Once Upon a Thriller

"The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat."

"The Masque of the Red Death"

There's something comforting about reading a book by someone you used to read a lot, but haven't in a while.

Oh, wow, my last review of a Higashino Keigo work dates from 2014? It's been a while! Higashino is an author I read a lot in the earlier days of the blog, and I am still of the opinion he's a great choice for those studying Japanese and who want to try to read their first books completely in Japanese, because his writing is really smooth and easy to understand (somewhat like Agatha Christie in English). But yeah, I haven't read very much of him lately, which can be attributed to two factors, I guess. One is that Higashino, especially nowadays, as a mystery author, is definitely more a 'broad entertainment' writer. Which isn't a bad thing per se, considering his huge success both in Japan and abroad, but Higashino's mystery stories are often written for a much broader audience than 'just' readers of mystery fiction, and his books are often written more as mainstream entertainment stories. Great material that lends themselves for countless of adaptations and the focus on human drama in his books are of course an element that have made him popular, but I have to admit I generally don't enjoy those stories as much, because I am a very boring reader who is content with just a puzzle plot and don't per se need human drama. Of course, I don't think all his earlier work is perfect and his later work rubbish, because I really don't (I love The Devotion of Suspect X!), but there's definitely a general shift towards the type of story I'm not looking for, so I hadn't really been reading his books the last few years. Which brings me to a second reason: only a handful of his works are available as e-books and he's one of the few authors still in print (and selling really well) whose works are basically almost only exclusively available on paper. So then comes the matter whether I really want to add one of his books to a physical book order, and often his books just end up lower on the priority list.

Anyway, so I finally got around to reading a book by him again. Kamen Sansou Satsujin Jiken ("The Masquerade Mountain Villa Murder Case") from 1990 is one of Higashino Keigo's earlier mystery novels and while the period setting definitely feels like late eighties/early nineties, in terms of style it feels quite modern, in the sense I could definitely imagine if Higashino had written this book with the idea of it getting adapted for the small or silver screen eventually. Of course, this book was written long before he became the super popular author he is now, so that's of course not the case, but you can definitely recognize how even among his earlier works, you can find mystery novels that were really written for a much broader audience than those who exclusively read detectives, being much closer to a thriller or a suspense novel, with a good dash of human drama. The book is set a few months after Takayuki lost his fiancee Tomomi, whom he first met when she caused a car accident that ultimately injured her more than her 'victim' Takayuki. They got to know each other after the accident, growing closer and getting engaged. The plan was to hold their wedding in the mountain villa of Tomomi's parents, a place they visited each year, but one day, after making arrangements near the villa for her wedding, Tomomi had a deadly car accident, driving her car of a cliff-side road. Several months later, Takayuki is invited by his parents-in-law to come to the mountain villa, as they intend to stay there a few days as they do every year, and the couple Nobuhiko and Atsuko would be honored if their son-in-law would come too. Other guests include Tomomi's brother Toshiaka, Tomomi's cousin Yukie, Tomomi's friend and mystery novelist Keiko, and Nobuhiko's secretary and physician. 

However, during the first night, two armed men manage to sneak inside the mountain villa and they take everyone hostage. The two men are bank robbers, and they had actually planned to stay in this villa for a day until their boss could pick them up. The mountain villas in this neighborhood are just holiday houses and often nobody's staying there, so the bank robbers hadn't expected to find any people in this villa when they picked it as their temporary hide-out a few days ago and made their own false keys. The two men decide to just stick to the plan and hold everyone hostage inside the house, keeping them all in the living room, while observing them from second floor balustrade. But as the stress starts to build among the hostages and they hope to find a way out, they start to realize that some of them don't think that Tomomi died in an accident, but that her death was orchestrated, and furthermore, those people think that the person behind Tomomi's death is right here! The two bank robbers are quite interested in this story as they have nothing to do anyway while waiting for their pick-up, but the following morning, after everyone was allowed to stay in their own room (one bank robber remaining in the hallway to watch all doors), one of the guests is found murdered in their room! At first it seems only the bank robbers could have commited the murder, but why, and nobody really believes they did it, so who of the house guests is wearing a mask and the real murderer, and how did they do it because they were all locked up in their rooms?

Ongoing hostage situation, mystery revolving around Tomomi's death and an actual murder occuring under semi-impossible circumstances? Yep, there's plenty of thrills going on in this book, and that's probably its best part. It doesn't take long for the two bank robbers to show up in the villa and take everyone hostage, and while the hostages are being held captive, one of the bank robbers gets really interested in the story of Tomomi's death, and how Keiko, Tomomi's best friend, suspects her friend didn't *just* drive off a cliff, but that somehow someone arranged for that to happen, and that it's likely that this person is someone Tomomi trusted, meaning one of the house guests. This is of course not really helping the team spirit, especially as more curious things are going on. The hostages, while being watched by the robbers, have some freedom, and some of them try to cook up plans to warn the police: two policemen have already come round the house, inquiring very obviously whether the people here had spotted the two bank robbers on the run, though obviously, the robbers held them under gunshot and made them lie about that. Still, they realize there might be someway to escape the villa and warn the police, but curiously enough, they find some of their attempts to warn the outside world, like a message written in the sand outside, erased by someone. Because none of the bank robber mention anything about their attempts, it seems they didn't discover the message, but who did? When the second night, one of the house guests is murdered in their room, the bank robbers swear they didn't do it, and after some debating, it does seem unlikely the victim would've let any of the robbers in their room during the night without making any noise and one of the hostages was also kept in the hallway, with the bank robbers, as an extra insurance, but she too says she didn't see the robbers go the room, so how was the murder committed and is the murderer then one of the other house guests? The story basically never lets you, or the hostages, rest, as there is always *something* going on, and that's why I mentioned earlier how this would be perfect as a television film.

How does the book fare as a mystery novel? Well, it's a bit uneven. There are some interesting parts, like Tomomi's death, or the semi-impossible murder in the villa, but a lot of those elements don't feel very satisfying as a mystery novel, because the clue-to-solution time is often rather short, so you don't really get that "Aha, so that's how it was!" feeling due to the short build-up time. The facts regarding Tomomi's death for example are given you in small bursts throughout the book, but the really important facts come relatively late. The focus of the book is more on the suspense angle, but I also feel like small things, like spreading the hints out more, or like a little diagram of the villa itself, would have helped the book a lot. The way the hostage situation with the bank robbers, and their involvement in the murder is eventually resolved is more interesting, though again, while certainly guessable, it's not like there were really well-spread hints or clues regarding the climax. Funnily enough, the bunko pocket release of the book includes a commentary essay by Orihara Ichi, who considers Kamen Sansou Satsujin Jiken to rank among Higashino Keigo's best three books, but he also hates the book. Why? It happened to feature the exact same trick Orihara himself had used in a manuscript he had been working on! Orihara tells how he bought the book on release and halfway through started to fear the worst, and it came true, and as Higashino's book was already released and all, he had to abandon his own book. Interesting to hear how two authors arrived at the same idea in a similar time period and you can tell how frustrated Orihara was when he knew the thing he had been working on had already been done just a bit earlier by Higashino.

