Mr Brain

"Thoroughly respectable and honest. Not, perhaps, remarkable for brains."

"Murder on the Orient Express"

Now I think about it, it's been easily over a decade since I first read about this book...

Magical Zunou Power!! ("Magical Brain Power!!") was a long-running primetime television quiz program presented by Bandou Eiji and featured a mostly fixed pool of participants of television personalities, some of which are nowadays so huge they have their own television programs like Tokoro George. The program consisted of several rounds of various quizzes with which you could earn 'Brain Power' and of course, the one who has accumulated the most BP at the end, wins that week's episode. The show itself ran from 1990 until 1999, but for the mystery fans, the period that is of interest, is the early days of the show, from 1990 until 1992. For it was during this period, the final round was the Magical Mystery Theater: a short 5-10 minute drama show where a mystery would be presented. While the Magical Mystery Theater segments are all very short, there is "continuity" between them: in the 'series', we follow the private detective Nakatani Shouichi and his niece Natsuko, a college student who acts as her uncle's assistant. The difficulty of each 'story' would be indicated with a Brain Power value, which was also the maximum of points you could earn if you got the answer right (you could be rewarded points for getting it partially correct). After watching the video, the participants would have to guess how it was done or who did it, with an explanation of course. Once everybody had presented their answers, a final, one minute video would follow with the solution. As it's just one round in a quiz program and participants need to be able to briefly explain their solutions, most of these stories are fairly simple in set-up and often revolve around just one single idea, but even so, some of the ideas seen in these segments are actually quite interesting. That is easily explained, when you learn that among those who provided the screenplay writers with the core mystery plots, there are mystery writers like Orihara Ichi, Abiko Takemaru and Shinpo Hirohisa. According to Abiko, Magical Mystery Theater was actually the highest-rated part of the program initially, but even after the overall show started to get higher ratings, this segment's ratings didn't really change accordingly, so it was eventually cancelled.

Shinpo Hirohisa, one of the 'mystery plot' writers, would later revisit some of the scenarios he wrote for the show in Satsujin Trick Gekijou - Nandai Mystery 11 Renpatsu ("Murder Trick Theater - 11 Difficult Mysteries", 1996). The concept of this book is quite interesting. On one hand, it is a book for fans of the original Magical Zunou Power!! corner: Shinpo gives us a glimpse behind the scenes of the Magical Mystery Theater segment, describing what they were going for, how ideas would be discarded and how the segment eventually was cancelled. The eleven stories featured in this pocket are also all followed by an essay on the specific story, noting when the corresponding Magical Mystery Theater segment was broadcast, reception on the quiz, the creative process behind the story/trick etc and what authors/works he drew inspiration from for the trick. This makes this book very informative also for mystery authors I think, as you get an idea of how a mystery writer might develop an idea seen in work X into a different idea, but with the same "foundation."

On the other hand, the eleven stories in this volume are also decidedly not Magical Mystery Theater stories... because obviously, Shinpo doesn't own the show and the characters created for that show. Because of that, he has rewritten all these scenarios with new characters, as well as sometimes changing the plot/trick/clues to accomodate for the book format. It's not the detective Nakatani nor his niece Natsuko who stars in these stories, but we mostly follow Yukiko and Fuyumi, two friends who after graduating haven't quite decided what to with their lives, and so Fuyumi suggest they become detectives, much to Yukiko's shock. They apply at the agency of the detective Mei, but while they don't get hired, they remain on friendly terms with him, occasionally getting him involved in the incidents they end up in, or vice-versa. One important thing to note is that this book also features many original illustrations by Noma Miyuki, the creator of the extremely long-running mystery manga Puzzle Game ☆ High School. They really add a lot of character to this book, especially as it's not 'just' character art, but also depictions of scenes from the stories etc.

Ultimately, these stories were created to be quizzes, so they are by design very straightforward and simple, usually only utilizing one single idea. The book acually retains the "Brain Power" concept of the original show, with each story being worth a number of points, and there's usually also a story section before the solution, that is considered optional: you can skip it to get a high score, or read it to be pushed in the right direction. Note that this optional section isn't just a list of hints, it's a proper part of the story with dialogue and sometimes even story developments.  But because many of them are really just single-idea concepts that you may have seen elsewhere already, I am not going to discuss each story this time.

The first story, Hito wo Kuu Heya ("The Room That Eats People") is the story that first made me aware of this book: it was mentioned in a mook on locked room murder mysteries edited by Arisugawa, being mentioned in a long list of recommended short locked room/impossible crime stories. In this story, we first see Fuyumi and Natsuko visit the detective agency of Mei, who decides to test the two girls with an excercise in a stake-out. He puts his assistant Dan in a room, and tells Yukiko and Fuyumi to keep an eye on the room, making sure his assistant doesn't escape. Fuyuko is told to watch the door from the corridor, while Yukiko is brought outside and told to watch the window from the street. After a hour, the two are to swap places, and after another hour, Yukiko is to enter the room and apprehend Dan. The two girls do as told, and two hours pass by without anything suspicious happening in the room. But when Yukiko enters the room, she finds the room empty. How did Dan escape? The trick behind Dan disappearing from a room under observation is pretty simple and it's likely you will have seen a variation of the same idea before, but Shinpo does a great job at planting the clues that point to that solution, and I would have loved to have seen the Magical Mystery Theater segment. In the essay, Shinpo mentions how Miyabe Miyuki told him how she really liked the tale, only for Shinpo to reveal he actually got the idea from a Miyabe story, transforming it in a way so even she herself didn't recognize it!

