To Wake the Dead

Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin' 

And we're stayin' alive, stayin' alive

"Stayin' Alive" (Bee Gees)

It would have been cool if an iron fan had been used as a murder weapon...

Disclosure: I have translated Arisugawa Alice's The Moai Island Puzzle.

A young teacher is strolling down the beach one morning, when she happens to come across a young man who seems a bit... lost. As she talks with him, she learns the man suffers from acute amnesia: he has no idea who he is, and why he is here at the beach. He has no wallet or any form of identification on him, only carrying a beautiful Japanese fan. The woman immediately notifies the hospital and the police, who start looking into the man's origin. The man turns out to be a gifted artist, skilled at drawing portraits, which of course immediately reminds of the Piano Man. Eventually, the police manage to identify the man: he is Takemitsu Souichi, the youngest son of Takemitsu Housen, a famous artist specializing in Japanese paintings. His father has already passed away, leaving his mother and three siblings, as well as his uncle and aunt. However, Souichi left his home over six years ago and has not been in contact with his family since, and therefore his family is just as surprised to learn he finally resurfaced, but with no memories of his past life. Souichi is taken back to his home, The Genbu House, located in Takaragaike, Kyoto, a Japanese manor which is neighbored by his uncle and aunt. His family, who haven't seen him in over six years, are not sure how to react to his amnesia: his sister for example seems to think the "new" Souichi has a far better, more assertive attitude than the Souichi she knew, while his brother misses "his" Souichi, and his mother seems reluctant to push Souichi too much into trying to retrieve his memories. It is during this time, a murder occurs at the house: Morisawa Yukie, an art merchant who has known the family for many years had visited the house and left, but the next morning, her dead body was found in the annex in the garden where Souichi lived. Souichi himself has disappeared too, as has the Japanese fan, but oddly enough, the annex was locked from the inside when the victim was found, and Souichi's keys are also found inside the house. So how did the murderer kill the merchant in a locked annex, and escape, and where is Souichi? Criminologist Himura is asked for assistance by the police, and he of course brings his good friend Arisugawa Alice along, who has been asked by his editor to write the book The Japanese Fan Mystery.... in Arisugawa Alice's Nihon Ougi no Nazo ("The Japanese Fan Mystery", 2024).

The latest entry in the Himura & Alice series (AKA the Writer Alice series) has an interesting title: when Ellery Queen's The Door Between was first announced to serialize in Cosmopolitan, it somehow was reported in Japan that the story would be titled The Japanese Fan Mystery, and it is a title that has always stuck with Japanese mystery fandom, even though it was not true and there is of course no such Ellery Queen novel. This story starts with Alice being asked by his editor to write a story with that title, and gives him a lot of reference materials on fans, and we first see Alice struggle with all kinds of ideas that involve fans, like locked room murder tricks that use fans. And none of them are really good, to be honest, though that's the joke of course. The actual story is connected to fans because Souichi had a beautifully illustrated Japanese fan in his possession when he was found, earning him the John Doe name "Mr Fan" for a while, but it is a bit of a shame the actual object isn't really "used" in the mystery plot.

The mystery thus revolves around a murder in a locked annex, as well as the mystery of Souichi's disappearance, and the question of why he had lost his memories and what he had been up to in the last six years or so since he ran away from home. That said, it should perhaps be noted that unlike the very mystery-plot-focused books in the Student Alice series (disclosure: I translated The Moai Island Puzzle), the Himura and Alice series usually have more room to be a bit more character-introspective,  and that is certainly noticable in this book, where a major portion of the book is dedicated to hearing the thoughts of all the family members and other related people on Souichi, both how he was as a child to how they think they should approach Souichi now he has lost his memories, and their views on how to move forward into the future. Personally, I have to admit I found the book to be moving a bit too slow, but Nihon Ougi no Nazo will probably entertain people who are into the human drama aspect of someone suddenly disappearing for years, and then coming back as a different man. Some parts are great in characterization, while mystery-wise, you could easily just not have them, and still have the mystery work. I know I am slightly more extreme when it comes to 'minimalist puzzle' mystery fiction, so I assume other readers will find these segments far more interesting (and I wouldn't even say I found them dull, just a bit long).

When the story returns its focus to the questions of who committed the murder in the locked annex, and where Souichi has gone off to now, we are treated to some great deduction scenes we have come to expect from Arisugawa. Interestingly enough, Himura himself does say that while he usually goes for truth borne from the logical inferences based on the evidence, this time we have Himura almost turning things around, coming up with a theory that can be supported by the evidence they have, but which ultimately is difficult to stand indepedently as logical proof, because so much of the background of the case is left in the dark. That said, the way Himura logically shows who the murderer is, is really good. Unlike a really cool locked room murder trick, it's kinda hard to explain "clever" lines of deduction and what makes them so good, but I really like the one here: Himura pushes his deductions to answer a question which seems very trivial at first, but the logical implications of this conclusion allow him to determine who the killer is, and it's this jump from what seems like an inconsequential deduction, to suddenly solving the whole case, is great. Nothing beats the one deduction line from The Moai Island Puzzle, of course (that one is... unbeatable perhaps...), but if you like that one, you're sure to like what Arisugawa does in this one too, though the set-up is far simpler (just a disappearance + one murder). Oh, and don't expect too much of the locked room murder, as always in these Queenian stories, it's more the why that is used in clever ways than the actual how. There is a hidden tragedy that is unveiled as Himura explains how and why the murder was committed, and it is here Arisugawa does a great job at connecting the 'story' of Souichi and his family to the core mystery plot, presenting a sad, ironic tale of death that was lurking beneath the surface.

This story was serialized in Mephisto starting in 2023, so some time has passed since the height of the pandemic, and Arisugawa (the author) does bring it up quite a few times as the story progresses, with little comments how not long ago, they couldn't even just go out to eat normally and things like that. It's interesting how references like these really "date" the Himura & Alice series, and like The Simpsons, shows that these characters (and their surroundings) are "timeless", as they haven't really aged since the first book (46 Banme no Misshitsu) and that came out in 1992 and now they survived the pandemic! Interestingly enough, Nihon Ougi no Nazo is actually touted as the book written to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the series (how many modern mystery series do you know that have been running for so long?!), though its serialization started a bit late. But that is also why this book was released in two versions, one regular pocket, as well as a luxurious hardcover.

I happened to have re-read the first novel a while back, so that made the changes in Arisugawa's style in over thirty years rather obvious, but as a whole novel, Nihon Ougi no Nazo is a far more complete work, with a dramatic tale about a young man who lost his memories, and his family coping with that realization, with a locked room murder mystery forcing everyone to readjust once again. The core mystery, while limited in scope, offers Arisugawa to show off once again how great he is at impressive lines of deduction that start out from seemingly innocent clues but then are nurtured into brilliant logical proofs that point beyond any doubt towards one culprit, but it does take a long while to get there.

Original Japanese title(s): 有栖川有栖『日本扇の謎』

Much Ado About Murder

We that are young 
Shall never see so much, nor live so long. 

"King Lear"

These re-releases by Tokuma have really cool art...

Kaji Tatsuo's Lear-Ou Misshitsu ni Shisu ("King Lear Dies in a Locked Room", 1982) is set soon after the second World War in the ancient capital of Kyoto. Takeshi is a student at the prestigious Third High School, a school affiliated to Kyoto University and which would later be absorbed into it (note that under the old school system, this "high school" basically corresponds to the first years of modern-day university). The students of the Third are highly respected around the city, and due to their superior education, the students also tend to... have interesting characters, resulting in them all calling each other by nicknames. Takeshi, known as Bon to his friends, is roommates with Iba, better known as King Lear (because he's a realist -> riarisuto -> ria -> Lear) and they live together in what is technically just a storehouse: the owner is still storing valuable items there, but wants someone to keep an eye on things out of fear for burglars, so he's having these two students live inside the front part of the storehouse, using them as basically live-in guards. Bon has a part-time job as a Kyoto tourist guide, and after showing a visiting elderly couple around town, and being thanked very generously with a meal, he returns to his home, only to find a fellow student, Bart ("Beard" in German), standing in front of the storehouse: he and another friend had visited King Lear earlier, but he forgot his wallet, and has now returned to get it back, but for some reason, King Lear won't open the door for him, which is very odd, as he called to say he was coming. When they peek inside through the keyhole, they see to their great surprise King Lear is lying motionlessly on the floor. Bon finds his own key and opens the door, but it is too late for King Lear: he is dead. Police investigation indicates he had been injected with a poison in his arm, but there were no signs of resistance on his body, suggesting he was caugh off-guard by someone he trusted and furthermore... the door of the storeroom was locked from the inside and the key was found inside Lear's trouser pockets. This however soon results in Bon becoming the main suspect of the murder: excluding the owner of the storehouse, Takeshi had the only other key in possession, and he actually had a bad relation with King Lear as of late, as they were both in love with the same woman (Bart's Schwester (sister)), though it seems like Bon had been the victor. It doesn't help that Takeshi's alibi of showing a couple around Kyoto can't be verified by the police. Bon's friends don't really believe he's the killer though, so his friends, including people like Reich (rich), Magen (stomach) and Razor start investigating the case too, but are they truly ready for that, for deep down, they do know it is likely the murderer is a person in their circle of friends...

