Mystery on the Menu

"Only in England is the coffee so atrocious. On the Continent they understand how important it is for the digestion that it should be properly made."

"The Big Four"

I actually have a story to tell about this book, but now is not the time... yet. Probably! Maybe in the future!

Disclosure: I translated Higashigawa Tokuya's Lending the Key to the Locked Room. If you haven't read it yet... read it! 

Murasaki Renji, a writer for the magazine Future Weekly for the publisher Hodansha (do not confuse for Modern Weekly of Kodansha), is sitting on a big story, but his editor won't accept Renji's first draft of his article. Renji is mixed up with a genuine murder case, with a crucified victim no less. The victim is Renji's uncle professor Takafumi Midorikawa, who was found inside the annex in the garden, his lifeless body bound to two planks which formed a cross. The man had been strangled before he had been put on the cross and left inside the annex, which had been discovered with the door locked from the inside. Renji had been visiting his aunt and uncle that day, who live with another relative in a spacious home. The professor was actually having an affair with a student of his, and Renji's aunt had asked Renji to keep an eye on the professor while he was in the annex, to make sure he wouldn't slip away. The following morning, the professor still wouldn't come out of the annex, so Renji, his aunt and the other relative go and check up on the professor, only to see him lying on the floor, his body fixed to a cross. But how did the murderer get inside and out again, without being seen by Renji last night and locking the door from the inside? That is the answer Renji's editor also wants to know, as he doesn't care much for simply a personal, and yet sensationalistic account. While trying to come up with a possible answer to the impossible crime, Renji wanders around the streets of the ancient capital Kamakura, when he notices a sign saying "Ippukudou" standing in front what appears to be a private home, but it's in fact a quaint little café. Inside, he finds one of the customers is the police detective Akane, who is friends with Yoriko, the extremely shy proprietor of the café who can't speak with first-time customers because of how nervous she gets. Renji decides to confide his story to Akane, hoping she give him some pointers for a possible solution, but to his great surprise, it's not the veteran police detective, but that shy woman dressed in traditional Japanese clothing behind the counter who'll turn out to be the armchair detective in Higashigawa Tokuya's short story collection Junkissa Ippukudō no Shiki ("The Four Seasons of Café Ippukudou", 2014).

If you have been reading my blog for some while now, you'll probably be familiar with the name of Higashigawa. Not only because I translated his debut novel Lending the Key to the Locked Room, but because I very often discuss his work here. His trademark light-hearted style where he uses the slapstick comedy in his stories to ingenously hide clues for the mystery plot is something I'll never stop loving, and he writes consistently enough for every read to be worthwhile. Most of the work I discuss by Higashigawa belong to the same few series (Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de (The After-Dinner Mysteries), Koigakubo Academy and the Ikagawa City), though I have read a few of his other series or non-series work too. Junkissa Ippukudō no Shiki is also the first book in a series, all with an armchair detective setting (the second book is set in an izakaya, though I am not sure if it's the same Yoriko as in this book). Yoriko is a fun character: extremely shy when it comes to first-time customers, to the extent she can't even manage to ask the customer their order and she has next to no confidence in her coffee-making skills, as she inherited the Café Ippukudou, but she listens very carefully to the discussions her customers have, and once she notices something her customers don't, she won't hesitate to snap (somethings breaking plates in the process) to tell them how they're on the completely wrong track (often by comparing their thoughts to her own, badly made coffee).

The four stories in this book are all set in different seasons (hence the title), but another connecting theme between the four stories is surprisingly, the gruesome murders. While the stories are told within the setting of the quaint Café Ippukudou, with Yoriko often clumsily trying to serve her customers, who are bantering about whatever case they got involved with (in a comedic manner, of course), the cases are actually quite grim, with grotesque murder scenes. The contrast between the framing story, and the actual case is pretty significant, and it leads to an unusual, but very alluring tone at times.

The opening story, Haru no Juujika ("A Crucifix on Spring") for example has the victim crucified (well, tied to a cross) and discovered under seemingly impossible circumstances, as the annex had been watched for Renji for most of the night, and the door was locked from the inside. The story provides three suspects, because three is the magic number (the aunt, the relative and the student with whom the victim was having an affair), but none of them appear to have been able to enter the annex (and certainly not unseen). The solution to the problem is probably not very surprising if you're experienced with these kinds of locked room mysteries, but I think it works well enough, considering the limited page count and Higashigawa did enough to properly clue the path to the solution too, so while not a gem by any means, I think it's a very capably plotted story, that shows that Higashigawa at least knows how to handle t a plot that could've come out a lot less enterrtaining if not for his experience.

In Mottomo Ryoukitekina Natsu (A Most Macabre Summer), Renji is meeting someone at Ippukudou: Miyuki got involved in a murder case recently, and is being interviewed by him. On a summer day, Miyuki was helping her childhood friend Kousaku on his rice farm, cutting weeds together. They see three people visiting Kousaku's neighbor Nakazono's place that afternoon: a representative of a supermarket that wants to buy Nakazono's land, Nakazono's ne'er-do-well cousin, and the local madwoman who started a snake cult. All three seem to find the house empty, as they each of them go inside and leave after a short while. After finishing their work and having dinner together, Miyuki returns home only to be sent to Nakazono's place to return a pineapple cutter. She finds the door unlocked, and inside, she discovers Nakazono's dead body has been tied to a cross, placed against the main pillar of the house The man was killed during the afternoon, but which of the three visitors killed the man? This story competes with the last story for being the best: while the set-up is very simple, I love how the incriminating clue was hidden in the text: it's easy to overlook it, but once you realize its significance it points so clearly to the culprit, and it's quite daring in that regard. 

Kiritorareta Shitai no Aki ("A Cut-Up Body in Fall") has the not very succesful author Minamida Gorou visiting his friend, the very successful Higashiyama Atsuya (not to be confused with Higashigawa Tokuya, of course). Higashiyama invites Minamida out for a night of drinking, and after saying goodbye to Higashiyama's secretary/assistant/lover Nakahara Saeko, they spend the night hopping bars and end up in a karaoke bar with a guy they don't even know. When they return to Higashiyama's home in the morning, they find Renji in front of the house: he had an appointment with Saeko to discuss a project for Higashiyama, but she won't respond at all. Minamida and Renji decide to check if Saeko's in her own apartment, but they find the door not locked, and inside the bathroom, they stumble upon her body, minus some body parts like her head. The following day, her head and other parts are found scattered around town in gardens and other places. Minamida and Higashiyama end up discussing the case at Ippukudou, after hearing Renji talking about Yoriko, and indeed, she quickly points out why the murderer must've cut the body up in pieces and more importantly, who the murderer is. This story suffers a bit from the limited page count of the stories: there are extremely few characters in this story and basically only one is a viable suspect, meaning the story doesn't really have whodunnit aspect, only a howdunnit, but once you can safely guess who done it, you almost immediately arrive at the how as the possibilities to commit the murder for this person are just too limited. So this story feels a bit too straightforward, and it would have felt more satisfying if the story had a larger scale. 

Barabara Shitai to Misshitsu ni Fuyu ("A Chopped Up Body and a Locked Room in Winter") has Akane visiting Café Ippukudou again, and after some chatting, she's asked to tell about a case she had mentioned she had been working on the last time she visited (when she met Renji in spring at the Café). She and her subordinate had by driving along a road undergoing reperations after part of it collapsed the previous night, when a patrol officer notes he feels something off about one of the two lonely houses standing in front of the site: the lights in the house have been on since the previous night, but not once has the inhabitant come outside or even peeked outside at the construction work. They take a closer look and through the windows, they find the man lying dead inside in the living room, his throat having been cut with the knife lying besides him. They break inside as the doors and windows are all locked, and while searching the house, they stumble upon a second body, which is lying in pieces in the bath tub. Because the house is completely locked from the inside, and the chopped-up body obviously didn't commit suicide, it appears the first man must've killed the other man (his brother), chopped him up in parts, but then committed suicide by slicing his own throat. However, Yoriko quickly points out there's one other possibility, which is actually quite ingenious! While I liked Mottomo Ryoukitekina Natsu for its simplistic set-up and the execution, this final story is probably the best in terms of actual plotting and clewing: the solution Yoriko proposes comes in two parts, both quite surprising, and they result in an extremely memorable solution for this locked room mystery. The first part isn't really fairly clewed perhaps, but it plays wonderfully with the expectations and assumptions of the reader, and even adds a surprisingly emotional touch to an otherwise very light-hearted collection of stories, while the second part of the solution (the actual howdunnit) is just... a very unique way to commit a locked room mystery. It's not completely fair because unless you are aware of a certain thing, you wouldn't know it could be used in that manner (and they only first mention it explicitly in the solution), but the idea itself is both original and memorable, and it's especially the two-part set-up, with the first part of the solution allowing the introduction of the second part of the solution, that makes this a very unique locked room mystery.

