番外編： The Ginza Ghost Released

I think I did the same back with the release of The Decagon House Murders, but I should really learn not to announce everything in advance in the announcement of the announcement. It's nowadays common practice to announce when you're going to make a major announcement, or at least it's like that in the videogame industry, but I guess the trick is not *not* give away everything during the pre-announcement.

So to be completely honest, I have little to add to my previous post on The Ginza Ghost, but for the fact that is actually released now, in both digital and good old paper form, and available through the usual channels like Amazon (questions about procuring the book are best directed to LRI by the way). This short story collection, translated by me and published by Locked Room International, collects ten fantastic impossible crimes, as well as two "bonus" stories from the hand of the "forgotten" writer Keikichi OOSAKA. The man was a talented master of the short puzzle mystery story active in the thirties and forties of the previous century, but the sociopolitical background leading up to World War II never gave him a chance to make a name. It was long after his demise in the war that he was rediscovered, and when fellow authors and readers alike started to be amazed by his imaginative and atmospheric tales of mystery. The stories he tells are set in a Japan that is still in transition, that is combining the traditional with the modern. From a mysterious death at a modern department store and a disappearing car from a leisure highway to a horrifying serial murder deep down inside a mine seemingly committed by a ghost: OOSAKA manages to create highly original detective stories by mixing his creative mind with surprisingly real, down-to-earth settings that result in something magic. For people familiar with EDOGAWA Rampo, a contemporary of OOSAKA, you might be surprised at how different this collection is, and how the stories prove to be a genuine classic puzzlers.

Publishers Weekly has a review here, while fellow blogger (and proof-reader) JJ was kind enough to write a review over at The Invisible Event too.

Anyway, I think that if you enjoyed The Decagon House Murders and/or The Moai Island Puzzle, you'll definitely love this book too. The stories are much older, yes, but they form important points on a line that goes from honkaku (orthodox) puzzle plot mysteries directly to the modern shin honkaku (new orthodox) mysteries.

And that's it for today's service announcement. I hope you'll enjoy The Ginza Ghost!

番外編： The Ginza Ghost

Longtime readers of the blog know the drill: no introducing quotes means either an editorial piece, or a service announcement. Today we have a service announcement long overdue (mostly because I kinda forgot about writing the piece. Most of the time this blog runs 'automatically', as I have enough reviews ready and waiting to be posted until almost next year, so I'm not always in 'writing mode').

Two years ago, I was proud to announce that Locked Room International was going to publish Yukito AYATSUJI's The Decagon House Murders, and that yours truly was responsible for the translation of that devious homage to Christie's And Then There Were None. Around the same time last year, I had the honor to announce that LRI's new Japanese project would be Alice ARISUGAWA's The Moai Island Puzzle, a novel I personally see as one of the greatest Japanese experiments in deduction, surpassing Ellery Queen at his own game. Both novels were also critically well received, which to be completely honest, was something I was even happier about as a fan, rather than as the translator!  And as we are once again in that same time of the year, you can probably guess what the announcement of today is about.

So I'm thrilled to announce that Locked Room International will be releasing Keikichi OOSAKA's the short story collection The Ginza Ghost very soon, the translation once again done by me! OOSAKA was a writer specialized in the short story form who was active in the period before World War II, and thus a contemporary of Edogawa Rampo. While he excelled at writing brilliantly atmospheric puzzle plot mysteries firmly set in unique backgrounds in the new, changing modern society of Japan of the thirties, he never did gain much fame back in those days. The war changed everything, as state censorship and being drafted into the army marked a cruel end to his career and his life. He became a forgotten author of the pre-war period, until he was rediscovered many years later, with influential writers like Tetsuya AYUKAWA praising as OOSAKA as one of the great losses of Japanese mystery fiction. His work has since then gathered much praise, and The Ginza Ghost contains a special selection comprised of twelve of his best tales: ten impossible crimes stories, plus two extra (non-impossible) stories that are commonly considered to rank among the best he had ever written. Mystery author Taku ASHIBE was so kind to write an informative introduction to the book.

And this is actually the first time where I don't have a handy link to an old review ready! Partly because this is an all-original edited collection. So while I can't link you to "proof" that shows how I was already impressed by his work before I ever got to work on it this time (save for this very old one about two of his stories, the first of them being included in the collection), I hope you believe me when I say that OOSAKA's work is really great. Not only did he come up with very solid mystery plots (written in a time when Japanese mystery fiction was more about horror and eroticsm than actually detecting), the atmosphere in these stories is unique, with a sense of pathos as we are introduced to all kinds of baffling cases set around workplaces and local industries that give you a glimpse into a Japan that was quickly modernizing and Westernizing in the thirties. Personal favorites this time are The Hungry Letter-Box and The Mourning Locomotive by the way.

Publishers Weekly already has a review available here.

