The Vampire Strikes Back

"I want blood."

"Like, you wouldn't like mine. It's yellow."

"The Scooby-Doo Show" 

A few weeks ago, I reviewed another book by Ichikawa (a self-published one) and mood-wise, these two books couldn't be further apart...

Twenty years ago, Derek Reilly made the news as the Vampdog, the serial killer who was behind a series of murders nobody had even suspected to have a connection. Derek had developed a lust for blood when he was a teenager, and by that, I don't mean he wanted to shed people's blood; Derek literally wanted to have a taste of people's blood. The first victim whose blood he drank was his first girlfriend, when he was still a teenager. He used a tool to disfigure the original wound on the victim's throat to hide what he had done, and with that, he managed to fool the police. After he and his family moved away to another town, more people would occasionally be murdered in similar ways, but it wasn't until his adulthood he was finally caught and the police made the connection to the other murders in Derek's past. His lust for blood was also found out, which led to the nickname Vampdog. The man was of course sent to prison, where he his peculiar preference was also treated and analyzed. Twenty years have passed since...

It's early Febrary, 1984, when Theodrick and his old gang of old friends Elmer, Inigo, Susanna, Kim succesfully pull off a money transport robbery in the state of MD. As per Theodrick's plan, they ditch their getaway van in the state of A and then lie low in a house in Phoenix just for a day or two, before fleeing the country with the loot. They have just enough supplies for the short time they intend to stay here, though they don't expect the police to find their trail that fast. Which is exactly why they are so surpised that after their arrival in their hideaway, they notice how there's a lot of police moving about in Phoenix, with the police checking out houses and cars. Maria and Ren, the two star detectives of the Flagstaff Police Station (if Maria actually starts working) are also ordered to report at the Phoenix Police Station, a command they don't understand as surely the Phoenix Police Station has enough staff to do traffic checks to find a gang of robbers? However, it is only upon arrival in Phoenix, where they meet a few familiar faces, they are informed that the Phoenix police is not mainly on the look for the money robbers. It turns out Derek "The Vampdog" Reilly has escaped the facility where he was being held. Because someone was murdered in Phoenix in the exact same manner as the Vampdog committed his murders several decades ago, the police suspect he is hiding here, a suspicion that is also founded on the fact he used to live in this area. The police doesn't want the general public know the legendary Vampdog is on the run, so they are using the search for the robbers as an excuse to conduct a thorough investigation of the city. And if only Theodrick and his friends knew this... for during their stay in their hideway, the friends are being killed one by one, each having their throat sliced upon like the Vampdog did. Did the gang happen to hide in a house where the Vampdog was hiding too, or is something else going on in Ichikawa Yuuto's 2023 novel Vampdog wa Sakebanai, which also carries the English title The Vampdog Never Crys (sic)?

Okay, so there's usually nothing wrong at all with the English titles of the books published by Tokyo Sogensha, so I'm going to assume that The Vampdog Never Crys is spelled like that on purpose...

The Vampdog Never Crys is the fourth novel in Ichikawa Yuuto's Maria & Ren series, which started with his debut novel The Jellyfish Never Freezes, one of the best mysteries I experienced in the year I read it. I've been a fan of the series since, though I have to admit I completetely forgot to write a review of the fourth book in the series; while The Vampdog Never Crys is the fourth novel following The Jellyfish Never Freezes, The Blue Rose Never Sleeps and The Glass Bird Will Never Return, the third novel The Glass Bird Will Never Return was followed by the short story collection The Boneyard Never Speaks, which featured short stories focusing on the main characters' pasts. A few characters and names mentioned in the stories in The Boneyard Never Speaks are also featured in The Vampdog Never Crys, though I wouldn't say you're missing something absolutely essential story-wise if you skipped the short story collection, though it does feature a few cool stories (I should probably do a review anyway, even though it's been nearly two years since I read it).

As the fourth novel in the series, the reader can of course guess the general set-up of the story pretty easily. The story is of course set in the country of U (a thinly veiled United States of America), in the state of A(rizona), where the red-headed and hot-blooded Maria works as a police detective in the Flagstaff Police Station, assisted by her subordinate and handler Ren, a very capable Japanese detective who however misses the brilliant sparks his superior sometimes has. Author Ichikawa's debut novel The Jellyfish Never Freezes was strongly inspired by Ayatsuji Yukito's Jukkakan no Satsujin/The Decagon House Murders (disclosure: I translated the book!), and follows the same dual-narrative structure, with one narrative being set within a closed-circle situation and the other narrative outside the closed-circle, a plot device Ichikawa has continued to use in this series since. In this book, we also have intermezzos that detail Derek Reilly's descent into madness, starting with his first taste of blood when he was young and the build-up to his girlfriend's murder. 

In The Vampdog Never Crys, this results in one narrative that follows Maria and Ren as they get involved in the investigation into the missing Vampdog and the murders commited by the Vampdog in Phoenix, and another narrative that follows Elmer, one of the money transport robbers, as he details how he and the rest of the gang are staying in their hideout, when they start getting killed one by one: the closed-circle situation in this book is interestingly not a hard closed-circle situation, but a self-imposed one: each of the gang members could opt to leave the house and flee, but they are wanted robbers who killed people during their act of crime, so they choose to stay in the house to evade the police. Many years ago, I wrote a short piece on the closed-circle situation in mystery fiction, and this type of closed circle would fit firmly in the Other category: there is no actual physical reason why the robbers don't leave the house, not some force of nature that is keeping them there nor some bridge that's fallen down the river: it is their own choice to stay low. I do have to say that this closed-circle narrative has not been as captivating as the ones in the previous novels: while there is some suspense going on as the robbers feel how the police are closing on them while they're getting killed one by one, it misses the building suspense of Jellyfish, or the sheer mad mystery presented in The Glass Bird. Here we just have a group of robbers who get offed one by one.

