The Legend of the Murder Hotel

Nancy and Helen mounted the wide steps and entered the center hall. Its paneled walls, old staircase, and beautiful cut-glass chandelier made them feel as though they had stepped back into an earlier century.”

"The Mystery of Lilac Inn" 

As announced last week, here's the review of Houjou Kie's latest work... I'm doing a relatively good job at reviewing these books soon after their release, right?

The Amulet Hotel is a completely regular hotel with normal guests... at least, when we're talking about the main building. The annex is a completely different story. The annex of the Amulet Hotel tailors to a very specific clientele: criminals. All those in the industry who need to know, know the annex of the Amulet Hotel is a safe haven for criminals. The hotel is members-only, and guests who stay at the hotel, know they can sleep safely without the hotel calling the police. In fact, the hotel can provide services normal hotels won't, as long as you pay the fee: room service can bring you pistols, disguises or even get rid of dead body for you. The hotel serves as neutral grounds for all criminals and therefore, there re two iron rules that are enforced very strictly: 1) one is not allowed to cause damage or harm the hotel and 2) One is not allowed to harm or murder someone on the hotel grounds. These rules ensure that even the biggest of rivals stay safely here in the hotel together without having to worry about being ambushed. However, like with normal hotels, some guests think they can violate the rules anyway. However, the Amulet Hotel has the means to deal with such guests. The night manager Kiryuu also acts as the hotel detective and has full authority to investigate any incidents that violate the hotel house rules. Incidents are not only covered up, but the people who violated the rules are also dealt with by Kiryuu, who in a previous life, was a feared assassin who's used to cleaning up loose ends. The reader returns to the Amulet Hotel in Houjou Kie's 2025 short story collection Amulet Wonderland.

The original Amulet Hotel was one of my favorite reads of 2023, with Houjou using the immensely fun setting of the 'hotel for criminals' to come up with original mystery stort stories, that relied on the fact basically all the characters were criminals themselves. The hotel basically acts as a great closed circle, due to the heavy security measures, and because Kiryuu is instructed to work in the interest of the hotel (i.e. protect its reputation as a safe place for criminals), stories often have rather dark conclusions as the best way to ensure 'wrap up a murder case' is to cover everything up and make sure the culprit doesn't get away alive, to make sure all future guests also understand they shouldn't try to violate the rules. Houjou is pretty open about John Wick being a huge inspiration for the series, so that should give you an idea of what kind of setting she's using for these stories. I had been looking forward to this second volume, which collects four stories originally published in the magazine Giallo between 2024-2025. 

Our return to the hotel starts with Do Not Disturb, where, in a very rare situation, Kiryuu is summoned by  Hattori, the assistant manager, to solve a jewel theft that occured in the restaurant of the main, normal (non-criminal) building. The restaurant has been reserved for a piano recital party in honor of the world-famous actress Strangelove. A couple of jewels, property of a jeweler who is trying to become the exclusive supplier to Strangelove, have been stolen during the party, and Hattori wants the whole deal hushed up before the party ends. It turns out that she has video evidence of the actual theft: a thief nicknamed the Wombat who has wormed himself into the party disguised as a food critic is actually caught on camera, but Hattori can't find the actual jewels that prove he did it. Wombat also happens to be such a low-level criminal he doesn't actually know the Amulet Hotel is the legendary hotel for criminals, which explains why he dared to pull off such a stunt, even if it's in the main building. Kiryuu and Hattori very quickly discover where the jewels are and the two are headed for the annex to report the incident to the owner, when Kiryuu is called on to solve a murder that occured in the hotel. A criminal influencer, Kiku, had been live-streaming himself on SinTube (a video sharing site for criminals) from room 813 of the annex, which is said to be cursed (people who stay there... get arrested). During the stream, Kiku was attacked by a figure. The owner of Amulet Hotel happened to be watching too, so he hurried to the room with back-up and when they entered, they found Kuki stabbed to death. They also learn Kuki's twin brother Yarai was staying at the hotel. The two brothers had been partners in crime until very recently, but after Yarai messed up a job, the two got in a huge fight and they seperated. Yarai however has an alibi for the murder, as he had been in the bar during the live-stream. So who killed Kuki and why?

