Three Doors to Death

"That is so, monsieur. I ask of you if you have any knowledge of a man named Li Chang Yen?"

"The Big Four" 

I have to admit... I really love Christie's The Big Four, not despite, but because it's so deliciously silly.

What translated fiction does the translator read? Though I read mostly Japanese mystery fiction, I do occasionally read non-Japanese mystery fiction, and like everyone else, my choices are also limited by the languages I can read. So it is always a relief when mystery stories are translated to a language I can read. The Japanese publisher Hayakawa is one that focuses mostly on translated mystery fiction. One important source for translated short stories is Hayakawa's Mystery Magazine: this magazine originally started as the Japanese version of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, but after their licensing deal stopped, they switched over to the current name. Each issue features both serialized stories as well as complete short stories, and the last few years, Hayakawa's Mystery Magazine has been focusing a lot on Chinese-language mystery fiction, even featuring a fixed corner with a new translated story basically each issue. Today, I will be discussing works of two young modern-day authors who have been influenced by Japanese mystery fiction, one known as the Chinese Ellery Queen, and the other as the Chinese King of Locked Rooms, with all stories translated to Japanese by Ai Kousaku.

Shi Chen is a well-known Chinese mystery novelist who is strongly influenced by Japanese shin honkaku mystery fiction and his works have earned him the nickname of the Japanese Ellery Queen. He also runs his own mystery-fiction based book shop in Shanghai. Despite these credentials, his list of translated works in Japan is still criminally short, and none of his novels have made it across the sea, so for now, I'll have to do with short stories. Rinshitaiken wo Shita Onna ("The Woman Who Had A Near-Death Experience") was originally published in 2015 and features Shi Chen's detecting duo who had only debuted that very same year: the mathematician Chen Jue and his Watson, the historian Han Jin. In this story, Han Jin draws his friend's attention to a remarkable article by Professor Guo, who has devoted his life to researching near-death experiences. A few days ago, he manages to interview a woman who had been announced dead, but could be resurrected 40 minutes later. The woman does have vague memories of what happened after she was supposed to have died: some of the motifs are quite familiar and are mentioned in many such experiences, like the sensation of passing through a tunnel or across a river, but the woman had even more memories. The moment Chen Jue reads this account however, he suspects a hidden murder might have been committed, and he starts contacting the right people in a hurry to locate the hospital where the woman is staying. What in the woman's near-death account set off the alarms in Chen Jue's head, and what is the murder he fears may have happened?

A very interesting set-up for the story! The story is fairly short, and can be divided roughly in two segments: the first third or so, we deal with what feels a bit like some of the second period novels by Shimada Souji featuring Mitarai Kiyoshi, where the reader is first confronted with a fantastical experience or dream, which is then analyzed and shown d to be some kind of metaphore for an acual event. In this case, the generally "stereotypical" account of how the woman started passing to the other side contained clues that allowed Chen Jue to guess something's not completely all right. While the clue are there, one could argue that Chen Jue's reaction to those clues was a bit strong, as this only works if you can assume that every single detail is absolutely correct, while I wouldn't even trust my own memories of certain details even if I have been completely awake and focusing at the time, let alone if I was near death! The second half has Chen Jue examine the murder, for of course, he was indeed right and the near-death account did lead them to the discovery of a corpse. This then leads to a Ellery Queen-style second half, where we also discover only a select group of people could have committed the murder on the victim, and you're asked to deduce who it is by eliminating the other suspects based on the known facts. This process is done fairly well, though I do really think one certain condition that allows the reader to cross off some suspects, feels a bit unconvincing. While I do like the deduction process introduced here, it's just that... surely there would have been a better alternative to introduce a similar line of reasoning without that object? Because it just seems so unconvincing to me there would be no better/easier/more convenient substitute for that object, and it makes this part of the deduction process feel very artificial, even though I do like the general idea of what Shi Chen was going for. But yes, this is definitely the type of story I would expect from someone with the nickname of the Chinese Ellery Queen, and it does make me very interested to see how he'd a full-length novel!

Sun Qinwen is an author I have discussed in the past already, as I reviewed his first novel Lindongzhiguan ("Coffins in the Cold Winter") last year. He in turn is known as the Chinese king of locked room mysteries and a successor to John Dickson Carr. While his first novel was published under his own full name, he had already published many short stories before that novel under the name Jiding. Hayakawa's Mystery Magazine has featured three of the Jiding stories these last few years, two of them I'll be discussing now. Both stories star Wang Jiayi, a police detective, as the narrator. He's a fairly intelligent detective himself, but he also finds the university student Xia Shi to be more than a match for him: he met the young woman at a party for fans of mystery fiction and has since become smitten with her, though at the moment, they are just friends. In Namida wo Noseta Dangan ("A Tearful Bullet"), Wang Jiayi is visited by a woman whose father recently passed away, as she found a strange entry in her father's diary which seems to indicate somewhere a crime has happened. The diary entry is dated just before his death, and her father, who worked for a renovation company, writes about he and a new part-timer had been sent to a manor to renovate a basement room which had been locked for many years, with the key missing. They managed to break the door open... only to find the skeleton of a man lying in the room, with the basement key next to them. The hole in the skull, and the bullet they find in the wall seems to suggest this man had been shot. But the door was locked from the inside: so it couldn't have been a murder (for then where did the murderer go), nor a suicide (for then where is the pistol?). The owner of the house however wanted to hush things up, and offered the father and the part-timer a lot of money to keep quiet and to seal the basement again. As a murder might have taken place, Wang Jiayi starts investigating and finds out where the father had been working before his death. The owner of the mansion however of course denies a body was found in his basement, stating they just sealed the basement because the damp environment caused by the nearby lake made it not suitable for use anymore. Wang Jiayi suspects he lies, but then this man dies too: he had been fishing and was seen by a witness to enter a hut alone and he was about to prepare his fish when he suddenly keeled over in his kitchen and was dead. Because nobody was seen to have entered the hut besides the victim, it seems this was just an accident, but is that truly the case?

This story deals with two locked room situations, one in the past (the basement) and one in the present (the house owner). I do have to admit I find it disappointing the two locked rooms aren't really connected thematically: while there is something that connects the two situations, it's not like one side works as a strong clue/misdirection for the other per se, so they feel very disjointed. The present-day murder is more of a joke solution I think, it's basically unhinted and then the solution is sprung upon the reader, and it's not a really exciting solution in any way. The past death has a rather surprising solution I liked a lot: the basic idea is a bit simple, but original, and what I like best is how Sun clewed the solution here. There is another layer of mystery that only becomes apparent later in the story, but I wasn't really a fan of that; it works better in the original Chinese I can tell, but in the Japanese translation, it's difficult to convey the exact same idea without feeling a bit unnatural simply due to cultural differences.

Konchuu Koushukei Shikkounin ("The Insect Hangman") has Wang Jiayi investigating the mysterious death of an insect researcher, while also dealing with the fact Xia Shi seems to have attracted another suitor in the form of an old classmate. Wang Jiayi and Xia Shi are hanging out at a McDonalds when Wang is approached by his old classmate whom he hasn't seen in years. The man is working at an insect research facility, and he invites the two to visit. They accept, but they find the director is missing. They start looking for him and arrive at a small storehouse, which is being used as a temporary place to keep their stag beetles as they are moving. They try to open the door, but find the door has been taped tight from inside. When they finally brreak the seal open, they find the director dead inside, with the window and the door all sealed with duct tape, and the glass cases where the stag beetles were kept all thrown on the floor, broken into pieces. The director himself is found sitting with his back against the wall opposite the door, having apparently strangled himself by tying a rope around his neck, fixing the rope against the wall, and then having his body weight do the rest. But why would the director, who loved insects more than anything else, have broken all the cases with the stag beetles?

The story starts with a reference to Carr's He Wouldn't Kill Patience, the famous taped locked room mystery and the tale also has a very short "lecture" on the taped locked room, so you can easily tell what the theme is of the story. As you might guess, this locked room mystery revolves mostly around a mechanical trick that allowed the murderer to kill the director in a room of which all exits are taped tight. The solution is a variation on a solution I had already encountered before, using a similar mechanic, but the 'props' used to create the taped situation are different, and in that way, the story feels original enough. One could argue it is questionable how practical this trick would truly be if executed, but the idea makes enough of an impact to be memorable I think. What I really liked however was that Sun didn't decide to only focus on the howdunnit: the threads he added to support the whodunnit and whydunnit of the mystery do really help make this story feel much grander, despite it being a relatively short story.

