Never again...
Allow me to tell you about a person, who read the 2004 book Kangokutou ("Prison Island") by Kagami Masayuki in March, wrote a lengthy review of the like-wise very lengthy book and had scheduled the post to be published in August. This same person tried to edit something in the week before the post was to be published... and accidentally wiped the entire text of the post. And then the empty post was saved, overwriting the previous saved document.
Sigh.
That person was me. For the first time in over ten years of blogging, I wiped an entire post that was ready and everything. And just the week before it was about to be published. And some months had passed since I had actually read the book and written the post, meaning I honestly didn't remember all the things I wrote about in the post. Today, I bring a post I can guarantee is not even half of what I wrote about originally, and in a way, it's just me trying to squeeze out the little I do remember out of me. At this stage, I honestly don't feel like re-reading the book anymore, so I am afraid that this, for both me and the readers here, will be the non-optimal solution, but I guess it's the best I can for now...
Arriving on the island, Bertrand wishes to see Baldwin, who is kept in a building seperate from the other prisoners, as the director of the prison claims Baldwin has a certain way to almost hypnotize people to do his bidding, and not even the guards are allowed to have too much contact with him. Carterbone and Bertrand are allowed to meet Baldwin, who however claims something will happen that night. The following morning, one of the prison director's head guards is found dead inside the building where Baldwin was kept: the door was locked from the inside, and what's more, Baldwin himself has gone missing! The director hopes to have Baldwin found on the island quickly, as he doesn't want to inform the mainland authorities about his failure, and fortunutely for him, a storm does prevent them from getting help for the moment. Guards are sent out to comb the island for the escaped criminal, but during this hunt, more mysterious murders occur like a prisoner ending up chopped up in pieces in his cell, a doctor getting hanged from the main tower, and a man suddenly bursting out in flames. Is this the work of Baldwin and will Bertrand be his final target?
Kangokutou was the second novel by Kagami Masayuki, an author who made his "big" debut in 2002 with Sougetsujou no Sangeki ("The Tragedy at the Twin Moon Castle"), but died early in 2013 in his early fifties. His debut novel was very strongly inspired by John Dickson Carr's work, and his detective, Charles Bertrand in particular was modeled after Henri Bencolin, sharing the same background story of being French spymasters turned magistrates and having an American narrator. Kangokutou was a very ambitious sequel, which is reflected in its incredible length, which is easily double the first book. The version I read consists of two volumes of over 500 pages each, in double columns. In a regular pocket release, this would probably put the book well over 1200 pages. Earlier this year, I read Tsukatou Hajime's Misshitsu Kingdom (Kingdom of the Locked Room), which was also around 1200 pages, so for some reason I ended up reading two of these impossible crime epics in one year...
I praised Sougetsujou no Sangeki for being nothing but a homage to Carr, where you could tell Kagami just thought: "I am going to write 1930s style mystery story, exactly like Carr would have done and do it on those terms alone!" and succeeded in that goal. If you had told me the book had in fact been a 1930s book, I would have believed you immediately, and the book was refreshing, knowing it was written in a period in Japanese mystery fiction where a lot of books relied on being a lot more meta-conscious, whereas Kagami played the game as straight as possible. That can be said of Kangokutou too, which is a very straighforward novel despite its length. During their stay on St. Tantoine, several impossible murders occur, while a manhunt is also being held on the island to capture the escaped Baldwin. The island is quite spacious, as it houses more than just the old fortress which now functions as a prison complex, with a big cross-shaped prison with an observation tower and four wings spreading from it as its main attraction. Further away from the prison is a lighthouse as well as an old mine which is now abandoned, because of a cave-in some years earlier, but that does mean there's plenty of place to hide for an escaped convict. Due to the very open nature of the island though, and the fact we hear about a lot of guards (about thirty) who never get a named role, but of whom we know are on the island and participate in the manhunt or otherwise in guarding the prisoners, the story never takes on the role of a closed circle mystery by the way. While the island and the prison is a bit creepy, and there's even a ghastly backstory involving the building where Baldwin is held, the island never feels really dreadful, because it somehow feels rather open as a mystery, with many people walking about in the background who just aren't important enough to earn a name. The book seems a bit claustrophobic at first, but as the story continues, you realize the place is pretty open.