This story does feel like the 'first story of a second season', as the story slowly reintroduces the setting of the Amulet Hotel, slowly explaining the special rules of the hotel via the relatively minor jewel theft part of the story. This mystery is solved pretty quickly, and seen in a vacuum, not particularly exciting considering the heights this series has reached in the past. The second part, following the live-stream murder on Kuki in room 813, is of course more interesting. Houjou fleshes out a lot of the criminal world of the Amulet Hotel series here by introducing us to a lot of warring crime factions, veteran thiefs and concepts like SinTube, a members-only criminal take on YouTube with special rules like not being able to hide your own identity (so no VTubers on SinTube). While the Amulet Hotel annex, due to privacy reasons, doesn't have that many security cameras hanging in the communal areas like the hallways, witnesses do make it clear basically nobody could've killed Kiku in room 813 and gotten away without any of the witnesses catching sight of them, and with a twin brother hanging around, suspicion soon falls on him, but how did he do it? The main trick is perhaps not super surprising, but I do very much like the mystery-embedded clue pointing to the twist. I do think the story requires a bit of suspension of disbelief in regards to character motivations (was that plan really the only way to get out of that?). The ghost story of room 813 is integrated in an interesting way with the murder by the way and I loved how the story fleshed out more of the staff members of the hotel (which is a running theme of the collection in fact).

The second story, Otoshimono Gassen ("Battle for the Lost Item"), for example revolves mainly around the recently hired Yazaki and veteran Izumi, who work in the bar lounge Black Kaiser of the annex. Black Kaiser also functions as the Lost & Found counter. Because all the guests are criminals (many of them thiefs), it is likely multiple people will try to claim a lost item as their own. This always leads to multiple people trying to argue with the staff, so they moved the Lost & Found counter from reception to the bar in the back of the ground floor. They also have a strict rule: anyone claiming a lost item must describe it in detail and you only get one single chance. A bag is delivered to the bar: Nomura, one of the guests, happened to spot the bag inside the grand piano of the lounge. Yazaki and Izumi examine the bag to find a doll of a platypus inside a sock and an expensive necklace with embedded jewels. Because the bag was found inside the piano, they deduce the bag was meant to be found by Otomaru, the piano player who will come in later in the day. They suspect it might be meant as a kind of veiled threat. Because Nomura has now delivered the bag to Lost & Found before Otomaru found it, it is likely the threatener will now reclaim the bag. However, to Yazaki and Izumi's surprise, no less than three people come to claim the bag, though only the last person manages to make a perfect description of the contents of the bag, with the previous two each mistaken certain points. Kiryuu happens to swing by the bar and upon hearing about the lost item, deduces there's something much grander going on in the hotel, which will require immediate action of the hotel detective.

This is a story that really shows off why the Amulet Hotel setting works so well. A mystery story revolving around multiple people claiming a lost item is pretty alluring on its own, but of course, when everyone is a criminal used to deceiving others, things become more interesting, and the absolute rule of allowing everyone only one single chance to claim an item of course only goes in the Amulet Hotel. While something criminal is definitely going on in this story, this story comes very close to a everyday-life-mystery in this setting. I think part of the mystery doesn't work as well, as it relies on the knowledge of the existence of something: I happened to know about it, but I don't think it's very common knowledge, and especially of a writer like Houjou, I do expect really meticulously clewed stories, so having part of the mystery revolve around a 'fact' that isn't really telegraphed well, feels a bit disappointing. That said, the rest of the story builds pretty well, with the mystery of the bag and its many claimers slowly being developed into something bigger and Kiryuu appearing to make sense of all of it.