In Shide no Tabi ni mo Kinen Satsuei ("Taking Photographs Even When On Your Way to the Afterlife"), the comedian Hashiba Kenzou wants Mei to help him, because he received a letter from an unknown sender, saying "she wants to return her key, but also talk with him on the 7th, when he's filming at a cliff: Hashiba suspects it's one of his three exes with a key to his apartment, but he finds the letter very creepy, especially as she apparently knows his work schedule and wants to meet him at a cliff. Mei declines the job because he is not a bodyguard, nor does he like the playboy comedian, but then Hashiba is indeed murdered, having been pushed off the cliff.  Miraculously, someone managed to take a picture of Hashiba as he was falling, which provides a vital clue to finding out which of three women pushed him, but how? Once again, the solution is very simple, but I love how it does make very good use of the original visual format: while the illustration by Noma does wonders to support this story in the novel format, I imagine it would have felt more intuitive as an acted segment on Magical Mystery Theater.

In Totemi Kimyou na Yuukai ("A Very Curious Abduction"), Mei tells Fuyumi the tale of the abduction of Yuuka, the daughter of a client, with whom he often played shogi. Mei was present when the father received the call, instructing him to go to a coin locker at the station with a stash of money. Mei is sent instead, and in the coin locker, he receives further instructions to make a phone call to a certain number from the public payphone in a nearby park. The number given goes to Osaka, but the man answering the call says that while he does know Yuuka, he doesn't know anything about an abduction. Because of that, the money deal with the kidnapper seems to have failed, and Yuuka is soon found murdered in a nearby park. Police investigation show that the man answering the phone call in fact did have a perfect alibi for killing Yuuka, but how could have kidnapped Yuuka and killed her in Tokyo, if he answered a phone call in Osaka? The trick itself I find remarkable because it is so much a trick that only works in the period this story was created: it wouldn't fly at all now, because society has changed so much and we don't use certain things anymore. But that is why I really liked this story: it is a simple, but clever trick, but it would also be very understandable to people who don't have any interest in mystery fiction, because it used an object people would know in the nineties in an original manner, but also a manner which would make you go "Aha!" because it's actually so simple. There are a few other stories that have a similar vibe, using everyday life objects/customs of the early nineties which feel out-of-date/not obvious anymore, like in Satsujin yo, Kinou ni Kaere ("Murder, Go Back to Yesterday"), where an alibi is shot down by pointing out a certain object isn't where it should be, but which nobody in Japan nowadays would really think of.

Satsujin Trick Gekijou isn't really a must-read for mystery fans, though I would definitely recommend it to those who used to watch Magical Zunou Power!! as the behind-the-scenes essays are really interesting (and I say that as someone who hadn't even seen the show!). And of course, I do have an interest in mystery shows that are formally divided in problem and solution sections, so being able to experience the show in some manner, even if in a different format, is something I appreciate a lot. While most of the stories in this book are very simple, focusing on single-idea tricks that you likely have seen in other mystery-themed quizzes, or other mystery stories already, I find the presentation of this book very consistent: Noma Miyuki's illustrations do some of the lifting, but Shinpo's writing is easy, and while the main tricks are pretty simple overall, he does a very consistent job of properly clewing everything, making these stories a bit more involving than just single-concept mystery quizzes. 

Original Japanese title(s): 新保博久『殺人トリック劇場　難題ミステリー11連発』

Accident by Design

Firmitas, utilitas et venustas 

"De architectura"  

 

Firmness, commidity and delight 

"On Architecture"

I wanted to say it'd be cool to have a mystery set in an Escher building, but then I remembered I already read one....

Kenchiku Shizai (2001), which also carries the English title The Builded Dead on the cover, is the 11th winner of the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award and is the "professional" debut of author Monzen Noriyuki, though he had previously self-published a different novel (interestingly enough, that book got a professional release later on). Monzen studied architecture in university, which is all too clear in his debut novel, which originally was sent in to the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award committee under the title The Building That Eats People. The book is narrated by Miyamura Tatsuya, a man in his thirties who's having a long holiday in Nagoya: after attending to a friend's wedding there, he decided to stay at his uncle and aunt's place, which is also an udon restaurant. His cousin Yuuichi is still in high school and (should be) studying for his university entrance exams, which explains why he is still up late at night. One evening, Yuuichi spots a light source moving about on one of the floors of the construction site across the street: a large new building is being erected there, but work has been paused for a few days due to the obon holiday season. His childhood friend Momose, whose father is a subcontractor for the construction site and working in their own workshop to meet a deadline, also sees the light. The two keep an eye on the building, and eventually confide to Tatsuya about the intruder. They decide to sneak inside the construction site to see what's happening. Fortunately, all the foundational work is already done, with the load-bearing walls/support pillars and the stairs finished, allowing them to move about relatively safely. They spot a shadowy figure and chase them into a meeting room on the second floor, but the figure locks the door behind them. Momose is sent to watch the windows outside, while Tatsuya and Yuuichi try to get into the room, which they eventually do by breaking through one of the non-bearing walls. However, they find nobody inside, and the windows are locked from the inside. The trio are puzzled by the disappearance of the figure, and Yuuichi and Momose stay up all night to see if they can spot the figure escaping the site, but it appears the shadow has really just disappeared into thin air.

