The Fake Heir

"By the power of Grayskull!"

"He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" 

Now I think about it, this is probably the first time I ever read (listened to) anything by P. D. James. 

Cordelia Gray returns to the UK after the death of her father, with whom she had been roaming Europe. She becomes the secretary of Bernie G. Pryde, a private detective and as she shows potential, Bernie eventually makes her his partner. After being diagnosed with cancer however, Bernie takes the easy way out, and he leaves the detective agency to Cordelia. While initially overwhelmed by the death of her business partner and the realization she's made the chief of an agency even though she barely has any experience as a private detective, she decided to keep the agency open with the help of the old secretary Mrs. Maudley. On the day of Bernie's funeral, Cordelia is visited by Mrs. Leaming, assistant to the famous scientist Sir Ronald Callender. She originally had an appointment to see Bernie, but considering what's happened, she has no choice but to bring Cordelia to her boss. Sir Ronald decides to hire Cordelia anyway for the job he had intended to hire Bernie for: his son Mark recently hanged himself, and he wants to know why Mark committed suicide. Mark had been studying at Cambridge, but recently left the university and started working as a gardener, even though his grades were good and was going to inherit a considerable amount of money via his maternal grandfather. Mark had been living in a run-down cottage on the estate he had been gardening for, and Cordelia decides to stay there too, to get a glimpse in Mark's life. But as she meets with Mark's friends and acquaintances and goes through his belongings in the cottage, Cordelia slowly starts to suspect Mark's death was not suicide at all. Can the young detective find out the truth in her first real investigation on P. D. James' An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972)?

I first heard of the character of Cordelia Gray via Detective Conan, where the character Haibara is named after Cordelia ("Hai" being gray), so that would have been about two decades ago, but for some reason I never got around to reading the books with Cordelia Gray, even though there are only two of them. I'd occasionally come across other references to the books (like Houjou Kie's 2024 novel Shoujo ni wa Mukanai Kanzen Hanzai ("An Unsuitable Perfect Crime for a Girl")), but somehow I just never actively went looking for them. But a few weeks ago, I came across a reference to The Skull Beneath the Skin, and it was at that point I learned that was actually the title of the second Cordelia Gray book. I figured I might as well get started on them now... but then I also learned there were actually two radio adaptations of the books by the BBC, so I decided to listen to them, instead of reading the books. I can't say how faithful they are to the book, but comparing the audio adaptation of An Unsuitable Job for a Woman to the lengthy summary on Wikipedia makes me think they're pretty faithful to the source material.

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman was written in 1972, so it should not surprise the reader Cordelia is not presented as the great detective who solves everything with brilliant chains of deductions during the denouement with everyone present in the drawing room. Cordelia is portrayed indeed as a private detective in a realistic world, far removed from both the great detectives of yore as well as the hardboiled tradition. Cordelia knows she's been trained well as a private detective, but is also aware she lacks experience, so her investigations are careful, slow and methodical, with an emphasis on her humanity. Her investigation for example consists of living in Mark's cottage to get an idea of his life after he left university and interviewing his friends to see if there's a clue to why he would have hanged himself. While there's a segment with a kind of code-cracking, the emphasis lies on Cordelia sifting through the stories of everyone involved and just following each thread to their conclusion to see if they lead anywhere. The result is a detective novel that is admittedly not exactly of the type I like: it's a very mundane investigation without really surprising twists, reveals or deductions. I do have to say I was surprised I didn't mind following Cordelia in her slow investigations though. As a character, she's interesting to follow, exactly because she's new at this and everyone's saying how she might be unsuitable of the job, and Cordelia falls right in the category of both being more capable than most people assume she is, but she's still not a Great Detective, so she fits well in this realistic world P.D. James depicts, being not a flawed person, but simply a struggling young detective, who also happens to be a woman.

