Seeing is Believing

When I was writing my article on closed circle situations last time, I made special mention of the two novels by Imamura Masahiro: Shijinsou no Satsujin ("The Murders in the Villa of the Dead" 2017) and Magan no Hako no Satsujin ("The Murders In the Box of The Devil Eye", 2019). Both these novels were excellent mystery novels that were perfectly fair as whodunnits, but which were also embracing fantasy and supernatural elements, using them to create unique closed circle situations. Zombies and prophecies which are destined to become true might not exist in our reality, but in Imamura's novels these elements were used to create mystery plots that were highly original, but still at least as fair as anything Carr or Christie ever wrote (in fact, I think Imamura isn't alone in being a writer who is actually capable of playing an even fairer game than those two authors in terms of presenting the clues directly and clearly to the reader). This got me thinking though, as I also often hear people say that supernatural elements or even modern technology cheapens the experience of a mystery story as supposedly, it's not fair to the reader. Followers of this blog will know that is an opinion I completely disagree with, as the supernatural does not, by default, make a mystery story unfair, in the same way realism does not make a mystery story fairer by default.

One of the foundations of fair play in mystery fiction is consistency in the rules that govern the fictional world of a specific story. If a story is set around a highly realistically portrayed Rome during Cicero's time, but the killer used a scoped sniper rifle, that's not fair. I don't expect a knight in medieval times to use a knife that fly on its own into a victim and back. If the story is set in our world, in contemporary times, the murderer shouldn't use a TARDIS to escape a locked room. None of the above would be considered fair. But if a story is set in a fantasy world where people can use magic, the use of magic to kill someone is of course fair game. The point of course is that a) we as the reader must be aware of the existence and properties of the magic used and b) it must be consistent with the world presented. So if we're told there is such a thing as magic in this world, and that there is magic spell which can allow one to conjure a door out of a locked room, then using that magic is fair. Then it's up to the author of the story to properly hint at how the deed was done, and how to make the mystery alluring. The Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney games have some terrific examples here. Professor Layton vs Gyakuten Saiban (2012) for example is set in Labyrinthia, a walled city where magic exists, for example magic that can conjure magic out of nowhere or magic that can create portals between walls. But these spells are properly introduced to player in the form of a grimoire, and the spells also have distinct and well-defined properties that tell you how they can be used, in the same sense that you need to pull a trigger to fire a gun, and it's handy to have it loaded too if you want to it to be lethal. Each spell in Professor Layton vs Gyakuten Saiban must be cast in a certain way, and the mysteries in this game revolve around how these spells were cast and used for the murders. In Gyakuten Saiban 6 / Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice (2016), certain characters are spirit mediums, who can physically channel dead spirits in their body, and this too is used in a perfectly fair manner to create original mystery plots. Not only do clearly defined rules make these elements fair, these type of stories usually play the game a lot fairer than "realistic" mystery plots that either rely in obscure trivia (that might be real) or even mysteries that rely more on misdirection, as these type of mysteries usually place all cards on the table exactly because they are more prone to be accused of being unfair.

I myself love mysteries that use supernatural ideas. The zombies in Imamura's Shijinsou no Satsujin were not only an exciting element, they were also used very wisely. The murderer makes use of the zombies more than once, but never does the murderer's knowledge of the zombies come out of nowhere: zombies are a new sight for everyone (characters and reader), but the reader can, just like how the murderer did, deduce the relevant properties of a zombie (don't be bitten) as the story progresses, making it a perfectly fair mystery. Another mystery novel with zombie-like characters is Yamaguchi Masaya's Death of the Living Dead (1989), which takes place in New England in a world where as of late, dead people start rising from their graves again. While here too the exact reasons as to why the living dead exist aren't explained to the reader (nor to the in-universe characters), all the revelant properties that pertain to the core mystery plot are shown to the reader, and if you don't manage to solve the puzzle presented here, you certainly can't hide behind a "but zombies aren't real" excuse. Technically advanced mysteries are of course also fair game, I think. Asimov's Robot series can't be left unmentioned of course, and especially The Caves of Steel does a great job at presenting a consistent science-fiction world with robots and tube transport, while also being an excellently fair mystery novel that uses its self-defined rules for robots in a clever way.

But I have the idea that many mystery authors and readers alike still struggle with modern technology, let alone with supernatural or science-fiction elements, even if at the core, none of that has a direct link with a mystery being fair or not. I still hardly see mystery stories that do clever things with readily handy consumer technology, even though it's an integral part of our lives. Detective Conan is one of the exceptions and it's even more noticable as it's been running more-or-less non-stop since it started in 1994. More recent stories have seen technology like tablets and cell phones used in clever ways to create mysteries (some of them impossible) and you really can't call them unfair. Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo too has seen some clever use of modern consumer technology: the final story in Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo R, Kindaichi Fumi Kidnapping Murder Case (2017) has the police tracking the alibis and movements of several suspects through the GPS records of their smartphones, which allows Hajime to figure out how the trick was done, while 2011's The Game Mansion Murder Case was interesting in the sense that it used a certain piece of consumer technology I myself personally hadn't used before, so I wasn't really familiar with it when I first read the story, but by the time the live-action adaptation of this story came, this element was far more familiar to most readers, I think. Ooyama Seiichirou's Tokeiya Tantei to Download no Alibi too was an interesting example of the 'modern' mystery story, with the alibi of the main suspect being built around the fact he downloaded a certain song that was only available for download for one day.

Some also see security cameras as a hurdle for interesting impossible crimes, while a good mystery author can work perfectly with that to create a fair and interesting mystery. Mori Hiroshi's Subete ga F ni Naru  - The Perfect Insider (1996) (drama) is not completely fair in the sense that it does rely on something people not familiar with computers might feel is cheating, but most of the trick behind how the murderer managed to escape an underground room with surveillance cameras aimed at the door and the hallway to the elevator is still quite daring. Kishi Yuusuke's The Glass Hammer too has an interesting angle for an impossible crime involving cameras: the director of a company developing new solutions to nursing care had his head bashed in inside his offices, but the cameras installed in the top floor hallway show nobody entering or leaving the office, while the windows can't be opened either. The only one "capable" of committing the murder was a new nursing robot in his office, but safety protocols and the fact it can't perform very detailed tasks also rule the robot out as the murderer (picture above is from the scale model of the crime scene shown in the drama adaptation). Ooyama Seiichirou's Me no Kabe no Misshitsu in the game Trick X Logic was also a great example of the security camera helping out to create a good impossible crime: we follow all the suspects and the victim during the day and there's a camera that confirms the movements of everyone, but still the murderer managed to kill the victim, and have the victim moved from one room to another, even though none of that is shown on the camera.

Anyway, I'd like to hear some your favorite mystery stories that make good use of their science-fiction, occult, supernatural or fantasy setting that present a good puzzle plot mystery, or even "just" modern technology in a clever way.