Spooky Space Kook

I start running in town, with the bright sun in my back

"I want to shout I love you" (BAAD) 

 

眩しい日差しを背に　走り出す街の中 

「君が好きだと叫びたい」(BAAD) 

It was funny to see everyone trying film that iconic opening of the Slam Dunk opening theme on the seaside part of the Enoshima Electric Railway when I was there...

UFO Oodoori ("UFO Avenue" 2006) by Shimada Souji consists of two novellas about his series detective Mitarai Kiyoshi and his Watson Ishioka Kazumi. While this is the 23th book in the series to be published and the series had seen some changes it its set-up, the two stories collected in this book are set in the earlier periods of the timeline, when Mitarai Kiyoshi and Ishioka Kazumi were still roommates and Mitarai still being focuses on buidling his career as a consulting detective before moving on to becoming a neurologist as in some of the later books. While scale-wise, these stories have little in common with the long epic novels in the series like Memai ("Vertigo") and Nejishiki Zazetsuki ("Screw-type Zazetsuki"), they do share a theme of being mysteries revolving around perception of curious events: each of these stories are about someone witnessing an event they honestly believe to be supernatural or fantasy-like, with the surprise lying in Mitarai being able to come up with a completely rational explanation for what they saw and still vouch for his witness' sanity and accuracy in testimony.

The title story UFO Oodoori ("UFO Avenue") for example revolves around an elderly lady living in Kamakura stating that one night, she saw aliens fighting among each other in the mountain on the other side of the avenue she's living at. She mentions this on a television show, and now her son is trying to get her into a retirement home, fearing she might have gone dotty. A little girl living in the neighborhood, who is close to the woman, swears the elderly lady is still completely lucid and doesn't want her to leave, so she travels alone to Yokohama to visit Mitarai, hiring him to find out what happened. Mitarai and Ishioka go to Kamakura, using the Enoshima Electric Railway to visit the lady to interview her on what she saw.  When they have a look at the place where the battle supposedly took place, Ishioka is surprised there are indeed signs of something having happened here, as they find big holes in the ground. They also learn that only nights before she saw the aliens do battle in the mountains (wearing space suits, using strange rifles and even a UFO flying nearby), a neighbor, Ono, passed away under curous circumstances.  The man had been found dead in his bedroom by his fiancee: the room had been locked from the inside, and for some reason the door and windows had been sealed with tape. Furthermore, strips of tape had been hanging from the ceiling. The man was also dressed rather oddly for a night's rest: he had been found with a helmet on, a scarf around his neck, gloves on his hands and his body completely wrapped up in sheets. Ono turns out to have had a fight with his ex-boss and even attacked his boss with a pipe, but the police couldn't nab him for it. Ono had been afraid for revenge since, but was this the way in which he protected himself from attacks? Or was this get-up defense for aliens? Mitarai becomes more and more intrigued by these events in Kamakura, but is he really after aliens, or is there more behind this?

Spoilers: it wasn't aliens. Not this time. 

As always, Mitarai pretty much guesses the solution as soon as he learns the details of the case, with most of the time spent on asking questions to confirm his ideas and to insult and irritate the local police as he accuses them of stupidity and makes vague comments about who to watch out for. and where they can find traces of the truth. The story is fun to read though, with Mitarai and Ishioka meeting a colorful cast of characters despite the novella not being that long. There's also a nice focus on the ancient capital Kamakura and the area surrounding the iconic Enoshima Electric Railway. I happened to have visited Kamamura and Enoshima for the first time in my life earlier this year, of course also riding the Enoshima Electric Railway, which is characteristically integrated, and nearly absorbed into the local environment, with the very narrow tracks often just running just a dozen centimeters away from the surrounding houses. Author Shimada often likes to flaunt with his knowledge of things he researched in his stories (in this case explaining why these houses are so close to the tracks), but it works pretty well here because he keeps it quite modest due to the length of the novella and it of course relates in a certain way back to the mystery. The explanation behind the locked room mystery of Ono's death is not very surprising in a vacuum, but I like how Shimada doesn't use it... in a vacuum: it's only a starting point which then leads to other mysteries handled in this tale which I find more inspiring, with ultimately a very human motive being all of it (that said, what Ono did to protect himself was a bit... odd. You'd think there'd be better and safer ways to accomplish what he needed to do). Then we have the aliens of course: again, just hearing the explanation of what it was on its own isn't really shocking, but I really like how Shimada clewed the set-up and how it all ties together to one big tale, with all the "alien" proof having perfectly normal and rational explanations behind them. Shimada does this too in his other "fanciful interpretation of otherwise explanainable events" stories, but the other stories tend to be novels and there the stories become very convoluted, asking for a lot of suspension of disbelief: the chain of events in UFO Oodoori is far more compact and feels more convincing because of it.