The story does feel a bit dated though, or least, some characters do. When Cordelia for exampls asks Sir Ronald about Mark's romantic relationships, he says he doesn't know about them, but he assures her that if he had them, they would certainly be of the heterosexual kind. Err, okay, I guess. Similar elements are connected to the mystery of Mark's death and while not exactly jarring, it does make you think, oh yeah, this was written a while ago, with the idea of portraying a realistic world.

The mystery of Mark's death ultimately isn't super exciting, with 'twists' that feel a bit forced at times (attempts are made to scare Cordelia away, or even kill her even though she has no real conclusive clue or evidence yet) and again, an investigation that develops mostly just because Cordelia bothers to ask people a few questions (a lot of the characters she meets along the way are not really helpful or even fun people to talk with). I do like the way the story begins: with the end of Cordelia's investigation and then retelling all the events that led to that ending: the in-media-res opening starts rather abrupt, but is properly recontextualized through the reader learning the events leading up to that opening, and that is perhaps the most interesting of this book in terms of a mystery story.

Cordelia Gray returns in The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982), where Cordelia is asked to keep an eye on the actress Clarissa Lisle, wife of Sir George Ralston. Clarissa is going to star in a performance The Duchesss of Malfi set to be held on Courcy Castle, located on the private island of Courcy, which is owned by Ambrose Gorringe, a succesful author, who had the castle, and its theater, restored. Clarissa has been receiving letters with quotations from plays she's starred in, all being threats of death, accompanied by a drawing of a skull. Clarissa is really nervous with the play approaching, so Cordelia is to intercept new letters so Clarissa can focus on the play. At the castle, Clarissa meets with the people in Clarissa's circle, ranging from her stepson of a previous marriage, her not-so-wealthy cousin and a theater critic. It doesn't take long for Cordelia to learn there are quite a lot of people close to Clarissa who don't really like her, and she soon finds out the writer of the letters is probably one of the people currently on the island. On the evening of the performance, Clarissa want to be alone in her dressing room to clear her mind so she can focus on the play, and she sends everyone, including Cordelia away. When Cordelia later returns to wake Clarissa for dinner, she finds Clarissa dead, her face battered. 

This second Cordelia Gray story has a far more interesting setting than the first one: a closed circle murder mystery set on a creepy castle with a collection of macabre memorabilia, secret passageways and a cryp, located on a private island. We have an Obvious Victim-To-Be, anonymous threatening letters and a theatrical backdrop. Perhaps it's just me, having listened a lot to the Agatha Christie radio adaptations by the BBC, but the plot with the threatening letters, actresses making comebacks and hidden pasts and all of that reminded me a lot of Christie's work, like Lord Edgware Dies, The Moving Finger and The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, so it felt a lot like classic mystery to me than An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, with a setting that is more exciting, moving away from the realism of the first novel and moving towards the more bombastic of the Golden Age. At the same time, it's also a much slower story. The BBC radio adaptation itself is nearly a hour longer than the one of An Unsuitable Job for..., which is quite a lot for an audio adaptation. The story-telling isn't that much different from how it felt in the first story, with Cordelia just poking around, and people very gladly telling their life stories and revealing how they all had a reason for wanting Clarissa dead. Which still takes a while for it to happen.

So then we get to the mystery, which is, at least to me, unfortunately still closer to An Unsuitable Job for... than to actual Golden Age mystery fiction. The reveal of the murderer is done very dryly, with a motive that probably should've been explored more given the weight of the matter, but it is just... dropped on the reader like that. It has some parallels with the first novel in terms of themes, so reading them back-to-back does add something extra. A different element of the mystery (not the identity of the killer, but the exact reason for the threatening letters) is probably going to be remembered by more readers given the way the presentation of the solution is framed, and I do think this part is a bit more interesting mystery-wise, but not really enough to build a complete novel around. The ending is a bit a-typical perhaps, but it fits well with the way the first novel also ended, and also with the character of Cordelia, who at this point is a capable detective, but not experienced enough to be a Great Detective.

