What You Don't Know Can Kill You

「推理小説には「特殊設定ミステリ」というジャンルがあってね」

「はあ」

「その中では、物語世界だけで通用する超自然的な現象が登場し、それにまつわる特別ルールが提供されるのがお約束になっている。そして、その特別ルールが謎解きの前提条件になるんだ」

『孤島の来訪者』

 

"So there's this genre they call the Special Setting Mysteries..."

"Yeah?"

"You have these supernatural phenomena that only exist within the specific worlds of those stories, and they always come with special rules governing them. And those special rules become the basis for solving the mystery." 

"Visitors on the Remote Island"

My first post of 2020 was on Houjou Kie's Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei ("The Hourglass of the Time-Space Traveller", 2019), a book I absolutely loved. So I figure, why not start 2021 with a review of her second novel?

Kakuriyo Island is a small, remote tropical island that was once the home of about a dozen people, but it has been uninhabitated since 1974. Kakuriyo Island technically consists of two islands, which are commonly referred to as Kakuriyo Island collectively: people lived on the main Kakuriyo Island, which is connected to the tidal island locals called the Divine Land: whenever lightning would strike the Divine Land several times, the local, esotoric religious ceremony called the Lightning Festival would be held at the Divine Land, headed by the members of the Mikumi clan, the main family of the island. In 1974, however, the whole island community was slaughtered in what was later called the Incident of the Beast of Kakuriyo Island. When the police arrived on the island, they found a nightmarish scene: all twelve villagers on the island had been killed by a stab through the heart, save for island head Mikumo Eiko, whose body was floating in the sea. There had been one outsider on the island at the time, a professor Sasakura who had been examining the local flora and fauna, who was also found dead, but his body had been cruelly eaten skin and all by something. Because there are rumors of a hidden gold treasure on the island, it was first assumed that Sasakura might've gone crazy while looking for the treasure and that he got fatally injured himself too while killing everyone, but it wouldn't explain why the meat of his corpse had been devoured skin and all. It was first assumed the dogs must've done it, but the police never really found an answer that explained why the whole island was massacred or how the murderer managed to stab every victim right through the heart. Nobody has lived on Kakuriyo Island since, and to visit the island, one must now ask for permission from the local authorities.

45 years have passed when a small television crew arrives at Kakuriyo Island in 2019 to film J Television's special program World's Mysteries Detective Club. The host of the program will be the singer-songwriter Mikumo Echika, who also happens to be the last living heir of Kakuriyo's Mikumo clan: her father had not been living on the island when the tragedy occured and he never returned to his ancestral home during his lifetime. For Echika, this is the first time she'll see her family home, which of course is expected to be great screen material. The show will look into the tragedy that occured in 1974, but Professor Motegi, expert on tropical fauna, is also part of the team, as he hopes to discover a new species on Kakuriyo Island and so the coming days, two teams will be going around the island, one to film World's Mysteries Detective Club and one following Motegi's quest for scientific discoveries. The nine-man team quickly sets up camp and HQ inside the community centre (the only building on the island that's still intact) and the two teams each go off exploring the island. Assistant-director Ryuuzen Yuuki is assigned to Echika's team, but none of the others know that he's actually planning to murder some of the people present. His targets took someone dear to him, so Yuuki vowed to take revenge on them and everything has been prepared to execute justice during their stay on the island. Which is why he's rather annoyed when he finds one of his intended targets murdered, stabbed right through the chest. It doesn't appear any of the crew members could've commited this murder however and eventually, it leads them to the horrifying conclusion that there's something not from this world roaming this island that's trying to kill them. While the hypothesis sounds absolutely ridiculous at first, it's soon proved to be completely correct and they realize that it's this Outsider that was behind the 1974 tragedy where everybody got killed. The remaining people now have to figure out how to survive against an enemy of which they know nearly nothing and who might be much closer than they suspect in Houjou Kie's 2020 novel Kotou no Raihousha ("Visitors on the Remote Island").

People who have read Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei will recognize the family name Ryuuzen and thus realize the two books are connected, even if the (supernatural) themes are very different. Kotou no Raihousha introduces the series title The Ryuuzen Clan series for these books, and I certainly hope we'll see more entries in this series!

Like I mentioned earlier, Houjou's debut novel Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei was one of my favorite reads of last year: it had basically everything from closed circle situations, impossible murders, disappearances from locked houses, alibi tricks, a family curse, overly complicated family feuds and a creepy country house in the middle of nowhere to a Challenge to the Reader and on top of that there was also the science fiction element of time travel which was incorporated very well with the mystery plot. The story was a very fair, and very traditional detective story despite the time travel aspect, and one of the things that stuck with me the most was how densely clewed the novel was, and despite the enormous scale of the book, it felt genuinely like Houjou wanted you to make it to the finish line yourself. It shouldn't be a surprise therefore that I was really looking forward to Kotou no Raihousha the moment it was announced.

