At Bertram's Hotel

 "There's no place like home"

"The Wizard of Oz"

Semi-regular "Hey, there's a Honkaku Discord server so join it!" message!   

Ishinomori Shoutarou's HOTEL manga is pretty fun too by the way, if you're into fiction about the going-ons in a hotel!

The Amulet Hotel is, at first sight, an ordinary hotel, consisting of a main building, and an annex nearby. But, upon closer sight, one might notice the annex isn't quite ordinary after all. The annex is only open for special members, and if you look around the building, you might notice some peculiarities, like there only being one single entrance, and not even an emergency exit. The underground parking lot is also seperated from the parking lot of the main building, and for all intents and purposes, it appears that the annex runs seperate from the rest of the Amulet Hotel. And in fact, it does. For the annex of the Amulet Hotel serves a very, very special kind of clientele: criminals. The annex of the Amulet Hotel is a safe haven for criminals: here they can stay safely, and whenever they need something, they only need to ring reception, and within hours, you'll have a weapon delivered to your room, or even have a dead body disposed off. The Amulet Hotel is a world of its own, but it also has its own rules, and every guest is expected to abide by the iron rules: 1) one is not allowed to cause damage or harm the hotel and 2) One is not allowed to harm or murder someone on the hotel grounds. These rules ensure that even the biggest of rival criminals can stay safely here in the hotel together without having to worry about being ambushed, but of course, sometimes, people, especially criminals, don't follow the rules. But if someone violates these rules, they are of course not handed over to the police, but the hotel deals with such people in their own terms: the incident will be covered up, but the person who violated the rules will of course be "dealt with" accordingly too, and vanish from the face of the earth. The person responsible for this is Kiryuu, the hotel detective who not only has a very keen mind, but also a history as a feared assassin... In Houjou Kie's 2023 short story collection Amulet Hotel, we follow four crimes taking place in Amulet Hotel, and learn why one should never try to commit a murder there.

Oh, I like this cover a lot, very stylish!

Houjou Kie has been a personal favorite of mine ever since she debuted in 2019 with Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei ("The Hourglass of the Time-Space Traveller"), where she showed off how an old-fashioned, densely plotted puzzler could still work wonderfully with a scifi background. Supernatural and otherwise special background settings are something Houjou also experimented with during her time in the Kyoto University Mystery Club, and it's remained a staple of her work even after her professional debut, ranging from slightly futuristic VR-games, to an unknown being on an island hunting humans down and a supernatural being that lurks in shadows. At first, the idea of a hotel might sound rather tame therefore, but it is still very much in line with Houjou's work: the Amulet Hotel is not a normal hotel, but a world ruled by criminals, and what is normal there, is definitely not normal in a realistic setting, from calling reception to get weapons delivered or having a body incinerated so there's no evidence any more. In the stories of Amulet Hotel, people often have to act a certain way because they are all criminals, and because they can't afford to have the police examine the case. Because the setting is always, in a way, a closed circle (the hotel), and the only authority is Kiryuu (and the hotel doctor), the suspects often act in a way to prioritize self-preservation, which results in very clever puzzlers where characters will act in certain ways you are not likely to see in other stories, in a way similar to how fair play sci-fi mystery stories or stories with magical fantasy stories also have rules that govern how the characters can act.

I had been looking forward to this release, because I had already read the original Amulet Hotel short story back in 2021. I don't know if it was already planned as a series at the time, but the unique setting definitely had potential to carry a whole series, so when I heard a second story had been released (magazine publication), I really had to contain myself and tell myself to patiently wait for a collected release and not buy the single magazine releases. It took a while, but it's finally here! The first story is, as said, Amulet Hotel and I reviewed it back in 2021 and I basically have little to add to that. It is a wonderful introduction to the whole premise of a criminal hotel.When a guest of the Amulet Hotel's annex reports to hotel staff that the door to his room can't be opened and they find out even the owner's master key can't open the door, they are forced to break the door down. Inside, they learn the door had been blocked by a serving cart jammed beneath the door handle. They find a murdered man and an unconscious employee of the hotel in the room. Hotel detective Kiryuu is asked to figure out whether the unconscious employee in the hotel room killed the guest, or whether someone else did and if so, how the locked room was created. Once they know what happened, the culprit will be dealt with accordingly. 

