The Problem of the Red Rose

"There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it."

"A Study in Scarlet" 

Unsurprisingly, I have quite a few mystery books that have red as the main color on the cover. I wonder what color is the rarest though. Something like purple?

Terada Satoshi is a young detective assigned to the prestigious homicide division of the Metropolitan Police Department with a bright future awaiting him.... until he foolishly left confidential files at the house of a suspect during a house search. The woman living with the suspect posted the files online, making a laughing stock of the police, questioning their capabilities of actually conducting a criminal investigation. Terada wasn't a scapegoat, but the actual person who made the grave mistake of course, so he was severely punished for the deed: he was removed from the homicide division and effectively demoted by his assignment to the Red Museum. Following the example of the Black Museum of Scotland Yard, the MPD has its own Red Museum, where files and evidence concerning cases of which the statute of limitations have already passed are stored in the archives beneath the old brick mansion in Mitaka, Tokyo. His pride couldn't have been hurt worse, as gone are the days of investigating serious crimes, and left are just boxes filled with old evidence waiting for Terada to stick a nice label with a QR code on them so they can be registered into a database. The same old, day after day after day. 

The Red Museum is headed by Hiiro Saeko, an attractive woman but rather emotionally detached, and often referred to as the Snow Woman. Hiiro's rank is superintendent and she's supposed to be in the elite 'career path' within the police, so Terada suspects she must have really messed up too in the past to be stuck here despite her career history, staring at dead cases all day. However, soon after Terada's assignment to the Red Museum, Hiiro orders Terada to look into an old unsolved case they are registering into the database. Once he reports his findings to her, Hiiro manages to solve the case and identify the culprit decades after the murder happened! It turns out that while the Red Museum is storing away old cases, Hiiro doesn't consider all cases dead, and she goes over every case they register, solved or not, to see if she can uncover the real truth. In Ooyama Seiichirou's short story collection Akai Hakubutsukan ("The Red Museum", 2015), we follow Hiiro and Terada as they tackle five cases from the past... and the present.

In 2016, Akai Hakubutsukan had a live-action adaptation, which I reviewed back then. It was a feature-length special, adaptating multiple stories and in the end, I wasn't too impressed because it felt a bit chaotic. But on the other hand, I am a huge fan of Ooyama Seiichirou, which is partially connected to the fact I love short mystery stories, and Ooyama's a master in that form. As I have read most of Ooyama's work already (yes, I know I haven't written the review for the second Watson-ryoku yet...), it was just a matter of time I would get started on the Red Museum series. Actually, besides the television special, I had actually already read one of the stories collected in this first volume of the series, but for some reason it appears I never reviewed it, as I can't find a review of it on my blog. But as the third volume of the series released a few months ago, I knew it was time to finally get properly started on this series.

Pan no Minoshirokin ("Ransom for Bread") is the opening story. It was originally titled Akai Hakubutsukan ("The Red Museum") and is also about twice as long as all the other stories, so it was basically a pilot which was later extended into a full series. As such, it spends relatively much time explaining how Terada came to work at the Red Museum, his first impressions of the cold head of the museum, his meeting with the two other staff members of the museum and portraying Terada as someone who really is proud of having been in the homicide division, looking down at Hiiro as someone who probably has never conducted any real investigation herself and only being in a managerial role. Things of course change with this first case. Terada is sent to transfer evidence from the Shinagawa Police Station to the Red Museum for filing: the evidence is from a case that occured in 1999, when the director of the big bread supplier Nakajima Bread was murdered. Someone had been tampering with products of the company, introducing nails into the bread, which of course led to a huge drop in sales. The blackmailer then sent a letter to the director, demanding for a fortune if he wanted it to stop. The director was to bring the money in a suitcase by car, and he'd be contacted via his phone installed in his car. The police was of course not to be involved, but they were secretly informed and a police detective was hiding in the car's trunk, which allowed him to communicate with the director and maintain radio contact with the supporting detectives. The director was led to an abandoned manor in the forest. When he didn't appear after a while, the detective in the trunk sent supporting detectives in the house as he too entered the building, but they only found the suitcase with money in the house, and the director gone. While they did find an underground passage leading away from the house, they couldn't understand why the money had been left behind. Later, the director's dead body was found elsewhere, making this a murder case. The police soon suspected the ransom money had just been a ruse, an excuse to camouflage the real goal of murdering the director, but the person with the best motive for doing so had an iron-clad alibi and the case was left unsolved.

For some reason I thought this had been adapted as part of the first television adaptation, but I guess they only did the introductionary part and not the actual mystery. Which is a shame, as this is a great opening story. In a way, it reminds me a lot of the short story Y no Yuukai ("The Kidnapping of Y"), the last story in Ooyama's debut book Alphabet Puzzlers. It too deals with a case set in the past, an abduction case (a child in Y no Yuukai, the director who disappears from the house in this story), someone is ordered to drive around in a car as they are directed to deliver ransom money and the money ending up not being retrieved by the culprit, leading to speculations to their real goal. The mechanics behind the case and the way they are solved are completley different though. Pan no Minoshirokin cleverly disguises the main driving dynamics of its plot as a different kind of mystery, hiding the true solution behind a well-designed veil of deceit. Once you recognize the mystery for what it really is, everything falls nicely in place, showing the tight plotting Ooyama is known for. If there's one thing I would fault the story for, it's that it doesn't make as clever use of the series' premise as some of the other stories in the same collection: while the conclusion might feel more impactful because the story took place ago in the past, a lot of how the main mystery would've been solved, would have been the same whether the story had been told real-time (i.e. in 1999) or as it is now, as an account of something that happed long ago. I feel other stories, like the second and the last one in this volume, utilize the concept of these all being old cases to better effect.

Fukushuu Nikki ("Diary of Revenge") is Ooyama's take on a device seen in both Nicholas Blake's The Beast Must Die and Norizuki Rintarou's Yoriko no Tame ni ("For Yoriko"), being about the diary of someone planning to commit murder out of revenge. In fact, these three stories, written by different people at different times, form a kind of series: the diary of Yoriko no Tame ni starts the day after the diary in The Beast Must Die ends, and Fukushuu Nikki´s diary starts after Yoriko no Tame ni's diary ends! The diary in question is of Takami Kyouichi, a student who vows revenge for the death of his ex-girlfriend Maiko. The two had broken up some months ago, but one day, he suddenly got a call from Maiko who wanted to see him. When he went to her place, her body was found lying in the garden outside of her apartment building, having apparently leapt to her death from her balcony, but Kyouchi suspects there's more behind her death and based on evidence found in her apartment and the fact she had been pregnant when she died, he theorizes Maiko had been murdered by her current boyfriend, who wanted to get rid of her and the baby the easy way. Kyouichi feverishly starts to look for clues to identify this boyfriend so he can kill him, detailing his thinking process in his diary. After he managed to execute his plan, his diary was removed during a burglary in his apartment building and the diary was sent to the police, who of course wanted to have a talk with him: he died in a car crash while running away. 

Both Terada and Hiiro read through the diary, which seems like an open-and-shut case as the murderer confessed to every detail, from motive to how he planned the murder, in his diary, but to Terada's surprise, Hiiro seems dubious about the "truth" behind this case, as she notes a few strange discrepancies within the diary's account. The result is an excellently plotted tale of mystery, where Ooyama managed to plant so many clues and foreshadowing in a surprisingly short diary: the diary hides an intricately designed plot that, despite the diary's short length, allows for clever red herrings, multiple solutions and a neat conclusion to it all. I actually recently did go through The Beast Must Die in anticipation of this story, but I liked the clewing in this story so much better and the way the plot is constructed so much better, being much closer to the type of mystery I like (Ellery Queen-like plotting).  

Shi ga Kyouhansha wo Wakatsu made ("Till Death Do The Conspirators Part") is about a murder exchange, a trope very dear to Norizuki Rintarou, so these two stories do make it feel like Ooyama had him in mind while working on this book. Terada is out driving when he becomes witness to a tragic incident involving a truck hitting a car. The lone driver of the car is hit fatally, but in his dying words, he makes a confession to Terada. Twenty-five years ago, he was involved in a murder exchange: he wanted to kill somebody, but he'd become the main suspect, so he swapped his murder with someone else, allowing both of them to obtain perfect alibis for 'their' murders. While the man manages to explain they committed the murders one week after another, Terada unfortunately couldn't make out the names the dying man was trying to convey and by the time the emergency services arrived, the man had already passed away. The man is easily identified by his wife and his driver's license and so Terada and Hiiro start looking into a death that occurred twenty-five years ago in his circle, for which he would've been a suspect if not for a perfect alibi. They learn his wealthy uncle had been murdered, supporting the claim of the murder exchange and leading to the next question: who killed the uncle and who was the person they ordered a hit on?

