had been a recruiter for a mining company himself in the Korean peninsula: while ostensibly, they only recruited volunteers, he has to admit they basically forced people to come with them to work in the mines in Fukuoka, as coal was a necessary resource for the war. The memory of the young Korean Jeong Nam-seon in particular remains a troublesome one for Aizato: the two men had a special bond, as both reminded the other of their own older brothers. Despite Aizato's attempt to get him off, Nam-seon too was forced to sign up to work for the mining company and he ended up at the worst possible mine, where Koreans were basically treated as slaves as they mined for coal, and Nam-seon would eventually find his demise during an air raid. After the war, Aizato stopped his job as a recruiter and became a coal miner himself at the Nenne Mines at Mount Yako, as a way to make amends for his past. Which is why he also tried to save Hayata from being recruited, but Hayata feels he wants to make up for his past too, and he asks Aizato to help him get employed at Nenne Mines too.

At the Nenne Mines, Hayata soon learns life as a miner s is still very harsh, even if it's better than during the war. While the miners aren't treated as full slaves now, the long shifts in the darkness are far from light work, especially as all mining companies try to maximize profits and of course, safety often ends up the first victim, meaning the risk of cave-ins and other crises always remain very present. Hayata ends up living together with Aizato in the singles dormitory, and soon learns Aizato is kind of a loner within the community, which Hayata suspects might have to do with Aizato's past as a recruiter. Hayata is a bit more social, and through his talks with his co-workers, he learns about the superstitions miners have. He hears ghost stories about mysterious women appearing in the deepest of the mine tunnels who offer to help lonely miners, but it seldom ends well for them. Foxes are worshipped as the deities of Mount Yako, with the white fox being worshipped as a symbol of prosper and great harvest (coal output), while the black fox is feared as a symbol of bad harvest, and it is said that people who die in the mine tunnels, are turned into a black fox themselves. One morning, as they are working the early shift, one man cries out: a cave-in! Veterans soon recognize the characteristic sound of the ceiling sinking in, and everyone tries to find their way out, when another disaster strikes: gas! The miners barely make it out in time, with some of them being carried out because they already inhaled too much gas. When the supervisors check their lists, they however learn one man didn't make it out: Aizato Minoru. It turns out his mining buddy of today didn't wait for Aizato as he fled their tunnel, a deed many consider absolutely unforgivable as even if you don't like your co-workers really, miners never leave each other behind. Which is why the miners also become infuriated when the mining company seems very reluctant to send their rescue unit down the mines to save Aizato, citing the risk on more cave-ins and the gas, and they will only attempt it after doing a daily canary test (sending canaries down the mines to see if they survive the gas). While the miners try to convince the company to send their rescue unit sooner, Hayata is approached by the girl who works in the canteen, as children saw something odd at this time: a man wearing a black fox mask entered the room of Kido, a former miner of Korean descent who works as a handyman around the mining village. The black fox is feared by everyone here, so Hayata agrees to have a look in Kido's room, as Kido's living in the room next to Aizato and his. When he enters Kido's room however, he finds Kido's body hanging from a shimewana, a sacred rope usually found at shrines. At first, it looks like suicide, but where did the man with the black fox mask go? The children have actually kept an eye on the front door ever since the figure entered the room, and the windows in the back can't actually be opened due to the bad building quality of the dormitory, so the figure couldn't have escaped unseen! When then more people in the dormitory end up dead in a similar way, hanging from shimewana in locked rooms, people start to fear it's Aizato's spirit, turned into a black fox and looking for more people to join him in the depths of the mines, but Hayata isn't quite convinced as he decides to investigate these murders in Mitsuda Shinzou's 2016 novel Kokumen no Kitsune ("The Black-Faced Kitsune").

As a big fan of Mitsuda's Toujou Genya series, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed when I read Ikan, his first novel: whereas I feel the Genya series hit a great balance between horror and a genuine well-plotted detective, Ikan was clearly more horror. Of course, I know Mitsuda also writes conventional horror, but I am not really interested in that. However, in my search for stories that in spirit are closer to the Genya series, I soon found about Kokumen no Kitsune. When Mitsuda first started doing his research for this novel, it was actually with the intention of writing a Genya novel set around a coal mine, but as Mitsuda read more and more about it, he felt the theme didn't really fitted the Genya series, and he decided to make it its own standalone novel. Still, this book is far closer to the Genya series than Ikan was, though it is also definitely not just a Genya novel with different characters, and it certainly works best as its own thing.