What follows is an insanely densily-plotted mystery story with a lot of ideas stuffed in a relatively low page count, but it works. This is basically a short story variant of Houjou's debut novel Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei, in the sense both are really dense. Amulet Hotel starts out as a locked room murder mystery, but quickly turns into a very amibitious "which of the three" whodunnit puzzler with a lot of clever and sequenced clues. I can't really mention all the ideas here because it'll spoil the experience, but this story could easily have been turned into a full novel, and at no time would it have felt dragging, as there's just so much going in in terms of clewing. The story makes excellence use of the unique setting, forcing characters to act differently compared to a "normal" hotel setting with the proper authorities in charge. Definitely a must-read in my opinion

Crime of the Year no Satsujin ("The Crime of the Year Murder") is touted as "Episode 0" and shows how Kiryuu came to work as the Amulet Hotel's detective. Kiryuu was originally a secretary, and assassin for Douke, one of the biggest names in the criminal world. Known as the crime planner, Douke specialized in drawing up the most brilliant of criminal schemes and have others execute them. Kiryuu was taken in by Douke as a child and taught the ropes as an assassin, and while Douke could be a cold, cruel man, he would at times also show a soft side to Kiryuu. But now Douke has passed away due to cancer, which also means Kiryuu lost the protection Douke offered. However, there is still one job left to perform as Douke's right hand. Every year, at the Amulet Hotel annex, the Crime of the Year award is presented to the person who came up with the most impressive crime. Douke was one of the three committee of judges and thus expected to be present at the ceremony, but now he has passed away, Kiryuu has taken his place at the ceremony. Douke however was not close friends with his two fellow judges. Akashi in particular had been trying to grow his organization at the expense of Douke's organization, trying to win over some of Douke's higher captains. At the ceremony, the three judges and the winner of the Crime of the Year award are expected to drink from a special cup in turn. All four of them are on stage, drinking one after another. But when Akashi drinks after Kiryuu, he suddenly collapses on the stage. The Amulet Hotel doctor is called for, who discovers Akashi was poisoned to death. When Kiryuu's bag is searched and a vial of the same poison is found, the hotel manager immediately points his pistol at Kiryuu, for it appears that Kiryuu violated the rules and killed Akashi on stage. They all drank from the same cup, but Kiryuu handed the cup to Akashi as last, so only Kiryuu could've administered poison in the cup, right? Kiryuu only has a few minutes to quickly sort this impossible crime out before the hotel will take "measures"...

The second story is a lot simpler in design than the first (in fact, the first is by far the most complex story in terms of clues), with a semi-impossible crime, as we know Kiryuu didn't try to poison Akashi, and yet Akashi died after drinking from the same cup Kiryuu and the other two also drank from, and they are all fine. All of them have their tongues stained by the special wine in the cup, meaning they all actually drank from the cup, so how could Akashi have been poisoned? While there were only three suspects on the stage (including Kiryuu), the plot doesn't really take the form of a normal which-of-the-three, as it solely focused on Kiryuu trying to at least find a way to prove the possibility someone else could've poisoned Akashi. The story does once again make interesting use of the unique setting (the poison for example, was earlier simply ordered via room service) and a lot of the tension comes from knowing that the police will never come here. While the basic trick behind the impossible poisoning is fairly simple, I think Houjou does succeeds in making it an entertaining story with a few more twists and turns that make use of the Amulet Hotel to serve a few more surprises beyond just the poisoning itself.

Ichigensan Okotowari ("No First-Time Guests") is about Seto, who really needs to break into the Amulet Hotel annex, despite not having a member card. He is however a criminal, though just a very low-level pickpocket, member of the group Kerberos. He grew up together with childhood friend Aria as brother and sister, as their parents abused and neglected them. Seto ended up a pickpocket to make a living, but eventually, it turned out Aria was the illegimate child of a rather wealthy person, who passed away. Aria became his heir, but one condition: she was not allowed to monetize anything of the inheritance until she became twenty (she'd get an allowance and school money via a fund during that time). When a "friend" Kiba borrows a unique key chain, Aria didn't think too much of it, but when that "friend" then transferred money to her account for that key chain, she realized she had been deceived: by making it seem she had sold the key chain to him, Kiba could now blackmail her. Seto decides to steal the key chain back, but just as he's going to strike, he sees Kiba taken away by a group of people. He follows them to the Amulet Hotel annex, where he spots Yamabuki, a high-ranking criminal in one of the "parent" groups of his own Kerberos. He's holding the key chain, which makes Seto realize Yamabuki is behind all this. A lawyer is going to check Aria's belongings in a few hours, so Seto has to get inside the hotel, but that is impossible without a member card. Or is it? He tries to find a way inside the impenetrable fortress, but that's a neigh impossible task, especially if there's a hotel detective roaming around...