This was the main plot of the (first) live-action special, but whereas I remember nothing about the plot from the special, I think it is a great story here. The story certainly starts out in an open manner: you know there have been two murders twenty-five years ago, one being on the rich uncle, but Terada's investigations into murders in the same time window lead to two possible candidates, where someone was murdered and there had been an obvious suspect in the possession of a perfect alibi. Here the fact this series is about cases set long in the past helps develop the mystery, as what makes this mystery hard to solve is the fact you can hardly expect someone to remember what they did on a certain day at a certain time twenty-five years ago, and how are you going to prove that? So it's neigh impossible to prove either of those suspects committed the uncle murder, and yet... Hiiro is not the type to give up easily and despite these setbacks, she boldly proposes a theory that proves with whom the traffic accident victim swapped his murders and how the other murder was committed. At this point of the series, Terada is still hoping he can one day return to the homicide division and as he was the one to hear the dying man's last words, he also wants to show Hiiro he's a better investigator than she'll ever be due to his hands-on experience, but of course, we all know who's better at this...

Honoo ("Flames") is a relatively short story and the one I know I had read before, but for some reason I never wrote a review for it. Hiiro draws Terada's attention to an essay written by a photographer, whose family died in a fire: when she was in elementary school, she had gone off on a school trip, only to return an orphan. It was only later she heard the horrible truth: her aunt (sister of her mother) was going to stay at their home for a day because she and her boyfriend had a horrible breakup and they needed to talk things over to calm things down. Her mother, pregnant with a sibling, and her father had also been present. A fire broke out and the burnt bodies of her father, her mother and her aunt were found in the ruins. It turned out that all three of them had been poisoned before they were consumed by the fire, leading to the conclusion the jilted boyfriend killed everyone after their chat went wrong. The case was never solved, but Hiiro seems quite interested in the account of the now-adult photographer about her childhood. As said, this story is relatively short and features few characters, making it a bit easy to guess how everything falls into place eventually, but it is a neatly constructed mystery, with a lot of subtle clewing. This is the second time I read the story, but it only made me realize how well the story is written, as so many little passages and comments take on a completely different meaning once you know the truth.

Shi ni Itaru Toi ("A Question Unto Death") has a great premise: the Red Museum is asked to release the files and evidence on the death of a man found near the Tamagawa River twenty-six years ago to the homicide division of the MPD, as the exact same murder has occured: from the location of the body to the location of the wound, down to the fact a blood sample of an unknown person (the culprit?) was left on the clothes of the victim. The police fear the same murderer has striked again and thus need the old files to compare, and Hiiro of course hands over the files, as she too recognizes the eerie similarities between the cases. However, Hiiro is then approached by an old friend in Internal Affairs, who wants Hiiro on the case too: because the new body is too similar to how the body was discovered twenty-six years ago and there's no reason why the original murderer would go such lengths to replicate their own crime, he suspects the new murderer might be just a copycat, and more importantly, a copycat with precise knowledge of the police investigation twenty-six years ago, as the new murder also mirrors the old murder in ways not reported in the media and only known to people involved in the investigation. Hiiro accepts the task and starts investigating both the murders in the past and the present, while the homicide investigation too tries to find a connection between the two cases, focusing on the blood samples found at both crime scenes.

And as I am writing this, I learn there was actually a second adaptation of this series, and that second installment was based on this last story. This story introduces an interesting way to have Hiiro involved in an on-going investigation while also keeping her firmly tied to the work of the Red Museum. The mystery basically revolves around the matter of why the two murders are nearly identical down to every point: if it was the original murderer coming back again after twenty-six years, why would they mirror their own crime down to such detail, even down to something that obviously hadn't been planned originally (the bloodstain left on the victim)? On the other hand, if it's someone copying the murder, how did they get hold of such details and once again, what is the goal in mimicking an old unsolved crime, especially as it wasn't even a high-profile crime (i.e. not the type of murder to attract copycat killers in the first place)? The answer Ooyama has prepared for this question is fantastic: he provides the murderer with an incredibly original motive for this mystery to occur, and while it does require one character to be not quite sane for this story to work, the payoff is great, with a twist that will take the reader by surprise, not only because it's so unexpected, but alo because it's surprisingly well-clewed despite of the out-of-left-field-ness. This is the kind of surprise I'm reading detective stories for!

Akai Hakubutsukan shows once again why Ooyama is so well appreciated as a master of the short mystery story. All the stories except for the pilot/first story are pretty short in page length, but he always manages to pack the plots full with clues and foreshadowing that lead to surprising twists, all the while without telegraphing the solutions too much. I think the series works best when it makes actual use of the fact we're investigating old cases now, with limited options to doing reinvestigations. As I mentioned before, the third volume was released late 2025, but given how much I liked this first volume, I think catching up won't take long.

Original Japanese title(s): 大山誠一郎『赤い博物館』:「パンの身代金」/「復讐日記」/「死が共犯者を分かつまで」/「炎」/「死に至る問い」 

The Borrowed Shield

"Do you understand, Seiya? To defeat this dragon, you must destroy my shield. And that is impossible. Your hardest punch or kick won't scratch this shield!"

"Saint Seiya" 

I suppose many people who read this blog, will have first heard about the spear and shield story from Ace Attorney. I first heard it from Saint Seiya of all places...

After moving to the Philippines, Kirishima Outarou got duped by a "friend" and was forced into a life of crime. He eventually found a way to escape and return to Japan, but with part of his life wasted, he basically had nothing to live for until an old friend pays him a visit. Kusatsu Masamori and Kirishima were great friends back in high school. Kusatsu had always been a fan of mystery novels, and as the son of a rather wealthy family, he was able to make his dreams come true in recent years, opening his own detective agency. However, Kusatsu was also infamous for his bad luck that usually manifested in streaks of unbelievable incidents happening to and around him. Indeed, a few months ago, he got into a horrible accident and he has lost the use of his legs. Kusatsu now wants to partner up with his old friend Kirishima. Kusatsu will handle the thinking, representing the "brains" of the partnership, while Kirishima, as his assistant, would represent the "brawn" of the agency, acting as Kirishima's man in the field and capable of doing the "dirty" things Kusatsu never could. Kirishima is reluctant to accept the offer at first, until he learns Kusatsu has been after a certain criminal for several years: "Himiko" is a consulting criminal, who aids criminals in fabrication and falsification. Her expertise lies in planting false clues that lead to false solutions, pointing away from the real culprit, putting the police on the wrong track and allowing murderers to get away scot-free. It turns out that this "Himiko" is in fact the third childhood friend: Himi Asuka, the girl who would always outsmart Kusatsu, and who would always outfight Kirishima. She has now turned to a life of crime, and Kusatsu is determined to stop her. In Houjou Kie's 2026 novel Tate to Hoko, which also has the English title When the Shield Meets the Spear, the reader is shown what happens when the impregnable shield for criminals meets with the unstoppable spear that penetrates through all the deceit in order to unveil all crimes?  

A new Houjou Kie book, and that of course means I'm there in the front row on the release day. This novel is not related to any of her previous books by the way, and if I remember correctly, it's her first novel via publisher Kadokawa too. I've of course been a fan of the former member of the Kyoto University Mystery Club since her debut novel Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei ("The Hourglass of the Time-Space Traveller. Especially these last two, three years, her release schedule has become quite busy with a lot of regular short stories being serialized in all kinds of magazines, but to be honest, it's still her long novels that manage to impress me the most each time due to the insanely dense clewing and plotting going on in her books. So when it was announced her newest book would be released in March 2026 (in fact, it was released a week before this review goes up), I knew I'd be getting the book immediately. Especially as the title really interested: In Japanese (and Chinese), the characters for "shield" and "spear" form a compound word meaning "contradiction", originating from the tale of an invincible spear and impregnable shield (which of course, contradict each other's existence). 