For one of the greatests feats of this novel is definitely the depiction of the harsh, gritty life of miners in Japan both during and after World War II. The story takes a long time for the set-up of the murders, and the mystery doesn't really get started until halfway the novel, but the lead-up time is used excellently to introduce the reader to the horrifying life as a miner. This is a horror novel, but a lot of the horror is actually based on reality: we hear about Aizato's past where he was a miner recruiter during the war, and the stories we hear about how they basically kidnapped people to work in the mines as de-facto slaves is just terrifying. This is also put in an international context, as we learn how as the war continued and resources became scarce, the Japanese empire eventually decided to "recruit" Koreans from their colonies to work in the coal mines of nearby Kyushu. Promises of high pay and just a one or two year contract after which they were free to go, were of course quickly broken, and while the Japanese miners were treated slightly more favorably, it was clear that miners were just a replacable resource to the companies running the mines, with safety never winning from coal output in terms of priorities. While things improved after the war, you still have ruthless recruiters who try to force lonely people in signing contracts, and even now, safety is not a priority for many of the mining companies, like at the Nenne Mines, which doesn't even have its own rescue unit, but has to wait for one to be sent from the main company in case anything happens (and of course, by the time such a unit arrives, hours if not days will have passed).

And we're just talking about the "outside" working circumstances here, but crawling into pitch-dark tunnels with just a light on your helmet and having to choose between wearing clothes to protect your body from the stones or wearing nothing because it's insanely hot inside the tunnels, carrying buckets full of coals to carts which need to moved out too and of course the danger of cave-ins and gas are all things that don't really make the life of a miner fun. In the first half of the book we hear also a lot about the superstitions of miners, like them at least trying to appease the fox spirits of Mount Yako, or stories about ghosts appearing in the depths of the tunnels when people work alone or about people who die and are left in the tunnels become spirits who roam the surface to take others along. Great stuff here, that really set a spooky atmosphere.

In the second half, after the cave-in and Aizato being left behind in the gas-filled mines, the mystery really starts with the apparent suicide of Kido in his room. Children saw a man wearing a black fox mask enter the room, but didn't see him leave through the front door, even though they were watching it until Hayata arrived at the scene. The back window was not locked, but the whole building was built rather shoddily, and like with parts of Aizato/Hayato's room, the window's simply completely stuck in the frame. At first, Kido's death is treated as a suicide, even if using a shimewana to hang yourself is a bit weird, but the following day, another neighbor of Hayata's found dead in his own room, and this time it's a real locked room, with the door and windows all locked and bolted.  The days after, even more people in the dorm die under the same circumstances, which soon fuel rumors of Aizato's spirit having escaped the mines to kill these people, but Hayata is of course quite convinced a real person killed these men somehow and tries to investigate these deaths, but the managers of the mining company seem very intent on handling these deaths as suicides, as a murder investigation would of course put a halt on mining activities for some time.

I do have to say that as a locked room mystery, Kokumen no Kitsune isn't as intricately plotted as the bangers we see in the Genya series. I think the first one, with the figure seen to enter Kido's room but not leave, is the best in the sense it fits the unique setting of a small miner's community the best by far. Subsequent locked rooms were less interesting I think: whereas in the Genya novels Mitsuda presents insanely densily plotted mysteries with all kinds of clues eventually coming together to point at the solution and often show synergy between the multiple impossible situations, that is not really the case here. The solutions to the individual locked rooms come rather suddenly, with Hayata just realizing how they were done even though he didn't really investigate the crime scenes and there wasn't really a particular reason why he couldn't have realized it earlier (there was no specific impulse that made the deduction only possible later). Synergy between the various locked rooms is also nearly nihil, meaning that solving one case doesn't necessarily lead to an epiphany regarding a different one, which is something I really liked about the Genya plots. That said, setting the individual locked rooms aside, I did really like Kokumen no Kitsune on the whole, as the way the plot is set in motion and how characters behave and by extent, make this murder mystery possible, is firmly set in the realistic post-war world of miners as portrayed by Mitsuda, and the way he also ties it to miner's superstitions is really good. There's not much delving into folklore and the meaning behind customs/traditions like in the Genya stories here, so you get a lot of spooky stories without an "explanation" to them, but that really helps sell the setting of the mines, a place not even the people who work in the deepest parts of the mountains, truly comprehend.

