The Case of the Captured Queen

"Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

"Through the Looking-Glass" 

 

The cover of today's book has an interesting design and looks quite good in real-life, not so much as a small image file... 

Rokuhara Azusa is a woman in her late thirties who works at the Citizen's Affairs counter of Matsumoto City Hall, handling complains and other problems Matsumoto inhabitants may encounter in their daily life. One day, Takatsuku Kenichirou, a judicial scrivener in his forties, wants a consultation regarding his wife Mutsuko. In the last few months, his wife Mutsuko has claimed twice someone has tried to attack her, though she has remained unharmed and both times, she was just at home and nobody else saw anyone who could've attacked her. Mutsuko has always been rather high-strung, so she might have just imagined things, but Mutsuko absolutely refuses to even speak with a psychatrist, having rather strong misconceptions about mental health issues. Kenichirou hopes the Citizen's Affairs people can help him. Azusa and her co-worker agree to have a talk with Mutsuko and arrange to meet them in a few days at their home, which Kenichirou and Mutsuko share with Mutsuko's father, a farmer, and her father's second wife. Azusa arrives at the home just as Kenichirou also returns from work and they are walking to the house, when they hear Mutsuko crying for help from above. She cries "No, please... Natsumi!" as she slowly retreats with her back to the open window and before anyone can stop her, Mutsuko tumbles backwards out of the window, to her death. Azusa rushes inside the house and locates the room from which Mutsuko fell, only to find the door locked from the inside. The police is notified, and one of the detectives put on the job is in fact Azusa's husband Tomoki. When the police break the door down and enter the room however, they find it empty: no sign of the person who pushed Mutsuko or at least scared her so she fell to her doom. 

While Tomoki is struggling with this locked-room murder, Azusa continues her work at City Hall, where she deals with a slew of other incidents that may or may not have a criminal side to them: an elderly man who lost his wife a while back and was going to place the urn with his wife's ashes in the family tomb, found an unknown extra urn in the tomb, which is usually kept locked with a padlock. Meanwhile, another citizen suspects he had been stalked by an unknown figure from the station. The work pressure is also starting to affect Azusa and Tomoki's marriage, so both try to resolve their cases as quickly as possible so they can focus on each other in Asane Juuji's debut novel Aka no Joou no Satsujin ("The Red Queen Murders", 2024).

Asane won the 16th installment of the Bara no Machi Fukuyama Mystery Award with Aka no Joou no Satsujin, which earned him the publication contract of his first novel. Last year, I read his Sennen no Whodunnit, a science-fiction mystery set a thousand years in the future and as I am writing this review, he has a new book in serialization, which features a title referene to Schrödinger's cat, so you'd think he's very science-fiction-inclined, but his debut novel is the complete opposite. And it's actually very easily explainable too. For this book stars a civil servant who works at city hall of Matsumoto in Nagano Prefecture, and Asane in his real-life day job is in fact...  a civil servant who lives in Azumino, the city neighboring Matsumoto. So I wouldn't be surprised if Asane does in fact work at city hall and is now, or was at one time, assigned at working at the Citizen's Affair counter there. For this book is really rich in descriptions of the city of Matsumoto and its direct neighbors, from the vibe to geography, and the reader also gets an interesting look at the work they do at the Citizen's Affair counter, explaining how the people there are not experts in all topics per se, but they have a vast wealth of knowledge in various topics (because people come with all kinds of complaints and problems) and they generally have a good idea of how to proceed next or what experts to call in. So one moment, you might have someone who wants legal advice about property borders, the next visitor might be asking about financial problems, and it's quite educational to see how they first explore the options they have before they start referring the visitors to other means.

One also wonders how much of Asane's real-life experience is mirrored in the way Azusa and Tomoki's as civil servants (one at city hall, one at the police) negatively influences their marriage. The book focuses a lot on their relationship as the two deal with their own cases and get swamped with work. Azusa's getting more and more irritated by the fact Tomoki never tells her in advance whether they'll be having supper together or not, even though she also understands a homicide detective usually doesn't have the luxury of being able to free up their evening schedule every day of the week. Tomoki too knows he should try to communicate more, but practically speaking, his job simply doesn't give him much room to do much about that. While I'm not really a big fan of  the "detective has troubles at home" trope, it works here because Tomoki and Azusa each head different cases, so they are basically "each other's problem" and their relationship ties the initial murder case to the seemingly non-criminal cases Azusa's looking into in a very natural manner.

