A Model Murder

"No matter how abstract the painting, he always signs his name realistically."

"Columbo: Suitable for Framing"

As I do so often, I went into this book without any prior knowledge or even reading the blurb on the back. So I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed at first when I realized this was not a mystery where a breaking wheel was used as the murder weapon...

Yabe Naoki is a curator at a museum, who one day starts chatting with Imura, an office clerk at the same museum. Yabe learns Imura does not have a special interest in art, but he does like mystery fiction, and because the young man also seems to have an inquisitive mind, Yabe decides to confide to Imura the mystery he stumbled upon revolving around the painter Toujouji Kei. Yabe himself learned of the painter when one of his paintings was featured in a small exhibition, and the piece only attracted his attention because the portrait resembled his wife when she was younger. However, that was enough to get Yabe interested in the painter who committed suicide some years ago, and hoping to find more of his work, he decides to contact his widow, who however seems not at all interested in her deceased husband. Toujouji Kei had only been active as a painter for a very short period of time, though he was very active, but he was a relatively minor artist. His widow in fact threw out most of his old paintings because they take up too much space. Yabe decides to contact a few other relatives and friends of Toujouji Kei, who have bought his paintings in the past, hoping to learn more about the artist, and the circumstances behind his suicide. The paintings Kei left behind are full of suggestive imagery, like a girl being licked by a monk-like figure and a woman being tortured on a breaking wheel. Yabe uses his knowledge of iconography to try and explain what must have been going on in Kei's mind when he made these paintings, but Yabe eventually also finds a diary of Kei, where he writes about the night he was invited to a party to celebrate his adoptive father's birthday: in the middle of the night, his father was found murdered in the bathroom, which was locked from the inside, and moments later, a scream follows and they find another guest dead in her (locked) room: she was an art student both Kei and his father knew, and who had recently won an artist award and therefore been invited to the party. Yabe passes his files on the matter to Imura to see if he can figure out the link between Toujouji Kei's paintings and the double locked room murder in Asukabe Katsunori's debut work Junkyou Catherine Sharin ("The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine's Wheel") or as the inner work of the book also says: The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine.

Asukabe Katsunori won the 9th Ayukawa Tetsuya Award in 1998 with this manuscript, which landed him the publishing contract for the book and marked his debut as a professional writer. Last year, I reviewed his Datenshi Goumonkei ("Torture of the Fallen Angels" 2008), a book which had been out of print forever, but late 2023, it received a limited facsimile reprint via Shosen and the bookstore Horindo in cooperation with the original publisher Kadokawa. They reprinted more of Asukabe's work, and my copy of The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine is another of them, created by Horindo, Shosen and original publisher Tokyo Sogensha. It's interesting how these books are really facsimiles of the original books complete with the advertisements for other releases of the original publisher at the end of the book, even though these fascimile reprints are not sold or distributed via the original publisher, but only available through Shosen and the Horindo stores. Anyway, as someone who is interested in the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award winners, as they tend to fit my own preferences in mystery fiction the most, I was glad I was able to secure a copy of this book easily now!

The book can roughly be divided in two halves, the first half focusing on Yabe's inquiries into Toujouji Kei's history and his quest for Kei's paintings, and the second half being the diary of Toujouji Kei himself, writing about the events leading up to, and on the night his adoptive father and the student died under mysterious circumstances. The first half is quite unique due to its focus on Kei's paintings. For Asukabe Katsunori actually painted the paintings discussed in the book. The book opens with four paintings printed in high quality glossy paper, and they really do look good. It's insane imagining Asukabe painting these paintings for a manuscript he couldn't have known for sure would indeed win the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, especially as the two main paintings are full of suggestive imagery, so it would be weird to just hang them in your house and have visitors wondering about the theme of the paintings. But because Asukabe designed these paintings himself, he can do something you seldom see in mystery fiction. Yabe, as a curator, analyzes these paintings based on iconography, and they allow for some interesting insights into the motives and thoughts of the artist. While of course, "explaining what the artist really meant" is up to interpretation in real-life, because these paintings were made for a mystery novel, Asukabe is able to present rather convincing and entertaining analyses of the subject matter of the paintings, while at the same time being "open" enough to actual sound like plausible artistic interpretations, rather than super-detailed Sherlock Holmes-style deductions. Yabe's analyses in Kei's motivations serve as the perfect background as we move to the second half of the book, where we follow Kei and you slowly start to see how the vague interpretations of Yabe are giving absolute form, as we learn more details of his life.