Both An Unsuitable Job for a Woman and The Skull Beneath the Skin are not the kind of mystery novels I usually read, and while both books do have elements I do find interesting, on the whole, they're not stories I'd recommend if you're looking for puzzle plot mysteries, not even The Skull Beneath the Skin, despite its setting being more like a Golden Age puzzle plot mystery. Cordelia as a PI character is probably the more interesting part of these stories. I'm glad I finally got around to consuming these books though, as now I won't be wondering anymore whenever I come across the occasional reference to these books.

Double Jeopardy

"Crime is terribly revealing. Try and vary your methods as you will, your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind, and your soul is revealed by your actions."

"And Then There Were None" 

The first time I saw the cover of this book, it was a small thumbnail and I could barely make out the garbage truck on the cover, so I thought it'd be like some weird Drifting Classroom-esque Umezu Kazuo story. Things don't get that crazy. 

Hitou travels with six friends to a small private island off the coast in Kumamoto Prefecture. The island used to be inhabitated by a few people, but has now become the private property of the aunt of Urai, one of Hitou's friends. Urai's aunt had cottages built on the island so it can be opened as a resort island. There's no established means of transportation yet though, so the group is brought over to the island by a chartered fisherman's boat and the fisherman is to pick them up in about a week, while the caretaker hired by Urai's aunt also there to entertain the group during their stay. However, Hitou has other plans. He's planning to kill all other six people on the trip. For Hitou was never really their friend. Several years ago, while the six targets were still in high school, they tried out drugs and while under the influence, were about to start a fire. A boy from another school spotted them, but he was caught by them and assaulted, with the victim biting off the tip of his own tongue during an attempt to escape. One of the friends took all the blame. Hitou was a friend of the victim and he swore revenge: after graduating high school, he intentionally picked a university where the six were living and found a part-time job where one of them was working. He became friends with him and was thus slowly introduced in their circle. And now they were going on a trip together: the perfect chance to just kill all of them. Hitou's plan is simple and self-destructive: he's going to poison all of them and then commit suicide, because he realizes this would be a severe crime. He even has a full confession that will be posted online automatically in a few days, where he explains why he decided to kill these people. After they arrive on the island, where they also find the caretaker waiting for them, Hitou makes sure to sabotage the one public pay-phone on the island: the only way to communicate with the mainland.

And thus, imagine the surprise when late on the first evening, one of the friends won't respond to any calls at his cottage. They break the door down and inside find... no living friend, but a corpse,  whose face has been bashed in horribly and with the tip of his tongue cut off. Hitou however did not commit this murder. Realizing there's a murderer on the island and that they can't call for help, the would-be murderer acknowledges it'd be too dangerous to continue his plans and even tries to swim back to cancel his scheduled online confession, but the sea has become too wild for him, and he is barely saved from the raging water. The next morning, they find another corpse: this was the friend who first discovered the previous body and he too has the tip of his tongue removed. And the following day, the same thing happens again... While Hitou was planning to kill them anyway it's not like he's really sad they're gone, he knows he isn't committing all these murders, so he needs to find out who the real murderer is in order to escape the carnage.

Three years later, a young woman working at a garbage disposal facility in Osaka is out on her rounds collecting garbage, when she finds the body of an old lady among the garbage. She reports it to the police, but she is immediately put in their custody: there is a serial killer on the loose in Osaka, who each time, has been killing the person who discovered the previous body. The victims are connected by the fact they all have part of their tongues removed. This immediately reminds everyone of the horrible series of murders that occured three years ago on an island in Kumamoto, where a Hitou Kiyotsugu had killed everyone on the island and made a full confession online....

Chigereta Kusari to Hikari no Kirehashi ("Broken Chains and a Sliver of Light", 2023) is Araki Akane's second novel after making her debut the previous year by winning the Edogawa Rampo Award. The book's main feature is probably the fact it is divided in two distinct parts, the first half set in 2020 on an island, while the second half is set in 2023 and starts off in the bustling city of Osaka. The two narratives are also clearly inspired by two Agatha Christie novels, a thing that is made very apparent when the characters themselves make references to Christie in the second half.  

