The Secret of the Old Clock

TIME TO LIVE TIME TO LIE 

TIME TO CRY TIME TO DIE

『Confused Memories』（円谷憂子）

Time to live, time to lie

Time to cry, time to die

"Confused Memories" (Tsuburaya Yuuko)

I have a tendency to read mystery series, I noticed lately. Of the writers I regularly read and review, I don't think there's even one where I'm solely reading non-series. I just enjoy having a framework and recurring characters, I think, as you kinda know what to expect when you read a certain series in terms of style of plotting etcetera.

(Disclosure: I translated Norizuki Rintarou's short story The Lure of the Green Door)

So while I have read quite a few of short story collections by Norizuki Rintarou, Shiramitsushi no Tokei (2008) is actually the first time I read a non-series book written by him, as all the other books I've read by Norizuki were part of his Norizuki Rintarou series, which is about the same-named mystery author who solves crimes with his father Inspector Norizuki in a totally Ellery Queen-inspired set-up. The ten stories collected in this volume however here are not part of any series, save for the last story, which is an early version of what would later be rewritten to a series novel. The ten stories were originally published between 1998 and 2008 in various magazines, and range from suspense thrillers and pastiches to not-really-mysteries.

To start with the conclusion: don't expect the pure puzzle plot mysteries like the ones we know and love from the Rintarou short story collections. The stories where Norizuki really shows off his love for Ellery Queen and for logical reasoning, for classic mystery tropes as the locked room mystery, the true whodunnit and other brilliant and surprising ideas, as well as engaging and funny short stories are to be found in those short story collections. Shiramitsubushi no Tokei features a variety of styles I myself hadn't seen Norizuki utilize before, and I know the reception of this volume is fairly good because there's variety in here, but save for the title story and maybe two or three other stories, few of them are what I would consider "typically" Norizuki. Which isn't a bad thing per se, but I certainly don't think this volume is indicative of Norizuki's plotting talent. It's, to borrow Monthy Python's words, something completely different. It's like only reading Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot short stories, and then reading Witness for the Prosecution for the first time. It's just different, and perhaps not what you attracted you to the author in the first place.

Shiyouchuu ("Occupied") is inspired by Stanley Ellin's short story The Moment of Decision, and features a locked room situation, though it is not a locked room mystery. I can't write too much about it, as the story is basically building up to a punchline, but it involves an arrogant writer, his rather hopeless editor and a vengeful waitress at the cafe where the writer and his editor are meeting. Again, it's not really a mystery story, just a playful story that plays with the notion/concept of what a locked room murder is.

Double Play is a story I had already read some years ago, as it was included in the lackluster anthology Futoumei na Satsujin. It deals with a murder exchange, with our protagonist having just about enough of his wife when another man pops up at the batting center, asking our protagonist whether he wouldn't want to kill his uncle for him, offering to kill the protagonist's wife instead. This is a suspense story that is admittedly well-written, but it's a shame it wasn't written as a true puzzler, as a bit more build-up to the ending (more clues/foreshadowing) would've made this story better in my opinion.

Shirouto Gei ("Amateur Skill") is a fairly short story where a man accidently kills his wife after a row about her spending a fortune on ventriloquism lessons and a dummy. This wasn't the first time the two had a loud fight though, so this fatal fight alarmed the neighbor. As the husband realizes the neighbor isn't really put at rest just by him saying everything is alright and refusing to let the neighbor to see his wife, he quickly hurries to hide his wife's body as he's sure the neighbor will call the police. As he tries to fool the two detectives though, it seems the dummy has other plans for him.... A surprisingly funny short, but again not much of a puzzler, more a story that builds to a punchline.

Nusumareta Tegami ("The Purloined Letter") is not a pastiche of Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin series, but of Jorge Luis Borges' Death and the Compass, starring the detective Erik Lönnrot. This story is set before Death and the Compass, and has Lönnrot trying to solve the puzzle how his nemesis Red Scharlach managed to steal an letter of indiscretion written by the wife of a general, to a man she had fallen in love with. The wife had taken lengths to protect her letter to the man, with her locking her letter inside a special box, which was locked by a padlock of her own. After receiving this package, her lover locked the box himself with his own padlock and sent the box (with two padlocks now) unopened back to the wife, who then unlocked her lock, and sent it back to her lover for him to finally open the box. Yet somehow Red Scharlach managed to get hold of the letter which was at all times protected by at least one lock. The solution is rather obvious though, especially with the opening quote, and it's actually the same idea as another story in this collection, only in another context.

In Memoriam and Neko no Junrei ("The Cat Pilgrimage") are both not mystery stories, but stories that feature curious and surprising settings. In Memoriam is a short short of just four pages, about a secret club of authors who, as a game, write obituaries for collegues who are still alive. Neko no Junrei is the almost fantasy-like tale about the "cat pilgrimage", a journey cats undertake when they reach a certain age to a cave near Mt. Fuji. Sometimes, the cats run away from home for a month or two to go on the pilgrimage, but sometimes, worried owners make use of guided cat pilgrimage tours to bring their own cat to their destination. The story is about a couple making up their mind whether they'll allow their cat to go or not.