I had already read a novel by Sun Qinwen, and while I don't think the short stories I discussed today were better than the novel, they were definitely interesting enough to keep me interested in his output, so I will be sure to read more of them if more of his work becomes available in a language I can read. Shi Chen was the new experience for me, and his story was certainly enough to make me interested in trying out more of his work, as you can recognize the influence of both Ellery Queen, and modern Japanese shin honkaku authors in this short story and I am very curious to see how his longer stories turn out. So I do hope more of both authors will be translated soon!

Original Chinese title(s): 時晨 "濒死的女人 時晨", 文孫沁 "载着眼泪的子弹" , "昆虫絞刑官"

The Chocolate-Covered Contest

"Life is like a box of chocolates."
"Forest Gump"

Oh, wow, are we going from the yellow/brown covers for this series to blue? I love the art!

It's been over a year since I last discussed Ooyama Seiichirou's wonderful The Clockmaker Detective series here, which is perhaps better known nowadays as known as Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu ("Alibi Cracking, At Your Service"), which is not only the title of the books, but also of the live-action drama series. In January 2024, Ooyama started the third "season" of this series with the online publication of Tokeiya Tantei to Shinnen no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and A New Year's Alibi"), the first story to be included in what should become the third short story collection. It took over a year for Ooyama to publish the second story, but it has now finally arrived,and you can read it for free on the J-Novel site of the publisher (the first story of this season is also still available). The basic premise of each story is of course the same: the unnamed narrator is a police detective who frequents Mitani Clockmakers, which is run by Mitani Tokino, a young woman who inherited the shop from her grandfather. As per her grandfather's instructions, she also offers an alibi cracking service, because alibis are are "time-related" and therefore part of a clockmaker's work. While he understands that passing on confidential information pertaining to police investigations to Tokino is probably not quite legal, and that it could cost him his job, it is also true that Tokino has managed to solve each of the problems he has brought to her, and that her exploits have helped the police immensely, even if his co-workers think it's him who has solved all these cases. Another reason for our narrator to visit Tokino frequently is the woman herself, as he's quite smitten with her and is trying to woo her.

The stories in this third collection seem to be themed after special events this time, for after the murder on New Year's Eve in the first story, this time we have a Valentine's Day-themed story with Tokeiya Tantei to Doku-iri Chocolates no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi of the Poisoned Chocolates"). The narrator this time arrives at the shop with some souvenirs from Kyoto for Tokino: his current investigation had brought him to the ancient capital, but with no clear results, he now has turn to Tokino for help. Hirata Yuuichi, a day trader, was been sent a box of poisoned chocolates and he died immediately after consuming one of them: the parcel had just been delivered, and soon after the housekeeper had given the box to Hirata, she heard how her master toppled loudly on the floor, convulsing in pain and by the time the ambulance arrived, it was already too late. The shipping documents on the parcel had been sent by Oohara Arisa, living at an address in Kyoto. The box also came with a letter, stating the chocolates, Miracle du Février, were a Valentine's Day gift. Because it seems a bit unlikely the poisoner would send the chocolates under her own name, the police don't believe the sender information, but when they call the number noted in the sender information section, they are indeed connected to Arisa, who does know Hirata, as she's in his day trading course, but she denies having sent chocolates to him.

The police do investigate her just to be sure, but it seems Arisa can't be the poisoner, as she has an alibi for when the chocolates were posted. The chocolates had been sent via the Kujira courier service, and by tracing the shipping slips, they trace the parcel back to a convenience store in Kyoto: it had been sent from that convenience store on the seventh of Feburary, with instructions for the parcel to be delivered on Valentine's Day. The chocolates meanwhile came from a specialty shop that makes special Valentine's Day chocolates each year, and they start selling at 10 am on the seventh of February. Because all nine chocolates in the box had been injected with poison, the police thinks the box of chocolates could have been posted at the convenience store at about twenty-five past ten at the soonest, considering the time needed to prepare the chocolates and moving from the chocolate shop to the convenience store. Arisa however boarded the Shinkansen train to Fukuoka at 10:32, meeting with a friend inside said train and they were travelling together the following three days. This makes it impossible for her to have sent those chocolates. However, as the investigations continues, the police learns Arisa has been deliberately hiding information from them that gives her a very clear motive for wanting to kill Hirata. But how could she have posted the box of chocolates at a convenience store at Kyoto's Matsugasaki Sakuragi-cho and appear minutes later in the Shinkansen train at Kyoto Station?

I thought Matsugasaki Sakuragi-cho sounded strangely familiar, but that's a part of town I passed by relatively often when I was living in Kyoto! At least, it's basically on one side of the river, while I went almost daily shopping on the other side of the river. And am I overthinking things, or is the name of Inspector Ayuta of the Kyoto police a reference to Ayukawa Tetsuya? You know, Ayukawa ('kawa' being 'river') and Ayuta ('ta' being 'field')...

Anyway, this is an interesting problem! While all of the stories in this series revolve around the seemingly obvious culprit having an alibi for the time of the crime, this is a rather interesting alibi, for the alibi revolves around the time the murder "weapon" was sent to the receiver/victim. Once a parcel is signed and been placed in care of the courier (and in this case, in the care of the convenience store until the courier comes and picks it up), you generally don't have any chance to tamper with it anymore. In this case, the parcel was also sent a full week before it would be delivered, and with a box of special chocolates that were first sold on that very day, so it doesn't appear like the suspect could've tampered with the parcel after she had left it at the convenience store, if she's the murderer. Oh, and it should be clear by now, but this is of course also Ooyama's take on Anthony Berkeley's The Poisoned Chocolates Case, taking its basic premise, but not (really) doing the multiple solution thing. I really like this problem, while I do think that when a certain fact is mentioned, the reader will likely be pushed very close to the solution, though a lot of the details are not that easy to solve.

In fact, I really, really love one of the clues in this story, one I really think is brilliantly hidden. I had in fact noticed that Ooyama had mentioned something, but at the time I thought that was just a cute detail he had added to flesh out the world, only for that detail to be used in the solution in a very clever way... With a story so much about moving objects, it seems almost silly I completely overlooked that one moving object. Absolutely a killer clue. The way Ooyama uses a rather cliche trope for an alibi trick to create a rather surprising "hidden alibi trick" is also very clever, and it really shows Ooyama has been specializing in these stories for some years now, as he's able to cook with familiar, sometimes even overcooked ingredients and still come up with something fresh.

But now I am wondering what the next story will be. Is it going to be a March story? One story for each month, something like Tokino's Labours of Hercules? But a project like that would probably span two volumes instead of one, similar to Norizuki Rintarou's Horoscope stories, considering the length of the previous books... Anyway, I sure hope the next story won't take over a year to come and that Ooyama'll pick up the pace from now on!

Original Japanese title(s): 大山誠一郎「時計屋探偵と毒入りチョコレートのアリバイ」 

Peril at End House

 迷わずに 瞳信じて 

風のららら…

 「風のラララ」（倉木麻衣）

 

Believing in what I see without any doubts

The wind's lalala...

"The Wind's Lalala" (Kuraki Mai)

Huh, for some reason, I thought I had started on these books much more recently...

Kagami Masayuki made his debut as a mystery author in 1999 with several short stories he wrote for anthologies (collected in 2022 in The Uncollected Works of Masayuki Kagami), but it was in 2002 he published his first full-length novel Sougetsujou no Sangeki ("The Tragedy at the Twin Moon Castle"). He would keep on writing two more novels and a short story collection, all starring the Parisian magistrate Charles Bertrand and his nephew and chronicler Patrick Smith in stories strongly inspired by John Dickson Carr's Henri Bencolin series. Kagami however would pass away suddenly in 2013 in his early fifties. I read Sougetsujou no Sangeki about two years ago and found it a highly entertaining locked room mystery in the tradition of Carr and since then, I have been working my through the (short) bibliography of Kagami, though it took a bit time as the books that were published during his life are only available physically at the moment, and a few of them usually only trade owners for a price I found way too high (as in, some were usually put on offer somewhere between 50 and 100 euro, or even more). So it has been a game of patience for me, keeping an eye on offers and trying to snatch them up if they were finally offered for reasonable prices.