It's not surprising that Houjou came up with a detective (duo) that represents the "unstoppable spear" and a criminal that creates an "impregnable shield": in most of Houjou's works, she plays with the idea that detectives and criminals are in fact two sides of the same coin, and most of the detective characters in her books have some shady background to them, from Ryuuzen Yuuki in Kotou no Raihousha ("Visitors on the Remote Island") being forced into a detective role despite him actually planning a crime, Kiryuu being the hotel detective and enforcer for the Amulet Hotel, which caters to criminals exclusively and Kuroba being the ghost of the "Perfect Crime Contractor" finding himself becoming a mentor in detection in Shoujo ni wa Mukanai Kanzen Hanzai ("An Unsuitable Perfect Crime for a Girl"). In When the Shield Meets the Spear, we see similar dynamics. Himi "Himiko" Asuka is a specialist who can be reached via certain social media apps and she helps people, most often people who end up murdering someone, with the cover-up. She instructs her clients how to plant specific false pieces of evidence and clues, that will lead the police to a false solution, for example making it appear it was an accident. Himiko is a master at reading situations and adapting to them, which is also reflected in her thinking: she can instantly see how the police, or even Kusatsu and Kirishima will seize up a situation, and advise the criminal as to what clues to plant in order to point away from the truth. She therefore also has to act in a detective in a way, as she has to deduce how her opponents will react and build her defences around that. Meanwhile, Kusatsu and Kirishima form a formidable duo as the members of the K&K Detective Agency because they handle different parts of the detective work: Kusatsu is without a doubt the brain: with the loss of the use of his legs, he mainly acts as an armchair detective nowadays, building his theories based on the reports made by Kirishima, who investigates the crime scenes/interviews the suspects for him. More often than not though, Kusatsu will manage to solve the crime before Kirishima has completed his report. Meanwhile, Kirishima handles the brawn or "violent force" of the duo. Kirishima had always excelled physically, and his time as a low-time criminal in the Philippines only strengthened that side of him. Kirishima is not afraid to play dirty in order to win, which includes doing things that... aren't really legal, but hey, sometimes it's necessary to break into a house or restrain somebody to find evidence, right? The K&K Detective Agency being detectives who can play dirty, and Himiko being a criminal who thinks like a detective, are the ingredients for a great premise.

When the Shield Meets the Spear is a novel, though you could consider it a short story collection, as we follow the K&K Detective Agency and Himiko as they cross paths across three adventures. In the first story, K&K Detective Agency are asked by the police to investigate a strange death that occured in the home of a former boxer. The boxer had been holding a small party at his house to celebrate the engagement of two childhood friends. While everyone but one friend was out of the house for grocery shopping, this remaining friend died in the large bathroom, which houses its own hot spring bath. The house was completely locked from the inside, with the key being found lying next to the victim in the bathroom. The reader learns immediately it was indeed the boxer who committed the crime and immediately after the deed, he requested the help of Himiko to ensure the crime would appear as a simple "slipped in the bathroom" accident, though his initial attempt at disguising his crime, before he called Himiko, unfortunately led to a contradiction that led to the police asking K&K to look into the case.

What is interesting about this story is that it shows immediately that When the Shield Meets the Spear is very reminiscent of a Columbo-style story in set-up, even if it's not really an inverted detective story. To explain in more detail: in When the Shield Meets the Spear, Kusatsu usually manages to solve the initial murder early on, seeing through the first attempt by the murderer to disguise their crimes. In series like Columbo and Furuhata Ninzaburou, it's often the "Columbo is getting close, let's do something" follow-up attempt at fooling the police that leads to their arrest , but in this book, this is the point where the story really starts. After Kusatsu's first deductions, we'll learn Himiko is already messing with the crime scene, altering or destroying crucial pieces of evidence or planting false clues, that lead to new solutions (that of course point away from the real murderer). These are very entertaining and captivating parts: it shows how you can change chains of deductions and their outcomes completely by altering small points, and often it only takes a small nudge to lead you away from what you know is actually the truth. What is fun here is that Houjou plays the game in a fair manner here: the reader is always made aware of a key term or word in Himiko's instructions to the culprit, which allows the murderer to completely overturn Kusatsu's initial (correct!) deductions, often just by introducing one fake clue. From there, we see Kusatsu and Kirishima react again, having to penetrate through this second layer of defense and it's often here were Kusatsu's brain isn't enough: Kusatsu and Kirishima too have to play a little bit dirty to break through the illusions created by Himiko. 

Because of that, we get a lot of battles that go back and forth in When the Shield Meets the Spear, though moment-to-moment deductions are a bit simpler than we have seen in her other work. For example the initial locked room murder trick in this first story really relies on a very simple trick, but then Himiko changes something about the crime scene, which renders Kusatsu's deductions improvable to the police, so then K&K Detective Agency has to come up with something else again. This constant adapting to a new situation is something we have seen a lot in Houjou's work, but because the three chapters in this book are mostly self-contained, I can't help but feel the scale of the deductions in these stories are a bit shorter/simpler than what we might be used to. This first story does have some great moments as we see both parties going far to reach their respective objectives. Because the criminal only has limited time/means to mess with the crime scene, Houjou manages to present this "what false trail will they create with what false clue" mystery as a fair mystery, as this false solution is properly foreshadowed. Still, because the stories are mostly self-contained, you don't have really moments where an early planted clue is used to shake up things much later in the story, as you'd see in some of Houjou's other books, though she does manage to plant some lore clues throughout the stories. 

The second story starts with great premise: the president of a health product company and two of his managers were on a business trip on Thursday in Osaka, with Friday being a holiday. The president left his employees early in the evening in Osaka and hasn't been heard of since. Which is a bit odd, but still, it was a long weekend, so nobody really worried about him. On Monday morning, just as everyone was wondering why he was absent today, a large package from Osaka was delivered to the company and inside they found... the director's dead body! This second story is a lot trickier than the first story right from the start. While the first story starts with the reader being shown who the murderer is, making the first part of that story (until Kusatsu's initial deductions) a howdunnit, this second story keeps the murderer's identity a secret at first, making the first part (again, until Kusatsu's first deductions) both a howdunnit and whodunnit. From there, Himiko starts messing with the crime scene again, neutralizing Kusatsu's deductions and forcing him to find a new way to capture the culprit despite the changed circumstances of the crime and the initial pieces of evidence proving his theory being rendered useless. The puzzle behind why the murderer sent the victim's body in a package to Tokyo is pretty good even as is, and the added "confusion" created by Himiko only makes it more fun. This second story also builds to a surprisingly dramatic finale, with the second half of the story revealing there were pretty complex things going on behind the scenes, though it can be argued whether the build-up to some of these developments is fair enough. 

The final chapter is the longest and the most ambitious too. K&K Detective Agency is asked to look into the murder of a writer (who also happens to be son of the former head of the Metropolitan Police Department's Criminal Affairs Division). The victim was found dead in his own locked study at home in Kotakara Village, near the mountains of Okutama. Kotakara Village is a very small, isolated community, and the village itself can only be reached via one path. On the night of the murder, the whole village was engaged with their local festival, which celebrates children, giving them the freedom to do whatever they want that night. The few dozen of people in the village were all either in the village hall to attend to the festival or being on guard duty at the village entrance point. There were also two outsiders present, a police officer who was giving a safety presentation for the children and a journalist. Interviewing all the people in the village however lead to the strange conclusion that every single person in the village was accounted for during the time of the murder. So who could've killed the writer?

This is written as the grand finale and it definitely has the huge twists and reveals you'd expect of one... which is why it feels a bit disappointing this is chapter three of the book. In-universe, K&K Detective Agency has been active for about two years, in which Kusatsu and Kirishima crossed Himiko's path more often, but for us readers, these events all start about two-hundred pages/two stories in, which makes some of these events feel far too huge at this point of the book, like a season finale, even though we're just halfway into the series. Of course, it might have been difficult to "extend" this season before we got this finale (the book is fairly long as it is now, while unless you're a light novel series, it's hard to plan a series ahead because nobody is guaranteed a sequel), but I can't deny I really wish there had been more build-up as a series, to gain maximum satisfaction from this finale. 

