While I like reading short story collections, I generally don't really like writing the reviews, because they take up much more time. For some reason I read four short story collections in a row, with today's book being one of those four, though I switched the order in which I wrote these posts.
Hanyuu Asuka won the 2018 Mysteries! Newcomer Award with the short story Kabane Sanemori ("The Corpse Sanemori") included in this book, but even though this award of publisher Tokyo Sogensha is meant for unpublished authors, they were not really one: Hanyuu had been active since 2010 as a writer of children's fiction under the name Saitou Asuka, but after winning and publishing enough stories with Yoritomo to collect in a volume, they changed their name to Hanyuu Asuka, perhaps also to differentiate between the actress and former Nogizaka46 member with the same name. Before winning in 2018, Hanyuu had also made it to the final judging round of the Mysteries! Newcomer Award in the previous year with Kaburo-Goroshi ("Murder of a Kaburo"), which serves as the opening story of this collection. The citizens of Kyoto have been complaining about the kaburo Kiyomori has set loose on town: these boys with a page cut serve as his spies in the city, reporting all the on-goings to him. When one of these kaburo is found murdered near a temple, the people in the neighborhood are afraid they'll be blamed for the death of one of Kiyomori's men, so they send someone to warn Yorimori: they hope the Lord of the Lake will solve this case for them, as they know Yorimori is waiting for any chance to do self-promotion to his half-brother. Yorimori swiftly examines the scene, and soon finds out the murder on the kaburo might be hiding something bigger. This story introduces the format all stories in this collection follow, with a rather lengthy introduction that provides the historical context, followed by a rather short mystery and Yorimori swiftly solving it, and then ending with a historical contextualization of the case. This story has Yorimori solving the murder on the kaburo surprisingly easily, with the major clue being simple, but quite fair, but I have to admit I found the process a bit too short. But I do really like the historical contextualization of the case, and that is in general where these stories shine: Hanyuu is excellent at presenting history and using tidbits like the kaburo to create mysteries that only could have happened in that time period, in that specific cultural/political environment. So the act of the murder of the kaburo wasn't very memorable on its own, but the way it builds on actual history to provide unique motives and other parts of the mystery, is great.
Aoi-no-mae Araware ("Pitiful Aoi-no-Mae") has Yorimori investigate the death of Aoi-no-mae, a former servant who had been loved by the emperor Takakura, but died a mysterious death. When Takakura learns about a certain poison, he realizes the symptoms resembles the one Aoi-no-mae showed before she died. He asks Yorimori to investigate her death, as he has no idea how Aoi-no-mae could have been poisoned, as they ate and drank together. This impossible poisoning case is a bit simple to solve, as not only does it revolve around something you'll often see in poisoning stories, it basically only works due to the (lack of) knowledge back in the Heian period, while you'd be far more likely to think of it in this day and age. So while it works as a historical work, and very well as that, as a detective story read now, it might lack a real surprise.
In Kabane Sanemori ("The Corpse Sanemori"), Yorimori is asked to identify the body of general Saitou Sanemori, a warrior who fought in the Gempei War and died on the battlefield at age 73. During their retreat, his men had buried his body in a make-shift grave as they weren't able to bring his body along during their retreat, but when they later returned to retrieve the body, more bodies had been buried at the same place. Now Yorimori has to identify Sanemori's body out of five candidates. I was not too big a fan of this one, as it felt a bit too... clinical? Like, a clue being Sanemori's age, so an obviously younger looking corpse being ruled out and things like that. While one clue is good, because it is rooted in actual history and Saitou Sanemori's character, I felt the mystery was less important than the surrounding historical story. While these stories generally manage to get the right balance between history lesson and mystery, I felt this one was the one where the mystery felt a bit tacked on, even though the problem itself (the difficulty in identifying a specific person on the battlefield) is one I like, like the one in Kokuroujou (AKA The Samurai and the Prisoner).
The fourth story is Tomurai Senju ("Thousand-Armed Mourning"), which I have already discussed when it was featured in the anthology Honkaku-Ou 2021, so I will be skipping it here. Please refer to that post to hear about that (pretty good!) story.
Rokudai Hiwa ("The Secret of the Sixth") is set much later in Yorimori's life, after the Taira are basically defeated by the Minamoto clan. The Minamotos are hunting for the grandson of Taira no Kiyomori, Taira no Takakiyo, who is also known as the Sixth as he was the sixth generation since Taira no Masamori, who facilated the rise of power of his clan. The hunt leads to Yorimori's manor: Yorimori is leading a retreated life now, having converted himself to being a monk and having cut ties with the Taira. However, the Minamotos suspect Yorimori has hiding the grandson of his half-brother, by having Takakiyo pose as one of his own sons. Yorimori of course denies the accusation, but how can he prove that? In essence, the problem is one that is similar to the aforementioned problem with Sanemori: in an era with no real identity records or photographs, how do you prove a person is actually that person, and not someone else? While I am not a big fan of the main proof provided by Yorimori to show he's not hiding Takakiyo, I do like the minor tricks he plays on the Minamoto hunters to put them on the wrong trail.
Chou to Shite Shisu dives deep into actual real history and each story starts with basically a history lesson (and you'll be looking up a lot depending on how much (little) you know about this era), so while some might love this book for that, others might find it a bit tiring. While the core plots can be a bit simple at time, Hanyuu does a great job at linking these cases into actual historical context, and you're almost inclined to be believe it really happened like this, because it all fits so nicely. Yorimori is also an interesting detective, someone who is really trying to prove himself, not because he is a believer in truth or justice, but because of the political background, and seeing him trying to manouver himself into certain social positions in a volatile and often outright hostile environment is interesting, especially as we know he ultimately never really managed to arrive at where he wanted to be. Hanyuu has written a scond volume in this series, a full-length novel, and I will probably read that one in the future too!
For short story collections I've started writing each story's review separately, immediately after reading it. Not only does it feel less time consuming but it keeps my thoughts fresh on the earlier stories, which is especially helpful for Japanese collections.
ReplyDeleteOnly downside is I can't make blanket statements like "this is my favorite of the stories", but I can include that at the end of the post anyway