Seven Days A Week

Seven days a week now
Seven days a week
You've even got me talking in my sleep
Seven days a week

"Seven Days A Week" (George A. Robertson Jr.)

I usually have a lot of posts scheduled months ahead, so whenever I read a newly released book and decide to push a review early to keep it timely, it messes up the whole schedule...

It is a late July day when Kuroba Uyuu wakes up in a hospital room, looking down at a somewhat familiar person lying in a bed in the ICU. He recognizes the face.... as his own, and when he sees he's floating and he himself is in a semi-transparent state, he starts to realize that he is in fact a ghost. He realizes the nurse can't see him either, and follows her as she reports to the doctor that her patient (Kuroba) has stabilized after a cardiac arrest earlier this morning, but that he's still in a coma. It's then that Kuroba slowly remembers what happened to him. Four months ago, on White Day (March 14), he was out on the roof of his apartment building, when someone pushed him from behind. Kuroba ended shish-kebabed on the statue of a dog holding a toothbrush high up in the sky beneath the building. It is then he recalls he had an appointment for that evening to meet a prospective client and the realization he never made it there annoys him a bit, as trust is an important factor in his line of work. For Kuroba was going to meet his client as The Perfect Crime Contractor: Kuroba has been active in the underworld for almost a decade as someone whom people can turn to if the justice system fails them. He exacts revenge for his clients, usually in a manner that mirrors the way the criminals hurt their victims, like swindling swindlers or putting the police on the trail of the serial Topsy-Turvey Killer and cornering him into a certain death. The Perfect Crime Contractor of course executes his revenge in a way that safeguards both himself and his clients, hence his nickname, and while the police knows of him, they never have been able to prove for example his involvement in certain suspicious deadly "accidents" that happened to some murderers.

Having nothing to do as a ghost, Kuroba floats to the place where he was supposed to meet his clients four months ago: an abandoned house in the outskirts of the city. When he arrives there, he is suddenly attacked by a young girl, or at least, she attempts to, but she walks right through him. It turns out the girl can actually see ghosts and has seen a few before in her life. The girl is Otoha, and she is the daughter of the clients Kuroba was supposed to meet on the fourteenth of March. However, they were found killed in gruesome manners in this abandoned house the following morning: both her father and mother had been poisoned, and her father was then hanged upside-down from the ceiling. However, it was a snowy day, and there were only the footprints of her parents leading into the house, and none out (of the killer), meaning it was a double locked room murder: this is why Otoha has been coming every night to the house, as she learned her parents were going to meet the Perfect Crime Contractor here that night and she believes he killed them with a perfect crime. After Kuroba explains he's the Perfect Crime Contractor, Otoha realizes he can't be the killer of her parents: Kuroba being stabbed on the statue had of course been all over the news, and his fall occured hours before her parent's deaths. Kuroba's fall has been filed as an accident by the police, but Kuroba can't believe his fall, and the murders on Otoha's parents are disconnected as they happened just within hours of each other. Otoha pleads with Kuroba to help her exact revenge on the murderer of her parents, as that's probably also the person who pushed Kuroba off the roof. As a ghost, Kuroba can't directly interact with the physical world, and he also learns from Otoha ghosts can only roam for a maximum of seven days before they fade away completely and reluctantly, Kuroba agrees to help Otoha in tracking the killer and mentoring her so she can take her revenge, but in a way that will keep herself out of harm's way. Can this unlikely duo accomplish their revenge before Kuroba's ghost will disappear in seven days in Houjou Kie's 2024 novel Shoujo ni wa Mukanai Kanzen Hanzai ("An Unsuitable Perfect Crime for a Girl").