This story is mystery-wise definitely the trickiest of the whole book: Himiko creates some great misdirection early on in regards to the crime scene, and we have multiple false solutions here (with proper clue trails) that will fool the reader/detectives.  At times, the story will even feel a bit unfair, though surprisingly, Houjou then offers a fair solution to the unfair situation, which basically undoes the initial unfairness. The mystery is thus full of twists and turns, with K&K Detective Agency being forced to alternate rapidly between attack and defense turns, and that results in some suspenseful moments despite a lot of the story just being... people explaining their deductions. The way K&K eventually resolves the situation is clever, and makes great use of the setting and the respective roles of both men, making them equal members in this partnership, even if Kirishima is always addressed as "Kusatsu's assistant." The setting of Kotakara Village is also pretty interesting, with a local festival and rituals that are used well in terms of setting up and supporting the mystery plot, though I do think this setting could've been exploited better with more pages: Kotakara Village is the kind of place you'll see in the Toujou Genya or Kindaichi Kousuke novels and with some more development, could easily have been the setting for a whole novel, but here things feel a bit hasty/underdeveloped, which is a shame. 

I do have to admit that as much as I enjoyed this book (and that's a lot!), the fact Tate to Hoko is basically set-up as an interlinked short story collection rather than a "normal" novel, means we don't really see the insane plotting and clewing going on in Houjou's other novels, and that's a bit disappointing. While most of her novels have her detectives dealing with several problems in sequence, her novels usually have her at her best, with later problems/crime scenes/situations often requiring clues planted much earlier in order to solve them, with some of her best work basically being a web of clues from start to finish. Tate to Hoko is far simpler, with most of the information necessary being contained to each chapter. The concept of the book is nonetheless great though, with the constant transformation of the facts and the crime scene creating a fluid mystery story that allow for fun back and forth deductions. The duo of Kusatsu's brains and Kirishima's brawn is also great, with especially the times when after a series of Kusatsu's "clean" deductions, Kirishima is allowed to play dirty. I do hope this becomes a series, because even though I thought this was a great mystery, I do feel some of the things done here might've worked better if she had more time(pages/books) to develop those ideas. I also wonder whether Houjou could also write one single story/one single case with the same premise of someone constantly tampering with the crime scene/clues to create false solutions.

Original Japanese title(s):  方丈貴恵『盾と矛』

By Dawn's Early Light

"Well, I'll be tougher than the toughies, and sharper than the sharpies -- And I'll make my money square!"

"The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" 

Visited Sapporo recently actually. All the dairy products (soft serves!!!) were amazing.

Golden Kamuy is a highly succesful manga series created by Noda Satoru, set in Hokkaido, soon after the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War. It follows Sugimoto, a war veteran and the Ainu girl Asirpa on their quest to find a fortune of gold of the Ainu people, with other parties also after the enormous treasure. The manga is well-known for its historical setting, incorporating real historical events into the plot. It also focuses a lot on Hokkaido and the Ainu culture, exploring the Ainu people in that period in time. The manga has been adapted into a succesful anime series, and there's also a live-action film series. 

And of course, there's a mystery spin-off book! Or else I wouldn't be writing about it here.

I have in fact not read the manga nor seen the anime. And I only caught like the only first 15 minutes of the first Golden Kamuy film. So I know next to nothing about the series. But when it was announced last year that not only the very first Golden Kamuy spin-off novel would be a mystery story, but that it was also written by none other than Ibuki Amon, I knew instantly I wanted to read it, even without knowledge of the series. It would not be the first time I have read a mystery book based on a Shonen Jump franchise I'm not super familiar with (which reminds me I also need to read the second Kinnikuman mystery short story collection), and more importantly: Ibuki Amon is basically the person you want to be writing mystery short stories with a historical setting, with plots that utilize the time period to their fullest, ranging from objects and historical events to culture. Golden Kamuy: Tsurumi Tokushirou no Shukugan ("Golden Kamuy: The Aspirations of Tsurumi Tokushirou") is a prequel short story collection set during the Russo-Japanese War and it follows Tsurumi Tokushirou, First Lieutenant of the 7th Division of the Imperial Japanese Army. Tsurumi is in fact the antagonist of the main series, but his popularity have thus earned him the honor of being the protagonist of the book. Tsurumi is a highly strategic, calculating officer who nonetheless cares about the men serving beneath and besides him. The 7th Division is sent deep into Russian grounds as they move from one battlefield to another to support other divisions and Tsurumi, in his position of First Lieutenant, acts as the platoon leader, being the link between command and the men on the ground. In Tsurumi Tokushirou no Shukugan, we see how the 7th Division moves deeper into Russia as the war wages on, but during their deployment, the members of the 7th Division come across several mysterious incidents, including sightings of the ghost of a fallen comrade patrolling at night, the disappearance of a war prisoner from a guarded tent and a series of murders on Japanese soldiers right in the middle of their own camp, without the enemy ever being detected. While these cases baffle his soldiers, it's always Tsurumi who holds the answers to the questions.

I have to admit that while I bought this book without much worries about my non-existing familiarity with the series, I was taken aback by the first few pages of the book, which featured 15(!) named characters of the 7th Division, all with profile pictures and character introduction, and then more pages that explain the military ranks of the people in the 7th Division, and a chart of the battles the 7th Division were involved with during the war. Once you get reading, you'll realize you'll get explained all of this within the stories themselves too, but the front-loaded info-dump pages were a bit intimidating. The book features five stories, which all follow different members of the 7th Division as they encounter weird cases and see how Tsurumi handles all of them. Each of the stories show how these men become devoted followers of Tsurumi, recognizing not only the aspirations of the man, but also the heart he has for the mission and for the men who fight along him, which earns him the respect and loyalty of the men that see his actions in person. While the stories are all completely original creations by Ibuki Amon, the book does feature several original illustrations made for this book by the original series creator Noda Satoru. 

The book opens with Yuurei Hoshou ("The Ghostly Sentry"), which follows Tanigaki Genjirou, Private First Class. The story follows Tanigaki who is put on night guard. He stands on top of a hill, when he hears a bell, and then he briefly spots someone else standing on an opposite hill: for a moment he fears an enemy, but he soon recognizes the face of his fellow soldier Yoshino. He calls out to Yoshino, but the figure disappears, followed by Tsurumi appearing next to Tanigaki. Tanigaki mentions seeing Yoshino suddenly appear, when Tsurumi informs him that Yoshino already died two days ago on the battlefield. So who did Tanigaki see patrolling in the night? This is a story that is less about the how of how the ghost of Yoshino appeared in front of Tanigaki, but more about the why: which is absolutely fantastic. The reason is firmly grounded in the historical and cultural context of the story, being incredibly convincing. It is hard to even hint at the explanation, because I have the feeling a simple nudge in the right direction might give it all away because it's ultimately a surprisingly simple matter, but Ibuki does a great job at not pointing too much at it until the reveal.

Shiroi Nipponhei ("The White Japanese Soldier"), told from the perspective of Warrant Officer Kikuta Mokutarou, starts with Mokutarou on the verge of being shot by a Russian soldier who surprised him, but for some reason the Russian soldier hesitates for a second before he cried out "the White Japanese!" in Russia, giving Mokutarou's comrades the time to save him. Everyone is puzzled by the Russian soldier's cry, because Mokutarou, and all the other Japanese soldiers, were wearing their black uniform. After interrogating the soldier, Mokutarou learns that the soldier had previously had encountered a Japanese soldier in a white uniform, whom he shot at point-blank range, but the soldier was unharmed by his bullet. The Japanese soldiers doubt the accuracy of the story, suggesting the Russian soldier just missed his mark, though they have no idea why the soldier would have mistaken their uniform for black. When later Mokutarou visits a comrade, he's shocked when that comrade asks Mokutarou why he's wearing a white uniform instead of his usual black... This is a mystery story that has a cool idea in regards to the solution, but the way it works as a mystery story is a bit uneven: it's not really structured as a fair clue-to-solution style of story, making the reveal not as satisfying as it could've been. Again, it's less the how that is memorable, but more the why, with this why being a lot more ambitious than the previous one, but at the same time, because of that wider range, a little bit harder to swallow, because it immediately raises questions about the feasibility, something that the first story did much better.

