Friday, November 11, 2022

番外編:Death Within The Evil Eye

I'd better say this right away: don't expect another announcement next Friday. This post following my recent announcement of the upcoming release of The Mill House Murders is more-or-less just a coincidence... Let's not make this a habit!

2021 was a weird year, as two mystery novels I translated were published, but not only that, on the surface, they had rather similar, but unique themes. Publisher Ammo's YAMAGUCHI Masaya's Death of the Living Dead was about well, the living dead. The lengthy tale follows Francis "Grin" Barleycorn who has returned to the family home, the famous Smile Cemetery in New England, as his grandfather Smiley Barleycorn is terminally ill. Meanwhile, a strange phenomenom has been plaguing the world: the dead have started to rise. The scientists haven't figure out why yet, there have been several cases across the world where people simply "wake up" from their death and are still able to think, speak and act basically as if they were alive. It's amidst these circumstances that mysterious deaths occur at the Smile Cemetery, and it's up to young Grin to solve these deaths, which is easier said than done when the dead don't stay dead. The book was originally released in 1989 and is one of earliest and definitely one of the best Japanese mystery stories that utilized a supernatural setting to present a fair play puzzle plot detective. The other book I translated last year was also about mixing the supernatural with the classic puzzle plot mystery: Locked Room International published IMAMURA Masahiro's Death Among the Undead, an absolute hit 2017 mystery novel in its home country. It told the story of Akechi and Hamura, two students who make up the Mystery Society. The two of them are invited by Hiruko, a fellow student and accomplished amateur detective, to join a short trip organized by the Film Club of the university. Staying at a mountain-side pension overlooking Lake Sabea, the idea is that the members will film a short film as a club project. But on the first evening, the students are suddenly attacked by a mob of something very unlikely and very unnatural. They barricade themselves inside the pension with no hope of escape from this closed circle situation as the beings try to get inside, but then one of the students is killed inside his locked room during the night: at first they suspect one of the beings killed the poor man, but they soon realize that isn't possible and that a human, ergo, one of them must've done it. But how did the murderer manage to get in and out the locked room of the victm, and more importantly, why now, while they're being attacked by those things and don't even know whether they'll survive this? The book is an excellent example of how a mystery story can still utilize very irrational and supernatural elements, and yet be a completely fair, puzzle plot tale.

And for those who enjoyed Death Among the Undead, I have good news, for Locked Room International will be releasing its sequel too! Death Within the Evil Eye was originally released in Japan in 2019 as Magan no Hako no Satsujin and is the direct sequel to Death Among the Undead. Once again, I was fortunate enough to be able to work on this translation: I originally read the Japanese version of Death Among the Undead late 2018, so I was thrilled when I learned the sequel would be published just a few months later, and I loved the book, just like the first novel. While the book is a direct sequel, it does not directly spoil any big details of the plot of Death Among the Undead, so you could start with this book if you want to, though obviously, it is much more rewarding if you do read these two books in order. Death Within the Evil Eye brings the members of the Mystery Society to a remote community deep in the mountains as they trace a lead connected to the events of the first book. Some other people happen to arrive at that place too, and the party eventually arrives at a curious, block-like building where an old woman lives who is said to have powers of clairvoyance, capable of telling the future. But the bridge collapses, trapping everybody in the building, and it's then they learn that knowing the future is certainly not always a good thing, as what if it is foretold you will die?

Readers might be surprised on one hand to see how different the theme is this time compared to Death Among the Undead, on the other hand, Imamura does here what he did so well in the first book too: Death Within the Evil Eye uses a supernatural premise, in this case prophecies, to bring an incredibly original mystery novel. I'll be lazy today and simply quote myself from my review of the Japanese version: "In a way, the concept behind the prophecies isn't very different from what was done in the first novel: Imamura locks his whole cast up in a closed circle situation, and then has a supernatural/unnatural phenomenon threaten our cast. What makes his novels different from most other closed circle mysteries is that the threat isn't simply a force of nature, like a snow storm or the raging sea or something like that, but something out of the ordinary. What's more, Imamura is sure to make use of these unique special circumstances to come up with situations that can only exist because he's utilizing these unique ideas, resulting in mystery stories that are in the core recognizable, but also like something you have never seen before." For those who are curious now, my review of the Japanese version is here, but you could also wait until you've read the book yourself and compare notes later.

Oh, and what prompted me to write this post in the first place: Publishers Weekly has their early review up already, and they seem quite enthusiastic too with a starred review! 

And the big question is of course, when is the book out? ... I don't know exactly myself actually! At least, I can't give you an exact date, though I believe we'll still have wait a few weeks at the least as there are still some i's that need dotting in regards to the final release. So consider this just an advance announcement, and I'll be sure to make another announcement once you can actually purchase the book.

In the meantime, you could always read Death Among the Undead if you hadn't already!

16 comments :

  1. Yes! Let's go!!!! I LOVE these kinds of mysteries! I can read through them in Japanese if I push myself hard enough, but having you bring this over to us in English is a boon I greatly appreciate! I think this is the most excited I've ever been for a translation!

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    1. Ah yes, that period where you *could* read something in its original language with some effort, but can more easily read a translation is one I remember well myself too XD Choices, choices... hope you'll enjoy the book regardless which language you go for!

