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』 

Mind Over Murder

If I'm not back again this time tomorrow

Carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters

"Bohemian Rhapsody" (Queen) 

Disclosure: I have translated Arisugawa Alice's The Moai Island Puzzle.

Every Saturday, a handful of regulars gather at the bar April in the hopes Jizoubou will visit them again. Jizoubou is a yamabushi, an ascetic hermit who generally conducts his spiritual training in the mountains, but he sometimes comes down to... have a drink in a bar with other people. Because he's just human. Jizoubou's travels bring him to various places, where he meets even more people and for some reason, he has a knack for getting to know people just before a murder occurs in their vicinity. Jizoubou often relates these tales of murder to his friends at April, and as it turns out, it's always Jizoubou who ended up solving the case for the police. Each time, his fellow bar friends try their hand at solving the case too based on Jizoubou's retelling of the events, but none of them ever manage to match the brilliance of the travelling hermit in Arisugawa Alice's 1996 short story collection Yamabushi Jizoubou no Hourou ("The Wanderings of the Yamabushi Jizoubou").

As per custom, publisher Tokyo Sogensha usually adds an English title inside the book, which may be a translation, but often is a completely original title. In this case, the English title is Bohemian Dreams, after the cocktail served to Jizoubou. I wonder who comes up with those titles each time.

 Yamabushi Jizoubou no Hourou collects seven short stories that are all quite short and they all follow the same format. Each story consists of six segments, of which the first and last act as the framing book-ends: the first section sets up how Jizoubou ends up relating one of his old adventures to his friends at April, while the last section is dedicated to a few guesses by his friends, until Jizoubou finally gives the trick away. That means that each story only has four sections devoted them, and as you can guess, each story is pretty simple in structure, usually with one main trick that makes up the mystery. That said, most of the stories are pretty clever considering how short they are, and the overall book is quite enjoyable, even if after a while the stories do feel a bit samey. That does make it difficult to discuss the stories in detail though, as they are really very short: in some cases Jizoubou's story basically ends with the discovery of the corpse. So in this review, I'll only very briefly discuss the stories and highlight the points I liked about some of them.

The book opens with Local-sen to Cinderella ("The Local Line and Cinderella") which is indeed one of those stories that seems to spend all its time on the buildup, and then we learn about a murder, after which the story immediately returns to April, with the bar attendeed trying to guess what happened. In this case, Jizoubou had been s and he managed to catch the last train on a minor local train line back to Akino, the nearest city connected to the major Japan Rail network. He happens to share this last train with the actress Hoshimoto Mai and her entourage: Mai hails from the mountain village of Douno, the terminal station of the local line, and had been visiting her home town. The following morning, Jizoubou learns a murder had occured in the last train in the direction of Douno (so the counterpart to the train Jizoubou took to Akino): a stranger had been found stabbed in the train. Jizobou comes up with an explanation for the murder that is very clever: while the trick itself might sound familiar in some ways, Arisugawa manages to hide it well within the limited page count, and the application of the concept in this specific story is original enough to leave a very positive impression. In a way, the second story, Kasou Party no Yakata ("The House of the Masquerade Party") uses a similar underlying concept for its trick, even if the execution and the surrounding story is completely different. The set-up is prett funny though. Wandering in the mountains and in search for shelter, Jizoubou ends up at a manor where they're having a costumed birthday party, and other guests, assuming he's dressed up, help him inside. During the party, two costumed men are found dead in a room upstairs, one strangled and the other hit on the head. Witnesses had kept an eye on the door, and there seems to be no clear suspect, as only the two victims entered the room until they were discovered. I like the trick here, even if it's more a trick that seems feasible on paper than in real-life. I only realize in hindsight, as I'm writing this, that some of the underlying dynamics of this story and the first story are similar, but definitely not in a way that it's clear right away or that this story feels like a rehash in anway.

