Long Shadows

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" 
"Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words"

I like reading short story collections, I hate writing posts about them as there's usually a lot more work involved...

Last year, I reviewed three of the four books written by Kagami Masayuki published during his lifetime. Kagami was an active writer in a very short period of only about ten years, unitl 2013, when he died young in his early fifties. In that period however, he became known as a specialist in locked room murder mysteries, who was very strongly inspired by John Dickson Carr. In fact, his series detective Charles Bertrand was directly modeled after Carr's own Henri Bencolin, both sharing the same background as Parisian magistrates, sharing the same appearances and also having an American narrator. The books I read by Kagami were definitely the stuff Carr fans would love, not only in terms of tone and the type of tricks used to create locked room mysteries, but also because they were full of Carr references, a lot of them I, to be honest, didn't get exactly because I haven't read that many Carrs in general, but you could feel Kagami's love for Carr everywhere. In 2022, almost a decade after Kagami's death, publisher Koubunsha released the big tome Kagami Masayuki Mishuuroku Sakuhinshuu which also carries the English title The Uncollected Works of Masayuki Kagami. As the title suggest, the book collects the short stories Kagami wrote in his lifetime which had originally been published in magazines or anthologies, but had not been published as their own standalone release yet. The book collects these ten stories, but very interestingly, these stories actually form a wonderful cohesive collection. Basically only one story doesn't fit with the rest of the selection in terms of theme, which is amazing considering these stories were only collected together in one book because Kagami passed away and these were "left behind."

The book opens with Waga Tomo Henri ("My Friend Henri"), which is technically Kagami's debut work: while his first published novel is Sougetsujou no Sangeki ("The Tragedy at the Twin Moon Castle"), he already had a few short stories published irregularly in anthologies in the years prior.The story is set in 1900 and narrated by Nicolas, a student studying at Haverford College. His friend Henri is from France studying there, while the twins Alexei and Ivan are from Russia. One evening, Alexei, Nicolas and Henri are hanging out in one of their rooms in their dorm, when they hear a bang from the room next door, which is the room of the twins. They go the room, but find it locked. When they finally manage to break open the door, Ivan is lying dead in the room, having been shot. They find the sign "I" next to Ivan. They of course try to warn the campus guard, but then they learn a professor has also been just shot to death and it turns out, near the professor's body was left the message "II". How could the murderer shoot two persons at about the same time, of which one victim was in a locked room? A technically sound story, though I am very indifferent about the coded message, and I can't say the solution to the locked room shooting and the way the murderer managed to kill both men in a very swift manner are very surprising: you are likely to have seen variants on the same ideas elsewhere before, but the story is constructed in a competent manner and fun to read. It's not a big surprise who Henri is, but interestingly enough, a character from this story will also appear in many other stories in this collection, acting as connecting tissue between the various stories.

In Angoumei Matryoshka - Ulyanov Ansatsu Shimei ("Codename: Matryoshka - The Order to Assasinate Ulyanov") starts with a spy discovering a plot by the secret police Okhrana to murder the revolutionary Ilyich Ulyanov. Apparently, an assassin code-named Matryoshka has already been installed in the close circle around Ulyanov. While the spy manages to escape, he is fatally shot and can only convey the presence of the assassin, and their background in German espionage missions before he dies. Meanwhile, Ulyanov, his wife and a few trusted friends are staying in a safehouse, but who of them is in fact Matryoshka? When suddenly one of the people falls from the top floor window while burning, it seems Matryoshka has finally struck, but why was their target not Ulyanov? I like the idea of how Matryoshka is identified (the specific clue), as it's the kind of clue I like very much and wish I'd see more in mystery fiction, but it feels very detached from the impossible elements of the story (there's no synergy). The room from which the victim fell, was locked, but there was one sleeping person in the same room. Physical evidence seems to indicate this person was truly lying in bed sleeping while the victim was killed, set on fire and pushed out of the window, but why would Matryoshka go such lengths to kill someone who wasn't even the intended target? The answer to how the murder was committed, could have been clewed a bit better perhaps, and a diagram of the whole house would probably have made the thing a bit more convincing in terms of character movements, but it's an okay story.

Taru no Ki Sou no Higeki ("The Tragedy of the House of Barrel Wood") is set in Manchukuo (the Japanese puppet state located in Northeast China and Inner Mongolia) and is about a Japanese man Tooru (a big fan of mystery fiction) and his Russian girlfriend Natasia, who are going to spend Christmas Eve together. They are going to visit a museum in Lüshun during the day, while returning back to Dalian at night to visit Tooru's old friend Fedorov. Tooru and Natasia have a nice day in Lüshun, but after the museum visit, Natasia isn't feeling well, leading to them taking a train later and Natasia returning home after arriving at Dalian, while Tooru visits Fedorov alone to explain how they'll have dinner together another time. When he arrives at Fedorov's home, which is built with the crooked wood from barrels, he sees a set of footsteps in the snow leading in the house, but none out. He enters the house, where he finds Fedorov dead, having been stabbed to death! But there is nobody else in the house, though he does spot a set of clothes and a mask in the garden, but no footsteps, as if the murderer just vanished in the sky. The reader with some knowledge of Japanese mystery fiction will probably recognize the name Tooru, Manchukuo and Dalian immediately, so the "twist" about who Tooru is and why a lot of the elements of this story feel so familiar, will not be a big surprise, but as a historical pastiche, this is pretty good! Yes, this story does feel very close to a certain famous Japanese impossible crime story, but this story can get away with this because it is a pastische, giving a good reason for why it feels so familiar, and it has a few original elements too that are really fun if you know your Japanese mystery fiction. This is most of all a fun story, despite a rather tragic background story that cleverly ties into some of the earlier, but also later stories.