So overall, I did enjoy Kokumen no Kitsune a lot. As for the mystery plot, it doesn't reach the highest heights of the Genya series at all, but it still managed to scratch that itch of mine for well-plotted horror-mystery with an emphasis on local folklore/ghost stories, and in this book, we also get a very fascinating look in the lives of coal miners in post-war Japan, and that part is absolutely the highlight. The mining community and their circumstances are also put to good use for the mystery plot, providing a unique location that you simply won't find in other stories. 

Original Japanese title(s): 三津田信三『黒面の狐』

Fire, Burn!

"You call it hope—that fire of fire!"

"Tamerline"

When I read this... it was not a hot summer day, but a surprisingly cool one, and by the time this review is posted, it's probably a cold winter day...

Agni no Atsui Natsu ("Agni's Hot Summer") sounds like an adult video title, but it's actually the first novel starring the young photographer and amateur detective Minami Mikikaze, whom first made his debut as a character in a short story collection by Tsukatou Hajime. The story is told from the point of view of Seiji, a young man who is the second son of Kyoujirou, a famous fossil fuel scientist who is involved with several companies in the fuel and energy industry. Kyoujirou was married to Erika, mother of the brothers Kouji and Seiji, but she was murdered six years ago, and her murderer was never caught. They still hold a small service every year to commemorate Erika and after that, a small circle of family and friends gather at private resort that used to belong to Erika's grandmother: it's a huge park with a lot of green and even a hiking path, with several cottages and two communal buildings spread across the property. The whole resort is of course fenced off completely and the private park has been used by Kyoujirou as both a second home, as well as a more relaxed location to entertain guests and discuss business. While most of the people are already there on the day of the service, like of course Kouji and Seiji, but also their aunt (Erika's sister) and uncle, Kyoujirou himself had to bring some of his foreign guests back to the airport after the service, and he and his secretary stayed at the hotel that evening to return the day after. Upon his return to the resort, he has a business meeting with Kouji and one of his advisors, after which he goes jogging with Kouji and then they split up, with Kyoujirou retreating to his own room in the large main building. A perfectly normal, hot summer day.

Kouji and Seiji are relaxing on the terrace of Kouji's cottage, when they suddenly hear a loud crack, and when they look up and notice black smoke rising from the main building. They remember their father is still inside so run up to his room, as do the two other guests at the resort. The source of all the smoke is in Kyoujirou's private rooms, but they can't open the door, as a wild fire is raging inside. They quickly scan the other rooms in the main building, but can't find any trace of Kyoujirou, so it is feared he's indeed in his own room. When the firefighters have finally extinguished the fire, the room is completely lost: even the flooring has fallen through. And everyone's greatest fear is confirmed: Kyoujirou died in his room. But not the way they expected: Kyoujirou had been stabbed with a knife! It appears his murderer killed the man and then set fire to the room. The firefighters also find a memento of Erika, which had been placed at the small shrine in the other communal building just after Kyoujirou arrived at the resort that morning: Kyoujirou had been in the presence of other people since that moment, who can swear he didn't bring the memento to his room himself, meaning it must have been the murderer who placed it at the crime and arson scene for some reason. The fire was also surprisingly intense, being much hotter than a normal fire and even completely burning Kyoujirou's body, making his face completely unrecognisable, and it is suspected some kind of chemical was used to start the fire: in other case an unusual thing to do, but as the people here were all involved with Kyoujirou's fuel company... As there were only four people at the resort at the time of the arson, it seems clear one of them must be the murderer, but police investigation soon shows this seems impossible: witnesses not only the main entrance of the main building under observation basically the whole time after Kyoujirou entered, they also had eyes on each other most of the time, as they were all standing in front of their own cottages. Meanwhile, Seiji's aunt and uncle return to the resort to bring a surprising guest: Minami Mikikaze is a photographer who was supposed to make pictures of Kyoujirou for an upcoming event, but the young man seems rather interested in this murder case and soon asks some very clever questions...

