The Greek Symbol Mystery

"この地上すべてを覆うロジックは存在しない"

『或るギリシア棺の謎』

 

"There exists no logic that can cover all in this world." 

"A Greek Coffin Mystery"

Never visited Greece myself. In high school, the classes that took Latin and/or Ancient Greek went to Rome on a school trip, which was awesome, but I would've loved Athens too...

In Tsukatou Hajime's 2019 short story collection Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo ("An Egyptian Cross Mystery"), professional photographer/amateur detective Minami Mikikaze became a guide for his friend, the prominent forensic investigator Elizabeth Kittridge, who is visiting Japan for an international symposium and workshop program on criminal forensic investigation. When Mikikaze was a young, he suffered from a very weak heart, and basically always lived on the brink of death. Beth's father was the surgeon who successfully conducted Mikikaze's heart transplantant some years back however, and they have kept in touch ever since, which is how Mikikaze became friends with Beth too. Both Beth and her father Ronald are also involved with various international NPOs that support children's organ transplantations across the world and while she's in Japan, she plans to visit a few of the important Japanese sponsors they have been working with all these years. After the events of the short story Aru Holland-Gutsu no Nazo ("A Dutch Shoe Mystery") however, Mikikaze and Beth learn that one of the people they wanted to visit has passed away: the elderly Andou Akemi had headed an important NPO that had helped children all over the world, and while they may be too late to meet her personally, Mikikaze and Beth hurry to Akemi's home so they can at least pay their final respects. The Andou clan is an old family with interesting roots: some centuries ago, a Greek sailor washed up on the shores of Japan and while he always longed to return to Greece, he never managed to return home. Centuries later, the Andou's still pride themselves on their Greek origin. One of the more interesting relics the wealthy family has are wooden coffin made of the wood of the ship that brought their ancestor to Japan. When Mikikaze and Beth arrive at the Andou home, they learn the wake has been postponed, because there are serious suspicions whether Akemi really died of natural causes: a torn-up last will was found in a waste basket in the kitchen and when the male members of the family went down to the crypt to carry out the wooden coffin to lay Akemi inside, a note was found that indicated that Akemi's death wasn't natural. A link is made to the murder on her granddaughter Natsumi, who disappeared four years ago on her way to work and whose body was found last August buried in a grove nearby, suggesting that Akemi's death isn't natural either. Mikikaze and Beth, as experts on criminology, stick around to investigate whether Akemi's death was really a murder in Tsukatou Hajime's novel Aru Girishia Hitsugi no Nazo ("A Greek Coffin Mystery", 2021).

Another review of a book that is based on Ellery Queen this year? Anyway, I quite liked the stories found in Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo ("An Egyptian Cross Mystery", 2019) when I read it last year, so when I learned a follow-up volume was released in February, and that it was a full-length novel, I became quite excited. While I am a fan of the short story format, I knew things could become interesting if Tsukatou would use the Queen-inspired plotting of the short story collection and apply those techniques to a full-length novel. Like the previous stories, you don't need actual knowledge of Ellery Queen's Nationality novels to read this book: there's no real link with The Greek Coffin Mystery, the book is just about a very big family (four generations!) with Greek origins and a Greek coffin, and the book doesn't even take cues from The Greek Coffin Mystery's famous story structure. 

What you do get is a novel that focuses strongly on logical deduction based on physical evidence, with long chains of reasoning that highlight the state and circumstances of how something is found and the logical implications of those line of thoughts. This is of course the (early Queen-style of deduction, where the reader is challenged to figure out some characteristics of the culprit by process of logical deduction: the state of an object can tell something about when the culprit did something, with what purpose they did something, which knowledge they had that allowed them to do something, etc., and these are all hints that can help identify the killer. And you get plenty of moments like these in  Aru Girishia Hitsugi no Nazo: from how the note was found when they carried the wooden coffin out of the crypt, to when and how the torn-up will found its way inside the waste basket in the kitchen to a security camera which has been sabotaged and more. Each of these clues don't seem to mean that much at first, so it's pretty exciting to see how every time Mikikaze manages to point out what these clues really mean and what they can tell us about the culprit. Even the most unimportant-looking action turns out to be a clue that helps identify the killer. The part with the camera is especially great, with a long chain that shows who could and would have sabotaged the camera that was aimed at a corridor that shouldn't be that significant in the first place. By the way, a little diagram of the house and where the camera was would have been useful: while spacial consciousness isn't really necessary to solve this part of the mystery, it does help visualize the situation much better and would allow the reader to come up with the necessary deductions more easily.

But while I did like these particular parts of the book, as a whole novel, I don't think Aru Girishia Hitsugi no Nazo was as entertaining as the short stories. This is partially because the inital premise of the story can feel a bit underwhelming. Beth and Mikikaze only stick around because there are suspicions about Akemi's death due to the discovery of the torn-up will and the vague threatening note found with the coffin, but it takes a looooooong time before the book presents even something remotely certain on whether a crime has really been committed. So for a long time, you'll see everyone talk and discuss issues which may not even be relevant in the first place if there's no crime happening anyway. Even in the later parts of the novel, a lot of the story as reconstructed by Mikikaze feels a bit uncertain despite the convincing ways in which he deduces the facts: the inital starting point of Akemi's death is just so mundane the rest of the plot feels less impressive/captivating, because while Mikikaze managed to construct a stable house of cards, it can all come down easily if the floor beneath it is moved around. Even to me, who likes these more 'theoretical' detective stories that focus on long chains of deductions and what-if scenarios, Aru Girishia Hitsugi no Nazo felt as a slow book because there was no clear crime to focus on. The way the various chains of deductions relate to each other is also a bit different from the usual Queen book: here we have a lot of seperate events with their own chains of events positioned one after another on a long timeline and these events stay mostly discrete , whereas in Queen-like novels, you usually have these different chains of deductions that ultimately come together at one point.

In my review of Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo, I wrote I sometimes had trouble with the writing style, mentioning "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)." This is also absolutely the case in Aru Girishia Hitsugi no Nazo and while you'd think you'd get used to it after a while, I didn't. At one point, I accidentally started at the wrong section of the book, one section further than I actually was. When they started talking about something I had no recollection of, I didn't even think that was odd: the whole book had been written like that, so I assumed that after a few pages we'd jump back in time again and get the full details. Only that didn't happen, and it was only then I noticed I had actually skipped a part of the story. Normally, you'd realize this immediately, but the way this book is written you basically always have brief moments where you think you have missed something but it's only explained in detail a few pages later.

Aru Girishia Hitsugi no Nazo ultimately does reveal a very intricately structured plot with all kinds of puzzle pieces falling into place and more than a few surprises, but it takes a long time to set-up the finale and to be honest, I enjoyed this book more for its discrete moments, than as a total. It has some really interesting segments where the detective shows off his deductive skills by focusing on the state of the evidence and then following the trail to its logical conclusion, but because the binding elements between these moments is not as fun (Akemi's death is not a clear murder, very few of Akemi's relatives are actually nice characters to follow), the book as a whole doesn't feel as convincing as its finest moments. If you liked Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo, I can recommend this book as it's a fine example of a Queen-like mystery, but I wouldn't start with this book if you want to follow Mikikaze and Beth's adventures: start with Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo first to get an idea of the style, and then decide whether you like it enough or not.

Original Japanese title(s): 柄刀一『或るギリシア棺の謎』