The Adventure of the House of Darkness

Deep into that darkness peering

"The Raven"

Started with the Answer chapters of Higurashi: When They Cry! First one up is Meakashi, and it appears I was on the right track! Added my thoughts/inferences about that episode (and previous episodes) to the memo page for my playthrough of Higurashi: When They Cry. I'll have to do a few console-exclusive chapters first before moving on with the original Answer chapters though...

Man, the covers of these rereleases are really gorgeous!

Disclosure: I translated Ayatsuji Yukito's The Decagon House Murders.

It is a four hour drive from Tokyo to reach Usakino, a location deep within the luscious green mountains that's perfect for recreation... or at least, that's what project developers and investors had hoped for, but things didn't quite go as planned and in the decade or so that has passed since everybody realized this wasn't going to be a hit, nature has not troubled by tourists very much. One of the people who got burned by the project falling through was by the uncle of Yuuki Takuya, who bought a second home here with the expectation that the location would be developed further, but now he just has a house in the middle of nowhere. Takuya, a university student, asks his uncle if he could use the small house during summer, as he has to read and translate a German book for his thesis, and the house would be ideal to force himself to focus on his project. On the day Takuya is driving to the house, his car accidentally lightly hits a boy who came running out of the woods onto the road. The young boy, around ten years old, is soon followed by another boy who is not only about the same age, but looks very similar. Takuya learns that the two handsome boys are Enjouji Mado and Miya, two brothers who are in fact not twins. They live in the Enjouji Manor, basically Takuya's neighbor (even if it's a modest walk from one house to the another through the forest) and are living there with their mother, their aunt and a tutor during summer. Takuya drives the boys back to their home, where he meets their father, a very strict man who seems to have forgotten that boys should enjoy their time as boys, before becoming adults, Takuya also meets with Haruka, the boys' tutor and a nurse-in-training, who takes care of the mother. The following day, Takuya is visited by Haruka, who confides with him that she's actually here with an ulterior reason: her friend had been the previous tutor of the boys here, but she died in some freak accident in the forest, but strangely enough her hair had been cut short. Haruka thinks something's wrong about the Enjouji Manor, which Takuya also feels: the boys, who seem to have grown to like the newcomer, are very secretive, but seem to have been meeting with someone in the forest before they got in the accident. Takuya agrees to support Haruka during his stay here and go poking around himself too, but then new deaths occur in the forest, and it appears that Mado and Miya are found at the center of things in Ayatsuji Yukito's Kurayami no Sasayaki (1989), which also has the English title Whispering in the Dark on the cover.

Kurayami no Sasayaki is the second book in the Whispering series, which Ayatsuji started after writing the first three books in his House series that started with 1987's The Decagon House Murders. The concept behind the series was that Ayatsuji wanted to fan out, so these books are actually more horror than detective, Nowadays, Ayatsuji is known for both his mystery and horror novels, and he has also written a few hybrids, of which Another is undoubtedly the best known worldwide. But his first published steps into the horror genre are found here. Last year, I read the first book in this series, Hiiro no Sasayaki ("The Scarlet Whispering" 1988), a slasher mystery that was greatly influenced by the famous Dario Argento giallo film Suspiria. But while the focus in that novel definitely lay on the gruesome murders and the suspense arising from those murders, there was also an okay whodunnit mystery plot there and while as a detective novel, Hiiro no Sasayaki wasn't going to blow your mind like an axe to your head, I found it an amusing read and I wrote in my review that I enjoyed it as a palate cleanser, and that I'd probably read the other two books in the series too.

I mentioned in the other review that I am not a fan of the horror genre per se: I do read horror manga once in a while, mostly thr work of Umezu Kazuo and Itou Junji (not the most original choices, but they're really good!!), but I don't watch slasher or horror films at all for example. I am of course familiar with horror (film) tropes of course through other media, and many mystery novels do often incorporate horror elements. So even I managed to recognize the "creepy twins" trope in Kurayami no Sasayaki, even if Mado and Miya aren't really twins. But they are described as being rather handsome for their age, and that coupled with their otherwordliness due to their isolated upbringing within the Enjouji clan and the fact they keep mostly to themselves, it's clear that the two brothers aren't quite normal, giving the reader (and Takuya and Haruka) a distinct feeling of uneasiness. And the fact creepy, often gruesome murders around these boys probably doesn't help either. For the faint of heart: the murders in Kurayami no Sasayaki are on the whole not as bloody as in Hiiro no Sasayaki, but the plot device of the murders in this book is definitely not to function as a focal point in an investigation, but to function as suspenseful plot devices, so the descriptions are written in a way to get some visceral reactions.

Oh, and about gorey murders, the books in the Whispering series aren't really connected save for the theme (so no characters carrying over, or at least, not in the first two books), but apparently, this book is connected to another horror novel by Ayatsuji, Satsujinki. I haven't read that one, and I also don't know exactly how "tight" the connection is, but apparently events described in the prologue of Kurayami no Sasayaki are worked out in more detail in Satsujinki. So if you have read that book already, it might be worth it to take a look at this book too.

But the most important thing to write about on this blog is of course: can Kurayami no Sasayaki also be read as a detective novel? Just like Hiiro no Sasayaki, the book does take on the format of a mystery story most of the time despite the focus on the horror elements: we learn early on in the book that Haruka is investigating the death of her friend, and the reader also learns that other mysterious deaths have occured in this region, all with a common, yet unexplicable link: for some reason all the bodies had some part of them removed, like their hair. Takuya too knows there's something the boys are hiding from the adults, but breaking their defenses is rather hard, as Mado and Miya do seem very intent on keeping their secret a secret. Ultimately though, you won't find a detective character summing up all the clues and logically proving who the murderer was by combining fact A, B and C and overturning that one perfect alibi. Like Hiiro no Sasayaki however, there is a twist somewhere in the book that makes you realize you had been looking at the facts in the wrong way and that the truth had been staring you in the face all that time, but I'd argue that the twist, seen solely as a "mystery plot twist" was better in Hiiro no Sasayaki, compared to its sequel. Kurayami no Sasayaki, when read as a mystery novel, feels not as fair as the first novel, nor is the clewing as good. There's no way you're going to figure out why the bodily parts have been removed for example, you just have to accept the explanation because it's basically impossible to deduce the truth based on the clues you get. The "big" twist is better, but still feels not as fair in set-up as the one in Hiiro no Sasayaki.

Overall though, I think that if you liked Hiiro no Sasayaki, you'll like Kurayami no Sasayaki too. Like the first entry, a lot of the horror touches of this second novel will feel familiar, purposely so, invoking familiar tropes from horror films. The plot is designed as a mix of these horror films, with some of the plotting and twists we know from Ayatsuji's work and in that sense, I'd say Kurayami no Sasayaki is definitely recognizable as one of his creations. I do think the first one was better if read with a mystery cap on, but I'm still interested enough to also want to pick up the last volume in the series in due time.

Original Japanese title(s): 綾辻行人『暗闇の囁き』

The Secret of the Scarlet Hand

"That’s the result of all our Study in Scarlet: to get them a testimonial!"

"A Study in Scarlet"

The book of today has a gorgeous cover! This is the cover for the 2020 revised pocket version by the way.

Disclosure: I translated Ayatsuji Yukito's The Decagon House Murders.

