The Quick and the Dead

"Bring out your dead!"

"Monty Python and the Holy Grail" 

You know what's great about discussing a mystery set in a world that works like in a Japanese fantasy role-playing game? The fact this one isn't even the first I discuss here! We really should have more and more of them!

August Aberhein is the second son of an impoverished noble family, which means he will inherit nothing and have to earn his own living. As many in his situation, he ended up enrolling at the Knight's Academy and after graduating as the best fighter of his class, he's ready to go on adventures and pay off his school debt... but as a new graduate, he can't find any decent jobs. It is a period of relative peace, meaning none of the lords are currently hiring new knights for their troops, leaving August only one option: signing up for the Adventurer's Guild. Here he finds himself hampered by the fact he's a new member of the guild. Each member is offered quests based on their rank, and you start out at the bottom, ranking up the more quests you succesfully complete. However, the novice level quests pay out next to nothing, and it'd take decades for August to pay off his debt. After nagging the guild receptionist for a while, he's shown a listing posted by a Corpse Retrieval Service, which pays well and has no demands regarding guild rank. August hurries to the office, where he finds a young girl running the place. Glacia's business retrieves dead people from dungeons: dead people can be resurrected in churches, but the resurrection ceremony demands for the actual body to be present. Often, party members have to leave their dead comrades behind as they're already heavily injured in battle themselves by the monsters in the dungeons, and it's people like Glacia who go in the dungeons and collect these corpses for their clients before the bodies are mutilated/decayed so much the resurection ceremony is rendered impossible. Glacia hires August, who proves himself to indeed have a talent for fighting monsters off, but he's obviously not as clever as Glacia, who proves herself not only a wily businesswoman and capable support magician, but also a very keen detective who can spot whenever things aren't quite right. Taki Keisuke's Meikyuu de, Shitai wo Hirou (2025), which also has the English title Pick up a Corpse in the Labyrinth and features illustrations by Kouzou Kazaru, follows August and Glacia as they go out, pick up corpses and solve mysteries along the way.

Death in mystery fiction is usually a permanent thing: it is usually what makes the act of murder a criminal one, an act that deserves investigation and a reaction fueled by justice. There are of course a few mystery stories where death isn't permanent per se (see for example Yamaguchi Masaya's Death of the Living Dead, translated by me!), but we can safely say the vast majority treats death as a permanent state. That is not the case in video games of course, where death is very often reset with just a push of a button or simply a "state" in a game that can be rewound via the use of a Phoenix Down or... visiting the church to have your party member ressurrected. The latter is of course a Dragon Quest staple and it's a Dragon Quest fantasy world that forms the basis of Ryuu's Meikyuu de, Shitai wo Hirou: like in those games, death isn't permanent and the church can undo deaths with a ceremony, but unlike Dragon Quests, dead team members don't conveniently float behind you in a coffin as you make your way back from a dungeon. In Pick up a Corpse in the Labyrinth, corpses are just... dead people, with mass and weight. Often people die in dungeons because they're underleveled and one death soon leads to another as enemy attacks start focusing on fewer and fewer people, so people often have to leave their dead party members behind and flee the dungeon, lest the whole party dies. People like Glacia pick up these corpses upon the request of their clients, or if the deceased is insured against their death via the guild. While death is not permanent in this world, life is still a valuable resource though: the resurection ceremony uses a rare magic resource, meaning it does cost quite a lot to have a person resurrected and you do need someone to actually bring you to the church to do that: it means that while murder can be "undone", it is not viable to just undo every death, not even in the case of murder. 

Meikyuu de, Shitai wo Hirou is an interconnected short story collection, in which August and Glacia encounter three different cases across three chapters, though there's an overarching storyline in which August, and the reader, learn more about Glacia's background. The first story, Housekigui no Ryuu ("The Jewel-Eating Dragons") shows us the first encounter between the stoic and proud August, and the money-obsessed and manipulative Glacia as they go on their first quest together. The quest itself sounds simple: they are hired by two adventurers, who lost a party member in a dungeon when they tried to get away with a jewel treasure. Fast dragon-monsters protect the jewels in this dungeon, and many adventurers underestimate their lethalness Glacia gladly takes the case, and during their first quest, we see how August and Glacia learn to work together to enter a dungeon, with August being a frontline fighter and Glacia casting support magic. As the story develops however and August and Glacia make their way to the corpse they're supposed to retrieve, we learn Glacia has figured out not all is "normal" about their objective, but what is this truth hiding beneath the surface?

This first story also serves as an introduction to the world of Meikyuu de, Shitai wo Hirou: while most of it sounds a lot like Dragon Quest, author Ryuu of course introduces some specific rules regarding how resurrection works and what you actually need for the ceremony in order to craft their mystery plot. Because of that, the core mystery plot remains a rather simple one: it is awfully easy to guess what Glacia also suspects about the quest they're undertaking. Ryuu does make good use of the world, magic and its rules crafted for this book and certain things laid out here will become relevant in the remainder of the book too, but the plot itself is somewhat obvious, which makes this more a story that is remembered for the potential it shows for the rest of the book.

The second story, Zangeshitsu ("Confessional") has Glacia and August visiting the local church to have a corpse resurrected. Glacia is a long-time "customer" of the church's services, but even so, even August can sense some reserve from the clergyman and his clerks in their attitude towards Glacia, hinting at some stigma surrounding her background. Nonetheless, they are happier with Glacia than with their latest resurrection, a wealthy wannabe adventurer who uses his family's wealth to bully everyone around them and even brings people around him in danger, while he himself has the financial means to get himself resurrected all the time thanks to his life insurance. He bullies the clerks in the church too, which is why everybody is happy when they find him dead in one of the rooms in the church, especially as it appears he committed suicide: the church generally does not resurrect people who have chosen their way out of life, as that'd be a waste of valuable magic resources. Glacia however soon sees not all is at seems, and even sees a chance to profit from this death.