Anyway, I hope you'll find The Ginza Ghost an entertaining read. I at least had a blast working on them. OOSAKA may have been a forgotten author for a long time in his own country, but I hope new readers will find out why everybody was so enthusiastic about him when his work was rediscovered. And if you haven't read The Decagon House Murders or The Moai Island Puzzle yet, why not try them out too?

『今、甦る死』

「えーテレビを見ながら食事をする人、いらっしゃいますよね。お風呂の中で雑誌を読む方、いらっしゃいますよね。ただ、私からのお願いです。人を殺すときくらいはどうか、殺人に集中してください」
『古畑任三郎：　忙しすぎる殺人者』

"There are people who eat while watching television. There are people who read a magazine while in bath. But I beg of you. When you kill somebody, please focus on the murder"
"Furuhata Ninzaburou: The Too Busy Murderer"

Hmm, maybe thinking I would be able to finish several games, while writing my thesis and other things, was somewhat stupid on my part. So I'll stop with the game reviews now and pick them up again after most deadlines have passed. In April.

I consider myself sort of a bibliophile. I love the touch and smell of older books, I love seeing books on shelves (or in my case, in little piles on the floor and on bookshelves and on other books and...) and I just enjoy browsing through little chaotic bookshops. So no, you won't see me buying an e-book reader any time soon.

But having said that, I read some stuff on my mobile phone in Japan occasionally. No, no cell phone novels. Just books and manga I downloaded, because it was free and I was bored and I was still trying out my new phone then and stuff. Because everyone would do that. In the end though, I mostly used my phone for normal things like calling people, mail, getting weather forecasts and finding out when that bus was coming, so I think I finished very few of the books I downloaded. And recently I decided I would read them now. So I took my Japanese cellphone from the drawer, switched it on, looking at that screen full of memories.

One of the authors I had on my phone was Oosaka Keikichi. Of whom I knew nothing. Nothing at all. I think Oosaka may be the only Japanese mystery writer of whom I knew nothing when I procured his works (not counting anthologies). Anyway, his writing-style quickly told me he was a pre-WWII writer, because few people would use the kanji he uses in modern writings (except to look smart/be irritating) and Wikipedia tells me he was a detective writer who lived from 1912-1945 and that he debuted in 1932 with Depaato no Koukeiri ("The Hangman of the Department Store"). Starting out as a somewhat amateuristic, stiff writer, he wrote better stories as the years went by, until state censoring prohibited detective stories and Oosaka turned to spy and humor stories. Also sprach Wikipedia.

And lo and behold, I actually had Depaato no Koukeiri on my cellphone. And it's an enjoyable story too! The narrator (a newsreporter) and Aoyama Kyousuke head to a department store to cover the news of a man who had fallen from the roof. What first seems like a suicide, is quickly proven to be something else, when they find strange marks on the victim's body, as well as a necklace which had been stolen a day earlier from the department store's jewelry section. Aoyama doesn't take long to solve the case though.

And I like the case. Around the beginning of the story, Aoyama deduces the nature of the crime by looking at the marks on the body and it is a bit Holmes, a bit Queen. A somewhat fantastic deduction, but certainly grounded in reality upon which Aoyama bases his next decision. While the trick is not very difficult, I gather anyone would see through the trick as it is not particularly well hidden, it is a well-structured, fairly hinted story and I can see why Oosaka went on writing detective stories.

The one point I didn't really get though, is why there was a tiger (in a cage) on the top of the department store. I know the department stores in general are meant to attract people, and are supposed to be grand and all that, even more so in the Taishou/Shouwa period, but a tiger? 

Kankanmushi Satsujin Jiken ("Clanking Bug Murder Case"), released the same year, is very similar to the previous work. Once again, the narrator and Aoyama head out to cover a murder scene. The dead body of a dockworker (called "clanking bugs" in slang) who had been missing for 5 days was found at sea. The other personm who had disappeared with him hasn't turned up yet. Like at the department store, Aoyama manages to deduce a lot from the wounds on the dead body, ultimately leading to the culprit. However, while the structure is similar, I didn't enjoy it as much as Depaato no Koukeiri. The solution here is, in an oblique way, quite similar to the solution in Depaato no Koukeiri (people who have read the stories might say otherwise though. It's somewhat hard to explain and kinda abstract). The drydock setting was OK and actually more fleshed out in the story than the department store, but it's just not as alluring as a department store. Which is cool and glamorous and stuff.

Still, that digital-reading, thing? Not really for me. Sound novels? I actually love them. But just plain texts? Actually, halfway through, my cellphone tried to connect to a network, which is kinda impossible, so I told him to stop it. He asked me another time. I said no. And now it seems my phone doesn't want to start applications (like the e-book reader) anymore.  I read the last part online, as it seems like the copyright on most of Oosaka's works has expired. And I could just read them all online, but I just... ugh...no. No.

Original Japanese title(s): 大阪圭吉、「デパートの絞刑吏」/「カンカン虫殺人事件」