Anyway, the story starts with the seemingly impossible death of Mutsuko: Azusa, her co-worker and Kenichirou watched as Mutsuko cried out in fear of someone called Natsumi, and then fell out of the window of her room, which they found locked from the inside. So who scared Azusa to death, and how did they escape the room? As the book is fairly realistic, one doesn't need to fear for old-fashioned needle-and-thread tricks hiding behind this locked room. In fact, the police is so pragmatic in this book, they initially just decide to ignore the locked-room mystery, assuming the killer must have had made a spare key for themselves. Their investigation focuses on the elusive "Natsumi", whose name Mutsuko uttered before she died. The police figure that if they catch Natsumi, she'll be able to explain how she managed to lock the room. So the first half of the book feels a bit like a police procedural, as we follow Tomoki and his senior partner Fujita as they comb through Mutsuko's past to find someone called Natsumi whom she might fear. 

It is only in the last third we see a larger focus on how the locked-room mystery was done. While one of the suggested fake solutions is a bit funny if you imagine it, it's dismissed fairly quickly and easily (and I think a lot of readers wouldn't have fallen for it anyway as the main argument to dismiss it is fairly obvious), the final solution is an interesting variation of a trick I have only seen a few times, which in turn is basically just an inverted variant of something that is very common. Because of the realistic approach of the book, one can't deny it feels a bit unfair here, as this method will never always 100% lead to this outcome every single time, but I do like the basic idea behind the trick, especially as Asane did his best at organically at planting certain pieces of knowledge that are necessary to solve the locked-room mystery. It's specialist knowledge you need, but Asane at least went the effort at providing some pointers to that knowledge and did that in a way that shows he wants to play the game fairly.

Azusa meanwhile deals with some other problems, of which the "locked family tomb" sounds the most interesting at first: a man and his two sons are going to place the urn with the mom's remains in the family tomb, but when they unlock it, they find a fifth urn inside, even though there should only be four at the time. Because the space where the urns are kept is usually locked with a padlock, this is effectively a locked-room mystery. However, the solution to how this was done is quite disappointing: there's nothing clever about how it was done, and it's also not really hinted. However, Asane does do a good job at then connecting this "crime" to the locked-room murder mystery of Mutsuko. The same can be said of the mystery of a mysterious stalker who follows a few people from Matsumoto Station to their home. When Azusa is first consulted about the matter, she advises the visitor to go to the police, and there they learn more people have filed a report about some stalker following them down the streets. 

Not very surprisingly, as the story progresses, we learn these various incidents are in fact somehow connected, one strand of investigation turning out to actually be a clue necessary to solve another. This Judge Dee-esque approach works up to an extent, though it is of course rather "lucky" all these cases that were brought to the Citizen's Affairs desk happen to be connected one way or another. I do like the whole picture that is revealed when all is solved, with one main plot being set in motion causing unforeseen ramifications elsewhere in the city. While coincidence does play a role in the whole matter, I think the plan of the culprit of this mystery has some cool ideas that feel surprisingly "realistic" even though much of the book is devoted to the mystery of a vanishing assailant and a two locked-room mysteries.

Oh, and the Alice in Wonderland reference in the title (The Red Queen)? Yeah, you don't have to think about that, it really doesn't become relevant until the very end once everything is settled...

I wouldn't recommend Aka no Joou no Satsujin on its merits as a locked-room mystery to be honest, but overall, I did enjoy the book. The work definitely benefits a lot from Asane's own experience, as the real-life parts that depict the city of Matsumoto and the work done at City Hall truly give this book a unique vibe and while I thought I wouldn't like the whole marriage trouble plotline with Azusa and Tomoki, it worked surprisingly well to connect the various incidents together as we see the couple tries to balance life and work, with the lives of some of the people they meet during their work mirroring their own lives and possible future. The core mystery plot is a bit winding and relies on coincidence in a few instances, but I like the way Asane weaves several aspects of the varied work done at the Citizen's Affairs counter in one story. So surprisingly, despite the book opening in chapter one, section one with a locked-room murder, I actually liked this book especially for its grounded realism and the way it used for the mystery!

Original Japanese title(s):  麻根重次『赤の女王の殺人』

The Tell-Tale Bottle

"(...) uttered slowly, but clearly and impressively, the words — “Thou art the man!"

"Thou Art the Man" 

It must have been years since I last did a review of a non-fictional work...

Nazotoki Edgar Allan Poe ("Solving Edgar Allan Poe", 2025) is a book in publisher Shinchosha's Nazotoki... series on literary research. In this book, which carries the subtitle The Undiscovered Unsolved Murder Case, author Takeuchi Yasuhiro explores the work of Edgar Allan Poe, the father of the detective story, but not in the way you'd expect it to go. For no, his focus is not on the three Dupin stories, and The Murders in the Rue Morgue, the story widely considered the first modern detective story and the locked-room murder mystery, only plays a minor role in this book, as does The Purloined Letter, which is the better written detective story of the three stories. Takeuchi also isn't looking at Poe's work in the context of for example code-cracking (The Gold-Bug), nor is he interested in Poe as an influence on his followers in either the detective or horror genre. No, surprisingly, his focus is on the 1884 short story Thou Art the Man, which was published three years after The Murders in the Rue Morgue, but which is generally not regarded as well, as there are several issues that undermine the story as a logical and fair detective story... or is that really the case? In this book, Takeuchi takes another good look at Thou Art the Man to find a hidden murder mystery within the text...