Habutae Tent to Misshitsu ("The Sealed Field Tent") follows Usami Tokishige, Superior Private of the 7th Division. The division has been hastily moving across the battlefield as they are needed to support an important attack. On their way, they manage to capture a group of Russian soldiers and Tsurumi is ordered to interrogate the leading officer, as they need information on the Russian platoons stationed at their destination. While everyone, from Tsurumi's superiors to the men beneath him, suggest beating the information out of the officer, Tsurumi alone suggests treating their prisoner of war with the respect his rank deserves, and the man is kept in a private tent. Usami is one of the two guards placed at the exit of the tent, while Tsurumi goes out for a bit. Tsurumi returns later with some food for the officer, but apparently can't get anything out of the man, so Tsurumi leaves again. Another prisoner however manages to escape and attacks Usami's fellow guard, but eventually Tsurumi and Usami manage to take out the escapee. They suspect the escapee was trying to rescue his commanding officer, but when they look inside the tent, they find the Russian officer is gone! But this is impossible, as there's only one exit out of the tent, and while Usami had been distracted by the attacker for a while, he swears nobody escaped from the tent during his fight in front of the tent. So how did the Russian officer escape? This is the best story of the collection, as it manages to best combine both a good how and why. The way the Russian officer disappeared from the tent is perhaps a bit simple, but it makes great use of the historical/cultural setting and Amon also manages to introduce enough depth to also delve into false solutions a bit. The why is absolutely stunning, and really only works in a war-setting and with certain characters, but it works so insanely well in this story. It is an insane motive and while not as intuitive as what you'd see in the Father Brown stories, there's an essential core to it that does feel like it could've been in a Father Brown story: it hinges on a very instinctivee, emotional concept that doesn't sound logical at all, and yet it is very convincing.

Toki ni wa Yasashiku Minai Furi ("Sometimes Gently Pretending Not to Notice") is told from the perspective of Superior Private Ogata Hyakunosuke. The soldiers in the 7th Division are slowly becoming restless, when they learn there's been a second murder on one of their fellow soldiers. While soldiers dying on the battlefield is not a surprise at all, there's something special about two specific murders: these soldiers were killed in the middle of their own camp. As one would expect, the Japanese camp is set-up far away from the Russian enemy, with night sentries making sure that the camp itself is safe, but twice already an enemy has managed to strike at fellow Japanese soldiers, who assumed they were safe within the confines of their camp. While at first, they assumed some lone Russian soldier might have made his way into their camp and killed one of them before escaping, this theory quickly loses credibility by the second murder, as it's rather unbelievable an enemy could sneak inside the camp twice. Suspicion therefore turns to someone within the camp, so who is this traitor? This story is basicallly all about the why, as the story basically soon points out all the victims were basically just surprised by whom they thought was a comrade. The why is, as is basically the norm for this collection, a memorable matter that only makes any sense in the specific historical/cultural context of the story, being a war-time story of soldiers being gone for months from home, fighting daily deep within enemy grounds. This may even be the shortest story of them all, but the motive definitely ranks among the strongest of the collection in terms of memorability. In practice, you'd think some of the actions of the murderer are a bit contradictionary, but again, this being a story set right in the middle of an on-going war basically makes the motive not only viable, but even believable. 

The final story, Tsurumi Tokushirou wa Madowanai ("Tsurumi Tokushirou Does Not Waver") is about Sergeant Tsukishima Hajime, a very loyal subordinate to Tsurumi, who will follow his orders no matter what. The 7th Division is visited for an inspection by a commander who has been wavering in his leadership of the army as the war continues: while the soldiers fighting the battles on the ground have a feeling they'll get through, the commander is having second thoughts, which might endanger their opportunity at defeating their enemy. Tsukishima is handed a suspicious package by Tsurumi and is ordered to plant alongside the route the commander will be taking during his inspection. The very precise Tsurumi gives about where to place the package make it clear it's not a safe package, and Tsukishima understands Tsurumi is trying to take matters into his own hands to push the Japanese army forward, but Tsukishima apparently mistimed or misplaced the package, as the explosion does result in multiple casualties, but the commander goes unharmed. Will this botched-up attempt at the commander's life mean the end of Tsurumi and his aspirations? Well, now, because otherwise the main series wouldn't have an antagonist.  This one feels more like a thriller than a conventional mystery story, with Tsukishima being ordered to do something that obviously is illegal, and we see him have to deal with the aftermath of his mistakenly planted bomb. Because of this, it's also not a really a well-clewed story, as the emphasis lies more on the emotional turmoil within Tsukishima as he realizes his mistake will have consequences not for him alone, but also for Tsurumi, whom he sees as vital to the division. Of course, as the title says, Tsurumi does not waver and he manages to deal with the matter nonetheless, but the "solution" to what he does is not really set-up with clues or anything. While the solution does recontextualize a few things Tsurumi did or said throughout the story, the twist doesn't feel as strong as some of the surprises we saw in earlier stories in terms of character motivations/actions. It does portray a strong Tsurumi, in a way I suspect that ties deeply to the main series, and in that respect, I can't really fault this story, because I assume most people who read this book are interested in the character of Tsurumi, rather than the mystery set-ups, but I did find it disappointing I found the previous four stories stronger than the finale as mystery stories.

As I haven't read the original series, I can't say whether Golden Kamuy: Tsurumi Tokushirou no Shukugan contains anything that makes this instant recommendation to Golden Kamuy fans: perhaps just knowing it's about Tsurumi's time in the Russo-Japanese War is enough, or knowing which people of the 7th Division are featured in this book. As a fan of mystery fiction however, and as someone who has constantly been admiring Ibuki Amon's historical short story mysteries, I think Golden Kamuy: Tsurumi Tokushirou no Shukugan is overall a very solid book. Ultimately, I don't think my unfamiliarity with the source material really hurt my experience, as Ibuki always manages to write solid mysteries based on well-researched historical and cultural settings and presenting them well to the reader. The stories here are no expection, so it didn't take long for me to be all familiar with the setting, and at the same time, be amazed with the plots Ibuki comes up with based on the setting of the early 1900s setting and the Russo-Japanese War background. So I can safely recommend this book if you're just into cool historical mystery fiction!

Original Japanese title(s): 野田サトル（原作・イラスト）, 伊吹亜門（小説）『ゴールデンカムイ 鶴見篤四郎の宿願』: 「幽霊歩哨 《谷垣源次郎》」/「白い日本兵 《菊田杢太郎》」/「羽二重天幕の密室 《宇佐美時重》」/「時にはやさしく見ないふり 《尾形百之助》」/「鶴見篤四郎は惑わない 《月島 基》」

A Case Of Spirits

"Tell me, Leonard," he said. "Has it ever occurred to you that one day wars will be fought with brains?"

Leonard picked up his coffee cup. "Oh dear. Won’t that be rather messy?" he said.

"The Fifth Elephant" 

It was only after buying today's book I realized I basically own no other books by the same publisher (Gentosha)...

The handsome Hamon Kyousuke is a medium who's been attracting a lot of attention lately and the television screenwriter Kagitani Takashi has organized a small seance at the house of an art collector with Hamon. Other guests include art-related people as well as three editors working for a magazine, including Tomoe and Makabe, the latter having a crush on Tomoe, but unable to propose due to an inherited debt. During the seance, Hamon is challenged on his psychic powers, and he defiantly announces he can use his powers to remotely kill someone. He asks for anyone to name someone they want to have killed, and while initially nobody dares to utter a name, Tomoe and Makabe's superior eventually names an artist, because he stood him and Makabe up earlier this day despite having an appointment. Hamon then says he will take control of the artist's body, forcing himself to commit suicide. While they initially don't believe Hamon, doubt starts to creep in so they drive by the artist's house to check up on him, only to find all the furniture being placed outside the house. They have to move stuff around, only to find the door locked from the inside. And inside the locked house, they find the artist dead, hanging from the ceiling as announced by Hamon! Unable to believe Hamon truly has powers, murder is suspected by those involved in the seance, including the detective Senoo Yuuji, but how did Hamon commit this locked room murder, and why was everything placed outside? When later Hamon once again announces a remote murder and another body is found, people start to think Hamon really has the power to control people and make them commit suicide, but Senoo is not convinced and assisted by Makabe, he uncovers the truth in Asukabe Katsunori's Leonardo no Chinmoku ("The Silence of Leonardo", 2004).