Overall, I enjoyed Junkissa Ippukudō no Shiki: it's not big epic mystery by any means, but it's a short, yet pleasant read, where Higashigawa gets to show off his trademark style of comedic writing coupled with proper puzzle-focused mysteries, and he certainly always manages to keep a certain level of quality, and that consistency is also found in this book. Perfect material to squeeze in your schedule between thicker and darker mysteries. I might return to Ippukudou myself in the future too, because I am curious to see how the second book works as it has a different setting, but seemingly also (a?) Yoriko working there as the armchair detective.

Original Japanese title(s): 東川篤哉 『純喫茶「一服堂」の四季』:「春の十字架」/「もっとも猟奇的な夏」/「切りとられた死体の秋」/「バラバラ死体と密室の冬」

The King is Dead

“The trial cannot proceed,” said the King in a very grave voice, “until all the jurymen are back in their proper places—all,” he repeated with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as he said so.  

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

Huh... they did the title for these covers in yellow twice in row now...

Disclosure: I am a member of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. But as always, I didn't vote for the stories this year.

Honkaku-Ou is the annual summer anthology collecting the best honkaku short stories published the previous year, as selected by the members of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. The publication is basically a companion to the Honkaku Mystery Award, which is awarded to the best published book (novel or short story collection) each year. Short stories often get lost as time passed by, as they are commonly published in magazines or online. Unless they are later collection in a short story collection or an anthology like this one, short stories can become difficult to track down several months later. Anthologies like Honkaku-Ou ensure these stories can be easily found. The current format of five, six stories in 1 volume started in 2019 and I have been discussing the books annually since, and there have been some really cool inclusions in these books, so I was of course also looking forward to this year's entry: Honkaku-Ou 2024 ("The King of Honkaku 2024").

Honkaku-Ou 2024 opens with Ja, Kore wa Satsujin tte Koto de ("Okay, So This Was Murder") by Higashigawa Tokuya, and the story is part of his Ikagawa City series (disclosure:  I translated Higashigawa Tokuya's Lending the Key to the Locked Room, the first book in the series). This is a hilarious inverted mystery, where Oomaeda Noriyuki plans to kill his uncle, Tokujirou, in order to become owner of Oomaeda Pharmaceuticals himself. The idea is Noriyuki will use the trick from a locked room murder mystery he read as a kid to make it seem like his uncle committed suicide in the annex of his seaside mansion, where his uncle usually sleeps. Noriyuki sets the plan in motion, and while the moment when his uncle didn't die immediately and was about to grab a pen to write down a message on the floor was a bit scary, his uncle died before he could hold the pen, so with that, the scene is set. The following morning, he drags his younger brother Toshiyuki and his aunt to the annex to discover the body after his uncle didn't appear at breakfast. Their aunt faints upon the sight of her husband's apparent suicide, but Toshiyuki reveals something to Noriyuki he hadn't been aware of: their uncle had a life insurance, and his two nephews are beneficiaries, but no money will be paid out in cases of suicide. So Toshiyuki suggests to his brother... to make their uncle's suicide appear like somebody killed him, using a locked room murder trick! Soon after, familiar faces from the Ikagawa City Police Station arrive, but can Noriyuki manage to walk this tight rope of 'multiple truths'? Absolutely hilarious story, and I really like the simple, but inevitable mistake Noriyuki made that of course eventually leads to the police solving this case of suicide/murder. Nothing complicated here, but a real short, but nice showcase of what can make trope-relient puzzle mysteries so much fun.

Yuuki Shinichirou was featured in last year's anthology too with a story in the same series as Akuryou Taisan Tebasaki Samgye-tangfuu Soup Jiken ("The Case of the Evil Spirits Begone Chicken Wings Samgye-Tang Soup"). And yes, that's another odd title. The narrator in this series is a struggling comedian, who has a part-time job as a kind of Uber Eats driver. One of the shops he works for is rather special: it is one cook who pretends to be running multiple restaurants offering different cuisines, but it also serves as a detective agency. By making very specific orders, usually combining different dishes which usually have no business being ordered together, clients can engage the detective/cook's services. The delivery guy acts as a kind of Watson, delivering the food, but also interview the client for details and occasionally do some extra research. In this tale, the cook is hired to investigate a rather creepy happening in an apartment complex: the client says food has been delivered to the empty apartment next to his more than a few times now. The food was placed in front of the door, and at first, the client thought it had been delivered to the wrong door, but nobody on his floor had ordered any food. This repeated itself more than a few times. Eventually, food and other items were even delivered to another empty flat on a different floor in the building too, where somebody had committed suicide before. After installing camera security and an auto-lock front door to stop the delivery men, the phantom deliveries stopped, but they never figured out who made the orders and why. Or was it really a ghost who wanted something to eat? I still don't really get the necessity of the set-up of the cook and the uber driver, but I do like this mystery. It's a harmless one, but the idea of food being delivered to an empty apartment is pretty creepy, especially if it's one where somebody died in the past. The explanation for the ghostly deliveries is not only convincing, but Yuuki does a great job at setting up the clues, making it a really fair story too.

Kitayama Takekuni's Mikansei Gekkou - Unfinished moonshine ("Unfinished Moonshine") is written as a homage to Edgar Allan Poe, and starts with the narrator visiting Toudou, an old writer friend, who wants to consult the narrator on something important: Toudou says he found an unpublished and unfinished manuscript by Edgar Allan Poe, but the manuscript has been occupying his mind since, making him hear "their" voices who tell him he needs to finish it. The problem is: Toudou doesn't know how. The manuscript tells the story of someone who returns to his destroyed home and runs into a girl in a hut outside of town, who soon dies. The man then goes to sleep in a lookout tower, with a view of the hut, but the following morning, the whole hut has disappeared completely. Toudou doesn't know how the hut could've disappeared, meaning he can't write the conclusion, so the narator must come up with a solution. This is a cute (?) short story, brimming with Poe themes, imagery and references. The explanation for the disappearing hut is rather simple and rather underwhelming on its own, but I think Kitayama did a great job using the Poe framing device to lay out all kinds of hints, though I think that it might be a bit too obvious because a certain hint is probably better hidden for Japanese readers than for those who also regularly read English. It's perhaps not the kind of solution you'd expect from Kitayama for an impossible crime, but it fits the setting well.

Aosaki Yuugo's Ningyo Saiban ("Mermaid Trial") is a story in his Undead Girl - Murder Farce series, and I have to admit I haven't read the books, nor have I seen much of the anime series yet. This story is apparently a prequel story revolving around a murder trial in which a mermaid was the suspect, and where the reporter Annie Kerber first became acquainted with the protagonists Aya (a decapitated head) and Tsugaru, her wise-cracking assistant. It was the first trial involving inhumans in eighteen years in Trondheim, Norway. Holt was a well-known public figure in Trondheim and notoriously anti-inhumans, which made it all the more shocking when after a gunshot, his family found him dead outside at the lake, with the mermaid bending over him. It appeared the mermaid had killed him and was busy trying to set-up the scene to make it look like Holt had gotten into an accident with his row boat, but the family quickly captured the mermaid. As per law, nobody has been able to talk with the mermaid save for the prosecutor. That is, until Aya appeared at the trial to defend the mermaid. The story then unfolds in a familiar courtroom mystery manner, with both sides interrogating the suspects (with their testimonies also serving as the way the reader actually learns about the precise circumstances of the murder), and Aya of course slowly picking up on small contradictions that eventually build up to a major revelation. This is a competently constructed mystery, with short, but good deductions based on the testimonies and physical evidence, though it perhaps lacks a bit in actual surprise, as in: none of the revelations made in this trial feel as triumphant and shocking as you'd like them to be. There are some clever turnabouts though, and on a technical level, I think this is the best story in the collection.