If people thought the characters in The Decagon House Murders were obnoxious by using nicknames like Ellery and Carr: I assure you, the reverse weaboos in this novel who call each other Bart and Magen and each other's sisters Schwester are worse...

Kaji Tatsuo (1928-1990) was a mystery author who debuted in the fifties and kept on writing until he passed away in 1990. Last year, I discussed Kiyosato Kougen Satsujin Bessou ("The Murder Villa in the Kiyosato Plateau"), a novel which managed to surprise me in a way I really hadn't expected, so I knew I would be reading more of his work, something made easier because publisher Tokuma has been re-releasing some of his novels the last few years, and they also happen to feature very nice cover and inner art!

My interest in this book at first lay in the fact it was set around students of the Third High School, so basically Kyoto University: I myself studied for a year at that university, and there are actually still remnants of the Third High School to be found around the main Yoshida Campus. However, for me that was just a 'Huh, that sounds interesting for me personally' thing, but once I started reading this book, I was pleasantly surprised by the way Kaji really focused on the lives of the students. This is for a large part also a story of growth, a story about students who are not quite adult yet and perhaps think too much of themselves as students of Third, but who have lived through a war and now try to build a future for themselves by proving themselves at this school, not only to the outside world, but especially to themselves and their direct peers. This results in some really colorful characters who are full of pride, but who do really show you glimpses into the lives of the respected elite students of Third in Kyoto and it's the interactions between these characters that really drive the plot, as ultimately, this is best read as a tale of mystery focusing on motive, rather than the locked room of the title.

Though I have to say: I do really like the locked room mystery of this novel. The book is split in two sections, one set immediately after the murder on King Lear. Bon (Takeshi) is more-or-less accused of the murder by the police, while his friends, led by Razor (who is one year above the rest) tries to prove Bon is innocent, leading into them coming up with all kinds of potential theories about how the room could've been locked from the inside, and who the murderer could be. At the same time, we get (a lot) of flashbacks to the time leading up to the murder, and we learn how both King Lear and Bon first learn about Bart's Schwester by coming across her photograph, and then the two of them both trying to woe her by visiting her home, under the pretense of  wanting to visit Bart during the holidays. Yes, this is pretty stalkery behavior. The roommates become romantic rivals, which according to the police is a motive for the murder, even though it was Bon who managed to win the sister over, and King Lear who was, for the moment, the loser in the love war (meaning King Lear had a motive to kill Bon, not the other way around). Eventually, a kind of conclusion is reached which points to someone else, but true answers are never obtained and the truth behind King Lear's death remained vague.

The second part of the book is set many decades afterwards, when Bon's son hears about the ordeal his father lived through in the past and he starts to get an idea of how King Lear could've been killed by someone inside a locked room. This part is interesting, because we see Bon in a very different role, and we hear what happened to everyone after the murder: some managed to accomplish their life goals, some ended up completely different and there's a distinct, sentimental tone here, as for some characters, you really wish things would have ended differently.

The locked room murder is thus more like the driving force that changed everyone's lives in this young adult novel, though as I said, on a technical level, the locked room mystery is pretty good. I love how it basically reversed a certain dynamic often seen in simpler locked room mysteries to create something original, and while the concept on its own is very simple, it works great here, especially in this specific setting (old building in Kyoto soon after the war). However, what is even more memorable is definitely the motive behind the murder. While I am not a big fan of some of the workings behind the murder (too many moving parts), the motive is one that really fits these characters attending Third. I wouldn't call the motive completely original in all aspects (it isn't, and it's likely you'll have come across variants of the same idea in other mystery novels), but it is incredibly well-integrated in this tale of mystery, growth, dreams of the future and wanting to escape the shadow of the war, and because of that, Lear-Ou Misshitsu ni Shisu feels like a very complete and balanced novel.

So I was once again very pleasantly surprised by Kaji Tatsuo. Lear-Ou Misshitsu ni Shisu is pretty short, but a very well-balanced mystery novel that will even appeal to non-mystery readers. The setting is original, and Kaji really makes fully use of it, and he has a rather colorful cast of characters to keep the reader entertained too. I am certainly going to read more of him in the future too.

Original Japanese title(s): 梶龍雄『リア王密室に死す』

The Man in the Mirror

"Mirror, mirror on the wall..."

"Snow White"

For a change not writing a review of this series months (years) after reading it...

The Mirror House located in the outskirts of Kamakura belongs to Kurozawa Matsutarou, a wealthy man who has many mistresses. The manor was once the home of the twins Kirika and Sumika and their mother, who was Matsutarou's mistress, but after her death, the house was extended with an identical annex, like a mirror and no less than 48 mirrors of varying sizes were installed in both buildings, giving the building its name. When the twins were still young however, Kirika wanted to end her own life and since then, Sumika has learned to live without her sister, especially as Matsutarou kept telling her to forget about Kirika and live her own life. Matsutarou is not a loving father by any means however, and his interest in his daughters is purely political. While he lets his daughters live with their mothers while young, he has them all moved to the Mirror House when they reach a certain age, as he wishes to marry them off in political marriages, and their stay in the Mirror House is merely temporary until Matsutarou has found the perfect partner for them, regardless of their own life wishes. This has already led to tragedy one time, as last year, one of his daughters chose death rather than being forced such a life. At the moment, Sumika is joined by four of her half-sisters: Mahiru, Kurara, Sachiko and Ruri, as well as five servants. One of them is Shizuka, the half-Russian Mary Poppins-esque personal maid to Sumika who occasionally has a foul (Russian) mouth. Matsutarou only visits his daughters once a year to check up on them and to announce their upcoming marriages, but this year, his visit coincides with a heavy storm, which means three of the usual servants are stuck in town, leaving only Matsutarou, his daughters and two servants in the house. At dinner however, lightning strikes, illuminating one of the mirrors he has given to each of his daughters, and invisible lettering written on one of the mirrors is reflected on the wall, saying "Death". This angers Matsutarou and he retreats for the night, but that night, he is found murdered in one of the mirror rooms, being stabbed in the back, but for some reason he was lying on the floor with his feet towards a mirror and his arms thrown in front of him, almost as if he was trying to flee from a murderer inside the mirror.... With no means to notify the police, can the people in the manor be truly certain no more murders will occur in Tsukihara Wataru's Kagamiyakata no Satsujin ("The Murders in the Mirror House" 2020)?

Spoilers: more people die.

Kagamiyakata no Satsujin is the fourth entry in this series starring the pro-active maid Shizuka who each time works at a different place as a personal maid for young girls. The books sometimes namedrop the places/families she worked for earlier, but the books can all be read indepedently and in any order. They are all fairly formulaistic too: each book is set in the Meiji period, and set inside an isolated house with serial murders happening, and Shizuka's always there to eventually solve the case, but what makes this series memorable, despite some hick-ups, is how Shizuka is used: each time she's confronted with a killer, she not only detects, but tries to find ways to proactively stop the killer by interfering with their patterns and that leads to interesting twist on familiar tropes in mystery, for example when in an earlier novel, Shizuka notices the murders are modelled after a set of paintings, so she proposes to just destroy all the paintings to upset the killer's plans. It's these interactions with mystery tropes that make these books fun to read.

In theory, this book has interesting elements: there's a house with two mirrored sections, there are 48 different mirrors spread across the house, the first victim is seemingly killed by his own mirror image in a mirror and threatening messages are written on mirrors to announce the coming deaths. A lot of it is tropey, but that is the whole focus of this series so it never feels too reliant on tropes. However, of the four novels I have read until now, I do think this entry was by far the weakest.

The main trope of this book is the "murder announcement": the killer writes messages alluding to deaths on mirrors before committing the murders and sure, that's a trope, but... Shizuka doesn't really manage to do something really original with this, she doesn't come up with some outrageous plan to turn this "habit" around and have it backfire on the killer, or propose anything unexpected to counter this. Because of this lack of interplay with the trope at hand, Shizuka feels far more passive than in the other books. Because these books tend to be very short and rather light, Shizuka's actions usually felt as one of the major parts of the mystery, and having this aspect of the tale weakened hurts the overall experience a lot. "Announcing a murder" is just less exciting than a murderer who decapitates people, or tropes like locked rooms or mitate... While a large part of the story does ultimately revolve around the question why the murderer would chose to utilize this device of announcing their murders, the answer arrived it isn't that exciting, and gives us a rather mundane explanation you might have seen mentioned in other novels that don't even explicitly try to play with tropes.