Yes, as a Houjou Kie fan since her debut, I of course read her latest book the moment this was released (it was released last week). After debuting via, and writing three excellent novels for publisher Tokyo Sogensha, writing the exciting short story collection Amulet Hotel at Koubunsha, we now have Houjou Kie's first novel via publisher Kodansha (you may remember a few weeks ago I did review a short story she did via Kodansha's Mephisto Readers Club). So a different publisher, but as always, we see Houjou do what she's best at: presenting densily plotted mystery novels featuring a special background setting, in this case, we have the existence of ghosts. Which is funny, because I only read one story by Houjou from when she was still a member of the Kyoto University Mystery Club, which also featured a ghost. Also interesting to note is that the editor of the book was also a former editor-in-chief of the club.

As I am writing this, I have to admit I find it difficult to sort my thoughts on this book. Not because it's a chaotic book, but I think I can best explain it by first pointing out that based on her social media, it does appear Houjou very much likes television drama and films and in a way, Shoujo ni wa Mukanai Kanzen Hanzai feels very much like a full season of a mystery drama series. A lot happens in this book, and basically each chapter turns things around or focuses on a different main problem, even if everything is surprisingly neatly connected. We start out with an impossible crime: the murder on Otoha's parents in a house with no footprints in the snow leading to the entrance, but Kuroba and Otoha's investigation lead them to more mysterious crime scenes and events: some might be "classic" crime scenes like the one mentioned above, or a more open crime scene like the rooftop from which Kuroba was pushed, while others focus on other mysteries like an impossible situation where a person manages to conjure a weapon out of nowhere despite security precautions, or "impossible situations" where the young Otoha needs to escape a trap without being detected. The book is crammed full with mysteries upon mysteries, but they all flow into each other in a very natural manner, as part of the duo's investigation, and because of that, it really feels like a complete series, rather than a single novel.

This is also because of the insanely densily-clewed plot. While the story has you following many different situations one after another, Houjou somehow manages to hide all her clues and foreshadowing across the whole novel, rather than compartmentalizing all the clues together with the stiuation they correspond too (as in [part 1 + clues of part 1] -> [part 2 + clues of part 2] etc.). The result is a very satisfying mystery novel, where everything you read can turn out to be a clue that might be relevant to a situation you have already read about.... or about that might still come, and those situations themselves might be completely different mysteries. I can't even imagine how difficult it must have been to keep track of all the clues during the writing process, keeping an eye on when and where each clue was employed or when foreshadowing would be necessary. Houjou has always been a very dense writer when it comes to clues, but due to the set-up of Shoujo ni wa Mukanai Kanzen Hanzai, with a series of mysteries set in motion by different actors occuring across city, rather than a series of murders by the hand of one murderer happening in an isolated setting like in the Ryuuzen series, you become even more aware what an amazing plotter she is, as clewing all of these situations and intertwining all these threads must be hell as a writer.

At this point, I haven't even really mentioned what makes this book truly amazing. So by now, we basically have a television drama season's worth of mysteries, all with intertwined threads of clues and foreshadowing as we follow the unlikely duo of a primary school child and a criminal ghost trying to find a killer and take revenge on them, but... this is also a book that focuses on multiple solutions, in the tradition of Christianna Brand, Ellery Queen and Anthony Berkeley. Otoha, as a young child, is being mentored by Kuroba's ghost and being taught the ropes of how to deduce, a skill extremely important when it comes to planning out perfect revenge plans and soon the two find themselves bouncing off deductions off each other about the various mysteries they encounter during their investigation. In some rare occcassions, we even have other character offer false solutions too, and what makes this so memorable is of course due to the fact I mentioned earlier about how insanely many clues are found throughout the book: all of the false solutions presented in the book, as well as the real solutions, are of course all properly clewed (and the false solutions of course feature clues that will ultimately prove them false). The realization Houjou had to keep track of all of this is honestly just stunning, and the result is an incredily fun mystery novel, as it always keep you guessing, by constantly shifting the mystery you're thinking about and by challenging the reader into finding the real solution among the many false solutions she planted. Some of the major mysteries, like the initial locked room mystery, even have like three or four different false solutions presented, so it's an extremely tricky story.