I have the bunko pocket release, a format which generally comes with a slipcover like most Japanese books, but for some reason my copy came with a second slipcover. And the art on it is actually very nice and in terms of style, I prefer it to the actual cover, only.... I don't know how this cover is related to Kamen Sansou Satsujin Jiken. The girl on the cover is far too young to be any of the women in this boo, and the room itself is not like any of the rooms in the mountain villa described in the book. I mean, this room doesn't invoke any notions of a mountain villa or a hostage situation or anything like that, right? I guess the mask is the one thing that comes from the title of the book,  but that's like a really tiny, tiny connection. I know that a few other Higashino pockets came with second slipcovers in the same style if you bought them at Tsutaya, but this book wasn't bought there, so I don't really understand this second cover....

Do I think Kamen Sansou Satsujin Jiken is one of Higashino's best three works? Probably not. Mind you, it's a short, but thrilling read from start to finish, and taken as a work of entertainment, it is a good work, offering a suspenseful story with a lot of story developments and mysteries both in the present and past. Looked at it as a mystery novel solely, it does feel like it could've been much more if the book had been a bit longer, as some of the better story elements of this book would've benefitted from more "runtime" allowing for more depth, It's not a book I would go out of my way for to recommend as one of Higashino's best, but if you're looking for something short, but fun to read between some 'bigger' mystery novels, this is a good palate cleanser. Nothing to ambitious, but basically a popcorn flick.

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾『仮面山荘殺人事件』

The Big Sleep

君の愛の揺りかごで

もう一度安らぎに眠れたら

「The Real Folk Blues」　（山根麻衣）

I wish I could sleep once more

in the cradle of your love

"The Real Folk Blues" (Yamane Mai)

Did we all enjoy the first episode of the new season of Sherlock? I'll write a review when all episodes have aired, so that post will appear in... a bit more than a week.

Kaga Kyouichirou series
Sotsugyou ("Graduation") (1986)
Nemuri no Mori ("Forest of Sleep") (1989)
Dochiraka ga Kanojo wo Koroshita ("One of the Two Killed Her") (1996)
Akui ("Malice") (1996)
Watashi ga Kare wo Koroshita ("I Killed Him") (1999)
Uso wo Mou Hitotsu Dake ("One More Lie") (2000)
Akai Yubi ("Red Fingers")  (2006)
Shinzanmono ("Newcomer") (2009)
Kirin no Tsubasa ("The Wings of the Kirin") (2011)
Inori no Maku ga Oriru Toki ("When the Curtains of Hope Come Down") (2013)

Kaga Kyouichirou had planned to become a teacher after his graduation, but things don't always go the way you want. Nemuri no Mori ("Forest of Sleep") puts Kaga in the role of the police inspector in charge of  a murder case at the offices of the Takayanagi Ballet Troupe. Haruko, one of the troupe's dancers, was attacked by a man and killed him accidently in self defense. The police has problems figuring out why the man snuck in the offices and suspect that he was trying to find someone or something connected to the troupe. Suspecting the key to this case lies within the troupe, Kaga decides to learn more about the members of the troupe and the world of professional ballet performances.

The second Kaga Kyouichirou novel and quite different from the first novel. Sotsugyou was relatively 'classically styled', with a locked room puzzle and an intricate other problem focusing on actor movements. Nemuri no Mori on the other hand has none of these decorations; a normal bludgeoning death, and an investigation focusing on the psychology of the suspects. There is a relatively 'classic' murder around the middle of the novel, but the howdunnit of that murder is solved rather quickly and it never becomes a focal point in the case. Nemuri no Mori is definitely closer to the later novels in the Kaga Kyouichirou series.

The setting of a theater group is something you'll often see in detective fiction and while a ballet troupe is not that different, I have to admit that Higashino made quite good use of the setting and the world of ballet really comes alive in Nemuri no Mori. Specialized settings are used quite often in Kaga Kyouichirou series, with the world of university level Kendou competitions in Sotsugyou, writers in Watashi ga Kare wo Koroshita and a myriad of settings in Shinzanmono, which is definitely one element that makes the Kaga Kyouichirou series interesting to read.

One problem I had with Nemuri no Mori was its tempo though. Most of the novel focuses on Kaga getting to learn more about the members and their ideas on ballet, with the investigation almost an afterthought. Because of that, it's not always clear where Nemuri no Mori's narrative is going. Considering that the novel should be about a murder investigation, I'd prefer for the story to be a bit more focused.

A TV drama version of Nemuri no Mori was broadcast on January 2 of this year, as the fourth entry in the Shinzanmono-branded adaptations of the Kaga Kyouichirou novels. It is a fairly faithful adaptation of the original novel; changes include one concerning the second death, and some changes in the background of the character of Kaga. But I have to admit that I enjoyed the drama version more than the novel. Partly because I knew the story already; solving a bit of the problems I had with the pacing of the story. But it also helped that you could actually see and hear the ballet performances, rather than just reading about them. So much of the story depends on the characters and their passion for ballet, so it really adds to the enjoyments of the story to see and hear their art 'alive'.  

Oh, and the cameo perfomance by Nakama Yukie as Kaga's date at the beginning was hilarious, because Abe Hiroshi and Nakama Yukie are also the stars in the wonderful drama Trick!

I wouldn't call Nemuri no Mori a high point in the series in general, but I did really like the drama adaptation of it (even better than the movie!), so I'd recommend the latter for those who want to learn about one of Kaga's earliest cases.

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾　『眠りの森』,　東野圭吾（原） 新春ドラマスペシャル“新参者”加賀恭一郎「眠りの森」

Little Wing

「世の中甘くみてるなら安心だ。どこにも光がないと絶望してるより」

『麒麟の翼』

 "I'm relieved you can still look lightly at the harshness of society. It's better than only feel despair without any hope of light"

"The Wings of the Kirin"

As always using this first paragraph to say something random: I had played Broken Sword 3: The Sleeping Dragon only once, when it was first released and remembered it as the game where you had to solve a crate pushing puzzle every two minutes. But thinking I might have just made it seem more horrible in my memory, I played the game again recently. But it turns out Broken Sword 3 was indeed riddled with crate puzzles. Sigh. But now back to today's topic.

Kaga Kyouichirou series
Sotsugyou ("Graduation") (1986)
Nemuri no Mori ("Forest of Sleep") (1989)
Dochiraka ga Kanojo wo Koroshita ("One of the Two Killed Her") (1996)
Akui ("Malice") (1996)
Watashi ga Kare wo Koroshita ("I Killed Him") (1999)
Uso wo Mou Hitotsu Dake ("One More Lie") (2000)
Akai Yubi ("Red Fingers")  (2006)
Shinzanmono ("Newcomer") (2009)
Kirin no Tsubasa ("The Wings of the Kirin") (2011)
Inori no Maku ga Oriru Toki ("When the Curtains of Hope Come Down") (2013)

It is said that Nihonbashi is where all roads start in Japan, being the starting point of the Edo five routes. To Aoyagi Takeaki, Nihonbashi Bridge meant the ending point of his life. Aoyagi was stabbed in a underpass near the bridge, but for some reason walked, staggered all the way to the bridge, without asking for help from anyone, only to pass away in front of the winged Kirin statue on Nihonbashi bridge. Why was he so anxious to get to the Kirin statue? Around the same time, a young man Yajima Fyuki is found holding Aoyagi's belongings, but he is hit by a car during a chase by policemen. How are the two incidents connected? Kaga Kyouichirou from Nihonbashi station sets out once more to find what tragedy lies behind this all in Kirin no Tsubasa ("The Wings of the Kirin").