Youkoso Koroshiya Compe ("Welcome to the Asasssin Competition") brings us closer to a John Wick world with perhaps the best story in the collection. Morooka, owner of the Amulet Hotel, has summoned his right-hand Mizuta, Kiryuu as well as security heads Suzuki and Tanaka to the Room of the Titans (see final story of first volume( for an emergency meeting. Morooka has learned Sofia, head of the Italian mafia organization Jupiter, has started an assassin contract competition to be held in the Amulet Hotel annex. Jupiter is trying to get a foothold in Japan and is now looking for a suitable assassin for some jobs, but in order to decide on their assassin of choice, they have invited a number of assassins and given them an assignment: the one to perform this assignment will win the contract. Morooka suspects the invited assassins will be trying to kill his right-hand Mizuta: Mizuta and his sister were once members of Jupiter, with Morooka being their ace "chaser" (tracks targets), but when the siblings left the organization, his sister was killed by an assassin sent by Jupiter. Mizuta took revenge by killing Jupiter's boss, but now his daughter runs the organization. Morooka guesses Sofia is hoping to bring down two birds with one stone: she'll have the assassins target Mizuta, and the winner takes the contract. Morooka isn't going to have his dear assistant killed and he has a fair amount of confidence in the security of his hotel, which doesn't allow for outside weapons to be brought in, but there are some pistols and other weapons kept in the hotel, like in the Room of the Titans, which they have to secure before the assassins get to them. They get amushed in the Room of Titans however, but manage to chase the assassin away for a moment. Kiryuu deduces where the assasssin is heading for... only for them to find that assassin killed by... another assassin. Thus starts a long quest for Kiryuu to deduce who all the hired assassins staying at the hotel are, and figure out which of them have actually already committed a murder, meaning they violated the hotel rules, because no matter what happens, they must pay with their lives.

A very action-packed mystery story that feels a bit like Houjou's novel released last year, which had a lot of smaller mysteries happening in a sequence, as opposed to the more "grand scale mysteries with a start, middle and ending" of her Ryuuzen Clan series. Here we have Kiryuu constantly confronted with new mysteries, which are solved and then lead the group to a new mystery. For example, Kiryu notices very quickly they're being ambushed, which turns out to have been foreshadowed by various clues. They follow the assassin, because Kiryuu deduces that based on the assassin's actions taken during the ambush. When they find the first assassin killed and have a short fight with the second assassin (who is masked), they gather enough clues to identify them from a list of suspected assassins currently staying at the hotel, which leads them to their hotel room, which again leads to a new mystery etc etc. While I do have to say I generally like Houjou's "grand" stories better, this story is really fun to read, as it constantly keeps you on your toes, with new mysteries being flung at you all the time, but they follow each other in a logical manner. There's actually quite some scenes with old-fashioned deduction chains based on physical evidence too, though not as long as we've come to expect from the Ryuuzen Clan series. Ultimately, I think the main large twist won't be too surprising once you see a certain pattern emerging, but I very much like how Houjou then uses it to add some more mysteries that ultimately build to a fantastic conclusion. 

Bomber no Satsujin ("The Bomber Murder") is told from the perspectives of both Morooka and Kiryuu this time. Morooka is attending a wedding reception that is held under his personal auspices: the "Romeo and Juliet" of the criminal world consisted of the son of the (Japanese) Swindler King, and the daugher of one of the high-ranking members of the Italian mafia group Jupiter, which has been trying to get a foothold in Japan. Their relationship was of course strictly forbidden by both families, leading to an elopment, and eventually Morooka and some other big names in the industry with a heart started mediating, resulting in a wedding reception held at the Amulet Hotel, with both sides playing nice at least for now. Morooka is of course attending the reception, while Kiryuu is acting as the night manager and making sure the whole hotel is safe for the criminals, when Morooka is suddenly served an anonymous call by someone (with a scrambled voice) who demands Morooka to sign over the whole of the Amulet Hotel over to them. 

To show he's serious, the caller ignites first a small bomb, and explains he has fifty bigger bombs hidden in the wedding reception hall: if they all go off, over a hundred people are likely to get killed, and all big names in the criminal industry. It would kill the reputation of the Amulet Hotel. The bomber has also enlisted the help of Aramaki Norika, the daughter of Morooka's ex-wife and also an Underworld Arbitrator: these arbitrators act as neutral judges among the criminals in a world where thieves have no honor, and ensure that deals between criminals are upheld, or else you call upon the wrath of the Court of Arbitration and the rest of the criminal world. Norika has a contract to sign everything over to her anonymous client, just waiting to be signed by Morooka. Once Morooka has signed the papers, the caller will tell Morooka the ten-digit code needed to disarm the bomb, to be typed into the control panel connected to one of the the bombs. Morooka has one hour to decide what to do, before the bombs go off. Meanwhile, the caller has also sabotaged all the lifts, meaning Kiryuu can't reach the reception floor and there's more trouble: a murder has been committed on Norika's father (a personal friend of Morooka) on the sixth floor and it's likely connected to the bomb threat. Can Kiryuu solve this murder and find the killer, and can Morooka find and disarm the bombs?

