Ten Days' Wonder

"Revolution"

ノートに書きとめた言葉 

「Seven Days War」（TM Network）

 

"Revolution"

The word written in this notebook

"Seven Days War" (TM Network)

I finished Dawn of the Golden Witch earlier, which seemed to provide a major hint to solving the Rokkenjima murders, so I added my new thoughts based on that episode to the Umineko no Naku koro ni playthrough memo. Two more to go!

Huh, I only just realized, but this cover may be a bit misleading, for the story is actually set in contemporary times, even if the art kinda invokes Vampire Hunter D in a way.

It occured two years ago, in February of 1999. A small village near an active volcano in rural Argentina suddenly became news when something unbelievable happened. Each week on the same day, a group of twelve locals would gather in the evening at the church to discuss the upcoming church activities and markets, but on that fateful day, the church was blown up in a gas explosion. When one of the twelve arrived late at the church only to find it had been destroyed, he believed the other eleven had been killed, but to his great surprise, one of them appeared behind him, having also arrived late. More and more of them popped up from behind, until all twelve of them were standing there outside the burning church. They had all been late for different reasons. One had been struggling with homework, the other had overslept, another had been having trouble finishing up work. It was only then they fully realized what had happened: the lives of all twelve of them had been saved, only because they happened to be all late for their meeting for different reasons. This was obviously not just some coincidence, but an act of heaven, so they and everyone in the village considered this a true miracle, and the incident soon became international news, with the twelve survivors now commonly known as "the Chosen Twelve".

Arthur Clemence is an inquisitor of the Vatican who investigates miraculous incidents that occur across the world. The Vatican decides whether to acknowledge said incidents as true miracles based on his thorough reports. Arthur is sent to the home village of the Chosen Twelve to determine whether it was truly a miracle which had saved the twelve's lives. His timing is both fortunate and unfortunate: the priest of the local church has to undergo a heart operation, and Arthur agrees to watch over the church for the time being, but lately, the volcano nearby has been active again, causing tremors and ash rains. Arthur becomes acquaintances with the Chosen Twelve and other villagers while he examines the incident two years ago, but impossible murders involving the Chosen Twelve occur during his stay. One of them is seen being attacked and stabbed in the chest in his home, and thrown through the window down a cliff even though multiple eye-witnesses swear there was nobody else in the room besides the victim. Another victim is shot from close range in the head while he was flying in a hang glider in the sky. And another is killed in a locked room only moments before Arthur himself broke into the room, but there's not a sign of the killer anywhere, even though the whole building was under observation. Are these murders also miracles on their own, or are they crimes committed by man? It's of course up to Arthur to find out in Tsukatou Hajime's 2002 novel Kiseki Shinmonkan Arthur - Kami no Te no Fukanou Satsujin ("Miracle Inquisitor Arthur - The Impossible Murders By The Hand of God").

I first heard that story about all fifteen church choir members being late for different reasons and thus miraculously avoiding a horrible explosion first in an episode of Trivia no Izumi, a legendary Japanese television program about trivia. I believe it happened in the US in the 50s. This novel adapts that incident, relocating it to Argentina and making the number twelve. Also: don't confuse this series with the series Vatican Kiseki Chousakan (Vatican Miracle Examiner), which is probably known better due to an anime adaptation. That anime is based on a novel series, but it has nothing to do with Tsukatou's older Miracle Inquisitor Arthur series.

The first impression Kiseki Shinmonkan Arthur - Kami no Te no Fukanou Satsujin made on me was that's long. Like, really long. Easily double the length of the novels I usually read. That said, it reads pretty smoothly and while a lot happens in this novel, it never feels like it's too slow or dragging. Anyway, this book will be a feast for the lovers of impossible crimes, because this lengthy work is focused completely on them and each of these murders has really interesting ideas to them, even though they don't all work as well, especially not when taken together. To begin with the latter point: all of the crimes that occur in this novel rely to a degree on coincidence, either it being a coincidence that a murder is made to look like an impossible crime, or just events happening at just the right time for no other reason than that the author wanted it to happen. To keep it to a point that won't spoil the story too much: for some reason the bodies of the murder victims keep getting "lost" due to unforeseen circumstances, like a body falling in a river or a well-timed earthquake disposing of a body after it had been discovered. This happens again and again, making the police investigation more difficult. While a big part of it is just the author making a grand show of the impossible murders, it's undeniable that the murderer got away with a lot solely thanks to very timely coincidences, and a lot of the mystery is only there because heaven (and the author) was just helping the murderer too much. This wouldn't be that bad in a shorter story, but when you have like four or five murders where each time, the murderer gets several lucky breaks, it becomes a bit weird, especially as some murders would've been solved more easily if the police just had more time with the corpses. Sure, the whole book is about miracles and such, so you could claim that it's just a miracle they were so lucky, but it does make the murders less fun to solve, as you also have to deduce very unlikely events to happen at just the right time.