Kasa wo Oru Onna ("The Woman Who Broke Her Umbrella") is a story that has been adapted for television in 2015, and it was in fact the very first time a Mitarai Kiyoshi story had been adapted. I have discussed the special in the past, and I liked it overall: you can find my thoughts here. I still adore the story set-up. Ishioka tells Mitarai about a story he heard on a radio show where they discuss strange happenings and the DJ tries to come up with an answer. A few nights ago, during a rainy night, the listener happened to look outside his window to see an attractive woman in a one-piece dress walking down the road towards a crossing. The woman placed her umbrella on the road and hid herself. When the first car drove around the umbrella, she adjusted its location and this repeated itself until a car had run over the umbrella, bending it completely. She then picked the umbrella up, but then walked back in the direction she came from. The DJ didn't manage to come up with a satisfying explanation for this strange series of events and neither can Ishioka, but armchair detective Mitarai quickly focuses on a few key actions of the mysterious woman and boldly proposes a theory that poses the woman was involved in a serious crime. When they read the local news of where the radio listener was living, they find out there had indeed been a murder in an apartment building nearby.

This is still a fun armchair detective story, where Mitarai comes up with a daring hypothesis involving murder, based on what sounds like the strange, but ultimately innocent story of a woman who broke her umbrella in a roundabout manner. The manner in which Mitarai develops his theory, or at least, show to Ishioka how he did that, by asking Ishioka key questions about the story is great. The Nine Mile Walk format works great for this mystery and you can really feel how it slowly turns into something sinister. After the initial set-up of the story and Mitarai showing his main conclusions, the story actually changes perspectives, as it then follows the woman in question. We learn she has a motive to kill a certain woman, because that woman caused the death of her mother during a bus hijack incident: while it was the hijacker who directly caused the death, it was the completely selfish and unwarranted action of the woman, a bus passenger, who pushed the hijacker to the murder. After learning this fact, the daughter swore revenge for her mother. While this narrative seems to cinch the deal for the reader regarding Mitarai's deductions, the reader is then treated to a surprise, as some facts we learn in this narrative, don't match up to what Mitarai's conclusions pointed to, which adds a new layer to the mystery for us the reader, while logically, Mitarai shouldn't be aware of that, so the question is how they'll then figure out the whole truth in the end.

While the initial set-up of the woman breaking her umbrella is great, the second half of the story that explains the discrepancies between Mitarai's initial conclusions and the truth as the reader knows it, does rely on a bit on coincidences adding up. I'm not sure whether this is the case, but it feels like this second half was only added as an expansion on an original, shorter story, which may add layers of complexity, but also feels forced in some ways, with some plot elements also mirroring the other tale in this collection, which may make it feel repetitive in some manners. The first half of the story is really worth it though and I personally find it one of the more memorable Mitarai novellas.

So taken on the whole, I think UFO Oodoori is a pretty decent collection with Mitarai Kiyoshi. While not reaching the "I'm going to throw this book at the floor while screaming 'no way' in joy" heights of some of the novels, it's a solid showcase of Mitarai in the armchair (or leisurely working)  detective mode, with mysteries that seem inexplicable at first but which only a genius like Mitarai can figure out in seconds. I'd say that Kasa wo Oru Onna is the better mystery story of the two, while the title story has the best sense of location. 

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司『UFO大通り』:「UFO大通り」/「傘を折る女」 

Summer Apocalypse

夏の幻

瞳閉じて　一番最初に君を思い出すよ

『夏の幻』(Garnet Crow)

 

A summer illusion

When I close my eyes the first time I remember is you

"A Summer Illusion" (Garnet Crow) 

For some reason a lot of the books I discuss this year seem to feature blue a lot on their covers...

