Designs in Crime

I will well and faithfully serve Her Majesty and Her Heirs and Successors according to law as a police officer, I will obey, uphold and maintain the laws of the Colony of Hong Kong, I will execute the powers and duties of my office honestly, faithfully and diligently without fear or favour to any person and with malice or ill will towards none, and I will obey without question any lawful orders of those set in authority over me.

"Hong Kong Police Oath"

I myself have also worked on books with titles that aren't straight translations from the original source title, but with slightly different titles, but sometimes, the change in titles of translated versions seems rather... extreme, and there's not even a hint of the original title left. What's even more vexing is when the original title can't even be found on the copyright page....

In the five decades of his life that Superintendent Kwan Chun-dok had dedicated to the Hong Kong Police Force, the man had acquired the reputation of having the best mind in the whole force, with his colleagues referring to him with nicknames like the "Crime-solving machine", "Eye of Heaven" or "Genius Detective". Kwan had seen it all: from the 1967 leftist riots of those who opposed British colonial rule, to the showdown with the two Shek brothers, the most wanted criminals in the late eighties and the uprise of technology and information as weapons used by the underworld in the new millenium. Even after the official end of his career, Kwan Chun-dok remained retained by the Hong Kong Police Force as a consultant, as his analytical gifts were too precious to give up. And even on his death bed, Kwan seems to be invaluable to the Hong Kong Police Force. As Inspector Lok seeks the help of his mentor one last time in what seems to be an unsolvable case, we also turn back in time to see some of Kwan's past exploits in Chan Ho-Kei's 2014 novel 13.67, which has been released in English as The Borrowed.

How susceptible are you for hype? Chan Ho-Kei's 13.67 from Taiwan was published last year in Japanese, and it was extremely well received with both mystery readers and authors, and saw loads of authors like Ayatsuji Yukito heap praise upon the novel. Seeing the title pop up all the time of course piqued my interest, and I learned the book had already been available in English for about two years with the completely different title The Borrowed, while it was also available in various European languages (often with the title Hongkong Noir). It was also then that I realized that I actually already had a book lying around by Chan Ho-Kei, the Hong Kong-born, but Taiwan-located author who also goes by the English name Simon Chan. The Man Who Sold The World (2011) had won the second Soji Shimada Award and my own take on the book was that it was an okay, but not exceptional mystery novel that did had an interesting, not-often seen setting with Hong Kong, so while I was not completely sold on Chan's mysteries, I was still planning to read 13.67/The Borrowed some time. And some time is now.

And to start with the conclusion: this is indeed a great interlinked short story collection! The original title 13.67 refers to the five decades worth of Kwan's adventures the reader is presented with: the first story is set in the year 2013, and each subsequent story jumps back in time, to an earlier period in Kwan's long career, until it ends back in 1967, in the formative years of Kwan as a detective. This plot device of the reverse chronology really gives this book its flavor: the first time we see Kwan, he's in his dying days, but we do learn about his reputation. Each following story jumps back in time and in his career, telling us more about him and his working methods. It's also neat to see characters or references pop up as we go back in time: in the 2013 story for example, we see Inspector Lok as a capable detective who would make his mentor proud, but as we return back in time we see how he was in his rookie days. Or what at first seems to be an off-hand reference to some exploit in Kwan's past career suddenly turns out to be the subject of the next story in real time. As we jump back in time, we also see Hong Kong change of course, and technological advancements are also rewinded, resulting in interesting, differing conditions per story.

What makes The Borrowed really a satisfying read is how it really succeeds in marrying the social school of mystery fiction with the classic puzzle plot. The reverse chronology is a way for Chan to show the tumultuous history of Hong Kong: sociopolitical issues like (Western) British citizens living in Hong Kong, the 1997 Handover of Hong Kong and the aforementioned 1967 Leftist Riots play an integral part in the stories, and they provide unique backgrounds and motives. But while Chan does delve into these unique socio-historical issues to Hong Kong, he doesn't forget to actually plot and clew a proper mystery. While the presentation of these stories are definitely set in the social school's distinct realism, the actual core mystery plots are what you'd expect from classic puzzle plot stories, with ingenious tricks used by criminal masterminds and a great police detective in the form of Kwan who calmly analyzes all the clues available and reasons his way to the solution.

The Borrowed is brimming with variation, as Chan skilfully uses the changing time periods of his stories to write different type of mystery stories. The opening story for example, The Truth Between Black and White, has Superintendent Kwan bed-ridden and in a coma when Inspector Lok gathers all the suspects of what seems to be an-inside-job-made-to-look-like-robbery inside Kwan's hospital room. As Kwan himself can't directly communicate anymore, a special device that can read brain waves is attached to his head, allowing the man to move a cursor to either YES or NO on a display. What follows is a unique kind of armchair detective story, as Kwan has to lead Inspector Lok's investigation while only being able to indicate YES or NO. While the scale of the conclusion of this murder case is a bit big for an opening story I think, it serves as an interesting introduction to the character of Kwan.