This pattern also carries over to the whole theme of mirrors in this book. Like, cool, we have a building that is mirrored with an annex, and they feature over 40 mirrors installed here and there... but we never get a floorplan of the building, so the whole concept feels criminally underdeveloped! I wanted to see cool clever things with mirrors which become clear once you start drawing lines in the floorplans, not just vague descriptions of where mirrors are placed! The way the mirrors are used for the murders in this book is far from surprising, and also not really well-hinted, so it feels underwhelming. There is a neat twist regarding the theme of mirrors halfway through the book, but the implications it has for the murders feel a bit forced, and ultimately, I feel this is the book in this series that would've benefitted of more page real estate: the book has many ideas that could've been worked out in more detail, but this particular label releases light novels of a certain length (relatively short) and thus the reveal feels not as satisfying as it could've been, as I think more pages to set-up the twist more with more foreshadowing would have made it a bit more impressive.

Kagamiyakata no Satsujin is thus my least favorite of the Shizuka novels until now. It doesn't help the major trope it focuses on doesn't allow for that much original plays, but the murders themselves are also a bit disappointing, with some underdeveloped tricks and while there's one big twist halfway I do like as a concept, that too should have been given more build-up space for maximum effect. At the moment, there's one more volume, so I'll probably read that one too, but I might wait a bit, because this one was quite disappointing.

Original Japanese title(s): 月原渉『鏡館の殺人』

Trapped in Paradise

"Thou shalt not kill"

Exodus 20:1–17 (King James Version)

I think the first time I encountered the "person who always tells the truth/person who always lies" riddle was in a Super Mario Choose Your Own Adventure book...

Kyouko, Mizuki and Marii all attend the prestigious St. Arisugawa Girls' Academy, a missionary school run by the Vatican in Japan. Technically, the school isn't even located in Japan, for the three inter-connected artificial islands near Aichi are part of the Vatican grounds and there's even a passport check whenever people enter and leave the grounds. The school of course provides excellent schooling and many prominent families want to send their daughters to the place, but St. Arisugawa Girls' Academy is also a unique schooling situation due to its inclusion of detection in its curriculum. The detective is a protected position in today's society, requiring certain qualifications. St. Arisugawa Girls' Academy is the only place that allows students to study the art of detection at the secondary school level before even entering university. Each spring, the St. Arisugawa Girls' Academy always organizes a special excursion for all students, that mixes up students in all years: two first-years, two second-years and two three-years. Each group of six is then sent to a different location where they have to solve a crime. In reality, the crimes they all encounter are role-played by enormous groups of actors and other people in on the game (the Vatican has money). Each group also won't know what's coming until they are confronted with their specific case, as they only get basic instructions to go to their initial start location. While Kyouko, Mizuki and Marii all participated last year too as first-year students, this year they find all three of them in one group, despite that being very unusual as it's usually two students per year: they are also joined by two first-years and two third-years (as usual). The group are given instructions to board a particular chartered bus and find they're travelling through Aichi Prefecture, where Mizuki also hails from (her knowledge of the local dialect helps them actually communicate with the people in the countryside who speak very thick dialect). As they drive through the mountains however, their driver suddenly dies. They initially think this is part of their excursion, having to "solve the murder of their driver", but it turns he's actually dead, and even their school wouldn't arrange for something like that. The girls however decide to walk the remainder to their destination, as they'll fail their excursion if they don't make it in time. On the way however, they all pass out, and by the time the last one realizes they have been drugged, it's too late.

When the girls wake up, they find themselves in a curious place. They are located in what might be best described as a gigantic donut:there's a huge lake, with a strip of land with house and other buildings surrounding the lake, but beyond the strip of land are just gigantic walls: they're in an open spot that's completely surrounded by unclimbable mountains. The girls are also accosted by men in military uniforms, who accuse them of being spies of the empire. After a while, Mizuki manages to puzzle things together: they are in Utsuhaka Village, a small community that lives deep in this open spot in the mountains, and the people here don't know World War II has ended. The people here had isolated themselves from the outside world during the war, and have been living here since in relative peace, but without any knowledge of the outside world. The only exit out of this place was a tunnel through the mountains, but decades ago the military blew the tunnel up, locking everyone inside. Now there's a small unit of soldiers (some are children of the original soldiers) stationed at the former entrance of the tunnel, but unfortunately for the students, it also happens that some of those soldiers have been murdered. As the only outsiders here, it's perhaps only natural the girls are accused of the murder, but as they try to prove their innocence, the girls also realize the people in this village are... devout Catholic Christians: the people here were originally hidden Christians who lived here precisely out of fear of persecution. The girls manage to prove they're also Christians and are saved by Father Lucas. The girls can't explain how they arrived here, as they just passed out and then woke up here, but Lucas can't help them out of this place: nobody has left this place in decades, so all they can do is live out their lives here in service of the community. The girls learn the village is divided in four sections, corresponding to the cardinal directions, each part housing a different wing of the authorities of the village (church, military, doctor, firefighters etc.). The girls also learn everyone in the village has to be a devout Christian, as nobody can afford to be ostracized by the rest of the village (nobody can leave the village, so ostracization means certain death as you can't get by all on your own). And that makes the murder on the soldiers... impossible, because the ten commandments forbid anyone from commiting a murder. The police officer also asked everyone whether they committed the murder, to which everyone in the village said no: nobody can lie due to the commandments (bear false witness), which means nobody committed the murder. However, during their stay in the village, more people are killed, so it's clear somebody's going against the ten commandments, but who? That is the great mystery in Furuno Mahoro's Gururiyoza Satsujin Jiken ("The Gluriyosa Murder Case" 2013).

Gluriyosa is actually the word "Gloriosa" by the way, but then adapted to the Japanese language and then further transformed across time due to accents.

Gururiyoza Satsujin Jiken is the second novel in The Sailor Uniforms & The Apocalypse series, which focuses on the trio of Kyouko, Mizuki and Marii. In this series, the three girls are all better at a different aspect of crime solving, and they always end up dividing the denouement: Kyouko focuses on the whodunit, Mizuki on the howdunnit and Marii on the whydunnit. The books also form one greater narrative, and one of my criticisms of the first novel were indeed that it felt very much as simply the prologue, with many suggestive scenes and episodes which hinted at a greater thing being set in motion, only you don't get to see any of it. That holds too for this second novel, where we again see scenes that suggest there's something big awaiting the three girls and that their training as a detective will be used for something else, but what that actually is, is not made clear here. So that's certainly a thing to remember if you want to start with this series.

People familiar with Japanese mystery fiction will probably quickly recognize this as a kind of parody on Yokomizo Seishi's Yatsuhaka Mura/The Village of Eight Graves, from the name of the village to the way there are 8 great authorities in the village and there's even a duo of elderly twins and some caverns! The setting of a village that still thinks Japan is in the war is pretty interesting, as this is effectively a time travel story. Technology in the village is also outdated, having not seen the enormous developments even in consumer technology, so life is extremely simple here. Which is also what makes the investigation difficult for the girls, as everyone is also quite simple, being quite sure that the ten commandments are enough to prevent anyone from committing murder or from lying, while we as the reader roll our eyes as we see more and more people getting killed. As more people are killed, the girls also notice the murderer might be doing a mitate murder, i.e. murders that are committed following a certain pattern/made to mirror a certain pattern (like nursery rhyme murders), and we even get a whole mitate lecture in this book, which alone makes this a very interesting work to read.

The way the mitate aspect of the mystery was utilized was extremely original by the way, and one of the more memorable examples of this kind of mystery, as it provides a rather novel motive for the murderer to commit to the mitate pattern. I love how the pattern was hidden so brilliantly in the narrative, as most readers would honestly never think of it, but Furuno actually starts hinting at the pattern fairly early on, and it somehow doesn't feel unfair, even if it does demand of the reader to make certain logical steps that might be a bit too far apart. Still, I absolutely love how Furuno used the mitate trope in this novel and how it is woven into the greater story regarding the village.

In a way, this is a kind of isekai mystery, where the detectives find themselves in a world that is not quite like our own, and in this case, the book feels a bit like the riddle where you have people who can only tell the truth, and where there's one liar. The way Furuno expands that idea to a whole village is pretty cool, especially by basing it on the ten commandments, and while near the end, it does feel a bit like a 'logic puzzle' at times, I have to say I was surprised Furuno managed to come up with a fairly convincing way to pull this off and not just write it off as simply 'yes, the murderer lied.'

The solution part of this novel is also enormous, as Kyouko, Mizuki and Marii all get their own, quite sizeable chapters to explain the crimes in terms of their own specific topics (who/how/whydunnit). It's nearly thirty percent of the book that's devoted to the denouement (and the book's not short in the first place), so that gives you an idea of the scale of the tale. I'm still not quite sure how necessary the split in three parts actually is though. Sure, the three girls speak in very different manners and thus explain their parts very differently, but the girls have been together most of the time, and share their information, so ultimately, it feels like a very arbitrary choice to have the three girls each explain things seperately, especially as each of the girls do seem to understand parts of the mystery beyond the scope of their own "responsibilities": it's not like they only figure out their own specific parts, for their stories make it clear they do understand other parts too at least partially (i.e. to explain the whydunnit, for some part you'd to know whodunnit), but for some reason they do only talk about their designated parts. But it's very satisfying to see the three girls tying the many murders since their arrival in the village together in such an epic manner, and there's a lot to love here, as Furuno really makes great use of the very unique setting of Utsuhaka village to carve out a one-of-a-kind mystery.