Again a story that is very dynamic, with both Morooka and Kiryuu being forced to deal with multiple smaller mysteries in a sequence. Morooka needs to locate the bombs and find the one with the control panel in a limited time, figure out the disarm code, without the guests noticing what is going on (because it'll only lead to a panic, as the lifts don't work). Meanwhile, Kiryuu has to solve the murder on Morooka's friend, who was found in an unused hotel room, lying near the door with his throat slit and for some reason, with mahjong tiles in his mouth. The story alternates between the investigations of both Morooka and Kiryuu, allowing for some tense build-up and a nice rhythm of one side investigating something, another side solving an aspect of the mystery and then the other way around. The Kiryuu part is the most 'classical mystery', with a crime scene investigation and deductions regarding the actions of both the victim and the murderer, based on the physical clues left by them. This eventually allows Kiryuu to deduce who the killer is, which turns out to be one of three suspects who all have a beef with Amulet Hotel. I think as a mystery story, I liked the third one better, but this works great as a finale to the second season.

This second volume is very much about extending the world of Amulet Hotel: we see more recurring staff members of the hotel and learn more about their background and it really helps sell this world. While Kiryuu wasn't the only recurring character in the first volume, it's clear Houjou is expanding the cast while also painting in more details in her image of Amulet Hotel, with the reader learning more about all the restaurants in the hotel, but also things like how lost items are handled in a hotel with mostly liars as guests. It certainly makes the prospects of a third volume even more promising, with this become more an 'ensemble cast' type of series, with Kiryuu acting as the main detective, but other characters also being allowed to carry some of the weight of protecting Amulet Hotel.

Anyway, I enjoyed Amulet Wonderland a lot, as expected. As a pure mystery story, I do think the first book is better overall and you should certainly start from there, but you can easily see Houjou's having a blast playing around in the hotel and slowly introducing new ideas and characters in the setting, and while I think she intentionally made a move to make the stories closer to "entertainment" on a Mystery vs Entertainment spectrum compared to the original stories, she's still a master at her craft and there's still a lot of great mystery moments to be found in this wonderland.

Original Japanese title(s): 方丈貴恵『アミュレット・ワンダーランド』:「ドゥ・ノット・ディスターブ」/「落とし物合戦」/「ようこそ殺し屋コンペへ」/「ボマーの殺人」 

At Bertram's Hotel

 "There's no place like home"

"The Wizard of Oz"

Semi-regular "Hey, there's a Honkaku Discord server so join it!" message!   

Ishinomori Shoutarou's HOTEL manga is pretty fun too by the way, if you're into fiction about the going-ons in a hotel!

The Amulet Hotel is, at first sight, an ordinary hotel, consisting of a main building, and an annex nearby. But, upon closer sight, one might notice the annex isn't quite ordinary after all. The annex is only open for special members, and if you look around the building, you might notice some peculiarities, like there only being one single entrance, and not even an emergency exit. The underground parking lot is also seperated from the parking lot of the main building, and for all intents and purposes, it appears that the annex runs seperate from the rest of the Amulet Hotel. And in fact, it does. For the annex of the Amulet Hotel serves a very, very special kind of clientele: criminals. The annex of the Amulet Hotel is a safe haven for criminals: here they can stay safely, and whenever they need something, they only need to ring reception, and within hours, you'll have a weapon delivered to your room, or even have a dead body disposed off. The Amulet Hotel is a world of its own, but it also has its own rules, and every guest is expected to abide by the iron rules: 1) one is not allowed to cause damage or harm the hotel and 2) One is not allowed to harm or murder someone on the hotel grounds. These rules ensure that even the biggest of rival criminals can stay safely here in the hotel together without having to worry about being ambushed, but of course, sometimes, people, especially criminals, don't follow the rules. But if someone violates these rules, they are of course not handed over to the police, but the hotel deals with such people in their own terms: the incident will be covered up, but the person who violated the rules will of course be "dealt with" accordingly too, and vanish from the face of the earth. The person responsible for this is Kiryuu, the hotel detective who not only has a very keen mind, but also a history as a feared assassin... In Houjou Kie's 2023 short story collection Amulet Hotel, we follow four crimes taking place in Amulet Hotel, and learn why one should never try to commit a murder there.