Gake no Kyouso ("The Cult Leader on the Cliff") has Jizoubou trying to help a man, whose girlfriend has fallen under the spell of a charismatic cult leader, who resides inside a cave in a cliff. Jizobou assists the man as he tries to find a way into the cave, but this attempt goes wrong and his attempts to save his girlfriend are also rebuted by the girlfriend herself. The following day however, Jizobou returns to find the cave half-collapsed: a bomb had been set off in the meditation chamber, killing the cult leader! But how did the culprit plant a bomb there, as it went off in the morning and his disciples sweeped the room earlier? The solution is simple but well foreshadowed, and I like the setting of a mountain sect/cult leader, as it fits the yamabushi motif of Jizoubou.

Jizoubou easily makes friends, so it's not rare for him to get invited for dinner, but seldom to one where one of the guests ends up poisoned! In Doku no Bansan ("Poisoned Dinner"), Jizoubou is invited by a friend to dinner, which is also attended by some other guests/family relatives. During dinner, one of them keels over, and it turns out his beer had been poisoned. But who did it? I love the trick behind this tale: it's so much not a mechanical trick, but a brilliantly psychological one, but even within the limited amount of pages Arisugawa has, he manages to very convincingly portray these characters in a way, that explains in a satisfactory manner how the murder was committed. I can imagine the same trick used in a full novel, but still, it wouldn't have the elegant simpleness of this version.

In Shinu Toki wa Hitori ("You Die Alone"), Jizoubou tells the story of when two hoodlums tried to pick a fight with him, but he was saved by their former boss: they used to form a gang of organized crime, but their boss has washed his hands clean and started a small bar. His former followers however still haven't quite gotten used to normal life yet. To apologize, the boss invites Jizoubou to his bar and offers him a drink. When the boss goes into his private office for a moment, a gunshot rings. Jizoubou and a former follower enter the office to find the boss shot and signs of someone having fled the office through the back door. Outside however, they can find a pistol, but also witnesses along all the alleys that swear they didn't see the murderer flee their way. So how did the killer escape? The trick behind the vanishing shooter is simple, but the story is quite memorable due to the underlying motive of the murderer: it is established very well, again, despite the limited amount of pages and it's surprisingly convincing. 

In Wareta Glass Mado ("The Broken Glass Window"), Jizoubou is invited to the home of a man hunting for truffles, When his host excuses himself for a moment to retreat to his study, a loud voice can be heard, and Jizoubou and the host's wife hurry to see what's happened: the host is lying dead on the floor with his head bashed in, one window broken and glass lying outside, as well as a book from the collection of the host. The matter seems simple: there was a struggle, a book was thrown at the assaillant and missed, and the host was killed. Or was that really the case? This is an interesting story, in the sense the murderer does something very over-the-top in order to create what is in essence a very simple trick, only made complicaed because of the 'over-the-top' thing. It's a bit silly to go so far, but it works. I wish it was clewed a bit better though, because I think the idea itself is good, only this is an example where I think the limited page count works to the story/trick's disadvantange.  

Whereas the previous stories were all serialized in magazines originally, the final story Tenma Hakase no Shouten ("The Ascension of Doctor Tenma") was written especially for the book release and it is therefore also a bit longer than the magazine stories. Wandering around in the forest, Jizoubou meets with an inventor who has been working on odd creations like a remote controlled boomerang. This inventor is later found dead in the early morning, apparently having fallen to his death from the cliff behind his house/lab. Footprints were left in the snow behind the house and they show how the inventor weaved a path from his house to the cliff, right above the spot where he was later found dead. He was found by someone passing beneath the path on his morning routine and at first glance, it appears this was nothing but a tragic accident, but of course, Jizoubou has different ideas. Because this story is a bit longer, we also have more/deeper theories proposed by Jizoubou's friends at April, which make this a more complex story. The trick revolves around something that seems a bit out of place in the world of this series, especially when we have a travelling hermit as our detective, and the trick itself is a bit simple to guess I think once a certain prop is introduced in the story, so I don't think it's the strongest tale of the collection, even if it's not that different in quality from the others.