With so many mysteries going on, it's understandable that some mysteries are less memorable when taken on their own: there's a minor no-footprints-in-the-mud situation halfway through the book for example that has a rather basic solution, and while I like the concept behind the weapon appearing out of nowhere, I feel it needed one more clue to feel truly fair, but that's nitpicking, as the way all of these are put together is impressive enough, and I do really like the solution to the first no-footprints-in-the-snow situation, as well as the great way in which Kuroba and Otoha initially figure out a logical connection between Otoha's parents' murderer and Kuroba's assailant. I also think readers will appreciate the time Houjou allows the reader to spend with both Otoha and Kuroba: they are explored more deeply than any other character in Houjou's earlier work and that is probably also a reason why this book feels so much like a full season of stories, rather than a single installment. I do think personally that the ghost aspect of the story feels less intertwined with the mystery in this book, compared to how Houjou's earlier work utilized their supernatural/unusual elements: Kuroba can't interact with the physical world, so he mostly mentors Otoha and can act as an extra pair of eyes and ears, as well as provide information Otoha can't have, but there's less of the "make super clever use of the rules of this specific supernatural element" we have seen in her previous novels. Oh well, you can't have everything.

Because even with that minor point, I do think Shoujo ni wa Mukanai Kanzen Hanzai is one of the best mystery novels I have read this year, and easily so. It's a very satisfying read as it covers so much ground and throws Otoha, a young, indepedent cheeky girl, and Kuroba, a ghost with a chip on his shoulder, in so many mysterious situations and allows both of them to show both their best and their worst as they try to find the killer and formulate a way to exact revenge on them. A must-read of this year!

Original Japanese title(s): 方丈貴恵『少女には向かない完全犯罪』

Puzzle for Pilgrims

"It's morphin' time!"

"Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers"

No, that's not weirdly specific compression: the cover illustration is really pixelated.

Disclosure: I have translated works by Norizuki Rintarou and Abiko Takemaru.

As reflected by the winners of the same-named Mephisto Prize, Mephisto is a magazine providing entertainment fiction, with a focus on mystery, but not exclusively so, as it also features storie encompassing scifi and other genres. It has gone through a few formats since its inauguration in 1994, and since 2021, it has become one of the perks for subscribers of the Mephisto Readers Club, being published four times a year as its club magazine, featuring serializations of for example the newest House novel by Ayatsuji Yukito, but also original stories written for the magazine. In 2023, author Norizuki Rintarou became the chief of a project focusing on the classic detective device of the Challenge to the Reader, or in this case, a challenge to subscribers of the Mephisto Readers Club. Each story would be published in two parts: the problem part would be published in the magazine itself and end with a Challenge to the Reader. The reader would have a few weeks to send in their answer, complete with the proper logic behind it, and then the solution would be published online after the deadline (and they'd have live-streams with the writers to look back at the stories). Norizuki approached five other authors to write a story with a Challenge to the Reader, and while the Challenge to the Reader is commonly associated with the pure whodunnit, he interestingly also divided the stories in three groups: they would do two whodunnits, two whydunnits and two howdunnits. Early 2024, these six stories by the authors Norizuki Rintarou, Houjou Kie, Abiko Takemaru, Tanaka Hirofumi, Kitayama Takekuni and Ibuki Amon were collected in the volume Suiri no Jiken Desu ("It's Morbin' Time" "It's Inference Time"), finally giving non-subscribers also access to these stories.

I myself was not a member of MRC at the time, but I had seen Houjou Kie talk about her contribution to the project last year, and as I am a big fanboy and know she's good at these Guess the Criminal/Whodunnit + Challenge to the Reader-style stories, I of course wanted to read her entry too, so I was more than thrilled when I heard the stories would be collected in an anthology. Norizuki, Abiko and Houjou were also all members of the Kyoto University Mystery Club, where these two-part puzzle-like Guess the Criminal scenarios (with a Challenge to the Reader) are a club tradition, so I knew they'd have experience with the format, and I was already familiar with the works of Kitayama and Ibuki, and I've enjoyed their works too, so I was very curious to see how they'd do the Challenge to the Reader too. Tanaka was the one author I hadn't read yet, and his entry was quite fun too, so I might read more of himin the future.