As Thou Art the Man forms the focus of the book's main analysis, Nazotoki Edgar Allan Poe opens with a full Japanese translation of the story. From there, Takeuchi first gives a short analysis of the story as a mystery story, focusing on some of the odd choices Poe made when writing this story which undermine it as a logical detective story. However, by focusing on these apparent contradictions, Takeuchi slowly builds a theory in which he lays out that the story as presented to the reader, is in fact not the whole story: he presents a theory regarding a hidden, true culprit (different from the one presented in the story), and his theory helps solve what appeared to be faults or contradictions in the story if read as is. The way Takeuchi builds his theory is methodical and easy-to-follow, and while one can never actually prove whether "Edgar Allan Poe hid the real truth for us to find", the theory proposed by Takeuchi, and the arguments presented to support his accusation don't farfetched at all, and sure, I want to believe Takeuchi's version of the story as it gives Thou Art the Man a whole new dimension and it's all firmly based on the actual text! 

One of the arguments Takeuchi utilizes to strengthen his theory is the identification of a certain motif in the story, which, he argues, are also used in Poe's other (mystery) stories. This motif is for example also used in both The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter as per his analysis, but because the motif can be used in very diverse manners, it is not apparent right away Poe is using it across these stories. Some of the examples Takeuchi presents might not feel as strong as others, though that is something that is quite common in literature research. I do think the way he uses his identified motif as a way to support his Thou Art the Man theory works well.

The Thou Art the Man portion takes up about half of the book, after which Takeuchi proceeds to analyze the motif in other Poe stories, which aren't necessarily mystery stories actually. So while Takeuchi's brief look into the Dupin stories with his new motif-focused magnifying glass is expected, him using a motif derived from deducing a hidden truth within a detective story to analyze... A Tale of the Ragged Mountain is surprising. The Fall of the House of Usher also gets discussed, because this is a book on Poe, so of course it needs to be discussed. I do think the application of Takeuchi's motif on Usher results in a nice analysis of the tale, showing how Poe's thinking process might have gone as he wrote this story. 

As I don't want to give away Takeuchi's theory for Thou Art the Man away, and thus can't write in detail on the motif he identifies via that solution, I'm afraid this review remains rather vague. I can only say I quite enjoyed Takeuchi's adventure as a literature detective: his thorough analysis of the "testimony" (the Thou Art the Man text), focusing on the contradictions, the build-up of his solution: it all reads like a detective story, and one that's surprisingly accessible too thanks to his easy writing. And while this portion alone would've made for an interesting long essay, I did like how he managed to use his Thou Art the Man analysis to obtain a "magnifying glass" that allowed him to look into other Poe stories too. So if you're interested in Edgar Allan Poe's mystery fiction output and you're in the market for an easy-to-follow, yet surprisingly deep analysis of his work not from a historical POV, but a textual POV, Nazotoki Edgar Allan Poe is a book I can recommend.

Original Japanese title(s): 竹内康浩『謎ときエドガー・アラン・ポー』 

A Scary Night with a Snow Beast Fright

"No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty."

"A Christmas Carol" 

A few months ago, I reviewed Killer X, a novel written by Nikaidou Reito and Kuroda Kenji, and the first of the Killer X trilogy, which are about murder mysteries set in ski resorts in Japan that also feature "Killer X", a mascotte figure of a stationary brand. Merchandise with the cute, former monk-turned-assassin figure features in all the three books, though I won't call the character really a major theme in the two novels I have read. Two, I say, for today's post is about the second book in the series. You should also briefly skim through the review of the first Killer X book to learn more about the authors of the books first hid their identities under a pen name and how the Killer X trilogy is also just the last three entries in a tetralogy.

Anyway, Nikaidou Reito and Kuroda Kenji's Sennendake no Satsujinki ("The Killer on Mt. Sennen", 2002) is set on the fictional mountain of Mt. Sennen in the Y Prefecture. Fumiko is a Japanese woman who teaches at a Japanese language school in Australia. Most of her students are actually around her age and just call her "Fumiko" instead of "Sensei" and when they learned she hailed from Y Prefecture in Japan, they decided that they'd have a ski trip to Mt. Sennen with Fumiko: her students are of course not allowed to speak any English during the trip. Lately, strange rumors about Mt. Sennen have been making the rounds: two different persons have appeared at the hotel Fumiko and her group are staying at, claiming to have come from a few days in the future. Fumiko and her students are all relatively accomplished skiers, so they are going to heli-ski from Mt. Sennen. They'll be dropped off at a high point with a helicopter and then follow the course to the pick-up point. However, they apparently get off-track and end up near the torii gate which is where the time-jumping supposedly took place. It turns out their their navigator intentionally sends them off-course, because he's interested in the so-called time-wormhole and he knew nobody would be willing to follow him voluntarily. By that time, the weather has taken a turn for the worse and it's already too late to turn back, so they are forced to stay in one of the empty mountain lodges near the gate. However, they get murdered one by one by an unseen murderer, and the only clue pointing at the murderer is a diary that purports to come from the future in which all the events that have happened, were already written...

