Most of the books I discuss on the blog are part of a series, and I have mentioned before that's because I generally do like reading series. It's just convenient knowing, with some wiggle space, what you could expect from a certain book in advance if it's a series work, so I often end up reading a book in a series I am already familiar with (or perhaps of a writer I already know). If I read a book with the most brilliant alibi trick ever, it is just unlikely a book in the same series (written in the same period?) will turn out to be the absolute worst mystery novel I ever read, or at least, I assume so. So when I don't have any titles I want to read immediately for one reason or another, I usually end up picking up a book in a series I already know.
Which isn't helped by a second element of this book I didn't really like: the focus on Hisui as a character. I think this is because the Jouzuka Hisui series had turned into a multimedia franchise by the time these stories were written: there's a manga adaptation by the artist behind the The Decagon House Murders manga and a live-action drama series started airing around the same period Invert II - Nozokimado [Finder] no Shikaku was released (with the first story adapted in the series too). The live-action series is pretty interesting by the way because it actually changed titles midway: the first half was based on, and named after Medium, but once they got past those stories, the series changed titles to Invert, and a new promotional poster was released, making it technically a "different" series (and of course, the stories then shifted to the inverted mystery format). But I have the feeling both stories found in Invert II were written with this expansion into different media in mind, with a bigger focus on Hisui as the protagonist, with probably more scenes focusing on Hisui personally and her private life in this book alone than in the two previous books combined. Like I mentioned earlier, one of the reason I think both Medium and Invert worked so well was because Hisui was a rather mysterious, hard-to-read character, which allowed for cool surprises sprung on the reader, but Invert II moves away from that and instead decides to reveal much more about her. The result is a book that is an okay inverted mystery story collection, but which misses that *extra* element of surprise the other two books had that made them especially good. Invert II is a normal inverted mystery collection, in a series that had been above normal, so it stands out a lot.
The first story is also a bit simple in set-up despite its length. In Seija no Kototsute ("Message of the Living"), Hisui and her assistant/housekeeper Makoto end up stranded on the road with their car, next to a dangerous-looking cliff, during a storm, so they run to the nearby house with the lights on they passed just a minute ago. They ring the bell and hope to be offered shelter until the storm is gone, but find the door open and a surprised teenager in the hall looking at the two beautiful women in wet shirts. But the reason Souta is surprised is actually because this isn't his home and the woman who lives her is lying upstairs dead with a knife in her body. This is actually the second house of a classmate of Souta, and Souta had been hiding here after running away from home. Never could he have dreamed the house would be used this very day though, so he fell asleep in one of the bedrooms, but then woke up when he heard the woman coming inside the house. After accidentally making a noise, the woman came upstairs suspecting a burglar and before Souta knew what had happened, they were struggling, they both fell on the floor and when he woke up, the mother of his classmate was lying dead in front of him. He had just cleaned his hands and face when Hisui and Makoto stepped inside the hall, so, yes, he was very surprised at the sight of the two women. As they're already inside, he can't really send them back outside in the storm, so he finds himself forced to play the role of someone who lives here, allowing them to stay here until the storm is over. Normally, a teenage boy would be more than excited about being to spend the night in a house with two beautiful women and his hormones certainly clouds his judgment at times, but there's still the body upstairs, and keeping up the lie of him living here becomes harder and harder as Hisui starts asking more questions...
Okay, this is an inverted mystery, but as Souta didn't plan any murders and he's honestly completely surrpised by the sudden stay of Hisui and Makoto, he obviously keeps making small mistakes and rather easy-to-see through lies. It's not really satisfying as an inverted mystery, as even Souta himself knows the lies he's been making are just barely believable ("I'm not on any of the family pictures because I don't like being in pictures") and while Hisui and Makoto usually let things slide, many parts of the Challenge to the Reader Hisui presents to the readers at the end of the story aren't really impressive: she asks us to identify what put her on the trail of Souta being not a resident of the home, while as the reader, you feel more like "in what way was Souta ever believable as a resident of this house???". Souta is just stumbling from one lie to another, so unlike most inverted mystery stories, it's not like you are trying to find the one flaw in an otherwise perfectly planned murder and the tone of the story, where Souta is also just fighting his hormones and fantasies of being alone with two beautiful older women, of which Hisui especially isn't shy of some physical contact, and your mileage will vary on that comedic element of the story. The big mystery is of course how Hisui will eventually find the corpse. There are some parts of the problem-solving that depend on things I usually like: Queen-like deductions based on physical evidence (like a woman's wallet lying on the table and wet sneakers outside) that allow Husui to deduce what happened, but some of these deductions seem a bit iffy, and one negative clue in particular didn't really work for me, because it was too much of a jump for me to have readers guess that would be missing simply based on what was found. So this was not my favorite story in the series by any means.