Saeko's life changed the day she learned her parents who brought her up, weren't her real parents. As long as she could remember, she had always been Izumi Saeko, so it was a shock to hear that she was born Munakata Saeko, and that after an incident that took her parents and her sister's lives when she was still little, she was raised by the Izumis. The Munakata clan is an influential family in the city of Aizato, about two hours away by train from Tokyo, but there are few living members left: only Saeko's grandfather and her (childlesss) aunt Chiyo, which is why Saeko is now brought back to the Munakatas as the heir. As per family tradition, Munakata Chiyo is the current director of the Seishin Girls Academy, a prestigious boarding school that has prepared the girls in the upper-class society for their future duties for generations. As the heir of the Munakatas, Saeko too is of course required by her aunt to enroll in Seishin, but the moment Saeko arrives there she's having regrets. Unlike her old school, Seishin Girls Academy is located in the middle of nowhere, with gates keeping outsiders out and all the sudents inside. Saeko also quickly learns that life here is nothing at all like the free life she had always enjoyed: there are strict rules about how to behave, what to wear and what they can own and as a transfer student suddenly arriving in this new environment, she quickly also realizes there's a distinct hierarchy among her fellow students, with the 'madonna' Aya at the absolute top. Everyone here seems to have adapted completely to the strict life here, which makes Saeko feel quite uneasy. Saeko's roommate Kei on the other hand doesn't seem to fit in quite well with the other students, but to Saeko, Kei seems one of the few normal girls here. For some reason however Kei refers to herself as a Witch. With Kei as her roommate, Saeko seems to think she might make it through her time here, but only one day later, Kei is found dead in a special room in the dormitory whcih is usually kept locked: thirty-five years ago, a wealthy student of the academy stayed in this extra spacious room, and she too claimed she was a witch. But one night, she committed suicide in the bathroom and the room has remained sealed since, fueling rumors among the students. Kei too was found burned alive in the bathroom of the sealed room, like a witch. This event is of course enough to greatly disturb Saeko, but she's given no time to recover as more and more murders occur on the grounds of the Seishin Girls Academy. Due to her period, Saeko's also been feeling unwell lately, sometimes passing out or even losing memory of what she was doing moments before, and that's not helpful as the other students slowly start to suspect the new transfer student of the murders in Ayatsuji Yukito's horror mystery novel Hiiro no Sasayaki ("The Scarlet Whispering" 1988).

After writing the first three novels in his House/Yakata series, Ayatsuji decided to try his hand at a different genre for the first time, resulting in Hiiro no Sasayaki in 1988, a book that is more focused on horror than on mystery (though there's a mystery plot there). Nowadays, Ayatsuji is also known for his horror novels, and the horror mystery Another is arguably his best known work across the world due to its various adaptations, but Hiiro no Sasayaki is when he first fused the horror genre with a mystery plot. I'm personally not a real horror fan by the way: I don't watch horror movies at all for example, nor do I really play horror games (soooometimes I play horror sound novels). I do like reading horror manga once in a while, like by Umezu Kazuo and Itou Junji (yeah, those are not really original choices), but that's about it with me and horror. Despite that though, I didn't need the dediction in this book to Dario Argento to realize the main inspiration for Hiiro no Sasayaki, for even though I haven't even seen the movie, it was clear that this slasher horror mystery set in a closed-off girls academy and talk about witches was greatly influenced by the famous giallo film Suspiria.

 Oh, and to go off a minor tangent. I recently read the manga 13-gatsu no Higeki ("The Tragedy of the 13th Month") by Miuchi Suzue, the shojo manga giant best known for Glass Mask. This manga too is about a young girl suddenly being sent to a girls boarding school, slasher murders and a witch cult. I read this manga soon after Hiiro no Sasayaki, so I obviously assumed the same inspiration source, so imagine how surprised I looked when I learned that 13-gatsu no Higeki actually predates Suspiria by several years!

So Hiiro no Sasayaki takes strongly after slasher horror films. It has a creepy atmosphere throughout, with almost doll-like female students who under the burden of the strict school rules and a kind of caste system, all seem to resemble each other in an attempt to "not stand out", people hiding secret pasts from Saeko, gruesome murders that happen across the school (each murder is portrayed from the POV of the victim) and a Saeko who is suspected as the murderer not only by her fellow students, but Saeko even has doubts about herself as she keeps having these moments where she just blanks out and finds herself waking up somewhere hours later. And of course, usually a murder occurs during those moments. The book provides a thrilling, speedy read that follows the familiar horror film tropes and as the story develops, things start to escalate even further until it reaches the haunting climax.

But, I hear you asking, is it a mystery story? For I don't have the habit of discussing non-mystery stories here. It's a surprisingly difficult question. Hiiro no Sasayaki's focus definitely lies on the slasher horror plot, but there is a mystery plot beneath all the blood. Part of the story revolves around Saeko (and an ally) trying to figure out what really happened to Kei in the bathroom and the subsequent murders and while the climax doesn't really have a "here we have clue X, clue Y and clue Z, and that's why A is the murderer" scene, it does have that moment so typical of Ayatsuji's plotting where previous parts of the book suddenly take on a completely different meaning and you see the whole book was plotted and written in a way that was probably cleverer than you had first expected. I think that if you start reading this after the House/Yakata series, the difficulty level is fairly low and you'll be able to make an educated guess as to the final revelations regarding the killer, but if you were just expecting a bloody slasher, you might be pleasantly surprised by what the book has in store. Still, don't be mistaken, you'd best read this book as a horror story, that also uses mystery genre writing conventions to give the reader the 'shock ending' we all expect from a horror movie, and you shouldn't expect a mystery story with people calling themselves Ellery, Carr and Agatha talking about the limitations of the genre here.

As a palate cleanser, I did enjoy reading Hiiro no Sasayaki though. It's not a genuinely surprising horror mystery story, but it reads incredibly smoothly and as a horror slasher, it basically gave me what I'd expect of the genre, plus some minor elements that make it recognizable as specifically an Ayatsuji work. There are two other books in this series and while I won't be binging them, I expect I'll return to this series in the future anyway.

Original Japanese title(s): 綾辻行人『緋色の囁き』

番外編： The Decagon House Murders Released Once More, with Feeling

Five years ago, Locked Room International released The Decagon House Murders, my translation of Ayatsuji's monumental 1987 novel Jukkakukan no Satsujin, about the members of a university mystery club who plan a visit on an abandoned island, only to be killed by a mysterious killer one after another. It would be the first novel of the so-called shin honkaku (new orthodox) movement in Japan, which was a call for authors and reader to return to intelligent puzzle plot mysteries. Many writers would follow in the wake of The Decagon House Murders, making it one of the most important novels in recent detective fiction history in Japan. The release of the English-language version of The Decagon House Murders was of course a personal milestone, but putting it in the wider context, for many it was probably also their first steps into shin honkaku, and since then, I've been fortunate enough to be able to work with Locked Room International to bring more Japanese mystery fiction to the English-language world (In case you missed it, take a look at The Red Locked Room!). Since its release, The Decagon House Murders has seen some interesting and positive reviews. Personally, I have to admit that the Dirda piece in the Washington Post back in 2015 still made the most impression on me, especially as it really helped the word honkaku spread.

For some time now, Pushkin Press has been publishing Japanese mystery fiction, with prominent writers like Shimada and Yokomizo seeing both new translations, but also re-releases of older translations that had gone out of print. Some of the readers may have been aware of this already, but Pushin Press required the rights for The Decagon House Murders some time ago. And now their version's out! At least, I believe the e-book is available right now, while the physical book will follow in only a few weeks. It's a re-release, but the text has been brushed up by the new editors, and some help from myself of course and it's got a nifty new cover. Seriously, Pushkin has been hitting home-runs with these covers, and the first I was contacted over this new release, I couldn't help but be utterly excited about what kind of cover it would get!