Araki Akane's Kotoeawase ("Checking Answers") starts with the death of the narrator Touma's adoptive father, who was found by Touma as he was lying in the snow-covered garden, bleeding heavily from a cut in his neck. It took five minutes for the ambulance to come, and in the ambulance, his father's final words to Touma were that he loves him and that Touma should take care of himself. When things have settled down, the young teacher however starts having doubts about what he heard. Why didn't his father say anything about who cut him in the neck? With the realization that Touma actually only heard what he wanted to hear from his father, and that it might in fact have been a completely different message, garbled as his father's strength faded, he tries to reconstruct his father's last word and find out who did this to him. This is a story that deals with a theme very important to dying messages (the interpretation of what was said), and it takes on this time in a rather surprising proper linguistic manner, exploring various ways in which Touma could've misheard what his father said. Ultimately, that does make the story feel a bit weak, because it feels a bit arbritrary what could be considered a "plausible" interpretation of the message, and what isn't. I think that thematically, it's a strong story, but all the talk about whether a certain word couldn't be that other similar-sounding word soon becomes a bit boring.

The final story, Saigo no Hitoshigoto ("His Last Job") by Miyauchi Yuusuke,  is about a writer on music, who decides to write a piece on Caustic, an indie duo consisting of lead singer and bassist Yuhara Seiichi and Shiga Makoto on the guitar and side-vocalist. In 2013, while they were recording their third album, Shiga died in the recording studio: he had been bashed in the head. However, Yuhara didn't report the murder until many hours later, even though he had been in that same studio. Eventually, their manager was arrested, but rumors always floated around that it was the eccentric prodigy Yuhara who murdered Shiga, and that their manager took the fall for him. The writer decides to learn more about the way in which Caustic fell apart,  and eventually arrives at a very surprising conclusion... Interesting story about a crime set in the past, in which a suspect was actually arrested and tried, but still, doubts exist about what actually happened, like Christie's Five Little Pigs. The crux of the problem lies in the question why Yuhara didn't report the murder immediately, as you are usually wont to die if somebody is murdered in the same room. The solution doesn't require as much imagination as the story pretends, partially because it is clewed and hinted at early on, so in that sense, it's a fair solution, but it does seem to show its card too early, making the finale, despite having a twist, feel a bit underwhelming.

On the whole, this year's Honkaku-Ou proves to be another fairly decent anthology, though I do think it starts off stronger than it ends, and it misses a story I am really a fan of this year, though I do greatly prefer this one over last year's. And perhaps it's just me, but because most of the stories included in this book are pretty short (and the volume itself isn't very long either), I do often find myself liking the more lighthearted stories better. I often read this anthology while reading other things, so I'll be reading a different book and occasionally squeeze in one of the stories in this volume, but I always end up liking the ones offering mystery and a laugh the best. So that'll always skew my view on these books, I guess. Expect another look at the Japanese short story mystery scene next year! 

Original Japanese title(s): 『本格王2024』:東川篤哉「じゃあ、これは殺人ってことで」/ 結城真一郎 「悪霊退散手羽元サムゲタン風スープ事件」/北山猛邦「未完成月光 Unfinished moonshine」/ 青崎有吾 「人魚裁判」/ 荒木あかね 「答え合わせ」/宮内悠介「最後のひと仕事」

A Figure in Hiding

It seemed to be a sort of monster, or symbol representing a monster, of a form which only a diseased fancy could conceive. If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings; but it was the general outline of the whole which made it most shockingly frightful. Behind the figure was a vague suggestion of a Cyclopean architectural background.

"The Call of Cthulhu"

I'm still bummed I have the first few books in this series with their original pocket covers, as the current covers with Arai Keiichi's art are much more alluring!

Disclosure: I translated Higashigawa Tokuya's Lending the Key to the Locked Room, the first book in same series as the book discussed today.

Ikagawa City series:
Lending the Key to the Locked Room
Misshitsu ni Mukatte Ute ("Shoot Towards The Locked Room")
Kanzen Hanzai ni wa Neko Nanbiki Hitsuyouka ("How Many Cats Do You Need For a Perfect Crime?")
Koukan Satsujin ni Mukanai Yoru ("A Bad Night to Exchange Murders")
Koko ni Shitai wo Sutenaide Kudasai! ("Don't Dump Your Bodies Here Please!")

Squid-sou no Satsujin ("The Squid House Murders")

 

Short Story Collections

Tantei Sae Inakereba ("If Only That Detective Hadn't Been There...")

Adaptations
Watashi no Kirai na Tantei ("The Detective I Don't Like")

Two years ago, I reviewed Squid-sou no Satsujin ("The Squid House Murders"), which was the most recent entry in Higashiwa Tokuya's Ikagawa City series. At the end of the review, I noted that while I was at that point up to date with all the novels, I hadn't read the three short story collections yet. A minor trouble I had was that while I hadn't read the books, I did already know about more than half of the stories found in the first two collections due to them being adapted for the live action drama or having read the story in an anthology before. So I was not really in a hurry to read these books. But that did mean I still had the third collection to read, and that is of course the topic of today's post. Tantei Sae Inakereba ("If Only That Detective Hadn't Been There...", 2017) has a suggestive title, and indeed, the stories found in this book are mostly inverted mystery stories, which is... in hindsight not as surprising as I had initially though. While the novels aren't really inverted mysteries, you had some stories like Koko ni Shitai wo Sutenaide Kudasai! ("Don't Dump Your Bodies Here Please!" 2009) that have multiple narratives, and one of them being about two people who have to get rid of a dead body (and no, this is not even the main mystery!). In fact, the series always features multiple narratives, most often following the adventures of private detective Ukai and his assistant Ryuuhei, and a duo of police detectives simultaneously, with a lot of the mystery being structured around how these narratives intertwine. So in a way, having stories seen from the POV of the murderer isn't that odd for this series. The book is very short though, as are the stories, so I can already start with the conclusion that this is a funny book to read, but it's unlikely to actually "fill" your stomach if you're hungry for mystery. Most of the stories have interesting ideas, but often work towards what could be considered a punchline, and it's more the kind of book you want to read between more "serious" mystery.

Kuramochi Kazuya no Futatsu no Alibi ("The Two Alibis of Kuramochi Kazuya") is a pure inverted story, following the attempt of Kuramochi Kazuya of succesfully killing his wife's uncle and get away with it. His wife's uncle is a wealthy man who owns a restaraunt which is now run by Kuramochi, but business has not been great, and his uncle now refuses to pump more money in the restaurant. So the solution is of course to kill the man and inherit his money through his wife. The plan is to create a perfect alibi: he has invited the private detective Ukai, saying he wants to hire Ukai to find his lost pet. During their talk, Kuramochi excuses himself for a moment to use the bathroom, but in fact he drowns his uncle, whom he had rendered unconscious beforehand, in river water he brought home, so when he will later dump the body in the river, the police will determine his uncle actually died by drowning in the river, at a time Kuramochi was talking with Ukai. Of course, things go wrong, but why? The mistake he makes is incredibly cliche'd, but it actually works here, because the set-up for why Kuramochi fell for it was done really well: as always, it was hidden in the funnier parts of the narrative, and you'd never know that running joke was actually a set-up for the solution. Definitely a "punchline" type of solution, but one I liked.