It's interesting how Agni no Atsui Natsu is the first novel with Mikikaze, as it's actually really short. Most of the stories I read with Mikikaze, are relatively long: the phenomenal Misshitsu Kingdom (Kingdom of the Locked Room, 2007) is one of the longest locked room mysteries, but that is an outlier, of course. Still, in more recent years, Mikikaze has been starring in a sub-series with stories inspired by the first few Ellery Queen novels: some of the "short" stories (more like novellas) in these short story collections are much longer than Agni no Atsui Natsu, a standalone release, itself!

Because of its relatively limited length, Tsukatou has to move pretty quickly, and the first half of the book might feel very artificial: it's clear he's just setting up all the pieces of his mystery, moving characters around to get them into position and to give you all the necessary clues. As often in the Mikikaze series, his writing style is one the reader really needs some adjusting too: while the language Tsukatou uses is not complex at all, his narration style can make his stories somewhat hard to read, as he often likes to start a scene kind of in media res, with characters talking about information you had never heard about, and then it jumps back again to introduce said information, but it's not like the in media res beginning adds anything mystery-wise: there's no payoff, just a short moment of confusion. He might as well have presented all the information in chronological order from the beginning, as he always just explains everything properly a few pages later. He does this a few times every chapter, so it makes his stories far harder to reader than they should be. It's somewhat reassuring to know he did this from the beginning, and it wasn't something he developed recently... Anyway, the first half can be a bit boring as you'll hear about how character A wasn't watching the main building for two minutes, while character B saw character A for three minutes etc., but do pay attention, because Tsukatou manages to cram a lot of clues and foreshadowing in this segment, which do pay off in the second half.

Agni no Atsui Natsu is not formally an impossible crime, but it is practically one: there was only a very limited window of opportunity (two minutes) for the murderer to get in and out the main building where the victim was without being seen by any witnesses, in which they then would have needed to kill an adult man and somehow set fire to the room. While such impossible crimes usually focus more howdunnit, Tsukatou clearly enjoys the Ellery Queen-mode of culprit-focused deductions more, something we also saw in Misshitsu Kingdom and of course the Nationalities books, but I was surprised to see it being his preferred mode in this first Mikikaze novel too. Tsukatou does a great job exploring how each of the suspects could perhaps have committed the seemingly impossible crime, which involves the murderer retrieving Erika's memento, go in the main building unseen, commit the murder, set fire to the room and escape the main building again: it is here you might be surprised to learn how so much of the (slow) first half ends up being used as a clue upon which to build chains of reasoning, and of course, those densely laid-out clues are also used to disprove many of these otherwise convincing sounding theories. I honestly fell for some of the false theories, thinking I had an idea of what happened, only to be proven in a completely fair and logical way how that wouldn't work.

As more and more theories are crossed out, few possibilities remain of course, and ultimately we arrive at a solution that might not be super surprising, but I really liked the logical route to that revelation. To be honest, the actual howdunnit behind the murder on Kyoujirou seems a bit doubtful in terms of actual feasibility, but in the end, that's a relatively minor part of the novel, as the focus lies more on the logical process of determining who of the suspects could've committed the crime in that way, and considering this is actually a very short novel, I find the result quite impressive: I've read much longer novels that don't have even half the number of properly clewed, but false theories or feature so many "traps" for the reader. The way the current murder ties back to the murder on Erika six years ago also has some clever features: while it is mostly an "epilogue" thing and you aren't really expected to solve that murder based on the clues provided, there's a really cool element to it that honestly could've been explored more, and it would have made this novel a bit longer/give it more volume. As it is now, it's definitely a puzzler-type of story and little beyond that, but delving more into the past murder would've given us more context to why certain characters acted certain ways.

