Nightfright

She said, 'Some of the people I call on seem to curl up their toes and pass out just from having one look at me.' She laughed about it and said it was a coincidence.
"The Pale Horse"

Today: a book that is mystery-wise not particularly memorable, but still a book I enjoyed a lot.

The students Mari and Sonoko are driving through a typhoon, on their way to the second house of Minori Kazunori, professor in American literature at their M University. Sonoko has had her eye on the handsome and very rich professor since forever, and the fact he's married, means nothing to her: she plans to have an affair with him, and have him divorce his wife eventually. He's been evading Sonoko's approaches for so long, Mari is rather surprised when this morning, Sonoko calls Mari out of bed with urgent news: apparently, the professor has finally given in to his urges. Professor "Kazu" owns a second house on a mountain on A Plains, near Sonoko's home town, and when she called Kazu this morning, she was told his wife would leave the house for a week later today, and Sonoko could come and stay there. Sonoko has no car of her own, so now she's on the phone to beg for a lift from Mari, who very reluctantly agrees to accompany Sonoko. But not for the reason you'd think: it turns out Mari is having an affair with Kazu for some time now, so why has Kazu now chosen for Sonoko!? Mari agrees to go along with Sonoko (to spring a surprise on Kazu) and together, they hop in Mari's car. When they arrive at the house however, they are surprised by the person answering the door: the young man they don't know seems as surprised as them. He explains he's a student of M University too, and that he was hired to watch the house for a week: he was picked up by the professor's wife earlier today and she drove off again, though she didn't explain where she was going, where the professor was and when she'd be back exactly. Sonoko is baffled, because this wasn't how things were to go: she was going to have her special night with Kazu! But as they are wondering what's going on, more people arrive at the house: first a police detective arrives at the scene, who explains he visited the hotel at the top of the mountain in relation to a case, but on his way back to town, he found the road further down the mountain collapsed due to the typhoon, so now he's stuck. He borrows the phone to call his boss and asks for permission to stay at the hotel back up the mountain, but then a family of three (a couple and the elderly father of the wife) arrive at the house too, who tell them the road further up the mountain, to the hotel has collapsed too. When later the hotel shuttle bus driver arrives at the house too, the party is complete: everyone is stuck in this house until the road's been restored. They divide the rooms among each other (Mari of course sleeps with Sonoko) and after dinner, some of them retreat to their rooms, while others hang out in the living room watching television. However, a very unfortunate chain of incidents leads to.... Mari killing six people one after another in the house. While it was certainly not intended, everyone besides Sonoko ends up killed by Mari (and some in rather gruesome manners). Mari is naturally in complete shock and returns to their room to wake up Sonoko, but it is then Mari discovers... Sonoko has also been murdered! A heavy vase was dropped on her head, and for some reason, her hair had been cut short. While a broken window seems to indicate the murderer came from outside, the fact they're completely shut-off from the outside world, quickly points Mari to one conclusion: one of the six people Mari just killed, must have killed Sonoko earlier! This quickly leads to Mari's one plan for salvation: Mari will make it seem the killer of Sonoko killed Sonoko and the rest, and set things up so it'll appear like then the killer was killed by Mari in self-defence. But in order to do that, Mari must figure out who killed Sonoko in Nishizawa Yasuhiko's Satsui no Tsudou Yoru ("The Night Murderous Intent Gathered", 1996).

I don't always remember where I first learned about a book, but I certainly remember where I first heard about this book: I read this book in August 2024, and a few weeks earlier, the book had been trending on Japanese social media, despite it being a rather old book. The reason is simple: the blurb was just so silly: how does Mari accidentally kill no less than six people!? For that is the honest truth: while Mari in some cases did act in self-defence, most killings were really just... unintended outcomes of sudden movements. The book is actually really funny, even though it is not written in an overt "comedic" manner: the way everything happens is just silly. From Mari "accidentally" doing a multi-kill combo to Sonoko just openly trying to seduce a professor to it turning out that professor is actually having an affair with Mari and Mari constantly bad-mouthing Sonoko both in front of her and behind her back... the characters are over-the-top, and act very comedic, even though the book's tone seems more serious.

The "intention" to be serious can also be seen in a secondary storyline, which follows the police detective Mimoro Katsuya (a co-worker of the police detective who ends up at the house): he's been working on the case of a killer with necrophilic tendencies who's been killing attractive women. During his investigation, he interviewed Kose Tomoe, and the woman has been on his mind since then. After some drinking in the earliest hours of the morning (on the same day as the main plot), he ends up in front of her apartment building and makes his way to her room; an impulse he knows is wrong, but he can't help it. He finds her door not locked and sneaks inside, only to see Kose having sex with a man... but then the man strangles her to death. Mimoro doesn't know what to do: while he wants to help her, he also knows that there's no way he can explain how he came here, sneaking like a stalker into the apartment of a woman he only interviewed once. He flees and several hours later, he's called by his boss who informs him of the murder, but to his great surprise, there's another dead woman lying in the apartment now, and the scene is set to make it appear like that woman killed Tomoe and then committed suicide. Mimoro is the only one who knows that isn't the truth, but can't of course explain he was actually witness to the murder. He tries to find out who the man was who killed Tomoe, which brings him on a curious trail that leads him to a house on the mountains in A Plain....

So the second storyline involves a serial killer of women, and we hear about some other odd cases that have been going on in the region, like a killer of children. In general, these chapters are a bit shorter, and feature a very flawed narrator: Mimoro clearly has stalkery tendencies and is even jealous of the man who killed Tomoe, as he felt somehow disgusted and disillusioned with Tomoe when he saw her having sex with another man. Despite that, he's still trying to do his job and find the killer, and part of the mystery of course revolves around finding out how this plotline relates to the story set at the mountain villa of professor "Kazu".

As you can guess, Satsui no Tsudou Yoru reads more like a thriller than a pure puzzler, though Mari does show off some not particularly memorable, but at the very least, still "logic-based" deductions regarding who could've killed Sonoko (with Mari's own killing spree functioning as an important event to determine where everybody was at a certain time). Ultimately though, this is not a fair-play whodunnit, and a lot of the mystery revolves just around seeing how we learn how several strands of plotlines turn out to be connected by... sheer coincidence. Coincidence is a strange thing in mystery fiction (ha! See this review for example), but as this book is just a thriller, I didn't mind the humongous pile of coincidences at work here: the result is just something so silly, it becomes good. I do like the ultimate manner in which the two plotlines of Mari in the house and the investigation of Mimoro connect, as that was the one thing I really didn't see coming, and there were other interesting hidden parts of the mystery that made an impression on me as they were revealed, and while I doubt many readers would actually have been capable of deducing those parts based on the clues, I can't help but admit Satsui no Tsudou Yoru was just hugely entertaining in its... unreserved manner to present such a ridiculous story, with a straight face.

It's funny though... Nishizawa Yasuhiko is best known for his mysteries with a supernatural setting, from people stuck in timeloops to supernatural abilities to push people to think. This is the first time I read a book by him that does not feature a supernatural/sci-fi element and in a way, it ends up the least realistic one because it's so deliciously silly.

Satsui no Tsudou Yoru is no masterpiece or a must-read by any means, but I did enjoy it immensely because of how ludicrous it could be. The concept of Mari just accidentally doing a multi-combo kill spree is funny on its own, and the thriller Nishizawa writes around that is entertaining enough to keep you hooked for the short, but sweet experience.

