番外編：The 8 Mansion Murders Released

I really should stop doing announcements of upcoming announcements, because it always leaves me with next to nothing to say with the actual announcement...

So yeah, I have little to add to my previous post, but to say that Takemaru ABIKO's The 8 Mansion Murders (original Japanese title: 8 no Satsujin) is now finally available as both a trade paperback and e-book, translated by me and published by Locked Room International. The previous shin honkaku mystery novels brought by LRI were obviously inspired by Agatha Christie (The Decagon House Murders) and Ellery Queen (The Moai Island Puzzle), while also having their own, distinct voice: The 8 Mansion Murders continues that trend of building on the context of Golden Age mystery fiction, but within a modern, setting as the impossible murders committed with a crossbow within a curious 8-shaped house invoke clearly the spirit of John Dickson Carr, which is even emphasized with a genuine Locked Room Lecture. The 8 Mansion Murders is also by far the funniest novel I've translated until now, but don't let the comedy fool ya! Publishers Weekly said in its starrred review the book is "one of the funniest and cleverest novels of its type to hit the English-language market in years."

ABIKO was the third author to debut from the Kyoto University Mystery Club, after Yukito AYATSUJI (The Decagon House Murders) and Rintaro NORIZUKI ('The Lure of the Green Door') (ARISUGAWA Alice was also a student in Kyoto, but he was at Doshisha University). ABIKO's career in the mystery genre expands beyond novels, as he was also the mastermind behind the epoch-making Kamaitachi no Yoru videogame for the Super Famicom in the mid-90s, changing the form of mystery games (an English-language localized version titled Banshee's Last Cry is available on iOS/Android). The Starship Damrey (3DS) and 428 - Shibuya Scramble (first English release in 2018) are some other games he worked on that are available in English, but The 8 Mansion Murders will be the first time one of his novels is published in English translation.

For those who have read LRI's earlier releases of (shin) honkaku mystery novels: you probably know what you can expect, so why wait? For those who haven't yet: I actually think this is the most accessible one until now. Like with the other novels, there are a lot of references to classic mystery fiction, but the banter of the characters in The 8 Mansion Murders is really funny to read and the main impossible mysteries are a blast.

And that's it for today's service announcement. I hope you'll enjoy The 8 Mansion Murders!

番外編：The 8 Mansion Murders

It's that time of the year again! Hay fever? Well, yes, that too, but the last few years, the early spring has also been the period for me to do a service announcement that should interest those who like Japanese mystery fiction.

In 2015, I was more than excited to announce that Locked Room International would publish Yukito AYATSUJI's The Decagon House Murders, and that I was responsible for the translation of that ingenious homage to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. The year after, we followed up with Alice ARISUGAWA's The Moai Island Puzzle, a mystery novel I personally see as one of the greatest Japanese experiments in deduction, beating Ellery Queen at his own game. Both these novels were excellent examples of the shin honkaku, or new orthodox mystery novel movement that started in the second half of the eighties in Japan, when a group of young university students started making their debuts as professional writers with puzzle plot mysteries that harkened back on the Golden Age, but with an imbedded meta-concious tone. In 2017, I worked on The Ginza Ghost, a short story collection of (mostly) impossible mysteries from the 1930s-1940s by Keikichi OSAKA, a brilliant master of the short story who sadly enough became a forgotten writer after World War II, but who has recently regained a very appreciative audience.

For 2018, we're going back to shin honkaku, back to modern puzzle plot mysteries that pay homage to Golden Age mystery fiction, but also build upon that and even dare to go further. By now it's known that the shin honkaku movement was born in Kyoto, as most of the shin honkaku writers originated from Mystery Clubs from universities in the ancient capital of Japan. The most influential was the Kyoto University Mystery Club, where writers like Ayatsuji and Norizuki came from (Arisugawa came from Doshisha University's MC). For Locked Room International's third shin honkaku novel, we have the first novel of the third author who debuted from Kyoto University Mystery Club. Takemaru ABIKO's The 8 Mansion Murders was originally released in 1989, but the English version is scheduled to be released coming May. The novel's a tribute to the impossible crime mystery in the spirit of John Dickson Carr, which also happens to be a hilarious adventure. Comedy is a trademark of Abiko, but don't let the funny bickering between the various characters fool you, as the core is as classic as you can get, with impossible murders inside an odd, "8"-shaped house and! and a genuine locked room lecture!