The other narrative follows Maria and Ren, who are asked to investigate a series of murders occuring in the city of Phoenix. The victims all show clear signs of being killed by someone using the exact same MO as the Vampdog: the fact the Vampdog has escaped prison is being kept a secret, meaning it's not likely a copycat killer is active. This narrative has Maria and Ren running late for everything, as the number of Vampdog victims go up really fast and each time they have visited one crime scene, it appears the police discovers a new one. Maria and Ren also learn a lot about Derek via the doctor who examined him during his captivity.

It is when the two narratives collide, the mystery really unfolds. How could the Vampdog have been killing the gang of robbers in the house, while also committing a whole series of murders in Phoenix? What is the reason for all these murders and how did the Vampdog manage to escape his prison in the first place? Due to a very small pool of suspects, a lot of readers will probably find it easy to at least strongly suspect who the true mastermind behind everything is, but on the whole, this is another very competently-constructed mystery by Ichikawa, who manages to connect the two narratives in a way that not only creates a mystery (as mentioned above), but also provides the solution, as the events of the two narratives help solve each other, with hints being hidden in both sides. 

This books in this series  are set in a kind of alternate universe in the late 70s/early 80s, with the "Jellyfish" (a zeppelin-like airship) featured in the first books one of the biggest change in history. All of the other novels also focuses on a different scientific (sci-fi) theme: the vacuum airsac of the Jellyfish was a major theme of the first novel, the second was all about the illusive blue rose and the third novel featured glass panes which can be turned transparent and opaque again in an instant. These examples were kinda sci-fi, the inventions are kept practical and realistic enough to not feel fantastical at all. The Vampdog Never Crys however seems to do the wildest things in this series sci-fi-wise. While the previous books revealed their sci-fi elements relatively early in the story, this time the sci-fi element is kept a secret until relatively late in the book. I can't say too much about it, as it is a fairly spoiler, but while I have to admit it feel a bit more fantastical than the previous books which surprised me a lot, in the end, you can feel Ichikawa tries to keep it all fairly-clewed. While the workings of the sci-fi element in this book is not as intuitive as "a zeppeling-like airship", especially in terms of its rules, in the end, I think the reader is given enough time to process how the sci-fi element works, allowing them to solve the mystery themselves. And I do really like how this sci-fi element is incorporated in the mystery: it creates a great connection between the two narratives and results in a devilishly clever puzzle.

I think that The Vampdog Never Crys is also the most readable of the books until now: it captures the reader right away with a creepy recount of Derek's younger days as he slowly becomes the blood-craving Vampdog, and both the police investigation and the narrative following the robbers basically keep on throwing surprises at you. While this book does becomes slightly more fantasy-esque compared to the previous books, the Maria & Ren series remains a great mystery series for lovers of well-constructed and challenging puzzles with satisfying conclusions when it all comes together. Ichikawa remains working in a very strictly-defined format in this series, and while there are some entries I prefer over others, the overall quality of the series remains really high so I will always look forward to a new entry!

Original Japanese title(s):  市川憂人『ヴァンプドッグは叫ばない』

The Fixer-Upper

"I looked upon the scene before me — upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain — upon the bleak walls — upon the vacant eye-like windows — upon a few rank sedges — and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees — with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium — the bitter lapse into every-day life — the hideous dropping off of the veil. "

"The Fall of the House of Usher" 

I don't read them as often anymore, but there was a time, you'd very regularly see a Kindaichi Kousuke review on my blog ( Note: I wrote this review before I watched the recent Yatsu Haka Mura film...) There are still some novels I haven't read yet, but I have read most of the famous books already, so it's only natural the books started to become less prominently featured here on the blog, but I'll always have a weak spot for Yokomizo Seishi's literary creation, and I am not alone: even though there obviously aren't new Kindaichi books being written anymore (though there are occasional pastiches, like by Ashibe Taku), it's like every few years, you will have a book on Kindaichi Kousuke published. And today's book is one of those.

Kindaichi Kousuke no Madori ("The Floor Plans of Kindaichi Kousuke", 2026), as you can guess based on its title, is a book that is all about the floor plans of buildings featured in the stories with the famous detective. The book is written by Mokugyoan, a Kindaichi Kousuke scholar who has written several books on the literary detective, and features many, many illustrations by Honma Itaru, who is an architect. In fact the book actually collects a series of columns originally published between 2024 and 2025 in the architectural magazine Kenchiku Chishiku ("Architectural Knowledge"), though the text and perhaps also the illustrations have been brushed-up for the book release.

Each chapter is focused on a different book from the long career of Kindaichi Kousuke. The text introduces the building in question, like the Inugami manor of Inugamike no Ichizoku, the Ichiyanagi manor and the annex from Honjin Satsujin Jiken or the Tajimi residence of Yatsu Haka Mura. The book introduces each building in an easy-to-understand manner, using the source text to first give the reader  a basic idea of what kind of building we're talking about, but also using historical and regional context to give the reader more details about how the building should look like. Honma's illustrations do a lot to really bring these observations to life. It's not just one illustration per chapter either; the same house might have several diagrams, from an overhead floor plan to cross-section plans. Certain stories will feature buildings with secret hallways or other objects of interest, which are often also accompanied by detailed illustrations by Honma. The material culture found in Yokomizo's books is thus examined in a very accessible manner. 

The duo also go beyond just floor plans, despite the title of the book. They often firmly place the building in question in its local setting, which for example means that in the Yatsu Haka Mura chapter, we not only get detailed floor plans of the very spacious Tajimi manor, we also get maps for the titular Village of Eight Graves and its surrounding mountains, as well as plans for a certain location that is revealed midway. A novella like Kuronekotei Jiken features plans for the titular Black Cat Cafe and diagrams of rooms, but also plans for the city block the cafe is located in, and analyses on how the town would have developed in that region in that period in history. Writer Mokugyoan does a great job at not only being a Kindaichi Kousuke scholar, using the texts to link the various books (chapters) featured in this volume in terms of where and when the adventures took place, but also in terms of real history/geography, and all of this information is made even more accessible via Honma's great illustrations.

