Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

“No, no! The adventures first,” said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: “explanations take such a dreadful time.” 

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

Always interesting to compare the cover of the pocket edition of a book with the original release. Sometimes, it's the same, sometimes they go for a completely different style and sometimes, you have something like today's book: obviously designed by the same artist, but still a different illustration for whatever reason.

The shin honkaku movement brought forth a renaissance of the puzzle-focused mystery novel, but it was one non-fiction book that really helped revitalize interest in such novels. Proof of the Great Detective was an account by the real-life great detective Yashiki Keijirou, who wrote about his own cases and adventures. While the real-life murders he wrote about in his memoirs were never as fantastical as the fictional ones created within the shin honkaku movement, his exploits did spark interest in all things mystery related. On the other side of the spectrum was the author Haijima Tomie, one of the leading figures in the early periods of shin honkaku and therefore highly respected by mystery readers everywhere. Her success led to her building her own house named after one of her books: the Locked Room Manor. 

It is in a guest room inside the Locked Room Manor where college student Hinoto Ryou wakes up. At first, he's confused about his current situation, but then remembers he had been invited into the house by Hajima, but then knocked out somehow. A video message appearing on a monitor addressing him, and other people, tells him to leave the room and go up to a central room on the third floor. Eight people arrive in the great hall there, all obviously confused about what they are doing here. They find Haijima standing high up on a balcony overlooking the spacious room, far beyond their reach. Haijima explains all eight of them are her prisoner and there is no way out of her house now. In the coming four days, locked room murders will occur inside the Locked Room Manor and she challenges her eight prisoners to solve them. Each day, they are given one collective chance to come to this room again and explain their deductions about how the locked room murder(s) are committed: if they get it right they are released at once. After four days, she'll stop this insane game and even go to the police herself to surrender herself, but perhaps everyone will be dead by then. To prove she's serious, she kills another woman right in front of her prisoners, dumping the body from the balcony. Fortunately for them, one of the prisoners is Mikan Hanako: a former super-popular tv-personality who is also a talented detective. One year ago, she stopped all her media activity and deleted her Twitter account with over a million followers to concentrate on her detective work. However, there's one problem: Hinoto Ryou absolutely hates Hanako and all detectives. Previously, Ryou's family had been murdered and even though the murderer had sent a challenge letter to Hanako, she was not able to prevent the tragedy from happening and only managed to solve the case when it was too late. Since that moment, Ryou has harbored an intense hatred towards Hanako, whom he sees as a blight on this world: a person who doesn't recognize the tragedy behind murders and only sees them as puzzles to be solved, and it's detectives like her that in fact attract insane murderers like Haijima to come up with these insane crimes that involve innocent people. But even Ryou has to admit that Hanako is their best way to get out of this mess, and while not all eight prisoners are all too keen to work together because obviously, these are all people who don't know each other, they are united in their struggle against Haijima. After the first night however, one of them is found murdered in his locked room, but how was the murder commited and save Hanako get the rest of them out of Haijima's trap in Ichikawa Tetsuya's 2014 novel Meitantei no Shoumei - Misshitsukan Satsujin Jiken ("Proof of the Great Detective - The Murders in the Locked Room Manor")?

Ichikawa Tetsuya made his debut in 2013 with the first Meitantei no Shoumei ("Proof of the Great Detective") by winning the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award. And nope, I haven't read that book. I'm not really fixated on reading things on order, assuming (hoping) later books don't explicitly spoil previous ones, so for some reason I decided to start with the second novel (and as far as I know, it didn't spoil anything from the first). Anyway, I went in mostly blind, and basically all I had was the subtitle, so I figured it would be safe to least assume it'd be about locked room murders.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that wasn't really correct.

Despite the subtitle, the place of the murders being called the Locked Room Manor and yes, the murders happening in this story being locked room murders, the main focus of the story isn't on the locked room murders. The focus is much more on their closed circle situation. At the start of the story, Haijima even refers to games like Danganronpa, saying how they are now trapped inside the house and how her prisonors will be killed off one by one in impossible crimes. She even adds a rule that during the night, her prisonors will have to stay in their own rooms and not leave until the following morning (or else...). That coupled with the rule they only get one collective chance a day to guess how the murders have been committed results in a very game-like set-up similar to Werewolf, and makes you really aware they are in a closed circle situation. While Hanako and the rest do spend time trying to figure out how the murders are committed, some of them coming up with their own theories, you'd be surprised how much of the book isn't directly about the locked rooms, but for example about the distrust that usually exists in closed circle mystery stories, how everybody feels like they can't really trust the other even though Haijima's shadow is looming over them. 

This is of course personified by narrator Ryou, who hates Hanako despite knowing she's their best chance to get out of there, but Ryou is also used to address some post-modern interpretations of the detective-character like you might know from Late Queen Period problems: in Ryou's view, detectives like Hanako are just cruel people who see murders and crimes as nothing more but intellectual games and entertainment, and the victims and their loved ones are just a by-product. Criminal masterminds like Haijima or others who go for locked room murders or other impossible crimes only exist because such "great detectives" exist, as if to challenge these criminals to try their best. This Batman-Joker problem can be felt throughout the novel via Ryou's narration and at times admittedly, this can be tiring because I assume most readers of a puzzle plot mystery novel are... not against the great detective archetype, though it's also not a very long book so it's not like you have to cope with it for ages.

If you're looking for an original take on the actual mechanics behind the locked room murders, I don't think this will be the book for you, The truth behind how the individual locked room murders are committed is fairly simple in the end, though to prove that, Hanako has to go pretty far, and that in itself is pretty interesting. For the rule is that not only do they have one chance per day, the solution has to be logical and based on clues and facts found at the scenes and can't be just a 'guess.' To prove how the locked room murders were committed however, Hanako looks less at the actual physical evidence found at the scene, but more at the whole situation: why is Haijima holding them hostage, why is she holding this sick game of locked rooms and more, and that eventually brings Hanako to a solution that is more than just a series of locked room murders. I actually do like the truth that Hanako ultimately arrives at and it fits the themes of this book perfectly, but yeah, don't expect too much of the locked rooms as mysteries on their own, it's more about what lies beyond them.

So with people often confusing closed circles with locked room murders, it's ironic that this book, that has locked room in its title and does feature locked room murders, is actually more interesting in the way it handles its closed circle situation. Though that may be intentional. It is a fun book when looked at it as such, and the way it plays with the post-modern themes while incorporating 'real' detective fiction history (there are a lot of references to real books and writers) make it a worthwile read for those who are into modern Japanese mystery.

I wonder if you see Hanako more from a less biased view in the other novels though. Ryou is obviously looking at Hanako with a certain mindset which really colors the whole book in a certain way, but I hope other books show Hanako a bit more, because here Ryou often intentionally avoided the series detective. She's an interesting enough character though, with just enough of an air of mystery, so I'd like to read more about her adventures.

Oh, and as one last note. Tokyo Sogen Suiri's books usually all feature an extra English title inside or on the cover to accompany the Japanese title. Sometimes it's a direct translation, sometimes not. This book's English title however is just "The Detective 2" which is a biiiiiit too generic I think.

So Meitantei no Shoumei - Misshitsukan Satsujin Jiken wasn't at all what I first expected it would be, focusing more on the closed circle situation rather than the locked rooms from the title, but I still ended up liking it for tackling the themes it focused on. It might be a bit too meta for some readers, though I think it's still perfectly readable without much 'meta-knowledge' and I'm certainly interested to read more of this series.

Original Japanese title(s): 市川哲也『名探偵の証明　密室館殺人事件』