Publishers Weekly has an early starrred review up and deemed The 8 Mansion Murders "one of the funniest and cleverest novels of its type to hit the English-language market in years." My own review from many years ago can be found here. Of the novels I've done for Locked Room International now, I think The 8 Mansion Murders is not only by far the funniest, it's also the most accessible I think, with a more classic, but certainly not less entertaining set-up.

Takemaru ABIKO writes mystery plots for a wide variety of mediums, and has especially been influential in the videogame world. The game Kamaitachi no Yoru was a genuine game-changer for mystery games back in the mid-90s (the first where you had to input the name of the culprit yourself!), and an English localized version is available on iOS and Android under the name Banshee's Last Cry. He has also worked on the 3DS mystery/science-fiction game The Starship Damrey and on certain scenarios of the fantastic 428 (English release 2018). The 8 Mansion Murders however will be the first time one of his novels will be translated into English.

Anyway, I hope you'll have as much fun with The 8 Mansion Murders as I had with translating it. The book will once again feature an introduction by Soji SHIMADA, and (a lot!) of footnotes both by the author himself and me. For those who enjoyed The Decagon House Murders and/or The Moai Island Puzzle, I'd say this is a must-read, as it builds on the same tradition, but with a very different tone from those works.

Zero Focus

"The record, therefore, which I am about to set down is the first complete and unedited history of the Greene holocaust. It is, I hope, unnecessary for me to state that I have received official permission for my task. I feel that now the truth should be known, for it is history, and one should not shrink from historical facts. Also, I believe that the credit for the solution of this case should go where it belongs"

"The Greene Murder Case"

Warning: there is a big chance that the next post to be published, will be about Sherlock Holmes reincarnated as a dog. You have been warned.

Man, I have postponing writing the review for 0 no Satsujin for so long, that I actually read the sequel in the meantime. Yes, I am good at postponing things. So let's just make this a double review to get it all over with: today, the last two novels in Abiko Takemaru's Hayami siblings series. I had already reviewed 8 no Satsujin a couple of months ago and this is one of those rare, very rare cases where I read the books in a series 1) in the right order and 2) complete the series within a relatively short space in time.  The first novel in the series (also Abiko Takemaru's debut) was really fun and a well-constructed, but not particularly surprising impossible crime novel I t was not bad in any way however and Abiko has a very easy to read writing style, which makes his novels ideal as 'filler' material between 'heavier' reading material.

Police detective Hayami Kyouzou is having another difficult case in 0 no Satsujin ("The 0 Murders"), surrouding the small family of wealthy (and old!) heiress Fujita Katsu. Her only living relatives are her younger brother Genji and her nephew and niece Kushida Tatsuo and Hiroko. In fact, these people don't have any family of their own either, so these four people are all they have in the world. And someone is killing them, one by one, starting with the poisoning murder on not the old Katsu, but instead her young niece Hiroko! Why kill someone with no money? Who has any reason for killing off a small family with almost no ties to the outside world? Kyouzou has no idea, so he calls in the help of two experts on family holocausts in fiction: his younger brother and sister Shinji and Ichio, who happen to be huge fans of detective fiction.

The novel starts quite surprising with not a Challenge to the Reader, but a Notice of the Writer, where Abiko sorta tells the reader he left enough clues for the reader to deduce who the murderer is, and he is even so nice as to give you a list of suspects, saying that all other characters are definitely not involved with the murders. The tone of the Notice might not be very aggressive, but yes, this is just a nicer written Challenge to the Reader. I thought it pretty interesting as most novels don't feature a Challenge to the Reader until the point where all hints are given, which can also make a Challenge to the Reader come as a surprise. If you are not expecting it to be such a detective novel, your 'reading mode' might be totally different. In that sense, it is more fair to include such a Challenge at the beginning and I think it might also be a remnant of Abiko's time at the Kyoto University Mystery Club, where Guess the Criminal scripts are technically all stories feature a Challenge to the Reader.

The puzzle of the holocaust of the family is rather easy to solve though and while the story is definitely fun to read (again, Abiko's writing style is very easy to read), I wouldn't recommend this novel that easily. I would definitely recommend it if you like Abiko's sense of humor (as seen in his other novels, or Kamaitachi no Yoru) and it is certainly not a bad detective novel (though it is sure to be seen with some disagreeing eyes by some mystery fans), but it is also I think the weakest of the three Hayami sibling novels, with actually little incentives that keep the reader attached to the text besides the easy-to-read style. The slapstick humor is also toned down a bit, which makes 0 no Satsujin a rather dry and short book, that at times feels more like an extended plot-outline than a fullfledged novel.