Oh, I like this cover a lot, very stylish!

Houjou Kie has been a personal favorite of mine ever since she debuted in 2019 with Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei ("The Hourglass of the Time-Space Traveller"), where she showed off how an old-fashioned, densely plotted puzzler could still work wonderfully with a scifi background. Supernatural and otherwise special background settings are something Houjou also experimented with during her time in the Kyoto University Mystery Club, and it's remained a staple of her work even after her professional debut, ranging from slightly futuristic VR-games, to an unknown being on an island hunting humans down and a supernatural being that lurks in shadows. At first, the idea of a hotel might sound rather tame therefore, but it is still very much in line with Houjou's work: the Amulet Hotel is not a normal hotel, but a world ruled by criminals, and what is normal there, is definitely not normal in a realistic setting, from calling reception to get weapons delivered or having a body incinerated so there's no evidence any more. In the stories of Amulet Hotel, people often have to act a certain way because they are all criminals, and because they can't afford to have the police examine the case. Because the setting is always, in a way, a closed circle (the hotel), and the only authority is Kiryuu (and the hotel doctor), the suspects often act in a way to prioritize self-preservation, which results in very clever puzzlers where characters will act in certain ways you are not likely to see in other stories, in a way similar to how fair play sci-fi mystery stories or stories with magical fantasy stories also have rules that govern how the characters can act.

I had been looking forward to this release, because I had already read the original Amulet Hotel short story back in 2021. I don't know if it was already planned as a series at the time, but the unique setting definitely had potential to carry a whole series, so when I heard a second story had been released (magazine publication), I really had to contain myself and tell myself to patiently wait for a collected release and not buy the single magazine releases. It took a while, but it's finally here! The first story is, as said, Amulet Hotel and I reviewed it back in 2021 and I basically have little to add to that. It is a wonderful introduction to the whole premise of a criminal hotel.When a guest of the Amulet Hotel's annex reports to hotel staff that the door to his room can't be opened and they find out even the owner's master key can't open the door, they are forced to break the door down. Inside, they learn the door had been blocked by a serving cart jammed beneath the door handle. They find a murdered man and an unconscious employee of the hotel in the room. Hotel detective Kiryuu is asked to figure out whether the unconscious employee in the hotel room killed the guest, or whether someone else did and if so, how the locked room was created. Once they know what happened, the culprit will be dealt with accordingly. 

What follows is an insanely densily-plotted mystery story with a lot of ideas stuffed in a relatively low page count, but it works. This is basically a short story variant of Houjou's debut novel Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei, in the sense both are really dense. Amulet Hotel starts out as a locked room murder mystery, but quickly turns into a very amibitious "which of the three" whodunnit puzzler with a lot of clever and sequenced clues. I can't really mention all the ideas here because it'll spoil the experience, but this story could easily have been turned into a full novel, and at no time would it have felt dragging, as there's just so much going in in terms of clewing. The story makes excellence use of the unique setting, forcing characters to act differently compared to a "normal" hotel setting with the proper authorities in charge. Definitely a must-read in my opinion