The following day, they contact Kumote, the on-site supervisor, as he's the only one in authority whom Yuuichi knows the address of, and who hasn't gone somewhere travelling during the holiday season. They have another look in the half-finished building together, while Yuuichi explains what happened the previous night, and suggesting the figure might have hidden themselves inside the walls, but Kumote explains the process of constructing the various walls in the building and how it'd be impossible to either hide into a load-bearing wall, or how they would've instantly spotted someone in one of the non-finished non-bearing walls. The mystery is left unsolved by these men, but then the police becomes involved in a rather surprising manner. The president of the contruction company has gone missing, and the previous day, a cut-off finger had been sent to his home. His secretary is missing too, and one of her body parts was also sent to her home. This also happened to a teacher, who seems to have no connection to the president or the secretary. It also turns out a day worker with no fixed address had sneaked into the construction site on the same night as Yuuichi, Momose and Tatsuya did, hoping to stay in the half-finished building during the holiday, knowing it would be empty. However, he claims he fled the scene when he found three bodies cut up in pieces there, The police suspects those are the bodies of the people they are looking for, but where are the bodies? It seems obvious to assume they are somewhere in the building, but the workers themselves, with their expertise of actually constructing the walls/ceilings/floors seem very sceptical of the possibility of that, as most of the construction involving concrete/mortar was already finished and you'd instantly know if something was 'added' later on. However, when more murders occur at the construction site, it seems clear the building is indeed the crux of this mystery and it is Kumote, with his knowledge of building a house, who tackles this challenge.

A challenge indeed, but not for the reason you might expect at first. The book immediately makes an impression when you open it, as you'll find the volume opens with very detailed floor plans of the five-storey building around which most of the mystery revolves. And while having each floor printed on its own page isn't that uncommon (especially not in Japanese mysteries), the fact each floor is in fact printed on tracing paper is highly unusual! It is here Monzen already shows his familiarity with building design and construction, as tracing paper is used extensively in those fields and it is used here in the book like it is used 'in real life', to show exactly how each of the floors overlap, making you aware of where walls on different floors overlap or not and how corridors/rooms are different between floors. This of course seems to suggest something incredibly clever will be done with this... but I'd say 90% of the justification of this insert, is simply to be authentic, and not per se to faciliate the mystery. Which is a shame, because I was genuinely surprised by these pages when I first opened the book.

In a way, this experience with the very first pages of the book perfectly symbolizes my experience with the whole work. Throughout the book, Monzen really shows he's an expert on the topic of designing and constructing a building and you can feel his enthusiasm throughout the book as he builds the mystery, but it's also his knowledge that really limits the possibilities behind the book. A lot of the mystery revolves around what the murderer did with the three bodies seen by the homeless worker that night: Yuuichi and Momose didn't see anyone carrying three people's worth of body parts out of the building and because the police didn't manage to find the bodies in open spots in the building under construction, the most "mystery-tropey" solution would of course be that the bodies are buried in the walls, but Kumote quickly rejects that possibility by giving lectures on how buildings like these are actually constructed, and with most of the supporting concrete 'parts' of the building set and finished long ago and the non-bearing walls/floors/ceilings simply not lending themselves for hiding spots. Via Kumote, we learn Monzen has obviously given a lot of thought about whether the body-in-the-wall trick could work realistically without anyone noticing, and he gives several detailed reasons why he thinks that's unlikely.

So that leaves the question, where did the bodies in fact go? And how did the dark figure Yuuichi, Momose and Takuya chased, disappear from the locked meeting room? And later in the book, we have another murder on the roof, and all the suspects seem to have a good alibi for this murder, as the time of the crime can be estimated by the fact the murderer left their footprints on a part of the flooring that hadn't set completely yet at that time. While this book thus has as few impossible mysteries (a locked room disappearance even).... I have to admit I basically found all the solutions a bit disappointing. Ironically, this was not because Monzen didn't do his homework on the topic: in fact, it is the exact opposite. He was so thorough in sticking to actual architectural details and realism, the tricks he ends up using just come over as too... plain? While Kenchiku Shizai is definitely a honkaku mystery novel where they talk about locked room mysteries and impossible disappearances and tropes like hiding bodies in the walls, Monzen ends up with far too few options for truly surprising solutions to his own mysteries, and you end up feeling a bit... indifferent to the reveals of what really happened. I can agree his takes would work in real-life at a real construction site, but that doesn't make those solutions really exciting or anything, they just seem like more... realistic and practical versions of tricks I have seen used in more unrealistic, but infinitely more amusing manners, or at least presented with more energy and surprise. I think if you're into architecture, this book can be quite interesting, especially after seeing the more fantastical ways in which buildings are used in Japanese mystery fiction, but for me, it just felt lacking because of the reality.