The second part is based on the diary of Kei Yabe finds, and tells the story of how Kei first got into painting, and how he slowly became better, and more obsessed with the art. His adoptive father was an well-known art critic too, who would also serve as a judge at contests, though the two were never really close and they seldom spoke after Kei's biological mother passed away, though there was no animosity between him and his adoptive father and later his stepmother. The account then builds to the fateful night, when Kei's father celebrates his birthday and several relatives and guests stay for the night: the house actually consists of two buildings connected through a passageway, so there are quite some rooms. In the middle of the night however, Kei's father is found stabbed to death in the bathroom, which was locked from the inside. Everyone in the house comes to see what has happened, but minutes later, a cry follows from the room above the bathroom, and they find the female student stabbed in the neck, with the knife that is later determined to have also killed Kei's father. But how did the murderer kill someone in the locked bathroom, escape it, and kill another person on a different floor without being seen by everyone gathered in the bathroom? On a technical level, the double locked room murder mystery has a better set-up than actual solution, which is relatively simple and relies on quite some coincidence. There is fortunately a bit more meat to the mystery in other parts, and while I do think the clewing is a bit too obvious, I did appreciate Asukabe's efforts in fleshing the mystery out, especially as the mystery part of the book is relatively short (it's really just the second half of the book, as the first part about the paintings can be seen seperate).

However, what I do think the book does really well is finally linking the narrative about Kei's paintings and the iconographical analyses of Yabe, to the murder mystery narrative. Parts of the analyses that were ambiguous at first, turn out to have been clear psychological clues/foreshadowing that explain some of the happenings in the past and parts in Kei's account of the affair take on another light if you realize how he must have felt when painting the discussed works, as interpreted by Yabe earlier. It is surprising how much of the murder mystery can be found reflected in Kei's paintings, and you can clearly see how much of an impression it made on him, but this is only apparent in hindsight, and it creates a very cool effect. It's something you don't really see in mystery fiction often, where the themes are actually visualized. There is of course art-related mystery or thriller fiction. The Da Vinci Code for example does go into the analyses of visual art, but that is not at all comparable to what The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine does, as the latter cleverly hides foreshadowing, clues and themes in the paintings, which are only given form and meaning in the second part, and the two parts do strengthen each other.

So while I don't think one should read Junkyou Catherine Sharin on its mechanical strengths as a locked room mystery, I would definitely recommend it as a highly original and unique mystery story, which uses originally created paintings to tell a type of mystery story you will likely not come across anywhere else, using visual imagery and themes to tell an otherwise prose-foused tale of detection. For that alone, this book is one I will remember for quite some time!

Original Japanese title(s): 飛鳥部勝則『殉教カテリナ車輪』

Requiem of the Golden Witch

The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame.

"The Black Cat"

FOMO, FOMO...

After losing his parents in an accident, 13-year old Takuma moves to his mother's home town. She was the oldest daughter of the Daimon family, one of the influentual families in the small, isolated community, but she kept mostly away from her family, and Takuma himself had never visited the family on his mother's side. But now his parents are dead, he's been taken in by his youngest aunt Rei and his grandmother Matsu: Takuma's grandfather Taizou passed away some months ago, and because Takuma's two middle aunts Noriko and Yuuri are married into other families, taking the names of their husbands, the Daimon clan is on the verge of extinction. By having Rei, who had been married previously but is now divorced, adopt her nephew Takuma as her own son, Matsu hopes the Daimon family will continue through Takuma as the last male successor of the bloodline. Takuma, who had always lived in Tokyo, finds his new home extremely hard to adapt to. The town is an eerily closed community, perhaps best symbolized by the fact the local justice authority isn't actually a police officer: the "patrol officer" is a private person (Takuma's uncle), who acts as the local troubleshooter. While the 'patrol officer' will call for the real police if necessary, many smaller problems are handled by himself, and he can even sweep minor deaths under the rug if wished by the persons involved agree they prefer that over contacting the proper authorities. 

