Mecha Mutt Menace

"Well, my friend, robots cannot kill, their prime directive..."

- "I know, I know, I know, it's the first program that's laid into any robot's brain, from the simplest Dumb to most complex Super Voc. But suppose... suppose someone's found a way of bypassing it."

"Doctor Who: The Robots of Death" 

We've seen more and more uses of AI as devices in mystery plots the last few years, though I think the best/most memorable uses of them in mystery fiction are still when they use the gap between real humans and AI to create clues etc. I've seen a few examples in the last few years that worked really well.

Utsugi is a young man in possession of a strange device, left to him by his deceased parents when he was a child, and his "partner" ever since. At first glance, it might appear like a small dog or a black cat: it is roughly the same size and has four limbs. However, its body is completely smooth, and once you look closer, you realize it also has no face. It is in fact a standalone robot with highly sophisticated AI built into it, even though it speaks in a very mechanical manner like "REP / UTSUGI / UKN / ANALYZE / TP8.7", a language which only Utsugi can interpret perfectly. While it is known that the name of the AI is Excimer, other details about "her" are shrouded in mystery, though the technology used to create her and her body suggest they might be the product of some experiment with military purposes. Excimer is a completely standalone machine, meaning it can't interface with other devices directly, meaning they can't safely examine how its built. Excimer only recognizes Utsugi as her administrator, and "friend". This is an important distinction, as it is directly connected to Excimer's purpose: the AI is specifically built to detect murderers and it will treat any murderer who is trying to keep their crime a secret as an immediate threat, prompting Excimer to execute them on the spot with any or all of its installed weapons, including knifes and firearms. Utsugi now runs a detective agency, with Excimer as the detective. Utsugi has no detecting skills himself, but he is needed to interpret Excimer's deductions and more importantly: he has to issue an emergency command to Excimer once Excimer tries to kill a murderer. We follow Utsugi and Excimer as they tackle five cases in Matsushiro Akira's short story collection Tantei Kikai Excimer ("The Detecting Machine Excimer", 2025).

I mean, I guess a black box on legs can be a challenging idea for a captivating cover image, but I am also not a very big fan of the current cover now as it really humanizes the robot too much... I mean, the Jameson-type robots in Ghost in the Shell can be be cute, so it's not like having just the box robot would necessarily be boring... 

The book opens the curtains with Open the Curtain, which has Utsugi visit Shindou on the recommendation of Professor Yakushi, who is examining Excimer. Shindou is an old study mate of Professor Yakushi and runs a company involved in AI technology, so Yakushi thought Shindou would be interested in meeting Utsugi, and more importantly, Excimer. Utsugi arrives the Shindou residence on a warm day, carrying Excimer in a backpack. Because Shindou had not been told much about Utsugi, he at first doesn't understand why Yakushi wanted him to meet Utsugi, but he soon realizes what Yakushi's intentions were once he learns about Excimer. The flagship product of Shindou's own company is not as sophisticated as Excimer, but a lot more practical: SILK is an AI that functions as a controlling system for all of your smart home appliances and technology, allowing you to give verbal or even non-verbal commands to control everything from the lights to the curtains or warming something up in your microwave. As Shindou and Utsugi discuss SILK and Excimer's respective uses though, Excimer starts to act weird: she has detected Shindou is a murderer and is about to kill him, but Utsugi can just stop her in time. But how did Excimer find out Shindou's a murderer during a short chat?

The reader gets a good idea of how Excimer works in this opening story: it is a detecting machine, but that is not Excimer's main purpose. Therefore, she is actually not keeping Utsugi up-to-date on her deductions, and will decide on her own to eliminate a threat. It is only once Excimer's deduction processes have identified a murderer without doubt, that she'll move in for a kill, but it's also only then she agree to tell Utsugi about what thinking process led her to the murderer. That leaves Utsugi with only a very small window of opportunity in which he can have Excimer explain her deductions: if he's too early, Excimer won't explain her (unfinished) deductions, if he's too late in issuing a "don't kill" command, Excimer will already have killed the target. Open the Curtain works as a short, but effective introduction to how this all works, as we see Excimer only become dangerous once enough clues have been shown, and while some clues were a bit obvious to see, I do like one line of clue a lot, as it fitted perfectly with the theme of the AIs. It's a pretty brilliant clue, that is used multiple times in several ways in a very short scene, yet it doesn't stand out at all. It's also a uniquely modern type of clue, which I really like. The aftermath of the deduction scene is also great, and really sets up the tone for the rest of the book. 

Lost and Found introduces us to a new main character: Misa is a student who studies under Professor Yakushi and she's been offered a part-time job as the "scribe" of Excimer: she's to accompany Utsugi and Excimer and write down everything Excimer says and does as part of their research into Excimer's technology. On the day Misa visits the detective agency of Utsugi to introduce herself to Utsugi and Excimer. It turns out Utsugi owns the whole building, using one floor as his own agency and renting the other floors out. Employees of a trading company housed on a lower floor go up to the rooftop during their lunch break. They happen to look down at the empty lot behind the building, where they see a dead man on the ground, with a ladder next to him. Due to building violations, the empty lot is actually inaccessible, as it is completely surrounded by buildings on all four sides. It thus appears the man tried to cross from the rooftop of one building to another, perhaps in a burgling attempt, and then fell to his death, but is that really the case?

This is I think the longest story in the collection, and it's definitely the most complex one. The mystery revolves around whether the victim's fall was an accident (it wasn't), and if it wasn't, who pushed the man to his death? The victim turns out to be an ex-employee of the trading company, who had been fired for embezzlement, so the police suspect he was trying to break into the building via the rooftop: the building opposite the empty lot has been empty for a while, so he could easily get to the rooftop of the empty building, and then use a ladder to climb across the empty rooftop, to the rooftop of the building owned by Utsugi. While Misa and Utsugi did hear a thud during their talk, they soon suspect it was faked to create an alibi, but who then committed the crime? The story's length is used in a good manner, allowing Misa to also act as a would-be detective, offering good suggestions and theories. Her presence is certainly needed, because Excimer won't openly theorize before she gets a chance to kill the murderer, while Utsugi isn't trying to be a detective at all, leaving everything to Excimer or the police (the police works with Utsugi/Excimer, but also know how dangerous Excimer is, so it's a reluctant team-up each time). So having Misa act as a Watson Plus, with her own theories helps flesh out the story a lot, especially, as we later learn, her presence actually does have influence on how Excimer's conduct throughout this case. The solution is not mechanical in terms of how the culprit killed the victim precisely, but it does involve a plot with a lot of moving parts/necessity of good timing and is overall a very competently constructed puzzle. I do like how Excimer is shown as more and more unhinged with each story: here we learn Excimer actually actively occasionally just shows short glimpses of her answer in order to entice the police and Utsugi in letting her meet the suspects personally, which gives her better opportunities to exterminate the murderer once she has identified them! The final reveal of what clue helped Excimer determine the truth of what happened is absolutely brilliant by the way and it is this moment that for me best exemplifies the potential of Excimer as a brilliant, but amoral detective.  

Don't Disturb Me has Excimer examining a past incident, involving the young brother of one of Misa's childhood friends, Fuuka. When they were very young, Fuuka's parents were invited by a friend to stay at their newly opened seaside hotel. Fuuka and her brother Haruto were still very young, and had never stayed at a hotel before. Misa was also invited, as was Riichirou, a friend of Haruto. The trip to the hotel was rather long for the children however, and Haruto was still sleeping when they arrived. Their parents brought Haruto to their hotel room to sleep some more, while the other three children went playing in the neighboring room, which had a connecting door to Haruto's room. The parents went to the lounge with the friends. However, while the other children were playing and the parents were away, Haruto fell down the balcony of the room. While it was believed to be a tragic accident, with the young Haruto waking up alone drowsy in a hotel room and accidentally falling down the balcony, about 15 years later, Fuuka now wonders who of the people at the hotel was hiding their murderous intent from the others. She asks Misa to present the problem to Excimer to see if she can solve this mystery.