Pushkin Press is based in the UK, so the e-book is out now and the physical release follows in the first week of December, while I think the US release is scheduled for next year, though that's kinda a moot point since you can just order anything from internet nowadays... Anyway, if you were still wondering about gifts for the holiday season, or just something to read yourself in the upcoming darker months, why not The Decagon House Murders?

Bear Witness to Murder

Three little Soldier Boys walking in the zoo;

A big bear hugged one and then there were two.

Disclosure: I translated novels by both Arisugawa Alice (The Moai Island Puzzle) and Ayatsuji Yukito (The Decagon House Murders). And in case you're still looking for Christmas presents...

I don't plan to find me some Christmas mystery stories when the season approaches, but coincidences do happen, resulting in today's review. Anraku Isu Tantei ("The Armchair Detective") was a brilliant television drama series created by mystery writers Ayatsuji Yukito and Arisugawa Alice, produced irregularly between 1999-2017. Earlier, I have discussed the episodes ON AIR (2006) and ON STAGE (2017), with the latter later being confirmed by co-creator Ayatsuji as being the last episode of this series, at least in the usual format. If one considers the detective genre to be an intellectual game that challenges the reader (viewer) to solve the mystery themselves, than this show was the ultimate example of how to present a mystery drama as a game. Each story consists of two episodes: the first episode introduces the viewer to all the characters, the events leading up to the murder and the subsequent investigation. All the hints and clues necessary to solve the crime are shown in this first episode, while the solution is revealed in the second episode broadcast the following week. Sounds like common sense of course, but this point was of particular essence for this show, as viewers were encouraged to write in that week with the answers to the following two questions: 1) Who is the murderer? and more importantly: 2) What is the logical process by which you arrived at that conclusion? The winner, drawn from the people who submitted the correct answers, was presented with a sizeable money prize.  The show thus provided the ultimate challenge to the armchair detectives at home and one of the more impressive parts of the show was how it had to walk the line between being difficult enough that not everyone would arrive at the correct conclusion, along the correct route, but not being overly complex so nobody could guess who the murderer was in a logical manner.

Anraku Isu Tantei no Seiya ~ Kieta Teddy Bear no Nazo ~ ("The Holy Night of the Armchair Detective ~ The Mystery of the Vanished Teddy Bear~", 2000) was the third installment of this show, the first episode broadcast on December 21 and the solution episode following soon after on Christmas. We are introduced on Christmas Eve to Kumako, a young woman who recently found a new job, but her boyfriend sadly enough can't see her on Eve, so they plan a date for the twenty-sixth. The twenty-sixth is also the first day of Kumako working at NATO (Nihon Action Team Office), a small scale stunt action series production team, which recently got a small hit with the television tokusatsu series Athlete 4. It's also the last office day for the year, so everyone is present at the office. Kumako is introduced to all the staff and actors, but she soon learns her new workplace is also a den of intrige and hate, with love triangles, post-divorce fights and rumors of embezzlement flying around. In the evening, Kumako waits for her boyfriend in a restaurant, but she's stood up and she only comes home after a lot of drinking. At home, she finds an e-mail waiting for her by Norie, her new colleague who plays Athlete Purple in Athlete 4. To her surprise, Norie says she killed the boss of NATO at the office and that she'll commit suicide too. By the time Kumako had reported this to the police, it's already to late: NATO's owner Inoue was found with his head bashed in with his own golf club at the office, while Norie set fire to herself at her own home. The police however determine that Norie did not commit suicide, but that she was already dead by the time the fire was started. It thus appears someone else must've killed Inoue en Norie, and the main suspect is a suspicious figure spotted by the guards of the building that houses the NATO offices. The two men saw a figure dressed like Santa Claus carrying a large sack on his back leave the building that night, only moments after the Inoue murder must've happened. The Santa Claus costume was stolen from NATO's costume wardrobe, but there's another missing object: the rare, large teddy bear Inoue kept as a memento in his office. But why would the murderer steal a teddy bear or dress up like Santa Claus? Eventually, even Kumako is accused of the murder by the police, which is when she decides to use the magical flute she was gifted a few days ago, of which she was told it would save her from danger. The flute is of course the item that summons the titular Armchair Detective, a mysterious entity who is ratiocination personified and who can prove without any doubt who is in fact the true murderer.

The show was conceived as a puzzle plot mystery drama where the reader could participate, so to start off with some statistics: the television station received 36,731 (!) entries for this particular installment, the highest amount of participants in the history of the series. 21.5 percent of the respondents guessed the identity of the murderer correctly, but only forty respondants, or mere 0.1 percent, actually got the process right of correctly identifying the murderer/eliminating the other suspect. The numbers will thus tell you it was pretty hard to get all of the story right. I have seen most of the episodes of this series now, and I thought this was one of the easier episodes actually (it was), but getting full marks would've been difficult.

Because as always Ayatsuji and Arisugawa came up with a deliciously tricky story. The second episode starts off with every major character in the story being transported to the dimension of the Armchair Detective, who then goes through the long chains of deduction that lead to the identity of the murderer. The tone here is rather comedic, with each character trying to argue why they aren't the murderer. There are a few meta-rules here that help the viewer out: there is always only one culprit (no accomplices), everything shown on screen (including the time stamps) is correct and nobody besides the murderer lies intentionally. Still, you need to pay attention very well to keep up with the Armchair Detective while he eliminates the suspects one by one and crosses off false solutions. I mean, how many detective shows do you know that spend between thirty minutes and an hour purely to the explanation of a crime? In order to solve the crime yourself, you need to reference the time stamps of each scene and sometimes check the backgrounds very carefully for hidden clues. In some episodes, the zoom-and-enhance trope can be rather persnickety (and kinda unfair in pre-HD TV broadcasts), but it's done fairly err, fair here. As mentioned, this show has to be both difficult, and also fair enough for the viewer at home (anyone can come up with an unsolvable mystery), and I think this episode is definitely one of the better efforts. It helps this show isn't about locked room murders etc., as they are harder to present in a truly fair manner. You can show a thread and needle on the screen, but it's not really fair to expect from the viewer to imagine what could've done with that. This show is about eliminating suspects, so you have to determine what the murderer must have done or known, and then see which of the suspects does or does not fit that profile. You'll definitely have to rewatch scenes a few times to get it though, and unless you have photographic memory, it's impossible to solve this in one go. There are a few scenes in the first episode that do stand out as being obviously 'oh, this scene is used to prove that this character couldn't have done this or that' but this doesn't hurt the experience, because you still need the context of the murder to understand how this becomes revelant in the elimination process.

In this case, the mystery revolves around two questions: Why the Santa Claus dress-up, and why steal a gigantic teddy bear after committing a murder? At first, the problem seems so trivial and also meaningless, but when the whole solution is presented, you'll see how neatly everything fits, and how all the odd movements of the culprit actually made perfect sense considering the situation. The problem of the teddy bear in particular is great, with a convincing reason as for why it had been spirited away from the office, one that seems so obvious in hindsight. The misdirection is quite clever, and while I kinda knew which characters I could already eliminate based on some of the scenes, I still couldn't make out exactly how the teddy bear was involved, so I was pleasantly surprised when it was all explained to me.