That said, there are also really brilliant points that help support the mystery. The motive behind the death of one of the victims is really the kind of ideas I love to see in mystery fiction: it strangely fits the realistic angle of Monzen in this book despite also being pretty crazy. The same regarding another late murder: there is a very specific reason for the victim to be found with a knife in his back, which is also brilliantly realistic and at the same time so out-of-there. It's moments like these that really make an impression especially because they make a perversion of the rather realistic look at the construction industry and they really did help elevate my experience with the book.

 On one hand, I can really appreciate the research Monzen poured into this book, and it results in a book that is really educative about how a building is built, knowledge which of course comes in handy in a genre with a lot of quirky buildings with weird gimmicks. But on the other hand, Kenchiku Shizai's main mysteries are all resolved with rather plain solutions because of Monzen is bound by this realism. It's when he dares to go a bit beyond those limits, when the book feels the most memorable. I wouldn't call this book a complete disappointment though. I am aware there are more books with Kumote as the detective (and architecture/building construction as the theme), and I am curious to see what else Monzen can do with his knowledge, so I will probably try more of his books, so I will likely return to him in the future.

Original Japanese title(s): 門前典之『建築屍材』

Deadly Games

"I know what you're thinking, but those silly riddle crimes are a thing of the past, ancient history that's gone now"

"Riddler's Reform" (Batman the Animated Series)

What is it with cats and covers for mystery-related books in Japan... A lot of anthologies with no connecting story/theme seem to default to cats on the cover when in doubt...

After reading the generally excellent Anata mo Meitantei ("What A Great Detective You Are") anthology earlier this year, I went looking for other similar books, and I soon arrived at Kibun wa Meitantei ("Feeling Like the Great Detective"), which features a few of the same authors. The set-up is nearly identical: this is an anthology originally published in 2006, collecting six stories by as many authors. All six stories were originally serialized in 2005 in the tabloid Yukan Fuji and were pure whodunnits, divided in two distinct parts: the first part being the "problem", where the main mystery (usually a murder) is presented along with all the relevant characters and clues and which ends with a formal Challenge to the Reader. Originally, readers would then have some time to write in their answers, with money prizes awaiting the correct guessers. This book notes for each story the percentage of contenders that got the answer right, which can range from as high as nearly 30% to as low as 1%! Interestingly enough, the pocket release of this book includes an interview with the participating authors, but the authors have anonymized in the text, turning this interview into a "guess who is who" game too! Note that while this book features six stories, I will only discuss five of them here: I already discussed Norizuki Rintarou's excellent Hydra Daijuu no Kubi ("The Tenth Head of the Hydra") when it was later collected in the Norizuki collection Hanzai Horoscope 1 - Rokunin no Joou no Mondai ("Horoscope of Crime 1 - The Problem of the Six Queens").

Glass no Ori no Satsujin ("Murder inside a Glass Cage") was written by Arisugawa Alice and is narrated by a private detective who hasn't seen much business lately. That day, he is visited by an old college friend, Saya, who needs his help: she works at a gym and one of the customers has become smitten with her. So much so he's turned into a genuine stalker: first hanging around the gym after closing time to ask her out, but lately he's found out where she lives and has been waiting for her near her home. Saya's attempt to get the police involved ended with a "But he hasn't done anything yet...", so now Saya wants to know who he is exactly and put a stop to it. The plan is for the detective to follow Saya after she's done with work and confront the stalker when he appears. This part of the plan goes well, but the stalker makes a run for it the moment the detective talks to him, resulting in a chase. The detective loses the man, but as he tries to find his way back to Saya, the stalker appears from behind him, and knocks him out. A few minutes later, he's awakened by Saya. They are discussing what had happened, when a policeman arrives, telling them a man has been stabbed nearby and asking whether they saw anyone suspicious. It turns out the man who was stabbed is the stalker, and eventually, he dies. Police investigation however lead to a curious conclusion. The police arrived almost immediately after the deed happened, confirmed by the fact the detective had seen the stalker (was attacked by him) just a few minutes prior. There were basically only four routes away from the crime scene, each leading  in a different direction (a cross). There were people on all four routes: Saya found the detective on one of those routes, the police box was on another, a man who had been locked out by his wife on another and a noodle stand owner on the last. And yet one of them saw anyone come their way. So where did the stabber go? And if one of the witnesses was the stabber, where then did the knife go, as none of them could've gone far enough to dispose of a bloody knife before the patrol officer stopped them. This is a decent, semi-impossible mystery tale (a disappearing weapon from a closed circle), but it is very one-dimensional, in the sense that it basically hinges on one trick. There are a few hints that point to how the murderer managed to spirit away the knife, but I wish there were more 'steps' in the solution, as this is a very simple story indeed.