Leonardo no Chinmoku was originally released in 2004, but only got its pocket re-release in 2025, after the amazing revival of interest in Asukabe's work, that was set in motion after the bookshops Shosen and Horindo put out limited facsimile releases of his out-of-print works: the facsimile release Datenshi Goumonkei ("Torture of the Fallen Angels" 2008) in particular was a notable event, gathering a lot of attention. Since then, publishers have been re-releasing a lot of Asukabe's books from their catalogues that had previously been out-of-print for over a decade, like Lamia Gyakusatsu ("Lamia Massacre"). Leonardo no Chinmoku is another of these "hey, it's a bit late but perhaps we should put out a pocket" release.

The story revolves around a problem often see in other psychic/seance-themed mysteries: a psychic correctly announcing something will happen, with the mystery focusing on how they could've known that: of course the psychic in question in this case has an alibi for the death, meaning they themselves couldn't have known about the murder because they committed the murder (or did they, and did they fake their alibis in some way?) In this case, we also have the added mystery of the locked room, and the question of why all the furniture was placed outside. I have to admit I wasn't completely convinced by this murder. A lot of the mechanics surrounding the solution of this mystery revolve around coincidence, with certain events and people just happen to be timing up perfectly by sheer luck. The solution behind how the locked room situation was created too was simple, while the answer to why all the furniture was outside feels underdeveloped: while it touches upon a greater theme and the book does try to present as something big, I don't feel this whydunnit was developed properly as of now: it needed more set-up to give you that "Aha!" feeling, because as it is now, you kinda get what they were going for, but it's not completely convincing and even worse, it's basically unguessable from a fair-play mystery point of view. It'a s shame, because this is when the book is supposed to be most strongly connected to the Leonardo from the title Leonardo no Chinmoku, who is of course Leonardo da Vinci. Art is an important motif throughout most, if not all of Asukabe's books (he even made original paintings for his debut novel!), but I'd say that in this book, art might be of the least importance of all the Asukabe's books I have read until now. 

Whereas the first death predicted by Hamon was found in an 'inside-out' house (furniture found outside), the second victim 'killed remotely' by Hamon is lying found 'upside-down' next to a road, continuing the topsy-turvy theme. While this murder also depends on coincidence up to some degree, I like the build-up of this murder a lot more: the clewing is better, being more connected to other plotlines of the book and with a more even distribution of the clues across the whole book, and I think the way it's connected to the first murder works well too. In hindsight, it's actually funny how much more integrated this murder is to the rest of the book compared to the first locked room murder. I think basically all of the most interesting elements of Leonardo no Chinmoku's narrative revolve around this second death, rather than the first death, even if the actual scene of the first seance is better.

Leonardo no Chinmoku is the most straightforward mystery novel I have read by Asukabe until now, and it's also perhaps my least favorite. While the plot depends a bit too much on coincidence and I don't really think the whydunnit behind the first murder works well, the overall plot is an adequately constructed mystery, with especially the plotlines pertaining to the second half being well-planned. But on the other hand, I can't deny missing some of the insaneness I have seen in other works by Asukabe and while I am not very versed, nor interested in art in general, I do feel the general lack in discussion on art here hurts the book a bit. It's great the book's easily available again now and mind you, this is not a bad mystery novel by any means, but I wouldn't pick this as my first Asukabe to read.

Original Japanese title(s):  飛鳥部勝則『レオナルドの沈黙』

The Mystery of the Pyramid

Mon ami, Bouc! Why would you fly a kite on the pyramids?"

"Death on the Nile" (2022 film adaptation) 

We should have more murder mysteries set in pyramids... 

Kyuujou City is a small rural town, which is effectively run by the Ooki family. The wealthy family owns several enterprises located in the city, thus providing work for a large share of the population, but they are best known for the Ooki General Hospital, a large medical complex specializing in psychiatry. Its symbol is the Pyramid, a eight-storey high building that functions as the main hospital building, housing the psychiatric ward. The building consists of seven floors that form a stepped pyramid, with an open ceiling section at the center of the building. On top of the seventh floor stands a steel pyramid construction, from a smaller pyramid is suspended above the open ceiling of the floors below: this "eighth" floor is the private residence of Ooki Kimihiro, doctor at the hospital and the only son of Ooki Youta, the current director of the hospital, and his wife Ooki Nagi, who researches anti-aging technology at the hospital. This eighth floor is not built directly on top of the floor below, but being suspended as an anti-earthquake measure and was designed by Kimihiro's mother Nagi, who also has a degree in architecture and it was she who created the base design of the pyramid. The ground floor of the Pyramid has a two-meter high Pyramid model in a glass case, right at the center of the Pyramid: Ooki Youta believes in so-called Pyramid Power and once in a while, he prays to the model to enhance himself with Pyramid Power. Regardless of whether the pyramid truly provides him with power or not,  the pyramid has managed to stand in Kyuujou City for nearly four decades, a sign of the Ooki's hold on the city.

While the Pyramid still stands strong, some of the other buildings on the complex are growing too old, so they will be demolished and replaced. Ooki Nagi has made designs for the new building, but she needs more dedicated architects to fill in the details and overlook the construction, and through a mutual acquaintance, Kumode and Miyamura of the Kumode & Miyamura Architecture and Detective Bureau end up with this assignment. They work together with Tobuta Constructions, the construction company that has built all of the Ooki-related buildings. There is a joint meeting between the hospital people, the foreman of Tobuta Constructions and Kumoda and Miyamura at the Pyramid to discuss the upcoming plans. Kumoda sends a drone out to scope the land, and can't help but take a look at the top-floor of the Pyramid, where he sees Ooki Kimihiro having a row with his mother Nagi, after which he retreats to his private quarters (the suspended pyramid above the main pyramid), locking the door behind him. Some time later, Kumode and Miyamura are ready to get started on their work while the others too prepare to leave the pyramid, when suddenly... the suspended pyramid comes falling down the open ceiling, landing with a crash on the pyramid model on the ground floor. The private quarters of Kimihiro are completely destroyed and among the rubble, Kumode discovers Kimihiro, who is not only heavily injured from the fall down and being crushed by the building... he's also been stabbed with a knife! A sickly slender elderly man is also found among the rubble, who appears to be the man who stabbed Kimihiro, but how did he get in Kimihiro's (locked) room to stab him, and why did the pyramid room come falling down? That is only one of the many riddles Kumode faces in Monzen Noriyuki's latest novel Nezumi to Kirin no Pyramid ("The Pyramid of the Mouse and the Giraffe", 2025).

Monzen's latest book opens with crazy diagrams for the Pyramid, a building which in a way symbolizes this story perfectly. On one hand, in real-life, nobody is going to build a gigantic stepped pyramid as the main building of a hospital, nor is anyone going to design that building so the top floor/pyramid is suspended from a metal construction above the rest of the pyramid. It's fantastical and only created like that to act as the setting for a mystery story, and that's great! But not realistic at all of course. But Monzen studied architecture, and realism in that regards is an important aspect of this books, so we have this unrealistic, fanciful, over-the-top building, which at the same time is designed realistically, with Monzen giving exact dimensions and the reader being given explanations of how the weight-baring is done and other things that need to be considered like patient safety, window regulations and how for example what the measures are to prevent rain/other downfall from entering the hospital via the open ceiling. The Pyramid of the Mouse and the Giraffe is honkaku mystery featuring a strange building at its most bizarre, but also its most realistic.