That said, I do have to admit I found the novel to be far too long, and with the ongoing narrative without real closure, it's not a very accessible book, or at least, I would only recommend this after reading the first one, but that is a lot to ask of someone for example interested in this book mainly for the mitate murders, or the way it uses the liar/truth teller riddle as the core of its mystery.

So there are parts of Gururiyoza Satsujin Jiken that really make it a very memorable mystery novel, as it makes fantastic use of its very unique, isekai-esque setting to explore themes like the mitate mystery and the notion of telling a lie. On the other hand, it is a very long novel too, and a lot of the underlying story is not really explored in detail as it's presented as part of an ongoing narrative. If you read the first book though, I'd definitely recommend this one too, as this one is genuinely the better one of the two, not just as a sequel in a series, but as a mystery novel an sich.

Original Japanese title(s): 古野まほろ『ぐるりよざ殺人事件』

Fright House of a Lighthouse

"Jan 1 — 1796. This day — my first on the light-house — I make this entry in my Diary, as agreed on with De Grät. As regularly as I can keep the journal, I will — but there is no telling what may happen to a man all alone as I am — I may get sick, or worse ....."

"The Light-House"

I don't think I have ever seen a real lighthouse in my life...

Motoroi Hayata was once a student at the prestigious Kenkoku University in Manchukuo, but the hypocricy of the Japanese empire and the war left him completely disillusioned, and since then, he has been trying to find a new purpose in life, one that help him give the war and all its victims a place in his mind. After a horrid experience in the mines in Fukuoka, Motoroi decides to become a lighthouse keeper. As Japan consists of islands, all the lighthouses along the coast are of course of vital importance to the country functioning and are state-controlled, but lighthouse keepers often live a lonely life: many of the lighthouses are found at lonely cliffs and other places far away from the nearest towns and while a lighthouse is usually manned by about three men, who might or might not also have wives with them, they seldom have the luxury to just go out for the night in the city to relax. While Motoroi was lucky enough to have been stationed at a lighthouse for two years near a small town that attracts tourists, his next assignment is less fortunate: he's assigned to the Kougasaki Lighthouse in the Gansei region in northern Japan. The lighthouse stands at the edge of a rocky cliff overlooking the wild sea and is quite far away removed from the nearest town: while you can barely make it in a day via a boat, the route via land leads through a treacherous forest, and will take almost a whole day and that's assuming you don't get lost along the way! Motoroi initially arrives on his first working day at the town and arranges for a boat to bring him to the lighthouse, but the sea is too unstable, and he is forced to stay one night at the local inn, and is told to try the land route the following day. He's given a simple map the following day, but as he walks through the forest, he feels something is watching him and he occasionally catches glimpses of something... white. This reminds him of the stories of Shiromonko-sama, a local supernatural being believed to roam this region. As it becomes night, he stumbles upon a small house in the forest, and inside he founds a young girl and an elderly woman. Motoroi is offered a meal and a warm place to sleep for the night, but he can't help but feel piercing eyes at him even as he's staying in the house. The following day, he gets new instructions and eventually makes it to the lighthouse, which for some reason he finds empty initially, which reminds him of the ghost story told among lighthouse keepers, about a lighthouse where three men were stationed at, but for some reason all of them disappeared: a diary of one of them indicated they had been feeling uneasy in the days leading up to the disappearence and talks about the stormy weather.... but the metereological reports say there was no stormy weather in that area during that period. When Motoroi finds himself settled at the Kougazaki Lighthouse however, he asks about Shiromonko-sama, and he learns that the head lighthouse keeper himself had experienced some very odd things in the time leading up to him being stationed here, that may be related to Shiromonko-sama, but were his experiences really supernatural, or can Motoroi give a more rational explanation in Mitsuda Shinzou's Byakuma no Tou ("The Tower of the White Demon", 2019)?

Byakuma no Tou is the sequel to the excellent Kokumen no Kitsune ("The Black-Faced Kitsune"), which I reviewed earlier this year. The book introduced the reader to Motoroi Hayata, who is trying to help rebuild the country by doing the dirty jobs, but who finds himself getting involved in mysterious situations involving local beliefs and monsters. Kokumen no Kitsune was initially conceived as a potential plot of Mitsuda's Toujou Genya series, which mixes folklore/tales of yokai and other supernatural beings with extremely well-written mysteries, but the focus on realism (in this case, the depiction of the life of miners during World War II and afterwards) meant the subject matter was deemed more suitable for a story not set within that world. Byakuma no Tou continues this trend by also focusing on the realistic circumstances of a hard and demanding job in post-war Japan, in this case, the life of a lighthouse keeper, and that is absolutely where this book shines the most.

The depiction of the lonely and harsh life of a lighthouse keeper is excellent, and Mitsuda's done a lot of research to make sure you really understand how hard their life must have been, being stationed at a lighthouse for a few years and then being assigned to a new place again. There's little time off, and as a lot of the lighthouse end up being in the middle of nowhere, only being visited by people bringing rations and stock equipment once every few weeks, these lighthouse keepers have to be mentally very strong, having no choice but to solve any problems they come across themselves. The team at the lighthouse is also more or less stuck with each other, as depending on the location, the nearest town might be quite far away, so you're constantly in each other's company, even on your days off. I also liked how Mitsuda depicts the life among lighthouse keepers themselves. When they are re-stationed, they are picked up by ships constantly cruising along Japan, picking up lighthouse keepers and dropping them off at their new locations as they go, so the lighthouse keepers then get time to socialize with each other, and exchange information about the locations they were stationed at themselves, and about the locations they are going to. That is also how spooky rumors regarding certain locations spread among them, and given how faraway from civilization some places are, it's quite understandable how ghost stories regarding certain lighthouses would spread, or for example the story about the lighthouse were all keepers disappeared. The isolated enviroment where lighthouse keepers had to live their lives in a way serves as the perfect breeding ground for ghost stories, and there's surprisingly a lot of synergy here. It's almost weird how we don't have more lighthouse ghost stories.

By the way, and also a disclosure message: I translated two of Oosaka Keikichi's lighthouse mysteries (The Monster of the Lighthouse and The Guardian of the Lighthouse) for the Oosaka collection published by Locked Room International, and they are both name-dropped by Motoroi in this novel: he's been reading them and other works by Oosaka. It would be funny if I ever get to translate this book too, I'd get a monopoly on Japanese lighthouse mysteries!

However, I do think that as a mystery story, this is not nearly as interesting as the previous book, and this one leans far more on the ghost/horror story element. Which is not a bad thing per se, as Mitsuda's probably better known as a horror mystery writer, than just a mystery writer, but for the most part, this book focuses more on the unsettling ghost stories that haunt lighthouse keepers, and there's not even really a focal "mystery" throughout the tale, which makes this a difficult story to discuss within the context of this blog. We basically have two narratives: we first follow Motoroi as he makes his way to the lighthouse, and on the way, he has a few strange experiences that involve him feeling he's being watched, him learning about the local demon Shiromonko-sama, a gigantic, white presence that roams the forest and the cliffs near the sea, and the mysterious house in the forest where Motoroi spends the night: he later learns the house is known as the White House and that the grandmother is a kind of priestress serving Shiromonko-sama as well as a midwife, and is seen in the town as a 'necessary evil': she's only 'used' whenever people need Shiromonko-sama's help or want to appease it, but otherwise everyone tries to avoid her and her whole family line. The bulk of the book however follows the tale of the head lighthouse keeper, who happens to have experienced very similar things to Motoroi. We are told of how he had already heard about Shiromonko-sama before he was stationed here, because long ago, he had been stationed at the neighboring lighthouse and like Motoroi, he too had sighted glimpses of a white being following him in the forest, and even ended up staying at the "White House" after getting lost. We then are told the story of how he met his wife, and how eventually they had something precious taken from them by Shiromonko-sama, but that is the extent of the mystery in this book: various curious and creepy incidents that occur to different people at different times. Eventually, Motoroi has an idea he can provide a rational explanation to most of these odd occurences. Some of his inferences show very clever twists, but overall, it's fairly... tame? I guess. The overall explanation relies on a few hard-to-swallow coincidences, though they become a bit more acceptable if you just see this foremost as a ghost/horror story, with a "rational explanation" tacked on. In fact, I think a lot of readers will probably appreciate this book better as a horror story, because it's really good as such. Mitsuda's a seasoned horror storyteller, and you can clearly tell from this tale, as he very effectively juxtaposes the very realistic depiction of a lighthouse keeper's life to that of the supernatural threat that hovers in the background. But as a mystery story, it lacks a clear, driving hook, and at times feels more like a collection of random ideas/mysteries. This might be disappointing especially if you come from the Genya novels and expect something as intricately plotted as those stories.

Nonetheless, I did think Byakuma no Tou was a fun read, but it definitely leans far more towards horror, and is probably better read primarly as such. I do really enjoy the way Mitsuda depicts these harsh professions in post-war Japan in such detailed manner and how he uses them as a device to tell interesting horror stories, so I'll definitely read more of this series: at the moment, there's also a third adventure with Motoroi, so I'll get to that eventually.