While Takuma has found a few friends, and even love interests, by entering the school's Occult Club, he also has made enemies, for no other reason than being Daimon Taizou's grandson. He is in particular being harrassed by the mayor's son and his goonies, who accuse him of being possessed by a devil: apparently, Taizou had been experimenting with summoning devils before his mysterious death. Taizou had been running for mayor too, and rumors say he summoned a devil to kill the mayor's wife and two daughters, who had been walking out on a snowy day, on a path flanked on both sides by a wall of snow. Another person was walking the same way, and saw the three turn a corner, but when this witness did the same, he found the three women decapitated, but with no sign of the murderer nearby. The mayor's son thus blames Taizou, and now Takuma for the mysterious death of his mother and sisters. Meanwhile, Takuma learns the Daimon family holds a curious place in the town's society, as they are also the ones who can perform a local exorcism ceremony, applied when the townsmen think someone is possessed. While Takuma is being accused of being possessed by a devil, he himself slowly sees how the townsmen themselves turn into inhuman devils as mysterious event after event occurs after his arrival, from a fire burning down an important hut for the community, attempts being made on Takuma's life and to a grisly new murder in Takuma's own house. But why is all of this happening and what is the connection between all these incidents? Is it the work of the devil? That is the big question in Asukabe Katsunori's Datenshi Goumonkei ("Torture of the Fallen Angels" 2008).

Datenshi Goumonkei was a book originally published in 2008, but late 2023, the out-of-print book got a limited facsimile reprint via Shosen and the bookstore Horindo in cooperation with the original publisher Kadokawa, which is actually a very rare thing to happen. The original release went for crazy prices, but I assume Kadokawa itself had no intention of re-releasing the book themselves for the moment, so now we have not exactly a private reprint, but it's still not a major re-release of the book. And of course fear-of-missing-out kinda played a role in me getting this book now, though references to John Dickson Carr on the obi, and the fact the book was about impossible crimes, and devils and (fallen) angels did sound very appealing. The facsimile reprint version also comes with a small booklet with an unrelated short story also by Asukabe, whose work I had not ever read before by the way.

What this book really excels at, is atmosphere. The town where Takuma ends up at is really creepy, and with that, I mean the people there. It's a small, isolated town, though still large enough to have a normal town centre with stores, restaurants, gift shops and everything, so not really a mountain village type of isolated place, but the people there do live in a very isolated manner, with their own local customs and beliefs. The fact the place doesn't have an actual police station, and Takuma's uncle simply acts as an appointed "troubleshooter" who at times can even cover up mysterious deaths by making sure the town doctor and everyone else are all on the same page is already a sign of how weirdly the town works, but Takuma himself also notices how incredibly closed-off the people are, always looking at him as the outsider and teachers completely ignoring blatant acts of harrassment towards Takuma. People also don't really tell Takuma about a lot of the town traditions and beliefs until they think it's time, leading to Takuma constantly feeling like a fish out of water, like he's been sent to a town of madmen as the one sane person. The first time Takuma witnesses how his aunt/new mother Rei for example exorcises a woman is horrifying, but the townsmen all pretend like it's normal and even rejoice about the sickening deed. There's something "off" about the people here, almost like they're all cultists or something, and the more time Takuma spends here, the more unsettling it all gets. This culminates in the climax, when half the town appears to go absolutely mad, almost transforming into actual devils as they drive Takuma, who is still trying to solve the mysterious murders that have occured in the meantime, into a desperate corner. As a horror story, Datenshi Goumonkei might not feel completely original, and even in the mystery genre, I'd say something like Yatsu Haka Mura ("The Village of Eight Graves") feels quite similar with its idea of an outsider arriving in an isolated community and things going very wrong, but this book certainly does this very effectively, and at times, it even comes close to feeling like something like Umineko no Naku Koro ni, even though it starts so relatively normal!