The first half is of course inspired by And Then There Were None, as we have a closed circle situation set on an island, where everybody is being killed one by one. In this book however, we have the added tension of knowing Hitou was planning to kill everyone himself too, only someone else managed to get to them first. But who? The murders are also all connected through two mysterious facts: the murderer cuts off the tip of the tongues of all his victims, and for some reason, the next victim is always the person who discovered the previous body. Even though this is only "half" of the book, Araki somehow manages to really pack it full to the brim. There's the locked room situation of the first body for example, but there are more mysteries like one victim having been cut, even though they threw away all the knives and other potentially dangerous objects in the sea after the first murders. Araki manages to craft a great mystery in this book: the many props allow the characters to come up with various theories, and the grand denouement scene in particular has some great Queenian theories being posed based on the evidence we've all seen and been exposed to, which are then debunked as easily again with other evidence we also saw, but simply overlooked. 

The second part is set three years later and we learn about a serial killer in Osaka who for some reason has been committing murders similar to what by now has become known as the Hitou murders: when the police arrived on the island, they found that everybody on the island was dead and Hitou missing, but he had conveniently posted a full confession online. Maria, the young woman who found the most recent victim, is put under police custody and she soon becomes friends with one of her guardians. Maria also happens to be living with a young man (not her boyfriend), who happens to have bitten off the tip of his tongue some years ago... This part of the book is more inspired by The ABC Murders, as the one of the characters comments, as they are not sure why the serial killer is linking these murders in this way, and of course, the whole connection to the Hitou murders is enigmatic. As you can guess, these events are very strongly connected to the first part of the book, and they work very well as a "continuation" of the first half, while also going in a completely different way. This is not just 'part 2 by doing the same things again", this is a "part 2 that tries different things, but by building on part 1". And it's all in one book!

While I will be the first to admit I don't care about characterization that much in my mystery novels, even I have to make a special note about how strong the characterizations are in this novel. Hitou is a great protagonist and anti-hero, who is so full of hatred towards his "friends" for what they did in the past, but at the same time, you see glimpses of him struggling with the aftermath of each murder because... perhaps he did really become friends with them while he had infiltrated their circle. Maria too has a chip on her shoulder and has finally been getting her life on rails and is enjoying her work as a garbagewoman, when the whole serial killer thing confuses things once more. The strong-minded Maria is very fun to follow, as she does struggle in life, but still tries to make the best out of everything and she isn't kind to people who look down on her for doing so (cue: the veteran policeman who will regret looking down on her just because she's a woman collecting garbage).

The strong characterization does elevate Chigereta Kusari to Hikari no Kirehashi a lot, as some of the actions taken by the characters in this book do demand for those characters to have a lot of motivation/determination to do so, so Araki's strong character writing is in fact an essential part of the mystery, much more than I had ever expected.

I had read two short stories by Araki before (here and here), but this is the first time I read a full novel by her and Chigereta Kusari to Hikari no Kirehashi. It's quite long and ambitious, providing two fully worked out narratives inspired by Christie's work all in one book, but Araki pulls it off, and does that with both competence in the mystery writing as well as characterization. Recommended material!

Original Japanese title(s):  荒木あかね『ちぎれた鎖と光の切れ端』

The Problem of the Ghost Woman

It is indeed, a fearful place. The torrent, swollen by the melting snow,plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up like the smoke　from a burning house. The shaft into which the river hurls itself is an immense　chasm, lined by glistening coal-black rock, and narrowing into a creaming,　boiling pit of incalculable depth, which brims over and shoots the stream　onward over its jagged lip.

"The Final Problem" 

Now I think about it, having a waterfall right behind your school is probably not that safe. Sure, high school students aren't stupid, but still, something is bound to happen sooner or later...