Choutsugai no Mondai ("The Problem of the Hinge") by Nukui Tokurou is interestingly one of two stories in this collection that revolve around a narrative within a narrative. We first see how the succesful writer and amateur detective Kisshouin is visited by Katsujima, an old friend who now works as a police detective. Katsujima tells Kisshouin about a curious case the police is having trouble with: five bodies were discovered in a rental home in the woods that day. Three of them had obviously been murdered, two of them had died of either an accident or suicide. A diary was also found penned by one of the women: it details how the five, who belonged to an acting troupe, had rented the place to rehearse an upcoming play. On the first night, one of them fell from the stairs and died. They had no reception on their phones in the woods, and the storm outside prevented them from getting help themselves (and unbeknownst to them, the road further down had collapsed due to the storm), so they were forced to stay in the house longer. However, one by one they got murdered, until the diary stopped. Katsujima now wants Kisshouin to figure out who the murderer is: anything that could precisely identify these five people had been disposed of, and the rental home had been rented by someone under a false name,so this indicates the murderer had planned all of this, but which of the five bodies belongs to the murderer?This is an interesting twist on the And Then There Were None formula, with the question shifting from a simple whodunnit, to guessing which of two (dead) persons is the murderer. Like the Arisugawa story, you could argue this too is based very much on one single idea, but I find the idea here developed much better, with far more hints, and also more subtle hints, that permeate the whole diary part of the story, and also using a multi-stage line of reasoning to lead the reader to notice that one important idea. 

Maya Yutaka's Futatsu no Kyouki ("Two Weapons") stars his series detective Kisarazu Yuuya, who is visited by his 'friend' Tsukigase Naoko, who desperately needs help from the great detective.  And she's sure he won't refuse, as he owes her for setting up a date for him in the past, a date that didn't lead to anything, but the date did provide Kisarazu with a clue vital to solving a case he was working on (so Naoko didn't do anything... but he still owes her).  Naoko's brother Hidenori is a suspect in a murder that happened at the university: while he has an alibi for the murder as he was on the phone with Naoko, the police doesn't trust the testimony of family, which irritates Naoko greatly. Hidenori is one of two "over-doctors" (PhDs who can't get employed) belonging to the Miyamiki research lab of the Kyoto University of Science. The people here research nuclear fusion under the guidance of professor Miyamaki, though few people see a future in their specific research theme, which is also why they don't have that big of a budget. Lately, a new assistant's position opened up though, which had two candidates: Hidenori and... the murder victim. On the fateful day, the victim Ookawara Akira was working at the lab on the top floor of the building, when a man with a full-face helmet appeared: this was quite usual actually, as the lab had regular visits of Shimokoma Aisaku, who believed he had made a breakthrough in his research on nuclear fusion, but also feared "organizations" were after him, so he always kept his face hidden. The helmeted person was seen on security footage entering the lab soon after the victim did, and after a minute or so, was seen leaving hastily, and some other people on the floor saw the helmeted person too. However, it turns out this helmeted man was not Shimokoma, as he had been visiting somewhere completely different. When later Hidenori entered the lab, he found Ookawara dead, having been hit hard on the head. The police soon puts one and one together: someone had disguised himself as Shimokoma to hide their face from the security cameras. While the police hasn't made any arrest yet, they do know the murderer is one of the five Miyakami-affiliated researchers/students who had been present on that floor that day, as they were the only ones with a key to the lab. Hidenori's position in particular is not great, as he had the greatest motive for wanting Ookawara out of the way. What makes this mystery even more puzzling, is the fact the disguise and the murder weapon were discovered outside the university, but for some reason the package had two weapons: the wrench actually used to hit Ookawara, but also a knife. Why did the murderer prepare two weapons?

This is a story I like better as a concept, than the actual execution. It is a bit of a tedious read, with all the witnesses stating when and how they saw the helmeted person move around on the floor (there's a floor plan), and it drags a bit because of that (it is also the longest story in the collection). The solution is well-hinted, and I like the conclusion that derives from the fact they discovered two weapons (of which only one was used), but some elements of the solution I did not like because of how this was originally a story published as a competition: sometimes I can accept certain things to happen in a mystery story if it was published "as is", but if it's explicitly published in two parts (problem/solution), and you are challenging people to send in answers/have prizes available for the correct answers, there are some elements I'd like writers to avoid to ensure the story feels fair. Maya isn't being unfair here, but it's not something I particularly like in these kinds of stories.

Juugofunkan no Dekigoto ("It Happened in Fifteen Minutes") by Kirisha Takumi is set on the Shinkansen bullet train back to Tokyo: Mystery screenplay writer Oogami Tsuyoshi had been visiting Kyoto to work on an upcoming script, but is now on his way home to Tokyo. After buying a beer from the purser, he spills the contents on himself, so he moves to the wash corner to clean himself, but he finds a man in a Hawaii shirt leaning over the sink. As the man doesn't move, Oogami touches the man on the shoulder to see if he's okay, but the man tumbles on the floor. The purser arrives and establishes the man has been hit on the head by something hard, as there's a bloody wound there. It turns out the victim had been a nuisance to more than few people: he had been overly rude to the purser, had hit a trainspotter when he got in the way and had even got into a fight with another rider on the train. So there were more than a few people who might have wanted to hit the man in the head, but which of them did it in the mere fifteen minutes after he was last seen? Like the Arisugawa story, this is a whodunnit story that relies on the howdunnit: the victim's wound was clearly afflicted via something hard (so not someone's bare knuckles), but none of the suspects seems to be carrying something on them that could have done that (or at least, not without it leaving a trace on the item in question). The solution is rather simple, and while Kirisha does add a whole extra, very well-established layer of clues to support that solution, it feels uncessary, as you can easily just intuitively guess the whereabouts and identity of the weapon used, especially after another prop has been introduced in the story. So the solution falls a bit flat, partially because it feels very similar to the Arisugawa story.