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    2. After I saw this blog post, I posted about Imamura's work in the Facebook group and this guy picked a huge fight with me, telling me that "supernatural mysteries" aren't "real mysteries" and "don't belong in a group on Golden Age mysteries". He told me that mysteries involving zombies can never be proper mysteries because the existence of zombies means that there must also be demons, ghosts, necromancers, magic, aliens, illusions, angels, God, etc. etc. and that the writer can simply change up the rules however he sees fit. He then went on to compare posting about these novels to "posting about kittens" or "sharing pictures of what I ate for breakfast", because they're equally relevant to the group, and kept telling me I should "learn to take his feedback" on what is and isn't appropriate to post in the group, and kept telling me to "fuck off" with the zombie novels and "go make a new group" instead of "spamming this group with this spam bullshit" and basically said "fuck your zombies" (referring to Masaya Yamaguchi and Imamaura's novels, essentially saying Masaya and Imamura should fuck off).

      After I told him that supernatural mysteries can be proper GAD mysteries, pointing out sci-fi/fantasy mysteries in the Golden Age by Anthony Boucher, Isaac Asimov, and Randall Garrett, and explaining that hybrid mysteries function by giving the audience consistent, strictly-abided-by rules, this JACKASS had the absolute audacity to tell me that ***I*** don't know what a Golden Age mystery is, I don't know how mysteries (supernatural or otherwise) are written, and he has no reason to listen to someone who "doesn't the meaning of the words they're using". When I told him to just READ the books before judging them he said he won't read them because he doesn't need to read them to know they're not REAL mysteries because "no book with zombies can be a real mystery".

      I proceeded to show him reviews from you, and TomCat, and BP, and Jim, and every other blogger in which you review the novels clearly as cerebral puzzle-plot mystery stories in the tradition of the Golden Age! And his argument was just that "being popular doesn't mean being right". What the Hell!

      This is the most frustrating conversation I've ever gotten into in my life! There exist people who are THIS damn antagonist to hybrid mysteries, going as far as to insult you, me, and Masaya-san over them. Utterly outrageous!

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    3. I'm pretty easy-going what it comes to this: it's their loss (an enormous loss) and I honestly have better things to do, like reading awesome mystery novels. Like, if they had read any of those books and had specific arguments against them, okay, but if the stance is 'no supernatural is not acceptable' from the start, I'm not going to waste my time arguing.

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    4. I'd be fine with people saying they don't like it, but it's disgusting to me that *EVERYONE* makes rash kneejerk assumptions about the genre based on nothing, going so far as to insult my intelligence and the work of a writer based on nothing! To imply I'm stupid and know nothing about mystery novels, to tell me to "fuck off", and to insult your work and Masaya and Imamura's as "spam bullshit"! It's intolerable!

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  2. That's kind of hilarious, it remind of critics who used to say "who cares who killed Roger ackyord".
    Though I never read there criticism,cause,I knew I would love Christie either way, supernatural in detective fiction isn't a new thing,there were always hints of them and many build there 1/3rd of plots on probability of existence of ghosts,witches etc.,the thing changed is in this novel they are real but that doesn't change the human reason,they just influenced the acts of people in novel,as they did in the conventional mysteries,think about honds of baskerville or Carr mysteries,they were full of supernatural just that they never played part in crime and in these new GAD they did.

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    1. I always thought the mystery novel is "artificial" anyway in order to create a puzzle, so I never felt apprehension to seeing the supernatural used in mystery fiction, as long it's used in a fair way. I

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  3. Thank you for another translation, Ho-Ling! You’re an icon, you’re a legend and you ARE the moment! Patiently checking Death Within the Evil Eye’s product page multiple times a day until it’s available! ^_^

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  4. Well this is exciting news! I can hardly wait for this to be released. I very rarely buy books as soon as they come out, if not merely because my TBR pile doesn't seem to be shrinking no matter how much I read, but I'll be making an exception for this! Death Among the Undead was one of my favorite reads this year, so I've been hoping Death Within the Evil Eye would get translated soon. But I certainly didn't think I'd get to read it less than a year from the first one! This more than makes up for US delay on The Mill House Murders ;)

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    1. To be honest, I wasn't expecting to work on the book so soon myself either! Funnily enough, both The Mill House Murders and Death Within the Evil Eye are both sequels I worked on which will probably release within a few months, even though I had never worked on more than one novel within the same series before ^_~'

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    2. Oh, and as for TBR piles: I've been good with my physical releases lately, but as I feared when I first started reading digital releases a few years ago, my digital TBR list is becoming a bit worrisome. At first I had a rule I wouldn't have more than 5 unread e-books at any given time (manga was different ~_~) because I knew an "invisible" pile could be dangerous, but now my fears have come true ^_^'

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  5. Fantastic news! I really enjoyed the first one, hope the book comes out soon.

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    1. The second book is quite different in a way due to the different type of "non-realistic elements" we have now, but I'm sure you'll like this one too!

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  6. Ah, this is fantastic news (and so is the Mill House announcement!) Reading your blog got me interested in both these series, and I keep telling myself I'll give the rest of the series a read in Japanese (even going so far as to import copies) but my Japanese novel-reading skill has sadly atrophied over the years. So I'm always super excited to see your latest translations, lol. 😅

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    1. On one hand, the compliment is of course very welcome, but still, as a fellow L2 Japanese learner, I *also* think you should really get back tor reading them in Japanese then and keep up your studies :P

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