Sennendake no Satsujinki is slightly shorter than Killer X and is this time not confined to a single building, but basically set within a small, closed circle high up in a mountain that's closed off because of the snowfall. The group is trapped there, but they have access to a small mountain lodge, and as they later discover, a second one that's actually nearby but originally barely visible due to the snowfall. It's here that the friends get murdered one by one, while the survivors are getting more neurotic by the minute, as they also have possession of a diary that's supposed from their future, and it details everything that's happened, and will happen, and they're basically afraid to know what their future will be. This main storyline is interrupted a few times with a second storyline set at the hotel that is more about setting-up the motive.

The premise of a time-wormhole is an interesting idea, and the concept does actually play a role in the way the mystery is set-up in this book, but because the book isn't clear on whether time travel is actually real or not until very late in the book, it feels not completely fair, as obviously, your theories would change depending on knowing whether time travel is actually feasible or not. The murders themselves don't really depend on any time travel-trickery though, with most of them just being 'well, any one of us could've done that' type of killings, or at best 'okay, at least these people wouldn't have been able to do it'. While some of these murders do rely on tricks ultimately, they remain relatively simple: partially because the group is trapped in a snowstorm on a mountain, with no real opportunities for a thorough investigation. Some of the tricks behind the murders also rely on dynamics I'm not a huge fan of, but your mileage may vary there. 

Rather than figuring out how these murders were committed, I'd say the main mystery's focus lies more on what connects all these murders: who would've have a reason to be committing these murders here while there's stuck on a mountain, cut-off from the outside world? The set-up for this reveal is probably the most memorable part of the book: some of it might be guessed early on because of the somewhat obvious clewing, and I don't think the execution is as good as it could've been, but I think the underlying idea is good. A lot of the heavy lifting is done in the secondary storyline though, making the main storyline ultimately feel more like a horror film plot, focusing more on the reactions of the group getting smaller with each consecutive murder and allowing little room for actual investigations/deductions. It's actually a complete contrast with the previous book, which was absolutely packed with all kinds of ideas: this one is definitely more limited in scope, and while I haven't read enough of Kuroda's standalone work to realize recognize his hand, this limited scope certainly doesn't help Nikaidou's style, who usually is at his best in terms of mystery plotting, tricks, and atmosphere in longer stories.

It's kinda a shame Nikaidou and Kuroda decided to go with a completely fictional location and background story this time, I think. While their story requires the rumours of a person travelling through time, they didn't even bother to pick a real existing prefecture or mountain. I'd loved to see this story using the local stories/myths of an existing place, perhaps reworking them a bit (i.e. a place known for disappearances, and then rewriting them so it turns out these disappearances were actually people being displaced in time). The previous book was specifically set in the prefecture of Hokkaido, near the city of Otaru, so it just felt jarring to have the story now take place in... Y. It'd have made more sense if they had used another place famous in Japan as a ski resort (and it's not like they don't have enough of them in Japan), rather than a made-up place, as it weakens the theme of the series. 

A character from the previous book (as well as Hakuginsou no Satsujinki by Nikaidou Reito and Aikawa Akira) appears also in this book by the way, but under an assumed name. This character is also 'connecting tissue' between the books, so in that sense, it's perhaps better to read these books in order, but it's not like you see that much development for this character across this books, it's more like a surprise reveal each time to realize X is actually also Y from the previous book.

You'll probably have guessed by now I'm not that huge a fan of Sennendake no Satsujinki: I think the first Killer X novel was just better conceived as a huge treasure box of perhaps not hugely impressive box, but still stitched together in a very competent manner, resulting in an overall entertaining story. In comparison, Sennendake no Satsujinki is not only smaller in scale, but is also less intricately plotted as a mystery novel and simply have fewer bells and whistles, making it not a bad book per se, but at the very least, it's a book that simply has less going for it. Thematically, it is stronger than the first book on some points, but picking an absolute favorite between the two of them won't be difficult. There is one more Killer X book waiting for me, so it'll be interesting to see what direction that final book will go.

Original Japanese title(s):  二階堂黎人, 黒田研二『千年岳の殺人鬼』