And that is why it took me a while to finally get my hands on Kaze Hatsuru Yakata no Satsujin ("The Murders at Wind's End House" 2006), the third and last novel written by Kagami. But now I have finally read it! The book is set after the mammoth Kangokutou ("Prison Island"), the approx. 1200 page adventure where Patrick Smith became acquainted with Mary Kaley, a historian. Their relation has been great, which is why she wants Pat to come along as emotional support when she receives word her grandmother, Ingrid Kaley, has passed away. Ingrid Kaley was the widow of Christopher Kaley, the head of Union Mining Ltd., one of the financial powerhouses in the United Kingdom. She ran the company after Christopher passed away, and succesfully too. She herself however never had children, while at one time Christopher had a mistress Ivonne, who gave birth to triplets. Infuriated by her husband's infidelity, but also recognizing how Ivonne could never support three girls all by her own, she insisted Ivonne and the girls come live at their manor in Northern Ireland. Wind's End House is located on a cliff near Giant's Causeway and got its name because all kinds of air currents somehow make their way to that cliff, making it constantly windy. Ingrid turned out to be very caring of the sisters Claudia, Regan and Margaret, while Ivonne, grateful to Ingrid, ran the household for her. However, tragedy struck when the triplets were around five. One day, the gardener saw Ivonne enter the large hedge maze in the garden. Some time later, Claudia too entered the maze, in search of her mother. When much later Ingrid realizes both Ivonne and Claudia are gone, she goes looking for them in the maze together with the gardener: on the ground, which was still wet due to earlier rain, they could make out two sets of footprints making their way to the center of the maze, where there's a small gazebo. But when Ingrid and the gardener arrive there, they find a horrible scene: Ivonne is lying dead on the ground, her throat having been slit open. Young Claudia too lies on the floor, though she turns out to have only lost her consciousness. The police never could figure out who Ivonne was killed, as there were no other footprints on the ground, and there is no other way to make it through the maze.

Many years later, and the triplets have grown into beautiful women with their own families, but they have completely gotten estranged from Ingrid, who officially adopted them after Ivonne's death, but for some reason she started treating the girls differently from before their mother's death, and that relation never improved. There is also a lot of rivalry between the three sisters, who all have one son and one daughter, though Claudia's daughter Mary is adopted, as she was the daughter of a friend who passed away. While Mary could get along with her brother William and the introverted Patricia, her other cousins Cordelia, Stephen and David were outright bullying her, which was the reason Mary left the house to study when she became an adult and never returned. The will of Ingrid however stipulates all living Kaley family members must be present, so Mary finds herself forced to return home, but she brings Patrick along, introducing him as her fiance. While William and Patricia seem nice enough to Mary and Patrick, the latter can't help notice the other three cousins are exactly as Mary had described them. The will is read immediately upon Mary's return. But while Claudia, Regan and Margaret expected Union Mining Ltd. to be split evenly among the three sisters, the will read by the solicitor is more than baffling: Union Mining Ltd. is to be split between the two families who will get married first: whoever of William, Mary, Stephen, Cordelia, David and Patricia get married together first, will inherit the company, leaving the last family with nothing. Furthermore, in case of death or no marriages within the first three months of the reading of the will, the company will pass on toa certain Peter Graven or his living offspring. While the cousins have never heard of Peter, their mothers were petrified when they heard the name dropped, though they refuse to explain who he is. The mothers quickly call their own family meetings, all with the same message: get married to one of your cousins, as soon as possible. Claudia forbids Mary to marry Patrick, stating they can't be left out of the inheritance. Meanwhile, Mary and Patrick also become worried whether Stephen and David won't force themselves on one of their cousins for a fait accompli. When Stephen insults Mary for the ump teenth time, Patrick challenges him to a boxing match, which he wins convincingly, sending Stephen wimpering that night. However, the following day, an ever bigger surprise awaits everyone: Stephen is found.... hanging from a rope... attached to the top of an old grain silo, about twenty meters high! And something has left a gigantic imprint on the ground near the silo. Almost as if... the giant Finn McCool of Giant's Causeway picked up Stephen and hung him from the silo. Or is there a devious murderer at work here who wants the inheritence for themselves? Patrick and Mary don't have much confidence in the local police solving the case, so they can only hope Pat's uncle Charles Bertrand, the famous Parisian magistrate, can come quickly...

If there's one theme in Kagami's work, it's John Dickson Carr: he has written many straight pastiches of Carr's work (most of them found in The Uncollected Works of Masayuki Kagami), but his Charles Bertrand series too is obviously modelled after the Henri Bencolin series, with the detectives in both series sharing the background story of being French spymasters turned magistrates and having an American narrator. The first book, Sougetsujou no Sangeki, was specifically inspired by Castle Skull, and there are probably many Carr references to notice if you are more of a Carr reader than I am. That is why to my surprise, Kaze Hatsuru Yakata no Satsujin, despite its very British setting of Giant's Causeway, is modelled strongly after Yokomizo Seishi's Inugamike no Ichizoku. We have the family patriarch passing away, leaving three rivalling sisters and their families. We have the reading of the will, where the patriarch says the family business will be left to whoever first gets to marry (in this case, a marriage between cousins). There's the "extra" clause in the will, that stipulates the fortune will got an unfamiliar name or their offspring in case any of the primary candidates will die. And of course, like in Inugamike no Ichizoku, this will and all its crazy conditions sets off a series of horrible deaths, which formally start when Stephen is killed, but might already be announced early, as Mary got a threat letter telling her not to return to Wind's End, and when Patricia picked up Mary and Pat from the station, their car was sabotaged too!

But while the structure of the book follows Inugamike no Ichizoku, the crimes that occur at Wind's End, a large manor with a giant hedge maze in its garden, as well as an old mostly unused silo, are definitely still Kagami's bread and butter of Carr-ish impossible crimes. We have a murder at the center of a hedge maze in the past, where the murderer apparently entered and left the maze without being seen and without leaving any footprints in the soft ground. This is repeated in the present, when Patrick goes meet someone in the maze, but right in front of his eyes, this person shrieks and is found killed with a knife, even though Patrick saw nobody near the victim, and the only footprints leading to the center of the maze belong to the victim, and himself. We also have the death of Stephen, who apparently was hung from the very top of the silo, fifteen, twenty meters up high by the giant Finn McCool and later in the book, there's a death in a bathroom, but no murderer could've approached the third floor bathroom, because a witness had been cleaning out the storeroom and an old sofa had been blocking the corridor. That said, most of the impossible crimes in this book aren't that amazing on their own: the present-day maze murder is comprised out of cliched tricks, the bathroom murder is basically solved the instant a certain piece of evidence is found and the past maze murder is both somewhat unbelievable, and not properly clewed. That leaves the silo murder, which is indeed a rather alluring one: how could anyone hang Stephen from the top of the silo, given... Stephen is an adult male, and the silo is nearly twenty meters high. The giant imprint on the ground next to the silo, resembling a giant feet, seems to suggest the giant neighbor Finn McCool from Giant's Causeway came to pay a visit, but... that is of course not the case. I think most of the readers will have some idea of how it was done, considering it's just such a unique setting which limits the possibilities a lot, though I think Kagami did a good thing at setting up the clewing for this solution, and it is not just the best of all the impossible situations in this book, but simply a very entertaining idea on its own too.

I do think the book is actually both at its best and worst when it comes to playing around with the character relations and their motivations. Like Inugamike no Ichizoku, a lot of the mystery is created because we have a lot of characters with their own agendas, and their actions complicate the matter a lot. I think more than in previous books, Kagami managed to use his large cast of characters to make the mystery more complex. In some cases, this works out really well for this book, but in other cases, you really wonder why some characters did the things they did. One character does something that, okay, I can somewhat understand what you did that before the first death, but why not explain yourself once you see people are dying? The three sisters do things that serve as important events that inform the actions of other characters, but... why would you do that? Right that other event happened? For some reason, the husbands of the three sisters also barely say or do anything in the book, even though they are supposed to be there too as their children are getting murdered and their wives are going crazy from grief... So at times, Kagami succeeds in making the mystery more complex and alluring by playing these characters off each other, but at other times you really don't see why some characters do what they did, even though it has important implications to the plot. I wonder if Kagami had lived to write more books, he would have managed to develop the way in which to use characters to contribute to the mystery, and create more synergy between the characters and his impossible situations.

There were a few other smaller points that did bug me though. Like... did we just gloss over a pretty major crime at the end? And why can't Kagami properly write out English(-sounding) names? I was so convinced that thing with the initials was a hint, but that was just Kagami making a language mistake... Oh, re-reading my own review of the first book, I have to repeat again that despite Kagami writing in the shin honkaku tradition, he really tries to stay very loyal to his mission of writing stories extremely close to what Carr wrote in the 1930, taking the challenge of doing a Golden Age mystery novel on those terms alone, so no narrative trickery, no fantasy or sci-fi background, no focus on comedy, no Late Queen Problems or meta-discussions on the state of honkaku mystery fiction.So despite the book being very much like Inugamike no Ichizoku, you don't hear any snarky remarks about that.