As the title suggests, Touya ni Shisu Onitsura Keibu Manshuujidai no Mihappyou Jiken ("Death on a Freezing Night - An Unpublished Case of Inspector Onitsura In His Manchukuo Period") is an Inspector Onitsura pastiche, based on the police detective created by Ayukawa Tetsuya. Onitsura worked in Manchukuo in the earlier days of his career (like in Ayukawa's debut work Petrov Jiken), and it's always cool to see this unique setting again, as the state doesn't exist anymore as it was. The dead body of Stefan Milovski is found in an empty house in Dalian. The businessman had gone missing a few days and his assistant knows right away who killed him: Stefan's twin brother and his mother. Apparently, the twins had been seperated soon after birth when their parents had to flee Russia. Because they couldn't take care of both children, they gave away one of the twins to a woman: Rosa became the mother of the boy she'd call Rubin. But while Stefan became a successful businessman with the help of his parent's money, Rosa and Rubin always had trouble making a living. Recently, they learned about Stefan and started asking for money, claiming half of the money Stefan made thanks to his parents' money, belongs to Rubin too. Stefan refused however, which may have been the motive for murder. When Onitsura examines Rosa and Rubin's alibis for the night of the murder however, he learns they were in a completely different city, to attend to the wedding of Rosa's niece. Onitsura is convinced they did it, but how could they have committed the murder in Dalian while being hours and hours away by train? It's an Onitsura story, so of course it's an alibi-cracking story with an emphasis on train tables! A bit easy to guess due to the presence of one certain plot element that is probably going to make the reader immediately suspect *something* has occured using that. While Kagami does add a few nice pieces of misdirection, you can't help but shake the feeling the main trick is telegraphed so early, the elements of misdirection just don't do enough.

EDS Kinkyuu Suiri Kaiketsuin - Kaiki Suirika ("EDS: Emergency Detective Solution Hospital: The Strange Deductions Department") is the weird exception of this book, the only story that is not a historical work with pastische elements and the one story that is not in any way connected to the other stories via crossover characters. The EDS is a "hospital" where the "Holmeses" (doctors) also have to detect the curious deaths they oversee. In this story, the Holmes-on-duty examines a woman who called the emergency lines because her boss cut her arm off. When the ambulance arrives there, they find the woman bleeding heavily, but also her dead boss. He has bruises on his neck that appear to have been inflicted on him by a hand squeezing his throat. When the ambulance people talk to the woman, they learn her boss was crying something about a cut-off hand roaming around the house, which had been attacking him: he also cut the victim's arm off because he was surprised by her and thought she was the hand. What is going on and why is there a hand walking around? This is almost a horror story, and the solution is incredibly silly. But I think it works in this volume, as the rest of the stories are so.... serious? Like, the other stories are very serious, straightforward takes on classic locked room mysteries, Carr's work in particular, so this story brings a lot of variety. I like the idea of the EDS too, I wish there had been more of these stories (I guess this story has some traits of the Department of Queer Complaints, but it's not really like that...)

Tetsuro ni Kieta Dantouri ("The Executioner Who Disappeared On The Rails") is the big Carr-Kagami crossover story: Dr. Fell is travelling with a new friend in a train, when he sees Superintendent Hadley travelling in the same train. Hadley and his subordinate Ames are tailing Jacqueline Midget, a key figure in a smuggling ring which uses the old routes from the international master criminal Baldwin, who was arrrested some years ago by Charles Bertrand (and who would play a vital role in Kagami's second novel Kangokutou). It seems that she's finally become aware the police are after her, so Hadley and Ames followed her on the train, fearing she's trying to escape abroad. Hadley and Ames have taken the compartment next to her, in the middle of the carriage, while the remaining car is occupied by a third traveler. Because Jacqueline has remained in her compartment the whole evening, Hadley has come to the dining car to get something to eat, while Ames is watching her. But then Hadley is informed something has happened: Jacqueline is dead and decapitated. Ames had been standing on the outer deck smoking, when he saw someone come out of Jacqueline's compartment and enter the toilet. He called out for the conductor, who was in his room in the carriage, who indeed saw someone enter the toilet. Because the doors in this car lock from the inside, Ames had to ask the conductor to open the deck door for him. But when they look in the toilet, they find it empty. Fearing something had happened, they enter Jacqueline's compartment, where she was found dead and decapitated. But where did the murderer go after entering the toilet, as the train was still moving at high speed? This is probably one of my favorite stories of the volume. Partially because of the crossover elements (it's a pretty impressive Carr crossover), but as an impossible crime, it's quite memorable too. While I do think it's a bit too technical/string-and-needley for my taste (it's just hilarious imagining what the murderer would have needed to prepare beforehand and how...), the construction of the mystery is great, and I really like "that prop" that was used to actually commit the murder. The story is also enjoyable without any knowledge of the crossovers taking place here I think.

Ungadoori no Shounen ("The Boy In the Canal Street") is set in Amsterdam just briefly before World War II. A girl who calls herself Hannah becomes friends with a young American boy, Ted Smith (son of Patrick Smith, the chronicler of Charles Bertrand), playing on the Prinsengracht in the centre of Amsterdam, when they see a policeman asking them about whether they saw someone pass by here. They learn a murder has occured in a nearby trade company, Koster Trading, located in one of the Amsterdam canal houses. Ursula is friends with both Hannah and Ted, and tells them her brother was killed. During business meeting with a new business partner, Ursula's father was talking with this man when they thought it was strange Emil (Ursula's brother) wouldn't come down. When they went up to his room, they found it locked and when they looked inside via the window above the door, they saw he was dead, having been hit on the head. But how could the murderer have done that in a locked room, especially as Hannah and Ted never saw someone leave the house? The trick is simple, but I really love how it makes use of something that is very specifically something typically Amsterdam. The story also becomes a rather surprising crossover, as I think a lot of people will soon recognize names like Hannah and Margot in this time setting, and I honestly had never espected to read a mystery story that would do a crossover with that person...

Sei Alexandria Jiin no Sangeki ("The Tragedy at the St. Alexandria Chapel") is actually the very first Kagami story I ever read over a decade ago, as it was included in an anthology I have. Set in Russia, it's about the death of a priest in the St. Alexandria Chapel who was hung from the very, very high ceiling. While I can appreciate this story more now, as I know see how this story ties back to the other stories in this collection, I'm still not a very big fan of it because it's just... mechanical as a locked room mystery, and even with the diagrams, it's pretty hard to understand what really went on there.