Original Japanese title(s): 西澤保彦『殺意が集う夜』

The Sound of Murder

「『ミステリ』では人が死ぬ。人が死なない『ミステリ』もあるが、ほとんどは人が奇妙な死に方をしている。串刺しされたり、バラバラにされたり・・・それは忌むべき物語だ。だがどうして昔の人たちは、『ミステリ』を書き、『ミステリ』を読んだのだろう。どうしてそれを喜んで受け入れたのだろう。人が殺されると嬉しいから『ミステリ』を読むのではないのか？もっとたくさん、人が死ねば、君たちは喜ぶのではないのか？」

 『オルゴーリェンヌ』

 

 "People die in mystery stories. There are mystery stories where nobody dies, but in most of them, people die in curious ways, like being impaled or cut in pieces... these are stories we should abhor. So why did the people of yore write mystery stories and read them? How could they embrace them with such joy? Does it mean they read mysteries, because they become happy when someone is killed? Don't you find it more joyous when even more people are killed?"

"Orgellienne"

I'm never sure what to think of when they change the cover of a book when they release the paperback pocket version, but still keep the same general style/idea of the trade paperback version. Why change it in the first place then...?

A long time has passed since books were banned from the world: books were seen as the source of evil, planting ideas in the minds of people and thus needed to be eradicated from the world. Mystery novels in particular were seen as a shameful past: how could people find pleasure in stories about killing others? However, before all the books were burned, some great mystery fans did everything to make sure future generations could still enjoy mystery fiction: they decided to store all mystery fiction as pure data. These people hid specialized data sets, like a set on "locked room mysteries" with the relevant books and secondary literary in so-called "Gadgets": jewels that hold the data sets and which are imbedded in other items, like a scarf. Chris has inherited such a Gadget, holding the set on The Narrator in mystery fiction, and since then, he has become interested in the forgotten art of mystery fiction, and he hopes to become a mystery writer himself. For that, he needs to find more Gadgets, and that is why he is travelling the world. However, that is a dangerous trip, as Censors are desperately hunting after any remaining books in the world: whenever they locate a book, it's not only the book that gets burned down, but the whole place it was found, just to be sure there are no other books there. The Boy Censors are particularly feared throughout the world: they have been trained since their childhood to look specifically for Gadgets and are relentless in their hunts. However, during a previous adventure, Chris became somewhat friendly with the young censor Eno, who let Chris go despite knowing he was carrying a Gadget.

During his travels, Chris learns an old friend, Kirie, has been looking for him, and he receives a message telling him to go to the place they first met. Chris carefully makes his way towards the harbor town, but on his way there, he runs into the mute girl Yuyu, who is being chased by censors. The two are detected and chased throughout the city, but are surprisingly saved by Eno, who picks the two up in his car. Eno drives to the harbor town, where they find Kirie at a small clinic, as he's very ill and has not long to live anymore. Eno explains Yuyu is being suspected of being in the possession of a Gadget. Yuyu is a housemaid who lives in Carillon House, a house located on one of the "new islands" that have emerged ever since the sea levels have been rising (i.e. it is a part of a city that has become mostly submerged, making it into an island). The censors got anonymous information a Gadget was hidden at the house, and the boy censor Karte and his lieutenant Eve are now at the house looking for it, but last night, Yuyu disappeared, which of course made her the prime suspect of having taken the Gadget away. It turns out that very rarely, once every few months, a cramped path appears between the island and the mainland at low tide, and last night happened to be such a time, which is why Yuyu managed to escape without a boat. Yuyu manages to explain that her master sent her away from the island, but she was not given a Gadget with her. Eno is torn between wanting to let Chris go, and his devotion to his work, and eventually, they decide to go to the island together: they can prove Yuyu's innocence by finding the Gadget in the Carillon House, which should resolve everything. 

The Carillon House is owned by Crowley, a wealthy man who loves music boxes above everything. He has allowed several people to live with him, paying for their food and life expenses, who create music boxes for him and the whole house is full of them. When Chris, Eno and Yuyu arrive at the house, tey find Karte and Eve are rather off-hands with their search for the lost Gadget, claiming it will find their way to them. While Chris and Eno start searching for the Gadget however, they stumble upon a horrible sight: one of the disciples of Crowley is discovered impaled on a steel beam at the light house. But how would one lift an adult body several meters up in the sky and drive their torso through a beam projecting towards the sea? As the search for the Gadget intensifies, more people end up dead, like someone found in the ruins of a toppled building and someone found killed in a tower room which was locked from the inside... Is someone using the knowledge of mystery fiction from the Gadget to commit all these murders in Kitayama Takekuni's Orgellienne (2014), or as the inner work also says: The Girl Who Became a Music Box.

Orgellienne is the second entry in Kitayama's Boy Censor series, and.... no, I haven't read the first one. Yep, I seldom read things in order. I am not sure how much this book spoils about the first, but the book explains the basic premises of the Gadgets and the Censors are the start of the story, and that's the most important thing to know, so it's not difficult to get into this world even if like me, you decide to start with the second book.

Besides Kitayama's Danganronpa Kirigiri series and a few short stories, all the books I have read by Kitayama are either formally, or informally part of his Castle series, which has a distinct, almost fantasy-like atmosphere. While the degree in which differs per book, some of them really don't take place in our world, but a more fantastical world and that's also in Orgellienne: while concepts like book burning and censors isn't fantasy per se, the way people think about books, Gadgets and the way Gadgets work as data sets that can only be activated by special means do make it sound like books are magic in this world. There's also a fairy tale-esque backstory to this book: the prologue tells about a young boy who is taken in by a master music box maker, becoming his youngest disciple and him falling in love with the master's blind daughter, and the ending is tragic, but very fantasy-like.This backstory that of course somehow connects to the current murders at the Carillon House, somehow. Chris' interactions with the mute girl Yuyu also have a dream-like element, as Yuyu shows him the ruins on the island, which is when the post-apocalyptic atmosphere of the series is felt the most, perhaps. The idea of an urban island, a part of a town + forest which has become an island due to the rising water, is pretty cool, as you have complete buildings (that have become ruins) on the otherwise almost empty island. And... for some reason I know had to think of Arkham City from the same-titled Batman game.

As Chris tries to learn more about the house and its inhabitants, he finds them all being rather secretive and before he knows it, people get killed in seemingly impossible manners. Which is of course Kitayama's bread and butter: impossible situations that are quite grand  and almost ridiculous, in this case best exemplified by the stabbed man hanging over a sea cliff, and later someone being murdered in a tower room full of music boxes. To be honest, the actual solutions to these impossible crimes are not the kind of absolute insanity I've come to expect from Kitayama: while they do rely on physical tricks as always, the solutions miss just the right amount of crazy I usually like about Kitayama's work (they are still pretty much of the string & needle variety though) and in that sense, this book was a bit disappointing.I think I liked the impossible death in a building that toppled over the best: the building was lying completely on its side, and the victim seemingly either fell down themselves, or was pushed down through the broken windows of one of the higher floors (which because it was lying on its side, basically became a huge pit). The trick behind the fall is pretty simple, but well hidden with the clues and a good example of Kitayama's focus on physical tricks.

Mystery-wise, I found Orgellienne more interesting in the way it explored multiple/false solutions: Kitayama has the various characters fire various theories and solutions at each other, resulting in a rather exciting story, as everyone has very different reasons for wanting to wrap up the case quickly, but they all come up with reasonably convincing theories and it keeps the reader guessing whether they themselves are on the right track or not. Interestingly, Karte isn't really used as a straight rival detective in this book: while he's younger than Eno, he knows Eno's gone a bit soft as a censor, and Karte definitely works more ruthlessly, but at the same time, he's also content at allowing things to develop on their own and see where it gets him, and he doesn't feel as much as a rival, rather than someone who may have conflicting goals, but can end up on either side depending on his mood and how he wishes to accomplish his goals in the end.