Original Japanese title(s): 三津田信三『白魔の塔』

The Third Bullet

"Sometimes, I just want to put this gun right against her head, and ever so gently, pull the trigger."

"Death on the Nile" (1978 film)

Huh, it's been over 13 years since I first heard about this book, and through that the Mikikaze series... and I end up reading this one as the last of the novels in the series...

Minami Mikikaze, professional photographer and amateur detective, is asked by his high school friend Kazuya for desperate help: Kazuya is the defendant in a double murder case, and the prosecution's case against him is very strong, as he was found together with the two victims inside an apartment room which was locked from the inside. The two victims were ex-convicts, who were working for a company that was actively recruiting ex-convicts to help them get their lives on the rails again. When they didn't show up for work, their boss went to the apartment room, but found it locked with the key, latch and door chain, so the building's caretaker had to break open the door. Inside, they found the two men shot through their head, one lying near the door, the other sitting on a sofa, with an unconscious Kazuya sitting next to him and the pistol lying on the floor. Based on what the three men were wearing, it seemed like they were planning to commit a robbery, but Kazuya denies everything: he knew the two men, because he once helped his brother-in-law who had written an article on the company's commendable efforts to help ex-convicts on their way back into society, but he swears he was not planning something criminal with them: he only had something to discuss with them, but after drinking something, he lost consciousness, so he claims to have no idea why the two men were shot to death, and why the door was locked thrice. The police investigation however fingers Kazuya as the culprit and some months later, the case is all ready to be handled in the court, at which point Kazuya asks Mikikaze to help solve this locked room mystery. Mikikaze manages to get hold of a lead, which leads him to the United States to visit a certain witness, but while talking with this witness, he's knocked out by something in his drink, and when he wakes up... he finds himself lying next to the dead witness he was talking to, in a locked room! Finding himself in the exact predicament as his friend, Mikikaze knows he's on the right track, but can he save both himself and Kazuya in Tsukatou Hajime's F no Madan ("The Magic Bullet of F" 2004)?

F no Madan is the second novel in the Minami Mikikaze series following Agni no Atsui Natsu, and with that, I have now read all the full-length novels in this series (I still have to read two short story collections). Misshitsu Kingdom (Kingdom of the Locked Room) is still by far the best one in the series by the way, but this novel too will probably interest locked room murder enthusiasts, as they will probably recognize the set-up of this novel: yes, this is Tsukatou's take on Carter Dickson's The Judas Window, focusing on the trial of a young man accused of murder because they were found in a locked room, with a murder victim in the same room. Of course, the similarities are in the base setting, as here we don't have a locked room in a large country house, but a very urban setting, with a triple-locked apartment in a city just across a giant department store. And there's the mirrored situation, where Mikikaze visits a witness at a farm in the American countryside and wakes up in a room with a dead body, but the twist here is that Mikikaze is aware the murderer is outside the room and busy "completing" the locked room situation. The book jumps back and forth in time, with the Mikikaze segments being in the present/real-time, and the segments that go over how Kazuya was discovered in the room and the subsequent investigations by his attorney set a few months before that. As you can understand, the Mikikaze segments are far more exciting, as Mikikaze knows the murderer is busy setting things up to make him into a scapegoat, but the fact he's been drugged and his own weak heart (and the fact the murderer is likely armed) prevent him from doing anything reckless to apprehend the killer, even if he knows the murderer is still in the house.

The book itself doesn't hide the fact it's basically a tribute to The Judas Window by the way, and I do recommend reading that one first before reading F no Madan. While the latter does not explicitly spoil the former, it is clearly written as a modern take, and while Tsukatou adds a lot of original, and frankly told very clever twists to it, I think you do get more out of it if you know the underlying context too. 

Purely seen as a locked room mystery, I think that F no Madan has both really clever parts, but also parts that do demand the reader to just with certain things. As a modern take on The Judas Window for example, I think the concept Tsukatou used is really clever, and the way it's a surprisingly safe method for the murderer to commit a double murder in a triple-locked room is quite memorable. However, to get everything into position, the murderer would need to manipulate a lot of moving parts and actors, and especially the latter part feels a bit unbelievable at times. This isn't a murderer who subtly manages to force someone to act in a way that benefits them, this is almost truly being a puppeteer, because it's quite unbelievable different actors would all exactly act in the way the murderer would need them to act without even one moment of hesitation. So in that sense, the locked room situation does feel a bit cheap, as too much works out for the benefit of the killer, simply because it needs to do so. On the other hand, I really love some of the preparations the murderer did do in order to make things go the way they needed to: I still don't think his preparations would've ensured everything would go the way they needed, but that one action they did explicitly take beforehand, in order to ensure at least two actions would be taken by one of the people they needed to manipulate, was done really clever, and worked perfectly to strengthen the trick of the triple locked room. That part alone does make this a memorable locked room, as it shows Tsukatou's eye for detail.

The present-day situation, where Mikikaze finds himself trying to fight the sleeping drugs he's been fed and figure out how to escape the room, without alerting the killer in the house, is an exciting read, and it does hold hints that are also applicable to the Kazuya locked room, but the story moves very slowly in those segments and ultimately, this part is far more simple than the Kazuya locked room, so it's not as surprising mystery-wise. It's more a grand way to allow Mikikaze to solve things and confront the killer.

While the book feels a bit artificial due to the machinations of the killer going so perfectly, F no Madan does happen to also be the one book in this series where Tsukatou clearly tries to work more on characterization and even tackles social school problems: a lot of the Kazuya-focused chapters focus on Kazuya and his stance in life: part of the mystery revolves around the question why he's so reluctant to talk about why he was visiting the two victims, if he was not involved in anything criminal and we learn a lot about his views on societal problems. I thought these parts were a bit too longwinded, but there's an interesting subplot hidden here that deals with his motive for keeping silent, and while it's not really presented as a "solvable" problem, the idea itself is good. Personally, I could've done with a tighter plot with less of the character musings, but your mileage may vary. I do have to admit I was surprised that early on in the book, we get a diagram of the crime scene, and then the narrative moves more to exploring Kazuya's character and his relations to everyone, and when the story returns to the locked room, we get the crime scene diagram again... and I do mean again, because it's the exact same diagram. As if Tsukatou himself suddenly realized he had drifted from the main mystery too much and feared the reader might've forgotten about it, so he showed you the same picture twice to jog your memory.

Also: for some reason the book does not really explain what the "F" in the title means..

Personally, I liked F no Madan the least of all the Mikikaze novels, though that's not very surprising: it's hard to beat the brilliant combination of the locked room mystery with Ellery Queen-esque deductions of Misshitsu Kingdom, of course I'm going to like the even more Ellery Queen-inspired Aru Girishia Hitsugi no Nazo ("A Greek Coffin Mystery), and in the end I prefer the brevity and focus on the mystery of Agni no Atsui Natsu simply better than the more prosey F no Madan, but readers who like more characterization, or the way the book builds clearly on The Judas Window might feel very differently. I do think it's a decent locked room mystery, and definitely worth a read if you have already read The Judas Window.

Original Japanese title(s): 柄刀一『Fの魔弾』

L'Île aux trente cercueils

About midway in the short vista which my dreamy vision took in, one small circular island, profusely verdured, reposed upon the bosom of the stream.

 

 So blended bank and shadow there, 

 that each seemed pendulous in air — 

 

so mirror-like was the glassy water, that it was scarcely possible to say at what point upon the slope of the emerald turf its crystal dominion began. 

 "The Island of the Fay" 

 

You know, that would be an interesting setting for a mystery story, an island where they have these GIGANTIC crosses and some kind of impossible crime happens, like a body appears right on top of the highest cross...

Mephisto is a long-running magazine of publisher Kodansha focusing on mystery and other entertainment genre fiction, featuring columns on literature, but more importantly serializations of for example Ayatsuji Yukito's House novels. While it used to be distributed "normally" as a magazine, its current incarnation is only available if you are a member of the Mephisto Readers Club, with the seasonal release of Mephisto being one of the perks that come with a subscription. Currently the magazine is for example running running the serialization of Ayatsuji Yukito's Futagokan no Satsujin/The Twin House Murders while the last two years, it had Arisugawa Alice's Nihon Ougi no Nazo ("The Japanese Fan Mystery"), which got a book release in 2024. But the subscription also includes other content, including a series of flash fiction by various mystery authors who have to work with the same opening or ending line, and also regularly updated mini-columns on mystery fiction on various topics. Mystery Island was originally a series of short, one-page columns running in the first half of 2024 penned by six critics, who all discussed eleven mystery stories set on... an island. The closed circle setting of an island, where nobody can go to or escape from and you have a limited pool of suspects, is of course a very popular one in mystery fiction ever since And Then There Were None and there are quite a few worth recommending to others, but even I hadn't expected you could discuss 66 different stories. Later the same year, publisher Kodansha published all these columns as one book (with a great cover!), also titled Mystery Island.