Interestingly, Don't Disturb Me is the very first Excimer story: this story was originally serialized in 2024, and the other four stories in this book are written especially for the book release. The story has an interesting angle as it is mostly a flashback, following very young children who get involved in a tragic accident involving the youngest child. It's from this account Excimer manages to figure out the truth of what happened exactly and how anyone could've made Haruto fall from his hotel room, as it was technically a locked room: the corridor-side door not only locks automatically, but was also latched from inside. The connecting door between the two rooms was unlocked, but could be observed by the three children playing in the other room. And the balcony-side too can't be accessed without leaving any traces. The story places some neat clues, though I do think these stories that rely on children's testimonies/interpretation of events can be a bit hit or miss, as it is difficult to write convincingly and yet fairly that a child thought X or Y and that that had effect on the mystery. Especially when they are young and children grow up fast, it's hard to pinpoint an exact age range where you can fairly expect a child to understand or not understand X and incorporate that in a mystery plot. So that always keep bothering me when I read these kinds of stories. The theme of the past mystery however is well incorporated into the framing story of this tale, and it's a very decent entry in this collection. 

You Have Control gives us a huge shake-up and shows us what can happen when Utsugi isn't there to control Excimer. One late evening, Utsugi (and Excimer in his backpack) are walking Misa back to her flat after working on a case. They meet a few of Misa's acquaintances/fellow flat residents along the way, but when they arrive home, they find a cut-off body part: a hand. Utsugi turns out to be bad with bloody bodies and passes out at the sight, but he did this at the worst time possible: Excimer is already determining who the killer is! Misa just has enough time to grab the backpack with Excimer inside and runs to her flat to lock the robot inside her room, while she tries to call the police and Professor Yakushi to see what she should do. Meanwhile, she can hear Excimer cutting the backpack open with her installed knife and trying to break out of the room in order to exterminate the threat (= the killer). Because only the now unconscious administrator can command Excimer to pause her attack and ask her about her deductions, Misa realizes she has only one option left in order to stop Excimer's murderous tendencies: she has to figure out for herself who the murderer is, and convince them to give themselves up so Excimer won't see them as a threat anymore.

The idea of this story is absolutely great, and there's a lot of tension going on as we have seen in previous stories Excimer will not lie to people, but will manipulate them in order to get an opportunity to kill a murderer. I think what is interesting is about this story is that Excimer acts as a "deductive clue" here: in reality, we know that a random murder that happened on the street doesn't mean the suspect has to be one of the people we just happened to meet outside on the street. It could be anyone whom we just happened to not meet in the city. In this instance though, the reader is informed the killer is someone we met in this story, because of Excimer's reaction. Of course, Excimer's deductions are also based on actual clues we saw in the story, but because she's such an advanced AI, the story could still get away with saying Excimer managed to solve the case based on what she saw/heard/sniffed, plus a probability calculation, giving her an edge over us humans in determining wether the killer does happen to be one of the people we met on the street. The murder itself is a bit silly to imagine, as the way the hand got cut off feels almost comic-like, but the premise of the story is just so great and it stays so exciting until the very end, I actually liked it better than the previous story.

The final story, Just a Machine, is not a straight mystery story, but acts as the collection finale. The story starts with the theft of Excimer by an unknown figure, which immediately sets off the alarm bells at the police station and Professor Yakushi, as they are all too aware what harm Excimer can do if she happens to come across a murder on the street without Utsugi's supervision. The story however then starts revealing more about Utsugi and his past with Excimer, and the mystery of how Excimer works. The story neatly picks up some strands of clues planted in earlier stories, revealing something had been brewing without the reader's knowledge, but to be honest, it's not that huge of a deal, and a lot of readers might have guessed the general gist already even if it had not been clewed. I do like how this story acts as a finale to the book.

Tantei Kikai Excimer is a short, but solid collectionthat admittedly is helped a lot by the great premise of Excimer as an unscrupulous detective AI: the stories are their best when her goals and abilities are used to shape the actual mystery plot and the way the story develops. The core mystery plots in this book are overall solid, but sometimes a bit too short or limited in scope, but having Excimer working on them usually does elevate them. It'd be interesting to see how Excimer would evolve, if sequels are to come.

Original Japanese title(s): 松城明『探偵機械エキシマ』:「Open the Curtain」/「Lost and Found」/「Don't Disturb Me」/「You Have Control」/「Just a Machine」 

The Man in the Mist

"Very few of us are what we seem."

"The Man in the Mist"

This will probably be the longest novel I'll read this year, being slightly longer than Asukabe Katsunori's Massatsu Goth Gods, which I reviewed two weeks ago. 

After the events that occured in the house of the wealthy Jewish financier François Dassault in 1978, Nadia Maugars, daughter of Inspector Maugars, and Yabuki Kakeru, a Japanese student studying in Paris and amateur detective, are invited to attend a dinner at the house. Other guests include Hannah Kauffman, a political theorist whose work interests Kakeru (yes, she's based on Hannah Arendt). While Nadia and Kakeru were deeply involved in solving the triple-locked-room murder at the Dassault residence, this is the first time they meet more of the family, as most of them were not present at the time the other case occured. Among then are Veronica Laurent, François' second wife, Sophie, François' daughter of his deceased first wife and Christian Hovora, François' friend and confidential secretary. Early in the evening however, François receives a phone call, with a voice telling him his daughter Sophie has been kidnapped and demanding a great sum of money as well as The Tear of Nicole, a family heirloom jewel. However, it turns out Sophie is... all safe at home. However, it doesn't take long for them to realize that the kidnapper must have taken Sara Lerouge, the daughter of Etienne, François' chauffeur. Sara and Sophie are the same age and have grown up together as the best of friends and it turns out Sara had been wearing Sophie's clothes today. While François does inform the kidnapper of his mistake, the kidnapper still demands the money and jewel, unless they want to see Sara dead, and François immediately assures the kidnapper he will comply, as both Etienne and Sara are dear to him too. The kidnapper demands that Nadia, a guest at the party, bring the money and the jewel, packed in a bag, to a certain place in Paris by a certain time, alone of course and without contacting the police. They realize that the kidnapper must somehow have visual knowledge of the people at the dinner party, but with little time to think, Nadia accepts her mission to transport the ransom money. 

Meanwhile, her father Inspector Maugars is called to investigate the murder of the headmistress of a Catholic school: the woman was found shot through the head in her office in the early evening. While there were no classes today, the school's girls choir had to rehearse for a recital in two weeks, so the doors of the school were left open to let the girls in and out. The police is wondering how the murderer got in and out the school: while a hooded figure was seen fleeing the school just as the students had finished their rehearsals and about to leave the school too, they can't establish a proper route for the murderer to get in, especially as the route that leads into the school via the back entrance was found "locked": some doors on this route were locked with a key that was found in the headmistress' office, meaning they were locked from the "inside". But why didn't the murderer just use that key to escape via the back exit route? During his investigation however, Maugars learns of a connection to the kidnapping going on at the Dassault house, but this connection only seems to confuse things even more in Kasai Kiyoshi's 2025 novel Yoru to Kiri no Yuukai, which has the French title Nuit et brouillard enlèvement on the cover, but we'll call it A Kidnapping into Night and Fog here.

And yes, that's a reference to the Nacht und Nebel decree. 