Kangokutou is a long novel, and a lot happens during their stay on the island. In fact, while the story takes two volumes to tell, the denouement of the story happens about half-way through the second volume, meaning you get nearly 300 pages dedicated solely to explaining everything that's been going on. The mysteries range from murders happening in a locked room (cell) and someone assaulting Patrick and escaping unseen to a case of spontaneous combustion. I don't quite remember the details (because... I deleted the original post), but I think Bertrand has to address about ten different mysteries during his explanation of the case, all of them occuring on the island. I think I can safely say right away that in general, Kangokutou impresses more with its number of impossible crimes, than the actual quality. Not that all of them are bad, but of the ten or so mysteries, you can bet more than a few of mysterious deaths in locked rooms relied on Ye Olde Thread and Needle Trick. I am not against them per se, but having multiple of them in one book can feel tiring.
There are some bigger set-pieces that are more memorable though. The spontaneous combustion, which involves one of the guards suddenly catching fire out of nowhere while standing at the central guard tower is clewed pretty cleverly for example, even if the trick itself is a bit forced. This type of clewing is hard to do I think in a book, but it works quite well here, and you really don't notice it until it's pointed out to you. The biggest set-piece involves the death of a prisoner in his cell and how the murderer managed to escape despite Patrick in the neighborhood of the supposed escape route. While I think the clues pointing to the trick were telegraphed a bit too obviously, which in turn then point too directly to one character, the trick itself is good. I have seen different variations on the same principle, but I always like it when it's executed in a succesful manner, as it requires a lot of planning plot-wise. I did miss some kind of synergy between the various impossible crimes. I wish some of them had a stronger connection between them, but more often than not, the impossible crimes in Kangokutou are discrete instances, and very little data pertaining to one incident, will have any bearing on another incident. That is something that kinda works agains the length of this book, because for the longest time, you just feel like you're reading seperate events that just happen to be happening on the same island, rather than one big epic.
The escape of Baldwin from his private prison, and the way he stays hidden on the island afterwards is probably the most memorable part of the book. He disappears fairly early on in the book after announcing something will happen on the night of Bertrand's arrival on the island, and indeed, the way he spirits himself away from the prison, leaving only a dead guard behind, is mystifying. The solution to how he got away is in hindsight so simple, but clewed cleverly through small actions and conversations. It is quite daring, as if, unlike me, you happen to think of the solution, it'll probably seem very obvious where he's hiding the way things work out, but I quite liked the gambit Kagami played. Kangokutou is quite stuffed, and while I don't think any of the tricks seen here are on their own as memorable as the first murder in Sougetsujou no Sangeki, I think that, keeping in mind some of these murders feel less developed, still an enjoyable murder mystery overall, even if none of them are truly jaw-droppingly amazing.
Oh, and by the way, I wouldn't recommend reading Kangokutou as a whodunnit. At the end, there are just too few suspects who made significant appearances, and were actually given names, who are still alive! The body count is fairly high in this book... I also think Kagami tried a bit too hard to come up with a surprising culprit despite this, because the build-up to the motive/backstory for the culprit is more than bit forced, relying on a lot of coincidence all somehow gathering on St. Tantoine on those days. Surely at the end, a lot of it almost fell comical, in a Mission Impossible-esque manner, where there had to be a surprising twist/connection behind everything.
As mentioned in the introduction, I wrote this replacement post months after reading the book and writing the first post, so I forgot about a lot of the points I did made originally, but overall, I think Kangokutou was an interesting follow-up novel to Kagami's debut. It continues the very much Carr-inspired atmosphere, this time (mainly) set in a prison on a small isolated island, and while not every single mystery is memorable on its own, the fact Kagami managed to stuff this adventure with so much mysteries to solve is already impressive. It's certainly one of the longer impossible crime-focused mystery novels, and people with an interest in Carr will probably find a lot to like about the book. In fact, I read later Sougetsujou no Sangeki was specifically modeled after Castle Skull, so I have a feeling someone with more Carr-reading experience than me might notice more Carr references in this novel too.
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