Abiko Takemaru's Hyouryuusha ("Castaway") has the most interesting set-up of all the stories found in this collection. A man, wearing a life preserver, is found floating near the shore of an island, with a dinghy floating nearby. The man is pulled on shore by a local and a tourist. The man is alive, but seems to be suffering from amnesia: he can't remember who he is and what he's doing there. They find what appear to be diary pages wrapped safely in plastic hidden inside his life preserver. The pages are apparently written by a manager of the young idols/actresses/singers Saori and Yuuka. The two young women were "cordially invited" to join a small party held on the private island of the entertainment agency's president, accompanied by an influential television producer. However, the true intention of the "party" was so have these girls "offered" to the powerful industry men to "help their career". The manager knew this was going to happen and wanted to prevent this: while Yuuka seemed to be aware of what was going to happen and seem resigned to this, Saori was completely oblivious to what was awaiting her. All the people on the island had their own cabin to sleep in, but it was made clear to the girls they were supposed to be going to the producer and the president's cabins that first night. The manager kept an eye on things, and made sure Saori did not leave her cabin that night. However, the following day the president was found murdered in his cabin. Luck has it the ship's engine broke down too and there are no ways to communicate with the mainland. The diary tells of more deaths occuring after the first one, but that leads to the question: who is the man who was found in the sea and what happened to the rest of the people on the private island? I found this the most memorable story in the volume. It is somewhat similar to Nukui's story, with a story-within-a-story narrative and the problem requring you to deduce something more than just a one-stage "whodunnit": in this case, you are required to figure out who committed the murder(s) on the island, but also who the castaway is. While the reader will go a long way if they deduce a certain fact regarding the murderer, something which might be a bit easy due to the fact the main clue that points to that fact is inserted rather crudely in the story, this is generally a fun multi-layered mystery.

While I think the anthology I read earlier this year was overall better than this book, Kibun wa Meitantei is still generally a very solid whodunnit anthology. I like how there's quite some variety in these stories, from classic closed circle stories like the one by Maya, to more urban settings in Norizuki and Arisugawa's contributions, to meta-mysteries with a narrative-within-narrative shenanigans by Abiko and Nukui. I think I like the Abiko story the best out of the five I read this time (having skipped Norizuki's story this time). I will remain a fan of these pure whodunnit stories though, with clearly defined problem/solution parts, so I'll be sure to check more of these in the future too.

Original Japanese title(s): 『気分は名探偵』: 有栖川有栖「ガラスの檻の殺人」/貫井徳郎「蝶番の問題」/麻耶雄嵩　「二つの凶器」/霧舎巧　「十五分間の出来事」我孫子武丸「漂流者」/法月綸太郎「ヒュドラ第十の首」

Diagnosis of Murder

Primum non nocere

First, do not harm

I like the style of the illustrations on this cover, though I wish it was a bit more obvious which character is supposed to be who in the book. And before I had a good look at the cover at full size, I only knew it from a small thumbnail, and I thought the art would be similar to Tezuka Osamu's art, which... isn't really the case now I see it at full size.

EDS Kinkyuu Suiri Kaiketsuin, which also has the English title EDS Emergency Detective Services on the cover, is a rather interesting anthology of mystery writers, all using the same original setting: in the near future, Japan has erected the Emergency Detective Services, which functions like the emergency department of a hospital: people with medical emergencies that require a detective are brought here. The hospital has a large of number of specialist departments, from doctors handling children and animals to specialists who 'cure' impossible crimes and other curious mysteries. The doctors at this hospital are referred to Holmeses, while their assistants are called Watsons. This book contains stories by Ishimochi Asami, Kagami Masayuki, Kuroda Kenji, Komori Kentarou, Takada Takafumi, Tsukatou Hajime, Torikai Hiu, Matsuo Yumi and Nikaidou Reito, who is likely the planner of this large project as he also wrote the preface. All the stories in this book are set on the same day (the twenty-fourth of December), and each of these writers takes on one of the many departments of the EDS. Have a look at this hospital, where for some characters it's just another day at work, while for others it's a literal matter of life of death.

I first learned about the existence of this volume when I read The Uncollected Stories of Masayuki Kagami, which ironically included Kagami Masayuki's contribution to this volume, The Uncanny Deductions Department (which I won't discuss here, as I refer to that review for my thoughts on it). I say ironically, because obviously, his story was already collected in EDS Kinkyuu Suiri Kaiketsuin. Anyway, I wasn't aware of it at the time, but later I learned Kagami's story was just of many set at the EDS. Which also brings me to one other point I wanted to discuss before moving on to the individual departments/stories. When I read Kagami's story, I noticed how the scenes were all time-stamped, to give you a feeling of the "emergency" going in, but it actually had another function. While Kinkyuu Suiri Kaiketsuin features nine authors, writing about ten different departments, the stories are all set on the same day in the same hospital... so they decided to put all the scenes of all the stories in chronological order. So you are not reading story 1, and then story 2, and story 3, but it's scene 1 of story 1, then scene 1 of story 5, then scene 1 of story 4, etc. You are constantly jumping between stories, and while there are moments this feeling of "real-time"-ness is used for example for cameos between the stories, it's not actually necessary to read these stories like this: to be honest, they read a lot easier as seperate stories, instead of constantly being interrupted by other stories, so if you want to, you could just as well just read all the stories individually. The book's formatting and design is done really well by the way, with "tabs" on the edge of the page like it were a file folder, marking each department/story, so you can easily skip to the next part ("tab") of the story you want to read. 