And as I said, one thing this book definitely offers is diversity. Prisoner's Honour (set in 2003) for example deals with what might become a gang war between two rivaling triads and the attack on a female pop singer enjoying the patronage of one of the triad bosses. While this might sound like some hardboiled gangster movie story with the police desperately trying to keep things in control, the conclusion provides a surprisingly logical solution to the problem. The fifth story, Borrowed Place (set in 1977) on the other hand deals with the kidnapping of a British child for ransom money, while the finale story deals with some bomb terrorists in the 1967 Leftist Riots. Both stories too are good examples of stories that you wouldn't immediately connect to a properly clewed puzzle plot mystery based on the premise alone, but that do manage to scrath that itchy craving for logical puzzle plots perfectly.

The best stories are the two in the middle: The Longest Day (1997) starts with the escape of the convicted Shek Boon-tim during a hospital visit. It was Kwan who got him in prison years ago, but it seems Shek was intent on sullying Kwan's last day before his retirement. While the Hong Kong Police Force is busy looking for the feared criminal, Kwan's disciple Lok is also busy working on a series of acid attacks in Hong Kong, with an unknown person throwing acid at unsuspecting shoppers from flat building roofs. The deductions of Kwan of how Shek managed to escape his guards and then elude the police chasers are properly clewed, while he also manages to make sense out of Lok's case. The Balance of Themis is set in 1989 and also involves the Shek brothers. In 1989, the (then Royal) Hong Kong Police Force was staking out the Ka Fai Mansions, as they knew younger brother Shek Boon-sing was hiding in a room there with two other accomplices, awaiting the arrival and orders of the gang's mastermind Shek Boon-tim. But somehow the gang found out they were being observed, and in the subsequent shoutout in the building, not only all three criminals were shot dead, but also six innocent bystanders, and policemen were also injured. Not only had the stake-out turned into a total failure, it appears there was a mole within the police, as in the following investigation, a handwritten note was found in the gang's hang-out that warned the criminals to flee at once, turning this into an Internal Affairs matter. The story has some neat "historical" touches (the uses of pagers by the criminals!) and the way Kwan deduces who the mole was and how they were involved with the whole plot is great, leading to more than a few surprises.

So I'm happy to say 13.67/The Borrowed turned out to be a very satisfying read. Chan manages to provide a lot of variety within this volume, both by using the unique setting of Hong Kong throughout various periods to present a stage that probably feels fresh to a lot of people, but also by writing clever puzzle plot mysteries that are firmly set within these changing time periods: the mystery plots not only utilize the time period both as a 'background' for flavor, but also by addressing issues that are unique to the time. The result is a novel that keeps on surprising the reader until the very end. I think the book's also very accessible for a variety of readers: I myself really focused on the puzzle plots, but with its focus on the police force and the Hong Kong underworld, there's also plenty here for people who like police procedural or hardboiled mystery fiction, and the unique background of Hong Kong is certain to entertain people who enjoy the socio-cultural aspects of mystery fiction.

Original Taiwanese title: "13.67"

Distant Memory

Oh no, not me

 I never lost control 

You're face to face 

With the man who sold the world 

"The Man Who Sold The World" (David Bowie)

The longer a book remains in my backlog of unread books, the less likely I'm going to read it, to be honest. Books don't move up the figurative pile based on how long they've been there, but are more likely to remain in the lower regions, as I tend to favor the books that have arrived more recently. This pile never shrinks by the way, so books which fall down to the lower regions remain there, without any hope of making their way to the top. The only way out of this limbo is a whim, when I suddenly decide to read that book for one reason or another even though it's been here for quite some while.

Not remembering what happened exactly last night isn't exactly a rare occasion for most people, but losing six years worth of memories is of course a tad extreme. The last memories Sergeant Hui Yau-Yat of the Hong Kong Police Force has are those of him investigating a brutal murder on a married couple (and unborn child) inside the Dungsing Building in 2003, but the following day, he wakes up with a splitting headache in his car and after he arrives at his work, he realizes it's now suddenly the year 2009. He has no recollection of anything that has happened in those six years, which makes the visit of a female reporter working on a story on the 2003 Dungsing Building Murder Case the more surprising. He learns from the newspaper clippings she brought that the Dungsing Building Murder Case had a tragic ending a few weeks after his last memory, with the main suspect dying in a horrible traffic accident they themselves caused while on the run, and the reporter wants to write an article on what happened after the case ended with the people involved, starting with Sergeant Hui as one of the detectives on the case. While his amnesia is definitely a problem, the detective feels the Dungsing Building Murder Case needs to be investigated at once, especially as he vividly remembers that he was the only one who thought they were in fact on the wrong trail, and that somebody else had committed the murders. The detective and reporter thus dig in the old Dungsing Building Murder Case while also looking for an explanation for his six-year blank in Chan Ho-Kei's Yíwàng, Xíngjǐng (2011), which also carries the English subtitle The Man Who Sold The World.

