While the Clock Ticked

 Are you death or paradise?

 Now you'll never see me cry

There's just no time to die

"No Time to Die" (Billie Eilish) 

Disclosure: I translated Ayatsuji Yukito's The Decagon House Murders, The Mill House Murders, The Labyrinth House Murders and of course, The Clock House Murders.

In 2024, Hulu released a wonderfully produced live-action adaptation of The Decagon House Murders. It just so happened I actually was going to meet author Ayatsuji Yukito the day after it was released, so I binged the series the night before, so I could actually talk about it to him. Like many others, I too was curious how they were going to actually film the book, as it is a very difficult work to adapt for certain media, but the result was honestly really, really good. So when I learnt last year they were going to do an adaptation of The Clock House Murders in 2026, I was thrilled: given how good The Decagon House Murders was, I have only high expectations for this new release, which was released this very week. Obviously, The Clock House Murders is a book dear to me: not only because it's easily one of my favorite books in the series, I also did the English translation of the novel, so I spent a lot of time on, and with the book. 

The live-action series releases today (Friday 27th), so I haven't seen the series yet at the time of writing this post. While they released the complete The Decagon House Murders series on the release day two years ago, this time they are splitting the release across two batches, with the first six episodes presenting the main problem released this week, and the last two episodes, with the solution, releasing next month. So I might binge everything next month in one go. 

To celebrate the release of this adaptation, the literary magazine Shousetsu Gendai (published by Kodansha, the Japanese publisher behind Ayatsuji's House books) featured a The Clock House Murders special in its March 2026 issue, with not only interviews with Ayatsuji, Arisugawa Alice and one of the main actors of the series, the magazine also featured no less than five (!) original "House"-inspired mystery short stories, written by as many authors. 

The first story featured is Aosaki Yuugo's Kubisogiyama no Kaiten Yashiki ("The Revolving Manor on Mt. Kubisogi"). The titular Revolving Manor is one of the six manors built by the legendary architect Kurotsubo Shinku. This particular building stands on Mt Kubisogi in the Hyogo Prefecture, and is best imagined as one of those revolving restaurants that offer a 360-degree panoramic view. The "entrance" of the house is actually just an elevator shaft: the elevator that leads up to the circular house built on top of that shaft tower. The house consist of three "rings". The fixed outer ring is the outer wall of the building, and is made of acrylic: the whole outer wall functions as a window, offering a panoramic view. The middle ring is built right against this outer window/window and holds most of the rooms, liking a sitting room, study and bedroom. This ring slowly revolves clock-wise, meaning each room not only has an amazing view, this view actually changes depending on the time! The inner "ring" is the static center of the house around which the second ring revolves, holding the elevator entrance, bathroom and kitchen.

The house is currently owned by Nishikubo Hiroyuki, who runs a make-up company. He and his wife are visited by a crew from a magazine on architecture for an article on the house. The crew are to stay for the night at this unique creation by the enigmatic architect Kurotsubo. The members all stay in a different room. The following morning however, a gigantic hole is found to have been carved out of the acrylic window. It's clear it wasn't just broken by accident, but someone actually bothered to open a hole in the outer wall. Down on the ground, at the base of the elevator shaft, they find one of the crew members lying dead, seemingly having fallen through the hole down the tower. Everyone is perplexed by the situation: did someone kill him and then cut a hole in the window to dump the body downstairs? But what purpose could that have?

This story is actually a sequel to an earlier Aosaki story, which features another house (The Glass Manor) by the architect Kurotsubo. I have the book, but I haven't read it yet. But it's no problem if you start here. The house in this story is actually pretty "normal" all things considered: I can easily imagine someone wanting a revolving house in the mountains with the complete outer wall acting as a window so you can always enjoy the view! It's not a particularly long story, which is why I was surprised Aosaki manages to pack quite a lot into the story, from a secondary storyline involving the narrator to a few (very short) wrong theories and then we have the actual explanation of what happened and it's... pretty hilarious if you visualize what happened and how the victim found their death. It's not mind-blowing good, but I do like the story for its subdued silliness and I'd love to see a live-action adaptation of this! I think Aosaki could even have gotten away with just that one main idea, so I do appreciate it how he decided to still add some more story details that weren't that necessary.

Ibuki Amon's Tsubaki Fujin no Subarashii Yakata ("Madam Tsubaki's Wonderful Home") is a historical mystery, as we may expect from Ibuki. Set in Manchukuo, we follow private detective Tsukisamu Sanshirou (also appearing in this collection), who is hired to find the brother of a young woman. When their father died, the whole family fortune was stolen by their uncle. The young woman and her mother managed to find some work to earn a humble living, but her brother ran away. He became a robber and eventually made it to the position of captain within his gang of robbers: his robbers already took revenge on their uncle. His sister had not seen her brother in a decade, but recently got a letter saying he had been wounded and was now recovering in a strict medical institution run by a Mrs. Tsubaki: patients aren't allowed to write or receive any letters, but he managed to get one of the suppliers to deliver a letter to his sister for him. He would write again later on, but she never got more news from him and when she asked the deliveryman to go ask at the institution, he was found out by guards and beaten to death. Tsukisamu happens to know Mrs Tsubaki from his time working for the railway ministry. He decides to pay the institution a visit, and is shown a truly wonderful place where wounded Manchurians, from criminals, to simple women and children, are slowly nursed back to health with all the love and care they need... but Tsukisamu knows there's something wrong about the house and the intentions of Mrs. Tsubaki.

I'd be lying if I didn't say I was a bit disappointed when I realized the "house" in this story was not as important as in the other stories in this feature: the focus of the mystery lies more on the intentions of Mrs. Tsubaki and why she is running this hospital. As one can expect from Ibuki, it's a great historical mystery though, set very firmly in the time period and setting of the story, which is of course also fairly original as you don't have many present-day mystery writers anymore who use Manchukuo as a setting. The motive for Mrs. Tsubaki's actions is set-up wonderfully and eventually, Tsukisamu arrives at a heinous plot hiding within Tsubaki's seemingly wonderful hospital. Less of a "add-clue 1-and-clue 2-to-arrive-at-answer 3" mystery, more of a "given-these-remarks, can-you-imagine-why-someone-would-do-this?" type of mystery, but still well-done.

Kesshoukan no Satsujin ("The Crystal House Murders") by Ooyama Seiichirou is set in November of 1990 and first introduces the reader to a group of friends, consisting of Ryouta, Kouji, Shuuichi, Rikka, Maki and Satomi. They are staying at the Crystal House, a small hexagon-shaped hotel in Hokkaido. They have been friends since primary school, and still meet once in a while even now they're all adults. The Crystal House is owned by Ryouta and not in business just yet, but he's giving his friends a sneak peek at his new business adventure. The friends have a pleasant night in the Crystal House, surrounded by nothing but nature and snow, but the following morning, Rikka is found murdered in her room: her head's been bashed in and for some reason, her left hand has been cut off. Rikka has always been the mysterious one of the group, with strange powers of clairvoyance, but is that why she got killed? When they try to call the police, they find the line's dead. Is the murderer someone from outside, or is it one of the friends, and why was the victim's hand cut off? 