Anraku Isu Tantei no Seiya ~ Kieta Teddy Bear no Nazo ~ is in general a strong installment in this series, and while I'll be the first to admit that this series can be very fussy about its visual clues, I'd say this was actually one of the entries that didn't expect everyone in 2000 to have HD recorders to be able to solve the mystery. Some of the scenes do telegraph themselves too obviously as being clues, but overall, the mystery of the disappearing teddy bear is an amusing one, resulting in a very well-constructed mystery drama show that also does its job well as a Christmas-themed mystery.

Original Japanese title(s): 『安楽椅子探偵の聖夜 〜消えたテディ・ベアの謎〜』

The Quest of the Missing Map

Convenient for reading this post: a post on glasses in mystery fiction.

Don't you just get excited when you open a mystery novel and you discover there are floorplans or other diagrams inside? There's just something romantic about a visual depiction of the setting of a story. In some stories, having a clearly drawn map might be necessary in order for you to solve the mystery, while in other stories, the map is merely there to assist the text, just to make things a bit more clear and perhaps to add a bit of flavor. And as I've also mentioned in my reviews of novels like Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken and Murder Among the Angells, settings like houses, mansions or castles can also act as a character on their own in mystery stories, and floorplans really help giving life to these sinister settings.

For this short post, I wanted to show a couple of floorplans that made an impression on me. I won't be talking about them too much, as in some cases one can even figure out something important by looking at these diagrams if you know what to look for, but I think that no matter what, these floorplans just look impressive.

Ayatsuji Yukito - Meirokan no Satsujin ("The Labyrinth House Murders", 1988)

The title basically says it all. After his debut novel The Decagon House Murders, Ayatsuji continued with this series featuring the creations of the architect Nakamura Seiji and this third novel features an underground 'house' designed after the Labyrinth of the Minotaur, and the building is absolutely insane.

Shimada Souji - Naname Yashiki no Hanzai ("The Crime at the Slanted Mansion", 1982)

The second novel in Shimada's Mitarai Kiyoshi series has an interesting diagram, as it's drawn with depth. Floorplans with perspective aren't really common actually, and I really like how this house looks with the tower.

Nakai Hideo - Kyomu he no Kumotsu ("Offerings to Nothingness", 1964)

These floorplans are a bit smaller in scale compared to the previous ones, but I love the hand-drawn feeling of these plans. Kyomu he no Kumotsu is an infamous anti-mystery novel where the protagonist detectives try to figure out how a murder was committed even though there's no proof it's a murder and they just want it to be a murder because it's more fun and they hope more murders happen. These plans of course help them with their deductions.

Ayatsuji Yukito - Kirigoetei Satsujin Jiken ("The Kirigoe Mansion Murder Case", 1990)

Another novel by Ayatsuji. Technically, Kirigoetei Satsujin Jiken isn't part of Ayatsuji's House series, though the connection is heavily hinted at and the floorplan certainly seems similar in its complexity. This one is remarkable because of its sheer size, and this is just the ground floor!

Nikaidou Reito -  Jinroujou no Kyoufu - France (" La Terreur Château du Loup-garou La Second Partie: France, 1997)

Jinroujou no Kyoufu is a mammoth of an impossible crime mystery, consisting of four volumes of 600~800 pages each. These 8(!) floorplans are of the Blue Wolf Castle, which lies in France. A serises of horrible murders and other gruesome crimes happen in this gigantic castle, but what makes this a true terrifying experience is that this just half of the mystery: the Blue Wolf Castle is just one half of a set of twin castles, and another series of murders happen in the Silver Wolf Castle, just across the border in Germany. The Silver Wolf Castle has the exact same layout as the Blue Wolf Castle, but the happenings that occur in these two castles is just amazing, and one can sense the scale of this story just by looking at these castle plans.

Chisun Inn

 Oh, wait, this isn't from a mystery novel. This is in fact a floorplan of the Chisun Inn, a hotel located in Nagoya, Japan. Which also happens to look exactly like something from a mystery story. The hotel is designed in a spiral form, with a lot of rooms in a fan form, but one can easily imagine this to be the setting of a series of murders, right? I for one would make sure my door was locked and double locked if I were to stay here, as there's bound to be someone who's planning some kind of ingenious alibi trick or an impossible murder!

Anyway, these were a few floorplans from mystery novels that made an impression on me because of how they were designed, the scale of the setting or simply how they were drawn. Feel free to leave a comment with the floorplans from mystery novels (or TV series/manga/games) that made an impression on you.

Lucky Seven

時の流れには逆らえず色褪せてゆく想いもあり

「As The Dew」（Garnet Crow）

Unable to go against the flow of time, some feelings will fade away

"As The Dew" (Garnet Crow)

The cover of today's book is simple and clean, featuring deformed illustrations of the authors featured in this anthology, but I really like it!

Disclosure: I have translated works by Arisugawa Alice, Norizuki Rintarou and Ayatsuji Yukito, among which Ayatsuji's The Decagon House Murders.

Ayatsuji Yukito made his debut as a professional author in 1987 with the publication of The Decagon House Murders (org. title: Jukkakukan no Satsujin). The mystery novel had clearly derived its inspiration from the classic puzzle plot mystery novels like they were written in the Golden Age, but it was at the same time also clearly a product of its time, aware of the tropes from, and the discussions surrounding classic mystery fiction, and its story built further on that as a modern take on the classic puzzle mode. Ayatsuji's debut was only the start, as he was followed by many other debuting authors from a similar background (often college students) who'd write in what is now called the shin honkaku or "new orthodox" school of mystery fiction. 2017 is thus not only the thirtiest anniversary of The Decagon House Murders, but also the thirtiest anniversary of the shin honkaku movement. 7-nin no Meitantei ("The Seven Great Detectives", 2017) is a special anthology to celebrate this anniversary, featuring seven original stories on the theme of "the great detective", by seven representative authors of the early shin honkaku movement

The book is also known as part of the bookmark-gacha craze among Japanese mystery fans: three anthologies were published to celebrate the thirtieth birthday of the shin honkaku movement. A special series of a lot of bookmarks were made for these books, and you get one of them at random by purchasing one of the anthologies. A large number of them feature an illustration of one of the seven authors in 7-nin no Meitantei, together with an iconic quote from one of their works, while there's also one which features all seven authors. Behold the fans who try to collect all of them or find the one bookmark with their favorite author or quote. I got the one with everyone on it by the way.

The seven authors included in 7-nin no Meitantei have all been discussed at least once here on the blog, and as I noted in the disclosure message above, I have even translated some of their work. It might be interesting to note that five of these authors studied in Kyoto: Ayatsuji Yukito, Abiko Takemaru, Norizuki Rintarou and Maya Yutaka were all members of the Kyoto University Mystery Club, while Arisugawa Alice belonged to the Mystery Club of his own Doshisha University. Many authors of the early shin honkaku movement made their debuts as students or soon after graduation, and were often active members in the Mystery Clubs (student clubs for lovers of mystery fiction) of their respective universities, which is partly why a lot of the early shin honkaku works featured so many students, and also why the books tended to be so incredibly genre-savvy (as they were written in rather skewed enviroments, among other mystery fans). Oh, one warning: I can only add a certain number of characters in the tags to each post, and I was not able to tag everyone/add all the related tags, so you'll have to click on the author links in the post itself for some of them.