Yoru to Kiri no Yuukai is the eighth book in the Yabuki Kakeru series, which has a rather interesting publication history. After writing the first five-or-so stories as direct-to-novel publications, Kasai Kiyoshi would be serializing the newer stories in the series, usually taking a few years for each new book as he tends to have rather lengthy books. However, that doesn't mean all those stories actually got proper collected book releases. In some cases, it'd take years after a serialization for a story to actually get a proper standalone release. Yoru to Kiri no Yuukai is one of those cases: while the book is published in 2025 (making it eligible for all kinds of "2025" rankings), the original serializaiton of the book occured back in 2010, meaning it took 15 years for the publisher to decide to actually put the story out as a book. There are more examples of that in this series, like a story that's been in serialization since 2017, and another book that's been fully serialized and finished in 2015 but still hasn't been released as its own release.

Anyway,  Yoru to Kiri no Yuukai is directly linked to Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu, the fourth book in the series and actually the first one I read. I haven't even read that much of this series, but Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu is quite well-known for its triple-locked-room setup, so if you're like me and not particular about reading things in order, it's quite likely someone will start the series with that book. Anyway, while Yoru to Kiri no Yuukai is connected to Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu and features both familiar faces as well as similar themes, I wouldn't say it's necessary to read Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu first in order to understand Yoru to Kiri no Yuukai. On the other hand, and this is a Yabuki Kakeru series staple, Kasai doesn't mind spoiling his books. There is a developing storyline in these books, in which Kakeru is after a certain person, and author Kasai has no qualms at all at spoiling previous books, like explicitly saying who the murderer was in a previous adventure. So reader, beware.

The other reader warning is of course that other Yabuki Kakeru staple: the books being used as a device to have the characters talk about philosophy, politics and history. Like in Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu, this time themes of anti-semitism, nazism, authoritarianism and the denial of the holocaust play a major role in this story. Kakeru finds a very willing discussion partner in Hannah Kaufman, with whom he talks and talks and talks in this book, and I will once again gladly reveal I'm never a big fan of these segments as I'm not as interested in the philosophical discussions like Kakeru is, whether it's on nazism this time or nuclear plants in another book. I really enjoy the mystery parts though, so when I hit another one of those lengthy philosophical discussions it makes me even more aware how I don't really enjoy them at all. The discussions also come at the weirdest moments: one occurs after Nadia returns from dropping off the ransom money/jewel and returns to the Dassault home. You'd think she has plenty to discuss with Kakeru about how the dropoff went and all of that and worrying about the fate of poor Sara as she still hasn't been returned yet, but now, we have Kakeru and Mrs. Kaufman talking about deniers of the Holocaust.

So let's talk about the mystery plot of the book, because that part I really enjoyed! We're dealing with a two-part mystery this time, one concerning a kidnapping of a girl that's gone wrong, and a "conventional" murder that occured in a school, both crimes happening around the same time. Of course, the reader can guess there's something that links these two crimes together, but fortunately, this connection is revealed relatively early on, with the rest of the mystery focusing more on the contradictions and further mysteries and questions that arise when you arrive at the realization of the connection between the two cases.

Because "solving" a kidnapping case is different from simply identifying a murderer in a murder case, kidnapping cases in puzzle plot mysteries tend to use similar ideas, often playing with the concept of "there's another crime/event going on that's being hidden via the kidnapping case" and in essence, I wouldn't say Yoru to Kiri no Yuukai provides a paradigm shift, but Kasai does manage to add some surprises the twists that seem predictable at first. The whole ransom dropoff sequence with Nadia follows familiar beats, with Nadia being given little time to go from location A to B, to C per the kidnapper's orders, but there are minor mysteries along the way for Nadia and the reader to solve. Furthermore, Kasai manages to hide some really good clues in this segment too that only become relevant further in the book. Meanwhile, the murder on the headmistresss in the school seems a conventional murder investigation, with most of the mystery revolving around who could've gained access into the school without being seen, and the mystery of why the murderer would choose to leave through the front door, instead of how they got in. This part is a bit technical and mechnical at times, with time tables about where everyone in the school was at what time and where keys were etc., but on the whole, it's a fairly solid puzzle. 

The book however becomes really interesting once the hostage is found: newly obtained evidence lead to the shocking conclusion both the kidnapping and the school murder were connected all along, but it's this very conclusion that adds confusion to the investigation: things that seemed possible and simple when the two incidents were seen as seperate events, now become impossible and unexplicable once they are connected. Kakeru in particular finds the "form" the two cases take on after their connection is discovered frustating, as he knows that if these cases are really connected, they shouldn't have ended up the way they did. I have only read four of the Yabuki Kakeru books now, but of those books, I do think this book does the best job at showing how Kakeru's interest in phenomenology is used to solve these mysteries, with him analyzing the whole event as is and then realizing it doesn't make sense. All the questions that bug Kakeru are of course answered in the end by him, but one good thing of these books is that while Kakeru always finds the final, true solution, the other recurring characters often come up with very good theories themselves. Narrator Nadia is always just barely one step behind Kakeru, and even a character like Jean-Paul, who could easily just have been the "Velie" to Inspector Maugar's Inspector Queen, is a bright detective with plenty of good suggestions. The book juggles a few false solutions in front of the reader, and while I do think it's a shame the reader can easily intuitively guess who the murderer is without going through the whole chain of clues, I do like the mystery as plotted by Kasai here, and the themes are worked well into the mystery.

So while I am still not very charmed by the long philosphical discussions in this series, I did like Yoru to Kiri no Yuukai a lot, being a mystery novel that does a good take on the trope of the kidnapping case in a murder mystery, and one that especially does a good thematic exploration into certain tropes of the mystery genre and using that exploration to set-up a great route to the truth for Kakeru. The who and how might be a bit easy to guess, but the construction of the mystery is honestly done well enough for me to not care too much about that actually. I don't know whether I'd recommend this book as one's first Yabuki Kakeru book, because you'll get spoiled on the lore of the series, regarding both small and big issues, and yet, I do have to say I think the core mystery as it is set-up, and the way we see Kakeru solve this case, would really work well as a series introduction. Perhaps in a different universe, this mystery plot would've been used for the first book.

Original Japanese title(s):  笠井潔『夜と霧の誘拐』

Resurrection

"That's the name my stupid parents gave me! I like to be called by my Goth name: Nightpayne."

"South Park" 

So just around the time I finished this book (in February), Asukabe released another new book... Guess I'll have to get that one too...

Tone Shirou, an ordinary high school student, has a crush on the strong-willed and free-minded Kaen Kanoyo, the pastor's daughter. The pastor has taken in Shirou's classmate Kiyari Seiya, who was recently released from juvenile hall due to a death he caused. Shirou and Seiya became friends over a common interest: God. Seiya first spoke with Shirou on the day of their high school entrance ceremony, when Shirou was reading a book on God. Their discussion on the existence of God led to the idea that there must be an anti-these to the monotheistic God: not the devil or demons, as they spring from the influence of God, but a being that is the opposite of the biblical God. They arrive at the polytheistic concept of the Goth Gods. They stand for everything that God isn't. Shirou dubs one of the Goth Gods "Kodokuoh", a name inspired by an account written by his father about a past incident. Shirou and Seiya also realize there must be the Ten Anti-Commandments, which include commandments like "Thou Shalt Kill", "Thou Shalt Rape" and "Thou shall not take the name of Kodokuoh in vain."