Kubitsuri Hanji-tei no Kimyou na Hanzai - Charles Bertrand no Jikenbo ("The Curious Crime at the House of the Hanging Judge - The Case Files of Charles Bertrand") is the one Charles Bertand short story that hadn't been collected in the short story collection, though it feels like it should have been part of it too, as this story too makes direct references to supernatural beings being responsible for a murder (in this story, poltergeists) like the other stories in that book. Charles and Pat are in England, when they learn about two curious deaths that happened nearby one week ago. Alfred Harbottle was a judge known for a lot of hanging sentence, hence his nickname of the Hanging Judge. He recently married a much younger wife, Catherine. As devouted believers, the whole family of Alfred, Catherine and his son of his deceased first wife, Jonathan, attend the service held a the chapel on the manor grounds each Sunday, but this week, Alfred was feeling sick, so he remained in bed. After the service, the butler, Catherine, Jonathan and the priest remained. They were ready to leave, when Catherine returned to the altar because something had been left there, but the next moment, all three witness swear a dagger just appeared out of nowhere, plunged into her throat! The dagger was a relic of the Harbottle family, which had a special design and said to defeat the enemies of the clan. Grieving for his poor wife, judge Harbottle blames the dagger for the death of his wife, and he decided to lock himself up in one of the rooms of the chapel, together with the dagger. For three days, he remained cooped up in the room, with food being delivered to this room, but on the fourth day, he didn't open the door. They broke the door open, which they also found sealed with tape on the inside, and in the room, they found the judge lying dead in his bed, the dagger plunged into his throat too! Has the Harbottle dagger turned against the people it was supposed to protect, or is there foul play at hand? The answer to the murder on Catherine is of the kind I generally don't like, and this is no exception. It could work with some exceptional clewing, but here it feels kinda cheap, even with the set-up and explanation to how it was supposed to work. The murder on the judge, of which the door was taped down, is a bit more interesting. While I am kinda indifferent about the dynamics of how the murder was exactly committed (this kind of trick is used a bit too often in this collection), I do like the exact use of the dagger, it is the type of "technical" explanation that didn't quite work for me in the previous story, but I think is much better in this one.

Jeff Marle no Tsuisou ("The Memoirs of Jeff Marle") is a direct sequel to Carr's own It Walks by Night, the very first Henri Bencolin novel. Which... I have not read. In fact, I have not read any Bencolin stories... While the book does not spoil the murderer of that book directly, it does touch upon several story elements that sounded important to me, so perhaps some readers will prefer to read this after reading It Walks By Night. Set after the book, it chronicles how Jeff Marle (friend of Bencolin and narrator of the stories) and his fiancée Sharon receive a threatening letter from someone from their past, whom they believed had passed away already.  They are instructed to visit at night Fenelli's former gambling establishment where the events of It Walks by Night occured. In one of the rooms there, which was locked from the inside and which Jeff and Sharon had to break open, they find the decapitated corpse of Fenelli. But there is no sign of the murderer in the room, so Jeff quickly calls for the police (while making sure Sharon locks herself up in one of the rooms to be safe). When the police arrives, it turns out there was another person in another room of the house: a Japanese tourist who learned about the earlier murder that Bencolin solved and became interested in the place. While the Japanese man might not be involved with the murder (and yes, like many of the stories here, if you have some knowledge of pre-war Japanese mystery fiction, you might realize who this historical person is based on his name...), there are other mysteries that complicate the matter, like the sighting of a flying decapitated head... I have to admit I couldn't enjoy this story completely because I kept wondering whether the things that were said about It Walks By Night were vital spoilers or not, I think the idea of a straight sequel makes so much sense for Kagami: his work is so full of Carr, and specifically Bencolin references, and he has already written stories directly based on Carr stories before, so why not do "straightforward" fanfiction? It's also one of the better impossible crimes of the volume, with pretty clever clewing about how the decapitation came to be (especially regarding misdirection about some characters' motivations) and with smaller elements like the floating head adding some depth to the mystery. I might have enjoyed the story better if I had known It Walks By Night, but it's a good mystery nonetheless.

Anyway, this was a pretty big volume so this post is quite a bit longer than my usual posts. I can defnitely recommend Kagami Masayuki Mishuuroku Sakuhinshuu/The Uncollected Works of Masayuki Kagami though! It provides a good insight in the writings of Kagami, and because it's easier to purchase now because it's still in print, whereas the books printed during his lifetime are already out of print, it is the go-to book now if you want to try out his work. Nine of the ten stories are also somehow connected with characters popping up in several stories (one character even gets their whole life fleshed out over the course of several stories), and that makes this more than just a collection of random stories. You also get a good idea of Kagami as a locked room mystery specialist, as basically all stories involve an impossible crime, and most of them are historical works too. At this moment, I have read all of Kagami's work except for his third novel, which, as mentioned, is a bit expensive on the used market, so I won't be reading it soon. I think I still like his first novel the best, but on the whole, he was certainly a very fun author to read, especially if you like John Dickson Carr, and he's dearly missed!

Original Japanese title(s): 加賀美雅之『加賀美雅之未収録作品集』:「わが友アンリ」/「暗号名『マトリョーシュカ』 ――ウリャーノフ暗殺指令――」 /「『樽の木荘』の悲劇」/「凍夜に死す 鬼面警部満州時代の未発表の事件」/「EDS緊急推理解決院 怪奇推理科」/「鉄路に消えた断頭吏」/「運河通りの少年」/「聖アレキサンドラ寺院の惨劇」/ 「『首吊り判事』邸の奇妙な犯罪 ――シャルル・ベルトランの事件簿」/「ジェフ・マールの追想」

Vampire Bats and Scaredy Cats

The world seems full of good men—even if there are monsters in it.