Chan Ho-Kei (also known as Simon Chan) is a mystery/science fiction novelist from Hong Kong who lives and publishes his work in Taiwan. His 2014 mystery novel 13.67 gathered much critical acclaim, and is available in English as The Borrowed, and in some European countries as Hongkong Noir (don't you just love it when they come up with so many variations on the title?). The book was recently published in Japanese and gathered a lot of praise there too, also from some major figures in the Japanese myster fictoin industry. All the commotion reminded me I had a book of him lying around too. The Man Who Sold The World was the winner of the second Soji Shimada Mystery Award, a Taiwanese award which involves international publication deals and as I can't read Chinese, I read the Japanese translation Sekai wo Utta Otoko (The Man Who Sold The World), which was published in 2012. The third Award was won by Hú Jié's Wǒ Shi Mànhuà Dàwáng by the way.

Amnesia is of course one of the most overused tropes in mystery fiction. It is an easy way to add suspense and mystery to a story, and a character. It's a way to add an internal conflict (or confusion) to a character, especially if, and this is usually the way the trope is used, the character suffering from amnesia is in fact connected in one way or another to the case at hand and their memories are of crucial importance to solving the whole problem. As the amnesia is involuntary, the character thought to be in possession of important information can't give them even if they wanted. But the many variations on the plot device are rather easily recognizable as they are simply so incredibly common, so it's quite difficult to really surprise the reader using the amnesia device.

The Man Who Sold The World obviously doesn't use the amnesia trope just for fun, so yes, it is involved with the main mystery plot, but the precise manner is sadly enough telegraphed very obviously, and as such, its execution falls a bit flat. To be completely honest, it's perfectly well-clewed and set-up, but the effect the novel apparently wants it have on the reader is not nearly as strong as intended. Mind you, I don't think a puzzle being easily solvable is a bad thing on its own. One of the most educative "Aha" moments I had with mystery fiction was with a short mystery story where the intention behind several elements were quite clear to the readers from the start (Don't worry, I can guarantee almost nobody read this story and never will). For example, the author wanted the reader to pick up that the murderer was lefthanded, and that they used a particular hallway to get to the crime scene. And it was clear that the dinner scene and the commotion about the watches was to show which of the characters was lefthanded. But I, and the other readers, still had fun with the story as while the intention of many elements were clear, we still had to puzzle around a bit as we needed to hunt for the elements we knew we needed. The puzzle wasn't just about who was lefthanded and who could've passed through the hallway, there were several characteristics the murderer must have, and the reader had to look very carefully in the text to see which character fitted all those characteristics, gathering several clues that were simple enough on their own, but made more complex due to how they interconnected. In The Man Who Sold The World however, the function of almost everything is to serve single one point, which makes it less satisfying as you either see it or not, and the execution is not bad, but certainly not astonishing. 

The solution to the Dungsing Building Murder Case is similarly executed in an admittedly very able, but still not terribly exciting manner. Describing the structuring, and clewing in The Man Who Sold The World as utilitarian might be going too far, especially as the narrative on its own is thrilling enough to keep the reader hooked, but I would've appreciated a bit more playfulness in terms of clewing, just to keep the reader on their toes better. For now, most of the clues connect too directly to their destination, and you don't really need to puzzle with several pieces to arrive at the solution.
 
Some might be interested in Hong Kong as a setting for a mystery story, as it's definitely not a common place to see. I am not entirely unfamiliar with Hong Kong, but I am not terribly familiar with the place either, but I thought its portroyal in The Man Who Sold The World interesting enough. It's definitely not alienating for the reader who has never been to Hong Kong, but you'll pick up little things here and there, like the food they eat in restaurants. I gather that the location is better portrayed in Chan's 13.67/The Borrowed/Hongkong Noir, as it's divided in various short stories spanning a longer period of time.

The Man Who Sold The World was in my eyes a decently written mystery novel, that however does lack a bit of oomph. The clewing is perhaps a bit too straightforward, which becomes all the more apparent as the core mystery plot, of the murder in the Dungsing Building, is rather small in scale, which makes the connections between clue and conclusion too transparent. I sadly didn't find out why Chan's other novel is so well received in this particular novel, though I still plan to read that one sooner or later.

Original Taiwanese title: "遺忘・刑警 - The Man Who Sold The World"