Orgellienne is not exactly the book I'd immediately think of when I think of Kitayama's work: while it does feature Kitayama's trademark locked room murders and physical trickery behind them, the actual tricks themselves are relatively tame, in comparison to his other work. The fantasy-like world he depicts here is perhaps the best I've seen in his work though, with a young boy in look for detective fiction, because it's been banished from this world, and a mysterious house full of music boxes with a romantic, but tragic background story. The series is only two volumes long at the moment, so it's likely I'll read the first one too in the future.

Original Japanese title(s): 北山猛邦『オルゴーリェンヌ』

The Mystery of the Flying Express

“Trains are relentless things, aren't they, Monsieur Poirot? People are murdered and die, but they go on just the same. I am talking nonsense, but you know what I mean."

"The Mystery of the Blue Train"

My version of this book had the first cover, but I had to post that second cover too because it's just too... memorable.

It is a November morning in the lobby of Hotel Soukai in the hot spring town of Wakura on the Noto Peninsula, when a tour guide notices one of her travellers hasn't shown up yet for their upcoming bus trip. She has the front desk call to Mitsubayashi Masase in room 711, but there's no answer, so they go up to wake the woman, who's registered as a housewife living in Yokohama. The bellboy opens the door with the master key, only to find Masae lying dead on the floor. Police investigation soon seems to settle the matter as a suicide: Masae died of consuming cyanide, but the hotel room key was lying besides her in the room, and the master key is kept safe by the manager at all times. There's also a magazine lying on the table, with a passage underlined which seemed to indicate the motive for suicide: a bad marriage. The participants of this tour all arrived on their own at the hotel yesterday, and while most of them had dinner together as arranged by the tour, Masae had chosen to have dinner herself, and it seems like she committed suicide that evening, without ever sleeping in her bed. The police also soon learn she indeed had a very bad marriage with a husband who had been openly cheating on her for years with the same partner and they are very surprised to learn the man won't even travel from Yokohama to Wakura to identify his wife's corpse, stating he's busy with renovating his shop. Instead, Masae's uncle comes, who says he is hardly surprised by Masae's husband's behavior, and he even accuses him of murder, while Masae's half-brother confirms her sister's marriage was dead, though he seems to agree it was a suicide. While the police seems content to wrap things up, news reporter Tanida, head of a kisha club, smells a potential scoop, so he calls his friend Uragami Shinsuke, a freelance reporter and tells him about the death of the beautiful Masae, and how she was found dead in a locked room and how it perhaps could be murder. Uragami takes the job, and together with Miho, a student he helped a while back and has now become a part-timer at the magazine he writes for, the two start digging in the case, but the more they learn, the more impenetrable the locked room, and the alibi of their main suspect is. Is it really suicide, or are they being fooled by an ingenious alibi trick in Tsumura Shuusuke's Noto no Misshitsu - Kanazawa Hatsu 15ji 45pun no Shisha ("The Locked Room in Noto - The Dead Leaving Kanazawa at 15:45", 1992).

Tsumura Shuusuke was a writer who for twenty years long, worked on  The Black Report, a long-running series which fictionalizes real-life incidents. In 1982, he became a novelist with the recommendation of Ayukawa Tetsuya, and two years later, he wrote his first novel starring the freelance investigative journalist Uragami Shinsuke. I had never read any of his works, but he was fairly prolific, writing about four novels each year until he passed away in 2000 and his work has actually been adapted for television too. I myself first heard about this book via Ooyama Seiichirou's Twitter account, who was quite positive about the work. Based on the style of his book titles and Noto no Misshitsu, it's clear he writes in the travel mystery modus: mysteries set in touristic destinations, and often featuring alibi tricks using trains and other modes of transport. 

 

By the way, I do always have a fondness for diagrams in mystery novels that are clearly hand-drawn. Like sure, diagrams drawn on the computer look slick and are often very clear, but there's a charm hand-drawn floorplans have...

Plot-wise, Noto no Misshitsu is pretty much nothing more or less than you'd expect of a mystery novel featuring a train-based alibi trick, and in that sense, it's hardly a surprising book, but I do have to admit I really liked how the book provides a reason why the detective (Uragami) would start to have doubts about what is on the surface a perfect alibi. Early in the book, it is established that if this was a murder, there are three suspects. Masae's father recently passed away and most of his fortune will go to her. The first suspect is Masae's husband, who is cheating on her and owed his father-in-law money, so now his own wife who might be leaving him, the second is Masae's half-brother, who had swindled a company before and supposedly lives a better life now, but still with money borrowed from his father, and Masae's uncle, who also borrowed money. All three of them seem to have pretty solid alibis, so why would the police, without any real cause, suspect their alibis are fake? I remember how in the film edition of Ten to Sen, the way the police detective suddenly decides to suspect someone who just showed he had a perfect alibi was absolutely hilarious because how forced it was (+ the acting was very stilted), but in Noto no Misshitsu, there's a pretty good justification: Uragami is looking for a scoop, so yeah, he hopes Masae was killed in a locked room and the murderer came up with some brilliant alibi trick, because that's what will sell: he has no guarantees it's actually true, but it does give him a reason to try and dig deeper into everyone's stories than the police would. It's a bit silly of course, but it strangely works.

It doesn't take long for Uragami and Miho to start having doubts about the suspect who claimed he was on board the Twilight Express, travelling from Osaka all the way to Sapporo. I usually try to avoid spoiling too much about a book, but the book literally opens with a time schedule for the Twilight Express and a map of Japan showing which stations it stops at, so at this point, even the book itself doesn't pretend like the other two suspects are viable suspects: yes, we are going to focus on that one suspect who was in the Twilight Express. The man was seen during four different times throughout the trip starting late afternoon until the following morning, from when he got on the train, to during dinner and at arrival, so that seems to prove he was there all the time. Meanwhile, Masae was killed in the early evening in Wakura, and while the Twilight Express does go in the general direction of Wakura, it does not pass the town, making it impossible for that suspect on the Twilight Express to kill her. And then there's of course the locked room, which makes it not only impossible for that particular suspect, but for anyone in general.

The locked room mystery by the way, is not something to really write home about: while the precise set-up of how it was done is interesting in terms of Tsumura actually clewed it, the trick itself is rather trite, and one of those ideas you could imagine someone who'd never even heard of a locked room mystery to come up with. So while the "locked room" is part of the book's title, don't expect much of it. 

As a story focusing on someone with a perfect alibi by being inside a gigantic moving steel box however, Noto no Misshitsu is far more interesting. Mind you, the fundamental idea behind how the murderer managed to create this perfect alibi, while at the same time also committing a murder elsewhere, might not be very surprising: once you know this is an alibi story revolving around a train, it's likely you'll have some idea how it was done. But what Tsumura does do extremely well is... covering his tracks. Like, the basic trick is, on paper at least, very simple, but Tsumura then makes sure the trick actually works by adding little tricks on top of that to hide the main alibi trick, and while it wouldn't be special if it had been only one thing, Tsumura does this so extensively, it actually helps make the main alibi trick really feel like an impenetrable wall. Uragami starts attacking the alibi pretty early on in the book, but each time what appears to be a weak point in the plan, turns out to be covered with a line of defense by the murderer, and it slowly, but surely makes you believe perhaps he's really innocent. While I'm not a huge fan of the main, connecting element that allowed the murderer to create so many walls of defense (it demands a lot of moving parts for this plot work!), I do like how thorough Tsumura was with plotting this perfect alibi: you really can't be sure it's over until it's over, for each time the murderer conjures up a new bunny from his hat. In this regard, you can see how Tsumura had been writing these novels for about a decade by then, so it's a very competently constructed puzzle.