So Agni no Atsui Natsu is a very short, and very focused mystery novel that doesn't try to be anything more than an Ellery Queen-type of whodunnit puzzler, but considering the page length, it's quite impressive how much Tsukatou managed to stuff in the plot. Is it perfect? No, it definitely has holes and parts that could've been fleshed out more to make it a more convincing novel, but as someone who loves these kinds of deduction-chain-based mysteries, I'd say Agni no Atsui Natsu is worth a read, especially as an example to see how you can have a(n) (quasi) impossible crime, and not focus on the howdunnit. Tsukatou does this better in Misshitsu Kingdom of course, and that is a must-read I think, but that book is also six times longer...

Original Japanese title(s): 柄刀一『火の神（アグニ）の熱い夏』

A Model Murder

"No matter how abstract the painting, he always signs his name realistically."

"Columbo: Suitable for Framing"

As I do so often, I went into this book without any prior knowledge or even reading the blurb on the back. So I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed at first when I realized this was not a mystery where a breaking wheel was used as the murder weapon...

Yabe Naoki is a curator at a museum, who one day starts chatting with Imura, an office clerk at the same museum. Yabe learns Imura does not have a special interest in art, but he does like mystery fiction, and because the young man also seems to have an inquisitive mind, Yabe decides to confide to Imura the mystery he stumbled upon revolving around the painter Toujouji Kei. Yabe himself learned of the painter when one of his paintings was featured in a small exhibition, and the piece only attracted his attention because the portrait resembled his wife when she was younger. However, that was enough to get Yabe interested in the painter who committed suicide some years ago, and hoping to find more of his work, he decides to contact his widow, who however seems not at all interested in her deceased husband. Toujouji Kei had only been active as a painter for a very short period of time, though he was very active, but he was a relatively minor artist. His widow in fact threw out most of his old paintings because they take up too much space. Yabe decides to contact a few other relatives and friends of Toujouji Kei, who have bought his paintings in the past, hoping to learn more about the artist, and the circumstances behind his suicide. The paintings Kei left behind are full of suggestive imagery, like a girl being licked by a monk-like figure and a woman being tortured on a breaking wheel. Yabe uses his knowledge of iconography to try and explain what must have been going on in Kei's mind when he made these paintings, but Yabe eventually also finds a diary of Kei, where he writes about the night he was invited to a party to celebrate his adoptive father's birthday: in the middle of the night, his father was found murdered in the bathroom, which was locked from the inside, and moments later, a scream follows and they find another guest dead in her (locked) room: she was an art student both Kei and his father knew, and who had recently won an artist award and therefore been invited to the party. Yabe passes his files on the matter to Imura to see if he can figure out the link between Toujouji Kei's paintings and the double locked room murder in Asukabe Katsunori's debut work Junkyou Catherine Sharin ("The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine's Wheel") or as the inner work of the book also says: The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine.

Asukabe Katsunori won the 9th Ayukawa Tetsuya Award in 1998 with this manuscript, which landed him the publishing contract for the book and marked his debut as a professional writer. Last year, I reviewed his Datenshi Goumonkei ("Torture of the Fallen Angels" 2008), a book which had been out of print forever, but late 2023, it received a limited facsimile reprint via Shosen and the bookstore Horindo in cooperation with the original publisher Kadokawa. They reprinted more of Asukabe's work, and my copy of The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine is another of them, created by Horindo, Shosen and original publisher Tokyo Sogensha. It's interesting how these books are really facsimiles of the original books complete with the advertisements for other releases of the original publisher at the end of the book, even though these fascimile reprints are not sold or distributed via the original publisher, but only available through Shosen and the Horindo stores. Anyway, as someone who is interested in the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award winners, as they tend to fit my own preferences in mystery fiction the most, I was glad I was able to secure a copy of this book easily now!