One day, Shirou is walking down the street when he sees two thugs from a local crime gang beating up a girl. He recognizes the victim as Saigouji Sakura, a classmate who has been coming on to him rather too obviously, though he has not shown any interest back. Sakura is beating harshly by the two men, who demand she "gives up the goods". Shirou steps in, but is of course beaten himself, until he invokes the name of the Goth God Kodokuoh... who answers the summons and beats up the thugs horribly. When both Shirou and Sakura wake up, Kodokuoh is gone, leaving only two unconscious thugs on the ground. Sakura throws up right in Shirou's face, resulting in their first "vomit kiss". Sakura's brought to the hospital, while Shirou wonders why those thugs were after Sakura in the first place. A visit to her father Dendou, who runs an art hospital just out of town near the inactive vulcano, doesn't help much, as the father seems awfully uninterested in his daughter's well-being. Shirou learns from Sakura that the thugs might be after because she witnessed a murder some months ago: she saw someone strangling a woman. Eventually, Shirou and Seiya learn that this person must have been the masked painter Biwa, who disappeared some months ago. When they sneak into his abandoned house in the forest, they indeed find the decayed remains of a woman there, but oddly enough, there's no sign of the body actually... decaying in the house, even though she was killed there according to Sakura. As Seiya and Shirou dig deeper into this case, they find themselves at times confronted by the thugs, but fortunately, most of the times either of them summons Kodokuoh, they are saved by His actions. I say most, because Kodokuoh at times prefers to see violence unfold as is, as in the case of when Seiya summoned Kodokuoh when he saw Shirou's father being beaten up by some hooligans. Nonetheless, the two utilize, or even abuse the power of Kodokuoh as they try to figure out what exactly is going on.

Shirou has a bad relation with his father Masaya, who after a single published short story and many rejections afterwards, lost his interest at trying at anything, including raising his own child. However, two decades ago, he wrote a captivating account of an incident he experienced, which could easily have been a novel too. In the year 2001, when Masaya was in high school, he was friends with Jinmon Kouichi, the heir of the most prominent family in town: Kouichi's grandfather Jinmon Daizen ran the only hospital in the city of Yukiide when it was still just a rural, closed-off mountain village. Now his son (Kouichi's father) runs the place, with Kouichi of course being eyed as the third generation. Masaya first became friends with Kouichi when Masaya helped Kouichi's little cousin Ruru, who had been pushed on the street by Shimizu Kise, an elderly woman who long ago worked as a nurse for their grandfather. Kise recently died in an unfortunate accident... or was it? One day, Daizen receives a strange packet which contains... an urn packed with poisonous and venomous insects, all crawling over each other and fighting among themselves. Ryouko, Kouichi's other cousin, recognizes the urn from a photograph a mysterious figure had developed at the photo studio she frequents. The man had identified himself as Kodo Kuou, but when she mentions that name, everyone realizes the figure must have meant Kodoku-Ou: the King of the Ultimate Venom, "Kodoku" referring to an ancient ritual where someone stuffs an urn with all kinds of poisonous and venomous insects and have them fight each other until there's one survivor, the bearer of the ultimate venom. A threatening letter warns Jinmon Daizen for April Fools, on which the Jinmon family has a great event planned to commemorate the old mining industry, involving a tour inside the mining tunnels beneath the inactive vulcano. It is during this ceremony that the King of the Ultimate Venom strikes, as Daizen is found dead in one of the mining tunnels, but with witnesses on both ends of the tunnel, it appears the murderer just disappeared into thin air after killing Daizen! How did Kodoku-Ou commit this feat, and how are the events in 2001 connected to the events in the current day? That is the great question in the very lengthy 2025 novel by Asukabe Katsunori Massatsu Goth Gods, which also carries the English title Eliminate Goth Gods.

Phew, that was a long explanation of the premise! And yes, that is because Massatsu Goth Gods is a pretty long novel. Asukabe Katsunori was an author who was mainly active in the first decade of the 2000s. His work became out-of-print and hard to to get in the 2010s, but when a few years ago, the bookshop Shosen/Horindo started doing facsimile re-releases of his work, they sold really well, resulting in renewed interest in his work and publishers doing proper re-releases. And in 2025, Asukabe returned to the literary world as a writer with the very hefty volume Massatsu Goth Gods, which would instantly earn him a nomination for the Honkaku Mystery Award. I had bought the book pretty soon after release actually, as I managed to snag a cheap copy, but I decided I'd actually cast a vote this year, which bumped the book up the priority list. Anyway, in case it wasn't clear, the book consists of two narratives, one set in 2001, the other in the present day, following a father and son who both get involved in mysterious incidents involving murder, with both incidents also featuring a "being" called Kodoku-Oh or Kodoku-Ou.

Yes, Massatsu Goth Gods is a mystery novel, it is a detective novel, but most importantly, it is an Asukabe Katsunori novel, and that is what the reader will feel most when they read it. If you read it purely as a mystery novel, there will be times you will think something is not fair or unrealistic, you will find the actions of certain characters absolutely unbelievable or inexplicable, events unfold in the most dramatic and unrealistic manners and yet... it all works, because that's the world Asukabe sketches in most of his books; his world are our own world, but slightly contorted and twisted, with people who can snap more easily and do over-the-top things, where events do just happen to occur a certain way because it makes the more interesting or it's just fun to have a certain set piece, where scenes are less concerned about being the logical product of how everyone acts or thinks, but more about... just setting up a scene where everyone has cool lines, do memorable things while in the meanwhile things explode in the background, just because it looks great. Asukabe for some reason makes this work, and it is especially interesting here, as in other books, things often slowly build to the explosive finale where everybody and everything just go full throttle, while this book literally introduces the idea of the Goth God Kodokuoh within a few pages, and Kodokuoh defeats the two thugs within the first twenty pages of over six-hundred-and-fifty. Crazy things happen right away.

It is the 2001 narrative that sticks the closest to the "traditional" mystery tropes, and that's not only because it has a more clearly defined mystery, that being that of Daizen's death and the impossible circumstances under which it had been discovered: his body was found inside a section of a mining tunnel which could only be accessed from two sides. One side leads to the main tunnel, and there were people watching this entrance basically all the time because of a ceremony was about to start, after which a delegation entered the mine tunnels for a guided tour, with realistic mannequins being placed along the tunnels to recreate the mining experience of yore. There is another narrow tunnel that leads to the site where the body was found, but ground water here had caused the ground here to become muddy, and there were no footprints of the murderer leaving the tunnel to be found here, only the footprints of the two young men (Kouichi and Masaya) who entered from the other side of the tunnel to make their way to the site. Meaning the murderer somehow brought Daizen to the mining site, killed him there and then vanished. The solution for this impossible situation is a bit hard to believe, as it not only depends on a huge gamble by the culprit on guessing how things would develop once people entered the tunnel, it also simply sounds very dubious from a practical viewpoint (you'd think it'd be noticed). I think I would've liked the base concept of the trick better in a short story, but not as the main mystery of a huge narrative. 

That said, it is also clear that "the impossible situation" isn't really the main purpose of the 2001 narrative. For it becomes clear pretty early on that this is in fact more meant as a huge homage to the great adve-nture-detective stories of 1930-1940s Japan by Edogawa Rampo, which is especially apparent once you remember we have a villain here who goes by a Scooby Doo moniker, sending threatening letters and cackling on the pages about all the evil things they're going to do while pulling off impossible feats using tricks that are not really practical, but still amusing to read. And Asukabe absolutely nails this part: the 2001 narrative involves a lot of moving parts with especially many named characters who all react differently to the theat of the King of Ultimate Venom, but the story never bores because it just keeps going with Dramatic Reveals and twists and turns (even with fake solutions). As a story, I find it more interesting and captivating than the modern-day narrative, simply because it's just plain fun, even if a bit nuts at times. 

The modern-day narrative, focusing on Seiya and Shirou as they investigate why Sakura's being targeted in turn feels less focused and a bit more "passive" as an experience: Shirou is the main man here, but a lot of the story here follows a mode closer to a thriller, with multiple parties being after a MacGuffin and each party trying to lure out the other to see what they know exactly, with each party using different tactics to gain an advantage. The gang behind the thugs that beat up Sakura are of course utilizing sheer violence, while other invested parties like Sakura's father Dendou being more manipulative, and Shirou and Seiya of course have Kodokuoh as the ace up their sleeve. There are some mysteries that drive the plot besides the basic question of why everyone's after Sakura, like the mystery of why the painter Biwa killed a woman and then remained inside the house for a few days before getting rid of the body, but these are relatively minor beats in the story that don't get investigated thorougly, but simply receive an answer near the end. The present-day narrative in fact is perhaps best enjoyed as a coming-of-age story of Shirou, as he experiences a lot of growth during this tale: him getting new insights into the relationships he has with his friends and family are a vital part of this narrative, and he's forced to face quite some hardships along the way, all to reach the end where he finally finds some happiness. And as we're used to by now, Asukabe gives this story an explosive conclusion where everyone simply ends up massacring each other (figuratively) in bombastic ways, a chaotic catastrophe before catharsis. 