A different kind of story, and quite fun to read! About 3/4 of the story is about Seto trying to get inside the hotel, and while it's not a pure puzzler at this point, you do see him logically trying to deduce where the weak spots in the security could be, with Kiryuu occassionally popping up to throw him out. Time ticks however, and eventually, a shocking reveal is made by Kiryuu to Seto about Yamabuki, which changes the dynamic completely, as now Seto not only has to find the key chain in time, but also make sure he's not accussed of breaking one of the hotel's rules. The nice thing is a lot of little clues to the grand conclusion are hidden throughout Seto's attempts to break in, where he listens in staff members and realizes how weird the Amulet Hotel really is. The story is quite different in that it's not straightforward murder mystery this time and a lot of the tale does hinge on the twist surprise at 3/4 of the story which changes the dynamics, so I can't talk too much about it, but as a change of pace, especially with a character who is not really part of the hotel's usual clientele, this is a fun story.

Titan no Satsujin ("The Murder of the Titans") is by far the longest story in the collection, and revolves around a meeting with the Titans: the main investors in the Amulet Hotel. These people are called The Seven, though due to some deaths (the life expectancy of a criminal is not high), there are only five now. The meeting is held each five years at the hotel, and this year consists of The Weapons Smuggle King, the Gamble King, the Drug King, the Swindle King and The Shadow Accountant. The meeting is held on the fifteenth floor, which is usually kept sealed. The Titans of the criminal world here discuss the future of the hotel, but this year, things are different: one of the Seven, Kasai, wants to have the hotel closed after his wife and daughter passed away at an incident that occured here. Morioka, the owner of the hotel, desperately wants to keep the hotel open, so a heated meeting is expected. All the people attending the meeting have to go through a body scan and their belongings are also scanned through an X-ray scanner, to make sure nobody brings any metal (weapons) inside the floor. Kiryuu and the hotel manager stand guard outside in the hallway, while the meeting between the Titans is being held. After the break however, Kiryuu and the manager are called inside, for an incident has happened: Kasai was found lying dead inside the anteroom. The others went looking for him when he didn't return to the meeting room after their break, and found him dead. And not just dead, but stabbed in the chest with a knife. But how could anyone have brought a knife inside? Everyone was scanned for metal, and before the meeting started, the floor had also been cleaned (by... crime scene cleaners hired by the hotel) and scanned with metal detectors. It appears only one person could've brought a metal knife inside: Morioka, the owner of the hotel, who has a prosthetic leg and could've smuggled a knife within his leg. Now Kiryuu is forced to "deal" with the owner of the hotel in order to uphold its rules, but is this really the truth?

A long story, but also one with a lot of twist and turns. The story basically has a two-tier structure, as some way in the story, we learn in the past, another incident happened at a Titans' meeting, which is what prompted the current X-ray scans. As an impossible crime, it's quite nice, though some of the clues feel a bit underdeveloped: there's one thing you kinda need to deduce to really get on the way in the long line of reasoning necessary to solve this case, but I thought that part was a bit hard to guess without proper set-up. From there though, you'll see all the puzzle pieces fall nicely in place, and due to the dual puzzle structure, there's a lot of surprises waiting for the reader. I think the basic idea behind how the knife was smuggled into the room was good, but a bit simple, but the way it was actually hidden in-universe is pretty clever. Overall a good impossible crime story that once again makes more sense exactly because it takes place in the Amulet Hotel and not a normal hotel.

Houjou Kie has not disappointed me until now with her works, and Amulet Hotel is no exception. While this time, we have no "blatant" supernatural/fantasy setting, the Amulet Hotel's annex still provides a very unique background setting with its own unique "culture" and "rules" that make it different from a conventional story setting, and it is used cleverly to present attractive mystery plots that are often surprisingly densely clewed relative to page count. You know, I'd love to see a television or anime series based on this world, it's really made for it! Kinda like Odd Taxi, with the story following all kinds of people involved with the hotel, be it hotel detective Kiryuu or just guests. Kiryuu by the way is a great series detective, and quite different from Kamo/Yuuki from Houjou's main series (the Ryuuzen clan), due to a criminal background as assassin, and definitely being a grey character in the Amulet Hotel itself too. Definitely one of my favorites for this year!

Original Japanese title(s): 方丈貴恵『アミュレット・ホテル』: 「アミュレット・ホテル」/「クライム・オブ・ザ・イヤーの殺人」/「一見さんお断り」/「タイタンの殺人」