"Dracula"

I have to admit, as much as I like reading short story collections, I really don't like writing reviews for them because they either become too long, or I try to discuss them too briefly...

The last few months, I have been reading the Charles Bertrand stories by Kagami Masayuki, an author who debuted in 1999, but died very young in 2013, having only published three novels and one short story collection, and a handful of uncollected stories. While the uncollected stories were eventually collected, and published posthumously in 2022, it's still a shame this writer who was strongly influenced by John Dickson Carr published so little, His main detective is Charles Bertrand, a character strongly modeled after Carr's Henri Bencolin character, both being former spymasters and current Paris magistrates. I felt the Carr influence very strongly in the first two novels I read (especially the first!), with stories with grandeur focusing on locked room murders and other impossible crimes set in the interbellum and I would definitely recommend a Carr fan (who can read Japanese) to try and trace the Kagami books if possible (they are not in print anymore). The third novel is going for rather a hefty price in the used market though at the moment, so after reviewing the first two books, I skip now to the fourth and final book published during Kagami's life-time: Shibarikubi no Tou no Yakata ("The House with the Hanging Tower"), a 2011 collection featuring five stories with the Paris magistrate Bertrand and his American nephew and assistant Patrick Smith solving a series of impossible crimes, all with a supernatural theme.

While visiting England when he was younger, Charles Bertrand got involved in an old-fashioned duel to the death, but in a very different form than usual. Henry Goodfellows had been accusing Francois Manolisque of being a fraud psychic, whil Manolisque claimed he could make an astral projection of himself and thus commit acts far away from where his physical body is. And thus, the challenge was born: Francois Manolisque declared he would kill Goodfellows, but his astral body would do the job, while his physical body remained in his own home, commonly known as the House with the Hanging Tower, tied up and observed by witnesses. On the night of the duel, Manolisque is put in a suit of armor, and tied to a chair and put inside an underground room in the house. Five witnesses, including Bertrand, keep an eye on Manolisque in the coming hours, until the designated period is over. They check at intervals whether Manolisque is still there. The dagger with which Manolisque declared he would kill Goodfellows is also kept safely inside a box by these five men: with one having the key, another person knowing the code to the combination lock and one physically watching the box itself. Hours fly by and nothing seems to happen, and when it's past the deadline, the five witnesses enter the room again, but to their great shock, they find Manolisque dead inside the armor. And what's more: he's been shot to death, even though the armor is completely intact and nobody ever heard a shot. Meanwhile, Goodfellows is also found dead inside his home thirty miles away, and he was stabbed to death. Shockingly, they learn Goodfellows had shot at his assaillant, and the bullet found in Manolisque matches Goodfellows' pistol, while when they open the box, they find the dagger is stained with blood. At first sight, it seems Manolisque did indeed manage to send his astral body to Goodfellows and that they eventually killed each other, but is that really the case?

The title and opening story Shibarikubi no Tou no Yakata ("The House with the Hanging Tower") is also by far the best story of the book, and I don't mean that because the rest is so awful. It's just a really neatly constructed story that isn't super long, but full of details that help set-up the puzzle and the solution. I don't really get the title to be honest: while there is a dead person eventually found in the tower of the house, the main mystery is of course how Manolisque could've ended up shot to death while he was inside a suit of armor, in a room that was observed by five different people, and how he could've killed Goodfellows at the same time, who was in his own home thirty miles away. I don't think the solution is super surprising, as there are just so many elements necessary to facilite the solution, it's likely you'll think of at least one part of the solution yourself, and from there you could work your way through the whole thing, but the construction o the whole operation is really good, with a keen eye for detail and clues, and the result is simply an incredibly solid impossible crime.

Jinrou no Kage ("The Shadow of the Werewolf") details the first time Patrick assisted his uncle in his investigations. At the time, Paris had been shocked by a series of abductions of young women. When the first woman was found dead, her body was covered in countless of wounds, with the fatal wound being a bite that crushed her throat and people of Paris starting to call the murderous kidnapper the Werewolf. When the wife of Duke Loreine is threatened too, police officers are posted around the duke's home, but they are unable to prevent a tragedy: The wife is staying inside a locked room by herself, but when she doesn't react to calls by the maid and she and the duke look through the keyhole, they find the wife's been decapitated! They manage to open the door, but while the maid has gone to call for reinforcements, the duke is attacked and bitten too, and the "Werewolf" escapes with the wife's head, But how could the werewolf have entered the house, and the victim's room, and later escaping, without the police noticing? The story is rather simple, and a lot of elements have a few similarities with another Kagami story I read recently (* I basically read all of them "recently" as I acquired the books soon after another), so that made the solution probably a bit easier to guess than normal. More a story that is enjoyable due to the pulpy shock factor than being a highlight of the collection.

 

In Wendigo no Sasayaki ("The Whisper of the Wendigo"), Irene Simpson hopes Charles Bertrand can help her uncle Abner, who is apparently being threatened by the widow of Joseph Desbitt, brother of Arthuer Desbitt whom many years ago, helped Abner on his deer hunts in Canada, but who disappeared mysteriously. In fact, it was only recently Joseph too visited Abner, hoping to learn the truth behind the disappearence of his brother, but he could not believe what Abner had to tell: according to Abner, the two had gotten lost on their way, and one night, they were attacked by something that he believed was the Wendigo, and it was the Wendigo who took Arthur's life. Joseph obviously didn't believe this story, but he was later also found dead under mysterious circumstances in Abner's home, which prompted the visit of Joseph's widow and a help to come to Abner to find out what really happened to the Desbitt brothers, and they are not willing to play nice with Abner, who in turn keeps denying any fault. The widow and her companion are allowed to stay at the house, but the following, the companion is found dead in the garden of the Abner residence, but the death is impossible: the man must've dropped from a tremendous height, but considering his location, he obviously did not fall from the clock tower from the neighboring lot. The only explanation seems to be... a Wendigo lifting the man up in the sky and dropping him. Or is it? I think I like the basic idea behind how it was done, but the clewing is a bit sparse, and there's not that much synergy with the Wendigo/Canada backstory, so as a whole, the story feels a bit chaotic? I think I'd have liked the main trick to the impossible fall better if it had been used in a different story where the reveal is set-up a bit better and where *a certain thing* doesn't feel like it came out of nowhere.