The book can roughly be divided in two halves, the first half focusing on Yabe's inquiries into Toujouji Kei's history and his quest for Kei's paintings, and the second half being the diary of Toujouji Kei himself, writing about the events leading up to, and on the night his adoptive father and the student died under mysterious circumstances. The first half is quite unique due to its focus on Kei's paintings. For Asukabe Katsunori actually painted the paintings discussed in the book. The book opens with four paintings printed in high quality glossy paper, and they really do look good. It's insane imagining Asukabe painting these paintings for a manuscript he couldn't have known for sure would indeed win the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, especially as the two main paintings are full of suggestive imagery, so it would be weird to just hang them in your house and have visitors wondering about the theme of the paintings. But because Asukabe designed these paintings himself, he can do something you seldom see in mystery fiction. Yabe, as a curator, analyzes these paintings based on iconography, and they allow for some interesting insights into the motives and thoughts of the artist. While of course, "explaining what the artist really meant" is up to interpretation in real-life, because these paintings were made for a mystery novel, Asukabe is able to present rather convincing and entertaining analyses of the subject matter of the paintings, while at the same time being "open" enough to actual sound like plausible artistic interpretations, rather than super-detailed Sherlock Holmes-style deductions. Yabe's analyses in Kei's motivations serve as the perfect background as we move to the second half of the book, where we follow Kei and you slowly start to see how the vague interpretations of Yabe are giving absolute form, as we learn more details of his life.

The second part is based on the diary of Kei Yabe finds, and tells the story of how Kei first got into painting, and how he slowly became better, and more obsessed with the art. His adoptive father was an well-known art critic too, who would also serve as a judge at contests, though the two were never really close and they seldom spoke after Kei's biological mother passed away, though there was no animosity between him and his adoptive father and later his stepmother. The account then builds to the fateful night, when Kei's father celebrates his birthday and several relatives and guests stay for the night: the house actually consists of two buildings connected through a passageway, so there are quite some rooms. In the middle of the night however, Kei's father is found stabbed to death in the bathroom, which was locked from the inside. Everyone in the house comes to see what has happened, but minutes later, a cry follows from the room above the bathroom, and they find the female student stabbed in the neck, with the knife that is later determined to have also killed Kei's father. But how did the murderer kill someone in the locked bathroom, escape it, and kill another person on a different floor without being seen by everyone gathered in the bathroom? On a technical level, the double locked room murder mystery has a better set-up than actual solution, which is relatively simple and relies on quite some coincidence. There is fortunately a bit more meat to the mystery in other parts, and while I do think the clewing is a bit too obvious, I did appreciate Asukabe's efforts in fleshing the mystery out, especially as the mystery part of the book is relatively short (it's really just the second half of the book, as the first part about the paintings can be seen seperate).

However, what I do think the book does really well is finally linking the narrative about Kei's paintings and the iconographical analyses of Yabe, to the murder mystery narrative. Parts of the analyses that were ambiguous at first, turn out to have been clear psychological clues/foreshadowing that explain some of the happenings in the past and parts in Kei's account of the affair take on another light if you realize how he must have felt when painting the discussed works, as interpreted by Yabe earlier. It is surprising how much of the murder mystery can be found reflected in Kei's paintings, and you can clearly see how much of an impression it made on him, but this is only apparent in hindsight, and it creates a very cool effect. It's something you don't really see in mystery fiction often, where the themes are actually visualized. There is of course art-related mystery or thriller fiction. The Da Vinci Code for example does go into the analyses of visual art, but that is not at all comparable to what The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine does, as the latter cleverly hides foreshadowing, clues and themes in the paintings, which are only given form and meaning in the second part, and the two parts do strengthen each other.

So while I don't think one should read Junkyou Catherine Sharin on its mechanical strengths as a locked room mystery, I would definitely recommend it as a highly original and unique mystery story, which uses originally created paintings to tell a type of mystery story you will likely not come across anywhere else, using visual imagery and themes to tell an otherwise prose-foused tale of detection. For that alone, this book is one I will remember for quite some time!