As you can guess though, a lot of the chapters will contain spoilers for the books in question: some might be "fairly" mild, so it might mention that some persons will die at a certain location, some might include more significant spoilers, like showing where a hidden passage is even though it isn't revealed in the book unti late. So it is a read-at-your-own-risk book, though it's not going out of its way to spoil the identity of the murderer each time, so for most of the chapters, I don't think it's really that dangerous to read them before reading the actual book (unless you were like planning of reading the book-in-question like the following day). They might spoil a few plot points, but nothing that would spoil the whole experience, and in fact, the analyses by Mokugyoan add a whole dimension on their own.

Perhaps we need more detective-themed coffee table books. Kindaichi Kousuke no Madori is definitely one; you're not going to read the whole book in one go, but place it somewhere where you can easily grab it, and once in a while, when you have some spare time, you just peruse the book and read another chapter. Each chapter offers some interesting, from the way Mokugyoan analyses the featured book and the historical and architectural context to the captivating illustrations by Honma that bring the Kindaichi books alive. I don't review critical works that often anymore, but this is definitely recommended material for Kindaichi Kousuke fans!

Original Japanese title(s): 木魚庵（文）、本間至（絵）『金田一耕助の間取り』 

The Baited Trap

"That's the second biggest monkey head I've ever seen!"
"The Secret of Monkey Island"

With many readers nowadays moving to consuming their books in a digital format, we have also seen writers and publishers moving to ideas and formats that make use of the physical format, to provide an experience that is enhanced by the paper format, and that also holds for the mystery genre. There are of course the Escape Room-esque books that include puzzles (some even that require you to fold or cut certain pages), books that make use of the way a physical book can have fixed layouts and fonts (as opposed to e-books that allow you change font and font size) and as a recent minor trend in Japanese publishing, making use of unusual book sizes. In Japan, there are of course the familiar book sizes like tankobon, bunko and shinsho, which are certain standard book sizes that most publishers adhere too. But as of late, we have also seen books that use unusual formats, like Chinen Mikito's Swipe Genkin ("Forbidden to Swipe"), which presents itself as a smartphone (you read through the story via "screenshots" of the home screen, chat, photo and other apps) and the book itself has a size that is very similar to a modern smartphone.

Shirai Tomoyuki's Hon wo Yomu no ga Chouhayai Hito no Atamatte Dou Nattenno Satsujin Jiken ("The What-Goes-On-In-The-Minds-of-People-Who-Read-Super-Fast Murder Case", 2026) is even smaller though, as the book is a mere A7-size! In fact, Shirai and their editor were present at the Honkaku Mystery Award ceremony this year, and they were handing out small pocket tissue packs out as promotional material for this book, as the book is the same size as a small pack of tissues! Anyway, the book is both small and very short, so while it's a standalone release, it's basically the length of a short story, so there's not too much I can write about the story without giving too much away.

The book starts with the murderer announcing their intent on killing someone, after which we jump to the POV of a young boy, who is, surprisingly, recruited by a secret organization to defend Earth by keeping an eye on an alien who is living disguised as a human on Earth. The boy has to keep an eye on Big Burp, who lives and works in an office visible from the boy's room. Big Burp however really just resembles a real human, running a business built on the reputation of Big Burp's uncle, who was world-famous fast reader of books. The boy witnesses Big Burp being killed by a person.... and when the police arrive at the place, it turns out Big Burp was just a human and not an alien in disguise, and that he was really just murdered by someone. But by whom?

As mentioned, this book is basically a short story, so soon after the murder has happened, we are introduced to a very small cast of suspects who could've wanted to murder the victim, as they were all not happy with the way the man was running the family business. Shirai crafts a capable whodunnit mystery, but of course, this is a very short story, so nothing really mind-blowing goes on here... BUT, then we come to the matter of why this book was printed in an A7-format, which is really small, even for Japanese book formats (which are generally smaller than books published in the West).

What Shirai does here, is a fun idea on its own: indeed, the book being the way it is, does function as a clue to solving Hon wo Yomu no ga Chouhayai Hito no Atamatte Dou Nattenno Satsujin Jiken. What is more interesting is perhaps how it is not a direct clue per se: it is not like examining Hon wo Yomu no ga Chouhayai Hito no Atamatte Dou Nattenno Satsujin Jiken will provide you with the answer to the mystery of whodunnit, nor is it a "puzzle" to be solved like Real Escape Room-books. No, the book format of Hon wo Yomu no ga Chouhayai Hito no Atamatte Dou Nattenno Satsujin Jiken is just something that will point you to the correct direction, and it works quite elegantly.

That said, considering this is a short story, and the book is fairly small, I can't help but admit the book is relatively expensive. Of course, printing a non-standard-size book will probably be more difficult than a standard book, but still, it's relatively pricey for something that provides an interesting idea in terms of clewing in a short story, but little beyond that.

Also, perhaps now I should also admit I bought this and read this digitally... Would the physical version have given the clue an extra dimension? Sure. But to be very honest, just knowing what the book looks like in real-life (I've seen it in the store) is technically enough for the clue to work...

SoHon wo Yomu no ga Chouhayai Hito no Atamatte Dou Nattenno Satsujin Jiken is an interesting experiment that uses the physical paper format to faciliate the mystery plotting, but I can't say it's much more than an interesting experiment. It's a fun idea and it's great to see authors play with the book format, but it would have been more interesting if we had seen a longer book (short story collection?) that would've used the smaller book format in different ways in each mystery. As it is now, it's a single idea that kinda works, but is it truly more than just a gimmick? Hard to say.

Original Japanese title(s): 白井智之『本を読むのが超速い人の頭の中ってどうなってんの殺人事件』 

Pawn of Shadows

「祟りじゃ！」

『八つ墓村』

 

 "It's the curse!"

"The Village of the Eight Graves" 

Funny how the Chiikawa film ended up a better mystery film than this one...