This is probably my favorite story in the feature, partially because the story feels the most like a story inspired directly by Ayatsuji's House series, with a few cool nods like the cut-off hand, as well as a great set-up of the narrative: the tale actually starts with a news report detailing how the Crystal House went up in flames and how everyone but one person staying at the hotel had died: one person made it out alive and was saved by the emergency services, but is seemingly suffering from amnesia, with no recollection of the events that led to the deaths of all the people in the hotel. This "book-ending" mystery of who the survivor actually is, and what their role was in the deadly events that occured inside the Crystal House starting with Rikka's death, add a great extra layer to the mystery. The mystery of the cut-off hand, as said, invokes a few moments from Ayatsuji's house series, but the way Ooyama develops this clue feels much more Queenian than Ayatsuji would generally do. So even though the "prop" is the same, Ooyama definitely makes best use of his own expertise, using the cut-off hand for a proper physical-clue-based chain of deduction. I really like what he does with the Crystal House here as a setting too, giving it a unique vibe, and the whole tale feels really complete.

Shasendou Yuuki's Goumonkan no Satsujin ("The Torture House Murders") has the WeTuber Kugi Hikage and her assistant visiting the Torture House, as Kugi is best known for visiting houses with a nasty background stories. Twenty years ago, Horikoshi Toutarou, the original owner of the house kidnapped a few people to torture them to death in his basement with his collection of torture device. One victim managed to escape eventually and notified the police, leading to Horikoshi's arrest. The house, now known as the Torture House, was later bought by Nukube Ikurou and he had an exact copy of the Torture House built next to the original. He has preserved the original Torture House and has a caretaker there keep an eye on things, while he lives in the copy. As this copy houses his collection of antique wares, he has dubbed it the Antique House. He has invited a few people interested in the Torture House and the torture devices kept in the basement to view them, with Kugi as one of his guests. The tour is to be held the next day, but when Nukube doesn't appear in front of the Antique House the next morning as agreed upon, the group crosses a snow-covered field to head for the Torture House themselves. The caretaker there states he did see his master come to the Torture House yesterday. He had assumed Nukube had returned to the Antique House for the night, but the complete absence of footprints in the snow suggest Nukube never left the Torture House. When the group enter the dark basement, they find a dead Nukube, who has been clearly tortured to death, with his joints and bones broken. Unfortunately for the caretaker, it seems that he's the main suspect as he was the only other person in the Torture House last night.

Setting-wise, I really love this story, as the backstory of the Torture House is really cool, as well as the idea of an Antique House full of weird curiosities. It's why I am a bit disappointed that due to the way this story was structured, one person stands out a bit too much as the only viable suspect, which immediately limits the ways the murder could've been committed. The story does make cool use of the torture theme though. I also like the idea of how Kugi manages to trap the murderer in principle, but the way it is written now, the clue depends very much on trivia, while I think it could probably have been written in a way to be a bit fairer towards the reader, if they happen to not have certain knowledge.

The last story, Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken ("The Black Arrow Mansion Murder Case") by Takemoto Kenji, is one I'm not going to discuss in detail. The story is about the detective Norimuzu Rintarou who's asked to look into the disappearance of the owner of the Black Arrow Mansion in Saga Prefecture. Some readers will probably already have realized it by now, but this is a full-on parody of Oguri Mushitarou's Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken, one of the most notorious anti-mystery novels from Japan. Takemoto goes full throttle here, doing not only direct mirrors to scenes from that book, but the story is also absolutely brimming with countless of literary references that may or may not be real and characters who don't speak like humans but like... well, I guess, like AI that tries to sound smart and well-read. The story is basically only fun if you know the original Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken and recognize what this story is mirroring exactly. For Takemoto does that really good, it feels as frustrating to read as the original! (Considering the author's intent, this is praise).

Overall, I think this The Clock House Murders feature in Shousetsu Gendai was pretty fun though, and it's great seeing all these authors doing a take on a house-based mystery. I'm looking forward to watching the live-action adaptation too. If you haven't already though, please consider reading the English translation of The Clock House Murders too, as it's really a great mystery novel!

Original Japanese title(s): 青崎有吾『馘殺山の回転屋敷』/伊吹亜門『椿夫人のすばらしい家』 / 大山誠一郎『結晶館の殺人』/ 斜線堂有紀『拷問館の殺人』 / 竹本健治『黒矢館殺人事件』

Requiem for a Falling Star

What if that star is not to come?
Will their dreams fade to nothing?
"Wind's Nocturne" (Lunar: Silver Story)

The more I think about it, the more I think this series would be great for an anime adaptation...

It was only a few decades ago when everybody in Japan knew the name Yashiki Keijirou, the great detective. It were his real-life exploits, where he outsmarted the police and solved numerous locked room murders, serial killings and other mysterious incidents, that sparked an interest in all things detective-related. His own memoirs, The Proof of the Detective, where he chronicled his own rise as a detective, not only writing about his accomplishments, but also the hardships and his failures on the way, was a huge bestselling book and was also the instigator of the shin honkaku movement in Japan, leading to a return of the puzzle plot-focused detective novel. But that is all of the past now. While people initially praised Yashiki, slowly on people started to blame him for the uprise in curious killings: weren't murders resorting to fantastical murders like locked room murders exactly because of Yashiki, as a way to challenge him? Wasn't he the trigger for the more insane murderers to act on their urges? After Yashiki narrowingly escaped an attempt on his life, he decided to not take any jobs anymore, as he not only started to fear for his family's safety, he also started to become afraid he was both physically, but also mentally, not capable anymore of being the great detective. While technically his agency was still open, he declined all requests and with time, he was forgotten.

