Anyone here who watched the Jikou Keisatsu drama series? They were among the first Japanese mystery dramas I ever watched, so I've always had a weak spot for them and was really surprised when it returned in 2019 for a new series.
Chinmoku no Alibi ("An Alibi of Silence") follows Kuchiki and his team, who after a long, long time finally managed to send their suspect off to the courtroom. Yumoto is suspected to be the accomplice in an armed robbery on a bank truck with deadly results: Ookuma, the brains of the operation, is still on the run, but they managed to capture Yumoto after tracking his purchase of some things they used in the robbery. At first Yumoto refused to say anything about the crime and he held out for a long time, but in the end he surrended and admitted that he and Ookuma hadn't planned to murder the driver and that they had agreed to lie low until the thing had blown over. With the confession in their pocket, the police send Yumoto off to the Prosecutor's Office for a trial. Kuchiki attends the trial of Yumoto, but to his great shock Yumoto suddenly pleads to the judge, saying he was forced by the police to confess to the crime and that he has a proper alibi for the robbery! It's difficult to explain how this story then changes into a mystery story without revealing too much about what will follow, but Kuchiki is quite convinced Yumoto is the accomplice in the robbery, so part of the mystery lies in the question of what good it will do Yumoto to go back on his words now. The stoy's an interesting crime thriller that plays with the well-known importance placed upon confessions in criminal cases in Japanese court and quite enjoyable, but it's not an orthodox puzzler.
The title of the book's err... title story Daisan no Jikou ("The Third Deadline") refers to the statute of limitations. Fifteen years have passed since Yukie had been assaulted and raped at home by her childhood friend Takeuchi. Her husband arrived home immediately after the horrific crime, and in the ensuing fight Takeuchi killed Yukie's husband, and he has been on the run since. The crime will expire soon, but the police still have one chance to catch him. Or perhaps two. While the deadline for the statute of limitations is fifteen years, this clock is 'paused' whenever the suspect leaves the country: the police have records to show Takeuchi had fled one week abroad soon after the crime, which means that the deadline is not on the day of the murder, but one week later. The men of Section 2 hope that Takeuchi will make contact with Yukie immediately after the deadline expires, as he had tried to contact her once before, as he suspects that Yukie's fourteen year old daughter Arisa is in fact his, and not her husband's. Two weeks before the first deadline, Section 2's men and women are on the look-out for Takeuchi: they have rented the apartment next door and can get inside Yukie's place through the balcony, the phone's tapped, a plainclothes always accompanies Arisa to and from school. When the first deadline expires on midnight, the team is disappointed Takeuchi doesn't call right away, but they hope he'll still call within the week. But as the second deadline approaches, the lead detective Kusumi seems to be pondering about the possibility of a third deadline, but what could that possibly be and will that allow them to catch Takeuchi? Great story, though again not a really a fair puzzler where you can solve all of the mystery without specific knowledge of something. But once more, this is a great thriller where the focus lies not solely on the trap for Takeuchi, but also the internal political struggles within the team and the effect it has on the investigation. Kusumi is not trusted by anyone because he didn't work his way from the regular police force, but was brought over from Public Security, which is a lot more 'devious' in its way of working, and it shows in how he handles this case.
Shuujin no Dilemma ("Prisoner's Dilemma") is an interesting story because this time we don't follow any of the section leaders, but Tabata, head of Homicide and Violent Crimes. He's blessed, and cursed with his three talented subordinates and in this story, all three section leaders are busy with their own murder case, and Tabata has to juggle between keeping an eye on the three investigations, and keeping the press out of it. The story show how the three section leaders each approach their case in different ways, while Tabata has his own 'adventure' when he's approached by some members of the press who seem to know more than they should about the ongoing investigations, and he has to figure out how to keep a lid on things until the respective cases are resolved. Obviously, the titular prisoner's dilemma also plays a role in this story that is a neat showcase of the various characters in this world and the workings of the police force, not just at the crime scene investigation level, but also at the level above, with Tabata trying to manage three very different detectives. As a pure mystery story, it's a bit lacking, but it's a good procedural.