Ukai and his landlord Akemi are visiting the local multi-day festival at the Ika River River Side Park, and the big finale is a competition between mascotte figures. One of the people they run into at the festival is Sayaka, a girl they met during a previous adventure, and who is most definitely not also the squid mascotte figure Kenzaki Maika, for Maika is of course really a cute character and they are not humans pretending to be mascotte figures. In the dressing tent, they also find others like Pufferfish Harry, the turtle Kamekichi and the masu salmon Yamame-chan, who are all getting prepped for the contest. Harry goes having a smoke in a seperate section of the tent, when after a while, Kamekichi, who had also been smoking, suddenly cries out. When they all go the smoking section, they find Harry lying on the floor, bleeding, and they find the person inside had been stabbed through his suit. Given that there had been only one other mascotte in the smoking section, it seems obvious who stabbed Harry, but is the answer really so simple? I am not that big a fan of this story: I do like the concept of how Harry was stabbed under seemingly impossible circumstances, but it seems a bit too little to carry a whole story, it would have worked better as a supporting concept, rather the main, as it is a bit too straightforward and I think it also works better in a visual medium.

Doctor Akihabara is a self-proclaimed genius in Hakase to Robot no Fuzai Shoumei ("The Alibis of the Doctor and his Robot") who has finally succeeded in creating a bi-pedal, talking robot after years of experiments (and yes.... he's a bit late...), but he owes his sponsor a lot of money, so the easy way out is to kill the man, and he realizes he can use his robot to create a fake alibi! Both he and his sponsor have a second villa in the mountains, and the plan is to kill the man, have his robot pretend to be the man while the doctor himself visits the neighbors, making sure they see his robot pretending to be the victim moving about in front of the windows, moving the estimated time of his death to the period while the doctor was having dinner with his neighbors. Akemi also happens to be visiting those neighbors, and while the doctor is quite smitten by her, he does not forget to make sure they all see "the neighbor" walking up and down in front of the window in a programmed routine. The next day, the corpse is found, but the weather conditions make it clear the murderer is likely someone staying on the mountains now, and there are only a handful of them in this season. I think this was the best story overall of the volume: there is funny banter between the doctor and his talking robot as they work together to kill their target and set-up the ruse, but the mistake the doctor makes is thematically brilliant and I really didn't see it coming. I'm trying to imagine it being used in a more serious story, but I don't think it would have been even half as effective as it's done here, as it adds a wonderfully ironic tone to the story. It's still a very simple, 'one-trick-pony'-esque inverted mystery as most of the others, but very satisfying considering its length.

To Aru Misshtisu no Hajimari to Owari ("The Beginning and the Ending of a Locked Room") has Ukai and Ryuuhei working on a case for a mother: she suspects her daughter-in-law is cheating, and has hired the two detectives to find evidence. They find out who the partner is and have the evidence, and the mother wants to confront her son with the evidence, and Ukai and Ryuuhei come along. They find the house locked, which is odd, as the son should've been alone in the house while his wife was visiting her own parents. Fearing something is off, they break in the house and find it empty. At least, they think so, until they enter the bathroom, and in the tub, they find a chopped up body, with the head of the son floating in the tub! But if the house was locked from the inside, where did the murderer go to? The story starts in media res, allowing for some tension, but the solution to the locked room is almost hilarious silly. Like the other stories, it's really just a punchline, but it works because it's not treated too seriously, and it is a neat subversion: you'll see the same trick used in a serious way far more often, but I didn't immediately recognize it because it is used in such a silly, non-practical manner now, so it kinda slips beneath the radar. Again one of those ideas that work because it's done in such a light-hearted manner in a very short story.

Higaisha to Yoku Nita Otoko ("The Man Who Greatly Resembles the Victim") follows the story of Kitayama Masato. Masato is the illegitimate son of Anekouji Kenzou, the former head of the wealthy Anekouji clan which runs Anekouji Products. But while his older brother Anekouji Kazuhito became the new head of the company, Masato was never recognized officially and is now living from one part-time job to another. One night, he is approached by a beautiful woman, who confides to him she plans to kill Kazuhito, as he had dumped a dear friend of hers who committed suicide because of it. It turns out Kazuhito and Masato, while they have not met in years, actually resemble each other a lot. The woman's plan is to use Masato to create an alibi for her: Masato is to pretend to be Kazuhito by visiting a cafe Kazuhito frequents and have some drinks there, while she'll kill Kazuhito, thus making it seem like Kazuhito died much later than he actually did. Kazuhito finally agrees to the plan, and both do everything according as discussed, but the police still manages to figure out how they did it. But why? The story has a very interesting twist before the true end, that changes your views on the murder scheme slightly, but it is fairly minor, as two pages later, you'll already arrive at the true solution. Which is a bit predictable, once the jokes about a certain trait of Masato are introduced in the story. Not a bad story per se, but perhaps the "lightest" of the five stories, and they are all very light in content matter in the first place.

I already mentioned it earlier, but Tantei Sae Inakereba is on the whole a funny collection, but it's very short and light-hearted, and not likely to really satisfy you if you're looking for memorable detective stories. But as something you can read very quickly between heftier volumes, it's alright. I doubt this volume alone will convince anyone to seek out all the Ikagawa City books, especially as you don't see as much of the series characters in these stories due to the inverted format of most of the stories, but having read all of the novels, I did enjoy this brief return to the odd city. Now to see when I will tackle the other two collections...

Original Japanese title(s) 東川篤哉『探偵さえいなければ』: 「倉持和哉の二つのアリバイ」/「ゆるキャラはなぜ殺される」/「博士とロボットの不在証明」/『とある密室の始まりと終わり」/「被害者とよく似た男」

Telltale Weapon

"Up, up, and away!"

"The Adventures of Superman"

Today's book: one I didn't plan to buy so soon after release originally, but it ended up as the 10th title on the 2023 Honkaku Mystery Best 10 ranking (for late 2021-late 2022 books), so I felt compelled to pick it up...

Several months ago, I reviewed Higashigawa Tokuya's 2005 novel Yakatajima ("The Island of the House"), an entertaining mystery novel which was set on the island Yokoshima in the Seto Inland Sea. Higashigawa's Shikakejima ("Trick Island", 2022) is technically a sequel to Yakatajima, but they can be read seperately very easily, for Shikakejima is set about two decades after the events of Yakatajima, and takes place on a different island in the Seto Inland Sea. There are a few short cameos and minor references to Yakatajima, but nothing absolutely vital. The book opens with an unusual family gathering on the private island of Nanamejima (Crooked Island), an island which is basically a gigantic slanting cliff sticking out of the sea: the holiday home of the Saidaiji family is located on the lower (level) parts of the island, while the back garden basically becomes a steep hill that goes up and up until the every end, where it turns into a direct drop into the wild seas. The Saidaiji family business is publishing books: decades ago they started out with an illustration book of Momotarou, but has now grown to be one of the biggest publishers in the Okayama prefecture. The death of the family patriarch thus makes waves. The last will of Saidaiji Gorou will be read at the island, but one of the persons who has to be present in order for the will to be read is Gorou's nephew Kazuya, who more-or-less disappeared long ago. With the help of the private detective Kobayakawa Takao however, he's soon found in the capital and brought on the boat to Nanamejima, alongside the lawyer Sayaka, who comes here instead of her father (the family lawyer, but who is now bed-ridden). Sayaka doesn't really get along with the rather strangely behaving Takao, but they arrive safely at the island, and Sayaka reads the will as planned. The following day however, Kazuya is found dead in the back garden, and a storm prevents the police from coming immediately. Sayaka and Takao also strongly suspect the family has something to hide, based on some of the wording in the will, and if Kazuya was killed because of that family secret, Sayaka and Takao also need to be careful with how they act, as they are all trapped on the island now. 

An island with a strange building, an island in the Seto Inland Sea, a closed circle situation... yep, Shikakejima is very much the (spiritual) sequel to Yakatajima. Due to the many (in-universe) years between the two books setting them apart, they can be read seperately without any trouble, though we do learn that the private detective Kobayakawa Takao in this book is the son of two characters we met in Yakatajima, and they have short (indirect) cameos too, so that's fun for the fans. There are a few other sneak references to the events of Yakatajima, but nothing in the book truly requires you to read them in order. Though I do think Yakatajima was overall better than Shikakejima, so that might influence your choice on whether to read them in order, or not, or whether you'll want to read either of them, I guess. 