But when Kaze Hatsuru Yakata no Satsujin works, I think it works really well, and overall, I did enjoy the book a lot. After the very grand Kangokutou, I appreciated the somewhat smaller scale of this story (similar to the first book, though a bit longer), and as a Carr and Yokomizo-inspired impossible murder story, it is constructed in a very confident manner, as you'd expect from an author who specialized in writing in the tradition of Carr. I do think that ultimately, I liked the first book the best, with probably the most memorable locked room murder in all of Kagami's writings and while it's the shortest book too, I think it makes the best use of its page length. All three books are worth reading though, especially for Carr fans.

Original Japanese title(s): 加賀美雅之『風果つる館の殺人』

The Confused Victim

"Spoilers."

"Doctor Who"

Hmm, I bought this book over a year ago now I think about it, so it had been waiting for quite some time. Breezed through it within one evening though.

Nakajima Kawatarou was an influential critic of mystery fiction active in the second half of the twentieth century. He has not only won the Mystery Writers of Japan Award in 1966 for his work, but he would later even serve as the president of Mystery Writers of Japan, Inc. While one would be tempted to assume that a literary critic's work would only be aimed at adults and be very, very serious, you'd be wrong in this case. At least, half. Nakajima's 1971 book Suiri Shousetsu no Yomikata ("How To Read Detective Novels") was published via Poplar and therefore aimed at a juvenile audience, introducing young readers to the magic of detective fiction. At the same time, Nakajima was very serious about this: the tone is definitely not childish, and he sets out to really educate the readers by introducing them to a literary history of the genre and introducing both Japanese and foreign writers and their best work, and discussing what makes them worthwhile. 

And he does this by ruthlessly spoiling a ton of mystery novels.

I first learned about this book when Ashibe Taku took me out second-hand book hunting in Japan, and we came across this book: he told me he had read this book when he was young, and that it was especially memorable because it so relentlessly and unbashfully spoiled the tricks of many mystery masterpieces. Yet he seemed to talk about the book in a fond manner. The idea of a "For Dummies" book on mystery fiction aimed at the younger audience in the seventies appealed to me too, as I figured it'd be interesting to hear how mystery fiction would be presented to the readers at the time, and what the 'hot picks' would be during that period, so I decided to pick the book up.

The book opens with an introduction to detective fiction, and the focus here lies very clearly on honkaku (orthodox) puzzle plot mysteries: Kawajima opens with a complete analysis of Edgar Allan Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue, breaking the story down to how it presents the mystery, how the clues are provided (or not) to the reader, how misdirection works etc. With that, Nakajima hopes to have demonstrated to the reader what a puzzle consists of, and the way it is solved, fun and he proceeds to explain how logic is an important factor in telling mystery stories. The chapter is then devoted to explaining different sub-genres to the mystery ficton (so not just honkaku) and ends with a long overview of the development of the genre both in and outside Japan, focusing on milestone publications/authors. What surprised me most that even in this introductionary part, Kawajima doesn't pull punches and will gladly spoil the tricks of major mystery stories to explain himself: sometimes he'll mention a title before he goes into his surprisingly detailed explanations of the tricks, but more often than not, he'll just start explaining a trick without telling you the title. I can imagine children reading this and on one hand getting impressed by all the tricks introduced... and then being hugely disappointed each time they actually read one of those original works, and realizing Nakajima spoiled them on that trick ages ago. 

Considering this was published in the early seventies, and the fact Nakajima clearly favors trick-based mystery fiction (puzzle plot mysteries), it shouldn't be too surprising to learn he seems much more impressed by the output in English than the output of his own home country. While there are of course many works he does like from Japan, a majority of the praise goes to the non-Japanese authors introduced in this book and in the second part of the book, where he briefly discusses several of the major detective characters in the genre, almost all are of foreign origin (he does mention a few of the Japanese creations in the previous section by the way). The fourth and final part by the way contains various best-of lists by both Nakajima and Edogawa Rampo, which also seem to favor the non-Japanese works, save for the specific "Japanese mysteries" lists of course.

The third part of the book is the most interesting and fun to read, but also the worst when it comes to spoilers. As I mentioned, Nakajima really focuses on tricks in mystery fiction, and this third part is a whole taxonomy of tricks in mystery fiction like Edogawa Rampo's famous Categorization of Tricks essay. As an introductionary book to detective fiction, this is a rather curious inclusion, to be honest. You have just managed to paint a picture of what detective fiction is, what makes it tick and presented an overview of the best known authors and their works... and then you start spoiling those works! And I do mean spoiling them. This isn't just "Category: Locked Room. Type 1: The Killer Wasn't In the Room At the Time of the Crime. A: A mechanical trick", no, Kawajima will go out of his way to give very specific examples of such tricks, spoiling the precise setup of the story in question and how this trick is then utilizes specifically. And no, Kawajima doesn't do spoiler warnings or anything, and as mentioned above, sometimes he'll mention the title of the story when he does this, and sometimes he won't, but he'll still spoil the trick in full details. Though I guess some can be guessed even if you haven't read the book in question, like when he starts explaining the trick behind a story that is set in a house in Goblin Woods... Fortunately I recognized most of the stories discussed here, but it's honestly pretty stunning to see Kawajima spoiling so many stories without any remorse, and all that in a weird attempt to get young readers attracted to puzzle plot mysteries! He does go over a good amount of trick categories here, and he does actually discuss good examples, but... I still don't think this should be anywhere near a For Dummies book!

There are some really nice retro illustrations by Iwai Taizou in this book by the way, some of them also accompanying the trick taxonomy part. I'll refrain from using those in this post, but here's Father Brown with a creepy smile instead!

Anyway, I knew Suiri Shousetsu no Yomikata wouldn't be like a super informative critical work of the genre when I got started on it, but supposing you're not really afraid of spoilers, this would be a fairly interesting book to get you started on detective fiction as a young reader, especially as it really focuses on puzzle plot fiction and does give you concrete examples of how clewing works, as well as tricks in mystery fiction and how they can be used to create surprise and a sense of catharsis when the truth is revealed. Only... Nakajima at the same time robs readers of that feeling by spoiling all those famous works indiscriminately. So yeah, I also very well understand why readers would be upset! This book is more a funny anecdote perhaps than a must-read, but I quite enjoyed it. Though it really helps I knew most of the examples anyway, so if you're a young reader in 1971 interested in detective fiction: please avoid this book.

Original Japanese title(s): 中島河太郎『推理小説の読み方』

The Big Four

"From the ashes of this world I will build a better one. Go forth, my horsemen and let chaos cleanse the world."

"X-Men The Animated Series"

Hmm, funny how a lot of the reviews posted this winter are set in the summer...

After a murder case that involved her own friends, Nadia Maugars, daughter of Inspector Maugars, still doesn't know quite how to move on, especially as in contrast, Yabuki Kakeru, a Japanese student who studies philosophy in Paris who tutors her in Japanese, seems eerily cold and untouched by the incident. Kakeru is in fact far more interested in Nadia's friendship with Giselle Rochefort, daughter of August Rochefort, one of the major names in the financial world of southern France. Giselle is studying history under the tutelage of Charles Sylvain: Kakeru wants to view certain documents involving the Cathars, which Charles can provide him. Kakeru and Nadia learn Giselle will be staying at her father's holiday home in the south of France this insanely hot summer, as her father is trying to get a nuclear power plant in that region. Charles will also be there due to an excavation where they expect to find objects related to the Cathars, and others are also expected to be there, like Giselle's boyfriend Julian, a nuclear researcher connected to the Rochefort nuclear plant, and his sister Simone, a teacher and activist. Kakeru and Nadia also travel to the same village, as Jean-Paul Barbes, a subordinate of Nadia's father, hails from there. Everyone is hanging around the holiday home of the Rocheforts, when a loud crash surprises everyone. They gather in front of the second floor room where the noise came from, which they find locked from the inside. Kakeru enters the room via the garden and outside balcony, and inside they find the murdered body of Fest, a visiting antiquarian. For some reason, Fest was knocked out on the head and then an arrow was stabbed in his chest, with the bow and arrow being part of the room's decoration. When Kakeru finds Fest had first been knocked out with an object with one of the biblical Johns on it, and he also later learns a white horse belonging to the Rocheforts was killed too at the same time, he realizes what is going on: this murder was styled after the Book of Revelation: the segment regarding the first horseman of the Apocalypse says: "A white horse appears, whose crowned rider has a bow with which to conquer." But that begs the question: does this mean three other people will be murdered too, and why commit a murder like this? Meanwhile, Kakeru has more things to think of, as an attempt on his life has been made due to his interference in the previous incident. Can he solve all of these problems in Kasai Kiyoshi's Summer Apocalypse (1981)?