This second story is definitely more engaging, with more suspects, a clearer-defined mystery and a more inspired use of the fantasy world and its rules. Whereas the fundamental concept behind the trick of the first story always works in a "realistic" world, the trick in this story is more firmly grounded in the magic rules of this work, making it a more satisfying story to read. What Ryuu again does well is naturally introducing the magic elements in the story and then incorporating them into the mystery plot. While not all of the misdirection works for me personally, I do appreciate the more intricate plotting of this tale, as well as the way Glacia deals with this case, as we are again shown that she's not a detective per se: she simply sees business opportunities, which also happen to rely on her detective skills at times. 

The finale has a more ambitious set-up than the previous two stories: in Necromancy, the guild sends August and Glacia to join a party on an academic quest: because the place is so dangerous, the guild has decided to combine the necessary party members for two different quests together and have them work together. They are to visit the Inverted Castle, a castle which was once cursed by a powerful sorceror after the king cheated him on a deal: as punishment, the people in the castle were magically bound to the castle by a barrier, the castle itself was turned upside down and necromancy magic was used to make the people in the castle living dead. The latter deed in particular is quite grave: a dead person can not be resurrected if they have been manipulated as the undead, as the original soul is "bumped out" of the body if they're put under the power of a necromancer, making it impossible for them to come back alive. These undead now still roam the castle and make the place incredibly dangerous, as the undead are particularly nasty enemies that are hard to stop. The party is to explore the dungeon this castle has become for academic reasons, but August and Glacia's quest is different: they are to retrieve the bodies of two people dear to Glacia, who died in this castle and whose bodies have not been found yet. While they are exploring the castle however, one member in their party is found murdered, and oddly, all the clues left on the scene seem to point at Glacia as the murderer.

This last story in the collection feels like a proper culmination of everything that has occured so far, utilizing the magic rules and specific uses we learnt about in the previous stories and also featuring characters from previous adventures and expanding on the hints we've had until about Glacia's background. Which is perhaps why it's a bit disappointing this is just a short story: the Inverted Castle is a great setting for a finale, but as the book features no maps and this is ultimtely not a very long story (in a not very long book), it does feel like the castle could've been developed a bit more. We ultimately don't see (read) that much of the entire castle. After The Underground Maze of No Return in Isekai no Meitantei 2 and the labyrinth dungeon in Sword Art Online Alternative: Mystery Labyrinth - Meikyuukan no Satsujin, the Inverted Castle feels like a place that could've been so much more: had this story been a full novel, or at least a novella, we could've seen more of this upside-down castle, which could've served as the scene for more mysteries. Anyway, we have "just" one murder now, when the body of one of the party members comes crashing down the ceiling during a monster attack: Glacia's dagger is sticking out of the body and more importantly, the fact the body had been hidden in the floor above points at Glacia: the inverted layout of the castle (which has the stairs upside down too) means no other person in the party can climb a floor up, as only Glacia possesses levitation magic. With Glacia being the obvious suspect, the other fighters in the party soon turn against her, vowing to kill her to incapitate her. August is of course Glacia's only ally, but can he protect her against multiple enemies?

The seemingly impossible murder is original, as Glacia's guilt relies on her knowledge of a certain magic spell, which seems a bit strange if you're not really used to mystery fiction set in fantasy/science-fiction worlds, but it works very natural here. Of course, the solution to this conundrum also relies on clever use of the established rules to magic, and again, I do like how Ryuu took the time to tell and show to the reader how everything works over the course of several adventures, because it makes the payoff to seeing how the magic is used here more rewarding. Meanwhile, Glacia and August are also dealing with the fact they're being hunted by the rest of the party as the suspect on the murder (and her ally) and here the book does take on the form of a more "conventional" fantasy-action story, but fortunately, Ryuu does also make great use of its world to set-off a few clever turnarounds, that are nonetheless properly foreshadowed and clewed. The motive for the murderer for picking Glacia specifically as the fall-girl is also memorable, being one that really only makes sense in this specific world.

For those interested in RPG-inspired mystery stories by the way, besides the aforementioned Isekai no Meitantei series and the Sword Art Online book, there's also Hayasaka's excellent RPG School.

On the whole Meikyuu de, Shitai wo Hirou is a pretty amusing book. It certainly uses an original premise, with a team that's just there to retrieve dead bodies in order to resurrect them: a premise that seems to go against the whole idea of a murder mystery as you can simply undo every murder and then ask the victim what happened, but Ryuu does a good job at explaining why it's not a "go-to" solution to every mystery in this book. While the book is a bit short, meaning some themes and settings are left not explored as deeply as I had hoped, the overall book is worth a recommendation, showing the fun possibilities that arise when you mix the mystery genre with other genres and their tropes.

Original Japanese title(s):` 龍圭介（著）、構造飾（絵）『迷宮で、死体を拾う』

The Sign of the Four

"Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three."

"Monty Python and the Holy Grail"

To be honest, I had forgotten I hadn't written a review of this book yet because I hadn't logged it on my finished reads list, as it was a self-published book and I assumed it wasn't on the site I use: turns it did have a proper entry. 

Ichikawa Yuuto is an author whom I have discussed a few times on this blog: he won the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award with Jellyfish wa Kooranai (The Jellyfish Never Freezes. 2016), which would become the first book in the Maria & Ren series, one I enjoy very much. While Jellyfish was thus his "official" debut as a professional writer, he had actually already self-published a lot of books, which he would sell at events for self-published materials. These books are published under the name "Anonymous Bookstore" and in fact, Ichikawa still sells those books as Anonymous Bookstore at events. When I visited such an event in 2025, I decided to buy the first volume of the series Quartette Danse, which also has the English title Welcome to Our Quartette!  This first volume was first published in 2005 according to the copyright page, with my copy being from the 12th run dating 2025. So Ichikawa was already doing these books at least a decade before he won the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award!

The Maria & Ren series is a mystery series set in a slightly alternate universie, with minor science-fiction elements, with for example the invention of the zeppelin-like airship Jellyfish in the seventies leading to different modes of transportation available. With more of Ichikawa's books being at least somewhat sci-fi-adjecent, it's surprising to learn Quartette Dance is actually a school comedy mystery, with the first book featuring three short stories. The series is set in 1999 and revolves around four girls attending Kougasaki High School who are collectively known as 4S: Sakano Maki, Sugihara Midori, Senoo Asako, Shinguuji Rumika are all admired for different reasons, from Rumika's looks and her acting skills to Asako's frank personality and talent at sports. While the four are referred to as 4S by their fellow classmates, it doesn't mean they're actually friends though: while science nerd Maki can get along fine with Midori and Asako, Rumika and her are just too different from each other to become friends.