Massatsu Goth Gods is Asukabe's first book in 15 years, but it is a very familiar sight, utilizing all the tropes and motifs he also used heavily in his other books like Datenshi Goumonkei and Kuro to Ai: we have the discussions on art and art history, we have a focus on enigmatic women who become a love interest, or at the very least an object of attraction to the young boy protagonist, we have a kind of coming-of-age-story as the core, we have teenagers banter about love and how they see the world, we have dark, gothic imagery, characters who are...  a bit insane at first and who became positively violently insane at the end of the book. If you liked Asukabe's previous works, you'll find plenty to love here and in a way, Massatsu Goth Gods is a culumation of all of that, as if he had been saving up all his "Asukabe Power" these fifteen years and put it all in this book.

The conclusion of the book is pretty great too. While it relies a lot on coincidence and unrealistic scenarios to set-up its final surprises and twists, seeing Asukabe tie the adventures of father Masaya and son Shirou together to form one major narrative is honestly great, and while I honestly do think some of these twists are really out-of-there and not set-up well enough for a mystery novel, I also can't deny I really did think the surprises were simply fun to see as I read what was happening on the pages. Hearing how this or that happened was silly, but I could forgive Asukabe for its silliness, because I was genuinely enjoying what I was reading. I think it helped half of the book was really Edogawa Rampo-inspired, because it's that energy that has the reader go: "Yeah, sure I know that wasn't realistic or logical at all, but I had fun!"

So Massatsu Goth Gods is no conventional mystery novel by any means. For some, the weirdness might be too much, but for others, it might be exactly what they seek, especially if they are already familiar with Asukabe's work: the book holds all of his familiar tropes and the combination with an Edogawa Rampo-esque plot and villain works really, really well, making this easily one of my favorite books by the author. So definitely a must-read if you're already a fan of his work! 

Original Japanese title(s):  飛鳥部勝則『抹殺ゴスゴッズ』

A Fashionable Way to Die

"Manners. Maketh. Man."

"Kingsman: The Secret Service" 

Went to a very busy but small ramen restaurant in Kouenji once. It was run by an elderly man who did everything by himself, and it was very busy at the time, so when a group took its time to pack up and leave their table I could hear the owner grunt an angry "hurry up and leave" under his breath which was kinda funny but also scary. That's my Kouenji memory.

Kirigaya Kyousuke runs a small tailor shop in Kouenji, though his main occupation is being a kind of broker: he matches specific tailoring demands with the pop-and-mom kind of small-scale, expert tailors who are still to be found here and there, but not by the general shopping audience. While he is a tailor himself too, he's also an expert in artistic anatomy: while knowledge of anatomy is of course necessary for a dressmaker, Kirigaya's knowledge also works the other way around: his observations of the fit of clothes have in the past allowed him to make deductions about the wearer too. Sometimes, this is not appreciated, as him recognizing the signs of domestic violence only led to exaggerated denials and the victim feeling in fear, while recently, he recognized the signs of Parkinson's early via the gait of a friend's wife. He does realize he might sometimes be seen as someone meddling with other people's business, so he tries to keep it down. However, his expert attention is caught when the police ask for assistance in an unsolved case on television: ten years ago, a dead girl was found in an empty flat, having been hit hard on the head. She was only found weeks after her demise, and the police never managed to identify the victim. Now the police have released pictures of the dress the girl was wearing, and it absolutely awes Kirigaya: the fabric features a very unsual, retro design and the custom pattern of the dress is impeccable, revealing the designer was someone who had perfect knowledge of how the human body moves. But would it have been normal for a girl of the victim's age to be wearing such a vintage dress? Kirigaya also consults with Koharu, a young woman running a vintage clothing shop down the street, who immediately recognizes the design style of the fabric as "Atomic." The two wonder how a young girl, around her early teens, could remain unidentified for ten years: what about her parents, or classmates, her school? The two, feeling sorry for this girl forgotten by time, decide to pool their expertise in tailoring to help the Jane Doe in Kawase Nanao's 2017 novel Vintage Girl - Shitateya Tantei Kirigaya Kyousuke ("Vintage Girl - Dressmaker Detective Kirigaya Kyousuke").

Kawase Nanao is a fashion designer for children's clothing who started writing books in 2007. She became a finalist for both the Edogawa Rampo Award and the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, and eventually won the 57th instalment of the Edogawa Rampo Award. She has remained doing freelance design work while focusing on her writing career, and unsurprisingly, she has incorporated her expert knowledge topic in her books,which is of course very obvious in Vintage Girl, which is all about tailoring and fashion.

Vintage Girl, on paper, sounds like a rather cozy experience, with its focus on clothes, and Kirigaya even takes care of a stray cat in his shop so what more do you want? Surprisingly though, Vintage Girl can be quite dark: the investigation into the death of the young, anonymous girl reveals some horrible truths and the characters involved often have to shed a tear once they realize what events led to such a young girl dying in such a lonely manner, abandoned in a flat and not found for weeks. It is an emotional quest, especially as Kirigaya already has experience with trying to use his deductive skills to help young children who were being abused, but he never managed to help them before despite his efforts. Now his skills are used, perhaps, too late, but he still thinks it's his mission to at least bestow a name, an identity to the poor victim in her death.

The investigation that unfolds within the pages of Vintage Girl is not a fair-play mystery like the ones I usually discuss here though. It is very much a systematic procedural, where Kirigaya and Haruka have to dig up every detail for the very few clues they have, being the clothes the victim wore. Kirigaya manages to get a little bit more information from the police after making a creepily accurate portrait of the victim, based solely on the fit of the clothes, the reported age range of the victim and her age and length: while they at first suspect Kirigaya might even be involved in the murder himself because of the uncanny accuracy of his portrait of the victim, it's soon proven Kirigaya couldn't have been the murderer, so with that, Kirigaya and Haruka get a better look at the clothes, which soon reveals many strange details: the design of the dress is excellent, but why is the actual stitchwork clumsy and uneven? Why would a young girl have worn such an odd, retro design dress ten years ago? If it was her style, you'd think she'd have made an impression on the people in her vicinity, who would definitely have identified her when her murder was first reported ten years ago. In fact, a girl with such a unique sense in fashion would definitely not have "disappeared" without anyone noticing, so how come the victim still hasn't been identified? Other details of the dress, like the buttons, also offer interesting ways to commence an investigation.

It is here where author Kawase displays her knowledge of fashion: each trail is intricately connected to fashion history, from how certain fabric designs were imported to Japan to an examination of how small tailors survive in today's economy and a look into certain rare vintage trends. Kawase uses the book's plot to give little interesting glimpses in these specific parts of Japanese fashion industry, and I certainly find them more captivating than a look into "popular fashion history". But again, these trails are only usuable as clues to Kirigaya due to his specific knowledge of fashion (history), and there's no way the general reader can arrive at the truth without Kirigaya's guiding deductions that bring them from one point to another. Still, it's definitely an interesting subject to design a tale of mystery around, certainly not seen very often in Japanese mystery fiction, so it wins originality points there, and it's all brought in an interesting manner.

The mystery surrounding the unknown dead girl also finds its basis within specifics of Japanese culture, making it very much social school-aligned: people who enjoy the social commentary found in books like The Devotion of Suspect X, The Vessel of Sand (AKA Inspector Imanishi Investigates) and other such novels that incorporate social problems into their mysteries will find a lot to like here. While crying. For the story Kirigaya unveils to the reader, is truly tragic, and the realization the simple act of allowing Kirigaya to finally give a name to the anonymous victim is still one of the most hopeful things to occur within this book, is rather devastating.

