The Haunted Bridge

 "I'm Guybrush Threepwood and I want to be a pirate!"

"The Secret of Monkey Island"

Awesome cover art!

Neville is a simple shoemaker in Salisbury and happily married to the mother of his soon-to-be-born first child. One day, after a visit by his father-in-law, Neville decides to walk him back home, but on the way back, they swing by a pub, a decision Neville would regret his whole life. For England is at war with France after the French revolution, and harbored at Southampton is the Halberd, a British warship which is severely short on sailors at the moment. All the actual sailors on trade ships know the navy are forcing capable people into service, so they have all gone underground the moment the Halberd approached Southampton, but the captain of the Halberd needs more men before he can ship off, so he decides to send his press gang to Salisbury to simply kidnap a group of men who are physically capable of the work. And so Neville and a few other of the locals, among which a co-worker and someone he knew since he was a child, are abducted by the Halberd's press gang and forced into service. Before they truly know what has happened to them, they find themselves on the Halberd, a formidable warship and Neville and the other new recruits barely get them to get used to the idea they are now navy sailors, in war with France. They get rudimentary training, and Neville fortunately gets assigned to a unit with some friendly faces, who gladly teach him the ropes, though they are clear to state he should abandon all hope of escaping, and all he can do is try to survive the best way he can, because that's what they are all doing. One evening, when Neville's group is assigned to the night watch, Neville hears a strange noise next to him, and the next moment, he find the sailor next to him is lying dead on the deck, his head having been bashed in! But while he couldn't see much in the darkness, he is quite sure he didn't hear anyone moving about near him before it happened, and other sailors in the vicinity testify the same. But the doctor soon determines the way the sailor was hit makes it quite clear this was murder, and an investigation is started. When later, another sailor is found murdered during a rat hunt, and Neville is once again the first one to discover the corpse, Neville finds himself in a rather risky position. But once again the witnesses seem fairly certain nobody else approached the victim. Who is the unseen assaillant on the Halberd, and why is he killing people on a ship on its way to war in Okamoto Yoshiki's Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin ("Murders on The Sailing Warship" 2023)? Could it be the ghost of the French captain who died while being held captive in the isolation cell of this ship?

Every year, publisher Tokyo Sogensha accepts manuscripts by unpublished authors for the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award: the award includes a publishing contract for the debuting author and due to its focus on puzzle plot mysteries, it's an award I always try to keep an eye on. In recent years for example I have read and loved 2019's winner Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei ("The Hourglass of the Time-Space Traveller"), 2017's winner Shijinsou no Satsujin ("The Murders in the Villa of the Dead") and 2016's winner The Jellyfish Never Freezes. The last two years however, no manuscript had managed to convince the jury, so there had been no Ayukawa Tetsuya Award winner since 2020's Goshoku no Satsujinsha (The Murderer of Five Colors). Fortunately, 2023 brought us Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin, the first winner in three years, and one with a rather unique setting. For I certainly hadn't read a mystery novel yet set in the late 18th century, aboard a British warship about to head for war with the French.

Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin certainly shines as a historical novel. We follow Neville as the Halberd's press gang force him and a few other physically capable men at the pub into service, and together with Neville, who of course has no experience on sea whatsoever, we the reader learn about the workings of a 18th century British warship. The start of the novel is fairly slow, and it can feel a bit like studying at times, as Neville and the reader are taught about all kinds of things about the warship itself, like all the names and locations for all the decks, masts, lines and more, but we also learn about the navy and the hierarchy on a ship, and the workings on a warship, from the tasks of each crew member assigned to a cannon during a naval battle, to how the clock works on a ship and how shifts are handled. I had very little knowledge about this, and I have to admit, I found the beginning, like Neville, a bit difficult to grasp at times, having to remember all the masts and decks and everything. There is a simple diagram a the beginning of the book with the parts of the Halberd, but even so, it can be a bit confusing being suddenly thrust into a setting where everyone is using terms you're not very familiar with. 