And yes, the 4S are totally just the F4 from Hana Yori Dango. 

 In the opening story, Quartette Danse, Takayuki (Maki's childhood friend and general "trying to be popular with everyone, especially the girls"-type of boy) is trying to rope the 4S into participating in the school festival's miss pageant: he already managed to talk pushover Midori into joining, and fellow club member Asako and the overly confident Rumiko were also easy to persuade, but Maki absolutely refuses. Takayuki is going from table to table as he talks to all the girls, each time talking a little bite or drink from the lunch boxes of all four girls... and then he suddenly keels over. An ambulance is called, and Takayuki is carried off. Judging by the way Takayuki collapsed, Maki is convinced the lunch boxes of one of the 4S (besides herself of course) was poisoned, but that also seems strange: how could anyone guess Takayuki would steal some of their food that day, and they all consumed more of their own lunch boxes, meaning even their food was poisoned, it had to be the specific bit Takayuki took, which seems unlikely too.

The opening story is mostly a set-up to introduce the character dynamics: we learn the 4S are not a close group of friends and Maki and Rumika in particular don't like each other. Each of them might have reason to poison Takayuki via their lunch boxes, but this method seems strangely roundabout, and rather dangerous as the girls consumed their own food too. The solution is... rather silly, and it works for a school comedy story, but it is not really solvable based on the actual hints: you can easily guess that is what happened because of the way the story is written and how other options are ruled out, but the hint is so embedded in... having knowledge of 1999's Japan, it's impossible for a reader now, especially if they come from another country, to actually use the hints to arrive at the "model thinking process" behind how it was done. As a funny mystery-adjecent story though, it works.

Locked Room Lingerie, which has the English subtitle "When She Changes in a School Bathing Suit" is set after the school festival: the 4S participated in the miss pageant and had to change clothes for that. Midori forgot to bring her underwear back home later that day and figured she would just bring them back the next day, but the next morning a creepy note with cut-out words from a newspaper shocks the school: an announcement that Midori's underwear will be stolen, signed by Phantom Thief Lily. Who would be so heinous as to steal the underwear of a high school student, and... why would you announce it? This story is quite short, but it works better as an actual mystery story, with a better twist and better hinting too. Again, it's not super complex, especially as the short length makes it clear any new element introduced will connect to the solution, but it's a surprisingly cute story that does make good use of its school setting with its specific character dynamics. By now we also realize Maki, the narrator character, isn't really a main detective character. While the science-focused girl is definitely the most interested in mysteries and the driving force in each story to actually investigating each "case", her single-mindedness does backfire a bit, and other 4S members often offer other viewpoints that actually help crack the case. 

Distorting Bakery, which has the English subtitle  "Threat of Cursed Examination" is about an upcoming test and the rumors that spook the nearby bakery Blau Rose: the story goes that whoever eats that bakery's Blau bread around the exam period is doomed to retake their exam. Maki of course doesn't believe the story, so imagine the shock when she learns she's failed her exam, which she believed to have aced. However, she starts to suspect something's fishy about her answer sheet, but who could've messed with her answer sheet during an exam? I think I liked this story the least, as I think the previous two stories worked well exactly because they had simple answers to "mundane" problems set at a school: you could explain in one short sentence what was going on, and that made them appealing. Here the solution is a bit more convoluted (instead of a "this is X because of Y" solution, it's more a "First they did X, and then Y, and then Z, because of A), and the motive behind the events that led to Maki's bad test score also work in principle, but the way it is worked out in this story doesn't convince completely for me: while this is the longest story in this short book, I do think it could've worked better in a longer story, with more "instances" of it happening to give the whole idea a better set-up. 

 As I mentioned, my experience with Ichikawa's work mostly stems from the Maria & Ren series, and so Quartette Dance feels nothing at all like what I'd expect from Ichikawa: it's a school comedy with stories that are very short and mostly feature one-concept-solutions. Which isn't a bad thing per se: I think that Ichikawa does succeed in what he's trying to do with these stories, and considering these stories were written over two decades ago, and an over a decade before he even got professionally published (so with an editor going over his work and all), it's pretty amusing. I might pick up more of this series if I ever attend another event where he's selling them just to see how the series develop and see how it's reflected in his professionally-publushed work.

Original Japanese title(s):  市川憂人（無名文庫）『カルテット・ダンス』:「カルテット・ダンス」/「ロックトルーム・ランジェリー」/「ティストーティング・ベーカリー」

The Case of the Captured Queen

"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

"Through the Looking-Glass" 

 

The cover of today's book has an interesting design and looks quite good in real-life, not so much as a small image file... 

Rokuhara Azusa is a woman in her late thirties who works at the Citizen's Affairs counter of Matsumoto City Hall, handling complains and other problems Matsumoto inhabitants may encounter in their daily life. One day, Takatsuku Kenichirou, a judicial scrivener in his forties, wants a consultation regarding his wife Mutsuko. In the last few months, his wife Mutsuko has claimed twice someone has tried to attack her, though she has remained unharmed and both times, she was just at home and nobody else saw anyone who could've attacked her. Mutsuko has always been rather high-strung, so she might have just imagined things, but Mutsuko absolutely refuses to even speak with a psychatrist, having rather strong misconceptions about mental health issues. Kenichirou hopes the Citizen's Affairs people can help him. Azusa and her co-worker agree to have a talk with Mutsuko and arrange to meet them in a few days at their home, which Kenichirou and Mutsuko share with Mutsuko's father, a farmer, and her father's second wife. Azusa arrives at the home just as Kenichirou also returns from work and they are walking to the house, when they hear Mutsuko crying for help from above. She cries "No, please... Natsumi!" as she slowly retreats with her back to the open window and before anyone can stop her, Mutsuko tumbles backwards out of the window, to her death. Azusa rushes inside the house and locates the room from which Mutsuko fell, only to find the door locked from the inside. The police is notified, and one of the detectives put on the job is in fact Azusa's husband Tomoki. When the police break the door down and enter the room however, they find it empty: no sign of the person who pushed Mutsuko or at least scared her so she fell to her doom. 