Setsuna no Natsu ("A Fleeting Summer", 2025) is a short story collection by Nanakawa Kanan. The book is named after the title story, but the five stories collected in this book are unrelated, though they all share a melancholic tone. This is my first time reading something by Nanakawa by the way, who debuted via the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award in 2008 and seems to specialize in short stories. I decided to read this book because it was shortlisted for the 2026 Honkaku Mystery Award: the winner of the award hasn't been decided yet at the time of writing this post, but by the time this post goes up, the winner should not only already have been decided, but the actual ceremony will probably have been held too. So perhaps it'll turn out this book actually won the award!  

Setsuna no Natsu ("A Fleeting Summer") was originally published in 2018, and tells the story of two women who are volunteering near a recent disaster site. They're staying at a small inn, where they become acquainted with Nahoko, the daughter of the inn's owners. Nahoko tells the guests about her late uncle Ichito and one of the things he left behind: not a bottle ship, but a bottle "desk", with a book on it. A poem is written on the open pages of the book: "Honey-sweet candy / Oh those dear eyes of yours / A fleeting summer". Apparently, the poem was made in reference to an experience Ichito had when he was in middle school and the explanation is written in the rest of the book, but it's impossible to turn the pages of the book inside the bottle and he would never explain more about the poem to his niece. Nahoko did learn more about what had happened to his uncle in the past. After his father's death, he and his mother moved back to his mother's paternal home village as soon as Ichito finished middle school. His maternal family is related to the Amikura family, who are the most prominent family in the village, owning much land in around nature-rich countryside village. While Ichito initially has trouble blending in with the other children in the village, it's his friendship with Mizuha that soon helps him get used to live here in the countryside with the other kids. Mizuha is a distant cousin, who due to deaths and childless marriages, was taken in (together with her little brother) by the Amikuras as the future heir of the family. The two slowly become closer over the course of the summer, until a faithful day. One day, Mizuha and the local gang of boys were playing in a boat on the lake, when Ichito pushed Mizuha in the water. She became angry, so she swam to the nearby small island owned by the Amikuras. She went into the small lookout house there and sent the boys away, telling them angry to keep away from her property. The boys eventually returned home, but when Ichito learned Mizuha hadn't returned by the evening, he became worried and rowed to the island, to find Mizuha safely there. While they were there however, a tsunami occured, keeping them stuck on the island. The tsunami become more powerful, and by the following day, the village had been flooded and there had even been casualties. But what about this event had prompted Ichito to write a poem about it?

This is by far the longest story in the collection, taking about one-third of the whole book, but it's a very interesting set-up. The flashback scene is by far the longest section and tells a coming-of-age story of a boy who basically falls in love with a girl he meets in the countryside over the course of the summer, until a tragedy hits the village, forcing the girl to grow up and step up as the future heir of the Amimuras. There isn't a clearly defined mystery here for a long time, even if we hear about some casualties of the tsunami. The framing story then brings us Nahoko and her two guests, who start speculating about what the poem can mean. Once they realize the poem hides a message hinting at some crime that had been committed by someone during that summer, they start to speculate about what that crime could've been. The result is a captivating trip into the nostalgic memories of the boy, with small events being used to bring clever theories about what could've happened. The deductions presented utilize clues that are both based on physical clues, but also on the personalities and characterization, and while I'm not always a huge fan of the latter type of clues, I'd say it works out really well here in this tale, and that combined with the physical evidence, I'd say this story does a great combination of these often polar opposite type of clues. The story surprisingly has room to offer multiple solutions, all which color the summer memories of Ichito in a different manner, and it's the last one that hits hardest. The atmosphere of this story is absolutely fantastic though, and that's perhaps true for all the stories in this book: a strange kind of melancholic, cozy atmosphere is present in all these stories, even though they can become quite dark.

Mahou no Apron ("The Magical Apron") is a very short story, where the town's Civil Affairs office is contacted about by a neighbor about their worries about a family of four (a mother with three children) living nearby: the children have been loud lately, and there are worries of neglicence. When the people from the office visit the house in the evening, they find the mother is gone. When they ask the oldest daughter whether their mother is working, she only answers their mother is gone to run an errand: an excuse the civil workers have heard earlier, as the family is receiving an allowance from the town, which of course has restrictions to side-earnings. These segments are interspliced with parts that follow the children's mother as she tries hard to keep the household running while earning money, and while it is hard, the love she gets from the children is what keeps her going. However, the civil servants discover that this is no usual case as they dig further. While the story on its own is pretty memorable, I can't deny the ending is a bit predictable. The misdirection isn't as effective as I would have wanted it to be, meaning the "twist" that came was the one I assumed would be the fake one. It's a good "story" but as a "detective" story, I would have loved a twist that went one step further.