I wouldn't call Noto no Misshitsu - Kanazawa Hatsu 15ji 45pun no Shisha a particularly remarkable example of a mystery novel with an alibi trick, but it is competently plotted and a pretty solid read on its own. It's definitely written by someone who has a lot experience penning such novels relying on train time tables, and I do enjoy reading them once in a while, so I might read more by Tsumura in the future too.

Original Japanese title(s): 津村秀介『能登の密室　金沢発１５時５４分の死者』

To Wake the Dead

Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin' 

And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive

"Stayin' Alive" (Bee Gees)

It would have been cool if an iron fan had been used as a murder weapon...

Disclosure: I have translated Arisugawa Alice's The Moai Island Puzzle.

A young teacher is strolling down the beach one morning, when she happens to come across a young man who seems a bit... lost. As she talks with him, she learns the man suffers from acute amnesia: he has no idea who he is, and why he is here at the beach. He has no wallet or any form of identification on him, only carrying a beautiful Japanese fan. The woman immediately notifies the hospital and the police, who start looking into the man's origin. The man turns out to be a gifted artist, skilled at drawing portraits, which of course immediately reminds of the Piano Man. Eventually, the police manage to identify the man: he is Takemitsu Souichi, the youngest son of Takemitsu Housen, a famous artist specializing in Japanese paintings. His father has already passed away, leaving his mother and three siblings, as well as his uncle and aunt. However, Souichi left his home over six years ago and has not been in contact with his family since, and therefore his family is just as surprised to learn he finally resurfaced, but with no memories of his past life. Souichi is taken back to his home, The Genbu House, located in Takaragaike, Kyoto, a Japanese manor which is neighbored by his uncle and aunt. His family, who haven't seen him in over six years, are not sure how to react to his amnesia: his sister for example seems to think the "new" Souichi has a far better, more assertive attitude than the Souichi she knew, while his brother misses "his" Souichi, and his mother seems reluctant to push Souichi too much into trying to retrieve his memories. It is during this time, a murder occurs at the house: Morisawa Yukie, an art merchant who has known the family for many years had visited the house and left, but the next morning, her dead body was found in the annex in the garden where Souichi lived. Souichi himself has disappeared too, as has the Japanese fan, but oddly enough, the annex was locked from the inside when the victim was found, and Souichi's keys are also found inside the house. So how did the murderer kill the merchant in a locked annex, and escape, and where is Souichi? Criminologist Himura is asked for assistance by the police, and he of course brings his good friend Arisugawa Alice along, who has been asked by his editor to write the book The Japanese Fan Mystery.... in Arisugawa Alice's Nihon Ougi no Nazo ("The Japanese Fan Mystery", 2024).

The latest entry in the Himura & Alice series (AKA the Writer Alice series) has an interesting title: when Ellery Queen's The Door Between was first announced to serialize in Cosmopolitan, it somehow was reported in Japan that the story would be titled The Japanese Fan Mystery, and it is a title that has always stuck with Japanese mystery fandom, even though it was not true and there is of course no such Ellery Queen novel. This story starts with Alice being asked by his editor to write a story with that title, and gives him a lot of reference materials on fans, and we first see Alice struggle with all kinds of ideas that involve fans, like locked room murder tricks that use fans. And none of them are really good, to be honest, though that's the joke of course. The actual story is connected to fans because Souichi had a beautifully illustrated Japanese fan in his possession when he was found, earning him the John Doe name "Mr Fan" for a while, but it is a bit of a shame the actual object isn't really "used" in the mystery plot.

The mystery thus revolves around a murder in a locked annex, as well as the mystery of Souichi's disappearance, and the question of why he had lost his memories and what he had been up to in the last six years or so since he ran away from home. That said, it should perhaps be noted that unlike the very mystery-plot-focused books in the Student Alice series (disclosure: I translated The Moai Island Puzzle), the Himura and Alice series usually have more room to be a bit more character-introspective,  and that is certainly noticable in this book, where a major portion of the book is dedicated to hearing the thoughts of all the family members and other related people on Souichi, both how he was as a child to how they think they should approach Souichi now he has lost his memories, and their views on how to move forward into the future. Personally, I have to admit I found the book to be moving a bit too slow, but Nihon Ougi no Nazo will probably entertain people who are into the human drama aspect of someone suddenly disappearing for years, and then coming back as a different man. Some parts are great in characterization, while mystery-wise, you could easily just not have them, and still have the mystery work. I know I am slightly more extreme when it comes to 'minimalist puzzle' mystery fiction, so I assume other readers will find these segments far more interesting (and I wouldn't even say I found them dull, just a bit long).

When the story returns its focus to the questions of who committed the murder in the locked annex, and where Souichi has gone off to now, we are treated to some great deduction scenes we have come to expect from Arisugawa. Interestingly enough, Himura himself does say that while he usually goes for truth borne from the logical inferences based on the evidence, this time we have Himura almost turning things around, coming up with a theory that can be supported by the evidence they have, but which ultimately is difficult to stand indepedently as logical proof, because so much of the background of the case is left in the dark. That said, the way Himura logically shows who the murderer is, is really good. Unlike a really cool locked room murder trick, it's kinda hard to explain "clever" lines of deduction and what makes them so good, but I really like the one here: Himura pushes his deductions to answer a question which seems very trivial at first, but the logical implications of this conclusion allow him to determine who the killer is, and it's this jump from what seems like an inconsequential deduction, to suddenly solving the whole case, is great. Nothing beats the one deduction line from The Moai Island Puzzle, of course (that one is... unbeatable perhaps...), but if you like that one, you're sure to like what Arisugawa does in this one too, though the set-up is far simpler (just a disappearance + one murder). Oh, and don't expect too much of the locked room murder, as always in these Queenian stories, it's more the why that is used in clever ways than the actual how. There is a hidden tragedy that is unveiled as Himura explains how and why the murder was committed, and it is here Arisugawa does a great job at connecting the 'story' of Souichi and his family to the core mystery plot, presenting a sad, ironic tale of death that was lurking beneath the surface.

This story was serialized in Mephisto starting in 2023, so some time has passed since the height of the pandemic, and Arisugawa (the author) does bring it up quite a few times as the story progresses, with little comments how not long ago, they couldn't even just go out to eat normally and things like that. It's interesting how references like these really "date" the Himura & Alice series, and like The Simpsons, shows that these characters (and their surroundings) are "timeless", as they haven't really aged since the first book (46 Banme no Misshitsu) and that came out in 1992 and now they survived the pandemic! Interestingly enough, Nihon Ougi no Nazo is actually touted as the book written to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the series (how many modern mystery series do you know that have been running for so long?!), though its serialization started a bit late. But that is also why this book was released in two versions, one regular pocket, as well as a luxurious hardcover.

I happened to have re-read the first novel a while back, so that made the changes in Arisugawa's style in over thirty years rather obvious, but as a whole novel, Nihon Ougi no Nazo is a far more complete work, with a dramatic tale about a young man who lost his memories, and his family coping with that realization, with a locked room murder mystery forcing everyone to readjust once again. The core mystery, while limited in scope, offers Arisugawa to show off once again how great he is at impressive lines of deduction that start out from seemingly innocent clues but then are nurtured into brilliant logical proofs that point beyond any doubt towards one culprit, but it does take a long while to get there.

Original Japanese title(s): 有栖川有栖『日本扇の謎』

Much Ado About Murder

We that are young 
Shall never see so much, nor live so long. 