The first novel by mystery author, critic and philosopher Kasai featuring Yabuki Kakeru I read was back in 2015, but after reading Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu ("A Locked Room for Philosophers", 1992), it took me about ten years to return to that series with Oedipus Shoukougun ("Oedipus Syndrome", 2002), which I read last year. Perhaps it's therefore surprising I'm reading another entry in this series so soon, but what shouldn't surprise frequent readers is that I once again read the series completely out of order. After reading the fourth and then the fifth novel, I decided to go back to the second novel: Summer Apocalypse. To be completely honest, the Yabuki Kakeru is really not the best series to read out of order: Kasai really likes to start each new book with a recap of the events of the previous book and he doesn't mind spoiling major events, including the identity of the murderers, in these prologues. That holds even for this second book, which freely spoils the identity of the murderer of the first book (Bye Bye Angel), which I haven't read yet. The prologue also builds directly on the ending of the previous book, with shocking incidents happening to Nadia and Kakeru due to what happened in Bye Bye Angel. This storyline is also of importance later in the book, as Kakeru remains invested in the aftermath of what happened in the first book throughout his investigations in this second book. Why did I start with this book then, you might ask. Well, I wasn't really planning to read "a Yabuki Kakeru" novel when this book found its way on my reading pile to be honest. I had in fact been looking for mystery fiction themed after the Book of Revelation and the Apocalypse, and this book was one that was mentioned a lot in Japanese sources (in the past, I also reviewed the manga Father Sakura which had a story involving the Apocalypse too).

My previous experience with this series already taught me Kasai likes to write long novels, and that likes to use them as vehicles to talk about philosophy, history and other topics that might interest him, and to be honest, I have often felt he went too far with that for my taste, having to wade through pages of characters discussing philosophy while they're in imminent danger of being murdered. Fortunately for me (your mileage may vary), this book is a bit shorter than the previous two novels I read, and therefore it stays a bit more focused on the core mystery plot, though there's still plenty of talk about Catharism and the characters' stances regarding art, nuclear plants and more of that. Ironically, the one thing I did hope he'd write more extensively about, that being the Book of Revelation and the meaning of the Apocalypse, is surprisingly less of an important theme, and while they of course do discuss the topic over the course, I do have to say I was a bit disappointed it never went as deep as I hoped it'd go: I'd loved to have read more about the historical background or for example interpretations of the Book of Revelation.

Nonetheless, a mystery novel about a series of murders modelled after the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is of course an exciting idea: each time a murder is commited, a victim is killed with an object invoking the respective horseman, and you might want to avoid this book if you love horses, because yep, horses are also murdered each time. Many of the murders have slightly impossible aspects to them too, at least, if you assume the murderer is someone in the main cast of characters, as each time, all or at least most of them seem to have fairly good alibis for the murders. For the first murder for example, most characters arrive in front of the room very soon after they hear the noise made by the murderer, making it unlikely any of them had been inside the room seconds ago: with the door locked from inside, the murderer would have needed to take the long way around via the balcony and the garden to get back inside. To be honest, I was not a big fan of the solution to this quasi locked room: the solution is one of the type that can work in some situations, but here I think the hinting to the existence of such a thing seemed a bit too weak, though I do like how it tied to the horseman imagery. In fact, I think the manner in which Kasai integrated the Horseman themes into the mystery is the most interesting part: they fit very well with the motive of the mastermind behind these murders and the props indicated in each of the verses are used in interesting manners to faciliate said murders. Obviously, 'dressing up' each murder to correspond with the Horseman verses is partially done to act as misdirection, and I think that is executed really well here, but Kasai does go beyond just using it as misdirection, giving a proper thematical (character driven) reason to have these murders indicate the end of times.

What I also liked about Summer Apocalypse is that Kasai has more surprises beyond the allusions to the Apocalypse: the way the murders are ultimately explained is done in a rather surprising way, and while at first you might be wondering why it is done in this particular way, it all does come together in the end, and mystery-wise, I think this was an interesting approach by Kasai. I can't talk too much about this unfortunately, but it's a theme I generally do like in mystery novels, and while you see it relatively often nowadays, it would have been far less common in 1981, and in that sense, Summer Apocalypse still feels very modern despite it predating shin honkaku novels.

While Summer Apocalypse didn't go as deep in the topic of the Apocalypse and the Four Horsemen as I had initially hoped, I still think this is a fine example of a mitate (themed) murder mystery: murders committed in a way to allude to the Book of Revelation is just a really exciting theme, and Kasai manages to use the theme in a very clever way that is also deeply connected to what moves the characters in this novel. While I wasn't a fan of all the individual murders, the Apocalypse glue did make this a fun mystery to read, and in terms of the mystery plot, page count and Kasai talking about philosophy and other topics, this was definitely the one book that managed to feel like it balanced these elements the best, at least, it fitted my own personal preference much better than for example Oedipus Shoukougun, which felt much slower and meandering. At this point, it is likely I will also read Bye Bye Angel one day, but beyond that, I feel like I'm not really reading these books because I am invested in the story and characters of this series, and I'll probably just return to it if one of the books happen to be about a theme I want to read about, rather than me wanting to read a Yabuki Kakeru novel.

Original Japanese title(s): 笠井潔『サマー・アポカリプス』

Doom With a View

"I stopped my horse beside the building, on the edge of a dark and quiet lake. There, I could see reflected in the water a clear picture of the dead trees, and of the house and its empty eye-like windows. I was now going to spend several weeks in this house of sadness - this house of gloom."

"The Fall of the House of Usher"

It's been years since I last discussed a critical work here...

Disclosure: I have translated Ayatsuji Yukito's Jukkakan no Satsujin/The Decagon House Murders and Abiko Takemaru's 8 no Satsujin/The 8 Mansion Murders to English. I have also translated the Shimada Souji short story The Running Dead.

Hankou Genba no Tsukurikata ("How to Make A Crime Scene", 2006) was written by Yasui Toshio, an architect with a love for the mystery genre. The book was received very well upon release, becoming a finalist for the Mystery Writers of Japan Award for critical works of that year, and it also led to collaborative works with Arisugawa Alice: Yasui actually designed the building featured in Arisugawa's Jooukoku no Shiro, and they also wrote a volume on locked room mysteries together. But anyway, back to this book. In this critical work, Yasui examines the (main) crime scenes from well-known mystery novels from the viewpoint of his profession, and that means looking at famous locations like say, the Decagon House in a very different way than most readers will. He discusses a different book in each chapter and starts examining each location (a building) based on the description in the work itself, as well as using the provided floorplans/diagrams to present a clear picture of said location. And then comes the interesting part: as he examines these buildings as an architect, he starts looking at things like whether the building would actually comply to Japanese laws, or whether it would actually be physically possible to create a building as described, or would it tumble over? For example, would a 'crooked house' with slanting floors be legal to build in the first place? Or where do all the drainage pipes and lines go in all those huge manors with dozens of guests rooms? Here we have an architect who is not worried about whether a murder trick using a house would be feasible: he is looking whether the location itself makes sense, which is a fresh way to look at the locations in the genre.

In this book, Yasui discusses the (main) locations of, among others, Ayatsuji Yukito's Jukkakan no Satsujin/The Decagon House Murders, Abiko Takemaru's 8 no Satsujin/The 8 Mansion Murders, Shimada Souji's Nanameyashiki no Hanzai/Murder in the Crooked House, Higashino Keigo's Juujiyashiki no Pierrot ("The Clown in The Cross Mansion"), Yokomizo Seishi's Honjin Satsujin Jiken/The Honjin Murders and Edogawa Rampo's Sankakukan no Kyoufu ("The Terror of Triangle Manor") (= rewritten version of Roger Scarlett's Murder Among the Angells). Do note that I have not actually read the complete book, as I skipped the chapters on books I have not read yet. While Yasui's focus is on the architectural importance of these books, in a few cases, the building itself will have certain features that are integral to the main mystery of the book (i.e. being closely tied to the solution), so I thought it would be wiser to skip those chapters for now in fear of spoilers. Those chapters are on Mori Hiroshi's Warawanai Suugakusha ("Mathematicians Don't Laugh" AKA Mathematical Goodbye), Utano Shougo's Nagai Ie no Satsujin ("The Murder in the Long House") and Shinoda Mayumi's Kuroi Megami ("The Dark Goddess"). 