Yamabushi Jizoubou no Hourou is a fairly solid, if simple short story collection by Arisugawa. Because each story is very short, there's simply not much room to paint really deep or complex stories, which results in most of these stories ending up as tales that revolve around one single thing, but most of the time, Arisugawa actually manages to make full use of the space he does have to bring satisfying stories with plots that are crafted with consistency and confidence. Few stories in the collection will probably manage to make an ever-lasting impression, but it's a quick and entertaining read that always retains a good level of quality when it comes to the mystery.

Original Japanese title(s): 有栖川有栖『山伏地蔵坊の放浪』: 「ローカル線とシンデレラ」/「仮装パーティーの館」/「崖の教祖」/「毒の晩餐会」/「死ぬ時はひとり」/「割れたガラス窓」/「天馬博士の昇天」 

Snow Job Too Small

"X marks the spot."

"Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"

Guess it'll be starting to become warm again by the time this post goes online. I actually read this book during one of the hottest summers in Japan...

Six men and women nearing their thirties each make their way to the mountains near Otaru City in Hokkaidou to arrive at the Deep Snow House, the private residence of Tachihara Shigeru, retired teacher, photographer and self-proclaimed inventor. This group of six used to be in Shigeru's class in high school and have been invited to a small gathering at his home. Almost a year ago, they had a class-wide reunion, but Shigeru had an accident then, falling off the stairs at the restaurant they were eating/drinking at, which left him unable to walk. His former pupils received an invitation to visit him at his home and stay for a few days for skiing, but as they arrive, they do find it odd they are only six of them here, especially as some of them weren't even that close with Shigeru. When they arrive at the house, they are shocked to see Shigeru after the accident: he wears a mask, sits in a wheelchair and can't talk, having to use a computer-generated voice coming out of a robot to speak. As they talk things over, Shigeru explains he didn't send all these letters and that he never had any plans to have any parties at his home. While everyone wonders who then sent these letters, Shigeru says his former pupils might as well stay. However, strange events occur and when they look into some of Shigeru's private files, they find clues indicating a plot: for over a year now, a "pusher" has been active in Sapporo City, pushing people from stairs and elevations out on the streets, in malls and everywhere, injuring people severely. Notes on Shigeru's computer seem to suggest Shigeru suspect his fall wasn't an accident, but also engineered by the pusher, and that this pusher is one of his students, more precisely, one of the six students now present at his house. What is going to happen at this house, especially as a snow storm prevents anyone from leaving in Nikaidou Reito and Kuroda Kenji's Killer X (2001).

Killer X is the first novel in a trilogy, but also the second novel in a tetralogy. That might sound confusing... and it kinda is. So to explain: in 2000 publisher Kobunsha published the novel Hakuginsou no Satsujinki ("The Killer of the Silver House") by the author "Psycho Jun", an pseudonym to signify two collaborating authors. A quiz was set-up, and participants had to guess who these two writers were. 233 people made a guess, with only 8 getting it right. It was eventually revealed that the writers were Nikaidou Reito and Aikawa Akira. The next year, Killer X was published, this time a book written by a duo operating under the name "The Queen Brothers" (the name that Nikaidou and Aikawa were planning to use originally). It was later revealed this pen name belonged to Nikaidou Reito and Kuroda Kenji. Nikaidou Reito and Kuroda Kenji would pen two more novels in this series. So the first novel was by the duo of Nikaidou and Aikawa, and the remaining three novels by Nikaidou and Kuroda. The four books also all share the same theme of being closed circle mysteries set in ski resorts, so are often referred to as the Ski Mystery Tetralogy. So far so good. 

The confusing thing however is that there's also a binding factor only present in the three novels by Nikaidou Reito and Kuroda Kenji. Killer X is not only the title of the first book, it is also the name of an in-universe character. Killer X is a (fictional) mascotte figure created by a stationery maker and hugely popular. The titular Killer X is a former monk, and stationery and other merchandise featuring Killer X usually feature a visual of him, accompanied by English sentences with trivia about X, like  "X Is Monk" (sic) or "X Likes Cooking". Killer X as a character appears in three of the Nikaidou/Kuroda novels, thus these three books specifically are also referred to as the Killer X Trilogy. In Killer X, one of the characters is a huge of Killer X, and as it is the title, you can also guess the Killer X character is in fact connected to the mystery.