As you can see above, I've reviewed most of Higashino Keigo's Kaga Kyouichirou series, though it's not just novels; the reviews of the books until 2000's Uso wo Mou Hitotsu Dake are all based on the novels, but I wrote my thoughts on Akai Yubi and Shinzanmono based on their TV adaptations starring Abe Hiroshi as Kaga Kyouichirou. Kirin no Tsubasa (2012) is the motion picture set in the same series, with the same actors / production team behind it.

As a mystery film, Kirin no Tsubasa leaves a lot to be desired for. Like Shinzanmono and Akai Yubi, most of the film you'll be seeing scenes of how those left behind (Aoyagi's family and Yajima's girlfriend) are coping with their losses and how the police investigation forces them to rethink what a family is. Kaga is always there, doing his work, but he serves more like a bridge between these more emotional scenes. This was admittedly also the case with Shinzanmono and Akai Yubi, but they worked in their own, specific ways: Shinzanmono was a TV show, so you had a conclusion of some sorts every episode (every episode a small mystery was solved), while Akai Yubi was an inverted detective, where you know the family in focus was actually involved with the crime, so you had a sense of suspense watching how the family stuck together in an attempt to deceive Kaga. With Kirin no Tsubasa, you're just watching and waiting for something to happen. And you will have to wait for a long, long time for anything to happen (but crying and yelling).

And then the production team suddenly remembered this is a mystery film and they have a dead guy in their story. In the last thirty, forty minutes of the film, the viewer is suddenly presented with a lot of information and developments which kinda come out of nowhere, without proper foreshadowing and hinting. And before you know it, the case is solved.

I was stumped.

The last half of the film basically said,  "A large part of the first part of this two hour film you're watching, well, you can forget about that. That one character we paid so much attention to? Forget her. We will too. Oh, you need clues? Well, we kinda forget them in the first half, so we'll show them to you now, right before we use them to progress in the story. That way, you can't say there were no hints!". Storylines pop up from nowhere, and a lot of the parallel storytelling and linking up to the Winged Kirin statue disappear. As if you're watching two different films.

Kirin no Tsubasa in the end is more of a character study than a proper mystery film, and while Higashino Keigo's works often walk along a vague line of mystery/character drama, I can't help but feel that either he, or the film production committee went overboard with the human drama stuff. Of course better for the general public and the Shinzanmono, Akai Yubi and Kirin no Tsubasa productions might indeed purposedly focus more on human drama, but even within this set Kirin no Tsubasa feels off.

But this might be said of the Kaga Kyouichirou series in general. The earlier novels like Sotsguyou are classic puzzle plots, and Dochiraka ga Kanojo wo Koroshita and Watashi ga Kare wo Koroshita are fun puzzle experiments due to those stories not having a proper solution (i.e. the hints are there and it is possible to deduce the murderer, but names are not mentioned in the text itself), but the last few entries in the series are lighter on mystery and heavier on drama. Though that might be because I only saw the adaptations.

Shinzanmono had a whole season to flesh out the city of Ningyouchou as a setting and did that wonderfully; Kirin no Tsubasa had only two hours to do the same and it didn't work out that well. Nihonbashi bridge does form an excellent starting point of the film, and it is wonderful how the story keeps leading us back to this starting point of all roads, but even though the rest of Nihonbashi is also important to the story, there is just too little time to really present it as a believable setting; they're just points on a map. A shame, because I thought setting was one of the things Shinzanmono did really well.

I haven't read the original novel, so I don't know how faithful the Kirin no Tsubasa film is to the original, but it does not work as a mystery film. It just doesn't. It drags on, it offers little payback and the things that made Shinzanmono work as a human drama - mystery film hybrid, are precisely the elements that are not present in this production.

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾　（原）　『麒麟の翼』

A Friend in Deed

仕組まれた自由に誰もきづかずに

あがいた日々も終わる

この支配からの卒業

戦いからの卒業

『卒業』　尾崎豊

Nobody realizes our freedom is fake

Our days of struggling will end

Graduation from this control

Graduation from the fight

"Graduation" (Ozaki Yutaka)

Hmm, I'll probably write about the last season of Poirot,  but seeing that three of the four posts this month were already about TV/film productions, I think I'll push that post to December. Which is close anyway (though at my current writing tempo, it might become next year...)

Kaga Kyouichirou series
Sotsugyou ("Graduation") (1986)
Nemuri no Mori ("Forest of Sleep") (1989)
Dochiraka ga Kanojo wo Koroshita ("One of the Two Killed Her") (1996)
Akui ("Malice") (1996)
Watashi ga Kare wo Koroshita ("I Killed Him") (1999)
Uso wo Mou Hitotsu Dake ("One More Lie") (2000)
Akai Yubi ("Red Fingers")  (2006)
Shinzanmono ("Newcomer") (2009)
Kirin no Tsubasa ("The Wings of the Kirin") (2011)
Inori no Maku ga Oriru Toki ("When the Curtains of Hope Come Down") (2013)

Higashino Keigo is probably better known internationally for his Detective Galileo series (thanks to the succes of The Devotion of Suspect X), but his longest running series is the Kaga Kyouichirou series, which started with his second novel Sotsugyou - Setsugekka Satsujin Game ("Graduation - The Setsugekka Murder Game"). I have already written about the later entries in the series (see above), where Kaga appears as an extremely competent police detective, so I was kinda surprised that Kaga was still an university student in this novel. Though the title should have tipped me off. Anyway, Kaga Kyouichirou is in his last year of university, and like the rest of his friends thinking about his future. One of his friends, Youko, however, seemingly commits suicide in her apartment,  but a series of curious facts leads the police, and Kaga to suspect it might have been murder. And when another of his friends dies during a tea ceremony game, it becomes clear something evil has been hiding among Kaga's friends.

Considering this series is Higashino's oldest series, it shouldn't be surprising when I tell you that this novel is quite different from more recent entries in the seriesl. The biggest change: Kaga Kyouichirou appears prominently in the story. Most of the later novels are narrated from the point of view of suspects, with Kaga occasionally popping up to ask annoying questions like he was a disciple of Columbo or Furuhata Ninzaburou. Sotsugyou is definitely his novel though, being about his friends. It shows a side of Kaga I had never seen before, which was interesting.

Sotsugyou is also much more an orthodox detective novel than the psychological mystery dramas that later entries seem to be. Dochiraka ga Kanojo wo Koroshita and Watashi ga Kare wo Koroshita are a bit of anomolies in the series (as they are fair play mysteries, but don't tell you who the murderer is), but the rest of the novels seem to focus more on the suspects and the drama that led up to the murder. Sotsugyou however features two seemingly impossible murders (one in a locked apartment room with limited accessibility and another where suicide seems to be the only solution), making it feel much more 'classic'. Indeed, older Higashino Keigo novels seem more like conventional detectives with clear problems (see also his parody series Meitantei Tenkaichi), which is more fun to read in my opinion. Then again, these older works by Higashino sometimes have the trouble of feeling a bit too conventional, as if he's just writing them with a checklist of tropes besides him.

