Law and Disorder

"A madman is not someone who has lost his reason but someone who has lost everything but his reason."

G.K. Chesterton

And still I can't help but imagine Kidd and Pink looking the way they were portrayed in the videogame Cat the Ripper (based on the novel The 13th Detective), even though the game's artstyle is err.... really "unique."

The mohawk-bearing punk Kidd Pistols and his assistant Pink Belladonna are back in Yamaguchi Masaya's short story collection Kidd Pistols no Mousou ("The Delusion of Kidd Pistols", 1993). While these two like lawless members of a punk rock band, they are in fact the two police detectives that make up Scotland Yard's National Unbelievable Troubles Section (NUTS). The exploits of famous detectives like Sherlock Holmes and Gideon Fell led to the creation of Edward's Law in the world of Parallel Britain: members of the Masters of Detectives Assocation have the authority to command any official investigation the very first 72 hours, which also means that Scotland Yard has been delegated to a small supporting role. NUTS is responsible for the really kooky cases that happen in Parallel Britain and in the past, Kidd and Pink have worked with famous MDs like Sherlock Holmes Jr. (one of many who claim to be the son of the great detective), Dr. Bull (disciple of Dr. Fell) and others. In this second short story collection, Kidd and Pink come across three Mother Goose-inspired cases which are totally nuts, and Kidd once again proves he's actually much more than just a punk with a unique hairdo.

I really love these type of covers for short story collections, incorporating the key elements from each story. So yep, this volume is about a tower, an ark and a garden. I say short stories by the way, but the first and last story are quite long, closer to short novels than a long short stories.

Kami naki Tou also carries the English title Tower without God and starts with Dr. Bull, accompanied by Kidd and Pink, visiting Lord Spedding. For some reason, someone has been causing all the apples in his apple garden to drop on the ground. Spedding suspects it's the work of his neighbor Dr. Dumpley, who bought part of Spedding's land for his research lab. Dr. Dumpley's dream is to create an anti-gravity device, but it seems things aren't going well and his lab might close soon. This afternoon, Dumpley is to be interviewed by the Albion Journal by the journalist Clark on the thirty years spent on Dumpley's research, joined by the science fiction writer Soars as one of the interviewers. Dr. Bull is also interested, so they too join Soars, with Clark running late. They find Dr. Dumpley at a high tower, which used to be part of the Spedding estate. Dr. Dumpley lectures the group on gravity, but when confronted by Soars about whether he has actually accomplished anything these thirty years, Dr. Dumpley replies he'll show them he has found the way to escape gravity. He tells them to wait outside the tower, while he prepares his experiment at the top of the tower. While "Ride of the Valkyries" plays loudly, Clark arrives and when they talk things over, they suddenly become scared that the doctor might commit suicide because of thirty years of failure, and run inside the tower. The group find the doctor fleeing inside a room at the top of the tower. They hear something horrible break, and when they break inside the room, they find it empty, with an open window. Below the open window they see the glass dome down there was broken. They quickly go back downstairs, fearing to find the doctor dead, but they see no body, only some blood. They look around to see if he could've crawled somewhere after that horrible fall, but then Clark falls off the tower right in front of Kidd. Once they go to the top of the tower, they find the dead Dr. Dumpley on the roof, his head broken like Humpty Dumpty. But how could the dead doctor have jumped out of the window on the top floor, broken the glass dome below, and then ended up on the roof of the tower?

Kidd always manages to solve the case before the real Masters of Detectives do, and that's, according to himself, because he's punk: he doesn't confirm to the assumed and presumed 'normal' and is willing to bend to see what lies behind the normal. And that's definitely what you must do here. Part of the mystery relies on the psychology of the characters, especially that of Dr. Dumpley, and it's pretty crazy to follow that. Like Chesterton said, "A madman is not someone who has lost his reason but someone who has lost everything but his reason" and some of the weird happenings to occur during this story can only be explained if you venture to understand the sane logic behind the insane behavior of Dr. Dumpley, and that can be difficult. Yamaguchi does set most of the idea up fairly well, but it still requires the reader to 'anticipate' how the madness works. That said, if you look at the core parts of the mystery of how Dr. Dumpley and Clark died, I have to say you can definitely just solve that by 'normal' logic. Parts of the impossible crime are somewhat standard and predictable, but I think there's one nice piece of misdirection regarding how the murderer managed to get inside the tower that works really well.