Senyakou ("A Journey of a Thousand Nights") tells the story of Masami, a teenager, who has to stay with his aunt while his mother is travelling abroad to her boyfriend. His mother's family is, simply said, a mess: Masami's mother Eri was the second daughter to grandmother Hinata, who had three children. Divorces, new boyfriends, children running away from home and grandchildren who were adopted eventually led to  a strange household. Even Masumi doesn't really understand what's going on, but his grandmother Hinata passed away some years ago (he never met her), and now he's going to live with his aunt Asano and his cousin Nonno, who's the daughter of his oldest aunt Akari, but has been officially adopted by his grandmother. During his stay, he slowly starts to learn these two family members he barely ever met before, but things slowly start to turn into a nightmare for Masumi when someone starts haunting the house: Akari, who is apparently vivid her mother Hinata took Nonno from her and now determined to get to Nonno.

By now, the 'missing father figure' device is becoming quite apparent in these stories. This story was originally published in 2021 and it's actually only this story and the title story that were originally published elsewere: the other three stories were written especially for this book. This story feels very much like a horror story, almost like Higurashi, with a young man moving to a new environment and while things seem normal at first, it slowly turns into something frightful as an unknown figure starts haunting the house. That said, I had really trouble getting into the story first because of the insanely complex family relations of the family, which also seemed a bit ridiculous at time. The story works towards a climax with a solution that... can be guessed pretty easily. I think author Nanakawa does a great job at presenting this story as a family tragedy, but the twist prepared for the reader is ultimately based on a phenomenom seen very often in real-life, which makes it easy to recognize. The writing and the atmosphere painted in the story does do a lot of heavy lifting in still making this a good story to read.

Watashi to Watashi no Imouto ("Me and my younger sister") follows a primary school teacher, who is fascinated by the school diary one of the pupils writes: Maria writes about a sister... which she isn't supposed to have. The more the teacher starts digging into why Maria would be writing about a sister who doesn't exist however, the more dangerous things become for herself... Another broken family story, because why not? Again, this story has a slight horror tone, as Maria writes extensively about talking with her younger sister, although the records show she has no living siblings.... but she does have a still-born twin sister. It's a bit of a shame that like in the second story Mahou no Apron, the story doesn't rely much on deduction: the truth is often just discovered by the narrator just appearing at the right place at the right time. In this case, the truth is absolutely horrible, and I can't even imagine why Maria would agree to do the thing she did at the end, considering the way we are also told she acted previously. The misdirection, due to an extra layer, works better in this story than in Mahou no Apron, which are both similar stories in terms of length and their focus on family bonds, though both are relatively simple tales.

The final story, Land's End, tells the story of a taciturn, attractive woman who has moved to a small factory town at the far end of Hokkaido, working in a small boxed lunch shop and living in the smallest and cheapest flat she could find. She has no hobbies, no friends, only living from day to day. She also doesn't read the newspapers, so the only news she hears, like the recent murders on women, come from the chatty boss. One day, the woman loses a broach and it's her neigbor who brings it to her: a slightly older man who is very much like her, reserved and with no apparent goal in life. It turns out both have similar interests in music though. They bond, and with every day, their relation changes: he comes buy his lunches at the shop, while she visits him in his room to chat about music. But what brought these two figures to this town, at the far edge of the world, and where will their future bring them?

The most melancholic story of the volume: the narrator seems to have no purpose in life, though we aren't told until the end why, and much of the story is about following her as she slowly starts to bond with her neighbor. It's at the end we learn there was more about these two getting to know each other, and surprisingly, we are presented some pretty decent deductions based on actual physical and otherwise Queen-esque clues. I had expected this to be more like one of those Yamada Fuutarou stories like Taiyou Kokuten where we learn "something had been brewing" beneath the surface of a different kind of story: usually those stories don't really rely on chains of deductions based on actual clues/testimonies, so it was surprising to see it utilized here, and in an effective way too. While the first part of the truth might not come as a huge surprise, I do like how Nanakawa prepared a very well-thought off conclusion based on that truth, a story conclusion that holds a few surprises of its own. The ending is absolutely perfect, not just for this story, but for the whole book itself, with a glimpse into a more hopeful future in an otherwise melancholic world.