Möbius no Satsujin ("The Möbius Murders"), set just after the events in the previous novel, presents Kyouzou with a new partner (the female detective Kijima) and a new case: a mysterious series of murders in metropolitan Tokyo. The victims vary from little children to elderly men. The only thing that suggests a link between the seperate murders: notes left at the murder scenes with enigmatic number-sequences on them ("2-2", "3-1" etc.). What is the missing link that exists between the seemingly random murders and will Kyouzou be able to stop the murderer? Meanwhile, we also follow the 'adventures' of a teenager called Shiina Toshio, who together with an unknown partner has been going around killing people...

Möbius no Satsujin starts out as a serial murder case like The ABC Murders, then turns into a missing link story like Cat of Many Tails, interspersed with suspense elements where we follow the named murderer. Seems a bit chaotic, but it works and the first two-thirds of this story are very fun to read. It might feel a bit light for some readers too: Abiko's trademark easy writing and slapstick humor kinda undermines the gravity of a serial killer on the loose in the city, but if you can accept that, this should provide for a few hours of entertainment.

Some elements of the the missing link part of the story are good, some not so. The link between the murders is a pretty original one, but the concept behind the enigmatic number sequences left at the crime scenes is almost impossible to guess a priori. The missing link is also revealed halfway through the story, shifting the focus of the investigation towards finding the murderers, but that part is definitely the worst part of the story, with a really unbelievable identity of Toshio's partner. It might have worked if this story was written in a different tone, but it just doesn't work here. It feels so out of tone, that it leaves a somewhat bad aftertaste, despite the entertaining main body of the story.

Taking these two novels together with 8 no Satsujin, it becomes a bit more clear what Abiko did with this series though. 8 no Satsujin featured an impossible murder, 0 no Satsujin the holocaust of a family, Möbius no Satsujin serial murders and a missing link. With all three novels, Abiko used a famous trope of older detective fiction, which he examined using the characters of Shinji and Ichio. Shinji and Ichio constantly reference Golden Age novels when contemplating about the cases, effectively acting as proxies for the genre-savvy reader. Abiko also subverses the tropes in several ways in his novels (I won't go into details for fear of spoiling people). Of course, the detective genre is one that makes extensive use of tropes and subversing them, but there is a difference between coming up with a new solution for an existing trope in the genre, and actually starting kicking at the fundementals of said tropes. These novels make Abiko's place in the history of New Orthodox novels a bit clearer to me at least.

Taken apart, these novels are certainly amusing stories, but they are not what I'd first think of when talking about the New Orthodox writers. I would not advice people to not read them either though, as they are competently written mystery novels. Taken as a set, the three Hayami siblings novels becme a place Abiko manages to have a small discussion about Golden Age novels. Together, they form a better way to explain his position within New Orthodox detective fiction, but I think that in terms of pure originality, Abiko's influence in the genre of mystery gaming is far more important than his novels, so if you had to choose, I'd say you'd need to go play Kamaitachi no Yoru instead.

Original Japanese title(s): 我孫子武丸　『０の殺人』 『メビウスの殺人』

The Hollow Man

「いいわよ、いいわよ。美人は人殺しなんてしないのよね。嘘もつかないし、おならもしない」

"So beautiful woman don't kill. They don't lie. They don't fart. Right?"

"The 8 Murders"

I am still not sure whether it is a smart idea for my thesis topic (which I am supposed to work on here), my hobby and my club to all be about the same topic. But there are of course good parts to it. I spent the whole day reading a book, but at least I can sorta say that I worked on my thesis. And prepared somewhat for the Mystery Club meeting on Friday. And that I have something to write about on my blog.

It is no coincidence that I read Abiko Takemaru's 8 no Satsujin ("The 8 Murders") after Arisugawa Alice's Gekkou Game. For both of these writers are 'founding' members of the New Orthodox movement and these two books also happen to be their debut works. If you take a look in the library, you'll notice that I have reviewed a couple of Abiko's works, most of the being original scenarios for videogames (including the awesome Kamaitachi no Yoru). Yet I was never sure whether the scenario's he penned for videogames were similar to his novels, so I was interested in seeing how 8 no Satsujin would turn out. The story opens with the murder (by crossbow!) on Hachisuka Kikuichirou, the son of the director of Hachisuka Construction. The murder was committed in the Hachisuka mansion, commonly known as the "Eight Mansion", because of the strange design featuring an inner courtyard, resulting in an 'eight'-like shape when viewed from above. Eyewitnesses claim to have seen the murderer shoot from the room of the son of the mansion's caretaker, but the son naturally denies having commited the murder and to be honest, even the eyewitnesses themselves don't believe he could have done it. But the fact remains that his room was locked (and he was sleeping there), so it was not possible for someone else to have entered that room to shoot the crossbow.

