Fishing for Clues

"Unagi is a state of total awareness. Only by achieving true unagi can you be prepared for any danger that may befall you."
"Friends"

The Roman Hat Mystery. The French Powder Mystery. The Japanese Christie Mystery. The Japanese Carr Mystery. The Japanese Larsson Mystery. The Swedish Carr Mystery. The Chinese Carr Mystery. The American Christie Mystery. The...

Bruno Fredner is a wealthy man, who owns farmlands (and the farms on it) as well as forests in Småland, Sweden. He controls the land on which the people live in this region, and not surprisingly, that notion starts to get to certain people, and Fredner himself isn't doing much to help the brewing tension between him and the local people by being a womanizer who uses his money and influence to get the women he wants. That things have become only grimmer becomes immediately clear to Lasse, who has recently returned to his home village. The economist grew up here, but left for Stockholm, leaving his brother and mother to tend to the farm they rent from Fredner. Learning about the latest gossips, he learns how Fredner has now seduced his brother's girlfriend Eivør and that they have announced their engagement, even though his brother, Eivør's ex-ex-boyfriend and her aunts (her guardians) absolutely despite Fredner, along with the rest of the townspeople. So were people really surprised when Bruno Fredner was found murdered one day... inside an eel box? Well, probably, because that's not a likely place to die. Bruno Fredner owned a piece of land along the Nissan river, and he had placed a trap along a small dam to capture eel, a box which lets water (and eels) in, but where the eels are prevent from swimming out. Bruno Fredner was found inside his own eel box, but more curiously enough, the box' lid was locked with a padlock, and the only key was found on Fredner's body! Furthermore, Fredner's body was completely dry, meaning he wasn't 'swallowed' into the box via the river itself. This curious case of the locked eel box asks for the mind of Inspector Bertil Durell in Jan Ekström's Ålkistan ("The Eel Chest", 1967), which was translated to Japanese as Unagi no Wana ("The Eel Trap") in 2024 by Mizuki Sayako.

The Japanese version describes Jan Ekström as the Swedish Dickson Carr, a nomer which probably has lost all its meaning as everyone is [Nationality] [Different Author Name] nowadays. As this is the only book by Ekström I have read, I can't really comment to the accuracy of that nickname, but if Ålkistan is anything to go by, I assume the nickname comes more from the fact he wrote a locked room mystery, than actually being close to John Dickson Carr in terms of writing style/atmosphere. While small villages with colorful characters are also seen Carr stories, this one is a bit mundane in terms of setting and we certainly don't get spooky ghost stories that have been told for centuries in those neighborhoods or anything like that.

Though some of the melodrama comes close, I suppose. The book follows several characters, jumping between them as we see things brew slowly: we see how everyone seems to hate Bruno Fredner, from the aunts of his future wife to spurned boyfriends of Eivør and people who find their futures endangered by the rent they have to pay to their landlord. The love... square? between Eivør, Bruno, Lasse's younger brother Magnus and farmer Jacke (who dated Eivør before Magnus) naturally creates one of the biggest motives for the murder on Bruno, so we follow the relevant characters a lot in this tale. The jumping between the various POVs adds variety, but at the same time does tend to make things feel a bit slow, as not all segments are really relevant to the mystery plot, and we just see the people react to the murder and the ensuing investigation. Which I know some readers will appreciate a lot, but I personally tend to feel like they slow down the main plot too much. Though I suppose that a lot of the depictions of rustic life in 1960s Sweden might come across as familiar and genuine to a Swedish reader? Perhaps? Okay, I'll admit I know nothing about Sweden...

I do like the bizarre and unique crime scene though. It's also a weird inversion of a locked room mystery, as the eel box wasn't locked "from the inside": the padlock was on the outside, locking the lid of the box which allows one to climb inside to retrieve captured eels. However, the key was found on Bruno's body and you can't reach his body from the top of the box. There is another "entrance" to the box via the dam, which is the inlet through which eels are supposed to swim into the box, but the dam opening was closed, and Bruno's body was also completely dry, meaning he didn't get in via the water. The trick itself is fairly original, but it is nearly impossible to guess how a certain object was used to create this locked room situation even after the introduction of the relevant clues. The basic idea behind the locked room situation itself is interesting, though oddly enough I have come across a similar trick a while ago so it was already half on my mind. What I perhaps like better is how the situation is then also used to figure out who the killer is: a lot of the clues that start pointing towards the killer arise from examining the unique crime scene and the question of why the killer had Bruno Fredner killed inside a locked eel box, and I like the quasi-Queen-esque deductions that spring from this.

I think the utterly bizarre crime scene is what really sells Ålkistan, and for that I think it's definitely worth a read, as the core mystery is competently built and it's a well-rounded detective story on the whole. It certainly made me curious to Ekström's other output, and then I remembered I had one in possession actually: The November 2024 issue of Hayakawa's Mystery Magazine featured a "John Dickson Carr and His Successors in the World" special, and following the relative success of the Japanese release of Ålkistan among mystery fans, this issue featured a short story by Ekström: the story was I believe originally titled Dnr 94.028.72- Mord, translated to Japanese as Jikenbangou 94.028.72 ("Case File 94.028.72") and it too stars Inspector Bertil Durell as he tackles a locked room murder mystery.

This time the mystery set in a laboratory, where they conduct experiments in sub-zero conditions. Durell is asked to investigate the very curious death of a scientist in one of the experiment rooms: he had been in the room to conduct an icey experiment, but didn't appear out of the room after one hour, the maximum a person is allowed to stay in the freezing experiment chamber. When his superior goes check on him, the scientist was found stabbed in the room. But how did the murderer escape? The window on the ceiling was locked from the inside, while the 'normal' door was open, but it leaves a record when the door is opened during an experiment, and the two observers in the control room noticed nothing wrong about the door. 

The story is pretty short, but I do really like the lab setting of the story, which is pretty unique. The story is... not the same as Ålkistan, but it does have some similar ideas behind it. I kinda skimmed through the story, so perhaps it was just me misreading things, but I wasn't completely sure whether it was clear how certain things worked in the experiment room which allowed for the murderer to create their locked room murder trick, but it was alright considering the limitations of this story, even if I probably shouldn't have read it after Ålkistan. This story is available in English by the way. And Ekström has more books available outside of his native Swedish (which I can't read), so perhaps I will try them out in the future.

Translated Japanese title: ヤーン・エクストレム『ウナギの罠』