As you can guess, Vintage Girl - Shitateya Tantei Kirigaya Kyousuke is certainly not reallly like the puzzle-focused mystery novels I usually read. Its methods invoke Inspector French in a way, with its eye for detail, but the subject matter of old fashion trends in Japan is highly original, and that alone kept me interested, even if I'm not interested in fashion in general. For those interested in a character-based mystery that not only focuses on retro fashion, but also the shortcomings of Japanese society, this is a book that will be right up your alley.

Original Japanese title(s):  川瀬七緒『ヴィンテージガール 仕立屋探偵 桐ヶ谷京介』

The Four-Headed Dragon

One little soldier boy left all alone; 

He went out and hanged himself and then there were none.

"And Then There Were None"

Great cover!

Kubinohara is a tiny rural village in the cold north of Gunma Prefecture. It is rumoured to have once been the hiding place of soldiers-on-the-run in the Genpei War in the late twelfth century and houses two temples despite its small size. The Kouzuki family has been the most prominent family in the village for ages, with Kouzuki Eiichi being the 17th head of the family currently. His daughter Aya is finally getting married at age 27 and her circle of old childhood friends, most of them who have moved to larger cities for work, have all returned to Kubinohara to celebrate the joyful occassion. The girls of course have a lot to talk about on the day before the wedding, and they are all scheduled to stay at the very spacious Kouzuki manor, which because of renovations and extensions can easily hold so many guests while also housing three generations of Kouzuki members: from Aya and her younger sister, to their parents and even her grandmother Ichino. 

After a long day of catching up and preparing for the important event tomorrow, Aya excuses herself as she tries out her dress in a room, while her friends all retreat to their respective rooms, have a chat with Ichino or have a bath, all remaining in the old wing. When Aya doesn't appear anymore however, they go check up on her.... only to find her decapitated body! The local police, of course not experienced in such murders, quickly have support from the prefectural headquarters come down to investigate the murder on the daughter of the prominent family. Because no footprints are found in the garden leading away from the house and because Ichino herself had been in a position to keep an eye on the hallway connecting the old and new wings of the house, suspicion soon falls on Aya's friends, as they were the only people in the old wing with Aya. However, none of them have Aya's head in their possession, clearing them of the murder for the moment. Aya's head is later discovered at the offering box at the nearby Dragon Kneeling Temple, almost like how they used to display the heads of criminals who had been decapitated. Aya's death however was only the beginning, as more of her friends are decapitated too, with their heads each time ending up being displayed at the temple. Who is this killer and why are they after the heads of these childhood friends in Kojima Masaki's Ryuu no Tera no Sarashikubi ("The Heads on Display at the Temple of Dragons, 2011)?

Kojima Masaki is an author I haven't discussed before. His publishing history is quite interesting: he had a few short stories first published in Shimada Souji-related anthologies and then made his debut in 2005 with the book Ten ni Kaeru Fune ("The Boat Returning to Heaven"), which he co-authored with Shimada Souji. That book would also be the first work in a series featuring the amateur detective Ebihara Kouichi, who is also the detective in Ryuu no Tera no Sarashikubi. Kojima's second book followed in 2008, which also featured Ebihara, but this time the book was credited to Kojima alone, and since then, he has written nearly ten of them. The Ebihara Kouichi novels are very much inspired by Yokomizo Seishi and Mitsuda Shinzou's work, featuring isolated rural communities as settings with local legends/beliefs that act as a core for the gruesome murders that follow. Ryuu no Tera no Sarashikubi is no exception to that: in this novel, Ebihara Kouchi is hired by Kouzuki Ichino to investigate the murder on her granddaughter. It happens that one of the police detectives investigating the case is Hamanaka Kouhei, who is actually a relation to Aya, as his grandmother is a sister of Ichino. She forces Kouhei to leak information to Ebihara and while Kouhei initially refuses, he can't really go against his great aunt and he soon finds himself reluctantly feeding all the police findings to Ebihara, who however proves himself indeed to be the one to find light in the darkness.

The book actually starts with a prologue set in the past, where we learn a young Aya, as the heir of the leading family of the small community, was pretty much a bully who ordered the other girls around. We learn that because of her doing, one of her "friends" has a motive for wanting her and the other girls dead once they're adult, but the reader is not informed as to who this person is. As I mentioned, I had never read anything by Masaki before, but he's sometimes referred to as an author who tries to stuff too much in his novels: I can definitely see some of that in Ryuu no Tera no Sarashikubi: a lot happens in this rather thick book, with multiple murders and also mysteries revolving how the cut-off heads end up at the temple, and then more mysteries regarding the history of the Dragon Kneeling Temple and there's of course the puzzle of how the unknown "victim" of Aya's bullying in the prologue is precisely connected to the current murders. While Masaki does keep the plot fairly focused, not all elements are developed as strongly as others, with some parts of the mystery sometimes ending up significantly weaker than others. The riddles surrounding the first death (Aya's death) are developed in a great way for example, from how the head was spirited away from the house, to the clues indicating how it was done, the clues pointing at the culprit and the set-up of how it was all accomplished in the first place. There are a lot of moving pieces in this "set piece" of the novel, but Kojima plots the whole thing in a very competent manner and it's very satisfying to hear Ebihara reconstruct the murderer's movement in this segment. Compare that to a later mystery, where witnesses see the body of a murder victim appear out of nowhere at the temple, and there the whole set-up is just barely believable, as you'd think very few witnesses indeed would've been fooled by such a trick.

Generally though, I did like the book and I think readers who like Yokomizo's work will find a lot to enjoy in Ryuu no Tera no Sarashikubi. The book can be pretty dark at times by the way, and interestingly enough, it's Ebihara who functions as a comic relief character, as his interactions with Kouhei (and Ichino) are often quite funny, while the rest of the book focuses on these gruesome murders and the investigation into this circle of friends slowly breaking apart not only because of the deaths, but also because underlying dynamics and interpersonal history that had been festering for two decades are finally exposed because of these murders. The conclusion is full of twists and turns that more often than not reveal rather nasty revelations about what led to these murders in the first place. Kojima has some good surprises hidden in this segment too, with some seemingly obvious facts being proven to be completely wrong assumptions that have been hiding the truth up until then and it really makes you eager to read until the very end, because as the reader, you're just never really sure whether Kojima has more twists waiting or not. Again, I don't think everything is executed perfectly and sometimes the connections feel a bit forced, but I do like what Kojima's going for and most of it works as intended.

The Ebihara Kouichi series has been released by several publishers and not all have the books have seen re-releases. I believe most of them are now available as e-books, but Ryuu no Tera no Sarashikubi is one of those books that only has a physical release at the moment, and it has also only been released as a hardcover release. I happened to come across this book, which is why I started with this book even though this book was released around the halfway point of the series. But my interest has certainly been piqued now, so I will definitely read more by Kojima.

It's not something that affects the story by the way, but the chapter cover page of this book has a very weird mistake, where it features a completely different chapter title than the one actually printed in the table of contents and in the margins of the pages of said chapter. The title features a term not from this book, so it's not even a chapter title that was changed between drafts, it's genuinely a title that comes out of nowhere.  

Anyway, as a first encounter with Kojima's work, I did enjoy Ryuu no Tera no Sarashikubi. It is obviously whose works serve as an inspiration for the Ebihara Kouichi series, but Kojima's book does stand on its own and while not every trick and set piece is as strong as another, the overall product is a pretty solid mystery story that excels especially in atmosphere. It was certainly enough to make me interested in the other books in the series, and most of them are more easily found than this book, so expect more reviews of this series in the future.