The second story, Nozokimado [Finder] no Shikaku ("The Blind Spot in the Finder") has Hisui becoming friends with Junko, a photographer who shares an interest in mystery fiction. Little does Hisui know that Junko's interest in mystery fiction actually sprang from the fact she's been planning murders, as she wants revenge on the bullies who are responsible for her younger sister's suicide many years ago. The victim is Kanon, a popular model who went freelance a while ago, who has no idea the photographer she has asked to take her new photographs is actually the sister of the girl she used to bully in high school. Kanon has been tormented by a stalker lately, so she had moved to a somewhat remote lodge near the mountains for some privacy, and it was here where her body was found in the bath tub, with some signs indicating her stalker had broken in and after a struggle, stabbed her. Police investigation however also leads to finding Kanon had contact with Junko lately about a photo shoot, and that Junko's sister's suicide had been caused by Kanon. She's questioned just to be sure, but she has an iron-clad alibi: for on the day Kanon was killed, in the afternoon (the estimated time of death), Junko had been together with... Hisui, going on a photo shoot date together. Hisui confirms she had been with Junko the whole day, spending the day at a park with Junko taking pictures of Hisui. She is also reluctant to look more into the case, as Junko's one of the few friends she has made since returning to Japan, but as the police investigation digs deeper into things, Hisui realizes Junko's alibi might not be as strong as believed.
While this is an inverted mystery story, we don't get to see the details of how Junko managed to have her alibi with Hisui for the time of the murder, so that's a big part of the mystery for the reader too. Another point about this story, is that it's only about Junko for about half of the narrative: a lot of the story is dedicated to Hisui herself, where we learn about how she's really fond of Junko as she has troubles making friends and this leading to her dilemma of not wanting to suspect her friend of murder. This look into Hisui's personal life and feelings on a case are what doesn't really work for me personally in this volume, as I loved the mysterious vibe of Hisui in the previous stories. This story is rather long, I have read full novels of about the same length, but for me, the story could've left these Hisui-focused parts out, and be about half the length it is now for a better, more focused mystery story, but I guess this focus on Hisui as a character is an intentional change in direction for this series. As a mystery story, I think its merits lie especially in the way to how it is proven how Junko managed to fake her alibi: the trick itself is perhaps not very surprising, though it's set-up well, but the clues leading up to this conclusion are really good: focusing on the state of physical evidence, theorizing about why they are in a certain state, and combining all of that together to a comprehensive line of reasoning. This is certainly the best part of the story: if the story had only been about the trick of Junko, it would have been an okay, but not remarkable story, but the clues leading to the conclusion defnitely make this better than it would've been otherwise.
So Invert II - Nozokimado [Finder] no Shikaku didn't manage to impress me as much as the really impressive Medium and the entertaining first Invert. This is due to a directional change I personally didn't really like, and that combined with the fact we only have two stories now, one of which is probably intentionally a bit lighter and more comedic than usual, we end up with a volume that has very little of what made the previous two volumes so memorable. The title story is a fine inverted mystery story with a focus on the logical reasoning leading to the downfall of the murderer, but I don't feel this book is a must-read in comparison to the previous two books, and to be honest, if an Invert III is released, I'll probably wait for a while before I return to this series, as I don't really feel compelled to read more of Invert right now. Though I'd be enticed to read more of Hisui again of course if the series takes another directional change, because I know Aizawa can come up with really surprising twists with this series when not sticking to any specific formula..
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