That said, it does create a fantastic atmosphere, and Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin is very memorable as a book depicting the life of sailors on a warship. Not surprisingly, life on a warship is not really fun, with many of the non-ranking sailors being just like Neville, basically kidnapped and forced into service and while they get food and drinks, the way sailors are bound to their ship and are basically not rewarded for their services and can be forced to work for an undetermined period in a rather life-threatening position, makes you realize it's basically just slavery. Neville, very obviously, feels a lot of despair realizing his child will soon be born even though their father might not survive for much longer, though there's something understandable seeing the more experienced sailors who know this isn't the good life, still trying to keep up appearances and telling dark jokes and trying to at least enjoy the little they do still have. It's clear the author has done a lot of historical research, depicting many facets of the sailor life, from their daily life and their tasks, to other aspects like the matter of what happens to sailors who try to bail.

But, of course, I wasn't reading Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin because I wanted to read a historical novel. At least, that wasn't the only reason: I was of course interested in Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin as a mystery novel. In that regard, I found the book to be quite entertaining, and not very surprisingly, the work as its best when the mystery aspects utilize its unique historical setting. The book starts out with some deaths that are semi-impossible at best: Neville twice stumbles upon a dead body during his shift (once at night, once while he's sent on a rat-batting mission by the cook), and twice he is fairly sure nobody was near the victim, besides himself and the other men in his unit, but of course, those situations are not really impossible, as Neville can't vouch for the other men, nor can he be absolutely sure nobody else (who didn't have their shift) didn't sneak into the scene. An officer is assigned to investigating the murders, as they are at least sure they're not accidents, but as there are few clues around, this investigation moves very slowly, and the focus of the book is more on the seafaring adventures of the Halberd as it prepares to wage battle, rather than the criminal investigation. We even get to see a genuine skirmish between the Halberd and two French warships, very exciting of course, but yes, the book is more often not about the investigation than about.

It's in the later quarter, when more deaths occur, the investigation finally seems to become the focus of the book. While Neville is not seen as the sole suspect at first, things move in a way that seem to implicate him more and more as the murderer, but he's quite sure he didn't do it, but what can he do to prove his own innocence, being a mere, lowly sailor with no freedom at all to do any investigation himself? One death is most definitely an impossible one, with two officers hearing a shot from the isolation cell, and when they check it, they find the man being kept there shot, but the officers swear nobody came out of this part of this ship after the shot, and all the rooms there have been searched. The trick used here to deceive the officers is perhaps when Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin is at its best, utilizing its highly unique historical setting for what is in essence a very simple trick, but it works very well, because it fits so naturally within the way we have seen life on the Halberd portrayed, and it's easy to completely overlook it. So here, I did find the book really managed to use the historical setting to create a naturally-feeling trick for the impossible situation. I was not a very big fan of the whodunnit aspect of the book though, sometimes the way the story limits the suspect pool feels very arbitrary (we're just getting a report of an off-scene investigation telling us that only like 5 men could've performed a certain action, without explaining how they limited it down to that). The book tries to go for an Ellery Queen-esque, "crossing off the suspects" type of denouement, but this part doesn't feel really satisfying. And the culprit's plan was rather... shoddy. Like he (yes, he, there are only men on the ship) had to be both lucky and unlucky at the same time, the way he learned certain facts and commited his murders... Some of the earlier murders are really not remarkable at all, so that is a bit disappointing, but I guess it works as build-up...

Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin is perhaps more a historical swashbuckling adventure novel that also concerns a mystery, than the other way around, but overall, I think it was an entertaining novel that really showed the author's love for the setting. The book offers a very unique location and time for a mystery story, and while the emphasis of the story is more about Neville's life as a sailor on the Halberd, it's a decent mystery novel, Definitely recommened to history buffs!

Original Japanese title(s): 岡本好貴『帆船軍艦の殺人』