Misshitsu no Nukeana ("An Escape Exit From The Locked Room") is set inside an interrogation room in the police department with a deadly atmosphere. Last night, Section 3 (without the help of leader Murase, who had health problems) held a stake-out on a suspected murderer, who also has ties to the organized crime. The plan was to keep an eye on him once he got home and arrest him in the morning. Because of ties with a larger gang, Section 3 was also obliged to have a few detectives from the Organized Crime Division on site too, because if they had acted without saying anything, they'd have a big row later with their colleagues of Organized Crime. The detectives saw how the suspect drove home to the apartment complex, parked his car in the underground parking lot and later saw how the lights in his apartment high up in the building switched on. Outside, four teams held an eye on all possible exits from the complex. However, the following morning, when they went to arrest them, he was not in his room anymore and later the police even receive information that in the early hours of the day, he tried to secure a car by threatening a prostitute he knew. While the force is out on the look for him, a 'blaming' game is held, as how did the suspect manage to escape the apartment complex while every exit was supposedly watched? This is the best puzzle plot of the whole volume, dealing with the impossible disappearance of the suspect: all the exits out of the building were watched, he has no known allies in the same apartment building and most of all: how could he have known that he was going to be arrested in the morning: if he knew, he wouldn't have gone home in the first place, and if he didn't know, why did he disappear during the night? This leads to a fantastic, tense scene where the various teams involved in the stake-out where they all try to come up with a possible explanation for how the suspect manage to escape which will also to shift the blame to another team, though it's Murase's right hand who led the operation whose head is most likely to drop. Ultimately, they know that unlike their suspect, none of them will be able to leave this interrogation room until a guilty party is involved. The build-up to the final solution that explains how and why their suspect escaped is good and satisfying, and I definitely liked this story best of the whole volume.
Persona no Bishou ("A Persona's Smile") centers around the poisoning of a homeless man in Shizuoka Prefecture, which seems to have ties with an arsenic poisoning case that occured 13 years ago in F Prefecture. Two F detectives are sent to Shizuoka to learn more about the recent murder and they learn that a person similar to the facial composite drawing made 13 years ago was also seen just days before the homeless person's death. The story this time seems to have a much more personal note, as the main character is a rookie detective who had been used in a crime as a child too, and he sees some similarities between the old arsenic case and his own experience. I think this is the story I liked least of the whole collection, as it lacks the tense atmosphere the other stories have, and the core mystery too is also too much tied into past events, which makes it easier to guess how every thing is connected.
The final story, Monochrome no Hanten ("Monochrome Inversed") deals with the murder on the father, mother and young child of the Yumioka family. They were found dead in their home a day after they were killed, and the boy living next door remembers having seen a white car parked right next to his room around the time of the murder. Due to a scheduling mix-up, two teams have gone off to investigate the crime and both Section 1's Kuchiki nor Section 3's Murase have any intention of leaving the good stuff to their rival. The two teams both work to secure different places related to the crime, like the actual house or interviews with the neighbors, keeping the other team out. Because of this, both Kuchiki and Murase's team have to work using different leads, but will it lead to the same murderer? The idea of this story is good, having a more direct confrontation between the sections and it's interesting to see how they work off very different leads, but let's be honest: Kuchiki's lead is far more clever and interesting to follow, while Murase's lead is ultimately something the murderer could've avoided so easily and it kinda falls flat because the idea is definitely clever, but the murderer had to be so in a panic to actually do this, that it makes it appear as if it was only a matter of time the police would catch them, because if they'd do that, they were bound to be making more unnecessary mistakes.
Daisan no Jikou isn't precisely the type of mystery stories I usually read, with these stories being closer to police procedurals and there's also an emphasis on the internal politics of the organization, but I did enjoy the stories like a kind of palate cleanser. As a thrilling and gritty police procedural with tense, twisty plots and sometimes genuinely clever plot twists, Daisan no Jikou is great, and definitely worth a read.
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