Crime of the Year no Satsujin ("The Crime of the Year Murder") is touted as "Episode 0" and shows how Kiryuu came to work as the Amulet Hotel's detective. Kiryuu was originally a secretary, and assassin for Douke, one of the biggest names in the criminal world. Known as the crime planner, Douke specialized in drawing up the most brilliant of criminal schemes and have others execute them. Kiryuu was taken in by Douke as a child and taught the ropes as an assassin, and while Douke could be a cold, cruel man, he would at times also show a soft side to Kiryuu. But now Douke has passed away due to cancer, which also means Kiryuu lost the protection Douke offered. However, there is still one job left to perform as Douke's right hand. Every year, at the Amulet Hotel annex, the Crime of the Year award is presented to the person who came up with the most impressive crime. Douke was one of the three committee of judges and thus expected to be present at the ceremony, but now he has passed away, Kiryuu has taken his place at the ceremony. Douke however was not close friends with his two fellow judges. Akashi in particular had been trying to grow his organization at the expense of Douke's organization, trying to win over some of Douke's higher captains. At the ceremony, the three judges and the winner of the Crime of the Year award are expected to drink from a special cup in turn. All four of them are on stage, drinking one after another. But when Akashi drinks after Kiryuu, he suddenly collapses on the stage. The Amulet Hotel doctor is called for, who discovers Akashi was poisoned to death. When Kiryuu's bag is searched and a vial of the same poison is found, the hotel manager immediately points his pistol at Kiryuu, for it appears that Kiryuu violated the rules and killed Akashi on stage. They all drank from the same cup, but Kiryuu handed the cup to Akashi as last, so only Kiryuu could've administered poison in the cup, right? Kiryuu only has a few minutes to quickly sort this impossible crime out before the hotel will take "measures"...

The second story is a lot simpler in design than the first (in fact, the first is by far the most complex story in terms of clues), with a semi-impossible crime, as we know Kiryuu didn't try to poison Akashi, and yet Akashi died after drinking from the same cup Kiryuu and the other two also drank from, and they are all fine. All of them have their tongues stained by the special wine in the cup, meaning they all actually drank from the cup, so how could Akashi have been poisoned? While there were only three suspects on the stage (including Kiryuu), the plot doesn't really take the form of a normal which-of-the-three, as it solely focused on Kiryuu trying to at least find a way to prove the possibility someone else could've poisoned Akashi. The story does once again make interesting use of the unique setting (the poison for example, was earlier simply ordered via room service) and a lot of the tension comes from knowing that the police will never come here. While the basic trick behind the impossible poisoning is fairly simple, I think Houjou does succeeds in making it an entertaining story with a few more twists and turns that make use of the Amulet Hotel to serve a few more surprises beyond just the poisoning itself.

Ichigensan Okotowari ("No First-Time Guests") is about Seto, who really needs to break into the Amulet Hotel annex, despite not having a member card. He is however a criminal, though just a very low-level pickpocket, member of the group Kerberos. He grew up together with childhood friend Aria as brother and sister, as their parents abused and neglected them. Seto ended up a pickpocket to make a living, but eventually, it turned out Aria was the illegimate child of a rather wealthy person, who passed away. Aria became his heir, but one condition: she was not allowed to monetize anything of the inheritance until she became twenty (she'd get an allowance and school money via a fund during that time). When a "friend" Kiba borrows a unique key chain, Aria didn't think too much of it, but when that "friend" then transferred money to her account for that key chain, she realized she had been deceived: by making it seem she had sold the key chain to him, Kiba could now blackmail her. Seto decides to steal the key chain back, but just as he's going to strike, he sees Kiba taken away by a group of people. He follows them to the Amulet Hotel annex, where he spots Yamabuki, a high-ranking criminal in one of the "parent" groups of his own Kerberos. He's holding the key chain, which makes Seto realize Yamabuki is behind all this. A lawyer is going to check Aria's belongings in a few hours, so Seto has to get inside the hotel, but that is impossible without a member card. Or is it? He tries to find a way inside the impenetrable fortress, but that's a neigh impossible task, especially if there's a hotel detective roaming around...