Many years later, and Yashiki is still having the exact same daily routine of showing his face at the office, only to go napping, and occasionally he's visited by Taketomi Tatsuhito: Taketomi was Yashiki's partner and assistant as the "inside man" in the police force and while he has retired, he still hopes Yashiki will return as the great detective he once was. One day, the two catch a television program featuring Mikan Hanako, an idol artist who is also a great detective: ever since she was young, she has solved many cases and nowadays, she still solves cases between her idol gigs in. Mikan is a huge presence on social media with over a million followers, and it's she people think of whenever the word "detective" is mentioned nowadays. Seeing such a young detective working hard, jogs something in Yashiki, and he finally decides to try the detective profession one last time: if he can successfully solve a case, he'll fully reopen his agency again, and otherwise, he'll properly close it. Tatsuhito happens to know nobody who is in need of the help of the great Yashiki Keijirou... and Mikan Hanako: the wealthy couple Masukura Toshio and Chika have received a threatening letter, which orders them to summon Mikan to their second home on the twenty-ninth of December, or else something bad will happen. The Masukuras own a small villa in the middle of nowhere, which is only accessible via a bridge (the house basically stands on an island with cliffs around it). The Masukuras of course do as told, but they also want Yashiki at the scene, as they are of the generation that know Yashiki best. Their son Souta, and his girlfriend (whom he met via a Mikan fansite) are also present. Tatsuhito is clearly antagonistic against Mikan, eyeing her as a rival to Yashiki, but Yashiki soon realizes Mikan is truly a capable detective and sees in her a comrade. The two scope out the land and set security cameras around the bridge, but when they return, they hear people banging on the door of Souta's bedroom: for some reason he won't answer at all and the door is locked. They break the door open, only to find Souta stabbed in his neck, dead. The knife is also stabbed through a note that laughs at Mikan, challenging her to solve this locked room. But Mikan and Yashiki soon learn nobody left the "island" via the bridge, so that means the murderer has to be one of them. But who, and how? Can Yashiki get his groove back in Ichikawa Tetsuya's debut novel Meitantei no Shoumei ("Proof of the Great Detective", 2013)?

The inner work also features an alternate English title, which is just The Detective, which seems like not a very... tactical title to give to a detective novel, as nobody's going to be able to find that via a search engine...

Ichikawa Tetsuya made his debut by winning the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award with this novel (which nets you a publishing contract). And in case you wondered: that is his real name, not a pen name he based on Ayukawa Tetsuya. A few years ago, I already read the second novel in the Proof of the Great Detective/Mikan Hanako series, which was an interesting locked room + closed circle mystery that at the same time, very much explored the theme of the detective, with Mikan being seen as "the origin of evil" by the narrator, claiming crazy murderers were only enabled by "great detectives" like Mikan making a name for themselves. I found having the narrator constantly complain about Mikan all the time a bit tiring though, and at the time, I wondered whether she'd be more of a focal character in the other novels, so I was a bit surprised to learn that in the first novel, she too wasn't really the main detective. This novel is narrated by Yashiki himself, a detective who has seen much better days, but now seems to have found that spark again after seeing Mikan in action.

I do have to say that I think this novel is best read exactly for that reason: Ichikawa does a great job at exploring the fictional device of the Great Detective and the implications of their existence. Yes, Ichikawa basically works with Late Queen Problems (i.e. the effect the Great Detective has on the actions of the people around him in a mystery story), but he presents it in a very accessible and understandable manner, yet really manages to address the friction that can arise due a Great Detective. We see Yashiki have doubts about his work, because he knows people have called him out in the past about how him gloriously playing the great detective in the media has only enabled murderers to commit showy murders too, craving the same attention and in a way, Yashiki knows that this "Batman creates his villains"-effect is true up to some degree too. But he also knows he has done a lot of good, and him watching Mikan, who is in a way very similar to him, but in a completely different stage in her career, alllows for some interesting and poignant musings about what it means to be a detective. Mikan, while being more decisivive than Yashiki, is shown to have very realistic doubts about her work too, and I think that Ichikawa does a good job at exploring these themes.

On the other hand, the specific mysteries Yashiki has to solve in this book aren't really that impressive, and you really wonder whether you really needed the two best detectives Japan has ever known working on this. The locked room murder mystery with Souta is incredibly simple, even if it contains a minor false solution. There is a more interesting set-up later in the novel, when Yashiki enters an elevator with someone else, and a stalker wielding a bat suddenly forces his way in, smashing the lights and stopping the elevator. However, after some crying, the stalker is found dead on the floor, his throat being slit, and both Yashiki and the stalker victim swear they didn't do it. While I like the set-up a lot, this solution is also very simple and that kinda undermines the way the book tries to paint Yashiki and Mikan. The second novel, while still not being super technical when it comes to the mysteries, was definitely more interesting mystery-wise, so I was really surprised how simpler the mysteries were in this book. I do very much like the motive for the first murder though; it ties perfectly with the theme and the set-up for the reveal is great and is really a motive you could only pull off by having a character like Yashiki. It's kinda a shame Ichikawa started with this, just imagine he really did first write a long series of books building Yashiki up as this legendary detective, all just to set-up the motive found in this book!

So on the whole, I am a bit torn on the book. Meitantei no Shoumei is thematically quite memorable, and addresses post-modernist themes regarding The Great Detective in a very accessible manner, tying it perfectly with the motive. On the other hand, the actual mysteries encountered in this novel are fairly simple, and that does clash a bit with the image we are supposed to have of both Yashiki and Mikan, who are the country's best detective... and yet are working on crimes of this... level. I did like the second novel better. The third novel is the last, so it is likely I will read that too in time.

Original Japanese title(s): 市川哲也『名探偵の証明』

The Maddest of All

From the lightning in the sky

As it pass’d me flying by— 

From the thunder, and the storm— 

And the cloud that took the form  

"Alone" 

Looking up the etymology of words sometimes points out such obvious connections you never had even considered. After writing the main body of this post, I decided to look up the etymology behind the Dutch word for "lightning", and yes, of course, it does make sense the German "blitzen" is related to the word!

Mephisto is a magazine providing entertainment fiction, with a focus on mystery, but not exclusively so, as it also features stories encompassing sci-fi and other genres. It has gone through a few formats since its inauguration in 1994, and since 2021, it has become one of the perks for subscribers of the Mephisto Readers Club, being published four times a year as its club magazine, featuring serializations of for example the newest House novel by Ayatsuji Yukito, but also original stories written for the magazine. When the contents of Volume 18, 2026 Winter were first announced, my attention was immediately drawn to a new short story by Maya Yutaka: Raimei to Inazuma ("Thunder and Lightning", 2026) is a short story that will be part of an upcoming collection featuring Maya's series detective Mercator Ayu, the brilliant, but self-centred great detective who's always dressed in a neat suit and a top hat and often used as a device by Maya to address meta questions about the literary detective genre. The collection, tentatively titled Mercator Ayu no Gyakushuu ("The Insurrection of Mercator Ayu"), has no scheduled release window yet nor has it been revealed yet what and how many stories there'll be, meaning it might still be years until we see the actual book on the shelves, which is why I decided to discuss this one story early, as I really liked it.