"King Lear"

These re-releases by Tokuma have really cool art...

Kaji Tatsuo's Lear-Ou Misshitsu ni Shisu ("King Lear Dies in a Locked Room", 1982) is set soon after the second World War in the ancient capital of Kyoto. Takeshi is a student at the prestigious Third High School, a school affiliated to Kyoto University and which would later be absorbed into it (note that under the old school system, this "high school" basically corresponds to the first years of modern-day university). The students of the Third are highly respected around the city, and due to their superior education, the students also tend to... have interesting characters, resulting in them all calling each other by nicknames. Takeshi, known as Bon to his friends, is roommates with Iba, better known as King Lear (because he's a realist -> riarisuto -> ria -> Lear) and they live together in what is technically just a storehouse: the owner is still storing valuable items there, but wants someone to keep an eye on things out of fear for burglars, so he's having these two students live inside the front part of the storehouse, using them as basically live-in guards. Bon has a part-time job as a Kyoto tourist guide, and after showing a visiting elderly couple around town, and being thanked very generously with a meal, he returns to his home, only to find a fellow student, Bart ("Beard" in German), standing in front of the storehouse: he and another friend had visited King Lear earlier, but he forgot his wallet, and has now returned to get it back, but for some reason, King Lear won't open the door for him, which is very odd, as he called to say he was coming. When they peek inside through the keyhole, they see to their great surprise King Lear is lying motionlessly on the floor. Bon finds his own key and opens the door, but it is too late for King Lear: he is dead. Police investigation indicates he had been injected with a poison in his arm, but there were no signs of resistance on his body, suggesting he was caugh off-guard by someone he trusted and furthermore... the door of the storeroom was locked from the inside and the key was found inside Lear's trouser pockets. This however soon results in Bon becoming the main suspect of the murder: excluding the owner of the storehouse, Takeshi had the only other key in possession, and he actually had a bad relation with King Lear as of late, as they were both in love with the same woman (Bart's Schwester (sister)), though it seems like Bon had been the victor. It doesn't help that Takeshi's alibi of showing a couple around Kyoto can't be verified by the police. Bon's friends don't really believe he's the killer though, so his friends, including people like Reich (rich), Magen (stomach) and Razor start investigating the case too, but are they truly ready for that, for deep down, they do know it is likely the murderer is a person in their circle of friends...

If people thought the characters in The Decagon House Murders were obnoxious by using nicknames like Ellery and Carr: I assure you, the reverse weaboos in this novel who call each other Bart and Magen and each other's sisters Schwester are worse...

Kaji Tatsuo (1928-1990) was a mystery author who debuted in the fifties and kept on writing until he passed away in 1990. Last year, I discussed Kiyosato Kougen Satsujin Bessou ("The Murder Villa in the Kiyosato Plateau"), a novel which managed to surprise me in a way I really hadn't expected, so I knew I would be reading more of his work, something made easier because publisher Tokuma has been re-releasing some of his novels the last few years, and they also happen to feature very nice cover and inner art!

My interest in this book at first lay in the fact it was set around students of the Third High School, so basically Kyoto University: I myself studied for a year at that university, and there are actually still remnants of the Third High School to be found around the main Yoshida Campus. However, for me that was just a 'Huh, that sounds interesting for me personally' thing, but once I started reading this book, I was pleasantly surprised by the way Kaji really focused on the lives of the students. This is for a large part also a story of growth, a story about students who are not quite adult yet and perhaps think too much of themselves as students of Third, but who have lived through a war and now try to build a future for themselves by proving themselves at this school, not only to the outside world, but especially to themselves and their direct peers. This results in some really colorful characters who are full of pride, but who do really show you glimpses into the lives of the respected elite students of Third in Kyoto and it's the interactions between these characters that really drive the plot, as ultimately, this is best read as a tale of mystery focusing on motive, rather than the locked room of the title.

Though I have to say: I do really like the locked room mystery of this novel. The book is split in two sections, one set immediately after the murder on King Lear. Bon (Takeshi) is more-or-less accused of the murder by the police, while his friends, led by Razor (who is one year above the rest) tries to prove Bon is innocent, leading into them coming up with all kinds of potential theories about how the room could've been locked from the inside, and who the murderer could be. At the same time, we get (a lot) of flashbacks to the time leading up to the murder, and we learn how both King Lear and Bon first learn about Bart's Schwester by coming across her photograph, and then the two of them both trying to woe her by visiting her home, under the pretense of  wanting to visit Bart during the holidays. Yes, this is pretty stalkery behavior. The roommates become romantic rivals, which according to the police is a motive for the murder, even though it was Bon who managed to win the sister over, and King Lear who was, for the moment, the loser in the love war (meaning King Lear had a motive to kill Bon, not the other way around). Eventually, a kind of conclusion is reached which points to someone else, but true answers are never obtained and the truth behind King Lear's death remained vague.

The second part of the book is set many decades afterwards, when Bon's son hears about the ordeal his father lived through in the past and he starts to get an idea of how King Lear could've been killed by someone inside a locked room. This part is interesting, because we see Bon in a very different role, and we hear what happened to everyone after the murder: some managed to accomplish their life goals, some ended up completely different and there's a distinct, sentimental tone here, as for some characters, you really wish things would have ended differently.

The locked room murder is thus more like the driving force that changed everyone's lives in this young adult novel, though as I said, on a technical level, the locked room mystery is pretty good. I love how it basically reversed a certain dynamic often seen in simpler locked room mysteries to create something original, and while the concept on its own is very simple, it works great here, especially in this specific setting (old building in Kyoto soon after the war). However, what is even more memorable is definitely the motive behind the murder. While I am not a big fan of some of the workings behind the murder (too many moving parts), the motive is one that really fits these characters attending Third. I wouldn't call the motive completely original in all aspects (it isn't, and it's likely you'll have come across variants of the same idea in other mystery novels), but it is incredibly well-integrated in this tale of mystery, growth, dreams of the future and wanting to escape the shadow of the war, and because of that, Lear-Ou Misshitsu ni Shisu feels like a very complete and balanced novel.

So I was once again very pleasantly surprised by Kaji Tatsuo. Lear-Ou Misshitsu ni Shisu is pretty short, but a very well-balanced mystery novel that will even appeal to non-mystery readers. The setting is original, and Kaji really makes fully use of it, and he has a rather colorful cast of characters to keep the reader entertained too. I am certainly going to read more of him in the future too.

Original Japanese title(s): 梶龍雄『リア王密室に死す』

A Model Murder

"Well, I don't like it! I don't like the whole idea being associated with Wham, Pow and Zap! It just isn't me!"

"The Comic Book Crusader"

Manga adaptations of mystery novels have a long history: in fact, the first third or so of Fukui Kenta's seminal work Honkaku Mystery Manga Zemi ("Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar", 2018) is solely dedicated to discussing manga adaptations of mystery fiction from both Japan and outside of Japan. While I generally discuss original mystery manga on my blog, I have discussed a few of these adaptations, like  Meitantei Thinking Machine: Kanzen Datsugoku ("The Great Detective The Thinking Machine: The Perfect Escape"), an adaptation by Kuwata Jirou (of Bat-Manga fame!) of "The Thinking Machine" short story The Problem of Cell 13 by Jacques Futrelle and also Kagemaru Jouya's adaptation of Yokomizo Seishi's Yatsu Haka Mura ("The Village of Eight Graves"), a comic adaptation so important it actually made detective Kindaichi Kousuke a household name in Japanese popular culture. Today I want to briefly discuss three other manga adaptations of existing mystery stories, and look at the way they adapt the source material in very different ways.