The anthology opens with Maya Yutaka's Suiyoubi to Kinyoubi ga Kirai - Ookagamike Satsujin Jiken ("I Hate Wednesdays and Fridays - The Ookagami Family Murder Case") and features his series detective Mercator Ayu. Narrator/mystery author Minagi is lost in the mountains, but finds shelter in the mansion of the recently deceased Doctor Ookagami. He had four adopted children, who form a musical quartet, and they are scheduled to perform at the mansion the following day for their annual recital. While Minagi is still recovering from his ordeal in the outdoor bath, he spots a cloaked figure making their way to a garden lodge overseeing a cliff. When the figure leaves again, he notices they have shrunk in size, and when he peeks inside the lodge, he finds distinct signs of a murder having occured there: blood, a weapon and a sinister sign featuring a quote from Faust, but there's no sign of any victim. Later, one of the adopted children is found murdered, together with another quote from Faust, but there is no weapon. More mysterious events occur in the mansion, but all is explained when brilliant detective (with a rather abusive attitude towards his "Watson") Mercator Ayu arrives on the scene.

The anthology starts right away with a screwball, because that's the only way I can describe this story. There's something of an impossible crime here (disappearing victim, disappearing murder/weapon), but what this story really is, is a parody on Oguri Mushitarou's infamous anti-mystery Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken. The mansion, the backstory of an eccentric person adopting four children who form a quartet, the Faust imagery, it's all straight out of Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken. Several other later story development are also clearly lifted from that book. The problem I have with this story is that it doesn't really work in its current form. The pacing of this story is incredibly high because it follows the plot of Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken, but that was a full novel and this is a short story. The result is a story that I recognize as a parody on Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken, but it doesn't do much but mirror a few situations and circumstances in quick succession. The core mystery plot is therefore a bit too concise for my taste, as the tale just tries to cover too much ground for a short story. And I happened to have read Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken, but I can imagine that for someone who hasn't, this story will feel disjointed. I think this story would've worked better in a dedicated Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken tribute anthology. As a "Mercator Ayu taking on Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken" type of story, I guess it's okay, but I find it a strange choice for the opening story of this particular anthology. Then again, I guess Maya's work is seldom really straightforward.

Rakugo is a traditional form of Japanese entertainment, where a storyteller tells a comical story with witty dialogues, acting all the roles of the story themselves. Yamaguchi Masaya's Dokumanjuu Kowai - Suiri no Ichimondai ("I'm afraid of Poisoned Manjuu - A Deduction Problem") is part of a series where Yamaguchi builds on classic rakugo stories to turn them into mystery stories. The theme for this story is the classic rakugo story Manjuu Kowai ("I'm Afraid of Manjuu"). The retelling of Manjuu Kowai is followed by the continuation of the tale, where one of the major characters from Manjuu Kowai is murdered by a poisoned manjuu, just as he was about to disinherit his good-for-nothing sons. I liked the idea better than the execution, because the mystery part of the tale is basically a not-even-really-thinly-disguised variation of the "one of them always lies, one of them always tells the truth, who is the liar?" riddle. At this point, it doesn't feel like a story anymore, but just a slightly dressed-up riddle.

The previous story was set in pre-modern Japan, but Abiko Takemaru's Project: Sherlock is clearly set in the present, or even in the future. It tells the story of how a special computer database named Sherlock is built by a police IT engineer. Sherlock is a database that allows anyone to simply solve crimes by inputting the necessary data in it. Sherlock has a rich open source database of case files (both real and fictional) which is fed by a worldwide community, and by comparing circumstances and detecting patterns, the program can solve any mystery laid before it. This is a weird story: it reads more like a prologue for a longer story than an independent one, and while a murder involving Sherlock does occur late in the tale, it's not really meant for the reader to solve. There is potential for more in this story, but as it is now, it feels like you were only allowed to read the first chapter of many more.

Arisugawa Alice's Senchou ga Shinda Yoru ("The Night The Captain Perished") stars the criminologist Himura Hideo and his friend/Watson/mystery author Arisugawa Alice. Himura and Alice are on their way back from one of Himura's work trips when they decide to swing by a small villlage on the foot of a mountain where a murder happened last night. The victim, commonly referred to as the Captain, had been stabbed during his sleep in his home, and while a security camera nearby had caught the figure of someone fleeing the scene that night, this figure had covered themselves wisely in a large sheet of blue plastic, making it impossible for the police to identify them. The Captain had recently returned to his home village after a long life on sea, and his manly appeal had attracted the attention of at least two women in the village (one of them married), and it appears love-gone-wrong might be the motive. I have the idea the story is a bit longer than it needed to be (it is by far the longest story in this anthology), but the mystery plot is probably the best of the whole book. The structure is very familiar (short whodunit with three suspects), but it's expertly clewed. It's of course in the style of Ellery Queen, where you need to deduce what the murderer must have done on the night of the murder, how it was done, and eventually, who could've done those things we just deduced. The process as done here is great, and I think this is a good story to showcase how a good puzzle plot mystery doesn't need to rely on misdirection solely: it takes tremendous skill to lay down clues and puzzle pieces right in front of the reader, without any smokes or mirrors, and still have a puzzle that perplexes them, but the satisfaction you gain when you see how everything fits together is arguably even better than when an author uses aimed misdirection techniques.

Norizuki Rintarou's Abekobe no Isho ("The Switched Suicide Notes") features his series detective named after himself. Rintarou's father, Inspector Norizuki, has a weird case on his hands. Two suicides, one by poison, one by jumping off a flat. Suicide notes were also found at both scenes. So no problem, right? The conundrum Inspector Norizuki has however is that the suicide notes were switched: both victims had the suicide note of the other person! The two victims knew each other, and were both vying for the hand of the same lady, so they had no reason to be committing suicide together, but why did they have each other's suicide note? It's a wonderfully problem that feels realistic, and yet mystifying at the same time. The story unfolds by Rintarou proposing several theories to his father, which his father sometimes shoots down as he reveals a new fact he hadn't told his son yet, but the two do slowly move towards the truth. Or do they? A gripe I do have with this story that it is mostly built on theories: eventually the two arrive at a solution that is actually quite clever, and one that does seem to fit the facts, but they only arrive there by making several assumptions, and the story basically ends with the Inspector finally moving to check whether their theory is true. The story makes a good case for puzzle plots focusing on logical reasoning, with Rintarou proposing theories and having to adjust them as the Inspector introduces new facts, but it also undermines it a bit as we never leave the land of theories.

Utano Shougo's Tensai Shounen no Mita Yume Wa ("The Dream Of The Prodigy") is set in the future, starring the last few remaining pupils of the Academy, once the home to people talented in fields like hacking, engineering or even ESP, but once the war broke out, survival was the only thing left on everybody's mind. Acting on a rumor that the enemy country will launch a new destructive weapon, the students lock themselves up in the Academy's bomb shelter and while they do feel that something with tremendous power hit their city, they have no idea what happened outside because all communication was cut off. But then one of the students is found hanging. She appears to have committed suicide, but the following day another student is found dead right next to the first victim. Another suicide, or is there something else in this shelter? While this story does seem familiar, with its closed circle setting, it's not really a detective story (it is however a mystery story in the broad sense of the term). Explaining too much would spoil it, but the story is trying to work towards a certain conclusion, but that conclusion is barely clewed/foreshadowed, and the story is a bit strangely structured, with a very long intro, while it basically skims over the murders to jump the conclusion. Might've worked better in a longer format.