Tonally, this book follows the same style as Yakatajima and Higashigawa's usual way of telling stories: with a lot of (physical) comedy, people bickering and misunderstandings, and beneath the camouflage of the comedy, you'll find cleverly hidden clues and foreshadowing elements to the core mystery plot. Shikakejima does not stray from the Higashigawa Template, though personally, I do have to say I liked the bickering of the two main characters in Yakatajima more than in Shikakejima, though I guess that's just personal preference. There's a distinct Yokomizo Seishi-esque atmosphere you can detect in the background and a few overt references too to some of private detective Kindaichi's better known adventures, starting with the last will and the specific call for the nephew to be present during the reading. There are more call-backs to Yokomizo and his Kindaichi series, and I do think having a bit of knowledge of the Kindaichi tropes will help the reader's enjoyment of the book.

Also similar to the first book is the presence of a strangely-built house on a small island. The Saidaiji manor is a big house, with not only two wings on either side of the main building, but also a gigantic dome functioning as a library on top of the main building, but the layout is very odd, forcing people to take the stairs in the main building to go up one floor first, before they can go to either wing of the building (i.e. the wings are not accessible via the ground floor). The building is so strangely built, you know instantly it will play a role in the mystery, but it might very much surprise you in what way!

The book is basically divided in two major mysteries: one is the current death of Kazuya who is found murdered in the back garden. His body has been completely beaten up, but not only does a storm prevent the police from coming, both Sayaka and Takao seem to notice the whole family actually seems very reluctant to actually report the deal to the police. Because they are just guests on the island, they don't dare to dig too much into the family secrets, but they eventually learn about another family tragedy that occured several decades ago on this very same island: the former patriarch of the family was killed one night, but the deed was immediately discovered, and the men of the family followed the murderer all the way up to the highest top of the gigantic slanting cliff, but there the murderer disappeared, and the only explanation seems like they must have fallen into the sea, as there is absolutely nothing at the top of the cliff. The whole deal was covered up by the family, and the nephew was one of the people on the island that night, and it seems like this current murder is connected to what happened in the past.

I have to say though, the past mystery isn't really super interesting. The solution to that seems rather... an easy way out, and it's not really well-clewed. It doesn't help I know Higashigawa has written a different story that uses a similar idea, but here it becomes such a big focal point of the whole story, I can't help but feel a bit disappointed: as a way to explain someone disappearing from a super high cliff, it's just... bordering on being cheap. The current murder, of the nephew who was found in the back garden though, that has a lot more interesting points. Practically speaking, it's incredibly silly, but it's also amazingly memorable: it's definitely a murder method I am not likely to forget, and certainly one of the most memorable ones I'll read this year. While I think it's incredibly difficult to realize how exactly this murder was committed, I do have to admit there's one absolutely brilliant clue dangled in front of the readers which I found really clever too, even if I don't think it's enough to really have the reader realize what is going on. That said, the method itself is incredibly original, and as a "punchline" it's fantastic. It's the type of murder method that could indeed only be used in mystery fiction, the type that is more about being fun than being realistic.

Overall though, I didn't quite like Shikakejima as much as Yakatajima. Perhaps it's because I also read them relatively close (about six months apart), but I don't think the past murder is very strong, and while I like the present murder in general, I think the existence of the past murder muddles things a lot, as there is little to no synergy at all between the two murders. So you get two distinct ideas, and I think the present murder would simply have been enough to carry either a shorter novel or a short story, or with something else that has more synergy with the present murder. If you had to choose, I'd recommend Yakatajima over Shikakejima.

Original Japanese title(s): 東川篤哉『仕掛島』

Twisted Tale

"Mr. Goshima, I find the spiral to be very mystical. It fills me with a deep fascination ...like nothing else in nature... No other shape... I'm sure you will understand how wonderful the spiral is!! It is perfect, the most sublime art!!"

"Uzumaki"

Disclosure: I translated Higashigawa Tokuya's Lending the Key to the Locked Room,

Juumonji Kazuomi was a brilliant constructor who singlehandedly developed his family firm Juumonji Constructions into one of the nation's big construction firms. He often worked on unique buildings, and this was reflected in his holiday home on the small island of Yokoshima in the Seto Inland Sea. This house had a hexagonal shape, with metallic finishes on the exterior and on top, there was a large dome which served as an observation roof deck, from which it could overlook the island and the surrounding sea. Due to its hexagonal shape, the rooms of the house were all situated in the six sides of the hexagon, with a gigantic spiral staircase in the middle of the building. It was at the foot of this staircase that one morning, Kazuomi was lying dead on the floor. At first it seemed like this had been an unfortunate accident of an elderly man falling down the steps of a long staircase, but the Okayama police surgeon arrived at a very surprising conclusion: yes, Kazuomi did die because of a fall, but not of a fall down the stairs: his injuries indicated a steep drop on the floor from at least three stories high. The little blood found at the scene also suggested Kazuomi hadn't met his demise on this spot, but the police could not find any place on the island where he could've fallen and brought to the staircase, especially as this house is by far the highest building on the tiny island. The police eventually had to give up, and ruled it an accident, despite not being able to find out where Kazuomi had actually fallen.

One of the Okayama detectives working on the case was the not-so-bright Souma Takayuki, who happened to be a faaaaaaaaar relative of Yasuko, the widow of Kazuomi. Some months after her husband's death, she has invited Souma and other people to stay during the summer holiday at the house on Yokoshima, something she does every year. Among the other guests are Nonomura Toshie and her daughter Nanae: they are old family friends and Toshie's husband was a politician who was supported by Kazuomi, but now both their husbands have died, Toshie has stepped into the political world, with Yoshiko as her supporter. Long ago, their husbands also expressed a wish to unite the families, and it has been decided the beautiful Nanae will marry one of Kazuomi's sons, the eldest sons Shinichirou and Masao being from a previous marriage and Saburou being Yoshiko's son. This of course despite Nanae not really being into the idea of an arranged marriage. When Souma arrives on the island, he immediately sees how both Shinichirou and Masao, both a bit older than Nanae, try to woo her, with Toshie obviously wanting to push Nanae into eldest son Shinichirou's arms. Meanwhile, Souma also meets with another guest: Kobayakawa Saki is like himself a relative of Yasuko, and she's a private detective. Both the police detective and the private detective see how especially Shinichirou and Masao seem very intent on winning Nanae's heart, but the following morning, the two of them seem to have vanished, until they find the door at the top of the spiral staircase, leading into the roof observation deck locked from the other side. Eventually it is opened from the other side by Masao, which is when they discover the door had been blocked by the dead body of Shinichirou leaning against the door. They search the four rooms on the observation deck, but only Masao was present there and as the door was blocked by the body, it means only Masao could've killed his brother. The police is called from the mainland, but they can't come due to a storm, and while they are waiting for reinforcements to come, more mysterious deaths occur, forcing Souma and Saki to work together to find out who did it in Higashigawa Tokuya's 2005 novel Yakatajima ("The Island of the House"), which also has the alternate English title The Island of the Silver Tower.

Higashigawa Tokuya is a name that appears very often on this blog, even before I translated his Lending the Key to the Locked Room, but most of the reviews about his work are about series, like the Ikagawa City series and Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de. I was originally going to write how Yakatajima is one of those few times I wasn't reading a Higashigawa series novel, but between me reading the novel and me writing this post and me posting this review, a semi-sequel was released in 2022 titled Shikakejima. I'm not sure whether it's directly related, but the titles are very similar, and both books are published by the same publisher and feature similar covers, so at least in terms of "branding" the two books are supposed to form a series. Higashigawa generally doesn't publish books through this publisher (Tokyo Sogen Suiri) by the way, and with a somewhat sobre cover, I was wondering whether this book would have his characteristic comedic tone.