While Tomoki is struggling with this locked-room murder, Azusa continues her work at City Hall, where she deals with a slew of other incidents that may or may not have a criminal side to them: an elderly man who lost his wife a while back and was going to place the urn with his wife's ashes in the family tomb, found an unknown extra urn in the tomb, which is usually kept locked with a padlock. Meanwhile, another citizen suspects he had been stalked by an unknown figure from the station. The work pressure is also starting to affect Azusa and Tomoki's marriage, so both try to resolve their cases as quickly as possible so they can focus on each other in Asane Juuji's debut novel Aka no Joou no Satsujin ("The Red Queen Murders", 2024).

Asane won the 16th installment of the Bara no Machi Fukuyama Mystery Award with Aka no Joou no Satsujin, which earned him the publication contract of his first novel. Last year, I read his Sennen no Whodunnit, a science-fiction mystery set a thousand years in the future and as I am writing this review, he has a new book in serialization, which features a title referene to Schrödinger's cat, so you'd think he's very science-fiction-inclined, but his debut novel is the complete opposite. And it's actually very easily explainable too. For this book stars a civil servant who works at city hall of Matsumoto in Nagano Prefecture, and Asane in his real-life day job is in fact...  a civil servant who lives in Azumino, the city neighboring Matsumoto. So I wouldn't be surprised if Asane does in fact work at city hall and is now, or was at one time, assigned at working at the Citizen's Affair counter there. For this book is really rich in descriptions of the city of Matsumoto and its direct neighbors, from the vibe to geography, and the reader also gets an interesting look at the work they do at the Citizen's Affair counter, explaining how the people there are not experts in all topics per se, but they have a vast wealth of knowledge in various topics (because people come with all kinds of complaints and problems) and they generally have a good idea of how to proceed next or what experts to call in. So one moment, you might have someone who wants legal advice about property borders, the next visitor might be asking about financial problems, and it's quite educational to see how they first explore the options they have before they start referring the visitors to other means.

One also wonders how much of Asane's real-life experience is mirrored in the way Azusa and Tomoki's as civil servants (one at city hall, one at the police) negatively influences their marriage. The book focuses a lot on their relationship as the two deal with their own cases and get swamped with work. Azusa's getting more and more irritated by the fact Tomoki never tells her in advance whether they'll be having supper together or not, even though she also understands a homicide detective usually doesn't have the luxury of being able to free up their evening schedule every day of the week. Tomoki too knows he should try to communicate more, but practically speaking, his job simply doesn't give him much room to do much about that. While I'm not really a big fan of  the "detective has troubles at home" trope, it works here because Tomoki and Azusa each head different cases, so they are basically "each other's problem" and their relationship ties the initial murder case to the seemingly non-criminal cases Azusa's looking into in a very natural manner.

Anyway, the story starts with the seemingly impossible death of Mutsuko: Azusa, her co-worker and Kenichirou watched as Mutsuko cried out in fear of someone called Natsumi, and then fell out of the window of her room, which they found locked from the inside. So who scared Azusa to death, and how did they escape the room? As the book is fairly realistic, one doesn't need to fear for old-fashioned needle-and-thread tricks hiding behind this locked room. In fact, the police is so pragmatic in this book, they initially just decide to ignore the locked-room mystery, assuming the killer must have had made a spare key for themselves. Their investigation focuses on the elusive "Natsumi", whose name Mutsuko uttered before she died. The police figure that if they catch Natsumi, she'll be able to explain how she managed to lock the room. So the first half of the book feels a bit like a police procedural, as we follow Tomoki and his senior partner Fujita as they comb through Mutsuko's past to find someone called Natsumi whom she might fear. 

It is only in the last third we see a larger focus on how the locked-room mystery was done. While one of the suggested fake solutions is a bit funny if you imagine it, it's dismissed fairly quickly and easily (and I think a lot of readers wouldn't have fallen for it anyway as the main argument to dismiss it is fairly obvious), the final solution is an interesting variation of a trick I have only seen a few times, which in turn is basically just an inverted variant of something that is very common. Because of the realistic approach of the book, one can't deny it feels a bit unfair here, as this method will never always 100% lead to this outcome every single time, but I do like the basic idea behind the trick, especially as Asane did his best at organically at planting certain pieces of knowledge that are necessary to solve the locked-room mystery. It's specialist knowledge you need, but Asane at least went the effort at providing some pointers to that knowledge and did that in a way that shows he wants to play the game fairly.

Azusa meanwhile deals with some other problems, of which the "locked family tomb" sounds the most interesting at first: a man and his two sons are going to place the urn with the mom's remains in the family tomb, but when they unlock it, they find a fifth urn inside, even though there should only be four at the time. Because the space where the urns are kept is usually locked with a padlock, this is effectively a locked-room mystery. However, the solution to how this was done is quite disappointing: there's nothing clever about how it was done, and it's also not really hinted. However, Asane does do a good job at then connecting this "crime" to the locked-room murder mystery of Mutsuko. The same can be said of the mystery of a mysterious stalker who follows a few people from Matsumoto Station to their home. When Azusa is first consulted about the matter, she advises the visitor to go to the police, and there they learn more people have filed a report about some stalker following them down the streets. 

Not very surprisingly, as the story progresses, we learn these various incidents are in fact somehow connected, one strand of investigation turning out to actually be a clue necessary to solve another. This Judge Dee-esque approach works up to an extent, though it is of course rather "lucky" all these cases that were brought to the Citizen's Affairs desk happen to be connected one way or another. I do like the whole picture that is revealed when all is solved, with one main plot being set in motion causing unforeseen ramifications elsewhere in the city. While coincidence does play a role in the whole matter, I think the plan of the culprit of this mystery has some cool ideas that feel surprisingly "realistic" even though much of the book is devoted to the mystery of a vanishing assailant and a two locked-room mysteries.

Oh, and the Alice in Wonderland reference in the title (The Red Queen)? Yeah, you don't have to think about that, it really doesn't become relevant until the very end once everything is settled...