Tatsuya, a young man struggling to find work in Tokyo, is informed by the police his mother died in what appears to have been a suicide. Tatsuya had been given up for adoption by his birth mother when he was young, and he never forgave her, but he reluctantly agrees to travel to Okayama Prefecture to identify his mother's remains. On a whim, he decides to travel the village where she died: the Village of Eight Graves. On his way there, he's "found" by private detective Kindachi Kousuke, who was hired to locate Tatsuya by the Tajimi family, the wealthiest family of the small, isolated mountain community. It turns out Tatsuya is the illegitimate son of Tajimi Youzou, the former family head, who disappeared twenty years ago.... after he went on a mad killing spree killing many of the villagers. Tatsuya's half-brother Hisaya is the family head in name, but his deteriorating health suggest he might not even outlive his twin great-grandmothers Kotake and Koume, who want to keep the family fortune within the bloodline: they fear that if Hisaya dies, Hisaya's cousins Shintarou and Noriko of the branch family will take everything. Therefore, they'd prefer Tatsuya, who carries Youzou's blood, to become the new Tajimi heir. Tatsuya stays a few days in the village, where he and Kindaichi witness a local kagura, a Shinto ritual ceremonial dance, about the goddess Amaterasu who feasts with seven animals who die one after another. Tatsuya is seen as an enemy by most of the villagers, as many still carry the trauma of the horrific mass murders Youzou committed and things immediately turn for the worse when one morning, someone is found murdered in front of the Tajimi manor. Villagers start to accuse Tatsuya, the newcomer in the village, and while the police is investigating the case, more people connected to the Tajimi clan are getting murdered. Who is the murderer and what is the mystery behind the name of this odd village? That is the driving question in the 2026 film Yatsu Haka Mura ("The Village of The Eight Graves"), a brand-new film adaptation of the same-titled Yokomizo Seishi novel.

And I have to specify it's a brand-new adaptation, because man, Yatsu Haka Mura has been adapted into a lot of media. A few years ago, I wrote a post on the 1968 manga adaptation of the 1949-1951 book and its relevance to Kindaichi Kousuke popularity in general. The manga was a landmark release: the popularity of this specific adaptation inspired publisher Kadokawa to release mass-market paperbacks of Yokomizo Seishi's novels starring the detective Kindaichi Kousuke in the late 60s-early 70s and to top off the "Yokomizo Boom" (Yokomizo Hype) came the 1976 film Inugamike no Ichizoku (The Inugami Clan), the very first film released by the newly established Kadokawa Studios, which was an adaptation of the same-titled Yokomizo book. Since then, we have seen countless of Kindaichi Kousuke adaptations, and many titles have seen multiple adaptations, but still, Yatsu Haka Mura is the king when it comes to how often it's been brought on screen. If we include the 2026 version (which released last week in theatres) there have been 4 theatrical releases and a whopping 7 different adaptations for television, and then there are the stage plays (yes, multiple), the radio dramas (yes, multiple), the manga adaptations (yes, multiple), the game (just the one...) and there's probably more.

And it is in this context, we should look at the 2026 film version. It is directed by Shimizu Takashi, a filmmaker best known for the Ju-On/The Grudge horror films. In fact, most of the titles on his resume are (occult) horror titles, so that should already give you an idea of the direction the 2026 version of Yatsu Haka Mura goes. For yes, this is not actually a mystery film, it is a horror film.

Of course, the original novel was already quite an anomoly within the series. It is not structured like a conventional mystery novel, as the main narrative mixes horror with adventure, being mainly the tale of Tatsuya as he slowly uncovers a secret that had been kept by his biological family, explores an underground cavern system, goes treasure-hunting and also slowly learns about a curse laid upon the Tajimi family by eight samurai warriors who were betrayed by, among others, his Tajimi ancestor. A lot of adaptations do lean on the scarier sides of this tale. The 1977 version, directed by Nomura Yoshitarou and arguably the best-known version of the tale (a lot of the parodies we see of Yatsu Haka Mura are actually parodies of the 1977 film) takes quite a lot of freedoms with the mystery plot and leans hard on the supernatural horror residing in the plot (especially as the film approaches the climax). So I don't think a horror-inclined Yatsu Haka Mura is bad per se.

The 2026 film is not ashamed to let you know it takes a lot of inspiration from the 1977 version, with some scenes being direct homages, so it is hard not to compare the two and in a direct comparison, I have to say the 1977 film wins easily in my view, and it comes down to a fundamental difference: the 1977, while incorporating occult horror themes, still follows the format and "rules" of a mystery story. The 2026, intentionally, gets rid of basically all of the mystery plot and is basically 95% a horror film, with the remaining 5% just using a mystery aesthetic. The novel uses suggestions of occult and supernatural themes (the curse) to explain the murders, but provides a non-supernatural, coherent answer at the end. The 1977 film provides a non-supernatural, coherent answer to the murders, but also provides a supernatural/occult twist to that answer. The 2026 provides murders, and then provides an answer that only works in a horror context. They do things in differing degrees, and while I think the 1977 manages to strike a very admirable balance with a rudimentary murder mystery that allows for some occult horror going on in a natural manner, the 2026 film simply does not even pretend to be a detective film, exemplified when near the end, Kindaichi basically cries out loud he's not the right detective for this case! 

However, I do like the horror direction of the 1977 edition much better than the 2026 version. Perhaps it's because regulations are different now, but even though the 1977 version is, by design, not trying to be a horror film as aggresively as the 2026 film, I think the overall vibe, and most of the specific scenes of the 1977 edition are a lot creepier than what we see in 2026. So despite 2026 aiming to be more of a horror film than the 1977 edition, I don't think it actually manages to surpass the 1977 edition in that aspect, while the 1977 at the same time still manages to bring a more coherent mystery plot. Director Shimizu has directed three occult horror films set in villages, all following the same title format of "Something Something" Village, and while I have not seen any of them, I have seen many comments on social media that see Yatsu Haka Mura as the fourth entry in that series, rather than a "Kindaichi Kousuke film", so if you go in what those expectations, you'll probably like it better than I do. The depiction of the Tajimi Youzou massacre is as scary as always though, and there is a mirrored scene that is surprisingly bone-chilling. 