Shiotani Ken's Meitantei Futabi (2025) also has the English title The Return of The Great Detective (well, technically it's The Return of Great Detective) and indeed, the book is about the legend of a great detective is given new life again. The Raihen Academy for Girls offers free schooling and accomodations for the family members of those who have contributed to the school's long history, and nobody has contributed more to the safety and reputation of Raihen than the legendary great detective Tokiya Yuu: she was a student at the school in the early 1990s, who solved many incidents that occured at Raihen. While they started out as minor incidents, things soon escalated to even murder. Yuu eventually figured out there was a mastermind behind all these crimes: Yuu confronted the mastermind at the waterfall behind the school and in the subsequent struggle, both fell down, with Yuu's remains never recovered. Tokiya Shou had never heard specific stories about her great-aunt, which is why she's surprised to learn she gets to study at the prestigious Raihen Academy for free. When she arrives at the school, she's welcomed as if she were a princess, as for Raihen, Yuu was indeed a queen. In fact, the dorm director was a student at Raihen herself in the early 1990s and assisted Yuu. Shou becomes classmates with Mima Shizuka, president of the newspaper club with a knack for making up stories. Shou is first shown around the school, which has memorial plates for Yuu all over the place, commemorating the various incidents she solved, like the mystery of the unconcious student in the communal bathroom or the murder of a student in the art room. 

The rumors of Shou, a relative of Yuu, soon spreads across the school, and it doesn't take long for a student to ask Shou for help. She recently got a polaroid camera, and while playing around with it, she and her friends took risqué pictures of each other in the bathroom while getting undressed. However, after they had their bath, they found the pictures missing, and now she got a blackmail letter with one of the stolen pictures, demanding for money. The victim rather not have the police involved, which is why she wants Shou to help. The problem: Shou isn't any good as a detective. Of course, just because your great-aunt happens to be a great detective, doesn't you are, but Shou can't say no, and ends up accepting the request. Out of her wits, Shou strolls to the waterfall where her great-aunt met her end and to her great surprise.... a ghost appears! The ghost agrees to help Shou and act as an armchair detective for her, if Shou helps gather her remains and properly bury her, so her spirit can finally pass on to the life beyond. The case is soon solved, earning Shou a reputation as a great detective herself, but then more incidents start to happen at Raihen, and another figure who saw Yuu's ghost, starts plotting against Shou...

It's of course no coincidence the school's called Raihen (Reichenbach) and that the great detective and her nemesis both died falling down a waterfall. The book's not designed as a Sherlock Holmes pastische though, nor are there really meaningful references to Holmes canon beyond these ones, so you don't need any knowledge of Holmes to enjoy this book. The book is structured as a connected short story collection, where Shou is confronted with ever-escalating cases during her time studying at Raihen, culminating in a grand finale involving both her great-aunt and her nemesis. One thing I have to mention first is how different this book is than Hakushaku to Mittsu no Hitsugi ("The Count and the Three Coffins"), the only other book by Shiotani Ken I have read at this point. That book was a historical epic with drama and tragedy like a Dumas novel, while this is a fairly light-hearted, comedic short story collection set at a girls' high school. Shiotani Ken does like using unusual settings/ideas though, and that's what we do have here too: Shou being helped by an armchair detective ghost each time, all just to maintain her reputation as a great detective herself (or as her excuse goes to keep the family name high). This device has some parallels to how Conan feeds Mouri his answers to maintain the Sleeping Kogorou's reputation high, only in this case, Shou herself wants to be fed all the answers, as she genuinely isn't smart enough to solve the crimes herself (though she does get "educated" as a great detective herself slowly but surely over the course of the book).