Tsukatou's definitely great at creating alluring murder situations though, like the murder discussed in the prologue. A man is standing alone in a room, under the observation of several witnesses (including police) in a different room in the cliff-side house. The man suddenly starts fighting off an invisible attacker, but he's cut in the chest and ultimately falls through the window, down the cliff. At the same time, the police was also trying to subdue a possessed young man who was swinging a knife around in another room in the house, and some start to think the possessed young man committed the murder through some evil magic, making him capable of stabbing in the air in one room, while actually hurting someone in another room. This murder has some brilliant ideas, but also ideas that seem really forceful and a bit hard to swallow. The part about how the murderer managed to get away unseen is quite clever for example: incredibly easy to overlook yet so effective. And the actual way in which the murderer attacked the victim while remaining unseen is also clever, but at the same time not completely fair to the reader as it's unlikely anyone would think of that without any hints. Having the victim fall down the window and basically exploding was... just overkill with the coincidences.

The problem having good ideas coupled with obviously very forced elements holds also for the other major murders in the novel. The idea of someone being shot from close range in the head, while he was flying alone in a hang glider is brilliant for example. The burn marks show the man was shot from very close, but that's impossible as he was alone in the sky, and there were only a few people around the lake where the murder happened. I can't discuss this in detail because of spoilers, but there are parts of the story that are really clever as misdirection (the additional motive for the murder for example), but also parts that are utterly impossible to believe because it's so obvious that those events only happened because otherwise, Tsukatou coudn't have the murder situation as he had imagined it. We're not talking about coincidences anymore even, but characters acting very oddly only so we'd end up with the murder at the end. There's a locked room murder in an abandoned fish farm that was under observation from outside, which too has great elements and not so great elements: the misdirection regarding the identity of the murderer is memorable, and there are some interesting concepts going on regarding how the murderer managed to escape the farm unseen, but the way the locked room situation was created makes less of an impression, especially due to the vague way the whole building is presented to the reader. One final murder too follows the familiar pattern by now: a man is seen by Arthur and his sidekick being strangled by red hands in an otherwise empty room and obviously, there's not a sign of any killer hiding anywere. Some parts of the mystery revolve around phenomena nobody is going to know about, which makes it less memorable, while I do like how it ultimately ties back to the whole plot. I do have to say that most of the murders ultimately build on very recognizable patterns, so the core solutions are not very original perhaps, though Tsukatou does a good job at 'dressing them up' for this novel.

And that's perhaps what does make this novel a better experience than I may make it sound. As said, this is a very lengthy novel, but Tsukatou does manage to weave all these various murders and elements into a cohesive story that is really captivating with its impressive murder situtions and the background story of the miracle of the Chosen Twelve and Arthur's investigations. Even if it does rely a lot on coicidences to keep things together. As a whole, complete work, Kiseki Shinmonkan Arthur - Kami no Te no Fukanou Satsujin manages to leave an impression because it's a really well-constructed and plotted story in the sense that it incorporates so many ideas (even familiar ones), yet Tsukatou uses all these pieces very expertly to create a story that's simply quite entertaining.

So I did enjoy my time with Kiseki Shinmonkan Arthur - Kami no Te no Fukanou Satsujin, as it does present a captivating narrative about miraculous events, even if sometimes the pieces feel either a bit familiar or implemented in a very forceful manner. It's not a brilliantly inspired novel perhaps, but it's constructed in a way probably only an experienced writer could handle, resulting in a novel that is entertaining nonetheless and you could do much worse, as this book does have a lot of memorable ideas spread across the narrative. I'm definitely interested in reading more of this series.

Original Japanese title(s): 柄刀一『奇蹟審問官アーサー 神の手の不可能殺人』