In a way, Kotou no Raihousha is quite like its predecessor, but at the same time very different. Once again, we have a story that seemingly follows a familiar mystery trope (murders on an isolated island), but with a supernatural theme. But whereas Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei starts out with introducing the element of time travel to the reader and also shows off what the governing rules of time travel are, Kotou no Raihousha turns this idea completely around: the characters in this novel are suddenly confronted with a being of which they know nearly nothing, only that it's unlike anything that we know from Earth. The mystery this time therefore focuses on figuring out what the characteristics and abilities are of this unknown Outsider, based on the actions it takes or doesn't (can't) take. In a way, this is similar to reading a 'normal' detective story and reading a passage that serves as a clue to tell you the murderer was left-handed or that they have an injury on their right leg, but in Kotou no Raihousha, the conclusions you have to make about the murderer are not 'normal' as its abilities and capabilities are unlike any living creature on Earth, but at the same time, they are defined in enough of a limited manner to make them not overpowered. Kotou no Raihousha is therefore a lot harder than the first novel, because this time, it's the reader's (and Yuuki's) task to identify the supernatural rules that govern this novel, while in Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei, the supernatural element focused more on application (as the rules were told to you).

It's what makes this a hard novel to explain in more detail, because the bulk of the novel revolves exactly around the manner in which the characters slowly, but surely create a bullet list of what the Outsider exactly can and can't do, and telling you more about some of the later situations in the novel might spoil too much already, as the story is definitely about slowly revealing what the creature is and how it commits the murders. There's an interesting locked room mystery situation at the end of the novel for example, with a man staying in a room in the community centre while keeping an eye on the rest of the building through cameras and there's even a dog standing guard in the hallway leading to his room, but still the man is murdered despite all of these security measures . Houjou makes clever use of the capabilities of the creature to create this locked room mystery and it's deviously keenly plotted as this scene also connects in a surprising way to other story developments, but so much of how the mystery works and why it's such a baffling problem hinges on discoveries made throughout the novel about the creature, so it's really difficult to explain what makes it so well planned. Whereas Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei starts off with "Hey, this is about time travel" (even in its title!), Kotou no Raihousha's mystery revolves around figuring out what the supernatural element is for yourself and it really shouldn't be spoiled here.

Like the first novel, Kotou no Raihousha is a very puzzle-focused mystery novel. Everything that occurs, will in a way connect to the mystery, either serving as a hint to the Outsider's characteristics or the murders the Outsider commits, and some might even feel it's too contrived, but this is definitely the kind of detective story I like: every event has a well-considered function as a puzzle piece and while sometimes it might feel a bit artificial, at least Houjou is playing the game fair and square. This novel has a Challenge to the Reader too and I think it's a lot more challenging than the one in the first novel, but you never feel cheated or that some elements were truly far too hard to figure out yourself.

I like how Kotou no Raihousha is a bit more... active and tense than the first novel. With a closed circle situation on an island with an unknown predator, there's a more tangible feeling of dread and terror and it's also funny how Yuuki is driven into a role of detective: he's still planning to get his revenge on the remaining targets while they're on the island, so he only wants to figure out what the Outsider is and how to defend against it so he can kill his intended targets himself, instead of having another of them taken from him by the Outsider. Following a would-be murderer playing detective so he can murder people himself is an interesting angle and creates a few intriguing scenes where Yuuki wants to create situations where only he'd get a chance to safely commit a murder on his target, but not the creature.

Before I started with Kotou no Raihousha, I honestly hadn't expected that writing this review would be so difficult. The book's a keenly plotted puzzle mystery that makes great use of a very unique supernatural premise to present a detective story you're unlikely to have seen before, but as the plot also revolves around having the readers and the characters themselves figure out what the mystery exactly is in the first place and then seeing it applied to the situations you see in the book, it's neigh impossible to really point out the more impressive moments without spoiling much of the fun. If you like Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei or puzzle plot mysteries with a supernatural premise in general, Kotou no Raihousha is a no-brainer and should appear on your to-read lists. The book's definitely a lot trickier if you're not familiar with supernatural fair-play mysteries as it demands more of its readers than these type of mysteries usually do, though Houjou still shows she's good at plotting whodunnit-style stories and it should still be an enjoyable read. I for one can't wait for the third book, whenever that may come. This is the first post of the year, but I'm sure this will end up on my favorite reads of the year list!

Original Japanese title(s): 方丈貴恵『孤島の来訪者』