The book opens with the top pyramid come crashing down and the discovery of the stabbed Kimihiro and the unknown elderly man among the rubble, which Kumode soon declares a locked room mystery, because he saw Kimihiro enter and lock his private quarters via his drone, and the elderly man was definitely not inside those quarters at that moment. The book then jumps a few days back in time, where we follow Hotta, the foreman of Tobuta Constructions, as he meets a homeless elderly man living on grounds owned by the hospital. Hotta needs the man to move as they will be using this part as a supply road, but as the two men talk, Hotta becomes interested in this man he calls Mori. Mori turns out to have lived for thirty years at the Ooki General Hospital. He had been held as a mental patient, but Mori swears there was nothing wrong with him: he was just kept captured in the hospital, with his brother (who needed him out of the way) only paying the hospital to keep him there. After twenty years, Mori was 'basically' released, but as he had no money, skills or connections, all he could do was remain at the hospital doing odd jobs. Eventually though, he was completely released, leaving him no choice but to live as a homeless near the hospital. Mori reveals more of the dark history of the Ooki General Hospital to Hotta, how they often put patients in "isolation chambers" in one of the old buildings that is slated to be demolished now. Patients were tied down to concrete slabs and had to go without food for a whole day to "calm them strangle yourself/hang yourself, but the room itself was of course also locked from the outside. Hotta himself also knows of another incident that occured at the hospital that happened prior to this locked room mystery, when someone broke the glass case of the pyramid model: nurses came checking out what had happened as soon as they heard the glass break, but they found the pyramid model gone. But how could someone steal a two-meter high pyramid in mere seconds and leave without leaving a trace? The front door was found open, but the only footprints found outside in the snow belonged to a cat, and it surely wasn't a cat who did it, right?

While Nezumi to Kirin no Pyramid thus starts right off with presenting the main mystery, the flashback to the days before the crash introduce more mysteries that occured several decades ago at the hospital: a locked room murder of a patient in an isolation chamber, and the incredible theft of the pyramid model. There are more mysteries beyond these, like Kumode being intrigued by the strange family sigils found on Nagi's clothes, the mystery of Mori's true identity and whether he's telling Hotta the truth or not, letters supposedly from patients who are being kept in the hospital against their will and more of that. Again, we have here parts that feel part fantasy, and part very realistic. The parts about people being held in the psychiatric ward for decades and eventually losing any reason for wanting to leave (because there's no way to survive on their own after being isolated from the outside world for so long) are creepily realistic, while at the same time, we get an ending where Kumode suggests some of the stories we were told might have been fictional creations by people who are indeed suffering from a mental disease. Because a lot of the mysteries in this story took place several decades ago, Kumode admits it's impossible to find evidence for some of the theories he proposes, but those theories are incredibly weird at times and in a way, honkaku mystery at their best and worst (fantastical solution that is in no way feasible or remotely realistic), so there's always this clash between the fantastical and the realistic throughout the book. This is the most apparent in the mystery of the locked room murder in the isolation chamber about three decades ago: the description of the isolation chamber is horrific and also eerily real, with people being basically tortured there to lose all hope and to basically force them into becoming mentally unstable, while the solution suggested by Kumode is just crazy in terms of how unrealistic it would be. And at the same time, it has some brilliant moments, for example as to how the murder weapon would be disposed of. Kumode later on suggests a different solution that might be as viable as his 'main' one, which is more realistic perhaps, but also just less fun. 

 

The mystery of the stolen model of the pyramid is also a good example of the realism clashing with the fanciful: the idea of how and why the model was stolen is good and just what you want to see in a mystery novel, but Monzen presents its very realistically, showing calculation of certain objects to show how it could actually work, when in most mystery novels you'd just get an explanation and you'd nod, instead of going through all the numbers to make sure it actually works. The way how one hint connects to the isolation chamber murder later on is great though.

And then we come to the main mystery, of Kimihiro being found dead and stabbed in the remnants of the suspended pyramid after it came crashing down seven floors. The locked room aspect of this mystery is surprisingly simple and to be honest, not very impressive: it's basically a variant on one of the oldest tricks, only with a 'grand' presentation due to the pyramid setting. The how behind the crashing pyramid and especially the why though, are fantastic. The whole motive behind the murder is absolutely stunning and genuinely insane. I think the motive could've been worked out better by doing a more robust set-up for the reveal, but the idea itself is one of those motives you'll keep in mind for a loooong time after reading the book. The way it ties back to the fantastical setting of the Pyramid hospital building is impressive too, and on the whole, you do feel this is something perhaps only Monzen could pull off due to his focus on actual buildings. This is definitely the part that makes the book worth reading.

I do think the book could've been longer to flesh out some of the better aspects of the book.As it is now, I feel some important moments just lack the proper build-up and at times, the book borders on the unfair when it comes to it being a mystery novel: more pages would have definitely helped making feel the overall picture more consistent and connected. As it is now, some of the important elements feel like they just suddenly appear to take the main spotlight and it makes the book feel uneven. The book features a recommendation by Nikaidou Reito, and it almost makes me wonder how this story would've been if the two authors had worked together, as a lot of elements in Nezumi to Kirin no Pyramid I can also see working in Nikaidou's style for the earlier Ranko novels. The story is wrapped in a way I have also seen in Nikaidou novels, with a hint of fantasy, which at one hand feels like it should clash with Monzen's style, but I guess having a setting like a mental hospital helps out a bit. 

 Overall though, I think Nezumi to Kirin no Pyramid was a worthwile read, even if there are definitely elements I feel are underdeveloped or not connected well enough to the main narrative yet. At the same time, I enjoy the core mystery plot and the ideas shown there, and the main motive that drives this mystery is just amazing and probably one that I will remember for a long time.

Original Japanese title(s): 門前典之『ネズミとキリンの金字塔（ピラミッド）』

Requiem for a Falling Star

What if that star is not to come?
Will their dreams fade to nothing?
"Wind's Nocturne" (Lunar: Silver Story)

The more I think about it, the more I think this series would be great for an anime adaptation...

It was only a few decades ago when everybody in Japan knew the name Yashiki Keijirou, the great detective. It were his real-life exploits, where he outsmarted the police and solved numerous locked room murders, serial killings and other mysterious incidents, that sparked an interest in all things detective-related. His own memoirs, The Proof of the Detective, where he chronicled his own rise as a detective, not only writing about his accomplishments, but also the hardships and his failures on the way, was a huge bestselling book and was also the instigator of the shin honkaku movement in Japan, leading to a return of the puzzle plot-focused detective novel. But that is all of the past now. While people initially praised Yashiki, slowly on people started to blame him for the uprise in curious killings: weren't murders resorting to fantastical murders like locked room murders exactly because of Yashiki, as a way to challenge him? Wasn't he the trigger for the more insane murderers to act on their urges? After Yashiki narrowingly escaped an attempt on his life, he decided to not take any jobs anymore, as he not only started to fear for his family's safety, he also started to become afraid he was both physically, but also mentally, not capable anymore of being the great detective. While technically his agency was still open, he declined all requests and with time, he was forgotten.

Many years later, and Yashiki is still having the exact same daily routine of showing his face at the office, only to go napping, and occasionally he's visited by Taketomi Tatsuhito: Taketomi was Yashiki's partner and assistant as the "inside man" in the police force and while he has retired, he still hopes Yashiki will return as the great detective he once was. One day, the two catch a television program featuring Mikan Hanako, an idol artist who is also a great detective: ever since she was young, she has solved many cases and nowadays, she still solves cases between her idol gigs in. Mikan is a huge presence on social media with over a million followers, and it's she people think of whenever the word "detective" is mentioned nowadays. Seeing such a young detective working hard, jogs something in Yashiki, and he finally decides to try the detective profession one last time: if he can successfully solve a case, he'll fully reopen his agency again, and otherwise, he'll properly close it. Tatsuhito happens to know nobody who is in need of the help of the great Yashiki Keijirou... and Mikan Hanako: the wealthy couple Masukura Toshio and Chika have received a threatening letter, which orders them to summon Mikan to their second home on the twenty-ninth of December, or else something bad will happen. The Masukuras own a small villa in the middle of nowhere, which is only accessible via a bridge (the house basically stands on an island with cliffs around it). The Masukuras of course do as told, but they also want Yashiki at the scene, as they are of the generation that know Yashiki best. Their son Souta, and his girlfriend (whom he met via a Mikan fansite) are also present. Tatsuhito is clearly antagonistic against Mikan, eyeing her as a rival to Yashiki, but Yashiki soon realizes Mikan is truly a capable detective and sees in her a comrade. The two scope out the land and set security cameras around the bridge, but when they return, they hear people banging on the door of Souta's bedroom: for some reason he won't answer at all and the door is locked. They break the door open, only to find Souta stabbed in his neck, dead. The knife is also stabbed through a note that laughs at Mikan, challenging her to solve this locked room. But Mikan and Yashiki soon learn nobody left the "island" via the bridge, so that means the murderer has to be one of them. But who, and how? Can Yashiki get his groove back in Ichikawa Tetsuya's debut novel Meitantei no Shoumei ("Proof of the Great Detective", 2013)?