Anyway, the focus is thus not actually on the mysteries of each book, and most chapters follow the same format: we see Yasui first following the descriptions of each building as described in the book, using the available floorplans if provided in said book. He'll use these descriptions of for example room layouts or how people move about in the house to estimate the sizes of each building, and give a ballpark figure for how much constructing the building in question might cost. And then comes the more interesting part: he starts looking for weird things that stand out to him as an architect. As most of the authors discussed in the book are not actually architects, they might overlook issues that real architects deal with (building codes/laws, among others) and Yasui often succeeds in pointing out little things that you are likely to overlook yourself. Often, it has no real bearing on the mystery plot of each book, but it's still funny to see someone examine a mystery novel from a completely different point of view.

In his chapter on Jukkakan no Satsujin/The Decagon House Murders for example, Yasui first uses the book's own description of the titular building to create his own diagrams based on those descriptions and the floorplans provided in the book. He estimaties the exact sizes of the building in a clever way: in the book two characters are working on a rather large jigsaw puzzle in one of the rooms (which all have the same size, as the rooms form a decagon together), so with the knowledge a room has enough space to not only hold a bed/desk/closet, but should also allow for one or two people to work on a jigsaw puzzle with pieces scattered around,  Yasui manages to make a realistic estimate of the sizes of the house. Once he's done with his model of the house, he points out that the building would be quite difficult to build, as it completely lacks support pillars for the roof at the places where a normal building would have them. Nothing that would immediately impact the story, but still an interesting thing that is pointed out. In fact, he calls it the biggest mystery of the Decagon House! He also makes an estimate of how much it'd cost to build the Decagon House (in Japan, in 2006), for those interested in building a decagonal house (funnily enough, his estimate does specify you'd need to procure your own island somehow).

Other chapters follow a similar pattern, where Yasui first faithfully follows the book's description of the house, and then the questions follow. 8 no Satsujin/The 8 Mansion Murders for example has Yasui moving the furniture in the guest rooms, as it feels very weird for him to have a bed next to the window for various reasons, like safety, while he also estimates the width of the gallery in the house, using the fact ground floor rooms require direct sunlight via the courtyard, meaning the gallery can only be so wide before it blocks sunlight. Higashino's Juujiyashiki no Pierrot ("The Clown in The Cross Mansion") is set in a house where one of its inhabitants is in a wheelchair, so a lot of attention in the relevant chapter is paid to the dimensions needed to allow for the girl to be able to move freely in the house in her wheelchair. The chapter on Honjin Satsujin Jiken/The Honjin Murders focuses on the traditional Japanese building details of the book, while the chapter on Nanameyashiki no Hanzai/Murder in the Crooked House asks some really interesting questions about the house that usually won't bother you during a read, like the question of how much it would've cost to give all those guest rooms their own bathrooms/toilets, as that means a lot of plumbing! He also points out the building has no communal toilet, meaning the person in the tower room has no toilet to use. One interesting point for people who have read the English translation of this book is that the English version apparently changed something: in the original Japanese, there's also no kitchen marked on the diagram of the house, which puzzles Yasui greatly of course. The English diagram actually marks a section in the diagram as the kitchen, even though it wasn't the kitchen in the original Japanese!

Anyway, like most critical works on mystery fiction, Hankou Genba no Tsukurikata is probably best read if you have already read all the books featured here, or if you don't care at all about spoilers. On the whole however, it is quite fun as a read, as it is quite different from the usual genre critical work. Because most people will have some knowledge about architecture (simply by living in buildings), Yasui's points usually make a lot of sense, as he writes in a very accessible manner and doesn't fret too much about construction details, instead pointing out things you and I will understand from a livability POV. 

Original Japanese title(s): 安井俊夫『犯行現場の作り方』

Dead Man's Cavern

"Ragnarok, the end of the Viking world with a terrible winter that covered the Earth in ice, when vile crimes were rampant and all humanity lost."

"Max Payne"

I wonder if at those detective fiction courses at university they actually have locked room murder lectures...

During a holiday, Narumi, the self-proclaimed great detective of the Sealed Door club, invites his fellow member Kakeru (who was recently made his debut as a mystery writer), to go on an adventure together. While Narumi hesitates to tell Kakeru exactly why, they are travelling to a small village deep in the mountains of Gifu called Kagerou Village. When they arrive, they notice a strange church-like building in the middle of the village. They chat a little with the local people there, when they hear a cry coming from the nearby cliff: one of the Jizou statues has toppled on top of her, trapping her legs. Narumi and Kakeru quickly help her, but she then tells them her friend Yasoshima Daisaku fell off the cliff down in the swamp below. There's a dangerous path along the cliff that climbs down to the swamp, so Narumi and Kakeru carefully make their way down to look for Daisaku, who fortunately is safe: he is a firefighter and has experience with this. A tremendous storm starts as they climb up the path however, and it's becoming too dangerous to walk up this way. Daisuku instructs Narumi and Kakeru to find shelter in a cave halfway up the cliff path, while he goes further up to secure a way for them. Narumi and Kakeru are just inside the cave when the ground shakes, causing a cave-in that blocks off the entrance. To their surprise, they find there were more people inside the cave, and as they talk with these people, they learn this cave runs beeneath Kagerou Village and that in recent years, it has actually been converted to a cave hotel: the "church" Narumi and Kakeru had seen above is a wedding venue, and an elevator there goes down to the main part of the cave, which is surrounded by several rooms. The hotel is a somewhat eccentric attempt to attract tourists to the region. They also learn that Daisaku is a local who is to be married soon to Tsugumi, who is one of the people in the cave, as she was being shown around.

The group makes their way back to the main "lobby cave" to take the elevator back up, but when the elevator doors open, they find the nearly deceased Nanako, a local high school student: she's been shot in the cage. When she's asked who did this to her, Nanako points her finger at... Kakeru before she dies. While Narumi can quickly prove it couldn't have been Kakeru who shot her considering they just arrived there, the local people are still a bit suspicious about these two outsiders. They learn the elevator doesn't work anymore and for some reason, there's also no answer when they try the intercom connecting to the wedding venue above, even though there should be people there, and Daisaku should also know they're there. While afraid the murderer might have attacked the people above too, the people below in the cave can only wait, so they stay in the hotel rooms for the night, with Narumi warning everyone to keep their doors locked in case the murderer is still down in the cave, but his warning is not enough to prevent another murder the next morning. When one guest doesn't respond to calls from outside, Narumi and Kakeru try to open the steel door, but are only able to bend it slightly to create a gap, but the gap is enough for them to see the inhabitant is lying dead on the floor. But she has also written something in blood on the floor that seems to point to Kakeru again! Who is the murderer in the cave, and can Kakeru prove this time he really isn't the murderer in Kirisha Takumi's Ragnarok Dou - Akazu no Tobira Kenkyuukai Kagerou Numa he ("The Cave of Ragnarok: The Sealed Door Goes to Kagerou Swamp", 2000)?

Ragnarok Dou is the third entry in Takumi Kirisha's Sealed Door series, about the colorful members of a college club specializing in opening sealed doors. Last year, I read the first book in this series, Doppelgänger-kyuu - Akazu no Tobira Kenkyuukai Ryuuhyoukan he ("The Doppelgänger Palace - The Sealed Door Club Goes to the Ryuuhou House", 1999), which was also Kirisha's debut work. You might wonder why I skipped the second book and went straight for the third book in the series. Well, like with Summer Apocalypse a few weeks ago, I didn't actually choose this book because it was a book in this series. I was looking for books with dying messages as the theme, so when I learned this book had a dying message lecture, it found a place in the to-be-read pile, despite it meaning I would be reading a series out of order. Again. As always.