The 2026 film greatly simplifies the novel's mystery plot, features a downsized cast of characters (though it does include Shintarou and Noriko, who are often exluded in adaptations!) and cuts down on the murders and focuses more on the mystery of the village curse that haunts the Tajimi family. Despite the plot being simplified, it still manages to introduce a few minor plot holes that occur because the story pretends to be a mystery story at first only to go full in on the occult, leaving quite a few things unaddressed (and if you know the original story, you'll have even more questions because some major reveals in the book just don't happen here...).The kagura dance ritual is an original aspect of this film to the story and on its own, it's actually a pretty cool addition, adding a new angle to Tatsuya and Kindaichi slowly learn about the village history and why it is exactly called the Village of Eight Graves. However, for people who already know the original story, this part might feel like unncessary padding: I personally liked it though, especially as it allows for a completely new role of the villagers in this version of the story, one that hasn't really been explored in other adaptations in this way. The 2026 film being set in the present however does raise some questions: Why would only villagers be aware of the massacre Tajimi Youzou committed just twenty years ago, as you can bet it would be all over the news and in more recent years, explored in social media. And whereas the original novel (and a lot of the original Kindaichi Kousuke novels) manage to present a convincing 'isolated village with local customs/beliefs' setting due to its period setting, it's a harder to believe so many villagers would still follow the old "isolated village mentality" in 2026. On the other hand, updating the "It's the curse!"-shouting nun of the original to a somewhat disturbed woman wearing child-like frilly fashion was brilliant!

One thing I liked a lot about the film though is kabuki actor Onoe Matsuya as Kindaichi. His Kindaichi might be quite different from what you'd usually expect Kindaichi to be, but he works fantastic in the context, in a film that takes a lot of cues from the 1977 edition. For Onoe's Kindaichi feels like an extension of Atsumi Kiyoshi's Kindaichi in the 1977 film. Because the mystery plot of the novel is greatly simplified/changed for this film, Kindaichi doesn't get to do a lot of mystery-solving (he does get to break and enter...) and ultimately, he is in way in over his head because of the nature of the case, but I still like this specific portrayal.

So by this point, it's clear I'm not a huge fan of the 2026 film adaptation of Yatsu Haka Mura. In theory, I don't mind it being deliberatly a horror take on the story: there have been countless of adaptations of the novel by now, we don't need another one that does what most of the others have already done. However, I do feel the strongest points of this film are ultimately better done in the better-known 1977 film version, so it leaves this 2026 in a weird spot, where it tries not to be mystery and is ostensibly pure horror, but it still gets outdone in that respect, in my opinion, by the 1977 version which at least still had a a more coherent mystery plot. If you go the theaters expecting just a 'horror film set in an isolated village' without a greater context, or when seen in the context of Shimizu's other films, then it might be more interesting. This 2026 Yatsu Haka Mura is obviously not the first adaptation of the novel you should see, but I guess if you have already seen a few and want something different, it might be worth a try, especially if you're more into horror than I am.

Original Japanese title(s): 『八つ墓村』

Fatal Paradise

"But, Mr. Hira Dass, decapitation is not an American mode of murder!"

"Clues of the Caribbees" 

There's something about reading a book about travelling around the islands of the Caribbees every morning in a packed train during rush hour in Tokyo...

T.S. Stribling (1881 - 1965) was an American author who wrote many adventure pulp stories. For the magazine Adventure, he wrote detective stories starring the psychologist sleuth Doctor Poggioli, who is the main detective in the 1929 short story collection Clues of the Caribbees: Being Certain Criminal Investigations of Henry Poggioli, Ph. D., in which the American doctor Poggioli is travelling through the Caribbees. His reputation as an accomplished amateur sleuth often precedes him, and as he makes his arrival on each new destination on his trip across the islands, he is often asked to assist in criminal investigations, as he has a knack of arriving just as some kind of mystery or other problem has occured that requires the mind of the great detective to solve.

I fist heard about this book from Norizuki Rintarou; he was talking about mystery fiction and mentioned this book as an example, and even spoiled a certain twist of one of the stories. The way he explained it sounded really silly, but as I was interpreting and not an active party in the conversation, I couldn't really ask him more about it. Fast-forward a few months, and I come across the Japanese translation of Clues of the Caribbees in a bookshop, which helped put it back on the to-read list again. And so I got started on the book (the English version, mind you) and yep, the thing Norizuki talked about was really as silly as he made it sound like!

I do have to warn you, this book is full of racist language. As you can guess, most of the racist language is spoken by the white population, aimed at the people of color, though basically everyone from any country gets something stereotypical thrown at them, including the Dutch. Still, most of the language is about the local people and while arguably, Poggioli is less racist and more progressive than most of the other people in this book, that's just a relative thing. 

That said, I do think the book does offer interesting ideas and concepts to the reader of mystery fiction. While the book's story format of 'a great detective arrives at some new place, solves a crime there' seems familiar, Stribling is surprisingly already playing a lot with genre expectations and tropes in this 1929 book, and I can see why this book would have made an impression on Norizuki. Each story explores in a way the fallibility of the Great Detective, whether it's through an internal fault, or external causes, and some of the things Stribling pulls off here are honestly brilliant, even if the core mystery plots themselves are often rather simple in set-up and development.

The book opens with The Refugees, in which Poggioli is asked to assist in a murder investigation in Curacao, led by police insecptor Karel Heinsius. The Magnificent Pompalone is a deposed dictator of Venezuela, and the custom is to let these ex-dictators roam free in Willemstad until they leave forever, just to keep the peace. Pompalone stays in the excellent Hotel Saragossa. When Heinsius hears someone has died there, he fears for some kind of international scandal, but upon arrival, he learns it's the proprietor, Senor Grillet, who died. While an initial examination seems to suggest heart failure, the doctor found clues that indicate Grillet may have died because a connection between Pompalone and his deceased wife, mother of his dear daughter Hortensia. Because Pompalone and his secretary were the ones who ate breakfast with Grillet before he died, Heinsius has more than enough reason to suspect either or both these men, but what reason could they have for killing Grillet? As a who- and howdunnit, this story is well set-up. While the story is quite limited in terms of scale, with few suspects, Stribling manages to make this into a very memorable story by making excellent use of irony as a theme of the story. Irony plays a huge rule in the way the murder is committed, and irony plays as much a role in the way the story eventually ends. 

