Still weird how the author Hikawa just... disappeared...
Misshitsu Logic is the last novel in Hikawa Tooru's five-part series about the same-named Hikawa Tooru, an aspiring mystery author who after five books still hasn't quite managed to make his professional debut. The actual novelist Hikawa Tooru stopped publishing books after 2003, and has basically vanished, so I guess that ended the fictional Hikawa Tooru's career too! I've been reading these books the last few months, because they were touted as Ellery Queen-inspired books, which they certainly are, but while they shared a focus on both physical evidence and the actions of people, based on what they knew/could have known at what time, and longer deduction chains, these books never really quite managed to capture the spirit as well as other Queen-inspired authors like Arisugawa's Egami novels or Tsukatou Hajime's Nationality novels with Mikikaze.
Misshitsu Logic is a rather strange novel though, as it's extremely short. It's basically a novella, even though the price of the book was certainly not lower than you'd normally expect. What's more, this book, more than ever, feels likely barely more than a logic puzzle, as the title suggest. It barely feels like a work of "fiction" in the literary sense. The book consists of three parts, with the longest part being the first part, which basically sets the scene for the puzzle: we follow different characters in the two hours leading up to the discovery of the murder, with people chatting with each other, walking in and out of the office and of course, with time stamps. The second part focuses on the investigation, showing how the murder was practically impossible because the escape routes were all under observation by people standing in the hallways, but basically adds no new information beyond what we learned in part 1. Part 3 is obviously Hikawa explaining who the murderer is, and when you're done, you've barely read 160 pages (to put in context: the previous novels were all at least 250 pages, and closer to 350 pages).
So most of the meat of the book is found in Part 1, but this really reads a logic puzzle. It's so... devoid of energy, just swapping between perspectives with time stamps and everything as everyone moves around. Previous books did the same, mind you, but at least continued this after the discovery of the murder too. But because this book is so short and the bulk of the pages is devoted just to the lead-up to the discovery of the murder, it just feels like a logic puzzle, and nothing more. I also had real trouble getting into the minds of all the different characters, partially due to the weird set-up. Why do they have a inter-company party... with just like 10 people... at the offices of one of the companies? Why not just somewhere in a restaurant or bar? Why does the "company party" read more like a mixer party, with some of the men obviously just here to ogle the women? Why are the people joining this party from completely different sections of each company? Why is Saeko basically the only one from the computer company? While not really a big deal, I just got distracted constantly by the weird company party this was supposed to be, and I kept wondering why it couldn't just have been any other occassion, set at Saeko's own company, rather than it being about a inter-company party.
So ultimately, you just have a logic puzzle about what route the murderer could've taken after the killing, and why they went unnoticed. As expected of Hikawa, the focus of the chain of deductions is very Queen-esque, zooming in on the various people standing at the chokepoints and examining in a logical manner whether for example they would've been lying about not seeing the murderer leave or not, and things like that. He does this in a meticulous manner, checking the various witnesses (suspects) one by one and explaining how their observed actions would prove whether they did lie or not, but it all feels too sterile in this book. The meat-to-mystery ratio is too lean, leading to something that isn't fun as a book to read. There's not really a brilliant "gotcha" moment, something that turns the chain of reasoning around or provides a brilliantly new angle to the puzzle. It's very business-like, and while there's one moment that's kinda presented as a clever piece of insight on Hikawa's part to allow him to push the chain of deduction forward, it falls flat, as the build-up is chaotic and not fun for the reader at all. I guess the 'cleverest' part was the final step, which allowed to Hikawa strike away the last of the innocent suspects and end up with the identity of the guilty murderer, but even than it was something that was just.. okay, and not something worth recommending this book for.
Misshitsu Logic may be the last Hikawa Tooru novel starring the same-named detective, it is also by far the worst one. It is extremely short, basically a novella, but even then it's far too sterile, with the book barely feeling like anything more than a logic puzzle, only told in a slightly longer manner, while not being enjoyable to read as a prose story. Even as a Queen fan, this is too dry, with a set-up that is just people walking in and out of rooms, and then just a dry: okay, now solve this puzzle! The deduction chain, while meticulously set-up, lacks a really impressive moment, resulting in a book you'll just shrug at. A sad way to end a series, but that's the way things go.
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