First up is the manga Ellery Queen no Bouken ("The Adventures of Ellery Queen") by JET, a manga artist who has worked on many adaptations of mystery fiction like a lot of Kindaichi Kousuke novels as well as Sherlock Holmes and Lupin. This manga originally ran between 1994 and 1995 in the magazine Mystery DX and adapts four stories from the same-titled short story collection by Ellery Queen: The Two-Headed Dog, The Bearded Lady, The African Traveller and The Seven Black Cats. It's the art style that might attract attention first: ever seen such a broad-shouldered Ellery? The way panels are laid-out on the page also make it immediately clear JET mainly draws shojo (girls) manga, as it especially reminds me of the 70s shojo manga artists. Anyway, the four stories adapted by JET are not really my favorites from The Adventures of Ellery Queen, so I was a bit surprised by the selection, but I do have to say JET does a good job at doing fairly straight adaptations. Some stories feel a bit drawn out: each story is nearly 100 pages long, but I don't think all of them need all of that space, but on the whole, JET manages to capture all the important points of each story in a good, captivating manner. 

The two animal-themed stories, The Two-Headed Dog and The Seven Black Cats benefit a lot from the horror-style story-telling: The Two-Headed Dog deals with sightings of a ghostly dog near a Cape Cod inn Ellery ends up in, while The Seven Black Cats has Ellery investigating the mystery of an elderly bed-ridden woman who supposedly hates cats, but buys the same kind of black cat every week from the same pet shop. To be honest, both stories are okay mystery stories, but I have always felt they are more like Sherlock Holmes or even Father Brown stories, rather than stories that play to Queen's strengths. The Bearded Lady on the other hand I think is one of the quintessential Queen short stories, dealing with the weird dying message of someone painting a beard over the face of a woman in a painting, The mystery of The African Traveller is in a way a very Ellery Queen-esque story: Ellery teaches a criminology course to a select group of students of three, and he takes them to a live crime scene, giving them the assignment to figure out who did it, with them all going their seperate way to develop their own theories. Of course, they all arrive at different solutions (that being the Queen trope), showing off Queen's plotting skills to build theories based on physical evidence: while this part is interesting, it's the actual murder itself, and the solutions arrived at that are not really interesting on their own. As said, the manga adaptations do not differ greatly from their source stories, and thus this manga didn't do much to change my mind.

I've got the bunko pocket edition of this manga by the way. There is also a two-volume release as well as as a convenience store manga release, which is actually how I first learned about this manga. Convenience stores sometimes have cheap reprints of older manga that are specifically only sold in convenience stores, printed on a large format and on cheap paper like with manga magazines. I spotted the manga while on a trip with the Kyoto University Mystery Club, but didn't buy it then because it wasn't convenient for me to drag a big magazine with me at the time... but the problem with convenience store manga is that they disappear very quickly from the distribution system and unlike normal manga, they usually don't really appear in the used market. But I am glad I got the bunko version, as this is printed on better paper and it even has a color splash page!

And now we go from a faithful adaptation, to not-so faithful adaptations: Tsunoda Jirou, a mangaka best known for his occult-horror manga like Kyoufu Shimbun (Newspaper of Horrors) adapted three of Yokomizo Seishi's Kindaichi Kousuke novels, being Yatsu Haka Mura ("Village of Eight Graves"), Inugamike no Ichizoku ("The Inugami Clan") and Akuma no Temariuta ("The Devil's Handball Song", released in English as The Little Sparrow Murders"). The original plan was actually to release seven of these adaptations by Tsunoda, but plans were changed, so we only have three. And I only read the latter two, as I haven't found the Yatsu Haka Mura adaptation yet. I first learned about these adaptations a while ago, when I came across the original releases of these manga in a used book market... only they were selling for a price I couldn't justify to myself considering their state: with the paper all yellowed and with those rusty stains. Fortunately, I managed to find good bunko versions of Inugamike no Ichizoku and Akuma no Temariuta relatively soon afterwards. However, I was hugely surprised once I actually started reading them. And that was not only because the stories were set in contemporary times (the seventies), nor the fact that Kindaichi didn't look at all like he's described in the book (more like a bookish professor here).

No, it was because Tsunoda surprisingly injected a lot of his occult-horror mangaka DNA in these adaptations, creating very original takes on these Yokomizo classics and making them feel that more creepy.  Yet, the core plots remain intact. So yes, Inugamike no Ichizoku is about the awful will left by Inugami Sahei, which leaves his immense fortune to Tamayo, the granddaughter of a family friend, on the condition she marries one of his three grandsons. And if they all die, she will be free to choose whoever she wants to marry. Because this story is now set in the seventies however, an interesting conundrum is created: in the book, the oldest grandson, Sukekiyo, went missing during World War II and the will can't be read until he is found. When he is eventually found, it turns out Sukekiyo was greatly wounded in his face, forcing him to wear a mask (which creates doubts about his true identity). Because this story is set so long after World War II, Tsunoda created a completely different reason for Sukekiyo to be disappear and have his face damaged, and it's a pretty brilliant take: Tsunoda creates a completely new backstory for the Inugami clan, that ties them to Inugami (dog spirit) cults: it is said that the Inugami clan controls dog spirits, which allowed them to amass a fortune, but sometimes, this backfires and one of them becomes possessed by a dog spirit. The only way to get a dog spirit out of the possessed is by driving it away by fire, even if it means killing the possessed person... and that's what happened to Sukekiyo: he was thought to have been posssessed, and while torturing the poor guy, the building caught fire, leading to his disappearance. The way this gives meaning to the Inugami name, and adds a creepy cult backstory using occult powers really makes this feel like a Tsunoda manga and it strangely really fits in this story. Most of the story unfolds similar to the original novel, though the climax is much more... thrilling and it actually makes Tamayo a very powerful character in this manga.

But things really become crazy in Tsunoda's adaptation of Akuma no Temariuta. Yes, Kindaichi still goes to remote Onikoube Village and he's still involved in investigating an old murder case where a swindler err... swindled a good deal of the villlage nearly two decades ago, but this time, the murders aren't committed according to a centuries-old song that one sings while playing a ball, no, this time the murders are based... on the lyrics of a kind of metal band of three women who perform topless. Yep, the titular "Devil's Ball Song" is their hit song, and the three singers actually all hail from Onikoube Village. But while they're back visiting their village, they get killed one after another, following the lyrics of their hit song... This is a very original take on the story: the original novel is about family feuds in small isolated villages, a single singer who managed to escape the village and make a huge career and people being killed after the lyrics of a song long forgotten, but here we have the three potential victims all being fairly friendly to each other, as they form a band together (and I have to repeat: they perform topless and I have no idea why). And yet... the major plot points of the book remain the same: like in the book, there was a swindler in the village many years ago, but here, the swindler was a person in the entertainment (singing) industry, tying back to the band. The three girls may not be presented as members of the "prominent" families of the village, they have created their own importance by being a nationwide popular band. Tsunoda is really good at keeping the actual mystery parts completely intact, even if he changes the looks and feel of the story a lot: in this case the imagery of the band, with creepy dolls and stuff, really suits his occult-horror style. The lyrics of the song are completely original by the way, and they lead to even creepier deaths in the manga than in the book.

Anyway, this was a brief look in manga that took very different approaches to adapting the source material. Personally, I don't think Ellery Queen no Bouken is really worth the trouble reading, unless you are 1) simply interested in all things Queen related and/or 2) interested in seeing a rather attractive Ellery in sometimes funny scenes like kabe-donning his old man. The Tsunoda Jirou adaptations of the Yokomizo Seishi novels on the other hand transform so much about the original work, while keeping the core mystery plots intact, I do feel they are worth a read: they are truly adaptations of those novels, by Tsunoda Jirou, and nobody else could've adapted them in this manner. He really managed to rewrite the stories in a way that respected the original novel, while also playing on his own strengths, resulting in very unique adaptations.