Overall, I have to say that I do feel that Sotsugyou is a bit underwhelming. The solution to the locked room problem is a bit... well, I guess it forebodes his Detective Galileo series and shows Higashino's scientific background, but content, I am not. And the poisoning murder during the tea ceremony (which is where the subtitle Setsugetsuka refers to) is insanely complex. If you have a story where you need four pages of text, and another four pages of diagrams to explain where every cup was during each stage of the tea ceremony, then the story is probably too difficult for its own good. The two problems also feel very disjointed, and it's almost like reading two seperate storylines. It can work for some stories, but not here.

I wouldn't say that Sotsugyou is a bad novel, but it's not particularly memorable either. For those interested in Kaga's history, it has some nice moments, but as a detective novel it feels a bit safe, and not particularly inventive.

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾『卒業　 雪月花殺人ゲーム』

『殺意は必ず三度ある』

"認めたくないものだな。自分自身の若さゆえの過ちというものを"

『機動戦士ガンダム』

"One does not care to aknowledge the mistakes of one's youth"

"Mobile Suit Gundam"

I already said this once, but I am actually not that big a fan of Higashino Keigo, despite the fact I seem to use his name tag quite often on this blog. When he writes something good, it is really good like Meitantei no Okite ("The Laws of the Great Detective") and Yougisha X no Kenshin ("The Devotion of Suspect X"). Lately, many of his novels tend to be sad love stories with a mystery plot, but Higashino's skill in writing and a knack for coming up with neat narrative tricks usually make them very interesting to read. When he has a bad day though, his books really just feel like a checklist of detective tropes combined a love story, with little creativity.

In June 2011, Fuji TV broadcast three TV specials based on three early novels by Higashino Keigo. His early novels tend to be more orthodox detective novels as opposed to his more ambiguous later novels, but they are usually not very interesting, following the basic tropes and formula of the genre, with SUSPICOUS characters and DRAMATIC revelations and TEARBREAKING conclusions. Or something like that. They are well-suited for TV-format though, I have to admit.

11 Moji no Satsujin ("The Eleven Characters Murders") was the first of the specials, broadcast on June 10 2011 and definitely the worst of the bunch. The story is about a female detective fiction writer, who while well known, has lately been in a writing slump. One day her boyfriend is found murdered and the only message he left was "from an unhabited island, with murderous intent" (which is written Japanese in eleven characters, hence the title). While she might have troubles with her own fictional murders, the writer decides to investigate the murder herself with the help of her editor/friend, but it seems like her boyfriend's murder was not the only one to happen recently and she finds out that her boyfriend was related to an incident that happened one year ago on a small island, which may the reason of his death.

This story is really just Higashino Keigo checking off a gigantic list of tropes that seemed to fit his idea of a detective story. 11 Moji no Satsujin almost feels made for a TV adaptation as it really feels like those two-hour suspense dramas. It is only missing a denouement at a cliff overlooking the sea! In fact, it had helped this special if it had a denouement scene at a cliff overlooking the sea. Now I was just like "Oh, she solved the case. Nice for her". I had actually seen this special right after it was broadcast last summer, but it was so utterly boring that it took me until now to work the courage to watch the other two specials. The only point of interest: an alibi that crumbles due to the testimony of a blind person, which is reminiscent of a certain famous Yokomizo Seishi novel.

Brutus no Shinzou ("Brutus' Heart"), the second special broadcast on June 17 2011 is a lot better. A very succesful engineer Suenaga Takuya is seen as the new hope of a gigantic heavy industry corporation, having constructed Brutus, a high-tech robot. The CEO also intends to marry his daughter off to him and nothing stands in his way to the top. Except for his mistress Yasuko who says she is pregnant with his child and intends to blackmail him. He discovers that two other men in the corporation are being blackmailed (for the same reasons) and they decide to work together to kill her off. They come up with the plan of a murder-relay: the three men split up the murder in three parts (the actual murder in Osaka, transport to Tokyo and disposal of the body in Tokyo). By making sure they do have an alibi for the parts they don't have to do, they hope to fool the police.

Which seems like a nice plan, until they find out that the body they have been transporting was the body of one of three conspirators and that Yasuko is still alive the next day. Who killed their fellow conspirator? Was it Yasuko? Who knew of the plan? Fearing for his own life, Takuya hopes to find the murderer to cover up his relation to the murder relay.

For some reason, Fujiwara Tatsuya always seems to be playing the role of an elite arrogant young man with a murderous streak and an awful, awful laugh in detective productions. Light in Death Note, that guy whose name I forgot in the first episode of Furuhata Ninzaburou FINAL, Takuya in this Brutus no Shinzou, Fujiwara seems rather typecast for these kinds of things. Anyway, Brutus no Shinzou is really an improvement to 11 Moji no Satsujin, as the plot of a murder relay gone wrong is quite exciting. At first you think it starts out as an inverted detective, but the plot really takes a different turn when they discover that their fellow-conspirator is dead and the intended target not. Though I have to admit that the idea is a lot better than the execution, as the conclusion with the surprising identity of the murderer (in reality not really surprising) is a bit bland and the some of the subplots were really, really generic.

Luckily, they saved the best for last, as Kairoutei Satsujin Jiken ("The Kairoutei Murder Case"), the final special broadcast on June 24 2011, was actually pretty good. The wealthy Ichigahara Takaaki has died and his family, mostly brothers and sisters from different mothers, have all gathered in Kairoutei, a Japanese inn, to await the presentation of his will. Besides the family, the beautiful Miwako is also present as a representative of her mother, an old family friend. Little does the family now however that Miwako is in fact Kiryuu Eriko, the secretary of Takaaki who is said to have commited suicide half a year ago after she had an attempt on her life by her boyfriend Jirou in a forced love suicide, all at the Kairoutei. She however knows that Jirou did not commit suicide, but was killed and faked her own suicide to take revenge (having undergone plastic surgery to change her face). Now all the guests that were present that day half a year ago are here gathered at the Kairoutei again and she intends to take revenge.

Confusing? It is and the first twenty minutes I really had no idea what I was watching but the simple version is 'Eriko (pretending to be Miwako) wants to kill murderer of her boyfriend, but does not know who (s)he is'. Eriko sets a trap and having found out the identity of murder, goes to his/her room to murder to murder him/her, only to find out that her victim is already dead! Why was the murderer killed before Eriko could have done the deed? Was the victim really the murderer or was Eriko's trap faulty? As the police slowly starts to doubt Eriko's real identity, she has to hurry finding out who it was who killed her Jirou to take her revenge.

The original novel is known for a certain narrative trick, that did not translate well to the screen, but there is in fact another narrative trick hidden in this special that really worked well. I was caught completely off guard when the reveal came for that trick and that won me over. With a murderer who is planning to kill another murderer (with something going wrong, like in Brutus no Shinzou), Kairoutei Satsujin Jiken is really a great suspensful story, that despite a really confusing beginning with flashbacks and an excessively complex family tree of multiple mothers and deceased family members, really manages to deliver at the end. In fact, this special's plot really became better and better as it neared its conclusion, making it a really satisfying story. Tokiwa Takako also stole the show as a vengeful Eriko and she was definitely the best lead part of the three specials.

