Queens Full

"Off with his head!"

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

Repeating myself here, but I love this type of cover for short story collections, where each of the stories included is represented properly on the cover, instead of only the cover story.

Tsukatou Hajime's short story collection Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo ("An Egyptian Cross Mystery", 2019) is the latest entry in the series starring Minami Mikikaze, a professional photographer with a knack for solving crimes. And fans of the mystery genre can probably guess the theme of the stories collected in this volume based on the title. For yep, all of the four problems Mikikaze encounters in these tales are of course inspired by Ellery Queen's novels, to be exact, the Nationality novels. This is the first time I've properly read anything by Tsukatou by the way (read a random short story once) and it's my first time with Mikikaze too, but apparently, the Mikikaze stories do follow a kind of chronology. This volume makes a few references to past cases for example, and other events in Mikikaze's personal life that may or may not have been discussed in more detail in previous books, but in general, I think most readers won't have any problems starting with this book, especially as the four stories here do form a set on their own. In the first story, we are told that Minami Mikikaze has been playing guide for Elizabeth Kittridge in Japan. This forty-or-so woman who speaks a kind of Japanese is not only a prominent forensic investigator in the United States, but also the daughter of Ronald Kittridge, the surgeon who successfully conducted Mikikaze's heart transplantant. Beth is now in Japan to attend an international symposium and workshop program on criminal forensic investigation. Part of the program involves having international investigators attending criminal investigations of the Japanese police so both sides can learn from each other, and Beth has chosen Mikikaze as her assistant, because Mikikaze has made a reputation for himself as an amateur detective.

Beth and Mikikaze are first sent to a self storage facility in Aru Roma Boushi no Nazo ("A Roman Hat Mystery"), as a body was found in one of the storage units. The many fancy hats, hat stands and magazines on hats suggest that the person who rented this unit, a "Shirai Yoshihisa", was simply a hat lover, but the police were already aware that "Shirai Yoshihisa" was involved with a drug smuggling ring, which was smuggling cocaine into Japan inside fancy brand hats and hat stands. There's much at stake with this investigation, but there are many little things that bother the investigators. For example, there's camera footage of Shirai entering this unit and him being followed by another person who later fled the scene, but who was this person? While the police is convinced this has to do with cocaine, they can't find any drugs inside the unit, and another mystery is the fact that (missing) bloodstains suggest something was taken away from this unit, but the police has no idea what that was or why they didn't see the object in the security footage of the culprit fleeing.

This story obviously takes some minor cues from Queen's The Roman Hat Mystery, but is in general a completely original story (the Roman Hat in this story is actually a hat from Rome for example, while in The Roman Hat Mystery, the Roman comes from the Roman Theatre). While the story itself has little to do with Queen's novel, the underlying plot does feel very Queen-esque, in the sense that the investigation focuses a lot on objects, and what you can deduce based on the state of the objects found at the crime scene. For example, Mikikaze and the police detectives hold discussions about what the object could be that was taken away from the crime scene, and why they didn't see the culprit carrying it with them as they fled the scene on the security footage. The plot involves several of these moments, where the detectives let their thoughts loose on the physical circumstances of the crime scene and the logical implications, which is of course the modus operandi of especially the early Queen novels. This story, as well as the following three stories, are less about whodunnit or howdunnit, but about explaining the mysterious circumstances of each crime scene, and the actions the murderer took (based on the crime scene). However, unlike Queen and for example Arisugawa's work, I'd say that the stories in this volume are less about chains of deduction, at least, they're not about strongly connected chains of reasoning. There are some ideas about this story I absolutely love (for example, why the murderer went as far as to hit the victim multiple times in the head or why the scissors on the work bench were left there) that really belong the Queen school of mystery, while other parts of the mystery (like the missing object) are less interesting. The various elements of the story sometimes feel a bit... not disconnected perhaps, but not as connected as I'd have wanted them to be. The result is I'm not sure how I feel about the story, because some parts are so meh, while other parts are absolutely great.

A problem shared by all the stories in this volume is the writing style though. It's hard to explain what it is, but Tsukatou often jumps a few minutes ahead and has the characters discuss all kinds of things that seem slightly vague to the reader and after that section, the narration catches up and explains how they got to that point (which explains the vague allusions in the earlier dialogue). It's a story device you often see in detectives, especially in the conclusion when the detective suddenly unveils the identity of the murderer, and only after that, the narrative explains how the detective laid their trap, but these stories, it happens too often: Tsukatou does this 'jump a bit forward, have some dialogues that include facts the reader hadn't heard about yet and then explain afterwards' thing few times per story. It's like you're being driven around in a car, but the car speeds up for no reason, only to turn around and do the same part slowly once again. It's jerking you around all the time, which makes enjoying the stories a bit difficult. At first, I thought it was just me needing to adapt to Tsukatou's writing style with the first story, but it happens in all four stories.

Which is more-or-less the theme of this volume for me, for each story definitely has some fantastic ideas that revolve around deductions based on objects, but there are almost always elements that seem underdeveloped, as if there's no synergy between the various ideas in each story. Aru France Oshiroi no Nazo ("A French Powder Mystery") is set right after the previous story, as Elizabeth and Mikikaze are called as observers to the murder scene of Yata Sonoe, an eighty-year old lady who moved in the upper circles of society, but of whom the police knew was a ranking member of the same drug smuggling circle of the previous story, together with her deceased husband. Sonoe was found this morning by her nephew's wife, who did Sonoe's housekeeping each day. The strangled Sonoe was found in one of her drawing rooms, lying on the couch. The floor around the couches however was covered by white powder: during her futile struggle with the murderer, Sonoe hit a container of powder foundation (from France, not the French Department Store), which covered the whole floor. While the room also has some interesting evidence for the police waiting on a table further down the room in the form of actual cocaine, they have to wait until forensics is done with the room. Meanwhile, Mikikaze and the police detectives try to figure out what the murderer did in the room, based on the (vague) traces left on the powdered floor. I love the main idea behind what the murderer did after the murder in order to elude the police, and makes great use of the titular noun, but the build-up to the reveal feels a bit underwhelming. You have parts where the detectives discuss their ideas but they ultimately don't go anywhere, while the most important fact you should know if you want to have any chance of solving this story, isn't revealed to the reader until Mikikaze's already explaining everything, leaving you with the feeling like you've been cheated. Great premise that also gives meaning to having this story be a direct continuation of the previous, but the execution is slow and at times even tiring.