Ishimochi Asami's story is set in the Inchoushitsu  ("Director's Office"), where the director of the EDS is visited by Minai Nanase, whose father used to work in the Poison Department of the EDS, until he died under mysterious circumstances last year: a John Doe who appeared to have been in a fire was brought in one night, but there were too few staff that night: the triage Watson couldn't find the right "Holmes" (specialist) to help the man, until the Holmes Minai happened to pass by and decided he'd try his hand. They failed in saving their patient, unfortunately, and later on the Holmes Minai summoned the Watson in charge to his office. Yelling and fighting followed, and when other people entered the office, they found both men dead: the Watson had been stabbed with a pair of scissors, which were being held by the dead Minai, who had apparently hit his head on the corner of a desk. It appeared Minai had stabbed the Watson, only to be pushed away himself, hitting his head on the desk fatally. The whole deal was hushed up, but now daughter Nanase has returned, demanding to know the real truth, because she can't believe her father would have killed the Watson for whatever reason. She threatens the director by showing she has planted a camera on Sayuri, the young daughter of the chief receptionist, who always at the hospital. Nanase has gifted Sayuri a Santa hat (with camera) and a bag with something that might "go off" if Nanase clicks her pen, forcing the director to give her all the infomation about the death of her father, hoping to clear his name. This is a pretty thrilling story playing out in the director's office, even though nobody in the hospital itself knows what is going there. The mystery regarding why Minai and the Watson ended up dead last year is pretty good, with subtle clues pointing to a well-hidden explanation for why the two men ended up fighting and killing each other. This story by the way also mentions a Holmes called Ukai, who hails from Ikagawa City... Author Ishimochi debuted together with Higashigawa Tokuya via publisher Kobunsha's Kappa-One program, which is why they know each other pretty well, and probably why Ishimochi decided to insert a cameo of Higashigawa's character here.

Nikaidou Reito is responsibile for two storylines, but both of them are very light. The Uketsuke ("Reception") story features more like intermezzos between the various stories, featuring cameos of characters from all the stories. The Shouni Suirika ("Children's Deductions Department") story stars six-year old Shibugaki, a guest Holmes who narrates like he's a hardboiled detective. He solves a few minor mysteries fellow children bring him, and the main mystery for him revolves around two children who have an argument about a place both of them supposedly visited, both calling the other a liar. The solution is basically just a trivia thing, so not really interesting as a puzzle.

Kuroda Kenji's Sports Suirika ("Sports Deductions Department") has a far more interesting puzzle. Banba, A father who coaches his own son, a promising swimming athlete, has a rather unique problem. His son is always losing to Hino Shouta, so Banba decided to adminster doping to Hino, in the hopes of getting him disqualified. Banba knew Hino's diet is closely monitered and that he always has to drink a certain energy drink before going in the pool, so his plan involved administering a forbidden drug in one of his drinks. Hino receives a month's supply each month, and is of course quite protective of his energy drink, but last month, Hino, Banba's son and other swimmers were all training together at a facility, and Banba found an opportunity to sneak into Hino's room, where he had stashed his newly delivered supply of his drinks. Banba had prepared a special gadget which allowed him to reseal a bottle, making it impossible for anyone to see the difference between an originally-sealed bottle, and the one he opened. And indeed, Hino broke a swimming record when the big competition came around, so everything seemed to go according to plan. Until... Banba heard no news of Hino being caught for doping. Was everyone covering up for Hino? Banba thus wants the Holmes to how Hino could've used Banba's doped drink without being caught, as he is absolutely sure Hino couldn't have known he had been doped. An interesting puzzle of the kind you don't often see in mystery fiction (a doped drink, i.e. not poison) and I also really like the way Kuroda used a hidden fact, which you can deduce based on the hints, to explain what happened to Banba's doped drink and how it was used by Hino. I'm always a fan of these kinds of stories, where you don't deduce the "main" mystery straight on, but it becomes a two-level type of mystery. 

Takada Takafumi's story is set at the Rekishi Suirika ("Historical Deductions Department"), fitting as Takada's mainly known for his Q.E.D. historical mystery novels. This story revolves around a dying message, where the victim was holding on to a page from a Japanese historical poem, which should point to one of three suspects for the murder. Like all good dying message stories, this story points at several possible interpretations of the message, all pointing to different suspects, until the Holmes comes with the correct solution, but this story does what is always risky with dying message stories: the final, correct solution fails to be really convincing as the final one, as in, it fails in convincing the reader this last solution is the actual correct interpretation and that the others are wrong. In reality, the 'wrong' possibilities feel as valid as the real one, which undermines the whole dying message.

Another disappointment for me was Torikai Hiu's Doubutsu Suirika ("The Animal Deductions Department"), where the Holmes is asked to save a dog who was poisoned, the third victim in a series of dog violence, one of them even fatal. The story is basically a missing link story (why is someone targetting these dogs?), but the solution is not really surprising or entertaining as mystery fiction, with the link feeling somewhat out of place and also over-telegraphed. This idea would perhaps have fared better if this was only the first part of a mystery, with more building on it/as part of a larger narrative. But on its own, it feels underwhelming.