I wouldn't recommend Aka no Joou no Satsujin on its merits as a locked-room mystery to be honest, but overall, I did enjoy the book. The work definitely benefits a lot from Asane's own experience, as the real-life parts that depict the city of Matsumoto and the work done at City Hall truly give this book a unique vibe and while I thought I wouldn't like the whole marriage trouble plotline with Azusa and Tomoki, it worked surprisingly well to connect the various incidents together as we see the couple tries to balance life and work, with the lives of some of the people they meet during their work mirroring their own lives and possible future. The core mystery plot is a bit winding and relies on coincidence in a few instances, but I like the way Asane weaves several aspects of the varied work done at the Citizen's Affairs counter in one story. So surprisingly, despite the book opening in chapter one, section one with a locked-room murder, I actually liked this book especially for its grounded realism and the way it used for the mystery!

Original Japanese title(s):  麻根重次『赤の女王の殺人』

The Tell-Tale Bottle

"(...) uttered slowly, but clearly and impressively, the words — “Thou art the man!"

"Thou Art the Man" 

It must have been years since I last did a review of a non-fictional work...

Nazotoki Edgar Allan Poe ("Solving Edgar Allan Poe", 2025) is a book in publisher Shinchosha's Nazotoki... series on literary research. In this book, which carries the subtitle The Undiscovered Unsolved Murder Case, author Takeuchi Yasuhiro explores the work of Edgar Allan Poe, the father of the detective story, but not in the way you'd expect it to go. For no, his focus is not on the three Dupin stories, and The Murders in the Rue Morgue, the story widely considered the first modern detective story and the locked-room murder mystery, only plays a minor role in this book, as does The Purloined Letter, which is the better written detective story of the three stories. Takeuchi also isn't looking at Poe's work in the context of for example code-cracking (The Gold-Bug), nor is he interested in Poe as an influence on his followers in either the detective or horror genre. No, surprisingly, his focus is on the 1884 short story Thou Art the Man, which was published three years after The Murders in the Rue Morgue, but which is generally not regarded as well, as there are several issues that undermine the story as a logical and fair detective story... or is that really the case? In this book, Takeuchi takes another good look at Thou Art the Man to find a hidden murder mystery within the text...

As Thou Art the Man forms the focus of the book's main analysis, Nazotoki Edgar Allan Poe opens with a full Japanese translation of the story. From there, Takeuchi first gives a short analysis of the story as a mystery story, focusing on some of the odd choices Poe made when writing this story which undermine it as a logical detective story. However, by focusing on these apparent contradictions, Takeuchi slowly builds a theory in which he lays out that the story as presented to the reader, is in fact not the whole story: he presents a theory regarding a hidden, true culprit (different from the one presented in the story), and his theory helps solve what appeared to be faults or contradictions in the story if read as is. The way Takeuchi builds his theory is methodical and easy-to-follow, and while one can never actually prove whether "Edgar Allan Poe hid the real truth for us to find", the theory proposed by Takeuchi, and the arguments presented to support his accusation don't farfetched at all, and sure, I want to believe Takeuchi's version of the story as it gives Thou Art the Man a whole new dimension and it's all firmly based on the actual text! 

One of the arguments Takeuchi utilizes to strengthen his theory is the identification of a certain motif in the story, which, he argues, are also used in Poe's other (mystery) stories. This motif is for example also used in both The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter as per his analysis, but because the motif can be used in very diverse manners, it is not apparent right away Poe is using it across these stories. Some of the examples Takeuchi presents might not feel as strong as others, though that is something that is quite common in literature research. I do think the way he uses his identified motif as a way to support his Thou Art the Man theory works well.

The Thou Art the Man portion takes up about half of the book, after which Takeuchi proceeds to analyze the motif in other Poe stories, which aren't necessarily mystery stories actually. So while Takeuchi's brief look into the Dupin stories with his new motif-focused magnifying glass is expected, him using a motif derived from deducing a hidden truth within a detective story to analyze... A Tale of the Ragged Mountain is surprising. The Fall of the House of Usher also gets discussed, because this is a book on Poe, so of course it needs to be discussed. I do think the application of Takeuchi's motif on Usher results in a nice analysis of the tale, showing how Poe's thinking process might have gone as he wrote this story. 

As I don't want to give away Takeuchi's theory for Thou Art the Man away, and thus can't write in detail on the motif he identifies via that solution, I'm afraid this review remains rather vague. I can only say I quite enjoyed Takeuchi's adventure as a literature detective: his thorough analysis of the "testimony" (the Thou Art the Man text), focusing on the contradictions, the build-up of his solution: it all reads like a detective story, and one that's surprisingly accessible too thanks to his easy writing. And while this portion alone would've made for an interesting long essay, I did like how he managed to use his Thou Art the Man analysis to obtain a "magnifying glass" that allowed him to look into other Poe stories too. So if you're interested in Edgar Allan Poe's mystery fiction output and you're in the market for an easy-to-follow, yet surprisingly deep analysis of his work not from a historical POV, but a textual POV, Nazotoki Edgar Allan Poe is a book I can recommend.

Original Japanese title(s): 竹内康浩『謎ときエドガー・アラン・ポー』 

A Scary Night with a Snow Beast Fright

"No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty."

"A Christmas Carol" 

A few months ago, I reviewed Killer X, a novel written by Nikaidou Reito and Kuroda Kenji, and the first of the Killer X trilogy, which are about murder mysteries set in ski resorts in Japan that also feature "Killer X", a mascotte figure of a stationary brand. Merchandise with the cute, former monk-turned-assassin figure features in all the three books, though I won't call the character really a major theme in the two novels I have read. Two, I say, for today's post is about the second book in the series. You should also briefly skim through the review of the first Killer X book to learn more about the authors of the books first hid their identities under a pen name and how the Killer X trilogy is also just the last three entries in a tetralogy.