The six critics are Aoto Shino, Ooya Hiroko, Katayama Daichi, Sengai Akiyuki, Masamune Q and Miyake Kaho, who each take on eleven mysteries set on an island. They obviously did have some discussion about how to divide the works, as they all will discuss a few of the really famous ones, like And Then There Were None, Jukkakan no Satsujin/The Decagon House Murders, Gokumontou/Gokumon Island and Evil Under Sun, but each of them will also tackle some minor titles you likely had never heard about or wouldn't have expected to be discussed specifically. There is a good selection of both older titles and new ones, with some titles so recent they basically released the same year as when the columns were originally running, like Yuuki Haruo's Jikkai ("The Ten Commandments"). There's also quite some variety in the works discussed, from classic puzzle plot mysteries like the titles mentioned above, but also horror-mysteries like Sawamura Ichi's excellent Yogen no Shima ("The Island of the Prophecy") and weird fantasy-hybrids like Shimada Soji's Alcatraz Gensou ("Alcatraz Fantasy").

The Mystery Island columns however are very short, as they were originally published via LINE (a Japanese social chat platform) and it's best not to look as Mystery Island as a reference book, but rather as a coffee table book, the type of book you just pick up to peruse for a few minutes to read a short column and which you'll lay down and only return to after a while. The tone of each of column is pretty casual, usually containing personal anecdotes of how the critic came into contact with the story in the first place. Each column is basically just a page long, so there isn't much space to discuss any work in detail: they mostly get away with giving a brief outline of the work in place, and add a paragraph on its merits as a mystery story/mystery story set on an island. So for those who want to really know why a specific story is interesting as an island mystery, the columns might feel a bit too short, as they can never really delve deep into the themes and specific characteristics of the work in question, but for those who simply want simple pointers to decide what to read next, Mystery Island is quite effective as they really don't discuss enough to even remotely spoil anything. Because the six authors together do manage to introduce a great number, and a great variety of works, it's likely any reader will find a work they hadn't known about that sounds interesting. At least, I know I have a few new titles on my 'someday, I will read this' list I had not ever considered before. That said, the definition of 'mystery fiction' is quite broad, and seeing a title like Battle Royale here does feel a bit like cheating, but oh well, it's 66 titles, they're allowed to use a (very) broad definition.

Originally, these columns were posted on the subscribers-only Mephisto Reader's Club LINE account, and each column would be followed by a short poll on something kinda connected to the book in question: the one on Gokumontou for example asks if you were the killer, which of the four modern-day actors of Kindaichi Kousuke would you like to have as your opponent. The book release includes the outcome of each of these polls and also contains a write-up of the editors' meeting with the six critics, where they decided how to divide the work, which gives the reader a bit more insight into the selection process.

Oh, and moving away from the contents of this book, and discussing this book as... a book: besides the great cover, it also features some really cool character art by Kikuni Masahiko for all the six critics, in the same style as the silhouette characters of the authors featured in the shin honkaku anniversary anthology 7-nin no Meitantei ("The Seven Great Detectives"). The physical release also has a rather unique slipcase: the slipase is actually open on two sides (instead of one), so normally a book you'd place inside could slip out from the other side... but because this is Japan, the book of course also features an obi (a thin paper wrapper), and it's the obi that keeps the book in place. Really odd design I have never seen before.

 Mystery Island is a rather interesting release now I think about it. It was originally written for subscribers to the Mephisto Readers Club, so in a way, for an audience that is probably more interested and knowledgeable about mystery fiction than the average reader, but as a book, Mystery Island works better as a casual coffee book table than a "reference book for die-hard mystery fans". It's easy to pick up, read a column or two and lay down again, and while none of the columns really go deep enough to really become informative or provide you with some eye-opening revelation, they do a good enough job to point you to the existence of some stories you may not have considered otherwise, or help you decide what famous mystery set on an island you should tackle next, if you hadn't read that one masterpiece before. I wonder if a project like this could be translated/released in English too to casually introduce both the well-known, as well as the lesser known island mysteries from Japan to an English-reading audience, considering its more casual tone.

Original Japanese title(s): 青戸しの, 大矢博子, 佳多山大地, 千街晶之, 政宗九, 三宅香帆『ミステリーアイランド』

Murder A La Mode

Paris in the fall, the last months of the year, at the end of the millenium. The city holds many memories for me, of cafes, of music, of love, and of death.

"Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars"

This review was originally scheduled to be published in August last year, but another review took its place so I pushed to the far end of the waiting queue...

Art dealer Akatsuki Hiroyuki is the brain behind an explosion in the popularity of the artists of the École de Paris (the School of Paris) with an extensive book on its major players, but one evening, the man is found dead in his study in his manor, which also functions as a private art gallery. After hearing a loud noise, his butler hopes to check up on his master, but he finds the door locked. When he unlocks the door, his master lies dead on the floor with an army knife in him, there's a smear of blood on the window's lock, and below in the garden, footprints are found in the sand. Outside, the watch dog is also found dead, having been poisoned, making this a double murder, but how could the murderer have escaped the locked study with the door and window locked from the inside? Inspector Unno soon realizes the impossibility of the situation, but unfortunately for him, his direct superior Oobeshimi is rather eccentric, and more interested in accusing the first people that come to mind or commenting on how beautiful the widow is. Unno is also surprised by his cousin Shinsenji Shunichirou, who had been traveling the world for a few years, but had just returned to Japan to visit Akatsuki's gallery. Shunichirou, as a gifted artist himself, is desperate to see the gallery, so plans to give tips to his uncle so the case can be solved quickly. It seems likely Akatsuki was murdered because of his work as an art dealer, so Shunichirou recommends his uncle to read Akatsuki's book on the École de Paris, and of course, we as the reader know this book will be important as Fukami Reiichirou's 2008 novel is called École de Paris Satsujin Jiken ("The École de Paris Murder Case"). 

École de Paris Satsujin Jiken is the first in Fukami's art-themed series of mystery novels, and when it released, it managed to rank in at a respectable ninth place in that year's Honkaku Mystery Best 10 ranking. Earlier, I read Fukami's Mystery Arena and I loved that book, but that's basically all I've read by Fukami, so I figured it was about time I'd read more by him. I do think this book was the first time I ever heard of Fukami, having seen this book reviewed on the (now defunct) On the Threshold of Chaos blog. I don't really have any affinity with art, but as this was one of Fukami's better known works, I felt this was probably a good work to return to Fukami with.

I do have to say, as something not particularly interested in art, getting into the book was a bit difficult, as each chapter starts with sections taken from the in-universe book by Akatsuki on the artists of École de Paris. You'll get to read "scholarly" writings on artists like Soutine and Kisling, on their personal history as well as on their art style and more, and while these sections are relevant to the plot, they do really read as excerpts from a completely different book, and depending on your interests, reading about the life of Soutine might not be very exciting. But again, these sections are relevant to the case (which is not only made clear by these excerpts, but also by Shunchirou saying that out loud), and I have to admit: the way the École de Paris ties in back to the mystery plot is honestly quite good, with real history being used for the murderous plot in a very clever way. This is by far the best, and most memorable part of the book. Fukami made his debut by winning the Mephisto Prize, and while this is his second book and not the actual prize winner, you can recognize a bit of the tropes you see in a lot of Mephisto Prize winners, with a focus on specialist fields of knowledge and flaunting said knowledge. In this book, it however stays firmly connected with the mystery plot and isn't just there for entertainment purposes, and I'd say this is an example of the "trivia mystery novel" done well.

As for the rest of the book though, I found it a bit too light-weight, I guess? The main mystery is the locked room mystery, but while the École de Paris does tie back to parts of this mystery in a satisfying way, the actual physical dynamics behind the mystery were rather simple, and you could only barely call it an actual variant to a rather often seen solution to the locked room mystery. While I think it's pretty guessable, the actual clewing to this solution was also a bit lacking, meaning it doesn't feel nearly as satisfying as the reveal regarding the connection to the École de Paris. 

Despite the "serious" excerpts from the art history book, the book has a slightly comedic tone overall, mainly personified by Inspector Oobeshimi, who is constantly saying everything he thinks out loud, always immediately going for the easy explanations, offending and showing no regard for other people, and Unno having to cope with such a boss. I didn't really find Oobeshimi funny though, and while this series stars Shunuchirou as the detective and it's clear right away when he first appears it's he, and not Oobeshimi is our hero, the book is mainly told through Unno's eyes, and he (naturally) mostly narrates his investigation as led by Oobeshimi, so you are constantly confronted with Oobeshimi. For me, this also meant the investigation felt incredibly slow as Oobeshimi was always barking up the wrong tree. Your mileage may vary here, but after a while, I found Oobeshimi more tedious than the art history lessons at the start of each chapter. Shunichirou is also portrayed as a slightly eccentric figure, roaming the world as a freeter and having more than a few things to say about Japan's rigid, stagnate culture and society, and he's infinitely more interesting to follow, but unfortunately, he appears far less in the book compared to the police characters.