Komori Kentarou's Gaikokujin Suirika ("Foreigner Deductions Department") deals with mysteries involving foreigners, with specialists from various cultures present. In this story, a Japanese man is accussed of the murder on his American wife Lucy, who was set to inherit her father's business, which would have greatly upset her father's business partner. Husband was working on the building project America Village in D City, with the husband acting as a liason for the city as he speaks English. Lucy was visiting Japan for the first time and after staying at her brother and sister-in-laws, she was given a ticket on the express train to Osaka to reunite with her husband. However, she did not arrive by the express train she was given tickets for, and the following day, she was found murdered near the hotel of the husband. The husband had since said a few things that seemed to indicate he knew more about her death than he was willing to admit, which has made him the prime suspect in the murder, even though Lucy's father's business partner, who was also in Japan, had a good motive for wanting Lucy dead, even though he has a perfect alibi for when Lucy would've arrived in Osaka. This story has both brilliant ideas, and very wrong concepts. The book presents great reasons for why the husband's a suspect, and these reasons are closely related to the mystery genre, as it involves linguistic misdirection (only in this case, it was the husband who accidentally said something that put suspicion on him), but then the trick behind the 'alibi trick' behind Lucy's death follows, which is a bit troublesome. For there's a brilliant piece of misdirection, one I truly love and which I think is incredibly well thought of, but it is immediately followed by an idea that hinges on a complete misunderstanding on the part of author Komori about how a certain thing works, and it makes the whole deal fail. For that... is not how it works. So that trick wouldn't work. Which is a shame, for the first part of the idea is really good and a good example of the mystery trick based on cultural differences.

Tsukatou Hajime's Fukanou Suirika ("Impossible Deductions Department") starts when two men are brought in: one is unconscious, the other has been strangled to death and in such a strong manner hand marks can still be seen around the throat of the victim. It turns out both men were found in the same storehouse, which was locked from the inside and the only key was also found inside. This seems to point to the unconscious man (Rokujou Eiichi) as the strangler of the other man. The Rokujous are a fashion mongul led by Eiichi's father, and the victim was a freelance writer who was visiting the Rokujous to interview them on the upcoming fashion show. Both Eiichi and the victim had vanished from the sights of the other people in the house after a fight, until they were found in the locked storehouse, one of them dead. Eiichi's brother however doesn't believe his brother killed the man, despite the fact the only key was found inside the locked storehouse and the victim clearly having been strangled by hand only shortly before he was discovered in the locked storehouse. This is a mechanical locked room as we have come to expect from Tsukatou, though I wouldn't consider it one of his best. While he sketches an interesting problem with a locked room murder trick that involves strangling, the solution to the locked room is rather simplistic, and you'd wonder whether it'd really fool the police for long as it seems a bit unbelievable it would work the way it is described here. So not one of my favorite Tsukatou tales.

Matsuo Yumi's Joseika ("Women's Deductions Department") has one of the more interesting stories in the tale: Migishi, the Holmes of this department, is visited by a pregnant woman who comes with a strange tale. Last week, the client, who will soon give birth to her first baby, was on her way to the Q University Hospital when she noticed a new gynecology clinic had opened nearby. As the place was less crowded than Q University Hospital, she decided to have her check-up there, and she was quite pleased with how things went, so today (two weeks later), she visited again, only to find the place was closed and everything had been removed, and there wasn't even a notice or anything explaining why it had closed. It is odd a clinic would close so suddenly, so Migishi takes the case, planning to call some acquintances in the medical world to see if they heard about anything about this, but to her surprise another client arrives directly after the first left, with the exact same story. What happened to this gynecology clinic to have it disappear so suddenly? While this is a variation on a well-known type of mystery story, I think Matsuo did a great job at spinning this into her own original version and at the same time, working this into the EDS theme of the Emergency Detective Services being a hospital too. To be honest, a lot of the other stories do extremely little with the hospital theme, so this one really stands out, which is surprising to me, as this was the one author I hadn't read yet before! I guess it helps Matsuo is best known for her Balloon Town series, about a town where only pregnant women live...

EDS Kinkyuu Suiri Kaiketsuin is a book that has a cool premise and few cool ideas, but it is definitely not a work where the total is greater than the sum of things. Not all writers truly make use of the unique EDS setting besides scenes of people being brought into the hospital, and while the intermezzos do their best to glue the stories together, as well as the device of having all the scenes of all stories printed chronologically, it often doesn't really feel like one coherent work of fiction. Having more of a running thread between all of them would have helped, or using a smaller cast and having Holmeses appear more prominently in each other's stories. Some of the stories are good mystery stories on their own, and others simply don't know what to do with the (relatively) little amount of pages each story gets alloted to them. So not a must-read as a whole, though some of the stories are worth a read.

Original Japanese title(s): 石持浅海、加賀美雅之、黒田研二、小森健太郎、高田崇史、柄刀一、鳥飼否宇、 二階堂黎人、松尾由美『EDS 緊急推理解決院』