In The Governor of Cap Haitien, Poggioli arrives on Haiti, where his reputation gets him involved in... a rebellion! Poggioli is asked by the governor of Haiti to help fight Jean LaFronde, a voodoo master whose army of followers is growing rapidly, threatening the authorities' hold on the island. The governor has tried to send spies to Jean LaFronde, but LaFronde for some reason can always smoke out the spies, while others become so convinced of his voodoo powers they betray the governor. The governor asks Poggioli visit LaFronde, as he ensures Poggioli LaFronde will treat the American with respect; this will give Poggioli the chance to expose the charlatan's trick, the idea goes. Poggioli isn't really a huge fan of the idea, but gets roped into the scheme nonetheless. Can he indeed see through the voodoo magic? Once again, Tribling makes good use of irony as an underlying theme of the story. This story is less of an interesting mystery story compared to the first one; much of LaFronde's voodoo magic is based on rather basic magic tricks we all know nowadays, so it fails to make much of an impression. One could argue there are two major twists in this story, one involving how LaFronde is captured and the other in terms of how Poggioli's presence on the island actually allowed for the authorities to get LaFronde. Of these two, I'd say the latter is more interesting as an idea, though just barely.

After arrival on Martinique in The Prints of Hantoun, Henry Poggioli becomes friends with the Chevalier Gervais Antoinette Beauhart Marion de Creviceau, who also has an interest in the philosophic aspects of crime. The two hold different opinions regarding crime and decide to carry out a wager, which involves solving the first case to be brought forth to the police court of Fort-de-France. This happens to be a robbery in the Banque Nationale, and the two quickly start spewing deductions that seem to point at different directions. Which of the two will turn out to be right? This is a fun story in concept with two detectives trying to outsmart each other while trying to solve the mysterious bank robbery. The trail of false clues however doesn't always make internal sense, so while the overall beats of Poggioli vs Creviceau are fun, the story feels a bit underwhelming as an actual mystery story.

In Cricket, Poggioli is staying in Bridgetown, Barbados, where the American psychologist finds himself roped into a murder investigation that occured among the Britons on the island, after a game of cricket. The main suspect is on the run, but his mother begs Poggioli to prove his son innocent. The adventure Poggioli has from this point on is absolutely one to remember, though perhaps not for the reason you'd first suspect. The story builds on a logical manner, based on clues uncovered during Poggioli's inquiry, but the manner in which his deductions lead to the culprit is surprising, and it's basically a miracle that at the end of the story, he manages to leave the island knowing he solved the case in such a splendid manner, for at the mid-point, you really start to worry whether Piogolli can pull it off. 

In the final story, A Passage to Benares, Poggioli arrives in Spain, Trinidad and ends up witnessing a Hindu wedding procession entering a temple. The sight is so magnificent, Poggioli for a second is reminded of the theory of Nirvana, and he suspects the temple's architect may have deliberately designed the building's curves, colors and planes to induce the viewer to achieve Nirvana. He decides to spend the night in the temple as an experiment. He is however shocked when he later learns the bride of the wedding procession he witnessed the day before, was found murdered at the temple this morning, making Poggioli a suspect. This is definitely the highlight of the book. The motive for the murder is incredibly original, and while it borders on the mad, it works for me. The way the story also deals with Poggioli as both a detective, and a suspect, in this story is also inspired, with a conclusion that is basically as crazy as the motive for the murder. The ending is sure to linger on in your mind for some time. 

Anyway, there's a lot of racist stereotypes and language to go through, but if you can ignore that, Clues of the Caribbees: Being Certain Criminal Investigations of Henry Poggioli, Ph. D.  honestly is a short story collection worth reading. While the individual stories might not always make an impression on the reader on their mystery merits alone, the way Stribling explores the tropes of the genre, especially those associated with the Great Detective, is impressive and memorable. The things he does here, are things you'd expect of a modern-day writer all immersed in meta-discussions on the detective genre, not someone who is mostly writing for pulp magazines in the 1920s. I for one am really interested in the other Poggioli stories now.

The Stolen Show

“Come, Watson, come!” he cried. “The game is afoot."

"The Adventure of the Abbey Grange"

Not a huge fan of the cover to be honest, it's kinda hard to make out what it is, especially digitally....

The bedroom town of Mikura in Shiga Prefecture is given an ugly wake-up call in 2007 when a group of four children attending class in primary school start to act erratically and then lose consciousness: it is soon determined they fell victim to to LSD. They learn from one of the victims that they thought they had taken a weight-loss medicine : someone on the internet had posted a message about having left hidden stashes paper laced with a diet solution across town for people-in-need to find. The police of course starts a great hunt for the madman who plants LSD for children to find, but the drug is surprisingly hard to locate, resulting in this variant to be called "Vanish". Inspector Yoshinaga Makoto is heading the investigation into Vanish, but also considers its his responsibility to educate children on the dangers of LSD and other drugs, as he notices the local children seem to think LSD is something cool. The police starts a campaign to educate children via school visits, and they employ the help of the quintessential hero actor Shidou Masakazu, whose breakout film was filmed in Mikura. Yoshinaga and Shidou visit schools together and it is the charismatic Shidou who makes an impression on the children, educating them properly on the dangers of Vanish. However, it turns out Shidou is also a gifted amateur detective and thanks to his close cooperation with Inspector Yoshinaga, the actor manages to lead the police the the mastermind behind Vanish. This fantastic feat earns Shidou the respect of all in Mikura and because he enjoyed his time in town a lot, he decides to become a local politician, trying to improve life for all in the hilly town and making sure it stays drug-free. He soon climbs the political ladder and becomes a member of the House of Representatives, though he keeps a constant eye on the quality of life in "his" town. His eye for attention for Mikura earns him the nickname King of Mikura.