I have no idea how Nikaidou and Kuroda divided their work and planned out this novel, but I can say one thing: they were enthusiastic as hell. The book is not short, though very readable because of the simple prose, but it's crammed full with all things mystery readers like. The closed circle situation set-up of a house isolated from the outside world due to a snowstorm is of course very, very traditional, but there's plenty more of that to come, like a masked host who used a computer-generated voice to speak with his guests, who even denies he invited them, mysterious letters, a dark backstory of a person who randomly pushes people in the city, a mysterious companion to the host who seems to have secrets of her own, a group of high school comrades who aren't quite just friends anymore because of time passing but also because of personal history... There's a very detailed floor plan of the Deep Snow House too, which immediately gives the reader all kinds of ideas of how murders could occur there... The suspense parts of the book work well, and you can constantly feel something will go wrong, because somehow, not everything fits.

As a mystery novel, it's perhaps not exactly what you'd expect it to be. I at least had hoped for some bombastic locked room murder situation (and solution) from Nikaidou, which I didn't really get here. What I did get is a very complex, tangled web of narratives that is slowly unraveled. The story jumps between perspectives and times, showing us glimpses of one character in the present, but then for example jumping back to the perspective of the pusher while they are committing one of their crimes, only to jump to another character soon before arrival at the house etc. Keeping a keen eye for how everything is connected is not only necessary to solve the mystery, I'd say you also need to pay attention simply just to keep up with the plot due to all the jumping around. 

When the snow prevents anyone from leaving the house (note: nobody actually goes skiing in this book despite it being called the Ski Tetralogy!!), the mood becomes suspenseful, but also very slow, because little actually happens for a large part of the novel. It's mostly the ex-students trying to figure out who and why they have been gathered at the house of Shigeru, with a focus on the tripping accident of Shigeru some time earlier, when they were having a class reunion at a bar and Shigeru tripped down the stairs on his way back from the bathroom. So a lot of the actual criminal investigation is aimed at the past incident, while the present-day events are more about the building suspense of finding out what is happening in the first place, though slowly but surely, things are about to occur in the present-day too Ultimately, the mystery behind Shigeru's fall in the past is fairly simple, but also very adequately clewed (some of the clewing is even quite cheeky!) and I do love how it very naturally connects to the many other plotlines going on this book. Keeping all of the narratives in mind can be a challenge, but once this part of the mystery is solved, you can slowly see how a lot of the seperate narratives you have been reading come together. There's some great misdirection going too in regards to the motive, and I really liked how that was done, even if it sometimes borders on the unfair. The more memorable parts of Killer X is definitely how in the end all the disjointed fragments we saw are given their proper context,  though obviously, I can't really explain that without spoiling that/explaining too much in detail. The device of Killer X as a character was alright, though I am surprised they decided to use it as the title of the book too, as Killer X's role in the book isn't that important on its own. I am interested to see how Nikaidou and Kuroda will use Killer X in the following two books.

Oh, and there's one more thing to note: the very ending of this book does reference, and I suspect even spoils the previous book (Hakuginsou no Satsujinki by Psycho Jun = Nikaidou Reito and Aikawa Akira). I haven't read that one yet, but they discuss a certain character in a way that makes me think it's a fairly major spoiler? It might just be something revealed to the reader at the start of that book, but you might want to read them in order just to be safe.

Killer X was perhaps not the kind of mystery I had expected as a collaborative effort by both Nikaidou Reito and Kuroda Kenji, but I did enjoy the book overall. It is never revolutionary in the way it handles mystery tropes, but you can definitely feel both authors are confident in their art and used to playing with the familiar tropes of the genre to come up with something that is very recognizable as a mystery story, yet also bringing enough energy to also pack this "Definitely A Detective Story With All The Usual Twists" with a few good ideas of their own. This was a decent enough read, and it does make me interested in the other two novels, which I fortunately already have in my possession. 

Original Japanese title(s): 二階堂黎人、黒田研二『Killer X』