In the end, these specials did little more than confirming my ideas about Higashino Keigo: you have to be careful with what you read of him, as the quality of his works can vary quite a bit, especially his earlier works.

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾（原）　『１１文字の殺人』 / 『ブルータスの心臓』 / 『回廊亭殺人事件』

「ユメヲミタミタイ」

ひとつの目で明日をみてひとつの目で昨日をみつめてる

『The Real Folk Blues』

I look at tomorrow with one eye, while keeping my other eye on yesterday

"The Real Folk Blues"

With the end of the year nearing, I am at one hand tempted to try to come up with a best-of-list, because looking at the past is some kind of ritual that needs to be done around this time. And as I have a) actually read a reasonable amount of books this year and b) I can actually rely on my blog instead of on my memory, it would be possible too! On the other hand, I don't really like best-of-list all too much.

Decisions, decisions.

Anyway, as I have wait for new books to arrive here, I chose a book from my pile of 'yes, I haven't read these yet, but I don't feel an urge to read them anyway' books. The lucky (?) victim was Higashino Keigo's Yochimu ("Foreseeing Dream"). And as I have reviewed loads of Higashino Keigo's novels and am usually fairly to very positive about them, one might wonder why this was on the non-priority list, but there's a simple explanation for that. Yochimu is a short story collection in Higashino's Galileo series (the second volume in the series actually), but I had knew the five stories collected here, as they were featured in the TV drama based on Galileo. So yeah, there was no real urgency in reading stories I knew already anyway. Besides that, most of the stories collected here weren't that interesting anyway. In fact, I only choose this book because I could finish it quickly.  Ah, I hope my books arrive here soon.

While the Galileo novels (Yougisha X no Kenshin, Seijo no Kyuusai, Manatsu no Houteishiki) are all quite good, the Galileo short story collection all suffer from the problem that they are insolvable for us mere mortal readers. Most of the Galileo short stories follow the same formula: cop Kusanagi handles a case that has a supernatural tone to it. A predicted murder. Poltergeists. Will-o'-the-Wisps. Those kind of things. Kusanagi asks his scientist friend Yukawa for assistance, who then comes up with a complex scientific explanation for the situation. While the 'supernatural-phenomena-turns-out-to-be-perfectly-natural-phenoma' is certainly fun, Higashino's stories end up with roughly two problems. One is of course that unless you happen to know something about the scientific theme of the week, you are screwed. The second problem is that Higashino is not as fair as he should be and that he keeps pulling information from nowhere during the explanation. Thus we have an unfairly hinted story that relies on specialist information too.

The first story in the collection, Yumemiru ("Dream"), sorta avoids this by coming up with a totally fuzzy, way too vague solution to the problem of a man who apparently has foreseeing dreams. Ever since elementary school, he had dreams about a girl called Morisaki Reimi and he has always said he would marry her. Fast-foward 20 years or so, and we have this man arrested for breaking and entering the house where high-school student Morisaki Reimi lives. How could the man have dreamt about this girl, even before she was born? Her name is very rare and all evidence shows that this man has really been talking and dreaming about her ever since he was a boy. The solution Yukawa provides however is certainly not satisfactory.

Mieru ("See") is better luckily A woman is found strangled in her house, but she was also seen at a totally different place, at the time of her murder, by her lover. Was that her ghost who said goodbye to him? Of course not, and the solution to the whole story is pretty good, but it is the story structure and page length that kinda kills the story. The story is just too short to really work out the ghost-angle, and the pacing is a bit too fast too really convey a feeling of space and bewilderment that is needed for this kind of story.

Sawagu ("Racket") is the definately the weakest story of the five. Kusanagi is asked by a friend of his sister's to locate her husband, who hasn't come back in five days. She suspects that something has happened at the house of an old lady he used to visit. The woman has died recently and her nephew, his wife and two friends of them have moved in the house, but they are acting very strange. Especially the fact that they all leave the house at eight at night, only to come back a bit later is unnatural. Kusanagi and the friend break into the house after eight to see whether her husband is being held there, but find nothing. Nothing? Well, they did discover that every night a poltergeist starts to make a racket in the house and that is the reason why the four always leave the house at eight... Yukawa comes up with a solution to explain the poltergeist phenomena which is so absolutely unfair and impossible that it frustrated me intensely when I read it, even though I already the solution from the TV drama!

Shimeru ("Strangle") is the best, though that is not saying much, it seems. A man is found dead in his hotel room, with severe strangling marks on his neck. The main suspect is his wife, as they entered a life insurance program only recently. What is making this strange though, is that the daughter says she saw a will-o'-the-wisp fly around her father some days ago. Was this a sign of his death? This time, the story is fairly hinted, though the main trick to the whole problem is pretty much impossible to deduce based on that single hint. It's a thing that kinda makes sense in hindsight, but no way a reader is going to deduce this beforehand.

Shiru ("Know") is another fairly decent story: a woman commits suicide in the apartment in the building across of her lover's apartment, with her lover and his wife being actual witness to that. The strange thing is that in the apartment next to witnesses' apartment, a sickly girl claims that she had seen the woman commit suicide two days earlier (but she admits she did see her being alive and well the day after). Was this a foreseeing dream by an hallucinating girl? Yukawa's solution to this supernatural phenomena is decent, but a bigger problem lies in another problem Yukawa uncovers at the same time. This is once again a solution that relies too much in specialist information that no normal reader is going to have. Which really hurts this story, because the main plot is actually quite decent that could have been worked to something much better.

So no, I am not really positive about this selection of stories. Having now read all the Gallileo short stories and another short story collection by Higashino, I think short stories are just not his forte. On the other hand, a lot of his novels feature tricks and plots that actually don't need a full-length novel to work properly, I think (they read very comfortably though). Higashino really should try writing novelettes.

And still waiting for books to arrive.

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾　『予知夢』:　「夢想る　（ゆめみる）」 / 「霊視る　（みえる）」 / 「騒霊ぐ　（さわぐ）」 / 「絞殺る　（しめる）」 / 「予知る　（しる）」

Sunset Men

「誰にもとけない問題を作るのとそれを解くのとではどちらが難しいか」

『容疑者Ｘの献身』

"What is more difficult? Constructing a problem nobody can solve, or solving that problem?"

"The Devotion of Suspect X"

Finding free Japanese mystery novels at the university library is always fun. Now only if I actually had to read all those books! Even this post's topic, a Higashino Keigo novel, took me almost two weeks. In the holiday, I could easily finish a Higashino Keigo novel in one or two days. Oh, free time, where art thou?

Higashino Keigo's Manatsu no Houteishiki ("A Midsummer's Equation") is the third novel-length entry in the Detective Galileo series. The previous two novels, Yougisha X no Kenshin and Seijo no Kyuujo were quite different from the short stories within the series: whereas the Galileo short stories are usually about the use of the hard sciences in murders / solving murder, the novel-length entries have always been rather 'serious' police procedurals where physicist Yukawa, nicknamed Galileo, (sorta unwillingly) helps the police with their investigations, with only a very shallow link to the sciences (making the novels also more accessible).  Manatsu no Houteishiki continues this trend, but sadly enough isn't as interesting as the previous two novels.