While I do describe this book as a short story collection, the individual mysteries are not titled as "stories", but as "chapters" in a novel, so I guess they do want to present this as a novel rather than a story collection. Anyway, the first story involves the stolen polaroids, with the mystery revolving around who could have stolen the polaroids and how: the only persons to know about the pictures are the group of four who took the pictures in the first place, but the pictures had been put in a locker while they were in the bathroom, and nobody had the pictures on them when they left, so the theft was impossible. This is a fairly short mystery, as it is also used to explain how Shou first went to the waterfall and stumbled upon the ghost, but it is a fairly well-constructed, if simple mystery, doing what you usually expect of an impossible heist story (offering multiple false solutions, offering a true solution that builds cleverly on the discarded false ones). The banter between Shou and all the other school girls is really fun though: not only with her roommate Shizuka (who's a bit insane when it comes to wanting to find a scoop and has no qualms about making things a bit more spicier in her articles), but also with her ghostly mentor, as she too is basically just a high school student who likes to chat about ordinary life (or at least, the ordinary life she saw pass by ever since she became a ghost). The second story is about an assault on an art student that occured in a classroom that could only be accessed via another classroom, that was occupied by the art club at the moment. Again, a seemingly impossible crime, and while I didn't like this mystery on its own that much, I loved how it really built on the previous story, as it showed the previous story had real consequences for the student life at Raihen Academy, making people act and think differently. 

The third story in turn has the first murder: members of the newspaper clubs of several school are invited to the house of an alumnus of one of the clubs. It's supposed to be a kind of training camp to hone the journalistic skills of the members, but Mima Shizuka, who had attended last year too, knows the organizer just uses this occassion to vent his frustrations on the current club members by completely roasting their writings. During the snowy evening, the girls sleep together in the storehouse of the manor, which can only be locked from the outside (as it's not meant to be lived in). During the night however, the organizer is found dead in the courtyard, his head bashed in. The only footprints left in the snow in the courtyard however belong to the victim, with no footprints of the murderer. The victim was furthermore found near the window of a room of the annex, where the guests were sleeping, but the windows on that side can't be opened, so the occupant of that room couldn't have hit the man either. Shou is asked to look into the case, not only because of her roommates involvement, but her uncle, a police inspector, is also on the case and has heard of the exploits of his niece. This is quite an elaborate story, that is great at using the various moving parts of the story (characters) to create a seemingly impossible mystery. The reason why the murderer ended up dead in the courtyard is a bit silly, but well-clewed and the way the culprit created the footprint mystery isn't per se that impressive method-wise, but very convincing motive-wise.

Up until this point, the stories also saw short intermezzos told from the POV of a character, who has also seen Tokiya Yuu's ghost herself, and has deduced that Shou is actually getting assistance from Yuu in solving the mysteries. This person however absolutely hates what Shou's doing, so they set a trap for Shou.

Shou, her uncle, the dorm director and some of Shou's allies have gathered, because they have realized the incidents Shou has been involved with, mirror those Tokiya Yuu solved during her time at Raihen. Yuu at the time deduced a mastermind "M" had been orchestrating all these crimes, and she died during her confrontation with M. It is now suspected a new mastermind has also been behind all the crimes Shou has been involved with. During their meeting however, Shizuka keels over after drinking her tea. A message is then delivered to the room: the tea cups have been poisoned and the door has been locked, with no way to call for help. The only way to open the door and get help for Shizuka, is if Shou drinks one of the cups: only one will not kill her. With no way to go to the waterfall to get help, can Shou manage to solve this mystery herself? The story feels a bit like a Liar Game game, where Shou has to deduce which of the cups is safe to drink (with a lot "if they think I think they think..." type of thoughts). The solution is simple yet elegant, and the story moves right to the finale, where Shou is confronted with the mastermind behind all the crimes and the truth behind the death of her great-aunt. This part of the mystery is elegantly clewed, with great foreshadowing planted throughout the various adventures to build up to this Reichenbach Falls-esque finale. Unfortunately, I already knew a bit how this finale would end up, because I happened to have met the editor of the book who kinda spoiled it to me, but despite my prior knowledge, I did think the mystery was constructed very neatly.

So while Meitantei Futatabi is not at all like the historical epic drama that was Hakushaku to Mittsu no Hitsugi, I did greatly enjoy the book: it's a fun, light-hearted school mystery (the sometimes venomous banter between Shou and her ghostly mentor is especially a highlight) with a clear, overarching story that manages to achieve exactly what it sets out to do. The individual mysteries are often fairly short, but competently constructed and the overall storyline, with Shou slowly growing into a detective herself, is satisfying. This is a great book to read between heavier stuff.