Original Japanese title(s): JET『エラリークイーンの冒険』, つのだじろう『犬神家の一族』,『悪魔の手毬歌』

The Man in the Mirror

"Mirror, mirror on the wall..."

"Snow White"

For a change not writing a review of this series months (years) after reading it...

The Mirror House located in the outskirts of Kamakura belongs to Kurozawa Matsutarou, a wealthy man who has many mistresses. The manor was once the home of the twins Kirika and Sumika and their mother, who was Matsutarou's mistress, but after her death, the house was extended with an identical annex, like a mirror and no less than 48 mirrors of varying sizes were installed in both buildings, giving the building its name. When the twins were still young however, Kirika wanted to end her own life and since then, Sumika has learned to live without her sister, especially as Matsutarou kept telling her to forget about Kirika and live her own life. Matsutarou is not a loving father by any means however, and his interest in his daughters is purely political. While he lets his daughters live with their mothers while young, he has them all moved to the Mirror House when they reach a certain age, as he wishes to marry them off in political marriages, and their stay in the Mirror House is merely temporary until Matsutarou has found the perfect partner for them, regardless of their own life wishes. This has already led to tragedy one time, as last year, one of his daughters chose death rather than being forced such a life. At the moment, Sumika is joined by four of her half-sisters: Mahiru, Kurara, Sachiko and Ruri, as well as five servants. One of them is Shizuka, the half-Russian Mary Poppins-esque personal maid to Sumika who occasionally has a foul (Russian) mouth. Matsutarou only visits his daughters once a year to check up on them and to announce their upcoming marriages, but this year, his visit coincides with a heavy storm, which means three of the usual servants are stuck in town, leaving only Matsutarou, his daughters and two servants in the house. At dinner however, lightning strikes, illuminating one of the mirrors he has given to each of his daughters, and invisible lettering written on one of the mirrors is reflected on the wall, saying "Death". This angers Matsutarou and he retreats for the night, but that night, he is found murdered in one of the mirror rooms, being stabbed in the back, but for some reason he was lying on the floor with his feet towards a mirror and his arms thrown in front of him, almost as if he was trying to flee from a murderer inside the mirror.... With no means to notify the police, can the people in the manor be truly certain no more murders will occur in Tsukihara Wataru's Kagamiyakata no Satsujin ("The Murders in the Mirror House" 2020)?

Spoilers: more people die.

Kagamiyakata no Satsujin is the fourth entry in this series starring the pro-active maid Shizuka who each time works at a different place as a personal maid for young girls. The books sometimes namedrop the places/families she worked for earlier, but the books can all be read indepedently and in any order. They are all fairly formulaistic too: each book is set in the Meiji period, and set inside an isolated house with serial murders happening, and Shizuka's always there to eventually solve the case, but what makes this series memorable, despite some hick-ups, is how Shizuka is used: each time she's confronted with a killer, she not only detects, but tries to find ways to proactively stop the killer by interfering with their patterns and that leads to interesting twist on familiar tropes in mystery, for example when in an earlier novel, Shizuka notices the murders are modelled after a set of paintings, so she proposes to just destroy all the paintings to upset the killer's plans. It's these interactions with mystery tropes that make these books fun to read.

In theory, this book has interesting elements: there's a house with two mirrored sections, there are 48 different mirrors spread across the house, the first victim is seemingly killed by his own mirror image in a mirror and threatening messages are written on mirrors to announce the coming deaths. A lot of it is tropey, but that is the whole focus of this series so it never feels too reliant on tropes. However, of the four novels I have read until now, I do think this entry was by far the weakest.

The main trope of this book is the "murder announcement": the killer writes messages alluding to deaths on mirrors before committing the murders and sure, that's a trope, but... Shizuka doesn't really manage to do something really original with this, she doesn't come up with some outrageous plan to turn this "habit" around and have it backfire on the killer, or propose anything unexpected to counter this. Because of this lack of interplay with the trope at hand, Shizuka feels far more passive than in the other books. Because these books tend to be very short and rather light, Shizuka's actions usually felt as one of the major parts of the mystery, and having this aspect of the tale weakened hurts the overall experience a lot. "Announcing a murder" is just less exciting than a murderer who decapitates people, or tropes like locked rooms or mitate... While a large part of the story does ultimately revolve around the question why the murderer would chose to utilize this device of announcing their murders, the answer arrived it isn't that exciting, and gives us a rather mundane explanation you might have seen mentioned in other novels that don't even explicitly try to play with tropes.

This pattern also carries over to the whole theme of mirrors in this book. Like, cool, we have a building that is mirrored with an annex, and they feature over 40 mirrors installed here and there... but we never get a floorplan of the building, so the whole concept feels criminally underdeveloped! I wanted to see cool clever things with mirrors which become clear once you start drawing lines in the floorplans, not just vague descriptions of where mirrors are placed! The way the mirrors are used for the murders in this book is far from surprising, and also not really well-hinted, so it feels underwhelming. There is a neat twist regarding the theme of mirrors halfway through the book, but the implications it has for the murders feel a bit forced, and ultimately, I feel this is the book in this series that would've benefitted of more page real estate: the book has many ideas that could've been worked out in more detail, but this particular label releases light novels of a certain length (relatively short) and thus the reveal feels not as satisfying as it could've been, as I think more pages to set-up the twist more with more foreshadowing would have made it a bit more impressive.

Kagamiyakata no Satsujin is thus my least favorite of the Shizuka novels until now. It doesn't help the major trope it focuses on doesn't allow for that much original plays, but the murders themselves are also a bit disappointing, with some underdeveloped tricks and while there's one big twist halfway I do like as a concept, that too should have been given more build-up space for maximum effect. At the moment, there's one more volume, so I'll probably read that one too, but I might wait a bit, because this one was quite disappointing.

Original Japanese title(s): 月原渉『鏡館の殺人』

The World's End

"We cannot conceive of a life other than this one - of a life after death. We can visualize only a continuation of what we know. We have no real belief in a God."
"Death Comes as the End"

It's just a feeling, but I have a suspicion a majority of posts on snow-themed mystery stories on this blog are actually published in the warmer half of the year...

As I announced in my review of The Werewolf Murder Case in volumes 14~16 of Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Kindaichi, Age 37"), the plan was to wait until a full story was released before I'd do another review of this series within the Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo franchise, where we follow a now middle-aged Kindaichi Hajime as he gets involved in murder cases despite not wanting to solve mysteries anymore. But then it was announced this series would wrap up last year. So I figured, as stories in this series usually carrying over across multiple volumes, I might as well just wait until the last volume is released to do a review of the remaining volumes. So volume 18 of Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo was released earlier this year... and I completely forgot to get the volume. So that explains why this review is coming now so late after its release. Anyway, volume 16 first starts with the very last chapter of The Werewolf Murder Case, where we learn about the motive for the murders in that case (yes, it's revenge, it's always revenge), but then it's back to business as Hajime's assigned to a new project for his event-organizing company: Hijiri Island, a mountainous island in Hokkaido wants to drive its economic activity by profiling itself as the perfect resort for backcountry/off-piste skiing. Hajime and his subordinate Marin are to check out the place and will be staying in a lodge high up in the mountains, a place only reachable via helicopter. They will be joined not only by someone from the municipality, but also by the backcountry ski team of the skiing club of the Imperial Women's University, a prestigious club whose members often appear in the World Cups. The team always trains here, so they know the grounds well, so Hajime and Marin will be questioning the young women about the mountains in order to develop the place as a resort. Everyone is to stay in a newly built lodge, but the evening they arrive, they find someone has tampered with the heating, and it's slowly starting to become freezing cold inside. 