Original Japanese title(s):  小島正樹『龍の寺の晒し首』

In Search of the Black Rose

With bony hands I hold my partner, 

on soulless feet we cross the floor

"Grim Fandango" 

Phew, was I glad to hear this was getting a normal re-release, because all those facsimile re-releases are rather pricey... 

Aku Naoto is an amateur detective who's friends with Saikawa Shinji, a cameraman who works for a local television station. He's usually teamed up with director Gamou Takumi, who loves the occult and often creates original programs where they investigated haunted houses and other cursed locations, much to the horror of Saikawa, as he really doesn't like ghosts. When he and Gamou recently went location scouting and stayed for the night at a haunted place, Saikawa swears a ghost tried to strangle him, making him even more reluctant to do these kinds of jobs. That is why he has asked Aku to come along as his "assistant cameraman" on the next job. Their next job is at the Curious Crooked Castle, a Japanese-style castle that stands crooked and which until a few years ago was open to the public as a kind of amusement park/wunderkammer, but after a mysterious suicide happening in one of the rooms, it has remained closed. The room where the suicide happened, with creepy paintings hanging from the wall, is rumored to be haunted by the ghost of a fallen soldier. Director Gamou is to stay a night in the room to see if there's a ghost there, but Saikawa is afraid Gamou will ask him to stay in the room too, so Aku's supposed to take his place if that were too happen. They have already made all the arrangements for the shoot with Houjou, the owner of the house, who happens to be the uncle of one of the writers on the team, who are all coming along too. Another important member of the team is Kuro, a beautiful high school student who dresses completely in black. She has psychic powers and she's to act as the spirit medium to detect if there's anything supernatural going on in the Crooked Castle. Oddly, the very first thing she says to Aku is: "Do you like scissors?"

After the crew's arrival, Houjou and his secretary show the crew the castle, which has four "exhibition" rooms, which feature paintings, but also a collection of curiosities like a mannequin which might or might not feature real human hair and also a basement with a dried-up well. The team prepares for the midnight shooting of the stay in the suicide room, but there's still quite some time, so everybody goes about their own business, until they realize Gamou's been gone for a while, even though he was just supposed to check out the suicide room. They find the room bolted from the inside and there's no reply coming from inside. Houjou's secretary brings out her beloved chainsaw to break the door open, and inside they find... a decapitated Houjou. A storm prevents the police from arriving at the scene, but Aku quickly deduces who the culprit is anyway, but why would that person want to kill Gamou? That is the great mystery in Asukabe Katsunori's Kuro to Ai ("Black & Love, 2010).

By now it should be a familiar story, as I have repeated a few times over the last two years. Asukabe Katsunori was an author who was mostly active in the first decade of the 2000s, but after that first period, the books stopped coming, and with that, his earlier books also became difficult to obtain, slowly earning him the status of a cult author. However, a few years ago, bookshops Shosen and Horindo started putting out limited facsimile releases of his out-of-print works and the facsimile release Datenshi Goumonkei ("Torture of the Fallen Angels" 2008) in particular was a notable event, gathering a lot of attention. Since then, publishers have been re-releasing a lot of Asukabe's books from their catalogues that had previously been out-of-print for over a decade, like Lamia Gyakusatsu ("Lamia Massacre"). Leonardo no Chinmoku and today's book, which got a new re-release in 2026, sixteen years after its original release. Renewed awareness of his work has also led to Asukabe's return to writing and he has published at least two new books in 2025 and 2026 by the time this review is posted.

Interestingly, the murder mystery I described above only makes up half of the narrative of Kuro to Ai. The decapitation murder in the locked room in the castle takes up a bit more than the first fifth of the entire novel, which ends with Aku announcing they've solved the murder. The book however then jumps back in time and focuses on... the killer. The story is told from their perspective and set several months before the murder. The culprit turns out to be working at a school library, with the television writing being a side job, and it is at this school the culprit first encounters Kuro: she transferred a while ago to this school and stands out not only because of her beauty, but also because she doesn't wear the school uniform, but a black uniform, which is supposedly from her previous school. The question "Do you like scissors?" is asked to the killer too, who is immediately smitten by Kuro's mysterious attitude. They very quickly become completely obsessed with Kuro, following her after school to her home and wanting Kuro all for themselves, becoming jealous everytime they see Kuro interacting with two friends. Kuro seems to have developed some kind of liking to the librarian too and even invites them to her "death birthday", but when one of Kuro's friends says Kuro shouldn't, the killer becomes nearly insane, ready to kill that friend right there for interfering with their and Kuro's relation. The obsession becomes worse and worse as the killer sneaks into Kuro's house and discovers a horrible secret Kuro and her two friends have been hiding in a refrigerator there. However, nothing the killer does to attract Kuro's attention works out as planned and slowly but surely, things develop in a way that makes murder the only solution...

This obsession with a beautiful young woman/teenager is definitely a huge part of Asukabe's novels by the way, being a recurring theme in several of his works. These women are usually independent, enigmatic and also have an element of weakness, attracting the attention of men their own age as well of those well above theirs, who want to "protect" the woman and have her alone for themselves. Of the Asukabe's works I've read until now, I think he managed to portray this obsession the best in this book, as so much of the narrative is dedicated to such an obsessed mind: in other books, we often follow a character who is also interested in the girl, but doesn't become as obssessed at the one here, and we usually also have more things to think about while reading those narratives, while here we have a whole part dedicated just to this obsession.

Anyway, the account leading up to the murder is not really a mystery per se (even if it has a few unexplained parts that involve a mystery), though it will plant some clues necessary for the solution of the locked room murder in the castle. What this part is, however, is a truly creepy account of someone who is soon revealed to be a bit unstable at the very least, and who completely loses it once they become enthralled by Kuro, wanting her for themselves and obsessing every single secound about her. The portrayal of this obsession is genuinely unsettling, and can feel both unrealistic and realistic at the same time: it's weird how quickly the killer becomes obsessed with Kuro and how everything starts to revolve around how to improve their link to Kuro, culminating into the murder on Gamou, but at the same time, you probably have to be at least a little bit insane to become an obsessive stalker. This account is definitely the highlight of the book by the way: not that the actual murder in the castle is bad, but the way we see the killer go down the path of insanity is absolutely captivating, not in the least because the object of their obsession, Kuro, is such a mysterious figure, someone who is always dressed in black, asks people whether they like scissors, who celebrates her "death" birthday. The way the account includes foreshadowing/hints that help build up the story's finale is great too, for example when the killer learns about an impossible disappearance from a basement cell in the Curious Crooked Castle. 

After this examination of the killer, the narrative jumps back to the present, where we learn Aku has already finished explaining exactly how the killer managed to decapitate Gamou in a locked room and how that method allowed them to identify the killer, who has been put in a cell in the basement until the police arrives. Things however escalate from this point on: more characters present in the castle are revealed to have hidden agendas which they hope to execute before the police arrive, while Aku's solution is also shown to not be completely right, leading to more twists and turns awaiting in the last third of the novel. The reader who has read more of Asukabe's work might not be surprised by now, but the climax does become fantasy/science-fiction-esque at times, though I guess you could squint your eyes and handwave those parts away as "it was meant metaphorically", though going by Asukabe's other books, it's definitely meant to be fantasy. Your mileage might vary on how well you'll like this part of the book: I have to say I'm not a very big fan of it in general, but by now I've learned to accept it as a part of Asukabe's work. One of the characters in Kuro to Ai is also heavily hinted to be the same character from another novel by Asukabe by the way, but revealing the exact character would probably be spoilers, especially considering what they do here...