The last two stories do feature Charles Bertrand, but are at the same time also directly inspired by two John Dickson Carr stories: Vampire no Tou ("The Vampire Tower") is based on the (backstory mystery) of He Who Whispers, while Circe no Shima ("The Island of Circe") is based on The Burning Court. I haven't read the last one, so I don't know how similar the two are, but Vampire no Tou is very similar in terms of set-up, about a man falling of a tower while he was alone there, and the entrance being watched, and also focusing on a woman who is rumoured to be a vampire. While the actual solution is a bit different from He Who Whispers, it's still very similiar, and if you're familiar with the Carr book, I think you can guess a lot in advance. So I am guessing Circe no Shima is similar. It is about a mysterious woman (a witch) who is seen to commit a murder in a room, but who then disappears completely. Technically, it's a good, solid impossible crime story, but I kept wondering about how much of this would be similar to The Burning Court, so that did distract me. I am fairly sure that someone who has read The Burning Court, might enjoy this story better as a kind of pastische/homage (not to say the story is bad, but I kept wondering how much of it was just mirroring the original story).

This book features insert illustrations by JET, who also did manga adaptations of works by Ellery Queen and Yokomizo Seishi. The art is truly amazing, and you can really see how Bertrand was based on Bencolin!

In the end, I do think Shibarikubi no Tou no Satsujin was the weakest book by Kagami I have read. While the title story is great, and it alone makes the book worth reading, the rest never reaches the same heights. The middle two are a bit 'okay, they're not really bad, but not really memorable either' and the two stories directly inspired by Carr stories, or at least the one I knew, was better, but stayed a bit too close to the source material, taking away some of the surprise. While the art is awesome, I wouldn't say this book is top priority if you want to read Kagami.

Original Japanese title(s):  加賀美雅之『 縛り首の塔の館』:「縛り首の塔の館」/「人狼（ワーウルフ）の影」/「白魔（ウェンディゴ）の囁き」/「吸血鬼（ヴァンパイア）の塔」/「妖女（キルケー）の島」

J.B. as in Jailbird

あなたの声で just next stage resume and "Revive"

「Revive」（倉木麻衣）

 

In your voice, just next stage resume and "Revive"

"Revive" (Kuraki Mai)

Never again...

Allow me to tell you about a person, who read the 2004 book Kangokutou ("Prison Island") by Kagami Masayuki in March, wrote a lengthy review of the like-wise very lengthy book and had scheduled the post to be published in August. This same person tried to edit something in the week before the post was to be published... and accidentally wiped the entire text of the post. And then the empty post was saved, overwriting the previous saved document. 

Sigh.

That person was me. For the first time in over ten years of blogging, I wiped an entire post that was ready and everything. And just the week before it was about to be published. And some months had passed since I had actually read the book and written the post, meaning I honestly didn't remember all the things I wrote about in the post. Today, I bring a post I can guarantee is not even half of what I wrote about originally, and in a way, it's just me trying to squeeze out the little I do remember out of me. At this stage, I honestly don't feel like re-reading the book anymore, so I am afraid that this, for both me and the readers here, will be the non-optimal solution, but I guess it's the best I can for now...

Charles Bertrand, the brilliant Paris magistrate feared by all criminals has a past working for the French secret service during World War I. His old superior, Nathan de Eagleroche is now the head of the Parisian police and has a very special mission for Bertrand, with a very personal connection. Alexei Baldwin was a legendary criminal operating on both sides of the Canal, but who was eventually captured by a joint effort between the police forces of Britain and France: in particular it was Bertrand on the French side, and John Carterbone on the British side who managed to capture Baldwin during a raid, but during this attack, Bertrand fatally shot Baldwin's lover, who was carrying their unborn child. Baldwin was sentenced to a life-time in prison, but he swore he'd get revenge on Bertrand and Carterbone for destroying his operation and killing his loved ones. Baldwin was shipped off to St. Tantoine, an island just off the coast of Marseille, which once housed a castle, but holds a prison complex, as well as a closed-off mine. de Eagleroche has received anonymous information something is going on at the Tantoine Penitentiary Complex, and there are also signs a new smuggling operation is going between Great Britain and France making use of the old routes the Baldwin gang used, so that makes de Eagleroche nervous. He convinces Bertrand to join him in a visit to the island, and they'll also be joined by John Carterbone. But because they don't want to alert the people at the prison, they pretend it's a normal observational visit, which is why Patrick Smith, Bertrand's nephew and chronicler joins the trip, as well as two British art researchers, who truly believe they are here at the island because they have been given an opportunity to examine the parts of the medieval fortress still left on the island.

Arriving on the island, Bertrand wishes to see Baldwin, who is kept in a building seperate from the other prisoners, as the director of the prison claims Baldwin has a certain way to almost hypnotize people to do his bidding, and not even the guards are allowed to have too much contact with him. Carterbone and Bertrand are allowed to meet Baldwin, who however claims something will happen that night. The following morning, one of the prison director's head guards is found dead inside the building where Baldwin was kept: the door was locked from the inside, and what's more, Baldwin himself has gone missing! The director hopes to have Baldwin found on the island quickly, as he doesn't want to inform the mainland authorities about his failure, and fortunutely for him, a storm does prevent them from getting help for the moment. Guards are sent out to comb the island for the escaped criminal, but during this hunt, more mysterious murders occur like a prisoner ending up chopped up in pieces in his cell, a doctor getting hanged from the main tower, and a man suddenly bursting out in flames. Is this the work of Baldwin and will Bertrand be his final target?