In Noah no Saigo no Koukai (Noah's Last Voyage), we have another mind with rather unique ideas. John "Noah" Claypole is a dying, but wealthy man who has become obsessed with the idea of the Great Flood and the Ark of Noah. He has built his own Ark in Scotland, and he wants his family (prodigal son Sidney, his soon-to-be wife Martha and eight cousins) to live on the ark. He even changed his will, demanding all of his eight cousins, no exceptions, to spend at least one month on the ark if they hope to inherit. His cousin Ronald, a scientist, is Noah's biggest opponent, saying the whole idea of the Great Flood is nuts. On the stormy night before Noah and Martha's wedding, some of the family have already gathered on the ark: Ronald and his twin brother James, Sidney (who has had a sex change), the family butler Bunter and also Dr. Bull, Kidd and Pink, who were invited by Ronald to see how he would persuade Noah. The ark is already loaded with countless pairs of animals, and because the house staff and food too has already moved to the ark, dinner is also to be held on board of the ship. But before dinner is served, a gun shot rings and when they barge into Noah's room all the way on top of the ark, they find Noah dead of a heart attack, and Ronald dead of a gunshot in his chest. No weapon can be found inside the room however and the window is locked. The door had been under observation, so no other person could've entered the room, so what did happen here?

Again, I'd say the mystery can be divided by two parts. It really helps if you can follow some of the insane, but sane logic of some of the characters, but it is not absolutely necessary if you want to solve the mystery. The main clue that points to the identity of the murderer is fairly straightforward and comes relatively late in the story, but it does involve a good piece of misdirection and can be missed quite easily. But like with other Kidd Pistols stories, part of the fun, and also the frustration, lies in comprehending the thought processes some of the characters entertain. The focal characters in these stories are always crazy in a certain way, though they do follow a kind of own logic due to their fanatical belief in something. In the first story, it was Dr. Dumpley's obsession with gravity, and in this story, it's Noah's obsession with surviving the Great Flood, versus Ronald's mission to prove Noah wrong. These characters often hold lectures on their pet peeve for several pages long, so unless you happen to be interested in the topic, these segments can become a bit boring, but these parts always come back to explain part of the mystery.  Here too, you'll not understand the actions some characters take unless you follow their logic, which are definitely clewed, but usually only make sense after the fact.

Eigou no Niwa also has the English title The Eternal Garden - The European Garden's Mystery, and has Kidd and Pink join the Belgian detective Mercule Boirot, who has been invited to the annual garden treasure hunt of Lord Radford. The gang however learns that Lord Radford has not been seen since yesterday and that the last time he was seen, he had apparently been shot in the garden ruin (a building in ruins as a garden piece). One of the gardeners heard a shot and saw him lying inside, but when he returned with help, there was nobody there and not a trace of any crime having taken place. Radford however is still missing today, even though his guests have arrived. Thinking it may be some prank that has to do with the treasure hunt, they decide to read the first clue and follow the trail Radford laid. After solving several riddles, the group arrives at a grotto with a tomb, and inside they do not find a treasure, but the decapitated body of Lord Radford.

The first half of the story consists of riddles for the treasure hunt, but don't expect to solve them yourselves: they all have to do with elements that exist in the garden, but you as the reader only learn of their existence after the characters have solved the riddles. It should be no surprise that once again, this story requires the reader to at least attempt to dive into Lord Radford's mind, but I'd say that this is by far the most difficult in this story: we never see Radford alive, so we don't really hear much from himself. Even based on his riddles, I'd say it's really difficult to guess what the plot wants the reader to guess. The identity of the murderer is plotted better: some of the clues are really nicely hidden and I like the reason given for the decapitated body. However, I'd say this story is faaar too difficult to solve unless you understand what was going in Lord Radford's mind compared to the previous two stories. In all three stories in the collection, it's the seemingly insane actions that make up a part of the mystery, but it's especially crucial in The Eternal Garden - The European Garden's Mystery, whereas in the other two stories, you can still figure out a good deal of the mystery without understanding the 'insane' part of the story.

Kidd Pistols no Mousou is definitely an interesting mystery story collection. The way the stories delve into 'insane' characters and the obsessions they have regarding certain topics is unique: it showcases an almost encyclopedic knowledge of seemingly random topics and makes great use of those topics to create larger-than-life characters who end up setting up murder mysteries which you're unlikely to find in any other series. What does make this collection a bit disappointing is that all three stories feature similar characters and one certain plot point which is repeated throughout all three stories: they definitely feel a bit similar at the core. Had they not been collected in the same volume, this might've been obscured a bit, but it's really noticable when read one after another.

Original Japanese title(s): 山口雅也『キッド・ピストルズの妄想』: 「神なき塔」/「ノアの最後の航海」/「永劫の庭」