Ayatsuji Yukito's Kadai - Nue no Misshitsu ("Tentative Title: The Locked Room of the Nue") closes this anthology, and while it's technically not really a fairly clewed mystery story, it's a pretty heartwarming story that puts the thirtieth anniversary of shin honkaku in context. The story stars Ayatsuji Yukito, Abiko Takemaru and Norizuki Rintarou themselves, as well as Ayatsuji's wife Ono Fuyumi (a well-known horror/fantasy author herself), who were all members of the Kyoto University Mystery Club around the same period back when they were in college. Guess-The-Criminal is one of the oldest traditions of the club, where one of the members presents the first part of a mystery story to the others, ending with a challenge to the others guess whodunnit. The other members then have to guess who the criminal is, and explain the process that led to their conclusion. Nowadays, the stories are all written and printed out so everyone has their own copy, but back in the early eighties, these stories were told orally, so little remains of them now. Abiko remarks that a while back, he had a few drinks with Maya Yutaka (also a Mystery Club member who joined after them) and that he, while drunk, had said that he had once witnesses a really incredible and illusive Guess-The-Criminal story. The problem: he doesn't remember anything about it. Ayatsuji, Abiko, Norizuki and Ono all seem to have unclear, yet existing memories of such an event, which they vaguely remember as being titled The Locked Room of the Nue, so they start talking about what that story could've been, digging deep in their memories of the Mystery Club.

As said, this isn't really a mystery story, but closer to an essay where Ayatsuji, using the other authors as his fictional devices, looks back at his own time at the Kyoto University Mystery Club. As the four slowly start to remember more from the past, we also read about what the club activities were to what cafes they went to when they were still students, painting an image of the place and culture that would eventually lead to the birth of the shin honkaku movement. There are some nice moments, like when each of them remembers something else about the illusive story, to which Ayatsuji draws parallels with each author's writing styles, as well as a heartwarming ending. Read as a story that mixes autobiographical elements with a bit of fiction, I'd say this was an entertaining story for those wanting to know more about the shared past of these authors, but again, don't expect any detecting on your own.

7-nin no Meitantei has the usual ups and downs of an anthology, but in general, I'd say it's an interesting showcase of the work of the featured authors. The theme of "the great detective" worked better for some authors than others: Arisugawa Alice and Norizuki Rintarou's contributions were definitely the best detective stories included, and those stories featured their best known series detectives. Yamaguchi Masaya and Maya Yutaka too used their series detectives in their stories, though I found the stories themselves not as good as the previous two for various reasons. Utano Shougo and Abiko Takemaru on the other hand did not choose to go with their series detectives (partly because they haven't used them in decades), but tried to explore the theme of the Great Detective in stories that are almost science fiction, and your mileage on them might vary. Ayatsuji Yukito's contribution is not a mystery story at all, but a sort of nostalgic look back at a long forgotten past, before there was such a thing as shin honkaku, and works wonderfully as a closer for an anthology meant to commemorate thirty years of shin honkaku.

Original Japanese title(s): 『7人の名探偵』: 「曜日と金曜日が嫌い 大鏡家殺人事件」（麻耶雄嵩） / 「毒饅頭怖い　推理の一問題」（山口雅也） / 「プロジェクト：シャーロック」（我孫子武丸） / 「船長が死んだ夜」（有栖川有栖） / 「あべこべの遺書」（法月綸太郎） / 「天才少年の見た夢」（歌野晶午） / 「仮題・ぬえの密室」（綾辻行人）

Puzzle for Players

「私は安楽椅子探偵。それ以上でもそれ以下でもありません」

『安楽椅子探偵ON STAGE』

"I am the Armchair Detective. I am nothing more and nothing less than that."

"The Armchair Detective ON STAGE"

Disclosure: I translated novels by both Arisugawa Alice (The Moai Island Puzzle) and Ayatsuji Yukito (The Decagon House Murders) As far as I know by the way, the only things they really co-created are this show, and one of the stories in the mystery game Trick X Logic.

Do you know about the urban legend of the Armchair Detective? The tales go that there is a mysterious entity (who looks like Dr. Doom) who lives solely for the act of reasoning. He has solved countless of baffling cases through absolute logic, but is always forgotten by everyone involved with the case whenever he leaves save for the person who first summoned him to the scene. A small theater troupe has been making a succesful series of stage plays based on this urban legend titled The Legend of the Armchair Detective. The third installment of the mystery stage play however is met with some resistance: creepy messages are posted on the internet predicting the death of the Armchair Detective on stage. Performance of The Legend of the Armchair Detective III goes as planned though, until the last night of the show, when the Armchair Detective indeed drops dead on stage during his scene. Everyone is shocked to discover it's not actor Nakazaki Rakuta's face behind the mask, but that of his twin brother/assistant director Yasuo. Not long after, Rakuta's body is also discovered in the storage room at the troupe's office. Who killed the Nagazaki twins? That is a question not only the Armchair Detective can answer, but also you, the viewer, in the TV drama/game Anraku Isu Tantei ON STAGE ("The Armchair Detective ON STAGE, 2017).

Anraku Isu Tantei ("The Armchair Detective") is a TV drama originally created by mystery writers Ayatsuji Yukito and Arisugawa Alice for ABC, a local network in the Kansai region of Japan. It is essentially the ultimate Challenge to the Reader Viewer. Each story consists of two episodes. In the first episode, the viewer is introduced to all the characters, the events leading up to, and the events after the murder(s) and most importantly, the viewer is shown all the hints and clues necessary to solve the crime themselves. Viewers are then encouraged to write in with the answers to the following two questions: 1) Who is the murderer? and (more importantly): 2) What is the logical process by which you arrived at that conclusion? The winner, drawn from the people who submitted the correct answers, is presented with a sizeable money prize (500.000 yen in the 2017 edition) and eternal fame. The episode with the solution, detailing the complete process of how you should have deduced the identity of the murderer, is broadcast one week after the first. I have reviewed Anraku Isu Tantei ON AIR in the past, which was broadcast in 2006.

It had been eight years already since the Armchair Detective last appeared on television, so quite a lot of people were surprised by the sudden return of this almost legendary show. Things sure have changed in those eight years though, and while the show was still produced by a local TV station, Anraku Isu Tantei ON STAGE, the eight installment in the series, marks the first time the show was available to viewers throughout Japan through online streaming and on-demand services. The first episode was broadcast on January 5, 2017, the second episode on January 13.

In essence, Anraku Isu Tantei is at the core nothing more than a pure whodunit, with a few basic (written and unwritten) rules, including 1) there is only one murderer, 2) nobody will tell a lie (on purpose), save for the murderer, 3) everybody acts in a logical manner, 4) nothing "outside" what is shown exists (objects etc.), 5) motive is of no consequence and so on. Usually (and also in the case of Anraku Isu Tantei ON STAGE), your main objective is to identify a few characteristics of the murderer based on what you saw in the first episode, and use those characteristics to eliminate suspects. For example, let's say you have found evidence on the screen that prove the murderer was left-handed. Then you check for every suspect whether they are right or left-handed (or ambidextrous) and so on. I wrote a lengthy post on this 'elimination-style of mystery fiction' quite some time back now, but this is a form that is especially well-suited for the game-format of this show, because viewers can very clearly show the logical process of how they deduced the identity of the murderer ("Scene 1 proves the murderer was left-handed. Only X is left-handed. Ergo the murderer is X").

It's been eight years since the last episode aired, but Anraku Isu Tantei ON STAGE was still incredibly difficult. Not as difficult as previous episodes, true, but still, it's gloves off here. The truth behind the double murders on the twins is complex: you can identify the murderer based on basically two characteristics deduced from the crime scenes, but arriving at those two points will require lateral thinking by the viewer, as well as a very keen eye for detail. Still, as you listen to the solution in the second episode, you really can't help but cry out: "Ah! That makes so much sense!". Tthough admittedly, there were a few points where I could see the logic behind it, but did not see it as the one and only possible interpretation possible.