Kangokutou was the second novel by Kagami Masayuki, an author who made his "big" debut in 2002 with Sougetsujou no Sangeki ("The Tragedy at the Twin Moon Castle"), but died early in 2013 in his early fifties. His debut novel was very strongly inspired by John Dickson Carr's work, and his detective, Charles Bertrand in particular was modeled after Henri Bencolin, sharing the same background story of being French spymasters turned magistrates and having an American narrator. Kangokutou was a very ambitious sequel, which is reflected in its incredible length, which is easily double the first book. The version I read consists of two volumes of over 500 pages each, in double columns. In a regular pocket release, this would probably put the book well over 1200 pages. Earlier this year, I read Tsukatou Hajime's Misshitsu Kingdom (Kingdom of the Locked Room), which was also around 1200 pages, so for some reason I ended up reading two of these impossible crime epics in one year...

I praised Sougetsujou no Sangeki for being nothing but a homage to Carr, where you could tell Kagami just thought: "I am going to write 1930s style mystery story, exactly like Carr would have done and do it on those terms alone!" and succeeded in that goal. If you had told me the book had in fact been a 1930s book, I would have believed you immediately, and the book was refreshing, knowing it was written in a period in Japanese mystery fiction where a lot of books relied on being a lot more meta-conscious, whereas Kagami played the game as straight as possible. That can be said of Kangokutou too, which is a very straighforward novel despite its length. During their stay on St. Tantoine, several impossible murders occur, while a manhunt is also being held on the island to capture the escaped Baldwin. The island is quite spacious, as it houses more than just the old fortress which now functions as a prison complex, with a big cross-shaped prison with an observation tower and four wings spreading from it as its main attraction. Further away from the prison is a lighthouse as well as an old mine which is now abandoned, because of a cave-in some years earlier, but that does mean there's plenty of place to hide for an escaped convict. Due to the very open nature of the island though, and the fact we hear about a lot of guards (about thirty) who never get a named role, but of whom we know are on the island and participate in the manhunt or otherwise in guarding the prisoners, the story never takes on the role of a closed circle mystery by the way. While the island and the prison is a bit creepy, and there's even a ghastly backstory involving the building where Baldwin is held, the island never feels really dreadful, because it somehow feels rather open as a mystery, with many people walking about in the background who just aren't important enough to earn a name. The book seems a bit claustrophobic at first, but as the story continues, you realize the place is pretty open.

Kangokutou is a long novel, and a lot happens during their stay on the island. In fact, while the story takes two volumes to tell, the denouement of the story happens about half-way through the second volume, meaning you get nearly 300 pages dedicated solely to explaining everything that's been going on. The mysteries range from murders happening in a locked room (cell) and someone assaulting Patrick and escaping unseen to a case of spontaneous combustion. I don't quite remember the details (because... I deleted the original post), but I think Bertrand has to address about ten different mysteries during his explanation of the case, all of them occuring on the island. I think I can safely say right away that in general, Kangokutou impresses more with its number of impossible crimes, than the actual quality. Not that all of them are bad, but of the ten or so mysteries, you can bet more than a few of mysterious deaths in locked rooms relied on Ye Olde Thread and Needle Trick. I am not against them per se, but having multiple of them in one book can feel tiring. 

There are some bigger set-pieces that are more memorable though. The spontaneous combustion, which involves one of the guards suddenly catching fire out of nowhere while standing at the central guard tower is clewed pretty cleverly for example, even if the trick itself is a bit forced. This type of clewing is hard to do I think in a book, but it works quite well here, and you really don't notice it until it's pointed out to you. The biggest set-piece involves the death of a prisoner in his cell and how the murderer managed to escape despite Patrick in the neighborhood of the supposed escape route. While I think the clues pointing to the trick were telegraphed a bit too obviously, which in turn then point too directly to one character, the trick itself is good. I have seen different variations on the same principle, but I always like it when it's executed in a succesful manner, as it requires a lot of planning plot-wise. I did miss some kind of synergy between the various impossible crimes. I wish some of them had a stronger connection between them, but more often than not, the impossible crimes in Kangokutou are discrete instances, and very little data pertaining to one incident, will have any bearing on another incident. That is something that kinda works agains the length of this book, because for the longest time, you just feel like you're reading seperate events that just happen to be happening on the same island, rather than one big epic.

The escape of Baldwin from his private prison, and the way he stays hidden on the island afterwards is probably the most memorable part of the book. He disappears fairly early on in the book after announcing something will happen on the night of Bertrand's arrival on the island, and indeed, the way he spirits himself away from the prison, leaving only a dead guard behind, is mystifying. The solution to how he got away is in hindsight so simple, but clewed cleverly through small actions and conversations. It is quite daring, as if, unlike me, you happen to think of the solution, it'll probably seem very obvious where he's hiding the way things work out, but I quite liked the gambit Kagami played. Kangokutou is quite stuffed, and while I don't think any of the tricks seen here are on their own as memorable as the first murder in Sougetsujou no Sangeki, I think that, keeping in mind some of these murders feel less developed, still an enjoyable murder mystery overall, even if none of them are truly jaw-droppingly amazing.

Oh, and by the way, I wouldn't recommend reading Kangokutou as a whodunnit. At the end, there are just too few suspects who made significant appearances, and were actually given names, who are still alive! The body count is fairly high in this book... I also think Kagami tried a bit too hard to come up with a surprising culprit despite this, because the build-up to the motive/backstory for the culprit is more than bit forced, relying on a lot of coincidence all somehow gathering on St. Tantoine on those days. Surely at the end, a lot of it almost fell comical, in a Mission Impossible-esque manner, where there had to be a surprising twist/connection behind everything.

As mentioned in the introduction, I wrote this replacement post months after reading the book and writing the first post, so I forgot about a lot of the points I did made originally, but overall, I think Kangokutou was an interesting follow-up novel to Kagami's debut. It continues the very much Carr-inspired atmosphere, this time (mainly) set in a prison on a small isolated island, and while not every single mystery is memorable on its own, the fact Kagami managed to stuff this adventure with so much mysteries to solve is already impressive. It's certainly one of the longer impossible crime-focused mystery novels, and people with an interest in Carr will probably find a lot to like about the book. In fact, I read later Sougetsujou no Sangeki was specifically modeled after Castle Skull, so I have a feeling someone with more Carr-reading experience than me might notice more Carr references in this novel too.