Fifteen years later, Mikura is still a peaceful bedroom town that owes much to Shidou. Kanata, a former child actor who has failed in making more of his acreer, however hates Shidou, as he thinks Shidou's a hypocritical criminal. He suspects Shidou's been "spiriting away" drug addicts away from Mikura, including one of his acquaintances, and have them die elsewhere to maintain the image of a drug-free Mikura. Kanata is approached by Mariko, daughter of the now-deceased Inspector Yoshinaga, who shares his hatred for Shidou. She suspects Shidou is in fact a drug dealer himself, having obtained a stash of Vanish himself 15 years ago after catching the mastermind. Mariko suspects Shidou uses this stash of Vanish to control the market prices of LSD in the region, giving him control over the crime syndicates there. Mariko thinks a hiking app developed by Shidou's company is the secret: the Mikura Sports Hills App is a GPS-based app that allows people to set out custom hiking routes along the hills of Mikura, which you can share via codes with other people using the app. Mariko is convinced Shidou's been "dealing" Vanish by sharing MSHA codes that lead to hidden stashes of Vanish. Kanata wants to believe Mariko, but they need proof so they decide to do what any sane person would do: they make their own clone app of MSHA. The idea is that Shidou takes legal (or illegal) measures against their app, it'll be proof he's really dealing Vanish via MSHA, as he wouldn't want his potential customers to use the wrong app. Mariko and Kanata enlist the help of two more allies ("Hiking Man", a hiking blogger and "Protractor", an app developer), but immediately after the succesful launch of their app, Mariko is kidnapped. The heroes receive a message from an unknown party that states they have Mariko and that Mariko's friends are to play a game via their own GPS app: they have to find an unspecified destination within the time limit if they want to save Mariko, but how are they going to find a place *somewhere* in the region without any hints? Can the friends save Mariko and expose Shidou's true intentions in Shiotani Ken's Yuukai Gekijou ("Staged Kidnapping". 2025)?

Sorry for the somewhat chaotic explanation of the set-up of this story, but Yuukai Gekijou starts out with a lot of exposition. Shiotani Ken likes to use unusual set-ups for this books (like a fictional 18th century European country, or a story featuring the ghost of a great detective),  and while Yuukai Gekijou is "just" set in contemporary times with no sci-fi elements, it does rely a lot on the history of the legendary drug Vanish in the town of Mikura and the plan of Kanata and Mariko to implicate Shidou is honestly a bit convoluted: they suspect he's not the "hero who vanquished Vanish by identitfying its mastermind together with Inspector Yoshinaga" fifteen years ago, but that he took a secret stash of Vanish, or perhaps even the recipe, and that he's using that stash now to maintain his political grip on the town and the region, using his own-developed GPS-based "hiking app" to deal Vanish. By creating their own clone app to confuse potential clients, she's sure Shidou will take some kind of action against them, which would confirm their suspicions about Shidou. However, as soon as their app is done, Mariko is kidnapped. 

What follows is an exciting game in the mold of Die Hard 3, where the heroes are being bossed around. They are sent a code for their own clone GPS app, with a "hiking route". However, only the starting destination is shown. Upon arrival, they are only given the message to find "the destination, located somewhere in the region". Because the original message specified they could call for help, the local police force led by a co-worker of the late Inspector Yoshinaga, are there to help them too, so soon hundreds of police officers are using their phones trying to physically reach as many places in the region in the hopes of triggering the "destination reached" message, but what is the intention of such a roundabout game?

And that's where Yuukai Gekijou becomes a truly fun mystery book. For we see all these characters playing the GPS game while also trying to deduce why they are being asked to play along to play a variant of Pokemon Go. The actual game itself has the police and the heroes try and work together to find an unspecified location somewhere in the region, which is of course like looking for a needle in a haystack. This soon leads to the realization that the location must be deducible, as they have no other hints that point directly to where they are supposed to go. So the GPS game itself functions like a mystery. However, that is just the surface level, as there's also the mystery of why the kidnapper is telling them to play this game in the first place. If Shidou's really behind Mariko's kidnapping because they were interfering with his drug dealings, why set-up this game and not just kill Mariko? If he isn't behind this, who has a reason to kidnap Mariko or who would have reason to make them use their clone app? They soon realize there's something odd about Mariko's kidnapping and the showy way in which the kidnapper is trying to have them all participate in a game, and reluctantly comply while trying to figure out why. A lot of these whys are kept vague to the reader for quite some time, but you can feel something isn't quite right, and that combined with the actual game of hide-and-seek being played out as the heroes and the police try to comb a huge region, makes for some thrilling reading. And what makes this book especially fun is that...Shidou's a  fantastic character.

We first follow Shidou in the prologue chapter, where we learn how he and Inspector Yoshinaga teamed up together to find the mastermind behind Vanish and how he later built a political career. In the present though, we only see him through the eyes of Mariko and Kanata, and indeed, everything he does, does seem to suggest there's something hiding behind his facade of "the former actor-turned-politician who cares about Mikura". There's something shady about him, which is why nobody, not even the reader, trusts Shidou when he... arrives at the scene and proclaims he too will participate in the GPS  game and help search the region in the hopes of finding the destination location and saving the daughter of his former buddy. The man is charismatic, but you could interpret everything he says and does either way, and you are never really sure whether Mariko and Kanata are actually right about the guy, or that he's truly a good person and that someone else's behind Mariko's kidnapping. Shidou as a character is such a fun mystery, keeping you guessing about his true motives until the very end, and it makes the whole book such a great read. I would LOVE to see a live-action adaptation of this book and I would be so curious as to who could play such a charismatic role.

Shiotani Ken generally likes using unusual settings for this story, and while this book is set in modern, contemporary times, it does stand out because of the story's use of modern technology like GPS, GPS-based apps, social media and even LLM. "Protractor", the volunteer developer of Mariko and Kanata's clone hiking app has developed their own chat app as well as an LLM, and as a thank you, the team agrees to help train his LLM and use his chat app to help improve it. The LLM actually plays a role in the story as a fun "extra member of the team" as his presence often helps lighten the chat conversations a bit with his comments and even occasionally genuinely manages to help out. The other pieces of technology are also vital to the set-up of the mystery in this book and they are integrated very wel: this is not a book where the technology is just there because it's modern, it's there because even the simplest usage of it helps develop the mystery in meaningful manners. The extensive use of modern technology in Yuukai Gekijou funnily enough make it feel almost futuristic, even though we all use the things described in this book.