Original Japanese title(s): 飛鳥部勝則『殉教カテリナ車輪』

Turnabout Memories - Part 14

"I have to go over everything that's happened. I have to remember" 

Another Code R: Journey into Lost Memories

 

 

I always post a 'let's look back at the most interesting mystery fiction of this year' post around Christmas, but it turns out this year, Christmas falls on my usual update day of Wednesday, so... this week, the 'list' post will take the place of my usual review post! Anyway, while I have been updating each week as usual and have read some really cool books this year, it's also been a rather hectic year for me privately, so I have to admit I have been mostly been doing the bare minimum for the blog, which meant basically no editorial posts this year, and also barely any games discussed. I had been visiting Japan for a longer period earlier this year too, which resulted in some really cool experiences like going to the Detective Conan 30th Anniversary exhibition and also visiting some of the publishers behind the books I worked on and their editors (and also meeting some great people, some of those meetings being really surprising personally because I didn't *they* were working there...), but those were also not really things to be writing about extensively here because it was partially private, partially work... But as always, I always have a huge stock of reviews waiting to be published, so even a few months of barely reading/writing is hardly noticable on the blog itself. But no fears, I will continue writing about Japanese mysteries, both new and old, here *at least* once a week, so if you're interested in detective fiction from the land of the rising sun, I hope you'll be here next year too. Have a nice Christmas and a great new year!

The Best Project Outside The Blog! In 2024!

The Labyrinth House Murders

 

Better known as the self-promotion category! And because Ayatsuji's The Labyrinth House Murders is the only book I worked on that was released this year, it shouldn't surprise anyone this was my pick for this year. After the reprint of The Decagon House Murders by Pushkin Press, I was approached to work on The Mill House Murders, and fortunately, that also led to me working on the third book in Ayatsuji's seminal series. This third entry has always been a personal favorite, due to my own interests in Greek mythology, due to the crazy labyrinth-layout of the house and the incredibly tricky set-up of the story. Translation-wise, it also presented some challenges, which I addressed in this post here, so please read it after reading the book. There's already a listing for The Clock House Murders available and it's mentioned in The Labyrinth House Murders, so it's no secret anymore The Clock House Murders is now planned for a release next year, and that I am working on it too, and that is perhaps the best book in the whole series when it comes to the pure mystery, so look forward to it!

 

In less joyous news however, you may have heard John Pugmire of Locked Room International passed away. As Locked Room International was mostly run by him alone, it seems unlikely you'll see new translations by me published via Locked Room International. I got my first opportunity to work as a translator thanks to John and Locked Room International, so I will always be grateful to him. There was actually a book we were working on before he passed away, so I can only hope it will be released one way or another in the future.

Most Interesting Mystery Game Played in 2024 Category

No Winner 

 

Attentive people might have noticed it already, but I discussed awfully few games this year on the blog.  That's partially because I have played fewer games in general this year, but it's mostly due to me not actually finishing the games I have started this year. The recent re-releases of the original Hayarigami trilogy and Kamaitachi no Yoru X3 are cool, but I'm nowhere close to finishing them, and the few games I have discussed this year on the blog, even if not bad per se, are nowhere near the level I'd actually call them the 'best' in anyway. I'll try to be better next year and play more games like a good child!

 

Best Set-Up! Seen in 2024!

Deisui Hadagi Kirisaki Jiken ("The Case of the Torn Hangover Underwear")

 

Besides some conventional story set-ups for a mystery story, I have come across quite a few more original/surprising ones this year. The concept of murders occuring on a warship sounds like one you'd see more often, but I had not encountered one until Okamoto Yoshiki's debut novel Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin ("Murders on The Sailing Warship" 2023). A murder occuring inside a Gundam cockpit (Mobile Suit Gundam WEARWOLF) and murders happening inside a game dungeon (Sword Art Online Alternative: Mystery Labyrinth - Meikyuukan no Satsujin) were also concepts that drew me in immediately. But perhaps the one that surprised me the most genuinely, would be the mystery presented in Imamura Masahiro's short story Deisui Hadagi Kirisaki Jiken ("The Case of the Torn Hangover Underwear"), found in the prequel short story collection to Shijinsou no Satsujin (AKA Death Among the Undead). The mystery here revolves around... the detective waking up with a hangover, and realizing he's not wearing his underwear anymore. But he can't remember why. It's such a silly set-up, but it is used for a proper mystery, and it all... just works. For some reason. That is why I love the mystery genre, it can be about murders, but it can also be about underwear.

 

Best Title of 2024!