Anyway, as for the actual murder mystery, I am not really a huge fan of the actual mechanics of the locked room murder: the trick is acceptable, but it's simply of the type I don't really like. What works better is how this trick is then used to utilize the Queen deduction method of elimination to identify the culprit: Asukabe does here that could almost feel like cheating, but I think he did a great job at setting the twist up with proper clewing, and it's an interesting way to play with the elimination method of deduction. The clues hidden in the killer's account turn out to be quite well-placed, challenging you to identify mirroring elements in both the past and present narratives even if they apply to different situations. The base concept is not something that is very surprising, perhaps, but Asukabe's execution is done really well. There is a secondary mystery about two impossible disappearances from a locked cell in the basement of the castle, and the solution here is horrible. I mean that mostly in the sense of "the idea of that happening is just terrifying", though the actual solution itself is also rather ridiculous. Its sillyness only works here because by then, the book starts to show omens of the fantasy/science-fiction-esque climax.

Kuro to Ai is definitely one of the strongest Asukabes I've read until now, and certainly stronger as a mystery novel, and as a "horror" novel, compared to the two books by him I reviewed before this one. The book presents an alright locked room murder mystery, but it's definitely the look into the killer's obsessed mind that makes this book a great read, especially once you realize how it all also connects to the actual mystery later on. His first novel, Junkyou Catherine Sharin ("The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine's Wheel" AKA The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine.) is still relatively "normal", so in terms of length and contents, I think Kuro to Ai might be the most accessible work by Asukabe that gives the reader a good idea of what he does best: other books tend to be much longer or otherwise less well developed as this one. 

Original Japanese title(s): 飛鳥部勝則『黒と愛』 

Trace Memory

ひとつの目で明日をみて

ひとつの目で昨日を見つめてる

「The Real Folk Blues」（山根麻衣）

 

With one eye I look at tomorrow 

With one eye I keep staring at yesterday 

 "The Real Folk Blues" (Yamane Mai)

Oh, this reminds me I never finished the Another Code R part of the Another Code Recollection. I loved the Wii original though...

"O" was a serial killer who specialized in murdering people in locked rooms: he was also extremely good at that, as he had nearly killed a hundred people during his career. He made a mistake however when he killed Professor Kiryuu, but left his child alive: the young Kiryuu Touma swore revenge, becoming a detective specializing in O's handiwork. Because Touma remains in the shadows as a detective, the public soon came up with the name "Phantom Alpha". And it was Phantom Alpha who eventually managed to capture "O", just as he killed his 96th victim. "O" turned out to be a man called Migiwazaki Hitoshi and he was soon detained, but not at a prison: he was sent to the laboratory of Kuzumi Chiyo, a former pupil of Professor Kiryuu and a personal friend of Phantom Alpha. Chiyo runs the Kuzumi Brain Laboratory on Akon Island, a remote and highly secured island. Here Chiyo's researching memories, with her end goal being the Pandora Brain, a device that can extract memories of one person and implant them into another person, effectively overwriting one person's identity over another. Because the police can't find proof/explanations for all of the locked room murders O committed, Chiyo and her team of a handful of researchers are to examine Migiwazaki's memories and extract that information about all the crimes he committed from his brain. Migiwazaki is of course held in a heavily secured room, with pressure and biometric sensors making sure he's kept safely inside his prison cell day and night. Phantom Alpha (Touma) visits the island too to witness the experiment. The two nemeses "O" and "Phantom Alpha" have a confrontation over a video connection, but then there's a short power failure. Chiyo has the main computer (on the back-up generator) restore power in the facility, but when the security cameras go on again, they see Migiwazaki's burnt body in his prison cell. Touma hurries to the cell, which was locked throughout the power failure, but there's no doubt there's a burnt body there. But how could anyone have killed "O" like that in a locked room...?

Three years later, a group of university students make their way to the island to stay at the remains of the Kuzumi Brain Laboratory. Three years ago, an incident happened on the island, with four people being found murdered at the lab, including Migiwazaki, and two people (including Touma), missing from the island. There also had been a fire, which burnt down part of the building. The students belong to their university's Mystery Club and managed to arrange to stay for a few nights in the lab with the current owner of the property. As fans of the mystery genre, they are of course excited to stay at an island where such a mysterious incident occured just three years ago, but then murders start to happen here too and they start thinking: what if that Pandora Brain device that was being developed here was in a working state, and what if Migiwazaki's identity survived the murder spree and fire...? Minami Asov's Pandora Brain - Akontou Satsujin(kaku) Jiken ("Pandora Brain - The Akon Island (Identity) Murder Case", 2025) follows mysteries set both in the past and the present as they slowly converge towards one truth.

Minami Asov's first mystery novel Eigoukan Chourenzoku Satsujn Jiken - Majo wa X to Shinu Koto ni Shita ("The Super Serial Murder Case at the House of Eternity - The Witch Chose To Die With X"), released in 2024, was a mystery novel that cleverly used the supernatural device of time travel to bring a complex, but highly enjoyable plot. It was thus not very surprising to learn Minami's second mystery novel too would utilize some kind of supernatural or science-fiction device. Whereas Eigoukan featured in a historical setting, Pandora Brain is most definitely set in contemporary times (with the mystery club students making a lot of references to mystery fiction) and again, unsurprisingly, we thus get a science-fiction device in the form of the titular Pandora Brain, a device that can supposedly copy a person's whole memories (thus their identity) and implant them into a different person, effectively erasing the original persons's identity and overwriting them.

Which is a cool idea on paper, but I have to admit that for a large part of the story, Pandora Brain doesn't spend a lot of time on said device. The story alternates between the past and present narratives, so we follow both Phantom Alpha/Touma and Chiyo as they deal with the mysterious death of "O" in the prison in the high-tech lab and the students as they stay in the ruins of the lab and they get killed one by one. This means the mystery focuses more on the how and why of the locked room murders, rather than focusing on shenanigans with identity copiers. This is a bit of a disappointment, as you also know the device will become relevant later on, but because the plot only starts to pay attention to the titular Pandora Brain relatively late, most of the reveals surrounding this feel a bit underwhelming, as they don't go far as might have been possible, had it been put front and center from the start, rather than in the last third/quarter of the book. What also doesn't help is that the exact workings of the Pandora Brain aren't explained in enough detail, which means some of the things we learn in the conclusion regarding whether the Pandora Brain had been used in these murders or not, feel a bit unfair: some things are more-or-less handwaved, with the reader just being told it can do certain things or how it can't do certain things, which are relevant to the mystery solving, but we weren't really told about these rules until the denouement!

There are more moments where the book showcases good ideas for a mystery, but where the clewing feels insufficient. The direct trick behind the locked cell murder on "O" is fairly simple, but the underlying idea of how it was brought forth is interesting, but feels unfair because again "this is how a certain thing works" isn't explained properly until the explanation. The same for another murder that happens in the past. Again, the direct trick is simple, but the trick can only be done via a principle that is quite interesting on its own and is basically similar to the underlying principle of the "O" murder, but here too the lack of prior explanation hurts the execution. In the present, I think the set-up of the locked room is decent enough, though I think it would've worked better in a visual format, rather than prose. It is at the very end when the plot tightly connects the narratives of the past and present together, explaining why murders happened on the island three years apart, but it's here where the insufficient prior explanation of "the rules" hurt the story, as the idea is interesting, but we are shown various instances of the rules being applied differently, which makes things feel unfair, even though this could have been avoided by giving us more explanation about the rules (and explanations how/when things work differently from the standard application). The ending is bitter-sweet and again, I do think the general ideas in this novel are good, but I found the execution not nearly as neat as Eigoukan.

So on the whole, I didn't like Pandora Brain as much as Eigoukan. It has cool ideas, and I think a lot of readers will like the banter of the characters (especially in the present, with the students), but as a fair-play mystery, I think it could've been better, even if it's far from bad: I just think there was not only the potential for something much more impressive, so much of it was just in reach, so that makes it feel even more disappointing. Still, Pandora Brain isn't a book I would tell you to avoid, as there's plenty of good to be found inside too.

Original Japanese title(s): 南海遊『パンドラ・ブレイン　亜魂島殺人（格）事件』