Mercator and his Watson Minagi are staying at the Canaria Lodge, a cosy hotel near a mountain road in Okayama, three hours away from Osaka. Mercator is looking to buy some property, and preferably, haunted or otherwise stigmatized property because that's of course a lot more interesting than a normal home. His search for such a property has brought him near Tsuyama, which is why he and Minagi are taking a rest at the Canaria Lodge, which is run by Ogakie Hajime. Circumstances have left him short-handed, so he has enlisted the help of a handful of members who belong to the same club he used to be in while in university, who just have to help clean a bit, while being offered a free stay at the hotel. Mercator's quest for 'tainted property' leads to Ogakie telling about the legend of a cursed headless Jizo-statue nearby, and how he himself once saw a giant eyeball monster standing at a ridge overlooking the hotel. Mercator of course is interested in the stories, so during the day, he and Minagi go visit these sites. In the evening, they all have dinner at the Canaria Lodge, but rain and lightning cancels any plans for evening strolls. Later that evening, a decorative vase on the ground floor topples over and breaks into pieces. It's clear someone had deliberately push the vase around for it to topple over, but Mercator happened to be nearby as it happened and he didn't see the "culprit" come his way: other people in other places of the ground floor also deny having seen anyone flee the scene towards their location. They then try to ask the people upstairs, until they find one of the students is lying dead in his room, his head bashed in. Who is the killer?

Raimei to Inazuma is a pure puzzle whodunnit by Maya, who is really good constructing these puzzles, but he's also really good at playing with the format by for example taking the format tropes to ridiculous extremes, like the insanely constructed time table puzzle in Mokusei no Ouji, the brilliant set-up of having the reader guess who the victim is before they can proceed with the question of who the killer is and other such playful twists on the Queenian puzzle. Raimei to Inazuma is another fun example of Maya playing around with the format, and while some might be frustrated by the way Maya kinda ridicules the idea of a fair-play whodunnit, it works really well in this story.

In essence, the game presented here is very familiar: we know a crime has been committed, we have a rough idea of when it must have happened, so we need to identify the killer based on the actions we deduce the murderer have taken, and compare that information with the available suspects. Some of these "murderer conditions" are pretty classic ones you'll likely have encountered before in other similar pure guess-the-culprit scenarios, others are quite original: I especially like one major line of deduction of Mercator's solution, which is incredibly cleverly imbedded in the narrative of the story and basically only works because this is a Mercator story, for it would just be too outrageous for any other series detective, but in a Mercator Ayu story? Yeah, that concept goes, and it goes hard! It had me laughing out loud as I finished the story and I definitely think this was one of the best Mercator Ayu stories I've read. I have no idea how the whole collection will look like, but I already want to claim it'll be worth reading for this story alone!

Ultimately, it's just a short story though, so there's not much I can discuss about it here without spoiling anything. I don't really do posts on a single short story often, but I guess I should do them more often. Anyway, Raimei to Inazuma is definitely worth reading for the Maya Yutaka fans, or for those who want to see a mystery author play with the tropes of the genre, exploring the genre to see how ridiculous things can get if one sticks strictly to the conventions. 

Original Japanese stories: 麻耶雄嵩『雷鳴と稲妻』 

The Stolen Show

「へええええ」

『トリビアの泉』

 

 "Wo-----w"

"The Fountain of Trivia" 

I do love quiz programs on Japan, though I am not really a fan of the QuizKnock-type of quizzes often seen on television now... Trivia buzzer quizzes are the way to go! 

Sora and Nanairo are classmates who were both in their school's Quiz Club, but their dreams were shattered last year when they lost in the primaries of the National Quiz Competition, because Sora messed up a simple Alice in Wonderland-related question. It has become a kind of trauma for Sora, which is why she immediately jumped on the news the legendary idol producer Kujirai Keiji had returned from an early retirement and was going to produce a new idol group named Queen & Alice, with quizzes as its theme. With some effort, Sora manages to convince the reluctant Nanairo to send in an application together, so they can continue doing quizzes together. Surprisingly, both are selected for the shortlist of candidate idols. Eight finalists are to gather on Kujirai's private island Hat Island, where the final selection round will be held and filmed for online streaming. Due to the size of the heart-shaped Heart House (Kujirai's home), there will only be a bare-bones team present besides the contestants: a show director and his assistant, vocal, dance and quiz trainers and a cameraman. The contestants all have different backgrounds: some have been auditioning for years to become an idol and see this as a final opportunity, while others come from a music band background as opposed to the quiz background of Sora and Nanairo. The final round will span a few days during which the candidates will compete with each other on dance, singing and quiz segments, with one candidate being sent home each night until the final group has been decided. Things go as scheduled the first day, with one girl being sent home in the evening (a boat has been chartered to come to the island each evening at 20:00 to pick up the loser). The following morning, the remaining girls all gather to take on a new day, but one girl won't get up. When they go check up on her in her room, they find her dead, with the mark of a spade (of a playing card deck) drawn on her sheets and her teddy bear stained in red paint. Did one of the other candidates go so far as to literally eliminate the opposition, or is something else going on? The director wants to phone the police, but he is stopped by Kujirai, who comes up with a crazy idea: he sees this murder as the ultimate quiz, so he announces he will make the candidate who solves this murder an idol. Who will become a member of Queen & Alice in Kaneko Reisuke's Queen to Satsujin to Alice ("Queen, Murder and Alice" 2025)?

Kaneko Reisuke made his debut as a writer in 2024, by winning the Mephisto Prize with his book Shinda Yamada-kun to Kyoushitsu ("Dead Yamada and his Classroom"). He has been quite prolific since, with three book releases in 2024 alone, and another in 2025. Kaneko had been sending in manuscripts for literary prizes for some time while working as an accountant, but it appears his switch to focus more on entertainment-focused awards was the best choice, as winning the Mephisto Prize has allowed him to really let go with his writing output. While he won the Mephisto Prize in 2023 with Shinda Yamada-kun to Kyoushitsu, that wasn't his first attempt at winning the award. In 2022, Queen to Satsujin to Alice had already made it far into the selection process of the award. While it didn't win at the time, they decided to revisit this story in 2025: Queen to Satsujin to Alice was serialized in Mephisto across three installments and saw a standalone book release in November 2025.

I haven't read Shinda Yamada-kun to Kyoushitsu yet, but I believe it's not a pure mystery story: Queen to Satsujin to Alice most definitely is, as the premise should suggest. We have the tried-and-true premise of a murder occuring during a kind of competition, with the contestants having an obvious motive for eliminating one of their rivals, an odd crime scene and of course, this all takes place in a closed circle, on a private island in a weird heart-shaped house. It would be weirder if this wasn't a conventional mystery story! The story is told from two perspectives: Sora, and the contestant Mahiru, who is the oldest contestant at age 24 and knows this is her last chance at ever becoming an idol, even if she knows she's not the best at quizzes, dancing or singing. This creates some welcome variety in narration, with Mahiru definitely feeling much more desperate to succeed, while being evenly envious of her younger rivals, while Sora is still young and much more worry-free. In a way, it feels a bit like those idol audition shows, where you may feel like you want to root for one candidate or another, as they all have very different personalities. The Sora parts are definitely funnier to read for example, as opposed to the more serious and desperate Mahiru parts.