Original Japanese title(s): 塩谷験『名探偵再び』 

Picture of Death

But if this ever changing world in which we live in

Makes you give in and cry,

Say live and let die!

"Live and Let Die" (Paul McCartney & Wings) 

So I didn't know anything about the actual story of this book when I got it, so simply based on the title and the cover, I was expecting this to be something set in the Middle Ages/Renaissance exploring the theme of death. It was nothing like that.

Several months ago, I discussed Kenchiku Shizai (2001), a book which also carried the English title The Builded Dead and which is considered officially Monzen Noriyuki's debut work: it was the winner of the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, which is aimed at writers who haven't made a professional debut yet. However, Kenchiku Shizai  was not really Monzen's first work. Several years earlier, Monzen had already sent it a different manuscript for the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award and it was in fact deemed the best entry of that year by Ayukawa Tetsuya himself, but the other people on the committee did not agree, and the work didn't win.Monzen therefore decided to self-publish the book in 1997, with the title Shi no Meidai ("A Proposition of Death"). After Monzen made his professional debut in 2001, he wrote a few other novels, and then publisher Harashobo decided to revisit Shi no Meidai again: Shi no Meidai ("A Proposition of Death") was re-edited and given a new title (the shi in the title in the 2010 differs from the 1997 version), giving the book a new opportunity to reach the audience.

The book starts with the arrival of Shinohara Tsunajirou, Monoda Yoshihara and Mashime Kyouka at the Mishima residence, located in the forest surrounding Lake Ensui in the mountains near Matsumoto City in Nagano Prefecture. The two-storey building belongs to Professor Mishima Souichirou, or to be exact, his widow: the professor had started construction on his home, but he died in an accident on the lake. His widow, Otono, however had the project continued, with a large part of the house dedicated to her husband's accomplishments and his hobbies. Some time has passed since the professor's funeral,  and Otono has invited a few old friends of her husband to stay a few nights at the lake, including the aforementioned trio, who were students of the professor. Tsunajirou and Kyouoka often visited the professor and his wife and knew them privately, so they are a bit surprised Yoshihara was also invited, and it's also a bit awkward: Yoshihara was never close to the professor nor his wife, and Yoshihara and Kyouka also used to date when in university. They broke up and now Tsunajirou and Kyouka are now an engaged couple. When they arrive at the house, they learn their host is not present. The physician Miyabi Daisuke, a Mishima family friend who knows Tsunajirou and Kyouka as well, arrived earlier, and explains he found a package hanging from the door knob, which included the keys to the house, as well as a letter signed by Otono, who explains she had an accident herself and can't freely move. Because it happened only a few days ago and she knew all her guests had already made arrangements, she asks their guests to entertain themselves despite her absence: food supplies have been prepared, so they can enjoy a few days off at the lake. Everybody finds this a bit weird, including Annosawa Ikuo, a budding mystery novelist who's a patient of the doctor (he was brought for some social contact).  A late arrival is Takao Hiroshi, a salesman for a medical company who was also invited. 

As they discuss their current situation, they note that the note doesn't actually sound like it was written by Otono, and Kyouka seems eager to leave, saying they should pay the widow a visit in the hospital, but they decide to stay for at least one night, especially as it starts to snow heavily. They explore the house a bit to admire not only the late professor's collection of insect specimens, but also his collection of torture devices, including the giant guillotine standing outside the entrance of the house. The following day however, a horrible discovery is made: Kyouka is found dead in the garden, with her face having been hit with immense force. It's obvious not an accident, as the object that inflicted the damage is nowhere to be found. Meanwhile,Monoda Yoshihara can also not be found, so the others start looking for him: they find his body floating in the lake, having first been strangled and then thrown into the lake for him to drown. The police is informed, but the road conditions due to the weather prevent them from coming at once. As the survivors await the police however, more deaths occur: a poisoning, a man being split in half with the guillotine... And when the police finally arrive... they find all six guests in the house have died, with the last one apparently having committed suicide.