So overall, I thought École de Paris Satsujin Jiken was a bit of an uneven novel. I really liked how the actual history of the École de Paris was used for the mystery plot of the book, but the two other major elements, being the locked room and the tone of the book, couldn't really convince me. That's why I don't think I'll be reading the other books in this series soon, though never say never.

Original Japanese title(s): 深水黎一郎『エコール・ド・パリ殺人事件』

The Dream Team

“You see what I’m driving at? I’m made to dream the same dream, night after night, night after night—and then—one day the suggestion is too much for me—and I act upon it. I do what I’ve dreamed of so often—kill myself!”

"The Dream"

I still can't help but feel a bit annoyed by how the covers of this series all look so samey. I like the art style, but I wish there had been more variation beyond "Shiina on the cover".

With most practioners of magic being persecuted in the medieval witch hunts, mankind lost both knowledge on magic, as well as the people who were capable of performing it, but for the last century, people have been rediscovering and re-examining magic, which by now has developed into an academic field. There are only six known magicians on the world, but magic can be studied by anyone as an academic theme, the same way not all Literature students actually write literature, but can study about it. Japan however is still merely a "developing" country when it comes matters magic,with Jousui University opening Japan's very first Magic Faculty this very year, though they got a scoop: they managed to employ Sakyou Shiina as one of their teachers: Shiina is one of the six known magicians on the world, who are strictly monitered and managed by the Order of Zenith in London. In the first semester, narrator Amane was picked to be in Shiina's class along the girls Ririko, Hio, Imina, Rie and Chisato who grew up as childhood friends. At the end of the first semester, the annual Jousui University Campus Festival is held. On the first day, Amane and the other girls got involved in a strange incident that kept them captured inside the General Studies A building, but thanks to Shiina, all of that was revolved. The following day, Amane wakes up after a night of drinking with the girls of Shiina's class, but a memory of a dream haunts our narrator: in the dream, someone was being chased by a masked killer down a corridor with classroom: this someone was pinned down and strangled by this masked murderer. Amane actually has experience with dreams of the future before, which all came true, and these dreams were always of the very near future of other people close to Amane. Shiina explains that this is indeed a kind of magic, and that it can be very difficult to go against the future foretold. However, because Amane had been sleeping in the classroom with the other girls when the dream appeared, it is likely the future victim will Ririko, Hio, Imina, Rie or Chisato and furthermore, because they are to go to a masquerade event today at the campus festival, it seems clear the attack will occur then. The group goes to the General Studies A building as planned to participate in the Mystery Club's masquerade event The Castle Masquerade Murder Case: the participants are to solve a murder by looking for clues in rooms in the "castle" (classrooms which have been decorated to function as castle rooms), while wearing cosplay, because it's actually a joint event with the cosplay club. Everyone picks a different costume and starts wandering around the "castle", but Amane has only one goal in Kuzumi Shiki's Tricksters M (2006): to prevent a murder.

This is the fourth book I've read in the Tricksters series and... it's actually the fourth entry! If you've been reading this blog for a longer time, you might remember I actually read the third book, Tricksters D before the second novel, Tricksters L. While I guess most people usually read things in order, I do recommend you to really do that here, as Tricksters M (M stands for "Masquerade") is literally set the day after Tricksters D, during the same campus festival and most of the supporting cast in M also appeared in D (members of the Mystery Club). One new face is Okurina, the brother of Imina, who curently studies magic at the London University of Magic, but has returned to visit the festival and who himself is a former member of the Mystery Club, and he was known as a great detective while studying here.

I enjoyed the first Tricksters: it was a fun to read light novel that used magic in a clever way tell an entertaining and clever mystery story. In Tricksters, magic is still a developing academic field, so the number of possible magic spells are still fairly limited, all with clearly defined limitations, which makes magic as a plot element in a mystery story feel fair. I think as mysteries, L was better than D in terms of how the mystery was constructed (even if it had the bad luck of me reading a book with very similar setting/ideas just before it), though D was certainly more original in what it attemped to do. Tricksters M this time however didn't quite manage to capture me as well, though it does a few things differently on purpose.

The theme of the story this time is precognitive dream, which Shiina explains is indeed real magic and we learn at the beginning what the 'rules' are to these dreams, meaning as the reader, we can safely assume that yes, something is gone to happen during the masquerade. This time, we have Amane trying to prevent a crime from happening, which is an interesting twist. The dream is vague however, and it's based on the little Amane remembers, the reader needs to deduce who is going to be attacked, who is going to be attacked, and where this will take place. One thing I found odd was that there was no floorplan/diagram provided in the book. Early in the story, Amane and Shiina first deduce the attack is likely to going to happen in one of about a dozen candidate classrooms, based on which side of the hallway the door in the dream was, as well as the length of the hallway. As Amane participates in The Castle Masquerade Murder Case and starts poking around to see who would have any motive to attack one of the girls, we learn some other facts that help cross out other potential crime scenes: the problem here is that we don't really have any way to cross out these locations ourselves, we only hear "after the fact" that classroom A was facing a certain way, and therefore not the room of the dream, or that classroom B was out because it was located in the wrong corner or something like that. So this process of finding the real crime scene feels very passive. There is one clever, final clue to determine which room it is of the final few candidates, but again, this would have been so much more convincing as a fair game if we actually had proper floorplans and diagrams (because the way it is done in prose only, the clue feels a bit too weak, so more "supporting" clues would have made it much better).

As for determining who the attacker is and who the victim... I thought this part was a bit weak. I think the idea Kuzumi was going for works well enough as a concept: you have the interesting idea of an "inverted" whodunnit, where you start with knowing there is an attacker, and from there need to deduce about an impending crime, and what Kuzumi ultimately tries to pull off using this concept is fun too as a mystery, as a conventional mystery novel wouldn't be able to pull this off. But the book is very short, and you don't really get to see much of the characters, so none of it feels really surprising, as yeah, of course she's going to be the victim, you hardly hear anything about the other girls! Don't get me wrong, I think the base concept Kuzumi was going for is good, and mystery-wise, really clever things can be done with it, but here it felt rather underwhelming. I do think the things done with Shiina's role in resolving this mystery are clever, almost treading upon Late Queen Problems! This book however does feel lighter on the mystery aspect (the masquerade doesn't even start until halfway into the book!), probably because it's also written to serve as a turning point in the series' narrative: Shiina is clearly grooming Amane to become a detective, and he is being very hands off now and providing very little guidance to Amane. This is reflected in the character of Okurina, who was a great detective himself when he was in the Mystery Club, but who now seems to regret having taken that path, showing Amane a possible future.

Tricksters M also contains a short story set about a flower shop, but it's really short, and doesn't add much (it's also not related to anything, just something to fill out the volume).

So I wasn't a huge fan of Tricksters M: while these books are never really long, I felt the mystery was a bit too light in this volume and while it has cool ideas, I feel like with a few rewrites, it could've been much better, as I think the idea of prophetic dreams and all can be used very cleverly in mystery novels (heck... I translated one!). The next two volumes form one story that serves as the finale of the series I believe, so I will eventually get them too.

Original Japanese title(s): 久住四季『トリックスターズM』

The Stranger in the Shadows

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
"Genesis" (King James version)

I wouldn't say I lived *at the foot* of Mt. Hiei, but the place I was staying while living in Kyoto was pretty near Mt. Hiei, relatively speaking...

Perusing the magazine The Charms of Kyoto, detective Kisarazu Yuuya comes across an article on Shirakashi Munenao, a famous painter and sculptor who lives with his extended family in a bizarre manor located at the foot of Mt. Hiei in Kyoto. The article featured photographs of the interior of the home, which consists of three storeys, that are off-set, creating a kind of "ladder" effect which nothing beneath the second and third floors. One of the photographs showed a symbol in the house interior which immediately captured Kisarazu's attention, as it was connected to a case he never managed to solve: three years ago, the bodies of a man and a pregnant woman were found after a landslide. They were obviously killed, but the police didn't manage to identify the bodies, and neither could Kisarazu even after being brought onto the case. He did find a platinum ring near the scene, with the exact same symbol which he know learns is somehow related to Shirakashi Munenao, which convinces him the two deaths are somehow connected to him.

Kisarazu's not the only one interested in the Shirakashi's though, as the reader is also introduced to Anjou Norisada, who has recently been moved internally to the editorial department of The Charms of Kyoto. His mother died some years ago, but on her death bed, she confessed to Norisada she wasn't his real mother. She wasn't able to bear her own children, so she had actually kidnapped a baby at a train station, snatching him from his real mother and jumping in a train as the doors closed. While his mother had always treated him with much love and he considers her his real mother, Anjou is naturally also curious to his blood parents, and the only clues he has are his name, "Norisada" (the name his real mother shouted as the train departed) and a ring with an unusual symbol and like Kisarazu, Anjou too noticed the symbol belonged to the Shirokashi family. He confesses to Kurata, the senior editor at the magazine who wrote the article, about why he's interested in Shirokashi Munenao, and Kurata promises to help him get close to the family. Kurata became friends with Akika, the daughter-in-law of Munenao as they share an interest in classical music, so Kurata invites both Anjou to come along to a concert Akika will also be attending, creating an opportunity for Anjou to ask about the symbol. Kurata also arranges for an interview with the great artist himself at his Kyoto manor and promises to bring Anjou along so he can find out whether he's actually born a Shirakashi, but Kurata becomes sick and now it's Uyuu who's put on the interview together with Anjou, Uyuu, who survived the tragedy on Kazune Island and then got caught involved in a series of arson, has more things to worry about than this interview though, as he's contemplating marriage with Touri, his girlfriend since Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata.