Fortunately, the old lodge is 500 meters away from the new lodge, and everything should still work there, so they decide to move to the old lodge: the men go first to make sure heating there does work and to carry the kerosene, while the women will follow later with the food supplies. The men have just arrived at the old lodge and starting to prepare for their stay here, when the women in the new lodge use a walkie talkie to contact the men: one of the skiers has gone missing, and there's blood in the hallway. Two of them return to the new lodge, while Hajime and the municipal official stay in the new lodge, but then they discover the body of the missing skier: her head has been cut off, and placed on her lap! When everyone has moved to the new lodge, they learn that their radio is not working and the skis have gone missing, making it impossible to contact with the outside world nor to go down the mountains themselves. By discussing the case, they discover that while nobody has an actual alibi for the murder, as they don't know what time exactly the victim was killed, everyone does have a soft alibi: nobody could've carried the body from the new lodge to the old lodge unseen: the round-trip would've taken quite some time, but nobody was gone for long times/went unseen between the time the victim was last seen alive and the time the body was found. Soon one of the women suggests it's the headless skier: two years ago, a team of skiers got stuck on the mountains when the weather suddenly changed for the worse. Stuck in the cold and with no way to call for help, the team's leader volunteered to ski down the mountain alone to get help. However, after she left, a rescue helicopter found the remaining team members, but the leader never made it off the mountain alive. Only her cut-off head was later discovered: someone had strung piano wire between trees, so when the leader was hurrying down the mountain to get help...  Some say a headless skier is now haunting the mountains, but is this ghost also responsible for the murder, or is this the work of a living and breathing human?

You know, The Headless Skier Murder Case, which spans volumes 16 and 17, has a funny setting. Closed circle settings in this series are often either on an island or somewhere in the mountains... so why not set the story on a mountain, on an island, writer Amagi must've thought. But if this fusion of ideas sounds like he was trying to cook something grand, I'll have to disappoint you, as The Headless Skier Murder Case is a surprisingly simple case, basically revolving around one single trick. The mystery revolves around the fact nobody is ever gone long enough to allow them to carry a dead body and their head to the other lodge and return, which thus gives them all an alibi. This mystery is repeated later, as another dead body is found, this time at the new lodge while everyone was staying in the old lodge. The problem is that it is really just this mystery that drives this story, and the solution is not only a concept we have definitely seen previously in this series, in those stories we ususally get more than just this one idea, so there they can at least benefit from being presented as more difficult puzzles as they are interwoven with other ideas. Here, the problem is presented so bluntly it's nearly impossible to not guess what's going on. The big surprise is actually when the murderer is revealed and they start explaining their motive (yes, it's revenge, it's always revenge), as we learn how this person had been directed by a certain character to commit these murders: while the identity of this person won't be revealed until the next story, I *kinda* suspected who it was, though I thought it would be cheap, and then it turned out it was really that person and now I have no idea how this is going to develop in future series. 

The final volume of this series, The Sealed Space in the Sky Murder Case, starts with Hajime confronting his old nemesis The Puppeteer from Hell, a "crime consultant"-esque character who helps people bent on revenge by supplying them with perfect crime plans. While the Puppeteer has been in prison all this while, Hajime knows the Puppeteer has disciples: they call themselves the Olympian Gods, with the Puppeteer as Zeus the omni-god and Hajime has already encountered and captured a few of them. But after a conversation with the Puppeteer and a hint from his cousin Fumi, Hajime realizes one of the Olympian Gods, Hephaestus, is actually a person near him: he deduces Hephaestus is someone at his work, and that Hephaestus, with the help of another inside person at the company, has been keeping tabs on Hajime, which is why all these murder cases have been happening to Hajime each time he's gone on a business trip. Hajime has a pretty good idea of who Hephaestus's accomplice in the company must be, but the moment he decided to keep tabs on her, she ends up dead: ostensibly via suicide by throwing herself off the rooftop of the company building. She had borrowed the key to the rooftop to water the plants there, and as the key was found in her pocket, the rooftop door was indeed closed/locked and the guard kept the spare key safe, it looks like a genuine suicide, but Hajime knows better: Hephaestus must have killed their accomplice to silence her, and used a "sealed space in the sky" murder trick to challenge Hajime himself. But how could Hephaestus left the rooftop after the murder, as the door to the rooftop was locked (with the victim down below in possession of the key) and no way to reach the surrounding buildings? Hajime knows this is his chance to nab Hephaestus, and narrows the pool of suspects to a handful, but the list includes not only his direct superior, but even his faithful subordinate Marin...

For a story that is mostly about very quickly wrapping things up and features a very simple trick for its main mystery, I have to admit I liked it better than I had initially expected. A lot of the initial chapters is about trying to bring back the whole story about the Olympians back to the foreground again, as it's not been a priority plot element throughout, usually only being mentioned at the end of a case if the murderer happened to be one of the Gods and forgotten again, but here we get a crash-course on the related previous events and a rather cool deduction by Hajime about who he thinks Hephaestus' accomplice is and why. This is the type of hinting and plotting you very often see in Conan, using its serialized format to plant clues within various stories, across a longer period of time, but Kindaichi basically never uses this, with far more compartmentalized storytelling (and very loosely connected stories), so it's cool to see it utilized here. The 'Sealed Space in the Sky" mystery is relatively simple, with rudimentary visual clues and like the previous story in essence a one-trick-pony, but I do like that the focus in fact does not even lie on the howdunnit, but the whodunnit, as we see Hajime then utilize the howdunnit to cross off the suspects of the list, using Queenian logic to identify Hephaestus. This series more often uses a straightforward way to identify the killer (X making certain utterances/doing certain things/in possession of certain things), so seeing a Queenian chain, even if very short, is pretty cool.  The identity of Hephaestus is perhaps not as interesting as the direct aftermath, as the gameboard is reset to lead into the next series. We do get a brief explanation why Hajime swore off solving mysteries long ago, but we don't get the details, but then it's basically off to the next series. And very literally too, as this volume also included the first chapter of the new series: Kindaichi Papa no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Dad Kindaichi"), in which Hajime has been a father for a few years while running his own detective agency.  Hajime's new client instructs him to go a certain place on a certain date, and because Hajime is a very responsible father and definitely knows what's going to happen whenever he goes to a remote place, he decides to take his son with him and the two find themselves arriving at an old decrepit hotel that's absolutely safe and where no murders will happen...

Anyway, that wraps up Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo. I have to admit, the initial shock factor of seeing a suddenly aged Hajime quickly waned after the realization that storywise, these cases weren't that different from the usual affairs save for a few rare exceptions like stories with a more urban setting. Some ideas never really come to full fruition I think, but as a limited series, it at least had more direction than the 20th Anniversary series or 30th Anniversary series. The last story at least does a lot to make it feel more like a series on its own, so that helps, though I can't feel super excited about the deal of the Olympian Gods basically halting midway, and I'm still not sure what to think about that one character turning out to be one of the Gods too... I guess I'll have to keep on reading the new series to see if Amagi decides to actually end some of these plotlines anytime soon (I mean, I know Conan is long, but at least it has arcs that actually start and end).

Original Japanese title(s): 天樹征丸（原）、さとうふみや（画）『金田一37歳の事件簿』第16~18巻