The Sign of the Twisted Candles

A white flame still enveloped the building like a shroud, and, streaming far away into the quiet atmosphere, shot forth a glare of preternatural light;

"Metzengerstein" 

As I also mention below, I happened to have visited Kyoto just before reading this book. Hadn't been there for over a decade, but it was interesting to see how... little had actually changed. 

High school student Sanada Amane won a contest which got her ticket on a special try-out tour of the soon-to-be-opened space station hotel Stardust, a new step in the world of budget space tourism. A series of murders happened in the space hotel during their stay, but Amane survived the ordeal and on her way back to Earth, she made a live-stream of herself playing Queen's Don't Stop Me Now on the keyboard. For Amane, this was her goal all along: she was trying to reach out to a friend, who had gone missing for over a year now: a live-stream from space might attract her friend's attention, especially when playing a song which held a certain meaning to the both of them. But after her return to Earth, it was not a warm reunion with her friend that awaited her: Amane had become the target of internet rage. People were stunned by the complete lack of respect she showed by trying to win internet credits,  while people had been murdered on the station. The comments on her stream soon turned to flaming and also started to shift to Amane's hometown, Kyoto, as was her haughty attitude and complete disregard for her fellow man not exactly what people had come to expect from those who hail from the ancient capital of Japan? Media of course had a field day with Amane, and influencers, hoping to attract more viewers and controversy, even hang around Amane's school, trying to bait her into engaging with them. 

The school tries its best to protect Amane and the rest of its students from the unwanted attention, and they direct Amane to the Kyoto Support Foundation, a group specializing in assisting "offenders" and their family in dealing with the reactions to their actions: for yes, Amane is seen as the "initial offender", but the backlash to her actions is way out of proportion and there is fear even her family will become targets themselves of all the bashing. Fujishiro Miyako of the foundation sets out a strategy for Amane to avoid most of the bashing and to protect her family. As she interacts with the people of the Foundation, she learns Touko, the friend she has been looking for, had actually been receiving help from the Foundation too: it turns out her father is involved with a pyramid scheme. Mei, a friend of Isesaki Nanatsu, has been looking for her friend too, and it turns out Nanatsu and Touko both disappeared around the same time and that they knew each other via the Foundation. Meanwhile, Amane has left her live-stream online in the hopes of getting a comment from Touko, but amidst all the bashing aimed at her and all the people of Kyoto, she notices a strange message:"First Kinkakuji Temple will burn." A strange sensation sends Amane to the famous temple, and just as she walks on the grounds, the temple catches fire. Amidst the chaos, she notices someone resembling Touko. Has Touko set fire to this symbol of Kyoto? What is her goal? That is the great mystery of Momono Zappa's 2024 novel Rousoku wa Moeteiruka, or as the cover also says: Is the Candle Burning?

 Rousoku wa Moeteiruka is the direct sequel to 2023's Hoshikuzu no Satsujin, which I reviewed a few months ago. And I have to admit, I have seldom experienced such a tonal shift in the same series. The first book is set in space in the very near future, where budget space tourism had become available. The space station served as an original closed circle situation while not feeling too futuristic, and the result was an engaging mystery with an original first murder. Its sequel however not only focuses on a different protagonist, it is also set in a very realistic Kyoto, and the mystery itself is also far more grounded in reality, so no "how could a man hang himself in a zero-G environment" premises. In fact, while people do die in this novel, most of the deaths occuring in this book are results of people caught in the fires (yes, plural), and there's generally not really a mystery of how the fires are started. So as a mystery, it starts out much vaguer, instead focusing more on the live of Amane: a girl who is seen as an instigator and whom everyone has a beef with, suddenly accosting her on the street to accuse of her everything wicked just because she made a live-stream, and because of the way she handles everything with a very Kyotoite-esque attitude, sparks are also directed to the local people of Kyoto. As a human drama, the story does give you some food for thought about how people, especially in a society like that of Japan, like to pile on top of "offenders" (in the very broad definition of the word) and like to show their superiority over them by bashing and condmening the offenders and their family in the oblivion.

So in a way, it might not even be surprising there's someone, singular or plural, who is starting to burn down all the famous locations in Kyoto, each time announcing their target in the comments to Amane's live-stream. It starts with the Kinkakuji and Ginkakuji Temples, but more follow, sending Kyoto into a mood of fear, as Kyoto happens to be full of touristic hotspots and nobody can tell what the next target will be. Amane however happens to spot someone who looks like Touko at every crime site, and she soon suspects Touko might be involved in the fires, but how, and why? And that is indeed the crux of this book's mystery: it is mostly a whydunnit Why is someone burning down famous locations in Kyoto, and why is Touko there every time? This mystery is interwoven well with the aforementioned focus on the human drama and the discussion regarding the 'sense of social justice towards offenders and their family'. While this is definitely not the kind of mystery I usually read, and I still find it surprising how such a grounded, realistic story serves as the sequel to a "murder... in space!" type of mystery, I do think this is a well-constructed story, where the core mystery might be a bit simple, but still quite captivating, because we do want to see Amane have her happy ending, or at least, have a somewhat tolerable conclusion to her experience.

This book oozes Kyoto by the way: many, many places are visited throughout the tale, from the more famous places to less famous ones, and the depiction of the locations and how they are connected to each other is great, and there's also a lot of focus on the cultural aspect too (like the stereotype of a Kyotoite and how neighboring prefectures look at Kyoto). I happened to have gone to Kyoto about two weeks before reading this book and it was pretty funny to see how a famous Japanese sweets shop I visited for the first time then, was also featured in the tale for a bit (Demachi Futaba). In fact, I was only in Kyoto for about a day, and I wasn't even touristing (I already did that when I actually lived there over a decade ago!), but even still, a lot of the places I passed through that day were also featured in the book, simply by virtue of it being a very realistic depiction of the city. So it's definitely a recommendation if you want to steep yourself in Kyoto atmosphere. 

I have to admit that I was a bit unsure initially about Rousoku wa Moeteiruka: I liked Hoshikuzu no Satsujin because of its (nearby) sci-fi setting, and Momono's first book, Rouko Zanmu, was also super memorable because it was a wuxia-themed mystery novel. Rousoku wa Moeteiruka in comparison feels drearily real, focusing on a girl who accidentally causes an online uproar and then gets caught in a series of arson in Kyoto. But as a realistic human drama focused mystery set in Kyoto, somewhat similar to a story you'd might expect from Higashino Keigo, it's quite entertaining and I'd definitely recommend it to those who are into the city of Kyoto. 

Original Japanese title(s): 桃野雑派『蝋燭は燃えているか』