Original Japanese title(s): 加賀美雅之『監獄島』

The Moonstone Castle Mystery

誰だ？とびっきりのrivalは

どこだ？まじりっけなしの勇者たち

正々堂々 Say say do 

「くすぶるheartに火をつけろ!!」（影山ヒロノブ）

 

Who? My greatest rivals are  

Where? Heroes who aren’t impure

Fair and square, Say say do

"Light the Fire in Your Smouldering Heart!!" (Kageyama Hironobu)

A lot of the modern Japanese honkaku and shin honkaku works I discuss here, are written on the shoulders of Giants, and not alongside those Giants. By which I mean, many contemporary Japanese puzzle plot mystery novels are written with the concepts of Golden Age detective fiction in mind, but few are them are really "copies" in the sense that you'd mistake them for books actually written in the Golden Age and in fact clearly, build on the concepts. For yes, you may see the familiar tropes of Golden Age detective fiction from locked rooms to alibi tricks in these books, but there are numerous points that show that contemporary puzzle plot novels are indeed, contemporary, written in a completely different context than the books written in the actual Golden Age, besides the fact that many of these books are set in Japan of course. Take the time setting for example: many books are simply set in "the present", which in some cases means a full century since GAD! Normal consumer technology like smart phones and tablets are normal for us now as series like Detective Conan use them a lot in their puzzles, showing how fair-play puzzle plot mysteries don't only work in ye olde Golden Age with limited technology, but how one go beyond that. And then there's the meta-angle: a lot of contemporary mystery fiction from Japan is aware the genre didn't appear out of nowhere, but that there were Giants in the past, often building specifically on their works or themes. The Decagon House Murders (disclosure: I translated it) isn't even shy about its inspiration, featuring characters who have nicknames taken from Golden Age detective authors and a lot of early parts of the book revolving around their discussions of mystery fiction. But also think of the post-modern Late Queen Period problem, a theme Ellery Queen wrestled with in some of their later books, and which is incorporated in the works of Norizuki Rintarou and Maya Yutaka. Some books play with these meta-themes, subverting your expectations based on the work of the Giants, some try to develop a theme further. And another angle that shows these books are indeed not limited by the notion of what is "A Golden Age Mystery" (TM) is of course the way how mainstream it has become to incorporate supernatural or scifi elements in contemporary honkaku and shin honkaku mystery fiction: from fantasy settings like Wonderland (alice) or a world where alchemy exists to actual ghosts and other yokai existing, modern Japanese mystery does a lot to explore the idea of how broad the concept of a "fair play detective story" can actually be by using settings you simply didn't really see often in actual Golden Age mystery fiction.

And then there's Kagami Masayuki, who in the early 2000s basically said "Screw all of that, I am going to write the Golden Agiest mystery that ever existed!" (*unsourced quote).

Kagami Masayuki debuted in 1999 as a mystery author with several short stories he wrote for anthologies, but it was in 2002 he made his "big" debut with the full novel Sougetsujou no Sangeki ("The Tragedy at the Twin Moon Castle") and would continue on writing three more books and more short stories, but he died suddenly in 2013 in his early fifties. A short story collection collecting his uncollected stories was released posthumously, as recent as in the second half of 2022, making his bibliography list only five books long, which is a shame going by what's found in his first novel Sougetsujou no Sangeki. In a way, this book is incredibly refreshing because of the fact it really sets out to emulate a Golden Age mystery novel, and especially the work of John Dickson Carr. Carr's influence can be sensed throughout the whole book, but the interesting past is that Kagami, unlike many of his comporary fellow mystery authors, takes on this challenge of doing a Golden Age mystery novel on those terms alone. He faces the challenge face-on, with no narrative trickery, no fantasy or sci-fi background, no focus on comedy, no Late Queen Problems or meta-discussions on the state of honkaku mystery fiction. This is Kagami, saying "I am going to write 1930s style mystery story, exactly like Carr would have done and do it on those terms alone!" I have seldom read a contemporary Japanese mystery novel that is so... straightforward in tackling this theme and the result is surprisingly good!

Patrick Smith is an American with a mother of French descent and after studying in the old continent, Patricks moves to Paris, as that's where his uncle Charles Bertrand, a brilliant magistrate feared by all criminals, works and Patrick becomes Bertrand's assistant and chronicler. It's these books that lead to Patrick receiving a letter in 1931 from his old professor Neuwanstein, who is currently staying in the Twin Moon Castle, one of the castles in the Middle-Rhine region in Germany near the Lorelei. The Twin Moon Castle is the property of the Oelschlägel family, an ancient clan with a history going back many centuries. Traditionally, daughters are born in the family, and often twins too, and indeed, the current masters of the family are Karen and Maria Oelschlägel, and professor Neuwanstein is currently taking care of Maria, who is prone to having rather fierce mood swings. Other guests at the castle are the Hollywood actor Kurt Reinhart and his entourage. Reinhart has made it big as a "bad guy" actor in gang movies, but he actually grew up in the Twin Moon Castle, as his parents used to be servants here. When he fell in love with Maria however and tried to woo her, he and his parents were thrown out the castle. He's now back with his manager and a director, ostensibly staying at his old home while doing research on German castles for an upcoming film, but it's clear that's not his real goal, and professor Neuwanstein fears he's here to cause trouble and take revenge for what happened to him and his parents in the past. An unsuccesful attempt at poisoning led to the professor writing to Patrick, begging him and Bertrand to come to the Twin Moon Castle to investigate. 