As I said, this was the first time I read something by Nanakawa, but the book certainly piqued my interest. The stories all have a distinct vibe, feeding the reader melancholic feelings, but fortuately the stories also always end on... well, perhaps not a hopeful tone, but there's always slivers of light that make it through. Some of the stories here are mystery-wise a bit simpler than I personally like, but the actual stories/syuzhet are always captivating and the better entries in this book also contain surprisingly well-constructed chains of reasoning, while staying true to the more grounded worlds of these stories. This was a very introduction to Nanakawa's work and I expect to see more of their work on this blog in the future.

Original Japanese title(s):  七河迦南『刹那の夏』:「刹那の夏」/「魔法のエプロン」/「千夜行」/「わたしとわたしの妹」/「地の涯て（ランズ・エンド）」

Mecha Mutt Menace

"Well, my friend, robots cannot kill, their prime directive..."

- "I know, I know, I know, it's the first program that's laid into any robot's brain, from the simplest Dumb to most complex Super Voc. But suppose... suppose someone's found a way of bypassing it."

"Doctor Who: The Robots of Death" 

We've seen more and more uses of AI as devices in mystery plots the last few years, though I think the best/most memorable uses of them in mystery fiction are still when they use the gap between real humans and AI to create clues etc. I've seen a few examples in the last few years that worked really well.

Utsugi is a young man in possession of a strange device, left to him by his deceased parents when he was a child, and his "partner" ever since. At first glance, it might appear like a small dog or a black cat: it is roughly the same size and has four limbs. However, its body is completely smooth, and once you look closer, you realize it also has no face. It is in fact a standalone robot with highly sophisticated AI built into it, even though it speaks in a very mechanical manner like "REP / UTSUGI / UKN / ANALYZE / TP8.7", a language which only Utsugi can interpret perfectly. While it is known that the name of the AI is Excimer, other details about "her" are shrouded in mystery, though the technology used to create her and her body suggest they might be the product of some experiment with military purposes. Excimer is a completely standalone machine, meaning it can't interface with other devices directly, meaning they can't safely examine how its built. Excimer only recognizes Utsugi as her administrator, and "friend". This is an important distinction, as it is directly connected to Excimer's purpose: the AI is specifically built to detect murderers and it will treat any murderer who is trying to keep their crime a secret as an immediate threat, prompting Excimer to execute them on the spot with any or all of its installed weapons, including knifes and firearms. Utsugi now runs a detective agency, with Excimer as the detective. Utsugi has no detecting skills himself, but he is needed to interpret Excimer's deductions and more importantly: he has to issue an emergency command to Excimer once Excimer tries to kill a murderer. We follow Utsugi and Excimer as they tackle five cases in Matsushiro Akira's short story collection Tantei Kikai Excimer ("The Detecting Machine Excimer", 2025).

I mean, I guess a black box on legs can be a challenging idea for a captivating cover image, but I am also not a very big fan of the current cover now as it really humanizes the robot too much... I mean, the Jameson-type robots in Ghost in the Shell can be be cute, so it's not like having just the box robot would necessarily be boring... 

The book opens the curtains with Open the Curtain, which has Utsugi visit Shindou on the recommendation of Professor Yakushi, who is examining Excimer. Shindou is an old study mate of Professor Yakushi and runs a company involved in AI technology, so Yakushi thought Shindou would be interested in meeting Utsugi, and more importantly, Excimer. Utsugi arrives the Shindou residence on a warm day, carrying Excimer in a backpack. Because Shindou had not been told much about Utsugi, he at first doesn't understand why Yakushi wanted him to meet Utsugi, but he soon realizes what Yakushi's intentions were once he learns about Excimer. The flagship product of Shindou's own company is not as sophisticated as Excimer, but a lot more practical: SILK is an AI that functions as a controlling system for all of your smart home appliances and technology, allowing you to give verbal or even non-verbal commands to control everything from the lights to the curtains or warming something up in your microwave. As Shindou and Utsugi discuss SILK and Excimer's respective uses though, Excimer starts to act weird: she has detected Shindou is a murderer and is about to kill him, but Utsugi can just stop her in time. But how did Excimer find out Shindou's a murderer during a short chat?