Anyway, Nikaidou Reito and Kuroda Kenji's Sennendake no Satsujinki ("The Killer on Mt. Sennen", 2002) is set on the fictional mountain of Mt. Sennen in the Y Prefecture. Fumiko is a Japanese woman who teaches at a Japanese language school in Australia. Most of her students are actually around her age and just call her "Fumiko" instead of "Sensei" and when they learned she hailed from Y Prefecture in Japan, they decided that they'd have a ski trip to Mt. Sennen with Fumiko: her students are of course not allowed to speak any English during the trip. Lately, strange rumors about Mt. Sennen have been making the rounds: two different persons have appeared at the hotel Fumiko and her group are staying at, claiming to have come from a few days in the future. Fumiko and her students are all relatively accomplished skiers, so they are going to heli-ski from Mt. Sennen. They'll be dropped off at a high point with a helicopter and then follow the course to the pick-up point. However, they apparently get off-track and end up near the torii gate which is where the time-jumping supposedly took place. It turns out their their navigator intentionally sends them off-course, because he's interested in the so-called time-wormhole and he knew nobody would be willing to follow him voluntarily. By that time, the weather has taken a turn for the worse and it's already too late to turn back, so they are forced to stay in one of the empty mountain lodges near the gate. However, they get murdered one by one by an unseen murderer, and the only clue pointing at the murderer is a diary that purports to come from the future in which all the events that have happened, were already written...

Sennendake no Satsujinki is slightly shorter than Killer X and is this time not confined to a single building, but basically set within a small, closed circle high up in a mountain that's closed off because of the snowfall. The group is trapped there, but they have access to a small mountain lodge, and as they later discover, a second one that's actually nearby but originally barely visible due to the snowfall. It's here that the friends get murdered one by one, while the survivors are getting more neurotic by the minute, as they also have possession of a diary that's supposed from their future, and it details everything that's happened, and will happen, and they're basically afraid to know what their future will be. This main storyline is interrupted a few times with a second storyline set at the hotel that is more about setting-up the motive.

The premise of a time-wormhole is an interesting idea, and the concept does actually play a role in the way the mystery is set-up in this book, but because the book isn't clear on whether time travel is actually real or not until very late in the book, it feels not completely fair, as obviously, your theories would change depending on knowing whether time travel is actually feasible or not. The murders themselves don't really depend on any time travel-trickery though, with most of them just being 'well, any one of us could've done that' type of killings, or at best 'okay, at least these people wouldn't have been able to do it'. While some of these murders do rely on tricks ultimately, they remain relatively simple: partially because the group is trapped in a snowstorm on a mountain, with no real opportunities for a thorough investigation. Some of the tricks behind the murders also rely on dynamics I'm not a huge fan of, but your mileage may vary there. 

Rather than figuring out how these murders were committed, I'd say the main mystery's focus lies more on what connects all these murders: who would've have a reason to be committing these murders here while there's stuck on a mountain, cut-off from the outside world? The set-up for this reveal is probably the most memorable part of the book: some of it might be guessed early on because of the somewhat obvious clewing, and I don't think the execution is as good as it could've been, but I think the underlying idea is good. A lot of the heavy lifting is done in the secondary storyline though, making the main storyline ultimately feel more like a horror film plot, focusing more on the reactions of the group getting smaller with each consecutive murder and allowing little room for actual investigations/deductions. It's actually a complete contrast with the previous book, which was absolutely packed with all kinds of ideas: this one is definitely more limited in scope, and while I haven't read enough of Kuroda's standalone work to realize recognize his hand, this limited scope certainly doesn't help Nikaidou's style, who usually is at his best in terms of mystery plotting, tricks, and atmosphere in longer stories.

It's kinda a shame Nikaidou and Kuroda decided to go with a completely fictional location and background story this time, I think. While their story requires the rumours of a person travelling through time, they didn't even bother to pick a real existing prefecture or mountain. I'd loved to see this story using the local stories/myths of an existing place, perhaps reworking them a bit (i.e. a place known for disappearances, and then rewriting them so it turns out these disappearances were actually people being displaced in time). The previous book was specifically set in the prefecture of Hokkaido, near the city of Otaru, so it just felt jarring to have the story now take place in... Y. It'd have made more sense if they had used another place famous in Japan as a ski resort (and it's not like they don't have enough of them in Japan), rather than a made-up place, as it weakens the theme of the series. 

A character from the previous book (as well as Hakuginsou no Satsujinki by Nikaidou Reito and Aikawa Akira) appears also in this book by the way, but under an assumed name. This character is also 'connecting tissue' between the books, so in that sense, it's perhaps better to read these books in order, but it's not like you see that much development for this character across this books, it's more like a surprise reveal each time to realize X is actually also Y from the previous book.

You'll probably have guessed by now I'm not that huge a fan of Sennendake no Satsujinki: I think the first Killer X novel was just better conceived as a huge treasure box of perhaps not hugely impressive box, but still stitched together in a very competent manner, resulting in an overall entertaining story. In comparison, Sennendake no Satsujinki is not only smaller in scale, but is also less intricately plotted as a mystery novel and simply have fewer bells and whistles, making it not a bad book per se, but at the very least, it's a book that simply has less going for it. Thematically, it is stronger than the first book on some points, but picking an absolute favorite between the two of them won't be difficult. There is one more Killer X book waiting for me, so it'll be interesting to see what direction that final book will go.

Original Japanese title(s):  二階堂黎人, 黒田研二『千年岳の殺人鬼』

Dead in the Water

「何とかなれ！」

『ちいかわ』 

 

"It'll somehow work out!"

Chiikawa 

Today's post: the most anticipated mystery film of this summer. 

Chiikawa and their friends come across an invitation to a tropical island, which promises them a nice stay and great food, in exchange for a certain hunting mission. Despite their mentor having certain suspicions about an invitation to an island, as most people familiar with mystery fiction would be, Chiikawa, Hachiware and Usagi can't resist the lure of a stay at a resort island, so the following day, they join the long, long queue for the ship bringing them to the island, and they are not the only ones: most of their friends have seen the same invitation. Arriving on the island, everyone is warmly welcomed by the islanders, who offer their guests food, dance, music and a great time all together. However, their pleasure comes at a cost, as they learn what they must hunt as compensation for their stay: a gigantic Siren has been attacking the islanders, taking islanders away to eat them. The Siren is accompanied by mermaids, and their song can stop any brave warrior in their tracks. Chiikawa, Hachiware and Usagi however come across the Siren, and learn from her that she's actually looking for one islander specifically: someone has kidnapped and eaten one of the mermaids in her protection, and she swears revenge, taking the islanders one by one if she needs to in order to find the culprit. Chiikawa, Hachiware and Usagi are torn on what to do: do they help the Siren look for the mermaid-murderer, or will they protect the kind islanders from the ruthless killer the Siren has become in the animated film Eiga Chiikawa: Ningyo no Shima no Himitsu ("Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of Mermaid Island", 2026)

Chiikawa is of course a phenomenom in Japan that requires no explanation at all, for it is one of the strongest cultural icons of Japan at the moment, similar to Pokemon. One can't live a single day in the country without spotting the cute thing or one of their friends in some place or another. Chiikawa just is, and yes, that also means Chiikawa belongs on this blog.

Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of Mermaid Island has naturally been one of the most anticipated mystery films of 2026, being an adaptation of the same-titled arc of the original Chiikawa web comic. The theme is one quite familiar to mystery fans in this time and age: mermaids and the legends surrounding them (especially the Japanese legends regarding gaining immortality upon eating the flesh of a mermaid) have been becoming a recurring theme lately. The upcoming second entry in the Mystery no Arukikata (Path of Mystery) game series for example is about mermaids, as is The Mermaid Mask, the recently released fourt game in the critically acclaimed Detective Grimoire series. And of course, earlier this year I reviewed the overall excellent Paranormasight: The Mermaid's Curse, which brought Asian mermaid legends and the mythology of Ise together. Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of Mermaid Island is thus one of the many recent mermaid-focused mysteries, and I assume that financially and culturally, it will also be the most succesful and lasting of the mentioned titles.

Chiikawa the Movie takes on familiar tropes of the mystery genre, though also plays with them at times. As mentioned, most mystery fans would avoid the invitation to a remote island that sounds too good. Indeed, soon after their arrival, Chiikawa and their friends learn they are in fact caught up in the middle of a good old murder plot that could've featured in a Kindaichi Shounen story: Siren is the "killer out for revenge due to an injustice done to her" (one of the mermaids in her custody was taken), taking out islanders one by one in search for the culprit. The film thus turns the whodunnit aspect around: we know who the current threat to the islanders is (the Siren) and we also know why. we however don't know who took the mermaid and what they did with the mermaid. Chiikawa and their friends also show understanding to the Siren, as they realize the Siren has been wronged too, even if her reaction to the missing mermaid means the whole island has to suffer. This gives our detectives a moral dilemma, as they want to help the Siren, but also want to protect the islanders, and those are two opposite goals, 

A major part of the film is however not focused on the search for the culprit by Chiikawa and their friends, but on the relentless attacks by the Siren on the islanders, making surprisingly something close to a slasher film. Some of the action scenes remind of Detective Conan, in the sense that in order to ward off the Siren during these attacks, we see the heroes use strategies that have been properly foreshadowed. A lot of the Detective Conan film feature action scenes that are completely over the top, but they are structured as a mystery plot, featuring proper clewing, foreshadowing and set-ups. The same holds for the action scenes in Chiikawa the Movie, where the action is always interconnected to earlier scenes that set-up the exact means to how they will resolve their problems.

Ultimately, Chiikawa the Movie does have Chiikawa solve the mystery of who took the mermaid and why, based on some not-so-subtly placed clues. The manner in which they manage to arrange for the Siren to cease her attacks on the islanders is perhaps more based on action than on their wits, but as mentioned above, the action is properly set-up with clues and foreshadowing in the same way we see in other action-oriented mystery films. Furthermore, while the clewing for the whodunnit mystery could've seen some more cunning, there are some lines in the film that are actually really good examples of well-written and sly foreshadowing, lines that seem quite innocuous at first but take on a completely different meaning once the whole context is known. Here Chiikawa author Nagano, who also wrote the screenplay for the film, shows some truly clever mystery writing.

Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of Mermaid Island is the most important mystery film released on July 24th, and it is a must-see for the mystery fans, as a film that perfectly captures the current trend of mixing mermaid imagery with the mystery genre. While not all of the mystery is pulled off perfectly, the film does show some interesting subversions of the mystery genre and there are certainly moments that are truly well-setup in terms of mystery plotting. On the whole, Chiikawa the Movie is definitely worth watching, and considering how well it's doing in the theatres in Japan in just three days, it's definitely a mystery film you must catch this summer if only just so you'll understand all the memes and references!

Original Japanese title(s): 原作: ナガノ『映画 ちいかわ 人魚の島のひみつ』 

Spooky Space Kook

I start running in town, with the bright sun in my back

"I want to shout I love you" (BAAD) 

 

眩しい日差しを背に　走り出す街の中 

「君が好きだと叫びたい」(BAAD) 

It was funny to see everyone trying film that iconic opening of the Slam Dunk opening theme on the seaside part of the Enoshima Electric Railway when I was there...

UFO Oodoori ("UFO Avenue" 2006) by Shimada Souji consists of two novellas about his series detective Mitarai Kiyoshi and his Watson Ishioka Kazumi. While this is the 23th book in the series to be published and the series had seen some changes it its set-up, the two stories collected in this book are set in the earlier periods of the timeline, when Mitarai Kiyoshi and Ishioka Kazumi were still roommates and Mitarai still being focuses on buidling his career as a consulting detective before moving on to becoming a neurologist as in some of the later books. While scale-wise, these stories have little in common with the long epic novels in the series like Memai ("Vertigo") and Nejishiki Zazetsuki ("Screw-type Zazetsuki"), they do share a theme of being mysteries revolving around perception of curious events: each of these stories are about someone witnessing an event they honestly believe to be supernatural or fantasy-like, with the surprise lying in Mitarai being able to come up with a completely rational explanation for what they saw and still vouch for his witness' sanity and accuracy in testimony.