And the answer is yes. It's perhaps not as slapstick comedy like the Ikagawa City series can sometimes get, but you still have somewhat over-the-top characters like Saki (who jumps on a car the first time we see her) and somewhat nonsensical conversations, and of course, as we should expect from Higashiawa, this comedy is also used to hide important clues in rather clever ways. I would say the comedy is toned down a little bit compared to his better known series, but you don't have to expect something that is completely different in style when it comes to storytelling. Comedic mystery is of course Higashigawa's bread and butter, and if you like his other works, Yakatajima will definitely manage to satisfy you there too. I do have the feeling that some parts of the motive fall a bit flat, like it could have worked better if it had been played either more comedic, or more serious, but now it doesn't quite work with me, but your mileage may vary there.

What was a bit different however is how Yakatajima moves away from the often urban settings of his stories, offering a true yakata-mystery, a mystery set in a weird manor or mansion. In fact, last year I read his Squid-sou no Satsujin ("The Squid House Murders", 2022) and I was actually expecting such a mystery based on the title but it turned out to be something quite different. Yakatajima however has a proper strange house, with a hexagonal shape and a gigantic spiral staircase, and of course the locked room on the observation deck roof. Add in the mystery of Kazuomi's "impossible" fall to death and you have the ingredients for a mystery that's quite enjoyable to read, as the book keeps hinting at various mysterious, and that coupled with Higashigawa's smooth writing and funny situations, you'll be through this book in no time.

A lot of the mysteries that occur in this book ultimately tie back to a common underlying idea, and while I like the idea on its own, I think that people who are familiar with these kinds of mystery novels might be able to guess fairly early on what is going on. Once you arrive at the idea, a lot of the problems just vanish right away, so that's a bit disappointing, though again, I like the base idea in general and it's quite memorable. What is perhaps better in execution however is the clewing: the trail of clues that lead to the killer is quite comprehensive and much of the clues are cleverly hidden within comedic conversations and happenings, and if you're used to reading Higashigawa, you're always trying to look through all comedic conversations which actually makes spotting the real clues a bit harder. But I was quite impressed with the Queen-esque clues left throughout the narrative, with the focus not only on physical clues, but very much on concepts of 'who knew what at what time to allow them to do this?". And that works pretty well with the concept of the aforementioned 'underlying idea', which is basically howdunnit, while the whodunnit threads are a bit more subtle and not as universal as the howdunnit idea, but it does add a lot of depth to the mystery.

But overall, I enjoyed Yakatajima as a standalone novel, and it's a competently written mystery that I can recommend any Higashigawa fan. I'm also curious to the semi-sequel Shikakejima, as it ranked in the 2023 Honkaku Mystery Best 10 list (which covers books published late 2021 - late 2022), so it should be quite entertaining too. So perhaps I'll read that book this year too!

Original Japanese title(s): 東川篤哉『館島』

The Ice-Cold Case

Oh, this is the first time I read a book in this series since the publication of the English translation of Lending the Key to the Locked Room. Which immediately brings me to:

Disclosure: I translated Higashigawa Tokuya's Lending the Key to the Locked Room, the first book in same series as the book discussed today.

Ikagawa City series:
Lending the Key to the Locked Room
Misshitsu ni Mukatte Ute ("Shoot Towards The Locked Room")
Kanzen Hanzai ni wa Neko Nanbiki Hitsuyouka ("How Many Cats Do You Need For a Perfect Crime?")
Koukan Satsujin ni Mukanai Yoru ("A Bad Night to Exchange Murders")
Koko ni Shitai wo Sutenaide Kudasai! ("Don't Dump Your Bodies Here Please!")

Adaptations
Watashi no Kirai na Tantei ("The Detective I Don't Like")

The never really succesful private detective Ukai and his assistant Ryuuhei are hired by Komine Saburou, one of the wealthiest men in Ikagawa City. His entertainment facilities like karaoke boxes and batting centres provide the young people with something to do in this otherwise boring city, but Komine has a rather exciting job for Ukai. For Komine has recently received a threatening letter, which speaks of "revenge" among other things. Komine claims he has no idea what the letter is about, even though both Ukai and Ryuuhei suspect there's something shady about the man, but he wants Ukai to act as his bodyguard the coming days. While Ukai isn't really willing to jump in front of his portly client if some assailant would fire a pistol at the man, he agrees to take the job. Komine always spends the days around Christmas at the Squid House, a small hotel set in a secluded and private location as it stands at the very end of Tentacle Peak outside Ikagawa City. The day they drive off to the hotel also turns out to be the day with a tremendous snow storm, and on their way to Tentacle Peak, they find a young man who crashed his car in the storm. They take the unconscious man with them to the hotel and while luckily, one of the other guests here is a doctor, they are now all snowed in at Tentacle Peak for the moment. Ukai and Ryuuhei notice that their client has been acting very differently ever since he learned the name of the unconscious man however, and the following day, they find the unconscious man has disappeared from the room he had been sleeping in. Ukai decides to inform Inspector Sunagawa about these events, who immediately suspects something fishy is going on when he learns that Komine Saburou is involved: twenty years ago, when Inspector Sunagawa was still a rookie detective, he was involved with a gruesome murder case where the victim, Komine Tarou, had been cut in pieces. Saburou was the youngest brother of three, and the middle brother Jirou was identified as the murder suspect, but he disappeared twenty years ago. Sunagawa recounts this old case to his subordinate Shiki while they wait for the snow to calm down, but meanwhile at the Squid House, Saburou gets murdered himself. What is going on and how is the current case connected to what happened twenty years ago? That is the big mystery in Higashigawa Tokuya's Squid-sou no Satsujin ("The Squid House Murders", 2022).

Squid-sou no Satsujin is the long-awaited newest novel in Higashigawa Tokuya's Ikagawa City series, a comedic mystery series set in the titular city with an ensemble cast where we follow the (mis)adventures of private detective Ukai, his assistant/former brother-in-law Ryuuhei, Inspector Sunagawa, his subordinate Shiki and more characters. Koko ni Shitai wo Sutenaide Kudasai! ("Don't Dump Your Bodies Here Please!") from 2009 was the last novel-length entry in the series for a long time, and while it was followed by a few short story collections,  13 years is a rather long wait! While I have reviewed all the novels in the series, I haven't discussed the short story collections here yet, by the way. Some might find this strange, considering my love for the short story format, but some of the short stories I already know through the live-action drama series or anthologies, so the collections aren't really high priority, though I guess now I have read all the novels, I might as well get started on the collections too. Some will know that I really love Higashigawa's work and his distinctive style of combining slapstick comedy with really solid mystery plots and clewing and his work has been discussed very regularly on this blog.

Anyway, so back to Squid-sou no Satsujin. With a title like that, you're of course expecting something like Ayatsuji Yukito's House series: a closed circle mystery set in the titular Squid House with secrets and dark pasts. And early on, we are told about a past case where a body got cut up in six parts, and in the present, we're presented with situations that seem impossible at first sight, with the unconscious man disappearing from the hotel grounds and later Komine Saburou too disappearing from his cottage only to be found murdered later, and his murderer even manages to disappear even though Ukai chased them in the woods. I seldomly read story descriptions, so perhaps I was expecting too much simply based on the title of this book, for I was really expecting a classic country house style mystery, and I have to admit that at first, I was pretty disappointed when about half-way through the book, I realized that Squid-sou no Satsujin wasn't even trying to be anything of the things I described above. The "impossibilities" only seem like that for a few pages, but are immediately proven to be not impossible situations at all and the book doesn't even try to present them like that. The Squid House, while in possession of "a past", isn't really the super-atmospheric location with hidden passageways and some horrible dark secret you'd expect it to be based on the title and is... a pretty normal hotel all things considered. 