Well, unless the murderer could fly and walk through walls, which would account for the second murder, where forensics say the arrow was shot from a place only someone with wings could have been! And because police inspector Hayami Kyouzou is having troubles solving the case himself, he allows his younger brother and sister, Shinji and Ichio, two self-professed mystery freaks, to help him with this case. Because who besides mystery fans could solve these kind of crimes?

First thing that I noticed: Abiko really likes teasing his characters. I thought it was just something specific to Kamaitachi no Yoru, but Abiko seems to like to put people in awkard situations and see them suffering. The things Hayami's subordinate Kinoshita has to suffer through are just horrible, but Shinji and Ichio are just as happy to tease their big brother about everything. There is a distinct humorous tone to Abiko's writing and while I prefer the comedy-mystery fusion Higashigawa Tokuya offers, Abiko's stories should appeal to those with a want for a humorous (and slightly sadistic) tone to their stories. His writing style is also very easy to read through, and it should take not that much time to go through.

As a debut work of someone from the Kyoto University Mystery Club, it is tempting to compare it to books like Gekkou Game and Jukkakukan no Satsujin. What is funny is that 8 no Satsujin feels quite different from those books actually: there is no university mystery club featured heavily in the story, no closed circle setting, students don't feature as the protagonists. Heck, while Shinji and Ichio are the brains of the Hayami siblings, Kyouzou is still part of the team and he is an actual police detective, so they can't even be considered 100% amateur detectives. Is 8 no Satsujin different from the other two, or are the two books mentioned just very similar? There is of course a lot similar too: most visible in the distinct meta-conscious writing style. We have tons of references to the classics here (including a couple of references that sadly enough border on the spoiler-ific) and we even have a genuine locked room lecture, which Shinji himselves considers a continuation of especially Carr's famous one from The Hollow Man. Carr is actually referenced a lot in this story, which is understandable seeing the (seemingly) impossible crime situations here.

The impossible crimes are... perhaps somewhat easy to solve however. The first one is very easy to see through, because it is based on a very old trick. It only becomes more confusing if you add in the second murder, which again is not that surprising as a stand-alone murder, but it can work quite effectively if you manage to add it in just the right impossible-looking ingredients. Abiko is relatively successful with that, but I have the same feeling with this book like I have with Kamaitachi no Yoru and the other stories I've read of him: he can write very entertaining, his tricks are not bad and he is certainly knowledgable about the genre, but the elements on their own are not surprising. I've yet to see something as imposing as Sensei Jutsu Satsujin Jiken or Jukkakukan no Satsujin. Abiko is certainly an above average writer, but I've yet to see a trick that moves the heavens. Or something like that.

Oh, and going back to the closed circle thing I mentioned (sorry, I write these reviews just as I go, without making drafts and I really hate having to re-arrange everything again). In their debut works, Ayatsuji and Arisugawa both went through the troubles to create closed circle situations, cutting the people off from modern day forensics / police forces / other information lines. By doing this and explictly addressing this, these two writers showed that there was indeed the problem of technology and other things that upset the 'old' model of the detective novel and while their 'solutions' were kinda artificial (though Ayatsuji's approach certainly has its merits), it showed that both writers were trying to get the old model to work in modern times. Abiko's 8 no Satsujin hardly shows such ambitions and it could have been set in any time and place. Heck, I am not even sure whether it was set in contemporary times!

8 no Satsujin is thus a pleasant  (and especially funny) read, but at times struggles to be truly surprising, though it keeps up a high, consistent level.  It is a 'safe' story, doing the things it should do as a locked room murder mystery in a more than adequate way and it also offers some of the distinct meta-conscious, New Orthodox storytelling, but it lacks a bit of the unexpected other writers of the same generation had.

And now I need more sleep. Why does it always takes weeks for me to get back to a normal sleeping routine in Japan?

Original Japanese title(s): 我孫子武丸　『８の殺人』