So yeah, the theme of the book is dying messages and it might be surprising to learn Narumi, the self-proclaimed great detective, comes up with a dying message lecture fairly early on in the book. While he namedrops Doctor Fell, Nikaido Ranko, Mercator Ayu and Sorachi Masaya as eminent predecessors when it comes to presenting a lecture on a specific trope in mystery fiction (locked rooms, no footprints in the snow, motives for creating locked rooms and alibis, respectively), I do have to say I find Narumi's alibi lecture really original. While I have seen dying message lectures before (disclosure: I translated Arisugawa Alice's The Moai Island Puzzle), the one in this book is quite original in that because it is about a message: being there's a sender and receiver, this lecture actually consists of two seperate sections (chapters). In the first Narumi presents a categorization of the type of dying messages a victim may leave behind to denounce the murderer (writing, oral, etc.), so the medium of the message, while in the second part, the lecture goes in detail about why said message might be misinterpreted/not understood (so the signife of the message). But what I liked especially about this lecture, is that it is in fact not just a fourth wall-breaking moment, or just two chapters where Kirisha shows he has done his homework and to provide the reader with context to understand how his twist on the dying message in this book will work. While I can't give details because it spoils one of the cleverest elements of this book, Narumi actually has a fantastic reason to actually be holding a lecture about dying messages, and it's precisely because he does this, they're in the end able to solve the case. Narumi might be a self-proclaimed detective, but.... he's actually truly a very clever detective, who in every other series would have been the protagonist. Narumi's just not lucky here, as the club president Godou is just a little bit smarter than Narumi (though less active). At any rate, I have seldom seen a lecture in a mystery story used in such a clever way in-universe, and that alone makes this worth a read, I think.

As the proper cave entrance is blocked and the elevator broken, the people in the cave hotel find themselves in a closed circle situation, but an odd one, as at first, there's no reason to believe the murderer is still in the cave, and it in fact seems more likely the murderer is on the surface, having shot Nanako and then sending the elevator down. The pistol used to kill Nanako is believed to be the one that should have been enshrined in the shrine in the cave: it used to belong to a World War II pilot who crashed in the swamp. But if the murderer did go up, how come a second murder occured in one of the hotel rooms? The door was locked from the inside, and because it's a steel door with a very sturdy, submarine-esque turn-dial lock, Narumi and Kakeru can't even force the door open with a steel bar, only able to open a minor gap through which they could confirm the victim died. As the story progresses, more people are of course killed in the cave. Meanwhile, everyone is also worried about the people above, for Daisaku and other people should know people are trapped in the cave hotel (especially Daisaku, as his soon-to-be-wife Tsugumi is one of the people there!) and Daisaku's a firefighter who told Narumi and Kakeru he'd inform the rescue unit, but why is nobody coming to their rescue? This leads to a lot of speculation on Narumi's part, and it's here where the book kinda repeats some of the... I wouldn't call them faults per se, but it's definitely something that stood out when I read the first book.

For like the first book, this book does feature a large cast of characters like many closed circle murder mysteries... but the narrative is mainly focused on the recurring characters, in this case Narumi and Kakeru, and later other club members after everyone is rescued and they go over the case again to try and solve it. Most of the book revolves mainly around discussions between just the recurring cast as they go over theories and discuss what they could do next, and the side characters that only appear in this book barely get anything to say before they die. The worst example of this is Nanako, who appears as a dead person right away, and we hear some characters lament her death, but we don't actually hear about how they know Nanako, who she is, and why she was in the elevator or anything. She's just there, dead. Only much later you hear a throwaway line about how one character knew Nanako exactly. This happens with other parts of the story too, where you don't really understand what their role is and how character X knows character Y, because the story is focused on Narumi and Kakeru chatting among themselves, instead of with others. It does allow the story to focus on a lot of the detective plot, as Kakeru and Narumi obviously talk about the ongoing case, but some of the puzzle pieces remain vague because you don't hear the other characters speak up too often. And while I do think the members of the Sealed Door club are fun and their banter does mean we get intelligent, genre-savvy discussions regarding the mystery, like the first book, you do feel some of the other characters should have given more speaking lines to flesh out the mystery more.

As for the mystery itself.... it's really dense! You have multiple dying messages (in the broad sense of the meaning, so writing, gestures, in-actions etc.), a locked room murder, long deduction chains about how the murderer must have been moving both on the surface and in the cave, and while I do think sometimes feel a bit chaotic, ultimately, I think it worked out pretty well. The solution to the locked room isn't that interesting to be honest, and the closed circle situation is resolved in a rather easy manner, but the deductions regarding the dying messages and the reasoning chains that point to the murderer are more memorable, and they work really well in conjuction with the aforementioned dying message lecture. Parts of the backstory of the shrine in the cave, which ties directly to the motive, are interesting ideas, though it's debatable about how "fair" it was presented and at times, this backstory goes pretty weird ways: I wouldn't have found the revelations here in any way weird had this been for example a Nikaidou Reito novel, but this being my second book in the series, I hadn't quite expected Kirisha to tell us this kind of backstory. This is an element I think could have been worked out in more detail to feel both more shocking, but also less... coming out of nowhere. 

The book also provides some more insight into the history of the Sealed Door club and why club president Godou started the club, which likely will tie to the final, fourth book in the series, I assume. These books are easy and fun enough to read, so I will eventually get there, not sure whether I will read the second book first, or the last one though.

Ragnarok Dou - Akazu no Tobira Kenkyuukai Kagerou Numa he is a fun mystery novel that does some original things via its dying message lecture, and for that alone, I think this is worth a read. Like the first book, it's a story that focuses a lot on the recurring characters and often has a comedic tone to it, so like many character-focused mysteries, it's pretty easy to get into, and while because of that focus, I do feel the mystery isn't presented as strongly as it could be, overall, I do always end up enjoying these books. Solid entry, and I'll be sure to read the other two books in the series too.

Original Japanese title(s): 霧舎巧『ラグナロク洞 《あかずの扉》研究会影郎沼へ』

Telltale Touch

"Only in the leap from the lion's head will he prove his worth."
"Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"

What is it with reviews on sex-focused media that also happen to be mystery fiction this month...  

Last week, I discussed the newest issue of Nemoto Shou's own mystery comic Sharaku Homura: Detective of the Uncanny. Nemoto is not only a creator of mystery fiction in manga form, but also studies it. He has been briefly discussing various mystery manga on his website, especially those that ended up not getting included in Fukui Kenta's (otherwise extremely comprehensive) Honkaku Mystery Manga Zemi ("Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar", 2018). Not all of these works are easily available now, of course, but as a fan of the mystery comic format myself, I of course try to read the ones I can find.

Today's topic was one highlighted by Nemoto which is still easily obtainable in digital form, and interestingly enough, it has actually seen an official English release in the past, though it is not available anymore: Marina Mystery File was created by Byakkomaru and was originally serialized between 1997-1999 in the magazine Young Teioh, though the magazine later folded and was transformed into Comic Maruman. The four volume series stars Marina, a 22-year old teacher at a high school, who is secretly dating one of her own students: Ishiyama Tooru. Their love is pure, she insists, so while the two do fool around a bit, they have not actually fully consummated their relationship yet, despite Tooru's attempts to convince Marina. The two are also both members of the Japan Mystery Club, a group of people interested in researching mysterious, supernatural events occuring in Japan, ranging from ghost stories and monster and UFO sightings. During their trips with the club however, Marina and Tooru have the knack of getting wrapped up in creepy and bloody murder cases that involve the supernatural phenomena they are investigating. Fortunately for them however, Tooru soon discovers Marina is a rather clever detective herself, but under one condition: she needs to be sexually aroused and pleased to get her little grey cells working at full speed.

Cue the sex scenes! I should probably mention right now that while Marina Mystery File is a mystery manga in the same tradition as Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo and Nemoto Shou's Sharaku Homura: Kaiki Tantei, featuring long series of murders that involve monsters or other seemingly supernatural beings/phenomena, it is also an adult manga, meaning it involves plenty of scenes where characters are having sex (rape at times) or fondling each other or themselves and more of that. The art style is rather mild and you can easily imagine Byakkomaru also doing "straight" comedy manga with this style, so the sex doesn't feel too realistic, but it is certainly something to keep in mind if you want to read this. I am not going to mention it in the write-ups on each story below, but just remember that basically every chapter (most stories are about five or six chapters long) will feature one or more scenes with sexual content, the last one generally being Marina being fondled/touching herself so she can get sexually stimulated enough to get that flash of inspiration that allows her to solve the case.

As mentioned before, the series feels very similar in build up to both Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo and Nemoto Shou's Sharaku Homura: Kaiki Tantei, though in general, the pure murder plots are not as intricately structured as those series. That said, considering Byakomaru is probably more an adult comic artist than a mystery writer, I do have to admit these comics are often reasonably amusing as mystery fiction, though a lot of the tricks seen here will feel familiar. Still, the stories actually follow good build-up and while not all the clues/hints Byakkomaru uses are as convincing as others, on the whole I'd say he actually gets the fundamentals of a proper mystery comic really good and the base stories are usually interesting too, so if Byakkomaru had studied the genre a little bit more while he was working on the series, this could actually have developed into a mystery manga more of us would remember, I think. The manga was released digitally over a decade ago in English by JManga, but that site is already defunct.