The logical chain that leads to the culprit is definitely not short, but it is so satisfying to get to the end of things. Though I do have the feeling that this episode was in a way 'easier' than previous episodes　(it's less mean), but that it did ask for a lot more 'boring' work from the viewer. Making a time table of where everybody was at what time for yourself is pretty handy for example (that's what all the timestamps are for in the episode!) Also, in a puzzle plot mystery novel, it's easy to flip some pages back to check up on something, to reread that part about some minor detail that might be an important hint (I do so often). This is also required with this show: it is utterly impossible to solve this show with just one viewing (unless you have photographic memory). It's definitely easier now than eight years back, now we have digital recorders and on-demand streaming services, but if you want to solve this crime, you'll need to look really carefully for clues, zooming in on the background and stuff. On one hand, I think it's brilliant. This is a visual format, so of course yeah, come on with visual clues and other clues that make use of the medium. On the other hand: as a viewer, it's also not particularly fun to zoom in on a wall to look for a fly resting there, as an example. Anraku Isu Tantei ON STAGE is a fair mystery story that is solvable, but a challenging one too. It is not as mindwarping shocking as some of the earlier entries in this series though (Ayatsuji commented after the show they tried to be 'gentle' as it was the first episode in almost a decade).

Last year, I reviewed the 2016 installment of Nazotoki Live, another TV show with an interactive format. There they helped the viewer organize all the information and important clues at set points throughout the show, making an otherwise complex mystery plot understandable by breaking the logical process in steps. In Anraku Isu Tantei, the viewer has to do all of that themselves. There is of course a monetary award involved with this, so that's a logical design choice, but it's interesting comparing the two shows. In terms of complexity, the two don't differ that greatly on the whole, but Nazotoki Live helps you on the way, while Anraku Isu Tantei will make you work very very hard on the problem.

The way the character of the Armchair Detective was incorporated in the story itself was fun too. The Armchair Detective is a really fun character, and the solution episodes are often a blast to watch not in the least because of him. The solution episodes are also very meta-concious: all the involved characters are transported to the world of the Armchair Detective, and together with the suspects, he explains the logical elimination process by showing the corresponding scenes from the first episodes as his proof. This explanation process (which includes false solutions and faulty hypotheses) takes an about an hour on average: the plots are just that complex (and therefore of a scale seldom seen on TV).

After the second episode, it was revealed 6819 people submitted an answer. While 60% did guess the identity of the murderer correctly, only 32(!) submissions out of those nearly 7000 got the logical process of elimination correct. So only 0.47% of all the entries guessed the murderer in the correct way. In the end, Ayatsuji and Arisugawa had to choose the 'most elegant' answer from those 32 correct answers, but they couldn't pick one single winner, so there were two winners for Anraku Isu Tantei ON STAGE.

Anyway, Anraku Isu Tantei ON STAGE was definitely an entertaining addition to the series. As always, it shows how a true fair play mystery plot can work out on the screen, but like previous installments, it can be very tough at times, and sometimes it's asking the viewer to look at rather small details on the screen too much. Still, there is still an air of magic around this show, with the money prize and the meta-approach to presenting the solution to the viewer in the second episode that makes this an unique experience as both a mystery show and a game. I think that's the word I was looking for. Experience. Anraku Isu Tantei is always an experience. Let's hope the Armchair Detective will be summoned again in the future soon.

Original Japanese title(s): 『安楽椅子探偵ON STAGE』

Try and Catch Me

"You see Henry, the pen, the pen is mightier than the sword"

 "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"

Hmm. I have seen and read many works of mystery fiction that end with a variation on the Reichenbach Falls, but I think this is the first time I read a story that starts with it.

There exist people in this world with special powers. Some can shapeshift, some can heal deadly wounds. And some of course wish to use their powers for good, while others for evil. The government obviously wants to keep a check on all these potentially dangerous people. Tsujimura Mizuki is one of the government agents hired to keep an eye on one specific person. Ayatsuji Yukito is a brilliant detective, who has a rather troublesome special power. The effect of his ability Another is that all culprits of a crime Ayatsuji solves, are killed in a freak accident. The moment Ayatsuji makes a correct deduction and can confirm that with evidence, the fate of his prey is sealed. The government can’t just let him go around solving cases, so they only allow him to work in very special cases, with Tsujimura acting as his ‘babysitter.’ But there is one person who managed to survive Another. Some months ago, Ayatsuji was sure he killed the criminal mastermind Kyougoku Natsuhiko, who offered plans for perfect crimes to whoever was worthy. But now Kyougoku is back, and Ayatsuji and Tsujimura must now foil his latest plan and figure out how he managed to escape his fate in Asakiri Kafka’s Bungou Stray Dogs Gaiden – Ayatsuji Yukito VS Kyougoku Natsuhiko (“Literary Writer Stray Dogs Another Story – Ayatsuji Yukito VS Kyougoku Natsuhiko”, 2016).

Ayatsuji Yukito? Kyougoku Natsuhiko? Tsujimura Mizuki? Aren’t these all actual mystery writers, you might ask. And you’d be right. Bungou Stray Dogs is a currently running comic, written by Asakiri Kafka and illustrated by Harukawa 35, which features (real) famous authors of literature as the protagonists. In the series, famous literary authors like Edogawa Rampo, Akutagawa Ryuunosuke, Dazai Osamu and many more fight in a war between a detective agency and the port mafia, using their special abilities. The abilities are all named after the works of the said writers, so Yosano Akiko for example has an ability named after her poem Kimi, Shinitamou Koto Nakare (“Prithee Do No Die”).  While the main series only features deceased authors, the spin-off novel features three still-living authors. There are few links to the main series by the way, so you can jump right in with the spin-off novel.

It’s pretty weird to read a mystery novel featuring authors I’ve read (and even one whose work I translated), but I think Bungou Stray Dogs Gaiden does a good job at using these characters in a meaningful way. I have to admit I have never read anything written by Tsujimura, so I don’t how her style is incorporated in the book, but readers who are familiar with Ayatsuji and Kyougoku will have a blast. Ayatsuji’s ability Another is of course named after the highly successful horror-mystery, where a curse manages to find very original ways to kill off a class. Kyougoku’s fascination for youkai and folklore are also used very effectively throughout the novel, and like always, it can turn quite philosophical, but it always has to do with the mystery at hand. But like I already noticed with Tsujimura: you don’t need to know the actual authors to enjoy their role in this novel.

As a mystery novel , Bungou Stray Dogs Gaiden is a pretty unique experience. It’s not a straight-up mystery novel, and often feels more like a horror-novel, as Ayatsuji and Tsujimura try to found out how Kyougoku cheated death. Meanwhile, Kyougoku’s plan is also set in motion, and because this series is about people with special abilities, there’s also a lot of fantasy-styled action in this novel. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t work as a mystery novel. I am probably repeating myself on the blog, but supernatural elements do not make a mystery story unfair. As long as the rules are clear, a fantasy-action where people fight each other with magic abilities can still be a perfectly fine mystery story. Heck, that’s basically what JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is.

Bungou Stray Dogs Gaiden is a very dynamic book because of the premise. Ayatsuji will uncover (part of) a plan of Kyougoku, who will move his own pieces on the chessboard in response, followed by more reactions from Ayatsuji, etc. Over the course of the novel, Ayatsuji will for example uncover a clever plot to kill off Tsujimura, and solve an original locked room murder, and what makes this novel fun is that often, these mystery plots are only possible because the series features supernatural abilities, but which are also clearly defined to give the reader a fair chance at solving it themselves. It gives the book a very original and memorable touch.