The inner work also features an alternate English title, which is just The Detective, which seems like not a very... tactical title to give to a detective novel, as nobody's going to be able to find that via a search engine...

Ichikawa Tetsuya made his debut by winning the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award with this novel (which nets you a publishing contract). And in case you wondered: that is his real name, not a pen name he based on Ayukawa Tetsuya. A few years ago, I already read the second novel in the Proof of the Great Detective/Mikan Hanako series, which was an interesting locked room + closed circle mystery that at the same time, very much explored the theme of the detective, with Mikan being seen as "the origin of evil" by the narrator, claiming crazy murderers were only enabled by "great detectives" like Mikan making a name for themselves. I found having the narrator constantly complain about Mikan all the time a bit tiring though, and at the time, I wondered whether she'd be more of a focal character in the other novels, so I was a bit surprised to learn that in the first novel, she too wasn't really the main detective. This novel is narrated by Yashiki himself, a detective who has seen much better days, but now seems to have found that spark again after seeing Mikan in action.

I do have to say that I think this novel is best read exactly for that reason: Ichikawa does a great job at exploring the fictional device of the Great Detective and the implications of their existence. Yes, Ichikawa basically works with Late Queen Problems (i.e. the effect the Great Detective has on the actions of the people around him in a mystery story), but he presents it in a very accessible and understandable manner, yet really manages to address the friction that can arise due a Great Detective. We see Yashiki have doubts about his work, because he knows people have called him out in the past about how him gloriously playing the great detective in the media has only enabled murderers to commit showy murders too, craving the same attention and in a way, Yashiki knows that this "Batman creates his villains"-effect is true up to some degree too. But he also knows he has done a lot of good, and him watching Mikan, who is in a way very similar to him, but in a completely different stage in her career, alllows for some interesting and poignant musings about what it means to be a detective. Mikan, while being more decisivive than Yashiki, is shown to have very realistic doubts about her work too, and I think that Ichikawa does a good job at exploring these themes.

On the other hand, the specific mysteries Yashiki has to solve in this book aren't really that impressive, and you really wonder whether you really needed the two best detectives Japan has ever known working on this. The locked room murder mystery with Souta is incredibly simple, even if it contains a minor false solution. There is a more interesting set-up later in the novel, when Yashiki enters an elevator with someone else, and a stalker wielding a bat suddenly forces his way in, smashing the lights and stopping the elevator. However, after some crying, the stalker is found dead on the floor, his throat being slit, and both Yashiki and the stalker victim swear they didn't do it. While I like the set-up a lot, this solution is also very simple and that kinda undermines the way the book tries to paint Yashiki and Mikan. The second novel, while still not being super technical when it comes to the mysteries, was definitely more interesting mystery-wise, so I was really surprised how simpler the mysteries were in this book. I do very much like the motive for the first murder though; it ties perfectly with the theme and the set-up for the reveal is great and is really a motive you could only pull off by having a character like Yashiki. It's kinda a shame Ichikawa started with this, just imagine he really did first write a long series of books building Yashiki up as this legendary detective, all just to set-up the motive found in this book!

So on the whole, I am a bit torn on the book. Meitantei no Shoumei is thematically quite memorable, and addresses post-modernist themes regarding The Great Detective in a very accessible manner, tying it perfectly with the motive. On the other hand, the actual mysteries encountered in this novel are fairly simple, and that does clash a bit with the image we are supposed to have of both Yashiki and Mikan, who are the country's best detective... and yet are working on crimes of this... level. I did like the second novel better. The third novel is the last, so it is likely I will read that too in time.

Original Japanese title(s): 市川哲也『名探偵の証明』

The Maddest of All

From the lightning in the sky

As it pass’d me flying by— 

From the thunder, and the storm— 

And the cloud that took the form  

"Alone" 

Looking up the etymology of words sometimes points out such obvious connections you never had even considered. After writing the main body of this post, I decided to look up the etymology behind the Dutch word for "lightning", and yes, of course, it does make sense the German "blitzen" is related to the word!

Mephisto is a magazine providing entertainment fiction, with a focus on mystery, but not exclusively so, as it also features stories encompassing sci-fi and other genres. It has gone through a few formats since its inauguration in 1994, and since 2021, it has become one of the perks for subscribers of the Mephisto Readers Club, being published four times a year as its club magazine, featuring serializations of for example the newest House novel by Ayatsuji Yukito, but also original stories written for the magazine. When the contents of Volume 18, 2026 Winter were first announced, my attention was immediately drawn to a new short story by Maya Yutaka: Raimei to Inazuma ("Thunder and Lightning", 2026) is a short story that will be part of an upcoming collection featuring Maya's series detective Mercator Ayu, the brilliant, but self-centred great detective who's always dressed in a neat suit and a top hat and often used as a device by Maya to address meta questions about the literary detective genre. The collection, tentatively titled Mercator Ayu no Gyakushuu ("The Insurrection of Mercator Ayu"), has no scheduled release window yet nor has it been revealed yet what and how many stories there'll be, meaning it might still be years until we see the actual book on the shelves, which is why I decided to discuss this one story early, as I really liked it.

Mercator and his Watson Minagi are staying at the Canaria Lodge, a cosy hotel near a mountain road in Okayama, three hours away from Osaka. Mercator is looking to buy some property, and preferably, haunted or otherwise stigmatized property because that's of course a lot more interesting than a normal home. His search for such a property has brought him near Tsuyama, which is why he and Minagi are taking a rest at the Canaria Lodge, which is run by Ogakie Hajime. Circumstances have left him short-handed, so he has enlisted the help of a handful of members who belong to the same club he used to be in while in university, who just have to help clean a bit, while being offered a free stay at the hotel. Mercator's quest for 'tainted property' leads to Ogakie telling about the legend of a cursed headless Jizo-statue nearby, and how he himself once saw a giant eyeball monster standing at a ridge overlooking the hotel. Mercator of course is interested in the stories, so during the day, he and Minagi go visit these sites. In the evening, they all have dinner at the Canaria Lodge, but rain and lightning cancels any plans for evening strolls. Later that evening, a decorative vase on the ground floor topples over and breaks into pieces. It's clear someone had deliberately push the vase around for it to topple over, but Mercator happened to be nearby as it happened and he didn't see the "culprit" come his way: other people in other places of the ground floor also deny having seen anyone flee the scene towards their location. They then try to ask the people upstairs, until they find one of the students is lying dead in his room, his head bashed in. Who is the killer?

Raimei to Inazuma is a pure puzzle whodunnit by Maya, who is really good constructing these puzzles, but he's also really good at playing with the format by for example taking the format tropes to ridiculous extremes, like the insanely constructed time table puzzle in Mokusei no Ouji, the brilliant set-up of having the reader guess who the victim is before they can proceed with the question of who the killer is and other such playful twists on the Queenian puzzle. Raimei to Inazuma is another fun example of Maya playing around with the format, and while some might be frustrated by the way Maya kinda ridicules the idea of a fair-play whodunnit, it works really well in this story.

In essence, the game presented here is very familiar: we know a crime has been committed, we have a rough idea of when it must have happened, so we need to identify the killer based on the actions we deduce the murderer have taken, and compare that information with the available suspects. Some of these "murderer conditions" are pretty classic ones you'll likely have encountered before in other similar pure guess-the-culprit scenarios, others are quite original: I especially like one major line of deduction of Mercator's solution, which is incredibly cleverly imbedded in the narrative of the story and basically only works because this is a Mercator story, for it would just be too outrageous for any other series detective, but in a Mercator Ayu story? Yeah, that concept goes, and it goes hard! It had me laughing out loud as I finished the story and I definitely think this was one of the best Mercator Ayu stories I've read. I have no idea how the whole collection will look like, but I already want to claim it'll be worth reading for this story alone!

Ultimately, it's just a short story though, so there's not much I can discuss about it here without spoiling anything. I don't really do posts on a single short story often, but I guess I should do them more often. Anyway, Raimei to Inazuma is definitely worth reading for the Maya Yutaka fans, or for those who want to see a mystery author play with the tropes of the genre, exploring the genre to see how ridiculous things can get if one sticks strictly to the conventions. 

Original Japanese stories: 麻耶雄嵩『雷鳴と稲妻』