The title story UFO Oodoori ("UFO Avenue") for example revolves around an elderly lady living in Kamakura stating that one night, she saw aliens fighting among each other in the mountain on the other side of the avenue she's living at. She mentions this on a television show, and now her son is trying to get her into a retirement home, fearing she might have gone dotty. A little girl living in the neighborhood, who is close to the woman, swears the elderly lady is still completely lucid and doesn't want her to leave, so she travels alone to Yokohama to visit Mitarai, hiring him to find out what happened. Mitarai and Ishioka go to Kamakura, using the Enoshima Electric Railway to visit the lady to interview her on what she saw.  When they have a look at the place where the battle supposedly took place, Ishioka is surprised there are indeed signs of something having happened here, as they find big holes in the ground. They also learn that only nights before she saw the aliens do battle in the mountains (wearing space suits, using strange rifles and even a UFO flying nearby), a neighbor, Ono, passed away under curous circumstances.  The man had been found dead in his bedroom by his fiancee: the room had been locked from the inside, and for some reason the door and windows had been sealed with tape. Furthermore, strips of tape had been hanging from the ceiling. The man was also dressed rather oddly for a night's rest: he had been found with a helmet on, a scarf around his neck, gloves on his hands and his body completely wrapped up in sheets. Ono turns out to have had a fight with his ex-boss and even attacked his boss with a pipe, but the police couldn't nab him for it. Ono had been afraid for revenge since, but was this the way in which he protected himself from attacks? Or was this get-up defense for aliens? Mitarai becomes more and more intrigued by these events in Kamakura, but is he really after aliens, or is there more behind this?

Spoilers: it wasn't aliens. Not this time. 

As always, Mitarai pretty much guesses the solution as soon as he learns the details of the case, with most of the time spent on asking questions to confirm his ideas and to insult and irritate the local police as he accuses them of stupidity and makes vague comments about who to watch out for. and where they can find traces of the truth. The story is fun to read though, with Mitarai and Ishioka meeting a colorful cast of characters despite the novella not being that long. There's also a nice focus on the ancient capital Kamakura and the area surrounding the iconic Enoshima Electric Railway. I happened to have visited Kamamura and Enoshima for the first time in my life earlier this year, of course also riding the Enoshima Electric Railway, which is characteristically integrated, and nearly absorbed into the local environment, with the very narrow tracks often just running just a dozen centimeters away from the surrounding houses. Author Shimada often likes to flaunt with his knowledge of things he researched in his stories (in this case explaining why these houses are so close to the tracks), but it works pretty well here because he keeps it quite modest due to the length of the novella and it of course relates in a certain way back to the mystery. The explanation behind the locked room mystery of Ono's death is not very surprising in a vacuum, but I like how Shimada doesn't use it... in a vacuum: it's only a starting point which then leads to other mysteries handled in this tale which I find more inspiring, with ultimately a very human motive being all of it (that said, what Ono did to protect himself was a bit... odd. You'd think there'd be better and safer ways to accomplish what he needed to do). Then we have the aliens of course: again, just hearing the explanation of what it was on its own isn't really shocking, but I really like how Shimada clewed the set-up and how it all ties together to one big tale, with all the "alien" proof having perfectly normal and rational explanations behind them. Shimada does this too in his other "fanciful interpretation of otherwise explanainable events" stories, but the other stories tend to be novels and there the stories become very convoluted, asking for a lot of suspension of disbelief: the chain of events in UFO Oodoori is far more compact and feels more convincing because of it.

Kasa wo Oru Onna ("The Woman Who Broke Her Umbrella") is a story that has been adapted for television in 2015, and it was in fact the very first time a Mitarai Kiyoshi story had been adapted. I have discussed the special in the past, and I liked it overall: you can find my thoughts here. I still adore the story set-up. Ishioka tells Mitarai about a story he heard on a radio show where they discuss strange happenings and the DJ tries to come up with an answer. A few nights ago, during a rainy night, the listener happened to look outside his window to see an attractive woman in a one-piece dress walking down the road towards a crossing. The woman placed her umbrella on the road and hid herself. When the first car drove around the umbrella, she adjusted its location and this repeated itself until a car had run over the umbrella, bending it completely. She then picked the umbrella up, but then walked back in the direction she came from. The DJ didn't manage to come up with a satisfying explanation for this strange series of events and neither can Ishioka, but armchair detective Mitarai quickly focuses on a few key actions of the mysterious woman and boldly proposes a theory that poses the woman was involved in a serious crime. When they read the local news of where the radio listener was living, they find out there had indeed been a murder in an apartment building nearby.

This is still a fun armchair detective story, where Mitarai comes up with a daring hypothesis involving murder, based on what sounds like the strange, but ultimately innocent story of a woman who broke her umbrella in a roundabout manner. The manner in which Mitarai develops his theory, or at least, show to Ishioka how he did that, by asking Ishioka key questions about the story is great. The Nine Mile Walk format works great for this mystery and you can really feel how it slowly turns into something sinister. After the initial set-up of the story and Mitarai showing his main conclusions, the story actually changes perspectives, as it then follows the woman in question. We learn she has a motive to kill a certain woman, because that woman caused the death of her mother during a bus hijack incident: while it was the hijacker who directly caused the death, it was the completely selfish and unwarranted action of the woman, a bus passenger, who pushed the hijacker to the murder. After learning this fact, the daughter swore revenge for her mother. While this narrative seems to cinch the deal for the reader regarding Mitarai's deductions, the reader is then treated to a surprise, as some facts we learn in this narrative, don't match up to what Mitarai's conclusions pointed to, which adds a new layer to the mystery for us the reader, while logically, Mitarai shouldn't be aware of that, so the question is how they'll then figure out the whole truth in the end.

While the initial set-up of the woman breaking her umbrella is great, the second half of the story that explains the discrepancies between Mitarai's initial conclusions and the truth as the reader knows it, does rely on a bit on coincidences adding up. I'm not sure whether this is the case, but it feels like this second half was only added as an expansion on an original, shorter story, which may add layers of complexity, but also feels forced in some ways, with some plot elements also mirroring the other tale in this collection, which may make it feel repetitive in some manners. The first half of the story is really worth it though and I personally find it one of the more memorable Mitarai novellas.

So taken on the whole, I think UFO Oodoori is a pretty decent collection with Mitarai Kiyoshi. While not reaching the "I'm going to throw this book at the floor while screaming 'no way' in joy" heights of some of the novels, it's a solid showcase of Mitarai in the armchair (or leisurely working)  detective mode, with mysteries that seem inexplicable at first but which only a genius like Mitarai can figure out in seconds. I'd say that Kasa wo Oru Onna is the better mystery story of the two, while the title story has the best sense of location. 

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司『UFO大通り』:「UFO大通り」/「傘を折る女」