The Bloodstained Book

'I will now lecture,’ said Dr Fell, inexorably, ‘on the general mechanics and development of the situation which is known in detective fiction as the “hermetically sealed chamber.” 

"The Hollow Man"

I don't even remember the last time I did a review of a non-fictional work!

Among fans of classically-styled puzzle plot mysteries, the locked room murder is of course a very popular trope. The idea of an utterly impossible crime, like a murder occuring inside a room from which the murderer simply couldn't have escaped because all exits were locked from the inside or because all the exits were observed, is of course very alluring, and ever since we had the double murder in the Rue Morgue, we have seen countless of variations on this particular variation of the impossible crime. For over a century, the locked room mystery has entranced readers all across the globe, and writers have struggled with coming up with new versions of what often still boils down to a very similar problem: a crime happening at a specific sealed or observed space, with no sign of the culprit. There are of course other variations too, like someone disappearing from an observed spot, or for example the famous 'no-footprints-in-the-snow' example. While there are many variations, many people have tried to create categorizations for the broad types of solutions to these impossible crimes. The most famous one probably being the Locked Room Lecture in John Dickson Carr's The Hollow Man (The Three Coffins), where Dr. Fell, in a meta-moment, starts categorizing the types of solutions to the locked room murder and many, many authors since have come up with their categorizations of solutions.

People also love lists for some reason, so you'll probably find plenty of people listing their favorite, or even, if they are ambitious, the "best" locked room mysteries. I have no interest in lists in general, so you'll never see one here from me, but I have in the past discussed a book that came close: Arisugawa Arisu no Misshitsu Daizukan ("Arisugawa Alice's Great Illustrated Guide to Locked Rooms"), which is also known as An Illustrated Guide to the Locked Room 1891-1998 was a wonderful book written by Arisugawa Alice, where he selected 50 important locked room mysteries from both Japan and abroad. As the title suggests, one important aspect of the book was the visual aspect: each entry featured nicely drawn maps and illustrations of the crime scene in each story, helping the reader visualize the setting of each story. Many of the stories featured don't feature floorplans/diagrams themselves, so it was very cool to these stories properly visualized. While Arisugawa also discussed each story with an entry, introducing the story and setting of each locked room, he did not go into much detail for each story, as he avoided spoilers.

Iiki Yuusan is probably best known as the authority on Ellery Queen in Japan, so I have to admit, I was a bit surprised when I learned his latest book, released earlier this week, is titled Misshitsu Mystery Guide (2023). Misshitsu Mystery Guide offers an extensive overview of the locked room mystery by discussing fifty titles in total: 30 Japanese stories and 20 foreign ones. Like in An Illustrated Guide to the Locked Room 1891-1998, the entries also feature diagrams and floorplans drawn especially for this release, helping the reader visualize each crime scene. However, the introduction does make very clear this is not just "Iiki's version of Arisugawa's book" and that it has a completely different angle from which it approaches the theme of the locked room mystery. For Iiki wants to show the sheer variety within the locked room murder trope and in order to do so, he has decided to spoil the solutions of each entry. The book is divided in two halfs: all fifty stories are briefly introduced in their own entry, with explanations about the story, a more in-depth description/explanation of the locked room situation and a short write-up by Iiki about the merits of the story and why it was picked. 

However, the real brilliance of Misshitsu Mystery Guide comes in the second half, where Iiki can freely spoil the solutions of all 50 stories. Of course, this book would just be... a spoiler if all it did was explain how each locked room mystery was created, but Iiki goes beyond that, naturally. For that is what makes this book unique: because the guide is written with the premise of spoiling the solutions, Iiki managed to select 50 titles based on the solution. And that sounds very similiar to the trick behind a locked room mystery, but that would not be correct. What I mean is that Iiki, because he can freely spoil each story, manages to make a selection not simply based the merits of "the trick" behind a locked room mystery. It's not just about how original or impactful the trick of a locked room mystery is. I guess this is where Iiki being an Ellery Queen authority influences the book the most, because for example, there are some books Iiki picked not because the trick behind the locked room murder was so original (in fact, a lot of them he even calls obvious or simple), but because the line of reasoning to uncovering that trick was so brilliant. There are also stories he picked that aren't technically (impossible) locked room murders, but only become so when you get into spoiler territority, something he was only able to do because he's free to spoil the stories. The result is a book that has some really unique picks for a guide on locked room mysteries, but Iiki's entries do make clear each time why he selected each book.

The first entry for example, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Iiki explains, is definitely not picked because of the merits of the trick itself, but because how it is a first example of showing the logical reasoning behind solving a locked room. He intentionally picks John Dickson Carr's The Problem of the Green Capsule over The Hollow Man, because he considers it a better work in terms of fair play, and the reasoning behind how the crime is solved. On the Japanese side, you have usual suspects like Honjin Satsujin Jiken (The Honjin Murders), but also a more experimental book like Ashibe Taku's Steam Opera, or Imamura Masahiro's Shijinsou no Satsujin (Death Among the Undead), where Iiki manages to show the versatility of the locked room problem in well-thought out analyses of the books and their place in the greater picture. The fifty books in Misshitsu Mystery Guide are definitely not all you'd immediately expect in a list of locked room mysteries, but Iiki always explains convincingly why he selected them for a book about the potential of the locked room mystery and how the trope is more than just a parlor trick and never "an all-purpose trope you can just use in any mystery story", but how the locked room murder can also always function as a device for other mystery tropes and how even a simple or re-hashed trick can faciliate a great mystery novel by properly focusing on the reasoning/solving element of a mystery.

The book also features three extra editorials. The last one is simply a list of another fifty books that didn't make the final cut (but probably interesting enough to read), but the other two are much more interesting. In the introduction, I already mentioned how John Dickson Carr used the Locked Room Lecture to present a categorization of solutions to the locked room mystery. In the first editorial, Iiki collects many more categorizations from various books and authors from both Japan and abroad (in English language books). It's really handy to see the various categorizations in one article, so not just Carr's, but also from Clayton Rawson, Edogawa Rampo, Abiko Takemaru, Yamaguchi Masaya and many more. I have to admit I was surprised by the news that a year before Carr's Locked Room Lecture, a Japanese author had already published a story with one too by the way! The second editorial similarly collects categorizations of motives/justifications for creating a locked room from various books.

I have read about two-thirds of the Japanese titles, and not even half of the foreign titles, so there are some entries I won't be able to read for a while, but based on the entries I have read, I'd say Misshitsu Mystery Guide is definitely worth a read if you're in any way interested in the locked room mystery trope.While the book does depend a lot on spoiling a lot of books, Iiki's selection does a good job at showing the potential of the locked room mystery, and by not focusing solely on the pure tricks of each entry, but looking at locked rooms from diverse mystery-related angles, like how good the logic is behind solving a locked room mystery, or how a locked room mystery can be used to hide a different mystery trope, Iiki has come up with a book that is also valuable to creators themselves. The diverse examples of how a locked room mystery can be used in a story, and the inclusion of the various categorizations should stimulate the creative minds of people wanting to write a locked room mystery themselves.

Original Japanese title(s): 飯域勇三『密室ミステリガイド』