But in the end, I really did enjoy Squid-sou no Satsujin as a mystery novel, and it basically accomplished that by doing everything this series has always done in a great way, and not straying far from what you'd expect and want from an Ikagawa City novel. Like most stories in this series, the book follows a dual structure, with chapters alternating between the adventures of Ukai and Ryuuhei at the Squid House, and Inspector Sunagawa telling about what happened twenty years ago. Part of the msytery lies in realizing how these two events are connected exactly. For yes, Komine Saburou is the connecting factor, but what exactly happened twenty years ago, and how does that affect the current case? What works really well here is that a lot of the connections will seem rather obvious at first, but it's those small parts that don't really seem to fit that really start to bug you, and you know *something* isn't quite right, but it is difficult to identify exactly what. Elements like the unconscious man appear to be troublesome puzzle pieces that don't quite fit in either puzzle and this sense of uneasiness, where the "big picture" seems to fit save for some details, but you also know that's those details that are most important, can be felt throughout the book. The book therefore has a slightly slow start, as a lot of the mystery isn't immediately obvious to the reader, but as the book goes on and the two narratives slowly reach their respective climaxes, this sense of mystery, of knowing you don't know what is going on, becomes more tangible. And the explanation to all of this is great, and exactly what I'd expect from this series. There's some brilliant misdirection going on in this book and as always, a lot of clewing is hidden cleverly in the comedy. The moment you finally realize how those puzzle pieces that didn't seem to fit actually look like, is absolutely fantastic, as that's also when you see how those "sometimes long-winded comedy sections" were actually meant to point you in the right direction as a clue, and you simply completely missed the big shiny pointer. In essence, the "big puzzle piece" that connects the two cases is fairly simple, but it's executed great here and despite my earlier disappointment with this book not really being about an impossible crime or really using the country house murder format, I think this book manages to present a great mystery story.

So Squid-sou no Satsujin might not be exactly what you'd think it be based on the title alone, but taken on its own merits, and as an entry in the Ikagawa City series, it's a very solid entry, doing everything you should expect from this series in a great way, and ultimately even presenting a rather surprising solution that is both a bit silly (as you may expect from this series), but also cleverly clewed and in hindsight using a rather impressive act of misdirection. For those who have enjoyed the series before, Squid-sou no Satsujin is definitely a must-read.

Original Japanese title(s): 東川篤哉『スクイッド荘の殺人』

The Veiled Lady

"Miss Debenham is not a woman! She is a lady."

"Murder on the Orient Express"

Last year, I was surprised by a sudden new release in Higashigawa Tokuya's Koigakubo Academy series, and today's book was the surprise this year. I wonder what next year will bring!?

Disclosure: I translated Higashigawa Tokuya's Lending the Key to the Locked Room. Different series, also a comedic puzzler!

Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de series
Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de
Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de 2

Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de 3

Shin Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de
Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de (first impressions TV drama)
Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de (theatrical release)
Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de (audio drama)

Higashigawa Tokuya's Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de series is one that has been discussed irregularly in various forms here ever since I started this blog, which should probably give you an idea of how much of a fan I am of this series. It was the excellent 2011 hit drama adaptation (+ theatrical release) which also carried the English title The After-Dinner Mysteries that informed me of this series' existence, but I have of course also enjoyed the original short story collections greatly. The series is about Houshou Reiko, a young female homicide detective. But none of her colleagues know that Reiko's actually the stupidly wealthy sole heiress of the Houshou Group, a pillar of the Japanese economy. Every evening she returns home after a long day of work to enjoy the luxurious banquet awaiting her, as she ponders out loud about the cases she's working on. Her butler Kageyama seems to have a knack for detecting too, as he is always able to solve the most mysterious cases just by listening to his mistress. Kageyama however also has the habit to be a bit sharp-tongued when it comes to commenting on his mistress' intellligence as he solves each case for her. While Reiko hates the insulting (and completely unnecessary) jabs Kageyama fires at her constantly, she has to admit that her butler is truly a brilliant 'armchair' detective who has helped her solve many cases. Over the course of three volumes, Reiko was submitted to a lot of shade by Kageyama, but they also solved many cases, but the series went silent after the third volume, originally released in 2012 (the pocket release added a neat crossover with Detective Conan by the way!).

Since the series had 'stopped' almost ten years ago, I doubt I was the only one who was pleasantly surprised when a new volume dropped in the spring of 2021. Shin Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de ("New Mystery Solving Is After Dinner" 2021) reunites us with Reiko and Kageyama in five new short stories, which also feature both familiar and new faces. At the end of the third volume, Reiko's bombastic and hapless superior Inspector Kazamatsuri (who usually took the credit for Reiko's work) was promoted to the Metropolitan Police Department, but after messing up, he's been returned to Kunidachi Police Station. Kazamatsuri is the womanizing son of a wealthy family in car manufacturing who likes to boast about how rich he is and how he moves in the upper circles of society, not realizing that his subordinate Reiko is actually of an even more prominent family. Having to team up again with Kazamatsuri is of course the source of a lot of stress, but during Kazamatsuri's absence, Reiko also got her own subordinate: Airi is a young female detective who is a bit gullible and has sometimes the habit of saying whatever is on her mind too directly (especially when faced with Kazamatsuri's shenanigans). But it shouldn't be a surprise that both Kazamatsuri and Airi ultimately don't manage to help Reiko very much with her cases and that it's her loyal butler Kageyama who solves her most baffling cases just by listening to her. But of course, he will only explain how it was done after his mistress is done with dinner.

Kazamatsuri Keibu no Kikan ("The Return of Inspector Kazamatsuri") brings Kazamatsuri back to Kunidachi Police Station to Reiko's great surprise/disappointment, and Reiko and Airi have to work with the returning inspector immediately on the apparent suicide of Kunieda Masafumi, the oldest son of Kunieda Yoshio, the founder of the famous Kunieda Manufacturing company. Masafumi was found hanging from the ceiling in his own room, which at first suggest suicide, but there are still some minor doubts about his death, especially as Yoshio is expected to die soon and his second son Keisuke isn't actually blood-related to his older brother, meaning there's a motive for murder somewhere. Keisuke and the other people who were at the Kunieda residence at the time of the death however all have alibis: Masafumi had been working in his room the whole day, while Keisuke was visited by a friend. Keisuke showed his friend the whole, and also tried to introduce him to his brother, who was not in his room at the moment. After that time, everyone was together at the dining table save for Masafumi, who was later found hanging in his room, which happened after Keisuke and his friend swung by his room. But as there was nobody else in the house, Masafumi must've committed suicide, right? The trick of how Masafumi was hanged in his room while everybody in the house had an alibi is rather esay to guess, especially once a certain object is mentioned. I doubt anyone will be seriously surprised by the trick and in that respect, I found the story a bit disappointing as I thought it was waaaaay to obvious what was done. That said, there's a clue in this story that's absolutely brilliantly hidden, and that really made up for my initial disappointment. While it is easy to guess how it was done, this clue actually proves the trick had been used and arriving at this clue is definitely a lot harder than just imagining 'the murderer probably did this and this to commit the murder.' So you could see this as a double-layered story, where the first layer is very obvious, but the second layer cleverly hidden.

Reiko and Airi are investigating the murder on the elderly Shimoirisa Masaru in Chimoji wa Misshitsu no Naka ("The Bloody Writing Is Inside The Locked Room"). The victim was discovered inside the locked storage room in the garden, broken open by the victim's second daughter and his son-in-law (husband of the oldest daughter) who both happened to be visiting the old man that morning and couldn't find him inside the house. When they noticed some blood beneath the door of the storage room, they broke the door open to find the man dead. But there were also clues inside: the victim collected art and a valuable pot made of Satsuma kiriko glass was missing from the storage and most damning of all, the victim had written the name Nakata in blood on the floor. The case seems clear-cut, as the police start looking for someone named Nakata among the victim's acquaintances. As the police investigation continues, they find more clues that seem to indicate this Nakata, but still things don't seem to add up quite perfectly, and it's Kageyama who manages to put a completely different light on the manner. This is a story that focuses more on the why of the locked room than the how, and it's perfectly fine concept on its own, but it's a bit simple. The story is rather economical in set-up, so nothing really surprises: when you hear why the victim was found in a locked room, you'll find it a clever idea, but the story is so short little is done to really show the effects and implications that arise from the creation of the locked room, somewhat undermining its whole concept. The idea is executed perhaps a bit too minimalistically to really make an impression.