A different kind of story, and quite fun to read! About 3/4 of the story is about Seto trying to get inside the hotel, and while it's not a pure puzzler at this point, you do see him logically trying to deduce where the weak spots in the security could be, with Kiryuu occassionally popping up to throw him out. Time ticks however, and eventually, a shocking reveal is made by Kiryuu to Seto about Yamabuki, which changes the dynamic completely, as now Seto not only has to find the key chain in time, but also make sure he's not accussed of breaking one of the hotel's rules. The nice thing is a lot of little clues to the grand conclusion are hidden throughout Seto's attempts to break in, where he listens in staff members and realizes how weird the Amulet Hotel really is. The story is quite different in that it's not straightforward murder mystery this time and a lot of the tale does hinge on the twist surprise at 3/4 of the story which changes the dynamics, so I can't talk too much about it, but as a change of pace, especially with a character who is not really part of the hotel's usual clientele, this is a fun story.

Titan no Satsujin ("The Murder of the Titans") is by far the longest story in the collection, and revolves around a meeting with the Titans: the main investors in the Amulet Hotel. These people are called The Seven, though due to some deaths (the life expectancy of a criminal is not high), there are only five now. The meeting is held each five years at the hotel, and this year consists of The Weapons Smuggle King, the Gamble King, the Drug King, the Swindle King and The Shadow Accountant. The meeting is held on the fifteenth floor, which is usually kept sealed. The Titans of the criminal world here discuss the future of the hotel, but this year, things are different: one of the Seven, Kasai, wants to have the hotel closed after his wife and daughter passed away at an incident that occured here. Morooka, the owner of the hotel, desperately wants to keep the hotel open, so a heated meeting is expected. All the people attending the meeting have to go through a body scan and their belongings are also scanned through an X-ray scanner, to make sure nobody brings any metal (weapons) inside the floor. Kiryuu and the hotel manager stand guard outside in the hallway, while the meeting between the Titans is being held. After the break however, Kiryuu and the manager are called inside, for an incident has happened: Kasai was found lying dead inside the anteroom. The others went looking for him when he didn't return to the meeting room after their break, and found him dead. And not just dead, but stabbed in the chest with a knife. But how could anyone have brought a knife inside? Everyone was scanned for metal, and before the meeting started, the floor had also been cleaned (by... crime scene cleaners hired by the hotel) and scanned with metal detectors. It appears only one person could've brought a metal knife inside: Morooka, the owner of the hotel, who has a prosthetic leg and could've smuggled a knife within his leg. Now Kiryuu is forced to "deal" with the owner of the hotel in order to uphold its rules, but is this really the truth?

A long story, but also one with a lot of twist and turns. The story basically has a two-tier structure, as some way in the story, we learn in the past, another incident happened at a Titans' meeting, which is what prompted the current X-ray scans. As an impossible crime, it's quite nice, though some of the clues feel a bit underdeveloped: there's one thing you kinda need to deduce to really get on the way in the long line of reasoning necessary to solve this case, but I thought that part was a bit hard to guess without proper set-up. From there though, you'll see all the puzzle pieces fall nicely in place, and due to the dual puzzle structure, there's a lot of surprises waiting for the reader. I think the basic idea behind how the knife was smuggled into the room was good, but a bit simple, but the way it was actually hidden in-universe is pretty clever. Overall a good impossible crime story that once again makes more sense exactly because it takes place in the Amulet Hotel and not a normal hotel.

Houjou Kie has not disappointed me until now with her works, and Amulet Hotel is no exception. While this time, we have no "blatant" supernatural/fantasy setting, the Amulet Hotel's annex still provides a very unique background setting with its own unique "culture" and "rules" that make it different from a conventional story setting, and it is used cleverly to present attractive mystery plots that are often surprisingly densely clewed relative to page count. You know, I'd love to see a television or anime series based on this world, it's really made for it! Kinda like Odd Taxi, with the story following all kinds of people involved with the hotel, be it hotel detective Kiryuu or just guests. Kiryuu by the way is a great series detective, and quite different from Kamo/Yuuki from Houjou's main series (the Ryuuzen clan), due to a criminal background as assassin, and definitely being a grey character in the Amulet Hotel itself too. Definitely one of my favorites for this year!

Original Japanese title(s): 方丈貴恵『アミュレット・ホテル』: 「アミュレット・ホテル」/「クライム・オブ・ザ・イヤーの殺人」/「一見さんお断り」/「タイタンの殺人」