『密室宣言』

「だが、それでも密室は性懲りも無く出てくる。なぜだと思う？」

「 さぁー。。。」 「それは密室が『トリックの王様』だから」、『名探偵の掟： 密室宣言』

"But despite that, locked rooms persistently keep popping up. Why is that?"
"Well..."
"It's because the locked room is 'the King of Tricks'", "Meitantei no Okite: Locked Room Manifesto"

While most people won't think there's any difference between one detective subgenre and another even know there are subgenres within the detective literature genre, they do exist and one is usually inclined to favor one subgenre over another. For me, when I usually talk about detectives, it is about books written in the style of Golden Age detective fiction. Golden Age detective fiction, which in Japan is called orthodox detective fiction is all about challenging the reader. The writer plays a fair play game with the reader, challenging him to solve the puzzle. In this style of books, logic reigns. More than any other genre, it asks the reader to be involved with the story, to actively think about what is written.

A locked room mystery is the ultimate challenge. A murder which occured in a closed space, without no apparent escape route for the murderer. The disappearence of someone from an constantly observed room. The body in a snowy field without any footprints of the murderer. Impossible happenings that did happen. And there is a perfectly logical rational explanation for it. Within Golden Age detective fiction, the locked room is truly "the King of Tricks". Which explains why books like this one are written:

有栖川有栖の密室大図鑑 (Arisugawa Arisu no Misshitsu Daizukan ("Arisugawa Alice's Great Illustrated Guide to Locked Rooms", also known as "An Illustrated Guide to the Locked Room 1891-1998")

I had been looking for this book by detective writer Arisugawa Alice (self-chosen romanization after the Wonderland character and he also uses a logo with a Cheshire Cat) quite a while and I luckily managed to pick it up the very last day in Japan (though I had decided earlier that week not to buy books anymore because of the weight of my bags and stuff...). It is a guide on the 50 most important and interesting locked room mysteries starting from 1891. Arisugawa describes the historical context, how the locked room looks like and luckily does not spoil the solution to it. Though books like this have been written earlier (like Locked Room Murders and Other Impossible Crimes which due to current market prices, is too expensive to acquire), this one is interesting in two aspects. One is that it includes illustrations of all the locked rooms mentioned in the book.

Roughly speaking, you could divide locked rooms solutions in two kinds: the mechanical one and the psychological one. The first one are the rope and needle solutions, for example MacGyvering intricate mechanisms to close doors from inside. The psychological tricks, which are my favorite, are used to make a room seem locked and make use of habits and blind spots of the human mind. The rope and needle solutions though often gain much from illustrations, detailed maps, because explanation in text is often not enough to truly get the picture (that's also why I think mechanical solutions work better in manga or TV-shows). Of course, there are stories where it doesn't make sense even with illustrations. The Chinese Orange Mystery, I still don't understand you.

Anyway. Illustrations. Good. The second interesting point about this book is that it also offers Japanese examples of the locked room mystery. For a fan of Japanese detective fiction not actually living in Japan, it's hard to find out which books are good, which writers are popular et cetera. Where in the West, "we" all know that Carr's The Hollow Man, Gaston Leroux' Le Mystère de la chambre jaune and Futrelle's The Problem of Cell 13 are famous and why, it's hard to find that sort of information on Japanese detective fiction in languages other than Japanese. As detective fiction is one of the best selling genres in Japan and many books are published every month, it is difficult to find out what's good, what's not and these kinds of books, though very specialistic, are great time savers. Of course, you'll have to be a specific sort of reader at any rate to even consider buying these kinds of books.... (actually spent some hours in Japan trying to create a locked room in my Weekly Mansion room. With rubber bands and strings and stuff. It's hard. Of course, this book is not nearly as geeky as the book by Arisugawa on how to make locked rooms yourself. Which I also have.)

The locked room mystery might not be the favorite sub-subgenre of everyone, but you can hardly deny its popularity. Ever since its creation, it has taken on many, many forms. And after more than 100 years, we still see new variations on the locked room. Hail "The King of Tricks".

Today's song: 浅野真澄 (Asano Masumi) - 論理の旋律は必ず真実を奏でる (Ronri no senritsu wa kanarazu shinjitsu wo kanaderu ("The Melody of Logic always plays the Truth")