 

The opening story, The Kappa Murder Case, for example, has a great setup: the Japan Mystery Club is visiting a small village near a lake to investigate rumors of a hopping Kappa roaming around: the story goes that centuries ago, a kappa kidnapped a girl and raped her for three days and nights and now that kappa has returned. Which is bad news, as there's a girls' academy near the lake. The day after the club members arrive at the lake, they actually run into the kappa near the lake, and it is holding something gruesome: the head of a teacher of the nearby academy. And that was only the first death, as more people are murdered that seem to have a connection to the school. But why? While the first 'major' deduction of Marina that "proves" the kappa is in fact, not really a kappa is rather boring, there is acutally a pretty good visual clue that involves the identity of the kappa, one that makes very intuitive use of the comic format. Some of the surrounding drama is perhaps not clewed as well and feels rather forced, but this is actually not a bad story to begin with.

The Spirited Away Murder Case has Marina and Tooru visiting the Seikouin Girls' School, a Christian elementary school, which is Marina's old school. As they wander around, Marina learns one of Marina's sempai has become a teacher at the school too. But while they are chatting, children start vanishing from the school, prompting the teachers to call in the parents of the missing children. However, while they are searching the school grounds, one of the teachers is found naked and murdered in a room. Marina goes off to bring the husband to his wife, but when they return the room, they find it empty and clean of any blood traces. This puzzles Marina greatly, as she hadn't been gone for that long, but when they later return to the room again, they find two naked women dead in the room. Why are these women being killed, and where have the children gone off to? This one is immediately less interesting as a mystery. The mystery of the disappearing corpse is pretty easy to solve due to the way it is presented, and the trick itself is one you'll often see in these kinds of stories. The mystery of the disappearing children borders on the insane and doesn't belong in a puzzle plot mystery.

Just like the first volume, volume two and three each contain two full stories. The Ghost Mansion Murder Case has the Japan Mystery Club visiting a haunted mansion on a small island. They have only just arrived when they are welcomed by a poltergeist throwing cutlery around and soon afterwards, one of the members is found stabbed with a cross high up the wall. The boat that brought them to the island won't be back soon however, and soon more people are killed one by one, one of them even while they were inside a cabin that had been locked from the inside. This And Then There Were None-esque story gets the vibe perfectly down, though a lot of the happenings feel a bit familiar: the locked cabin murder for example uses a trick which is telegraphed a bit too obvious and there are famous mystery novels that feature the exact same trick (the iteration here can't even be called a variant). The hint pointing at the killer is... okay in theory, as I do have to admit Byakkomaru uses the comic format in a clever way to subtly show how two seemingly similar actions are not the same, which eventually point to the murderer, which would be fine if the murderer wasn't already looking extremely suspicious in this story even without the clue!

The Zashikiwarashi Murder Case is one of the more interesting stories in terms of execution. Marina and Tooru are visiting Kumono, a remote countryside village where Tooru used to live. They are visiting Sayuri, Tooru's childhood friend who suffers from a weak heart and isn't able to leave the village. Her parents are dead and her brother has run away from home, leaving her all alone. Her father however arranged that his fortune would go to the family member who will take care of Sayuri after his death: however, it is up to Sayuri to decide whether she'll go to her aunt or either of her two uncles, who are all very, very eager to get on her good side. These would-be guardians of Sayuri however are being killed one by one, but why and by whom? The who is a question that is easily answered to be honest, especially as the cast is so small in this story, but the story makes brilliant use of the comic format here to create a good suspenseful story. The foreshadowing here really show off that Byakkomaru does know the potential of the visual, comic format in mystery fiction, and he explains pretty well in this volume's afterword what he was going for in this story, and I think he pulled it off very competently! This is one story I would recommend especially if you're going to read this.

The Ghost Photograph Murder Case starts with the death of one of the Japan Mystery Club members. Apparently their death was already foreshadowed by a "ghost photograph": a while back, the club members visited an abandoned hospital which was supposed to be haunted, and one of the photographs taken of the member who died, featured a strange dark shadow covering half of their body. Marina herself hadn't gone on that trip then, but now the club is going once more to investigate this creepy photograph. While they are driving to the hospital, a landslide ends up covering the road behind them, trapping them in the hospital. They eventually go to sleep, all staying in the same large hall, but when they wake up, they find one of them has been strangled to death. But was it by a human, or a ghost...? A human of course. While the overall flow of the story, as in the scene-to-scene transitions, feel a bit unoriented, I do have to say I really like some of the psychological hints introduced in this story. The hint pointing at how the murderer managed to strangle one of the members without anyone noticing, even though everybody was sleeping in the same (spacious) hall and just a few meters away from each other, is actually really good in the context of this manga, and another psychological clue that points to the identity of the murderer, is actually a very clever idea with far deeper (cultural) roots than you'd guess at first sight.

The Snow Woman Murder Case has Marina being invited by her friend Naoko to a ski trip with some more acquaintances: they are staying at the holiday villa of Isaki Fusako at the ski resort. Three years ago, Fusako's son Seijirou got injured while skiing, but he was saved by the people at the piste: the people they have invited to stay at the villa now (+ Marina). They learn that there's a local ghost story of a Snow Woman, who can instantly freeze men and... she then breaks off their penises and runs off with it. That evening, Marina thinks she sees the Snow Woman outside, and the following morning they find... the corpse of Fusako outside, buried in the snow. Who is obviously not a man, so why was she killed? Heavy snowfall prevents them from getting help, and Fusako ends up being only the first of more murder victims in the villa, which seem to be committed by the Snow Woman, as the second murder is actually witnessed by several people, who then see the white Snow Woman jump out of the window as she flees into the snow outside while holding a dildo. This is an extremely daring mystery story, which uses a trick that is both brilliant... and not convincing. While there is good shock value when the trick is revealed, it also instantly raises so many practical questions about how it all works, it immediately makes you wonder if it could work. That said, it does make interesting use of the visual medium once again and I think it's still worth it, even if only for the hilarious image of a Snow Woman running around with a dildo.

The fourth and final volume features three stories which are bit shorter than the usual ones. The Kokkuri-san Murder Case centers around a group of girls in Marina's  class, who recently did a session of Kokkuri-san (table turning), which seems to have backfired on them, as the participants are dying one by one. The story seems more focused to tell a thrilling story than be a puzzle plot mystery, and while there's an interesting hint in theory that allows Marina to figure out something fishy's going on and who is the one that stinks, I feel Byakkomaru could probably have used the visual format a bit more to make the clue feel fairer: I think the idea is alright enough (even if limited, but that's also because of the shorter length of the story), but showing it more often would have made it feel more satisfying when the clue is pointed out to the reader.

Marina became acquainted with the police detective Eguchi Gorou in the previous story, and he has invited Marina to come along to the shooting of a film he will appear in to on orders of his superiors (to promote the police).  The Haunted School Murder Case takes place in an abandoned school, which stands on a cliff and is only accessible via a bridge and it is here where the film will be shot. And by now you of course already know the bridge will collapse and that people will be killed one by one. There is a locked room murder, but the trick is hopelessly outdated and boring. In comparison, the hint that points to the murderer is actually really clever, using Queenian logic to cross off suspects of the list. It is just a one stage deduction, but certainly one of the best mystery moments in this series.

The final story, The Black Magic Murder Case, is set at Marina's school, and starts with the discovery of a student being stabbed into the blackboard at school, surrounded by satanic symbols. It turns out some of the senior staff at the school are actually in some kind of crazy cult, but then these people are being killed one by one too. The main murder situation is very simple in set-up, and there's not really much of a mystery here in presentation: they find the victim dead in a room, but it was not like it was a locked room or anything. The misdirection falls a bit flat here, and the trick itself relies on what might be the one of the oldest/most cliched locked room tricks that exist: while Byakkomaru does introduce a twist, this twist feels impractical and not likely a trick that would succeed,

Marina Mystery File was oddly enough a series that left me slightly disappointed not because it didn't succeed as a mystery manga: I was disappointed because while my expectations were low, there are genuinely moments that surprised me mystery-wise, and you can tell Byakkomaru is familiar with the genre, so it somewhere I feel like it perhaps could have been much better as a mystery series. It didn't crash and burn, and comes close to being good. Very few of the sexy moments in this series are actually "needed" for the mystery plot, but when they do become relevant in terms of the mystery solving, it works pretty well, and you almost feel like if Byakkomaru had been given some more research time to work out the mystery plots more, this could have been a much better known mystery-cum-porn manga. Now it's just an interesting note in the annals of mystery manga.

Original Japanese title(s): 白虎丸『まりなミステリーファイル』