I have to say that while I did enjoy the book overall, Datenshi Goumonkei feels a bit disjointed as a mystery novel. The book is brimming with mysterious or curious events and incidents, but a lot of these parts don't really have much synergy with each other, other than "being mysterious and curious". It's not a series of events that occur in this book, but a lot of discrete occurances that all seem mysterious, and... most of them are properly explained, but in hindsight, you do feel a lot of just happened just to scare Takuma and the reader, and there's not really much of a connection between event A and event B. Perhaps the coincidence at play is the work of the devil, but it does make the plot feel a bit overwhelming for the wrong reasons. Takuma at first also isn't that strongly involved in the mysteries, so while you hear about impossible murders and such, Takuma doesn't really actively investigate them at first, so that results in a slow start of the narrative. That said, there are many interesting occurences, from the sudden decapitation of three women five years ago, the mystery of Daimon Taizou's odd museum built like an inverted pyramid in the depths of the forest, to Daimon Taizou passing away recently in his locked study, where he was found with all his bones crushed, to smaller incidents, like an act of arson, Takuma's cousins disappearing closer to the end, and a mysterious empty retirement home found in the forest where a mysterious woman in red is seen by Takuma. Some of these elements are proper mystery plots, while other elements are closer to horror tropes, and some are just there because the author liked it, I guess (the longest chapter in the whole book is an essay on modern horror fiction written by Takuma's friend Fujio for Takuma, and it's really detailed, but also not really relevant to the plot). 

Some parts are honestly only there to be cool, but don't really make sense in the context of a mystery novel. The catastrophic climax of the book for example has some insane (in a good way) scenes that work extremely well for the mood of the book at that point, but when it tries to explain these events later on in a rational way, well, it's barely acceptable (okay.... so that thing is just there...?). And some persons really make weird decisions here... I liked most of the murders though, and while the hinting was usually not really physical clue/action-based, but more based on "in hindsight, I could've guessed X was actually Y" types of revelations/interpretations, the way the murders were clewed did fit the overall atmosphere of the book, with a lot being based on Takuma's own direct experiences. Some of them also have short, but memorable false solutions proposed for them, with one major one being so over-the-top I almost wish it was the real one, because it would really have made this a unique kind of mystery. Still, don't come here hoping for a mind-bending locked room trick or something like that: the focus of the book lies more in somehow trying to tie these events together into a coherent series of incidents (and even then, the book has to almost cheat at times for that to work). Some of the minor mysteries are probably easier to solve: I did like the mystery revolving around the museum a lot, perhaps because I guessed it rather early on, but at the same time, it felt so seperated from the rest of the story, I didn't really understand why it was there. That is the main gripe I have with the book I think when it comes to the mystery, with some mysteries just being there but not really being related to the main plot in any way, as if Asukabe just had several ideas he really wanted to throw in the book, but couldn't really figure out how to make them all relevant.

The book is also touted as a romantic boy-meets-girl-type of story, and in that sense, Datenshi Goumonkei does a good job: Takuma may have trouble adapting to his new home, but he does find himself attracted to a few of the girls at school, and part of why the book feels so creepy is definitely because Takuma is honestly trying to live a normal life in his new home town, despite him being treated as an outsider by so many and all the weird occurences happening around him, and often somehow involving him, making an event like a date, wedged between events where Takuma almost dies, feel very alienating, further giving the whole book a very unsettling atmosphere. This boy-meets-girl plot is a very fundamental element to the book, almost surprisingly so, but it does not "burden" the book at all from a mystery POV.

Overall, I did enjoy Datenshi Goumonkei a lot. It feels a lot like a passion project due to how much is thrown into it, and I think it could easily have been tightened up a bit, but the overall atmosphere of the town slowly showing its true colors is done really good, and it certainly had me hooked from start to finish, even if I found some elements not very strong when viewed on their own. It's certainly a unique read, with a rather slow start, once the modern-day murders occur, things move a lot faster. The book certainly made me curious to reading more of Asukabe's work, and I do hope they have a similar vibe.

Original Japanese title(s): 飛鳥部勝則『堕天使拷問刑』