Tsuiraku Shitai wa Doko Kara ("Where Did the Falling Corpse Come From?") revolves around the investigation of a dead body which was found lying in a small parking lot surrounded by tenant buildings/apartment buildins on three sides. While it seems a suicide jump at first, a wound on the victim's head sustained before death suggests it's murder instead. Because the building beneath the victims lies has no windows at all on the parking lot side, the police suspects someone must've pushed him off the rooftop, but they come across a witness who swears he was alone on the rooftop all the time around the time the murder must've happened. Meanwhile, the police find a bloody knife among the victim's possessions, and when they investigate in the vicinity, they find an old man has been killed in one of the apartment buildings that surround the parking lot. How are these two deaths connected? This is the type of story which a reader can recognize immediately if they have read similar stories before. The trope in question isn't overly common in mystery fiction, but usually they make an impression, so it probably doesn't take long for a reader to realize what is going on here if they have read similar stories before. It's a competently written variation of the trick, and as often with Higashigawa's writing, the clewing is really good, but even Higashigawa himself has written stories with the exact same type of trick before, so it's easy to see through.

Itsutsu no Mezamashidokei ("The Five Alarm Clocks") is of course inspired by Ayukawa Tetsuya's The Five Clocks (disclosure: it's included in The Red Locked Room which I translated) and starts with Ryuuji and Mamoru chatting in the morning after ending their night shift. Ryuuji invites Mamoru to his place, a house near the train station he shares with a few other people. Lured by the fact that one of the other people living there is a genuine nurse, Mamoru follows Ryuuji to the house, but on their way to Ryuuji's home, they hear two alarm clocks going off in the nurse's room, but no sign of her switching the alarm off. Sensing something is wrong, they go inside and find her strangled, though miraculously still alive and she's swiftly brought to the hospital. When the police investigate the room of the victim, they stumble upon a surprising sight: the victim had five alarm clocks set in her room: two clocks near the head of her bed, two beneath her bed and one on the table in front of her television. The alarm clocks were all set around, but at different times, suggesting the woman probably had trouble getting up each morning, which is why she set five alarm clocks at five minute intervals to ensure she'd get up and not just switch the alarm off and go back to sleep again. Reiko and Airi question the other inhabitants of the house, learning that the nurse had to go out last night suddenly because of an emergency at the hospital which turned out to be a fluke, but that there didn't seem anything wrong when she returned. When she was found this morning, three of her alarm clocks had been switched off, but the last two went off and were still going when she was discovered, meaning she had switched those clocks off and was probably strangled just minutes before she was discovered. But none of the three people present inside the house that morning have a clear alibi, so can these clocks help point out who did it? An interesting take on The Five Clocks, because this time we don't have one single alibi vouched for by five clocks, but it's the time of the crime that is indicated due to the alarm setting of the clocks. It's an original way to indicate the time of the murder and the result is a story that's fun to read: it's very simple in set-up, set inside the shared residence and with only a few characters, but the deduction chain built upon the five different alarm clocks, the implication of the five minute intervals between them, and the way the reader is eventually brought to the culprit is very clever: at first you think the clocks can't mean much because ultimately, none of the three suspects have a clear alibi for the time of the attack, but the thing is twisted around surprisingly by showing the clocks do prove something else.

Tabako 2 Honbun no Alibi ("An Alibi Two Cigarettes Long") is a story that doesn't have any especially memorable or outstanding aspects to the core crime, but it's actually one of the better plotted stories in the volume, showing off Higashigawa's talent to control the actions of his characters to create (semi-)impossible crimes and perfect alibis. This time, Reiko and Airi are put on the case of a student killed in his own apartment room, soon after the victim returned home around eight in the evening. By sheer coincidence, someone had been smoking two cigarettes at the front gate of the victim's apartment building around that time, and this witness claims he always takes five minutes for one cigarette. During his break, he saw a fat man enter the building and ran way a few minutes later, who is suspected to be the murderer and the police soon find three suspects among the victim's acquaintances, who fit the profile, may have a motive and were in the neighborhood around the time of the crime. The suspects all have partially vouched alibis around the time of the crime, but because they were all within walking distance of the scene of the crime, and the witness' testimony relies solely on his estimation of how long he was smoking, it's difficult to pinpoint at what time the suspect fled the building, which in turn means they can't eliminate any of the suspects indefinitely. The puzzle piece that allows you to connect the various testimonies together and construct a precise timetable is devilishly clever, being an incredibly simple and common thing that people do, but which you probably won't think off until it's mentioned in the story. Once you're reminded of it, you'll be able to piece together what really happened on the night of the murder and which of the suspects could've committed the murder. There's no 'grand' situation like a locked room or a corpse which seems to come out of nowhere, but as a puzzler, it's really satisfying.

By the way, is it just me, or is Kageyama a lot milder compared to the previous books? His verbal abuse of his mistress seems less... sharp than before. Guess he softened in these last years...

On the whole, Shin Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de is a nice return of the series. The banter is between pleasantly crazy characters is fun as always and while I don't think that any of the five stories found in this volume rank among the best mystery stories of the series, I think they all have something interesting to offer, from original settings to cleverly plotted roadmaps leading to the culprit or shrewdly hidden clues that are both brilliant and oh-so simple at the same time. If you're a fan of the series, this is a must-read, as it's basically 'more of the same', but that's not a bad thing at all.

Original Japanese title(s): 東川篤哉『新謎解きはディナーのあとで』:「風祭警部の帰還」/「血文字は密室の中」/「墜落したいはどこから」/「五つの目覚まし時計」/「煙草二本分のアリバイ」

番外編：Lending the Key to the Locked Room Released

When The Red Locked Room was released earlier this year, I mentioned how Locked Room International didn't have a full-length Japanese release in 2019 after the annual releases of The Decagon House Murders (2015), The Moai Island Puzzle (2016), The Ginza Ghost (2017) and The 8 Mansion Murders (2018). And that's why I assume few people were expecting to see Locked Room International publishing two of these books translated by me this year.

Whereas the spring release The Red Locked Room was a short story collection, I'm pleased to say that we have something for lovers of novels too this year. Tokuya Higashigawa is a name which has been featured a lot on this blog, as he's a personal favorite of mine. The current president of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan specializes in comedic mystery stories, but don't let the antics in his novels fool you, as the comedy is also camouflage for cleverly-plotted mysteries. Lending the Key to the Locked Room (Misshitsu no Kagi Kashimasu, 2002) was his first full-length novel and also the first novel in his popular Ikagawa City series, which is currently still running. This series is perhaps unique in the sense that while it's a series, there's no fixed detective character. These stories set in and around the titular city feature an ensemble cast with different colorful characters all solving part of the mystery. Or they make things more confusing. In Lending the Key to the Locked Room, the reader is introduced to the college student Ryuhei who finds himself in a lot of trouble: what should've been a nice night watching a mystery film together with a friend in a private home theatre, ends with him discovering his friend's dead body, but the apartment is completely locked from the inside, meaning the only viable suspect for his friend's murder is.... Ryuhei himself! And he's pretty sure he didn't do it. When Ryuhei learns that the police is after him for another murder, he seeks help from his ex-brother-in-law, the hapless private detective Ukai who at times seems like he's in complete control and at times completely out of his depth with this case. Solving a locked room mystery is hard enough without the police chasing after you...

I first read the book myself in 2011, and in the review I wrote "A funny novel with a satisfying plot-structure that is sure to entertain the reader," which is an opinion I still had when I went through the book again while translating it. And on a side-note: huh, that was the first review since this blog got its current look. But it's no secret that I love mystery stories with a comedic atmosphere and Higashigawa always delivers in that respect. Higashigawa's work has been rather popular on the screen too by the way, with numerous adaptations of his novels. The best-known adaptation is probably the series and movie of Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de AKA The After-Dinner Mysteries, but the Ikagawa City series, including Lending the Key to the Locked Room, had an entertaining television adaptation too in 2014.

 

Anyway, I hope the release of Lending the Key to the Locked Room is a nice end-of-year surprise for you. It's a genuinely entertaining locked room mystery that sure got me hooked on Higashigawa's mystery stories (seriously though, I'm going through old reviews now for this post and I only now realized this novel was the first full-length book of Higashigawa I ever reviewed). And if you're still looking for some more winter reading, why not try The Red Locked Room or perhaps the re-released The Decagon House Murders?