The Secret of the Fiery Chamber

From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me. 

"The Fall of the House of Usher"

>> The spambots have been very active lately in the comments, so I'll have to manually moderate comments for the moment. I'll try to approve comments as soon as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Bluuuurgh, Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet has been moved to a 2021 release definitely! The first time in almost a quarter-century there's been no new annual Conan film...

The cover art of today's work is fairly straightforward in terms of concept, but I really like the actual artwork. It was actually the cover art of this book which first attracted my attention, back when the publisher first announced it on Twitter.

Tadokoro Shinya had always wanted to become a detective himself, but then he realized his classmate Katsuragi Teruyoshi was, in fact, the most gifted detective he ever saw. Born as the son of a rather wealthy family, Katsuragi grew up surrounded by people who are always keeping up appearances and trying to act as nicely as possible, which made the boy especially sensitive to being told lies. This helped him hone his deductive skills, which have also been used to solve actual crimes. Tadokoro on the other hand has also been dabbling with writing mystery fiction, and it was through his editor he learned that the famous veteran mystery author Takarada Yuuzan was living near the place where his class would be staying for school camp that summer. Takarada is one of the giants in the genre, but he's been silent for the last five years due to his age. As both Tadokoro and Katsuragi are big fans of him, they quickly agree that they'll use their free day during school camp to sneak away and make their way to the Takarada manor in the mountains. While climbing the mountain path however, the two are surprised by a sudden thunderstorm, which causes a mountain fire. With the path down blocked by the fire, the two make their way to the Takarada manor together with several other people who too seek refuge, like the neighbor living down the mountain. The son of Yuuzan is at first reluctant to let people inside, but given the emergency and the pleas by his own two children, he decides to let everyone in as they await the emergency workers to make their way to the house. The guests learn that the cliff-facing Takarada Manor is full of gimmicks like hidden rooms, flip-wall closets and even a drawing room with a double ceiling, which can be lowered all the way down to the floor.

Yuuzan himself has been bedridden for some years now, but Tadokoro is surprised to see another familiar face: the insurance agent who was visiting the neighbor and who fled together with him is Asukai Hikaru. They only met once ten years ago, when Asukai as a high school student solved a murder case right in front of him, inspiring him to become a detective too. Ten years later, she seems to have lost all interest in detection, which highly disappoints Tadokoro. However, the following morning, it seems that having both two detectives (Asukai and Katsuragi) at the scene may have been tempting fate, for in the morning, they notice some blood in front of the drawing room. When they can't open the inwards-opening doors, they realize the double ceiling must have been lowered, preventing the doors from opening. When they go check out the winch system, they find it the wirings have snapped loose from the winch, which must have dropped the ceiling instantly instead of gently lowering it. After a quick repair, they enter the drawing room to find a horribly crushed victim inside. At first, it's assumed to be an unfortunate accident as it doesn't seem likely nor practical that someone could've timed the ceiling to drop on someone inside the drawing room, as the inside of the room is not visible from the winch control room, but Katsuragi isn't completely convinced it was an accident. But is it wise to start accusing people of murder here and now, given that they are all trapped in a house with a mountain fire closing on them? It's a battle against both fire and setting the right priorities as the timer counts down in Atsukawa Tatsumi's Gurenkan no Satsujin ("The Murder in the Fiery Red Manor" 2019).

Gurenkan no Satsujin seemed to garner a fair amount of attention when it was released last year as a very classically-styled puzzler, which is of course quite clear when you read the summary above: a motley crew trapped inside a manor in a closed circle situation due to a mountain fire, two detectives working on the same case, a house owned by a veteran mystery author full with gimmicks, hidden passageways and a death-trap murder with the double ceiling which has slight impossible elements to it, and as the story continues, we'll also learn a serial killer from the past has also has cast their shadows over the house and a lot more happens too. In a way, this reminded me of my first review of this year, of Houjou Kie's excellent Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei ("The Hourglass of the Time-Space Traveller"), which was also a novel absolutely brimming with classic tropes and set mostly inside an isolated manor with a time limit to destruction upcoming (but it was also a story which included a scifi element because of the time travelling aspect). The time limit aspect is emphasized in this novel, as each story section is not only accompanied by a title, but also a timer which counts down to the eventual fall of the house (starting at 35 hours before the end).