The story starts with Kyouhei, an eleven-old kid, going to his aunt and uncle's place for the summer vacation, as his parents are out of town because of work. His aunt runs a pension in Harigaura, a little resort town that has seen better days. Even though it's the middle of summer, the pension only has two other guests. One is Yukawa, who is a invited speaker for a panel discussion on a planned natural resources development project in the sea of Harigaura. The other guest, an elderly man called Tsukahara, is apparently an interested party too, as he shows up in the public of the panel discussion. The panel discussion is quite heated, with lots of villagers wanting to preserve the sea, like Kyouhei's niece Narumi. Others see no future in Harigaura as it is now and strongly believe that the development project will save the town.

The night after the panel discussion however, Tsukahara is found dead on the cliffs. The police at first thinks it's a simple accident, but when they discover that Tsukahara was an ex-cop and that he didn't die of the fall, but of carbon monoxide poisoning, they start to suspect it was murder. Where did Tsukahara die and more importantly, why? Did it have to do with some of his old cases? And meanwhile, the kid Kyouhei is having the worst vacation ever, as his aunt, uncle and niece are too busy dealing with the police. He does find an unexpected friend in Yukawa though, who seems to have some interest in the Tsukahara case too.

While Manatsu no Houteishiki is mostly a police procedural like the previous two novels, it feels quite different. One reason is that we have about five interested parties, with the story's point of view changing between them. Yukawa, Kyouhei, Narumi and her parents, the local police and the Tokyo police all look at the case from different angles, with information flowing from one party to another, some information being hidden from another party and yes, it's a bit too much. The story never gets confusing or anything and the constant changing ensures the story developments keep up a certain pace, but at times it also just feels like unneccesary padding out of the story.

The many perspectives on the case do make it kinda vague what the main problem of this novel is. The previous Galileo novels were clearly about an alibi trick and an impossible poisoning, but there is nothing like that in Manatsu no Houteishiki. The promotion phrase for this book was "Accident? Murder? The truth Yukawa noticed...", but even the question of accident or murder is not as important as one might think. Near the end, the story focuses on the why and how of Tsukahara's death, but it's pretty sad to see that Higashino basically reuses a plot-device he did much better in one of his other novels. The twists in the previous two Galileo novels were devilishly simple, while Manatsu no Houteishiki's trick is more like 'oh, well, yeah, that was simple and not very interesting'.

While there is little discussion on science in this novel, the interaction between Yukawa and the kid Kyouhei does give some interesting insights in Yukawa's idea of science. However, I had troubles seeing Kyouhei as a real kid in the novel. Which is maybe because he is 11, which means he is not a real kid anymore and thus can act more adult at times, but his character seemed to swing to much depending on the situation. Of course, Kyouhei is a lot more realistic than kids like Conan's Detective Boys or Edogawa Rampo's original Detective Boys (and Kyouhei isn't even playing a detective), but I would guess that realistic children are harder to create on paper than adults.

While Yougisha X no Kenshin, Seijo no Kyuujo and Manatsu no Houteishiki are about different kind of criminal problems, the three novels are in the core very similar novels. Higashino uses a similar plot-device in all three novels, he constructs a 'simple-and-therefore-effective' problem in all three novels, the police procedural angle with opposing forces plays an important role in the story development in all three novels. The 'problem' for Manatsu no Houteishiki is that even though it's a decent mystery, the other two novels are simply better at pretty much everything.

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾　『真夏の方程式』

「ラブは０・・・いくら積み重ねても惨めに負けるだけ・・・」

なるべく傷つけぬよう傷つかぬように

切なさもほらね押し殺せる

愛だと名付ければそれが愛だといえる

『忘れ咲き』 (Garnet Crow)

Look! So I won't hurt you or myself,
 I can even supress my own sadness!
If I would call this love, I could say that this is love

"Wasurezaki" (Garnet Crow)

Re-reading Conan for the big series overview was fun, but it also took quite some time, that could have been spend on other material. And there is enough material I still want to read/watch/listen. So I won't make a habit of re-reading / reviewing material I read in the past. It would just take too long, even if it would be fun to discuss classics like The Greek Coffin Mystery, the Father Brown stories or 813 (I have a loophole for 813 though!).

But for some reason or another, I suddenly developed the urge to write about Higashino Keigo's Yougisha X no Kenshin ("The Devotion of Suspect X"). So I did. Yougisha X no Kenshin is the third entry and the first full-length novel in the Galileo series. For me, it's a book of memories. It was the very first book I read in Japanese. Armed with a dictionary, I spent an obscene amount of time deciphering the novel. For a first-year student who had just finished the elementary level lesson material, reading a complete novel in Japanese was perhaps a bit ambitious. Every three words, I had to open my dictionary to look up some word or expression. It took me months to get to the final page of the book. But it was worth it. Yougisha X no Kenshin was a great story that really impressed me. Earlier this year, an English translation was released and going through the book again, my opinion on the novel didn't change: Yougisha X no Kenshin is a great story.

The previous Galileo stories were about crimes that were connected one way or another to the exact sciences. Sometimes it was about a murderer who used some high-tech machinery to kill his victim, sometimes it was about some ghostly apparation that turned to be some natural phenomena. Science still plays a big role in Yougisha X no Kenshin, but no death-lasers to be found here. The story starts with a murder commited by single mother Yasuko and daughter Misato. The victim, Yasuko's ex-husband, was really asking for it, but still, murder is murder. Mother and daughter are still dazed, the stiff is still warm, when suddenly their neighbour, the maths teacher Ishigami knocks on their door. He knows what has happened and says he wants to help the two. Luckily for them, Ishigami is a real genius and he gets rid of the body and whips up a perfect alibi for the two in no time. The police on the other hand are having trouble finding the murderer (though they do suspect the mother/daughter duo) and detective Kusanagi decides to ask his old friend Yukawa, a physicist nicknamed Galileo, for help. And just to make things more dramatic, Yukawa and Ishigami are actually old friends too, each acknowledging the other as a true genius on their own respective fields (physics and mathematics).

I could write about the big Yougisha X no Kenshin controversy (with big players like Nikaidou Reito and Kasai Kiyoshi), which was about whether this novel is a true orthodox detective and whether the hints were fair enough (and thus whether it was fair that this novel won the Honkaku Mystery Grand Prize). But I won't. All I know is that I enjoyed this novel when I first read it in 2008 and again when I read the translation in this year. I don't think that any discussion on the book will change my opinion about it. It's a very engaging mystery novel that anyone can enjoy. Unless you're an old sour grumpy critic.

Higashino Keigo is always quite strong in characterization, as human relations are often the emphasis of his mystery novels. Actually, his novels often turn out to be some kind of orthodox mystery romance psychological thrillers. Which totally explains his popularity in Japan. But anyway, in Higashino novels, people usually commit murder out of love, to protect the ones they love or because their unrequited love turns into grudge (See for example Seijo no Kyuusai ("The Saint's Salvation") and Akai Yubi ("Red Fingers")). But even though this is a common theme in Higashino novels, the way these themes are used  in Yougisha X no Kenshin is exceptionally good. Inverted mysteries often need both a detective and a murderer you can root for. People can easily root for cops like Columbo or Furuhata Ninzaburou, so it might be a bit harder to create a symphathetic criminal. But it's almost insane how much the reader will root for Yasuko and Misato, how much the reader hopes that Ishigami succeeds in protecting his neighbours.