 I do think Yuukai Gekijou takes some time to get really started; the prologue is interesting, but then the reader is treated to a very huge shift in tone and pace, and we get a lot of exposition about Mariko's suspicions abou Shidou and her plan to lure him out and the exact workings of the clone app they're developing. Once the actual GPS game is set in motion and we see everyone trying to play the game while also trying to figure out how to save Mariko/find the kidnapper, that's when the book jumps back on track and it remains hugely entertaining until the very end, when we learn the true scope of the whole kidnapping business. While the book is perhaps slightly less focused compared to other Shiotani novels I've read, it's still a recommended read.

Original Japanese title(s):  潮谷験『誘拐劇場』

Wrong Number

I kind of liked it your way
How you shyly placed your eyes on me
Did you ever know that I had mine on you?

"Eyes on Me" (Faye Wong) 

I don't actually have the edition with this particular cover, but I can't find any decent images of my version and I don't really feel like scanning it...

After nearly two decades of carrying a certain secret around, a former driver for a certain ministry decides to write a letter to the son of a man he knows who was done wrong. The man in question was the deputy director involved in a great scandal involving selling of government land to private parties: while it were his superiors and certain private businessmen who cooked up the scheme, it was the deputy director who practically had to arrange all the deals, and when the news got out, the deputy director "very conveniently committed suicide". ostensibly being the "mastermind" behind the scheme and with his death, the real people behind the scandal went scot-free. The driver happened to overhear the scheme to shift all the blame on the deputy director when he was still working at the ministry, and finally confessed everything in his letter to the (for the reader unknown) son of the deputy director. This sets a plan of revenge in motion aimed at the people involved in the plot, with things starting "innocently" with threatening letters/calls, but eventuallly revenge manifests itself in the form of murder. However, who is the murderer? In Ishizawa Eitarou's 21-nin no Shiten ("21 Perspectives", 1978), we follow 21 different characters in as many chapters as they all get involved in the scheme one way or another, but is the murderer one of these people? 

Ishizawa Eitarou was a mystery author who debuted in 1962 and remained active until his death in 1988. He was a very prolific writer in the short story form, and he even won the 1977 Mystery Writers of Japan Award for the short story. Many of his stories are set in the city of Fukuoka, which is how I first got to hear about him: I lived for a year in Fukuoka, so every year, I try to read at least one book set there, as there are obviously rarer than books set in Tokyo. Not all of his book are available digitally too, so I haven't really gotten started on him yet (read a few random short stories). 21-nin no Shiten is the first full book/novel I read by him and not coincidentally, it is set in Fukuoka.

The book's most unique feature is with no doubt the structure of following 21 different characters in as many chapters. Each chapter follows a different character, who are all involved in the story in different ways. Some characters are very much part of the plot of revenge, like one of the businessmen who actually profited from the illegal land-selling plot and who has now become one of the most prominent businessmen in the island of Kyushu: he's soon made aware someone is after him because of what he did in the past, and he tries to find out who is threatening his cushy life. Other characters we follow are less directly involved, like a ferry worker who happens to become witness to an event that will later become relevant to the plot. It is seeing all these characters interact in a giant web that makes 21-nin no Shiten interesting, as characters who are alluded in one chapter might make more prominent appearances later on or even be featured as a chapter's main character. As the book continues, what may be just a vague name mentioned off-man, will be slowly transformed in a true character with a fleshed-out backstory. The novel does start out very slow, as you don't really have an idea of what everyone is up too and you aren't really quite sure how everyone is connected to each other, the avenger's plot, or the attempts of the people involved in the corruption scandal to evade the avenger.

As a mystery novel however,  I do have to admit it didn't quite manage to deliver in the way I had hoped it would. While the idea of making the reader follow 21 different characters in sequence, and making you guess whether and/orw which one of them is actually also the avenger who is first sending threatening messages to those involved in the death of the deputy director and eventually actually committing murder, the plot feels chaotic exactly because we are reading about so many characters who sometimes are just barely involved in the plot. You basically even have chapters who are about people who basically just happen to witness a single-second moment that in the grand scheme of things isn't really important. So after a while, things feel a bit muddled as you realize some chapters and scenes are just more about filling out the book, rather than having real relevance. The murderer's plot, as revealed in the end, is also a bit weird at times, with the overall plan seemingly being more about allowing the author Ishizawa to include enigmatic scenes throughout the book that puzzle the characters involved, than really about the murderer having a consistent, logical plan. There's also the added problem of not all characters are as rewarding to follow: for example we also follow an international couple with an open relationship that we see through different POVs, but you could really remove every single scene about their relationship and like a whole chapter of one guy who falls in love with the woman in the couple, and the mystery itself would not have changed, which might even have worked better as ultimately. There are more of these moments where characters only hint at something that might have been interesting, if it had actually been fleshed out more or at least become integrated in the mystery, but now you hear a little about them, but then the story drops it because we're moving away from their POV.

So ultimately, I think  21-nin no Shiten was more interesting for its concept, rather than the execution. I should confess that I also don't feel much for this book because it's less a puzzler and closer to a social school mystery (not surprisingly considering its release year), but I do think the book would've been much better had it been more focused, with a more relatable plan from the murderer. As the book is now, it feels too many scenes are just there to seem mysterious and have as many people as possible involved, and when you actually try to relate all these scenes to a consistent threatening/murder plan, it comes across as needlessly chaotic. I enjoyed seeing an older Fukuoka setting in the book though and the writing itself was fine, so I'll probably read more of Ishizawa Eitarou, though I doubt this was his best work.

Original Japanese title(s): 石沢英太郎　『21人の視点』