The mountain fire trapping the characters in a manor in the mountains is of course a device that is very reminiscent of Ellery Queen's The Siamese Twin Mystery, though I'd say that the comparisons do stop here (we don't have a plot revolving around a dying message for example). In fact, what I think surprised me the most about Gurenkan no Satsujin is how the story often moves in a different way than you might expect. For example, the murder in the room with the double ceiling is mostly solved (save for some details) in the first half of the book already. It's really weird, as at the least, you'd expect it be only the first in a series of murders which will make use of the unique gimmicks in this house, but yeah, it really doesn't go the way you'd expect. This horrible murder where the victim was crushed by the moving ceiling gimmick is used in a very clever way: obviously it's not about the direct question of how the murder was committed, but Atsukawa addresses a lot of points, using the opposing detectives Katsuragi and Asukai, to explore the matter whether it was an accident or murder: it's here where Atsukawa shows his careful plotting, as both characters will point out countles of clues to support their own theory, and which really allow the reader to think along. Early on for example, the characters argue that if the doors to the drawing room were closed, the murderer could not have known whether someone was inside the room and who, and if they were open, the ceiling would've been held up by the doors, making it impossible to crush someone with it. While the idea of a ceiling coming down seems simple enough, Atsukawa cleverly makes it a truly mystifying murder as no theory seems to fit completely with the facts, making this a very alluring problem. It's not a true impossible situation, but it's definitely surrounded by contradicting facts, and they ultimately do point towards the cleverly thought-out, but truly horrible truth of what actually happened in that room.

But like I said, most of this is handled in the first half of the book already. So what happens next? Well, I'm not going into details, but basically, Atsukawa has been laying many trails of bread crumbs in the first half of the story that aren't even directly related to the murder, and he starts following them to their respective conclusions. Character dynamics change completely in this second half as Katsuragi starts peeling away the layers of deceit that have been covering up the truth in this novel, setting up the finale and truly revealing who committed the murder in the manor. I'm a bit torn on this part, to be honest. Katsuragi starts pointing out a lot of contradictions that occured earlier in the story, but a lot of them are so... uninspired, they don't really make an impression on their own even if their ultimate implications are important to the plot. Sure, the fact that character lied is of course important, but when the lie is uncovered because of classic tropes of the type of Ye Old They Said They Were Right-Handed But Used That One Thing With Their Left Hand Clue, you can probably understand why I say it can be a bit underwhelming. What I do like is how Atsukawa has really laid out a lot of crumb trails all across the story up until the second half and it's quite satisfying taken as a whole process to see everything come together, but some of these puzzle pieces just seem too familiar. The plot also relies heavily on coincidences, which can be a bit dissapointing: Tadokoro meeting the one woman who inspired him to try become detective himself at this manor right during a mountain fire even though they had only met once in a completely different place is actually one of the more realistic coincidences that occurs in this story compared to what is revealed later in the novel. Regarding the mountain fire though, at first I felt it didn't really add that much to the plot, but Atsukawa actually ties it to the core puzzle plot in multiple ways, and cleverly too, and I think it's actually more important to the plot than it ever was in The Siamese Twin Mystery.

Gurenkan no Satsujin is on the whole a capably plotted mystery story that really loves the classic tropes. I think that lovers of Ellery Queen especially will appreciate the book, as a lot of plot-pushing deductions are based on the interpretation of either physical clues or observed facts or following them to their logical conclusions. The book does suffer a bit from the author's intention to include so many ideas though. It's a very long novel, that also jumps between perspectives at times and even includes a rather meta discussion between what a detective ultimately ought to be, but that together with the already beefy mystery plot results in a book that takes its time to unfold. That said, Gurenkan no Satsujin is a story I myself did not find absolutely extraordinary, but still a very cleverly, and skilfully plotted mystery novel that's well worth a try.

Original Japanese title(s):  阿津川辰海『紅蓮館の殺人』