Note that the whole fact that I address a topic like characterization and human relations here is very strange. I mean, for someone who loves robot!Ellery Queen and the supershort Q.B.I. stories, you'd expect I don't pay much attention to those kinds of themes. Which is totally true. So the fact that I actually talk about them in a review, means that I was quite impressed.

This novel was also made into a movie in 2008 (the TV series based on the previous books was very popular). Actually, the reason I started with the book was because I wanted to read the book before seeing the movie. The movie itself is pretty good too: the TV series had some cheesy elements, but the production team luckily got rid of that to fit the story's more dramatic tone. Tsutsumi Shinichi is unfairly billed as a supporting role, as he really steals the show with a heartbreaking Ishigami (and I love the ending song, Saiai).

I doubt whether I'll ever be able to look at this novel without the Nostalgia glasses on, but I'd like to think that this is a great novel, even without those glasses. 

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾　『容疑者Ｘの献身』

"A, B, C. We're certainly relying on basics tonight. But proceed."

「全く芝居じみている」　俺はいった　「アガサ・クリスティの世界だな。容疑者を集めて探偵が推理を披露をするわけだ」

「クリスティの世界なら、もう少し話が派手になるでしょう。容疑者も多い。この部屋の壁沿いにずらりといすを並べる必要があるほどにね。しかし容疑者が三人だからといって、犯人を絞るのが楽だというわけでもないのが、捜査の難しいところです」
『私が彼を殺した』

"This is all quite theatrical," I said.  "Like something out of Agatha Christie. With all the suspects gathered and the detective who is going to unveil his deduction".

"This story would be a bit more grand if this was Christie. With more suspects. Enough so we would have needed to line up chairs along the wall of this room. But the difficulty in these investigations is that even with only three suspects, it's not easy to narrow it down to the one murderer." 
"I Killed Him"

The Challenge to the Reader is something I've enjoyed since... always? Dutch comic book readers might remember comics like Inspecteur Netjes (with the legendary "Weet jij het ook?!!" ("Do you know too?!!") - challenge) or even Disney's Sul Dufneus (Shamrock Bones) and Mickey Mouse detective comics, which always ended with a challenge to the reader. Manga like Conan and Kindaichi Shounen do it more indirectly, as the protagonists of both series usually announce when they have solved the riddle (and thus suggest that you should have been able to solve the case too by now).

Higashino Keigo's Dochiraka ga Kanojo wo Koroshita ("One of the two killed her") played with this: the novel revolved around two suspects, but it is not made clear the novel itself who the real culprit is: it is up to the reader to deduce it. It works out precisely like a normal detective, with clever hinting and all, but the conclusion just avoids any words that point to specifically to one of the two suspects (using words like 'that person' or 'the murderer' to refer to the culprit in its denouement). You have all the necessary clues in your possession, so solve it yourself. The ultimate challenge.

Kaga Kyouichirou series
Sotsugyou ("Graduation") (1986)
Nemuri no Mori ("Forest of Sleep") (1989)
Dochiraka ga Kanojo wo Koroshita ("One of the Two Killed Her") (1996)
Akui ("Malice") (1996)
Watashi ga Kare wo Koroshita ("I Killed Him") (1999)
Uso wo Mou Hitotsu Dake ("One More Lie") (2000)
Akai Yubi ("Red Fingers")  (2006)
Shinzanmono ("Newcomer") (2009)
Kirin no Tsubasa ("The Wings of the Kirin") (2011)
Inori no Maku ga Oriru Toki ("When the Curtains of Hope Come Down") (2013)

Watashi ga Kare wo Koroshita ("I Killed Him") is the spiritual successor to that book and the fifth book in the Kaga Kyouichirou series. Like it's predecessor, the identity of the real culprit is not made clear in the novel itself, instead giving the readers the ultimate challenge: deduce it yourself. The story starts the day before the wedding of popular writer/movie director Honami Makoto and poet Kanbayashi Miwako. A little gathering at Honami's house is disturbed by a woman dressed in white; Honami's former lover Namioka Junko, who now knows that Honami has betrayed her. They get rid of Junko quickly (in the non-criminal way) and preparations for the wedding proceed as planned. The wedding the next day itself is kinda ruined by Honami dying just when he entered the chapel; being poisoned by strychnine. As Junko has committed suicide the day before (also with strychnine), the police at first suspects that the ex had poisoned Honami and then commited suicide as forced love suicide.

Kaga of course doesn't agree with this and finds three persons who had access to the strychnine and the opportunity to switch Honami's medicine with the strychnine-laced medicine: Kanbayashi Takahiro, brother of Miwako who had an incesteous relation with her. Suruga Naoyuki, Honami's manager who was in love with Junko and hated how Honami had treated her. Yukizasa Kaori, Miwako's agent who once had been Honami's lover herself. The murderer is one of the three, but who?

The novel is written from the perspective of the three suspects, switching between them as the plot develops. This makes for some interesting reading, as you actually know that one of the three must be the murderer. So you already know that the narrator=murderer trick is being used. The murderer doesn't outrageously lie to the reader, but just manages to avoid mentioning crucial parts (like saying "and this is when I did it..." or something like that).

The novel ends with the single line "the murderer is you" uttered by Kaga and I can imagine that many people could have missed the solution. I missed it myself, so I had to look it up on the internet to check. It was not as devious as in Dochiraka ga Kanojo wo Koroshita, which was really well done, but a decent one. It's a bit of shame that the solution hinges on the final revelation by Kaga (so you really can't solve it until the last page and you can never win from Kaga), but with that final clue in your hands, it's actually quite logical and I think I would have solved it if I had re-read the book again (of course, that's easy to say now). It seems by the way that the murderer in the seralized version and the hardback/paperback versions differ. In the paperback version, the novel is followed by a set of sealed pages, which contain hints to the murderer, but I really, really don't want to cut in my books...

And it seems that Higashino Keigo already has an idea to follow up this series of One of the Two Killed Her, I Killed Him with a third part, You Killed Somebody, so I'm looking forward to that!

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾　『私が彼を殺した』

「ちなみに聞いてみただけです」

「捜査もしていますよ、もちろん。でも刑事の仕事はそれだけじゃない。事件によって心が傷つけられた人がいるのなら、その人だって被害者だ。そういう被害者を救う手だてを探しだすのも、刑事の役目です」
『新参者』

"I'm investigating the case, of course. But that isn't a detective's only job. If there are people who got hurt because of the case, then those people are victims too. Finding a way to help those victims, that's the work of a detective."
"Newcomer"

Hmm, I might as well do these reviews back to back...

Shinzanmono, discussed yesterday, ended in the summer season of 2010, but it was followed up by a prequel TV special early this year. Akai Yubi ~ Shinzanmono Kaga Kyouichirou Futatabi! ("Red Fingers ~ Newcomer's Kaga Kyouchirou Returns!") is based on the novel Akai Yubi ("Red Fingers") by Higashino Keigo and is set two years before the events of Shinzanmono, when Kaga was still working at the Nerima Ward police station.  It's the seventh part in the Kaga Kyouichirou series (Shinzanmono being the eight) and the direct sequel to Uso wo mou hitotsu dake.