While this is a mystery story, the story is a bit slow to get to the bloody parts, and the first half feels more like a regular idol audition show, with the girls being given various assignments and we see them compete against each other. Because the theme of the new group Queen & Alice (Q&A!) is quizzes, we are given quite a few of them in this first half: some of them ridddles than can be solved fairly by the reader themselves too, though there is also a long segment with a buzzer quiz, where a question is read out loud and the first to hit the buzzer is given the opportunity to answer. Because you can hit the buzzer before the full question has been read, the trick is to anticipate what the full question will be and give the right answer. It's a popular type of quiz in Japan (often seen on television) and it has some parallels with the competitive karuta, but it is a bit hard to make this part truly interesting to read: the questions themselves are mostly about trivia, and while there are valid strategies for these quizzes (listening to the intonation of the reader to guess it's a question that consists of two clauses, or gambling on what the answer could be if you know it has to be one out of two possible answers), a lot of that doesn't work very well on paper. So it feels a bit like you're just reading trivia being read out loud. While these trivia questions do become relevant for the mystery later, it still feels like the least engaging part of the story, even though it should be the "big moment" for the would-be members of the quiz-based Queen & Alice.

After the murder is discovered, Kujirai forces everyone to go along with his reinvented final round of "find the killer": the legendary producer holds so much power he could easily kill the career of everyone both in front and behind the camera with just one word, so nobody dares to go against him. It is at this point the story moves more swiftly (also because the remaining number of pages is rather limited at this point). The mystery of the murder is not very complicated, as it mostly revolves around the question of why the crime scene was made such a mess, with a not very surprising, but still well thought-out answer lying at the end of the thinking process. Interestingly, the solving of this mystery is two-fold, as a completely different line of thought can bring the reader to the motive behind the murder. This part is more substantial in fact, and is thematically better founded in the theme of quizzes of this book, but at the same time, it only points in the direction of a motive, and doesn't show who did it, while the whodunnit part of the solving process point very definitely at one person, so by that time it's not like a motive is really needed (at least, not in Ellery Queen-style mysteries). So it's a bit of a shame the two "routes" to the solution aren't really equal in terms of "worth". I did like a certain later reveal: I had completely overlooked that point and I think the clewing here was really shrewdly hidden!

Not surprisingly, Queen to Satsujin to Alice does look at Japanese idol culture, in this case, at the production side of idols. While I don't think Queen to Satsujin to Alice does anything surprising or radical when it addresses the darker side of idols in its tale (the points it made... are the points you'd expect the book to make when you talk about the darker side of the industry), it is competently woven into the mystery plot, so that at least makes the book feel coherent in its themes.

 Queen to Satsujin to Alice thus takes a few some popular themes from Japanese television (idols, quizzes) and mixes them to create a fairly light and simple, but competently written mystery. I will admit I would have loved to have seen a beefier core mystery plot, but the book was fun to read, so nothing to really complain about. I am interested to see if Kaneko's doing "hard mystery" too though, so I might try out other works by him in the future.

Original Japanese title(s): 金子玲介『クイーンと殺人とアリス』 

The Lying Detective

"Lies — and again lies. It amazes me, the amount of lies we had told to us this morning"

"Murder on the Orient Express" 

Huh, I always saw this book in the shops, with the obi (strip of paper with accolades etc on them) around the cover, so I never realized there was a third (upside-down) character beneath the obi! I did buy the book digitally, so I guess I should have seen the obi-less cover, but I honestly didn't realize there was someone there until I just looked for the cover image to accompany this reivew... 

What would you do if you came into a fortune? Well, buy a private island, build a strange house on it and commit a series of murders, of course! That's the thinking process of Sairi, a young woman who is a huge fan of mystery fiction. While her paternal grandparents were wealthy, her father eloped to marry the woman he loved (Sairi's mother), an act her grandfather never forgave his father. Her grandmother occasionally checked in on her child in secret. Recently, her grandfather died, soon followed by her grandmother, who left everything to her grandchild, making Sairi a very rich heiresss indeed. But, as mentioned earlier, she is also an enormous mystery buff, so she decides to use her money to enact a real murder mystery, one she will orchestrate. The idea is to create a closed circle situation on an island she inherited, in a curious house (she only needed to renovate the manor on the island) and then the rest is simple: invite a few people on the island, kill a few of them, create a scapegoat and "solve" the series of murders. Sairi has the house renovated to create a secret passageway that leads from the master bedroom to three of the guest rooms: the idea is to create a "locked room mystery" by killing one of the guests. She'll eventually also kill another guest, dress the scene as a suicide and make it seem they are the killer. The targets are two people she knows from the online mystery community and who ridiculed her attempt at writing a mystery novel when she was younger. They don't know the girl they mocked some years ago, is the same person as the rich heir who just happened to become mystery-community-friends with them on the internet recently and who oh-so-kindly invited them to her own private island to talk about mystery fiction and watch a rare mystery film together. Sairi has also invited a few other people, like a medical student and a police detective to "fill out the cast" of her very own murder mystery, all under the pretense she's just a mystery fan who has invited a few guests to indulge in their fandom. Sairi dubs her manor the Raia (Liar) House, an omen of what is to come. 

Sairi's only accomplice is Aoi, a former employee of her grandmother who is close in age to Sairi and who is quite sharp and willing to do anything as long as the pay is good, and the plan good enough to escape suspicion from the police. She is to act as Sairi's head maid and will help Sairi obtain an alibi for the murder. They also hire an extra maid, who will be an unknowing accomplice: this maid thinks they're playing a very realistic murder mystery role-playing game and will assist Sairi and Aoi. Under Aoi's guidance, Sairi plans out exactly what they all are going to do during this game of murder, with exact timings for when they'll cut off the island's Wi-Fi so they can't contact the mainland and have to wait for the scheduled boat to return to pick them up, to what everyone's story will be when they'll be interviewed by the police. The guests arrrive and all seems to go mostly as planned, though of course not all movements and actions by all guests can be predicted accurately. Things however go wrong when Sairi is all ready to commit the first murder: her victim doesn't appear at the time he was supposed to appear in a room, and she misses her opportunity to kill him while having an alibi. She falls asleep, but when she wakes up the following morning, her intended target is indeed found dead in his room, even though Sairi didn't commit the murder. Sairi doesn't understand what has happened, but she has no time to consider as her accomplice Aoi seems to proceed to the next step of their plan and thus Sairi sees how her plans seems to slip away from between her fingers and develop into a completely different game of murder in Origami Kyouya's Liar House no Satsujin (2025), or as the cover also says: The Liar House Murders. 