As mentioned in some of my older posts on the tradition in the Kyoto University Mystery Club, these scenarios are generally a lot closer to "pure puzzle"-esque than a normal mystery story and one important factor is that these stories really need to be solvable. When the Challenge to the Reader comes, all the hints must be given, and more so than "conventional" mystery stories, the logical chain from hint, to insight, to conclusion must be solid and not stretched too far apart: these stories generally don't expect you to come up with a brilliant locked room murder trick just by seeing the vague hint of a needle lying on the floor. Usually the process is plotted with a lot more hints, to keep the game fair. This would especially be the case for this project, as readers were encouraged to write in their answers, and had to explain the logical process (not a guess!) by which they arrived at their conclusions. So going into these stories, that was certainly something I kept in mind and I was also curious as to how it'd work with the whydunnits and howdunnits: as I explained in this article, the Queen-style whodunnit feels very fair as it's often based on the process of elimination and observed facts, whereas stories might feel less fair, because they expect the reader to "imagine" something.

The book opens with a story by Norizuki himself, titled Higisha Shibou ni Yori ("Due to the Death of the Suspect"). The last Norizuki I read was King wo Sagase last year, which was about the trope of the murder exchange, a theme I noted he liked as he had written about it in other stories. And he really likes it apparently, as this story is about it too! Mystery novelist and amateur detective Rintarou is visited by his friend Iida, who introduces him to Kajitani Kouhei, a financial planner who is being suspected of murder by the police. Kajitani is in fact somewhat of a swindler, and he had convinced Kajitani Iwao, a retired ship's cook, to adopt him, and take out a life insurance, with Kouhei as the beneficiary. Iwao was, not surprisingly, killed, but Kouhei has an alibi for that night. However, near the crime scene the former city councilman Mizoguchi Takanori had been seen, and it happens his wife was also killed just the week before: the police suspects Takanori and Kouhei swapped their murders, but the police cannot be sure, as Takanori committed suicide while in the custody of the police. And why go through the trouble of swapping murders, only to commit suicide immediately afterwards? But if there was no murder exchange and Kouhei has an alibi, who then killed Kouhei and Takanori's wife?

I have to admit: this set-up with a murder exchange wasn't what I had expected of a whodunnit scenario by Norizuki, though the foreword did mention him leaving the more traditional type up to Houjou. This story is great though: while fairly limited in cast of suspects, the chain that logically points to the murderer is very sound, and this is a prime example of a story that is clearly written to be fair, and that is willing to be "solved" and surrender to the reader, as long as the reader will do the bare minimum of sorting the clues in the story out and keep a good eye on who knows what at what time and things like that. 

Houjou Kie's story is titled Fuudani-kan no Satsujin ("The Whodani House Murders"): the Whodani House is the home of the jeweler Hatano Rokuhiko. The house consists of two buildings, which are connected in the middle by a glass house courtyard. Other people in the house include his two sons, his wife, his mistress and his secretary. And of course our narrator Uzuki, the maid and also a thief. One night, just as she hopes to steal a valuable painting from the living room, she first hears one muffled pistol shot going off, and five minutes later two more, but much louder, which also attracts the attention of other people in the house. She makes up some excuse for being in the living room at night with the lights off, and they go off looking for the butler, who for some reason doesn't show himself despite the ruckus. The butler is in the East Wing, while the living room is in the West Wing, so Uzuki and the secretary go to the security room, but they find the butler shot to death with two shots with a pistol from Rokuhiko's collection. When they want to report to their master in his bedroom back in the West Wing however, they find him shot to death too, and it's clear it was done with the same pistol. But who in the house managed to kill two people in both wings, while Uzuki was in the living room, which you need to pass in order to enter the connecting glass house courtyard?