The reader gets a good idea of how Excimer works in this opening story: it is a detecting machine, but that is not Excimer's main purpose. Therefore, she is actually not keeping Utsugi up-to-date on her deductions, and will decide on her own to eliminate a threat. It is only once Excimer's deduction processes have identified a murderer without doubt, that she'll move in for a kill, but it's also only then she agree to tell Utsugi about what thinking process led her to the murderer. That leaves Utsugi with only a very small window of opportunity in which he can have Excimer explain her deductions: if he's too early, Excimer won't explain her (unfinished) deductions, if he's too late in issuing a "don't kill" command, Excimer will already have killed the target. Open the Curtain works as a short, but effective introduction to how this all works, as we see Excimer only become dangerous once enough clues have been shown, and while some clues were a bit obvious to see, I do like one line of clue a lot, as it fitted perfectly with the theme of the AIs. It's a pretty brilliant clue, that is used multiple times in several ways in a very short scene, yet it doesn't stand out at all. It's also a uniquely modern type of clue, which I really like. The aftermath of the deduction scene is also great, and really sets up the tone for the rest of the book. 

Lost and Found introduces us to a new main character: Misa is a student who studies under Professor Yakushi and she's been offered a part-time job as the "scribe" of Excimer: she's to accompany Utsugi and Excimer and write down everything Excimer says and does as part of their research into Excimer's technology. On the day Misa visits the detective agency of Utsugi to introduce herself to Utsugi and Excimer. It turns out Utsugi owns the whole building, using one floor as his own agency and renting the other floors out. Employees of a trading company housed on a lower floor go up to the rooftop during their lunch break. They happen to look down at the empty lot behind the building, where they see a dead man on the ground, with a ladder next to him. Due to building violations, the empty lot is actually inaccessible, as it is completely surrounded by buildings on all four sides. It thus appears the man tried to cross from the rooftop of one building to another, perhaps in a burgling attempt, and then fell to his death, but is that really the case?

This is I think the longest story in the collection, and it's definitely the most complex one. The mystery revolves around whether the victim's fall was an accident (it wasn't), and if it wasn't, who pushed the man to his death? The victim turns out to be an ex-employee of the trading company, who had been fired for embezzlement, so the police suspect he was trying to break into the building via the rooftop: the building opposite the empty lot has been empty for a while, so he could easily get to the rooftop of the empty building, and then use a ladder to climb across the empty rooftop, to the rooftop of the building owned by Utsugi. While Misa and Utsugi did hear a thud during their talk, they soon suspect it was faked to create an alibi, but who then committed the crime? The story's length is used in a good manner, allowing Misa to also act as a would-be detective, offering good suggestions and theories. Her presence is certainly needed, because Excimer won't openly theorize before she gets a chance to kill the murderer, while Utsugi isn't trying to be a detective at all, leaving everything to Excimer or the police (the police works with Utsugi/Excimer, but also know how dangerous Excimer is, so it's a reluctant team-up each time). So having Misa act as a Watson Plus, with her own theories helps flesh out the story a lot, especially, as we later learn, her presence actually does have influence on how Excimer's conduct throughout this case. The solution is not mechanical in terms of how the culprit killed the victim precisely, but it does involve a plot with a lot of moving parts/necessity of good timing and is overall a very competently constructed puzzle. I do like how Excimer is shown as more and more unhinged with each story: here we learn Excimer actually actively occasionally just shows short glimpses of her answer in order to entice the police and Utsugi in letting her meet the suspects personally, which gives her better opportunities to exterminate the murderer once she has identified them! The final reveal of what clue helped Excimer determine the truth of what happened is absolutely brilliant by the way and it is this moment that for me best exemplifies the potential of Excimer as a brilliant, but amoral detective.  

Don't Disturb Me has Excimer examining a past incident, involving the young brother of one of Misa's childhood friends, Fuuka. When they were very young, Fuuka's parents were invited by a friend to stay at their newly opened seaside hotel. Fuuka and her brother Haruto were still very young, and had never stayed at a hotel before. Misa was also invited, as was Riichirou, a friend of Haruto. The trip to the hotel was rather long for the children however, and Haruto was still sleeping when they arrived. Their parents brought Haruto to their hotel room to sleep some more, while the other three children went playing in the neighboring room, which had a connecting door to Haruto's room. The parents went to the lounge with the friends. However, while the other children were playing and the parents were away, Haruto fell down the balcony of the room. While it was believed to be a tragic accident, with the young Haruto waking up alone drowsy in a hotel room and accidentally falling down the balcony, about 15 years later, Fuuka now wonders who of the people at the hotel was hiding their murderous intent from the others. She asks Misa to present the problem to Excimer to see if she can solve this mystery.