First time I read a novel by Origami and as I'm looking up her profile to write this review, I'm surprised to learn she's actually older than me: I met her and spoke briefly with her at the 2025 Honkaku Mystery Award ceremony and I honesly assumed she was younger or around the same age. Anyway, Liar House no Satsujin starts out as a hilarious novel, with a pleasantly insane protagonist who, having come into money, decides to use her wealth to create a real-life murder mystery, complete with actually killing people. The funny thing is, she isn't using her money in order to kill the people who once mocked her online: her main goal is to create a genuine "closed circle murder mystery in a bizarre house on an isolated island", and it just so happens there are a few people she could use as a victims for her plans. So yeah, she's funnily insane, and it shows in her conversations with Aoi, a cool-headed, capable assistant who makes sure Sairi doesn't make silly mistakes and is also quick to note she'll pretend she's completetely innocent and knows nothing about Sairi's plans if she were to mess up and the police would go after her. The eager would-be murdereress and her "I don't really care" assistant have some funny banter as they plan the murders, which are a mix of the practical and extravagant: Sairi has a secret passageway installed so she can commit a "locked room mystery", the idea being she'll have a perfect alibi if she retreats to her master bedroom with people watching her door and then use the secret passageway to commit a murder in a guest room further down the corridor. The banter between the two is genuinely hilarious, with Sairi making numerous references to mystery fiction (The Decagon House Murders is of course mentioned), but they also talk about how they'll make it a practical murder (yes, secret passageways are a bit of a cheat, but hey, it works!) and through their conversations, we learn the basic premise of their plans.

Sairi has invited "the perfect cast" for her murder mystery, which includes fellow mystery fans she got to know via the internet (including those who mocked her novel in the past, which she posted under a different nickname), and also a police detective and a so-called psychic, both acquaintances of her grandmother, under the pretense she wanted to talk with them to learn more about her grandmother, but in reality just invited because you need such characters in a murder mystery. So all is set for Sairi's plan to be set in motion, only for things to go not as planned straight on, with the first victim ending up dead, even though Sairi didn't do anything: a great premise for an intriguing mystery.

In fact, the initial moments of the book as Sairi and Aoi talk about mystery fiction and low-key bicker about the murder plans and them slowly setting things in motion (with Sairi sometimes making clumsy mistakes) are so much fun, it's a bit of a disappointment when the book moves away from that. For while we do follow Sairin as she slowly realizes her plans are not going as scheduled and having to figure out what to do next with her murder plans, the book also starts following the police detective and psychic characters, who actually know each other. They start investigating the first murder together and slowly start to suspect not everything is what they appear to be in the house. These two characters are just not nearly as fun to follow as Sairi and Aoi, and while their narrative/point of view is necessary to tell the type of mystery story Origami is telling here, the difference between the sheer joy of these two narratives is rather great, and I could feel myself getting disappointed again each time we moved away from Sairi's story back to the real detectives.

Sairi soon realizes someone on the island is a real murderer (let's forget she was also planning to kill people too) and she's quite confused about what to do: she can hardly confess she was planning to commit murder herself, but would it be wise to still continue with the rest of the plan? Would she be a prospective victim for the other killer? If the police would come, would they stumble upon the secret passageway and start viewing Sairi as the killer? Things are made more complicated because Sairi can't find a way to communicate with Aoi in private, meaning Sairi isn't quite sure whether her accomplice is or is not involved with the real murders herself or not. The suspense of realizing someone has somehow taken over her plot is pretty good, and again a reason why her segments are so much more fun than of the police detective and psychic, who are basically the 'reluctant police detective who works with a genius who also happens to be a womanizer' archetypes. 

Because we know what Sairi had originally planned to do to commit her murders (and we know she's crazy enough to convert the manor and island she inherited to act as the setting for her own murder mystery), it shouldn't come as a surprise the actual murders that are committed are a bit mundane in comparison. A lot of it is just the murderer making use of happy coincidences/turns of events, which are then made bigger because Sairi's becoming more and more confused as things develop in ways she hadn't expected. Origami does a good job with the clewing however, with even a cool twist near the end of the story that was very well set-up indeed, but one can't help but feel like Sairi's original plan still would've resulted in a more interesting detective story than the one that occured because someone sidelined Sairi's plans for their own series of murders. The book is fairly short, and things develop at quite a speedy pace, so there's barely any downtime, but that does mean there's little room for super deep deductions regarding each crime scene (yes, more than one). While Sairi is a mystery buff and she manages to come up with a few interesting theories/guesses regarding what's really going on in the house, it seldom becomes as complex as the complicated story set-up would suggest it could get. 

Still, I did enjoy reading Liar House no Satsujin: it's often a very funny book, obviously written by a fan of murder mysteries set in weird houses, written for fans of such stories. There are definitely times where I had hoped the mystery would become a bit deeper than it actually was, and the book is definitely at its best when you're following Sairi, and not the other two detectives, but overall, it's fairly enjoyable book that is also very easily to read, so perfect to read between heftier books.

Original title(s):  織守きょうや 『ライアーハウスの殺人』

The Curse of the Golden Cross

Wake Up! The Hero

燃え上れ！

「仮面ライダーBlack RX」(宮内タカユキ) 

 

Wake Up! The Hero

Turn into a blaze!

"Kamen Rider Black RX" (Miyauchi Takayuki) 

As I usually have quite a lot posts written and waiting to be published, I generally just add a review to the queue if it's not a particularly timely post, while I do usually push posts on recent releases forward. I didn't watch today's topic immediately upon release like most people did, but still rather soon after it started streaming... and then forgot about actually writing the post. All well, it's still kinda timely, I guess...

After a troublesome career in boxing followed by a period of penitence and search for salvation, young Jud Duplenticy has become a Catholic priest, who is sent to become an assistant pastor in a church in a small New York town. Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude is a small church led by Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, the grandson of Reverend Prentice Wicks. Jefferson Wicks is charismatic in his ways, but his flammatory preaching style have basically driven everyone away but a handful of the most loyal and miserable of his parishioners, effectively resulting in a cult revolving around the vengeful Monsignor Wicks. The moment Jud arrives Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, he feels he is not welcome as an outsider, and while he recognizes how Monsignor Wicks is in fact doing not the work of God, he is not able to convince the believers of Wicks that they are all walking down the wrong path. When Wicks finds out about Jud's attempts in undermining his authority, he soon turns his believers against Jud. Despite the trial, Jud remains in the parish.