Overall, I had a great time with the book. It’s a bit different form most mystery novels, and while knowledge is not needed, it definitely has a bit extra to present to the reader if they’re familiar with Ayatsuji, Tsujimura and Kyougoku. The final solution might not be convincing for some people, but I think it fits wonderful with the themes of one of the above mentioned writers.

Bungou Stray Dogs Gaiden – Ayatsuji Yukito VS. Kyougoku Natsuhiko is not strongly connected to the main comic series, and a pretty entertaining fantasy-mystery, so I’d definitely recommend if you are familiar with any of the featured authors. I had a great time with this book at any rate. The main series is a bit more action-oriented, but also fun, by the way, as it also features some mystery writers (also from the West).

Original Japanese title(s): 朝霧カフカ　『文豪ストレイドッグス外伝 綾辻行人VS.京極夏彦』

Face to Face

「人生は仮面舞踏会みたいなもんだ。男も女もみんな仮面をかぶっ​て生きている」

『仮面舞踏会』（横溝正史）

"Life is like a masked ball. All men and women live their lives wearing masks."

"The Masked Ball" (Yokomizo Seishi)

And again, a disclosure message just to be sure: I translated the English version of Ayatsuji Yukito's The Decagon House Murders last year, which is part of the same series as the book I'm discussing today.

Yakata series (Author: Ayatsuji Yukito)
Jukkakukan no Satsujin (The Decagon House Murders) [1987]
Suishakan no Satsujin (The Water Mill House Murders) [1988]
Meirokan no Satsujin (The Labyrinth House Murders) [1988]
Ningyoukan no Satsujin (The Puppet House Murders) [1989]
Tokeikan no Satsjin (The Clock House Murders) [1991]
Kuronekokan no Satsujin (The Black Cat House Murders) [1992]
Ankokukan no Satsujin (The Darkness House Murders) [2004]
Bikkurikan no Satsujin (The Surprise House Murders) [2006]
Kimenkan no Satsujin (The Strange Masks House Murders) [2012]

The first time mystery writer Shishiya Kadomi met horror writer Hyuuga Kyousuke, he thought he had finally found his doppelgänger. Their resemblance becomes useful when Hyuuga is invited by the wealthy Kageyama Itsushi to attend a secret meeting. The monetary reward for his time is something Hyuuga can't refuse, but a sudden illness prevents him from going. Hyuuga therefore asks Shishiya to go in his place (pretending to be Hyuuga), so they can share the money. Shishiyai doesn't feel much for the scheme, until he learns that the meeting is to be held in the Strange Masks House, one of the creations of architect Nakamura Seiji. From his own experience, Shishiya knows that each of Nakamura's houses becomes the scene of some grotesque murder, and hoping to confront the evil, Shishiya accepts Hyuuga's request. And as expected, the meeting at the Strange Masks House turns into a bloody tragedy, when the house is cut-off from the outside world due to a sudden snow storm in April, the master of the house is found murdered and decapitated in his room and masks have been put on, and locked on the faces of all the guests, including Shishiya, during their sleep (think The Man in the Iron Mask). With no way of escape or even seeing whom they are talking to, can the party make it out alive from Ayatsuji Yukito's Kimenkan no Satsujin ("The Strange Masks House Murder", 2012).

Kimenkan no Satsujin is the ninth novel in Ayatsuji's Yakata (mansion, house) series, which first started in 1987 with The Decagon House Murders (for a series overview, see this post). Shishiya had not acted in very prominent roles in the previous couple of volumes (from Kuronekokan no Satsujin on), but here he is back in the main role, in a rather classic format of the series, with him locked up together with some other people in one of Nakamura's devilish creations. The theme this time is masks, which is a motif for a lot of mystery fiction actually. "Everyone wears a mask, whether over their faces or over their hearts," one famous quote from the Ace Attorney series says and that's especially true in detectve stories, where practically everybody has something to hide, criminal or not. And how often have we not seen stories where people turned out not to be the persons they claimed to be? Sometimes, we have characters wearing actual masks, like the infamous Sukekiyo in Yokomizo Seishi's The Inugami Clan, who instantly attract all attention, and suspicion of those around them.

Ayatsuji brings this theme to the extreme in Kimenkan no Satsujin, as it's a rule inside the Strange Masks House for the host and guests to wear face-covering masks most of the time, and after the murder nobody is able to take of their masks anymore because they have all been locked. It's because of the actual masks that the reader will suddenly start to have suspicions about the identity of each of the characters, as you simply can't be sure anymore if the man in the mask is indeed who he claims to be. This plot device is used in interesting ways to work out several problems revolving around identity in mystery fiction, including obvious ones like suspicions about the identity of the decapitated victim and others. The face=identity theme comes back several times and I'd say that for the most part, this is done quite well: the problem of why everyone is made to wear their masks, as well as the reason for the decapitation work quite well in the context of the story.

Whereas Knox might lament the use of secret passages in detective stories, it's actually a vital element of the Yakata series: the series revolves around the houses designed by Nakamura Seiji, who loved weird gimmicks like secret hallways and hidden cabinets. Every time there is something resembling a locked room in the series, you can bet there's a secret hallway somewhere. But isn't that cheap, you might think? No, actually, it isn't. For one, it's always assumed that there is something going in Nakamura's creations and two, the existence of a secret hallway itself is not the mystery. They are always used as fair elements in the deduction process, so you have to look at these gimmicks in the light of questions as "who could have known about this secret hallway", or "who could have used this secret passage". In that respect, secret hallways are just as fair an element in mystery fiction as the bloody knife. Kimenkan no Satsujin too is bursting with secret gimmicks, but their use in the deduction process is completely fair.

I did find Kimenkan no Satsujin quite lacking in the 'wow' department. Up until now, all the books featured a big surprise twist, a trick that turned everything around and explained everything. For each book, I can explain in one sentence what the trick was. Kimenkan no Satsujin on the other hand feels more like it's a collection of smaller tricks that admittedly work together, but miss the big impact of earlier novels. Most of the mystery revolves around the decapitated corpse, issues of identity because of the masks and Nakamura's gimmicks mentioned above. True, there is one big twist at the end of the story that also ties in nicely with a very neat piece of misdirection, but it is not a plot device that can explain most of the mystery behind the novel, as featured in previous novels. Again, it's an element that ties in well with the face=identity thing, but it is not nearly as strong as that one thing from The Decagon House Murders or that what was pulled off in Tokeikan no Satsujin (people who have read those books probably instantly know what kind of twist I'm talking about). In comparison, the thing from Kimenkan no Satsujin? Oh, that, in combination with that other thing and don't forget this.

Overall, Kimenkan no Satsujin is a fairly solid entry in the series, with the more classical tone similar to earlier books in the series. For people who have been following the whole series, I think this one won't really disappoint. For people who haven't read the series yet; start somewhere else, because while fun, Kimenkan no Satsujin is nowhere being the best of the series and there are quite a lot of references to earlier books. The big question is however: what will happen next? Ayatsuji has said that he plans to end the series with the tenth volume, and while there is nothing like a grand narrative between the books (except for the focus on the protagonists and the houses created by Nakamura Seiji), I do suspect that the last volume will have something to connect all the books together more strongly and serve as a proper conclusion.

Original Japanese title(s): 綾辻行人 『奇面館の殺人』