Due to prior engagements, Bertrand is unable to go at once, so he sends Patrick in advance. At the dinner table however, Maria lets a bomb explode when she announces she's going to marry Reinhart and that's she's pregnant, which infuriates her sister Karen. The two fight and argue, and it's clear this will take a while. The following morning, Patrick wakes up to find a small group standing in front of the doors of the two towers that flank the main castle tower. On the left side stands the New Moon Tower, but the group is at the Full Moon Tower to the right. Last night, after their fight, Maria had retreated to the tower room at the top of the Full Moon Tower, but she hasn't been seen since and the tower door is locked and bolted from the inside. They break the door open, walk up the winding staircase to find the tower room door also locked from the inside. When they break that open too, they stumble upon a horrifying sight: a decapitated body lying on the floor. When they take a closer look, they find she was not only decapitated, but also de-handed, and near the body, they find the head and hands lying burnt on the floor. Only one window is open, but that one is facing the back of the castle, which is basically a thiry meter drop to the ground, which is then only three steps away from another 100 meter drop down to the Rhine. Considering Maria had her hands and head cut off and those parts were burned, it is clear she did not commit suicide, but how did the murderer escape as the tower door and the room door were locked from the inside, and the only open exit was a window looking down a very deep fall down? Or was the murder the work of the Black Knight, a legendary Oelschlägel ancestor who was killed by a gang of robbers, but who returned as a knight riding a flying horse to kill the men raping his daughters in the two twin towers and whose suit of armor is standing in the tower room to this day?

1930s setting, a medieval castle near the Lorelei, twin towers, a legend of a flying knight, suits of armors in the tower rooms, decapitations... Yep, you can tell whom Kagami was inspired by.

This is a pretty long novel, but it's stuffed with a lot of mystery goodness. The first murder (yes, first), is definitely the best: a woman murdered in a tower room, which is locked from inside, inside a tower which was also locked, and it is clear it was a murder due to the way in which they found the body, with its head and hands cut off and burned. The way the murder seems to mirror the myth of the flying knight who killed the ruffian raping his daughter in the tower room centuries ago is of course an added goodie. Basically the whole situation is absolutely fantastic as a whole, the high point of the novel. The trick behind this gruesome double-locked room for example makes great use of the unique setting, and while I personally would have liked to see an additional clue, it's still properly clewed and quite surprising. The motive behind why Karen was killed however is perhaps a bigger surprise, as it ties in fantastic with the way the murder was committed and why the murder was committed in a locked room in the first place. For this part alone, this book is already worth the read, because everything behind this murder works so well together in a way that is almost shocking, from method to motive and the whole appearance of the murder.

After the first murder occurs, Bertrand arrives at the castle, but not alone, as he's accompanied by Von Stroheim, a police inspector of the Berlin police force, but also an old friend and foe of Bertrand. During the Great War, Bertrand was an intelligence officer and his path crossed that of Von Stroheim many times, and during this skirmishes, they learned to respect each other very much. But Von Stroheim has never stopped seeing Bertrand as a rival, and this murder at the Twin Moon Castle seems like a good opportunity to see who is really the cleverest of the two. Von Stroheim arranges so he and Bertrand can also stay at the castle and in three days, they are to see who will come up with the more convincing explanation for this murder. At least, that was the original plan, but then more murders occur during their stay. And considering the castle is called the Twin Moon Castle and at this point, only one murder has occured in the Full Moon Tower, you can of course guess the next one happens in the New Moon Tower, and yep, it's another locked room murder. This time, they find the tower room of the New Moon Tower locked from inside, and when they peek inside, they see the decapitated head of the victim lying on the floor, with the key of the room in his mouth. The body, sans head, they find stuffed inside the suit of armor that belongs to this room. This locked room situation isn't as good as the first as a whole, though it has a lot of interesting ideas. Some parts miror the first murder in an interesting way for example, feeling like a "twin" to the other, but some parts seem overly... complex while the murderer really didn't have to do all of that to achieve the same effect. I think a lot of the seperate elements of this second murder are good and as a mechanical locked room, it has memorable parts, but it would have perhaps worked better in a different context, but here some parts of the whole operation feel like they were only done because of the whodunnit angle of the book: a lot of this part is used later in the novel as hints to identify the murderer, and because of that, Kagami has the murderer do a lot that basically only serves as a way to lay a trail of clues, but it feels a bit too artificial here, because you wonder why the murderer go all that trouble from their POV. 

Surprisingly, even more deaths occur after this second tower murder, but they are fairly minor in comparison, and only the third one deserves a minor mention, just because how ridiculous (in the good sense) it is: as a murder trick, it's hardly realistic, but it's so funny to just visualize and as it's not the main problem of the book anyway, it can get away with being a bit silly. As a whodunnit, I think it's pretty easy to guess who did it, especially with the aforementioned clewing and some other parts that stand out a bit too much, but that's not really a problem here: it's the why and how that really make Sougetsujou no Sangeki a worthwile book. 

But the most memorable part, at least for me, was again the way it really sets out to be a Carr-like mystery novel, not just in terms of exterior style, but truly as a work that could've been written in the 1930s. It loses many of the familiar tropes of shin honkaku mystery fiction from the meta-tone to having a true 1930s place/time setting and does not try to really subvert existing mystery tropes and the way it valantly takes on the challenge is fantastic, as the end result is really the kind of novel you'd expect from a 1930s Carr, and it's overall a good one too! Had you told me this was a 1930s novel, I would have believed it. The most meta the book ever gets is Bertrand mentioning being a friend of a certain Dr. Fell from London, but that's it.

So I think Sougetsujou no Sangeki does a great job at what it sets out to do: to present a locked room mystery like John Dickson Carr would've written in the 1930s, and on those terms alone. The result is a book that feels refreshingly old-fashioned, especially considering all mystery stories with supernatural/sci-fi elements I have been reading recently, and especially the first locked room murder situation is a memorable one, so on the whole a fantastic first novel. At the moment, all of Kagami's novels are out of print and only the recently published short story collection is easily available, so I'm a bit dependent on whether I see these books passing by for a reasonable price, but you can bet you'll see more Kagami discussed here!

Original Japanese title(s): 加賀美雅之『双月城の惨劇』