Wicks holds another fiery service on Good Friday for his cult, and then moves into a closet off the side of the chancel for a short break, while Jud takes over. When an audible thud is heard coming from the closet, Jud approaches the alcove, followed by the other people in the church and to their great surprise, they find Monsignor Wicks collapsed on the floor. A quick examination shows the man is in fact dead, and very likely because there's a knife sticking in his back. His clashings with Monsignor Wicks give Jud a motive, but everyone in the church had his eyes on him between the time Wicks entered the closet alive and the victim collapsing on the floor, making it impossible for him to have committed the murder: likewise, Jud too knows none of the church-goers approached the closet on his side during his part of the service, and everyone is such a big believer of Wicks, so would any of them even have a motive for killing him...? The police struggles with pinning the crime on any specific person with actual proof, and thus enter Benoit Blanc, private investigator who may not strongly believe in the Church, but he does seem to strongly believe Jud is in fact not the murderer in the 2025 film Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.

I liked the first Knives Out film (2019), but for some reason I just never got started on Glass Onion, the second film and the first after Knives Out moved on to Netflix. Hype from the mystery community on Wake Up Dead Man seemed much bigger though, which may also be because of the overt John Dickson Carr-inspired plot, with not only a locked room mystery (well, technically the closet is not locked, but the entrance is being observed) and a seemingly supernatural event in the second half of the story, Carr's masterpiece The Hollow Man/The Third Coffin is directly referenced in the film, as a "guidebook" on solving locked room mysteries (though to be honest, the film only goes through the most basic forms from the famous Locked-Room Lecture, and the sequence is not even nearly as impressive as how they presented the Locked-Room Lecture in Detective Chinatown 3). So when I learnt I could safely skip Glass Onion for now, I did so, and I have no regrets!

For Wake Up Dead Man is indeed a fun classically-styled locked room murder mystery film. It brings the tropes and set dressing we know from a Golden Age novel and move it... well, to the modern world, to a degree, as the church-setting itself feels like it would've been the same whether it had been used in a 2025 film or one from 1930. Which is a good thing I guess for those looking for something that obviously tries to go for that vibe. Whereas the first Knives Out film gave us the oh-so-familiar set-up of a murder on a wealthy family patriarch and his whole family as the suspects, this one focuses on the churchgoers as the main suspect (if we believe Jud to be innocent), resulting in a slightly more disjointed cast (as you get a group of random cult members), though most do fall in familiar mystery "suspect" roles (a doctor, a loyal help, etc.). Jud as a leading man is a joy to follow though, a man who went through a dark place in his life, found a new path in life only to be thrust into a basically hopeless situation by becoming the assistant-pastor in the most impossible parish ever. He forms a nice contrast with the far more cynical Benoit, especially when Jud is confronted with situations that could practically mean choosing between either his own beliefs, or his own freedom. Thematically, Wake Up Dead Man is far stronger than the first Knives Out film I think, and the highlight of the film as a mystery, as the themes of religion and personal beliefs pervades throughout the plot and motivate the actors to play their role in this mystery. The cinematography in general is pretty strong, especially in the scenes set within the church, and it really helps strengthen the religious themes, literally constantly casting new light on the setting.

The main locked room murder mystery itself is not very surprising on a technical level though. If you have come across a few of them in your life, it's very likely you will have seen some variation of the basic fundamentals already, so, in that sense, I was a bit disappointed in what was supposed to the main attraction. Fortunately, the second half of the story adds a few more developments that also intertwine with the locked room murder, and that adds some well-needed complexity to the mystery. I also like there's some synergy between all these elements, i.e. elements of the main locked room mystery are intertwined with the why or how events of the second half, and they're not just distinct, seperate events that happened to occur one after another. The film plays the game fair and does some of the crucial clues are shown on screen with some audicity, though very briefly. It kinda reminded me of some of the sneakier moments in Anraku Isu Tantei (a show written by Ayatsuji and Arisugawa where viewers could win money if they guessed the culprit), where the clues were like on the screen in a small corner for a brief moment, but Wake Up Dead Man is fortunately never as vexingly mean as Anraku Isu Tantei (like having to see how shadows in the backgrounddiffered slightly depending on the scene... in a show that was shot in standard definition and broadcast in a time when lots of people still probably had a CTR at home). There is also a secondary plotline revolving the hidden legacy of Reverend Prentice Wicks, grandfather of Jefferson, which could be a motive for the murder. This plotline also ties neatly into the whole mystery as well as the underlying theme of the film, making one nice neat package.

I do have to say I think Wake Up Dead Man was rather long and I certainly wouldn't have minded a shorter experience, but still, Wake Up Dead Man is an entertaining and highly competently-created mystery film. Its themes are its strongest points, as they tie in meaningfully with not only the characters and the overall story, they also interact on a crucial level with the main mysteries plot-wise, offering strong synergy overall. It definitely elevates the technical aspects of the mystery, which may come across as a bit too familiar to some viewers. Between Wake Up Dead Man and the original Knives Out, I think Wake Up Dead Man is the stronger story and cinematic experience, though as a viewer, I do have to admit the slightly shorter runtime and the more overt story dynamics of "detective vs a criminal trying to hide her crimes" of the original Knives Out offered me a much more easier film to just watch and enjoy.

As for Glass Onion. Errr, perhaps in the future? Should I? 

The Fake Heir

"By the power of Grayskull!"

"He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" 

Now I think about it, this is probably the first time I ever read (listened to) anything by P. D. James. 

Cordelia Gray returns to the UK after the death of her father, with whom she had been roaming Europe. She becomes the secretary of Bernie G. Pryde, a private detective and as she shows potential, Bernie eventually makes her his partner. After being diagnosed with cancer however, Bernie takes the easy way out, and he leaves the detective agency to Cordelia. While initially overwhelmed by the death of her business partner and the realization she's made the chief of an agency even though she barely has any experience as a private detective, she decided to keep the agency open with the help of the old secretary Mrs. Maudley. On the day of Bernie's funeral, Cordelia is visited by Mrs. Leaming, assistant to the famous scientist Sir Ronald Callender. She originally had an appointment to see Bernie, but considering what's happened, she has no choice but to bring Cordelia to her boss. Sir Ronald decides to hire Cordelia anyway for the job he had intended to hire Bernie for: his son Mark recently hanged himself, and he wants to know why Mark committed suicide. Mark had been studying at Cambridge, but recently left the university and started working as a gardener, even though his grades were good and was going to inherit a considerable amount of money via his maternal grandfather. Mark had been living in a run-down cottage on the estate he had been gardening for, and Cordelia decides to stay there too, to get a glimpse in Mark's life. But as she meets with Mark's friends and acquaintances and goes through his belongings in the cottage, Cordelia slowly starts to suspect Mark's death was not suicide at all. Can the young detective find out the truth in her first real investigation on P. D. James' An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972)?