Uyuu and Anjou arrive on a snowy day at the Shirokashi house, which is happily inhabitated by four generations of both the Shirokashi and Nachi family, who have a strange relationship: all four generations consists of marriages between these two families: Akiko for example married her cousin Munenobu, who is the son of Munenao: Munenao is married with his cousin Nobuko, while Munenao's twin sister Sadaka is married to Nobuko's twin brother Noriaki, and the same for the generation above them. Akiko and Munenobu also recently had their first child, who is of course the great pride of the two families. During the interview with Munenao, Uyuu learns Munenao, as do the rest of his family, consider themselves a divine family, free of the shadow of the devil. They believe light gave birth to two gods, one male and one female, whose offspring bathe in the light, but once someone has been tainted by the devil, they will forever bear the mark of the shadow: the Shirokashi and Nachi families however consider themselves the light. Despite Uyuu's focus on their job of doing an interview, Anjou manages to find more clues that indicate he was indeed born as a member of the Nachi family, and that he might be Akika's brother, but why did his birth mother never report his kidnapping to the police, and why do the Nachi and Shirokashi families pretend there never was another child? Anjou manages to confront Akika privately and suggests he might be her brother, to which Akika reacts utterly shocked. She promises she'll explain tomorrow, but she can't say anything now. Anjou grudgingly agrees, but it turns out he'll be staying longer at the house than expected, as heavy snowfall prevents Anjou and Uyuu from returning home immediately, and they are offered dinner. After dinner, Akiko goes to practice the piano, while everyone else in the house also goes around doing their own business, but later that night, when her mother goes looking for Akika, she makes a most horrid discovery: Akika's head is laid out on the piano, her body missing! The police is called, and soon Akika's body is found in the incinerator outside the house, but when the police start investigating everybody's alibi for the hour after dinner between when Akika left everyone, and her head was discovered, they realize something odd is very going on: not a single person of the nine members of the Shirakashi and Nachi households, as well as visitors Uyuu and Anjou, would have had time alone in order to decapitate Akika and move her body to the incinerator: all eleven persons in the house have enough of an alibi to prevent them from being the murderer! But how then was Akika killed in Maya Yutaka's Mokusei no Ouji (2000)? Anjou wants to know, Kisarazu is also convinced Akika's murder is connected to the mysterious deaths of three years ago and Uyuu... he is not sure he wants to know, but he tries his hand at breaking the murderer's impossible alibi after he remembers the two great detectives Mercator Ayu and Kisarazu Yuuya seem to have high hopes for him as a detective.

Mokusei no Ouji is the third book, and I believe the last book in Maya Yutaka's Uyuu cycle, a set of three books that star Uyuu, a young editor who works at a magazine and who has the worst of luck as he keeps getting involved in traumatic murder cases and while he *kinda* tries to solve them one way or another, it never goes the way he, and the reader, want to see. These books also feature appearences of Maya's two other main detective characters, namely the great detective Mercator Ayu, and the detective Kisarazu Yuuya (and his Watson Kouzuki), who both seem to think Uyuu has the potential to become a great detective himself, so they encourage him to try and solve the problems he faces himself, but somehow Uyuu never seems able to answer their expectations. The way Maya plays with tropes of the mystery genre is of course well-known by now, and both Mercator and Kisarazu play around with the notion of the "great detective" trope, and in the case of Uyuu, we have someone who we constantly follow as a protagonist, who does try to detect and who is actually encouraged to do so by two bonafide accomplished detectives, but... he always fails. That's Maya for you.

As the text on the obi suggest, the main mystery of Mokusei no Ouji revolves around every suspect in the house having enough of an alibi for the murder of Akiko. Discounting Uyuu and Anjou, who can vouch for each other, the other nine people in the house all had their own things to tend to in the hour between Akika leaving the room, and her head being discovered. Some would be be in the presence of others for most of the time, while others would be mostly alone, but none of them have no alibi at all: everyone is seen by someone else at various points in the hour in question, and that means nobody has enough time to 1) kill Akiko in the music room, 2) decapitate her and 3) move her body (without the head) from the music room to the incinerator outside without being seen. The layout of the house is by the way pretty insane, as it lacks a real "main hallway" to all which rooms are connected, and instead you constantly need to go through one room to reach another room: this alone makes it basically impossible for the murderer to have moved the body without being seen.

The murder that is made "impossible" because everyone has an alibi is of course a familiar trope of the genre, and especially in Japan there are many authors who actually make this type of story their forte, but of course it wouldn't be Maya if he'd just do this straight. And that is why after the (first) murder, you are treated to paragraph after paragraph in which EVERYONE's movements is explained in detail. And I mean down to the minute. There are (synchronized) clocks everywhere in the Shirokashi house, which means they all know exactly where they were/what they were doing at what time. Furthermore, because there are so many rooms and small corridors between those rooms in the house, Maya decided to number them, instead of writing their names. The result is you get paragraphs like "Munenobu was in 1, so he could have taken route 2, 3 or 4 to get to the scene 5, but his father-in-law was in room 3 from 6:23 until 8:25, so Munenobu could only have taken route 3 after 6:25, while route 2 and 4 would be occupied from 6:24 and 6:33 on, meaning there'd only be the 6:25-6:33 gap for him to kill Akiko and go back via route 4, but that's too short and he does have an alibi for 6:35-6:41 on, so..." And that for all the characters in the house, and all the viable routes. It doesn't help all the family members of the Shirokashi and Nachi family have very similar names: the names of all eleven members are comprised of combinations of just eight kanji, so all the names look visually the same.

Yep, Maya isn't really expecting the reader to be mentally engaged in solving this puzzle and it is intentionally designed as a very tedious conundrum with people moving about every few minutes, making it impossible to really grasp where everyone was at what time. He takes the intricately plotted alibi puzzle, like we have seen in works like Obelists Fly High and Suizokukan no Satsujin, and takes it to its extremes, creating an insanely monstrous puzzle that would only be comprehensible in an interactive visual format (moving the characters on the floorplan along a timeline similar to games like Unheard or Lucifer Within Us), but is likely to just drive readers of the novel insane. Or mentally disengaged. Funnily enough, Maya then also presents us with a group of people who are insanely engaged with this puzzle: in A, we learned how Uyuu started visiting a group of mystery fiction fans, with Kisarazu one of the members. Uyuu has become a full member by this book, and with Uyuu having been on the scene, and Kisarazu being interested in the murder himself, all the members try and solve this impossible alibi puzzle. The outcome of this competition is pretty hilarious actually, in the context of Maya deconstructing the alibi puzzle trope, and I think everyone feeling a bit underwhelmed by the solution is exactly what Maya was trying to go for with this formadible-looking puzzle.

That said, that doesn't mean Maya doesn't do interesting things mystery-wise in this book.  There are actually very clever hints pointing to the solution of the alibi trick, and while  you might shrug at the actual practical answer to how the murderer managed to kill Akika despite having a perfect alibi, Maya uses it as a stepping stone to ask more important questions, which ultimately revolve around the matter of motive: why was Akika killed, and is it in any way connected to Anjou trying to look for his birth mother? The answer is horrifying, and while I think one important aspect of the motive is probably pretty guessable due to the way Maya has structured this novel, the grand motivation behind everything is absolutely nuts, in the good sense of the term, and I dare say it's basically impossible to guess this was going to be the reason Akika was killed. This might be a good time to also note that this book does touch upon certain plot points of A, and you'd better have read Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata and Tsubasa Aru Yami too, because this book not only spoils/very suggestively talks about the endings of these books, they are also thematically connected, with a common theme linking them and basically all of them ending in a "world-ending" catastrophe. I love the insaneness of the background behind Akika's murder in Mokusei no Ouji, and I feel it's really only Maya who could pull this off, but I think it works even better with the context of the previous books, so I really recommend you reading them in order. The book also serves as a semi-epilogue to Tsubasa Aru Yami, so in that sense, also worth a read.

Mokusei no Ouji is also the one Uyuu novel I think that is the most... balanced? As a Maya novel, it of course plays with the genre tropes in a catastrophic manner, but it's infinitely more readable than Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata, with Anjou being a character you want to root for as he's looking for his birth mother (he's a bit mean to Uyuu though) and a narrative that is pretty easy to follow, and as a mystery, it's also more engaging than A, and if you kinda skim over the alibi part of the book, you still have an interesting, though totally batshit insane motive waiting for you. But it's also a lot more enjoyable to read after reading the previous two Uyuu novels, due to the story and thematic links. But definitely worth reading if you're invested in the Uyuu cycle!

Original Japanese title(s): 麻耶雄嵩『木製の王子』