At this point, you think, neat, the whole collection is connected and about this cocaine smuggling ring, right? Well, wrong. Only the first two stories are connected like that. The other two stories do feature Elizabeth again during her stay in Japan, but are in no manner connected to the cocaine storyline. Which was really weird, for each time, I was totally expecting someone to be uncovered as being involved with drugs in the last two stories. Sorry to all the characters I suspected!

The Dutch Shoe Mystery was about the Dutch Hospital, but Aru Holland-Gutsu no Nazo ("A Dutch Shoe Mystery") is actually about Dutch shoes, that is, wooden shoes. Elizabeth and Mikikaze are the guests of Ootsuki Mikako and her husband Tadashi. Tadashi is the head of the South Shinano General Hospital, and the hospital, and the Ootsuki's personally, are involved with an NPO that focuses on international organ transplants. A child at the South Shinano General Hospital is awaiting such an operation, and they're filming a short movie at the Ootsuki residence to encourage the boy, but also to use as a PR movie. Elizabeth is here because of her father's reputation, while Mikikaze was also invited as he himself had a weak heart as a child, and he has fully recovered now he himself has undergone such an operation. Other guests include the head of the NPO as well as the Ootsuki's nephew and his girlfriend. Everyone is invited to stay that night, some of them sleeping in the main building, some in the annex. Early in the morning however, Mikikaze has a visit by Mikako, who found her dead husband downstairs. He was wearing one wooden shoe from Mikako's clog collection kept in the annex, while the other clog was used to hit Tadashi on the head to kill him. The only footprints in the garden that connects the main building and the annex are those of the wooden shoes leaving the annex, meaning Tadashi must've been in the annex in the night and that he left the building with a pair of his wife's clog, but why? He never wore clogs unlike his wife, and what was he doing in the other building in the first place? And is the murderer someone in the main building, or from the annex? A lot of deductions revolving around the clogs footprints, how Tadashi must've gotten his hands on the clogs and how he crossed the garden. For those into object-focused, reasoning-focused mysteries, this is arguably the best story in the collection, and I really did enjoy this one, but there are a few points in the story where you, as the reader, have to guess what happened, because you are unlikely to see through the whole deal solely based on the physical evidence left. Funnily enough though, I like one of the theories mentioned halfway through the story even better than the actual solution: while it's pointed out that it wouldn't have been practical, it's a solution that could've been salvaged pretty easily (the introduction of one simple tool alone would've been enough). The 'punchline' of the story is Queenian, I agree, though I don't really like how it was used here.

In Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo ("An Egyptian Cross Mystery") is set at a small forest camp site, where Mikikaze is joined by five Art students from his alma mater. These students belong to Professor Yamashita's class, who will join this study camp later, but on the first day, Mikikaze is to teach the students the finer points of making photographs of raw nature. After the workshop, the group have dinner and drinks together, and eventually everyone leaves for their cottages. The following morning however, Mikikaze is awakened by one of his students, who has made a horrifying discovery: a decapitated body was hanging from the T-shaped signpost near the entrance of the camp site (just like in The Egyptian Cross Mystery). While there's no head, the students seem to recognize the victim as one of their fellow Art students based on his clothes and characteristic fingers and limbs. What's surprising is that the head is found not that far away from the camp, so it was not cut off to hide the victim's identity. While a confession from one of the students soon clears up why the victim was here near the camp in the first place, Mikikaze is still bedazzled by the case, and while the police, accompanied by Elizabeth, soon arrive, they stumble upon the same problems as Mikikaze: why was the body hung from the signpost, why was the head cut off if not to hide the victim's identity and why was the decapitation done in a place relatively close to the camp site and not somewhere deeper in the forest? Again, I think the main concept, the decapitated corpse, involves some really good ideas that also give way to interesting chains of deductions (for example, the direct reason for hanging the body from the signpost and why the murderer didn't find a better place to cut the head off), but other parts seem almost disappointing in comparison (the direct cause for wanting to hang the body from the signpost is bloody brilliant, the underlying cause why the murderer came into the situation to need to do that was silly. And the motive for the murder....).

I still find it hard to say what I really think of Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo. Each of the stories has outright fantastic ideas and interesting chains of deductions, but the writing style is something you need to get used to, and far too often, the stories don't feel entirely cohesive and evenly thought out, with some ideas/parts of the story coming across as afterthoughts, while in other cases, the other elements that should be supporting the main concept, feel like side-branches that go other directions. Considering the ideas I found here, this volume would've definitely made it into my top ten reads for this year had they been worked out a bit better. It's still a very good story collection, especially if you like these Queen School-style stories that focus on chains of deductions based on the physical state of the crime scene/evidence, but as it is now, whether Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo's will end up in my end-of-year list is very dependent on what I'll come across the following months.

Original Japanese title(s): 柄刀一『或るエジプト十字架の謎』： 「或るローマ帽子の謎」 / 「或るフランス白粉の謎」 / 「或るオランダ靴の謎」/ 「或るエジプト十字架の謎」