Interestingly, Don't Disturb Me is the very first Excimer story: this story was originally serialized in 2024, and the other four stories in this book are written especially for the book release. The story has an interesting angle as it is mostly a flashback, following very young children who get involved in a tragic accident involving the youngest child. It's from this account Excimer manages to figure out the truth of what happened exactly and how anyone could've made Haruto fall from his hotel room, as it was technically a locked room: the corridor-side door not only locks automatically, but was also latched from inside. The connecting door between the two rooms was unlocked, but could be observed by the three children playing in the other room. And the balcony-side too can't be accessed without leaving any traces. The story places some neat clues, though I do think these stories that rely on children's testimonies/interpretation of events can be a bit hit or miss, as it is difficult to write convincingly and yet fairly that a child thought X or Y and that that had effect on the mystery. Especially when they are young and children grow up fast, it's hard to pinpoint an exact age range where you can fairly expect a child to understand or not understand X and incorporate that in a mystery plot. So that always keep bothering me when I read these kinds of stories. The theme of the past mystery however is well incorporated into the framing story of this tale, and it's a very decent entry in this collection. 

You Have Control gives us a huge shake-up and shows us what can happen when Utsugi isn't there to control Excimer. One late evening, Utsugi (and Excimer in his backpack) are walking Misa back to her flat after working on a case. They meet a few of Misa's acquaintances/fellow flat residents along the way, but when they arrive home, they find a cut-off body part: a hand. Utsugi turns out to be bad with bloody bodies and passes out at the sight, but he did this at the worst time possible: Excimer is already determining who the killer is! Misa just has enough time to grab the backpack with Excimer inside and runs to her flat to lock the robot inside her room, while she tries to call the police and Professor Yakushi to see what she should do. Meanwhile, she can hear Excimer cutting the backpack open with her installed knife and trying to break out of the room in order to exterminate the threat (= the killer). Because only the now unconscious administrator can command Excimer to pause her attack and ask her about her deductions, Misa realizes she has only one option left in order to stop Excimer's murderous tendencies: she has to figure out for herself who the murderer is, and convince them to give themselves up so Excimer won't see them as a threat anymore.

The idea of this story is absolutely great, and there's a lot of tension going on as we have seen in previous stories Excimer will not lie to people, but will manipulate them in order to get an opportunity to kill a murderer. I think what is interesting is about this story is that Excimer acts as a "deductive clue" here: in reality, we know that a random murder that happened on the street doesn't mean the suspect has to be one of the people we just happened to meet outside on the street. It could be anyone whom we just happened to not meet in the city. In this instance though, the reader is informed the killer is someone we met in this story, because of Excimer's reaction. Of course, Excimer's deductions are also based on actual clues we saw in the story, but because she's such an advanced AI, the story could still get away with saying Excimer managed to solve the case based on what she saw/heard/sniffed, plus a probability calculation, giving her an edge over us humans in determining wether the killer does happen to be one of the people we met on the street. The murder itself is a bit silly to imagine, as the way the hand got cut off feels almost comic-like, but the premise of the story is just so great and it stays so exciting until the very end, I actually liked it better than the previous story.

The final story, Just a Machine, is not a straight mystery story, but acts as the collection finale. The story starts with the theft of Excimer by an unknown figure, which immediately sets off the alarm bells at the police station and Professor Yakushi, as they are all too aware what harm Excimer can do if she happens to come across a murder on the street without Utsugi's supervision. The story however then starts revealing more about Utsugi and his past with Excimer, and the mystery of how Excimer works. The story neatly picks up some strands of clues planted in earlier stories, revealing something had been brewing without the reader's knowledge, but to be honest, it's not that huge of a deal, and a lot of readers might have guessed the general gist already even if it had not been clewed. I do like how this story acts as a finale to the book.

Tantei Kikai Excimer is a short, but solid collectionthat admittedly is helped a lot by the great premise of Excimer as an unscrupulous detective AI: the stories are their best when her goals and abilities are used to shape the actual mystery plot and the way the story develops. The core mystery plots in this book are overall solid, but sometimes a bit too short or limited in scope, but having Excimer working on them usually does elevate them. It'd be interesting to see how Excimer would evolve, if sequels are to come.

Original Japanese title(s): 松城明『探偵機械エキシマ』:「Open the Curtain」/「Lost and Found」/「Don't Disturb Me」/「You Have Control」/「Just a Machine」