Combustible Substances

 

Sometimes, a title alone can draw you to a book. Some of the books I read this year had pretty cool titles. I love "Oedipus Syndrome" (Oedipus Shoukougun) for example because it sounds like something ominous. "Torture of the Fallen Angels" (Datenshi Goumonkei) sounds absolutely metal and Ten Commandments (Jikkai) is very simple, but it can really invoke so many images and ideas for a mystery plot. It's basically the reason why I ended up picking Combustible Substances as the winner for this year. It is a very basic and simple phrase, but it just... tickles the mystery-oriented mind, allowing you to imagine all kinds of scenarios. 

Best Cover

Tokushinkan Satsujin Jiken ("The Murder Case in the Blasphemy Mansion" 2023)?

 

This wasn't even a contest: I just wanted to make sure this cover appeared on this blog a second time! I mean, come on, just think of all the books you read this year. Does even one of those books have a cover that comes close to how amazing this cover is? It fits the title perfectly too, because of course you'll have a Baphomet idol in a place that's called the Blasphemy Mansion and the coloring really sells the atmosphere they are going for. I have to admit: my interest in this book was derived 99% from this cover alone: I only check a fraction of the books Seikaisha releases, and some of them are not the type of mystery I usually read, and if I had only gone by the summary of the book, it was likely I would have skipped it because of the cosmic horror implications, but I am glad the cover convinced me to buy it anyway!

 

Best Post I Accidentally Deleted And Had To Rewrite Completely! In 2024!

No Winner

 

Fortunately, last year was an exception...

 

Best Post I Had To Write With One Hand Because Of A Broken Elbow! In 2024!

Detective Conan volume 106

 

Hopefully, this year is an exception...

 

Best Adaptation Seen in 2024!

Jukkakan no Satsujin (The Decagon House Murders)

 

I haven't written a post about the Hulu adaptation of The Decagon House Murders yet, but I did actually watch all five episodes the very day they started streaming it on Japanese Hulu, and it was excellent. The book was long thought to be nearly impossible to adapt in a visual format, and while a few years back, a manga adaptation was released, that is still a very different thing from a live-action drama adaptation. The director, who in the past had worked with author Ayatsuji (and Arisugawa) on the show Anraku Isu Tantei, however pulled off the impossible and made a genuinely amazing adaptation of the book and I'd want to recommend everyone to watch it. Ellery is deliciously obnoxious in this adaptation, while I honestly can't imagine anyone else anymore as Shimada than the actor Aoki Munetaka. I believe the show is for now exclusive to Japanese Hulu, so I hope they'll release it internationally too...

What's also fun to mention is that the day after the show started streaming... I met with Ayatsuji himself. I had travelled to Japan and Ayatsuji was kind enough to meet with me, and it turned out the one day he'd be available, would be the day after the show started. Which was one reason why I binged the show, though I have to repeat the show was really well done, so I was hooked either way. But because of that, I had the luxury of actually discussing my thoughts on the show with Ayatsuji himself the day after...

 

Two days ago, they announced a follow-up adaptation for next year, though they haven't said what book yet. I have my suspicions though...

The Just-Ten-In-No-Particular-Order-No-Comments List

- Shoujo ni wa Mukanai Kanzen Hanzai ("An Unsuitable Perfect Crime for a Girl") (Houjou Kie) 

- Lindongzhiguan ("Coffins in the Cold Winter") (Sun Qinwen)

- Suiri no Jikan Desu ("It's Inference Time") (Norizuki Rintarou, Houjou Kie, Abiko Takemaru, Tanaka Hirofumi, Kitayama Takekuni and Ibuki Amon)

- Kitarou Tanjou GeGeGe no Nazo ("The Birth of Kitarou ~ The Mystery of GeGeGe") (film based on work of Mizuki Shigeru)

- Jirai Glico ("Glico with Landmines") (Aosaki Yuugo)

- Kiguu ("Coincidentialea") (Yamaguchi Masaya)

- Salome no Guillotine ("Salome's Guillotine") (Yuuki Haruo)

- Ina no Gotoki Nieru Mono ("Those Who Are Sacrified like the Shunned") (Mitsuda Shinzou) 

- Il noma della rosa ("The Name of the Rose") (Umberto Eco)

- Karasu ("The Crows") (Maya Yutaka)

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』