Kaga Kyouichirou series
Sotsugyou ("Graduation") (1986)
Nemuri no Mori ("Forest of Sleep") (1989)
Dochiraka ga Kanojo wo Koroshita ("One of the Two Killed Her") (1996)
Akui ("Malice") (1996)
Watashi ga Kare wo Koroshita ("I Killed Him") (1999)
Uso wo Mou Hitotsu Dake ("One More Lie") (2000)
Akai Yubi ("Red Fingers")  (2006)
Shinzanmono ("Newcomer") (2009)
Kirin no Tsubasa ("The Wings of the Kirin") (2011)
Inori no Maku ga Oriru Toki ("When the Curtains of Hope Come Down") (2013)

The story starts when salaryman Maehara Akio gets a phone call from his wife Yaeko, begging him to come home at once. When he arrives home, he discovers that the body of a young girl, a second-grader, is lying strangled in his garden. His wife tells him that their hikikomori son Naomi, who had some violent streaks in the past, has strangled the girl. At first, Akio wants to report it the police, but after some pleading by his wife (and an attempted suicide), he agrees to dump the body somewhere else to protect his son. The body is found the next day in a public bathroom and the MPD suspects it's a sexual deviant that commited the crime. However, it doesn't take long before Kaga Kyouichirou zeroes in on the Maehara's. Seeing Kaga snooping around, the Maehara's try to outsmart the police with a big gambit.

While it's not a necessity, an inverted detective is usually more fun if you have at least some sympathy for the culprit. I want to root for the criminal a bit. It was sadly enough practically impossible to do so in this story. The son Naomi, hikikomori or not, is so unlikable that you wonder why the mother (and by extension, their father) do their best to hide his murder (especially if you watch this right after the Shinzanmono finale). Naomi plays games while his parents are doing the upmost best to destroy all evidence, he eats a meal while his father is carrying the body away and freaks out everytime anybody tries to confront him with anything. The mother was horrible too (threathening to commit suicide if her husband told the police about their son's crime) and while I sorta sympathized with the father, the gambit he takes in the later half of the story is just too horrible to accept.

If you have a sympathetic murderer in an inverted detective, or at least an interesting antagonist (a very smart person, someone with a very good plan, or a cop or something like that), than the game between the detective and culprit can be a delight to watch. Here I really wanted Kaga to stop with his psychological games as soon as possible so he could get the kid in jail.

The plot itself is rather straight-forward and is Higashino-style more focused on human drama than the mystery, though he manages to slip a nice plot-twist near the end. The story is a lot more dramatic than Shinzanmono though, which was like a feel-good-story-of-the-week (despite it being a murder investigation).

Furuhata Ninzaburou is already over and I never really got into Aibou ("Partners"), also featuring a detective who likes to 'harrass' people, so more Kaga Kyouichirou series with Abe Hiroshi would be great. How awesome would a series of Dochiraka ga Kanojo wo Koroshita be!

May 26 Addendum: It seems that Abe Hiroshi is going to star in a 2012 Shinzanmono movie, based on the newest book in the Kaga Kyouichirou series: Kirin no Tsubasa ("The Wings of the Kirin"). Yay?!

Original Japanese title(s): 『赤い指〜「新参者」加賀恭一郎再び!』 based on 東野圭吾 『赤い指』 

「嘘は真実の影」

「嘘には３種類ある。１、自分を守る嘘。２、他人をあざむく嘘。３、他人をかばう嘘だ」
『新参者』

"There are three kinds of lies. 1. A lie to protect yourself. 2. A lie to deceive others. 3. A lie to protect others."
"Newcomer"

I've reviewed books in Higashino Keigo's Kaga Kyouichirou series before, but I actually didn't get to know this character through the books. It was through a television drama that ran last summer, based on the (then) newest Kaga Kyouichirou novel. I only finished watching the series this week though. No, it's not that long, I'm just slow.

Kaga Kyouichirou series
Sotsugyou ("Graduation") (1986)
Nemuri no Mori ("Forest of Sleep") (1989)
Dochiraka ga Kanojo wo Koroshita ("One of the Two Killed Her") (1996)
Akui ("Malice") (1996)
Watashi ga Kare wo Koroshita ("I Killed Him") (1999)
Uso wo Mou Hitotsu Dake ("One More Lie") (2000)
Akai Yubi ("Red Fingers")  (2006)
Shinzanmono ("Newcomer") (2009)
Kirin no Tsubasa ("The Wings of the Kirin") (2011)
Inori no Maku ga Oriru Toki ("When the Curtains of Hope Come Down") (2013)

Police detective Kaga Kyouichirou had been working mostly in Nerima ward, but a transfer to Nihonbashi, Ningyouchou makes him the titular Shinzanmono ("Newcomer") in town. And his first big case also concerns a newcomer in Ningyouchou: the murder of Mitsui Mineko, a divorced translator, who was strangled in her own apartment. She had only come to live in Ningyouchou just recently, so who would have any reason to kill her? It is up to Kaga Kyouichirou to investigate what lies behind the Mitsui murder.

You know when in a mystery story everyone seems to have something to hide? And that the detective seems be forced to chase after countless of red herrings before he finally reaches the truth? This series actually turns this idea around and makes it the focus of the story. Every episode focuses on a different suspect who lies to the police. Some might be hiding a terrible family secret. Some might be lying to keep up appearances to their family. Some lie to protect their family. Like Kaga says: people lie to protect themselves, to deceive others or to protect others.

Kaga Kyouichirou is still very much like Furuhata Ninzaburou and Columbo; he picks up little discrepancies and doesn't let go till he has gotten an explanation. Annoying his victim in the process. The difference between Kaga and the others is that the latter two usually close in on the true culprit rather quickly, while Kaga has to wade through a sea of suspects, everyone of them a little pile of secrets. Every episode turns out to be like a short human drama story in which Kaga shows up to reveal why people lie to the police and each other, clearing up many misunderstandings between people. Is Kaga a detective of the heart? No, not really. He is a nice guy and all, but he is out to uncover every little contradiction in the case and it just so happens that most of these contradictions arise from lies made by innocent people. And he does slowly closes in on the culprit behind the Mitsui murder by his meticulous investigation.

An aspect that I really liked about the show was the focus on Nihonbashi, Ningyouchou as not just an background, but as an entity. Shinzanmono tells a story of old craftsman, popular cake stores, ningyouyaki,  and local customs of Ningyouchou. It's a romantic depiction of a small town as an environment with its own personality. You usually see this kind of 'characterization' with popular areas like Shinjuku or Shibuya, but not so much with smaller towns in Tokyo.

I liked Abe Hiroshi's Kaga by the way, even though it was quite different from the books. In the novels, Kaga is like a beast in the shadow; you never get to see him clearly (the books are written from the viewpoint of the suspects) and he always strikes when you least expect him. Here the story follows Kaga, and Abe Hiroshi plays him the best way he can; by playing himself. Inserting a healthy dose of humor in the character and giving him real presence has made TV!Kaga quite different from Novel!Kaga, but not in a bad way.

Once again, Higashino Keigo came up with a story that mixes human drama with mystery in an interesting way. Shinzanmono is not a pure detective, but pretty fun nonetheless.

Original Japanese title(s): 『新参者』, based on 東野圭吾『新参者』