I first heard of the character of Cordelia Gray via Detective Conan, where the character Haibara is named after Cordelia ("Hai" being gray), so that would have been about two decades ago, but for some reason I never got around to reading the books with Cordelia Gray, even though there are only two of them. I'd occasionally come across other references to the books (like Houjou Kie's 2024 novel Shoujo ni wa Mukanai Kanzen Hanzai ("An Unsuitable Perfect Crime for a Girl")), but somehow I just never actively went looking for them. But a few weeks ago, I came across a reference to The Skull Beneath the Skin, and it was at that point I learned that was actually the title of the second Cordelia Gray book. I figured I might as well get started on them now... but then I also learned there were actually two radio adaptations of the books by the BBC, so I decided to listen to them, instead of reading the books. I can't say how faithful they are to the book, but comparing the audio adaptation of An Unsuitable Job for a Woman to the lengthy summary on Wikipedia makes me think they're pretty faithful to the source material.

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman was written in 1972, so it should not surprise the reader Cordelia is not presented as the great detective who solves everything with brilliant chains of deductions during the denouement with everyone present in the drawing room. Cordelia is portrayed indeed as a private detective in a realistic world, far removed from both the great detectives of yore as well as the hardboiled tradition. Cordelia knows she's been trained well as a private detective, but is also aware she lacks experience, so her investigations are careful, slow and methodical, with an emphasis on her humanity. Her investigation for example consists of living in Mark's cottage to get an idea of his life after he left university and interviewing his friends to see if there's a clue to why he would have hanged himself. While there's a segment with a kind of code-cracking, the emphasis lies on Cordelia sifting through the stories of everyone involved and just following each thread to their conclusion to see if they lead anywhere. The result is a detective novel that is admittedly not exactly of the type I like: it's a very mundane investigation without really surprising twists, reveals or deductions. I do have to say I was surprised I didn't mind following Cordelia in her slow investigations though. As a character, she's interesting to follow, exactly because she's new at this and everyone's saying how she might be unsuitable of the job, and Cordelia falls right in the category of both being more capable than most people assume she is, but she's still not a Great Detective, so she fits well in this realistic world P.D. James depicts, being not a flawed person, but simply a struggling young detective, who also happens to be a woman.

The story does feel a bit dated though, or least, some characters do. When Cordelia for exampls asks Sir Ronald about Mark's romantic relationships, he says he doesn't know about them, but he assures her that if he had them, they would certainly be of the heterosexual kind. Err, okay, I guess. Similar elements are connected to the mystery of Mark's death and while not exactly jarring, it does make you think, oh yeah, this was written a while ago, with the idea of portraying a realistic world.

The mystery of Mark's death ultimately isn't super exciting, with 'twists' that feel a bit forced at times (attempts are made to scare Cordelia away, or even kill her even though she has no real conclusive clue or evidence yet) and again, an investigation that develops mostly just because Cordelia bothers to ask people a few questions (a lot of the characters she meets along the way are not really helpful or even fun people to talk with). I do like the way the story begins: with the end of Cordelia's investigation and then retelling all the events that led to that ending: the in-media-res opening starts rather abrupt, but is properly recontextualized through the reader learning the events leading up to that opening, and that is perhaps the most interesting of this book in terms of a mystery story.

Cordelia Gray returns in The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982), where Cordelia is asked to keep an eye on the actress Clarissa Lisle, wife of Sir George Ralston. Clarissa is going to star in a performance The Duchesss of Malfi set to be held on Courcy Castle, located on the private island of Courcy, which is owned by Ambrose Gorringe, a succesful author, who had the castle, and its theater, restored. Clarissa has been receiving letters with quotations from plays she's starred in, all being threats of death, accompanied by a drawing of a skull. Clarissa is really nervous with the play approaching, so Cordelia is to intercept new letters so Clarissa can focus on the play. At the castle, Clarissa meets with the people in Clarissa's circle, ranging from her stepson of a previous marriage, her not-so-wealthy cousin and a theater critic. It doesn't take long for Cordelia to learn there are quite a lot of people close to Clarissa who don't really like her, and she soon finds out the writer of the letters is probably one of the people currently on the island. On the evening of the performance, Clarissa want to be alone in her dressing room to clear her mind so she can focus on the play, and she sends everyone, including Cordelia away. When Cordelia later returns to wake Clarissa for dinner, she finds Clarissa dead, her face battered. 

This second Cordelia Gray story has a far more interesting setting than the first one: a closed circle murder mystery set on a creepy castle with a collection of macabre memorabilia, secret passageways and a cryp, located on a private island. We have an Obvious Victim-To-Be, anonymous threatening letters and a theatrical backdrop. Perhaps it's just me, having listened a lot to the Agatha Christie radio adaptations by the BBC, but the plot with the threatening letters, actresses making comebacks and hidden pasts and all of that reminded me a lot of Christie's work, like Lord Edgware Dies, The Moving Finger and The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, so it felt a lot like classic mystery to me than An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, with a setting that is more exciting, moving away from the realism of the first novel and moving towards the more bombastic of the Golden Age. At the same time, it's also a much slower story. The BBC radio adaptation itself is nearly a hour longer than the one of An Unsuitable Job for..., which is quite a lot for an audio adaptation. The story-telling isn't that much different from how it felt in the first story, with Cordelia just poking around, and people very gladly telling their life stories and revealing how they all had a reason for wanting Clarissa dead. Which still takes a while for it to happen.

So then we get to the mystery, which is, at least to me, unfortunately still closer to An Unsuitable Job for... than to actual Golden Age mystery fiction. The reveal of the murderer is done very dryly, with a motive that probably should've been explored more given the weight of the matter, but it is just... dropped on the reader like that. It has some parallels with the first novel in terms of themes, so reading them back-to-back does add something extra. A different element of the mystery (not the identity of the killer, but the exact reason for the threatening letters) is probably going to be remembered by more readers given the way the presentation of the solution is framed, and I do think this part is a bit more interesting mystery-wise, but not really enough to build a complete novel around. The ending is a bit a-typical perhaps, but it fits well with the way the first novel also ended, and also with the character of Cordelia, who at this point is a capable detective, but not experienced enough to be a Great Detective.

Both An Unsuitable Job for a Woman and The Skull Beneath the Skin are not the kind of mystery novels I usually read, and while both books do have elements I do find interesting, on the whole, they're not stories I'd recommend if you're looking for puzzle plot mysteries, not even The Skull Beneath the Skin, despite its setting being more like a Golden Age puzzle plot mystery. Cordelia as a PI character is probably the more interesting part of these stories. I'm glad I finally got around to consuming these books though, as now I won't be wondering anymore whenever I come across the occasional reference to these books.