Ghost in the Machinery

「最後の列車を待つ　疲れ果てた真夜中のホーム」

 「ファイティングポーズの詩」（馬場俊英）

"Waiting for the last train / on the platform in the dead-tired night"

"Fighting Pose Song" (Baba Toshihide) 

One of the little things I like, but seldom use in Japanese trains are those turning seats! The ones in the trains of the Eizan line in Kyoto are especially cool, as you could turn them to the windows to admire the falling fall leaves.

Akagawa Jirou is one of the most prolific and famous mystery writers in Japan, best known for his light-hearted detective stories with a comedic tone, like the Calico Cat Holmes series. He was especially active from his debut in the late seventies until the late eighties, and there have been numerous adaptations of his work on television, the silver screen and even videogames. He made his debut in 1976 with the short story Yuurei Ressha ("The Ghost Train"), which is also the title of today's book: the short story collection Yuurei Ressha ("The Ghost Train", 1978) includes five stories in Akagawa's long-running Ghost series. The book opens with The Ghost Train naturally, which introduces us to the protagonists of this series: Chief Inspector Uno from the Metropolitan Police Department is given a few days "off" to spend in a small resort town with a hot spring. He is to look informally into a certain mysterious incident that happened a few days ago: the eight passengers who stepped inside the very first train that day disappeared, as an empty train arrived at the second station in the line. There's nothing but mountains and forests between the two stations and a search gave no results. At arrival in town, Chief Inspector Uno starts poking around, but he's not the only one interested in the case: he also runs into the female college student Nagai Yuuko, who is a fan of detective stories and hopes to solve the case herself. And to Uno's surprise, this active and lively girl is
more than just words.

To start: what's up with Akagawa Jirou and couples with an age difference? Uno (in his forties) and Yuuko (early twenties) flirt a bit around in the first two stories and end up dating, but the middle-aged man and female college student couple is something that happens a lot in Akagawa's stories. Tantei Monogatari, Satsujin wo Yonda Hon.... The female college student is usually the detective character by the way, but for some reason she's always being courted by a man about twice her age.

Anyway, back to the story collection. The opening story Yuurei Ressha certainly has an alluring mystery, with eight people disappearing from a running train. One shouldn't expect some kind of grand trick to this disappearance though: the solution is rather mundane (yet practical). The beef of the story lies with figuring out why this happened, and I quite like the motive. Some events that happen feel rather like a lucky break for the detecting couple, but overall an okay story. Yuurei Ressha was also adapted as a videogame by the way: Akagawa Jirou no Yuurei Ressha ("Akagawa Jirou's Ghost Train") was released in 1991 for the Famicom, and has some surprising names attached to it, like Ikeda Misa doing the scenario and Dragon Quest composer Sugiyama Kouichi responsible for the music.

The second story Uragirareta Yuukai ("The Betrayed Kidnapping") is set some time after Yuurei Ressha. Uno and Yuuko hadn't seen or spoken each other since the train case, but their reunion is not a happy one: Uno is asked to head the investigation into a kidnapping case of the teenage daughter of a businessman. Yuuko happens to be the tutor of the girl, making her a part of the investigation too. As a mystery story I think the conclusion is not as shocking as intended and it's pretty easy to guess who the true kidnapper is, but there's a very good piece of misdirection going early on in the story. In Kooritsuita Taiyou ("The Frozen Sun"), Uno and Yuuko are staying in a resort hotel, when Uno runs into an old friend: a skilled pickpocket who has since reformed. The two recognize another man, a notorious blackmailer, and Uno suspects the man's blackmailing one of the other guests at the hotel, a mother of three. Uno, Yuuko and the ex-pickpocket plan to get the blackmailer to back off, but to their great surprise, they find him dead in his hotel room balcony. And what's more surprising: the man froze to death even though it's summer! The truth behind how and why the man was frozen to deeath is quite hard to swallow, as it's incredibly hard to imagine things could've gone this way, but I have to admit it was pretty shrewdly clewed.

In Tokoro ni yori, Ame ("And locally, rain"), Yuuko has to arrange a number of guest lectures for the university fair and she manages to have her boyfriend Uno do one about his police work for free. While discussing the plans with her supervising teacher, the body of the teacher's assistant is found in the cellar of the faculty. At first it appears he just fell from the staircase, but for some reason, the man was dressed in a raincoat and boots, even though it was not raining outside! Later, another assistant is found murdered near his home, and he too was dressed in the same outfit. How are these deaths connected? The truth behind the various deaths isn't that difficult to guess, but the truth behind the raincoat and boots was pretty inspired and aptly clewed. In the final story, The Festival of The Good Folk Village, Uno and Yuuko hope to spend New Year in a resort town, but an avalanche prevents the train from proceeding any more. Uno runs into a fellow police officer from the Metropolitan Police Department, who says his home village is around here, and he invites Uno and Yuuko to "The Good Folk Village", a small community up in the mountains. The two are welcomed extremely warmly by the people there, but slowly, Uno and Yuuko sense there's something wrong with the village, but what? This story doesn't really work as a detective story for the reader to solve, and has more common ground with horror stories.

Yuurei Ressha is on the whole not a story collection that will leave a very big impression, but it's never really bad either. The comedy between playful Yuuko and the older Uno is pretty fun to follow, and while the individual stories are never masterpieces, there's usually one or two ideas to be found that I at least thought pretty good. The Ghost series is one of Akagawa's long-sellers by the way: there are 24 short story collections and 2 novels, published between 1978 and 2017. I don't have any plans to read more of the series for the moment, but perhaps, if they happen to cross my path...

Original Japanese title(s): 赤川次郎『幽霊列車』: 「幽霊列車」/「裏切られた誘拐」/「凍りついた太陽」/「ところにより、雨」/「善人村の村祭」