Yonshoku Mondai ("The Four Color Problem") is a pastiche of Tsuzuki Michio's Taishoku Keiji ("The Retired Detective") series, of which I have read nothing, but it is apparently about a police detective who sometimes talks about some cases with his father, who is a retired policeman himself. This time, the son is working on the strange murder of an actress, who starred recently in the action superhero series Time Task Force ChronoRangers as Chrono Blue. Leaks of photographs secretly taken of her and the female co-star who played Chrono Pink undressing and using the shower have been going around, and while an assistant-director on the ChronoRangers team had to take the fall, it appears that was just a studio cover-up, and the actress suspected that one of the four male leads (who played Chrono Red, Chrono Green, Chrono Yellow and Chrono Black) was behind it all. It appears she had confronted the person she suspected, who then stabbed her in the stomach. However, the actress hadn't died immediately, and for some reason, she pulled the knife out of her body to carve an X in her arm, and she removed her watch and necklace too. But why? It's one of those dying message stories that depends on rather specific knowledge to make any sense, and while Norizuki tries to set-up the decisive clue, it still doesn't take away from the fact that you won't be able to solve this unless you happen to know about a certain piece of trivia.

Yuurei wo Yatotta Onna ("The Woman Who Hired A Ghost") is a pastiche of Tsuzuki Michio's Quart Gallon series, which in turn was a pastiche of Ed McBain's hardboiled mystery I'm Cannon - For Hire (credited as Curt Cannon). Gallon was once a private detective who nearly committed a double murder after finding his wife and his best friend in the same bed, and now he lives in the Bowery, deprived of his credentials. Which doesn't stop people from trying to hire him anyway. A woman hires Gallon to find out what's wrong with her husband. The husband has been lost in thought the last week, and even bought a gun 'for protection', even though nothing has happened in the artists' shop he runs. An okay hardboiled story, but the title gives the game away, I think.

Shiramitsubushi no Tokei ("Leave No Clock Unturned") is the title story and the masterpiece of this collection. "You" find yourself waking up in a small, round room completely encircled by a hall as part of a job interview for a leading think tank. There are no windows in these rooms and the temperature inside is completely computer-controlled. In the hallway, "you" find 1440 different running clocks, each indicating a different time down to the minute (12:00, 12:01, 12:02 etc.). "Your" assignment: figure out which of these 1440 clocks is indicating the correct time, within a time limit of six hours! This is a true puzzler, with a truly devilish conundrum, for how are you going to find out the correct time if there's a clock for every minute of the day, which are obviously all running as you're working on the problem, and you can't even look outside to guess what time it should be! Norizuki however shows a perfectly logical manner to find the correct clock among the 1440 clocks. Shiramitsubushi no Tokei does feel more like a logic puzzle or quiz rather than literature, I admit, but man, this is what you'd expect from a mystery writer who places so much emphasis on logical reasoning like Norizuki! 

Two Of Us has an interesting backstory: it was originally written for the Kyoto University Mystery Club's club anthology Souanoshiro, which is sold at the annual campus festival in November. I have actually seen the original version of this story myself in one of the old Souanoshiros while I was in Kyoto. The story does feature Norizuki's characters Rintarou and his father Inspector Norizuki, though the spelling of Rintarou's name is different, as Norizuki Rintarou changed the spelling of his name when he became a professional author (if you go through the old Mystery Club magazines, you'll only find the old spelling). Two of Us was eventually rewritten to a full novel in the Rintarou series titled Ni no Higeki. Neither the novel, nor this original short story version would count towards my favorite Norizuki's to be honest, as the emphasis in this novel lies far more on the human relations than the deductions of Rintarou. In fact, for the true logic puzzlers you're off much better with the Rintarou short stories, as save for some early entries, the novels never really manage to be as awesome as the short stories in terms of pure puzzle plots.

So personally, I can't say Shiramitsushi no Tokei was my favorite Norizuki short story collection, with a very simple reason: all the awesome puzzle plot short stories we saw in the Rintarou short story collections weren't to be found here. If you are not as puzzle-plot focused as I am, you might enjoy the sheer variety of this collection, and at any rate, the title story Shiramitsubushi no Tokei is really a masterpiece, but in general, I'd say try out Norizuki's other short story collections before coming here.

Original Japanese title(s): 法月綸太郎　『しらみつぶしの時計』：「使用中」/「ダブル・プレイ」/「素人芸」/「盗まれた手紙」/「イン・メモリアム」/「猫の巡礼」/「四色問題」/「幽霊をやとった女」/「しらみつぶしの時計」/「トゥ・オブ・アス」