 It's the sister of the last person to live who visits Kumode, who runs a construction consultancy agency which double-acts as a detective agency, after earlier success in detection by Kumode. The sister naturally can't stand her brother being painted as a cold-blooded killer who killed five people and then himself, so she wants Kumode to investigate the case, which is done by an investigation of the crime scene itself (the Mishima residence), as well as the inspection of two diaries: one by the mystery author Annosawa and the other by the supposed killer: these were the last two men surviving and both men claim they were not the horrible serial killer in their respective notes. Can Kumode figure out what really happened at the lake?

Kenchiku Shizai/The Builded Dead was an interesting book as it showcased author Monzen's knowledge of architecture (which he studied): it was a very realistic book when it came to the presentation of how a building is actually constructed, and at times, the realism did hurt the presentation of the mystery a bit, but it was still a memorable experience. Shi no Meidai is surprisingly enough not at all like Kenchiku Shizai, being a far more unrealistic book, as it embraces the familar tropes of mystery fiction. The premise of the book is a classic And Then There Were None set-up: all people in the isolated house end up murdered, but by whom? Like And Then There Were None, there's a second part that follows the initial closed circle narrative, focusing on the investigation conducted by an outside party after the murders (in this case, Kumode's investigation). 

Shi no Meidai follows the familiar tropes fairly faithfully, and some characters even point out how everything feels a bit fishy, from their host not appearing herself and the selection of guests being weird. Which is why it does feel a bit strange the characters don't decide to leave at once: they're apparently somewhat savvy enough to realize not all is right, but they still stay, and that's a thing that continues throughout this book: the characters really feeling like characters in a detective novel, doing the exact things needed to get the plot going, but not really fully explaining why those characters would ever want to do that. 

The same holds for the core mystery plot: there are some cool ideas that are at play here, some honestly really memorable (and gruesome!), but many of the ideas used here are quite forced, especially if you consider them having all happened in the same story! Like, the murder of Kyouka is actually pretty interesting as an idea: it's actually an impossible crime, as the garden was covered in snow and yet only Kyouka's own footprints could be found in the snow, despite being hit from nearby with an object. I can easily imagine this part being a short story on its own as it has a memorable trick, but then you also remember the murders on the doctor and Annosawa also happened in their specific manners, and you start rolling your eyes as that's a bit too much luck/coincidence that is happening in one sequence. The murders on the doctor and Annosawa again would have been great core ideas in their own story (it's actually really good while being incredibly silly at the same time, and I love it for that), but it loses its impact here because it just becomes one small cog in a much larger machine. A far more fantastical machine than the realistic mechanism we saw in Kenchiku Shizai too. The way the murderer planned for all of this is almost farcical, as it relies on one coincidence or lucky turn after another, so taking this story in as.... one story feels a bit difficult. There are really good individual ideas, but they didn't need to be taken all together, especially as it works towards a conclusion that only strengthens this sense of forced coindence. I think if the book had been written differently, this theme could easily have worked, but the book is still told in a fairly straightforward manner that doesn't really dwell on the thematic consequences of its events, so you are never sure whether the author actually realized his book borders on a parody.

The book actually opens with a Challenge to the Reader, containing 5 'pointers' that act as a kind of tease of things to come. I think the book's fair enough to warrant a Challenge, though I'm not sure whether it works best in this position of the book (why not just before the soluton?).

 Shi no Meidai is a book I think some of the parts are better than their sum, with some good mystery ideas and tricks, that however become a bit deluded when taken all together, because all of that happening in the span of like two days feels a bit too much, especially as part of a plan by the killer. It's also completely different in terms of atmosphere from Kenchiku Shizai, despite being the same series, which might be a good or bad thing depending on what your thoughts on that book was, or vice-versa. I think that the individual elements of Shi no Meidai are far more memorable to me than Kenchiku Shizai, but I found the latter a better novel overall.

 Original Japanese title(s):  門前典之『屍の命題』