This is the type of story I assume with a Kyoto University Mystery Club-style whodunnit scenario, and it's good one! Sure, it feels very "puzzly", but that is what I like about these stories, and man, this story is dense with clues. Houjou's work in general is quite dense when it comes to the pure mystery plot, but considering the page count, I'd say this might be her densest work yet, though I would admit that having this much density in a novel-length story might be a bit tiring. Still: this is a must-read if you want to learn how to these kind of fair-play Challenge to the Reader-style stories using a process of elimination: each step in the logical chain is explained clearly, allowing you to slowly cross out names on the suspect list until you end up wth the last name: the killer. Some clues are very obvious clues, but that's not a problem, as it's figuring out how to combine them that makes these stories so fun. Houjou also manages to hide more than a few suprises despite it being a relatively short story, but then again, it's so densily plotted you'll find crucial information everywhere, from the figures to the Challenge to the Reader itself. Definitely my personal highlight.

Abiko Takemaru's Osanasugiru Mokugekisha ("The Witness Was Too Young") is a whydunnit, which is probably a lot harder to put in a "fair play format", so I was curious how this would work out. We follow the police officer Hashitani Kaoru of the Community Safety Division, who is asked to assist with a murder investigation: Kiyomi, a pregnant mother, has for some reason stabbed her husband Haruto to death right in front of their son Subaru. He called the neighbors for help, but by that time, it was already too late. Kaoru has received training to talk with children, and is of course more suited to talk with Subaru than the angry-looking homicide detectives, so Kaoru is to see if she can get a little bit more information out of the shocked boy, as his mother is in the hospital in a dazed state and not available for questioning herself. The story of the boy whose his mother just came back home, pushed him away and started a fight with her husband sounds odd, and the boy can not imagine why her mother did that, but eventually Kaoru manages to figure out why. And this story works surprisingly well as a fair-play story. I have the feeling this story can also be "guessed" without any hints at all, but still, Abiko did plant proper hints, which allow a less imaginative reader to still arrive at the solution in a logical manner, and I find that very impressive. The solution is also pretty memorable, and overall, I'd say this tale too is good.

Tanaka Hirofumi's Perry no Haka ("The Grave of Perry") is the first of three historical stories: I am not sure why he, Kitayama and Ibuki all went for a historical setting. Perry no Haka starts in 1933, when a scholar visits a small village to open a tomb there. The scholar learned about the tomb via documents left by an ancestor, who worked as a (kind of) policeman in the Edo period, just around the time the Americans came to Japan, demanding them to open their borders for trade. The story then jumps back to the first arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry with his black ships at Edo, using the threat of their ships to first hand over a document demanding the Japanese to open their borders and saying they'd back one year later, expecting a positive answer from the Shogun. Meanwhile, we also learn about a worker in the kabuki industry who for some reason is visited by some Americans during this first visit, and one year later, when the black ships return, this man is found murdered, having been shot by the Americans. But why, and what does his death have to do with the tomb that is opened in 1933? This story has an interesting premise, focusing on Perry's arrival in Japan and the reaction to his fleet, and the way the mystery ties to actual history is quite clever. Hint-wise, I think it ultimately works out well: while I think the Perry-period story alone might not be enough, the prologue does provide enough context for the reader to make the necessary deductions, and while the story itself is not as densily plotted as Houjou, meaning there is much more "historical fluff" to flesh out the story, it is certainly a solid entry.

Kitayama Takekuni's Ryuugoroshi no Kunshou ("The Medal of the Dragonslayer") also has a story-within-a-story structure, as we first follow the narrator and his sister in Finland, who recently lost their grandfather. There's a safe in their grandfather's room, but they don't know the combination. They suspect a hint might lie in the stories he always told his grandson, though both believe their grandfather just loved tall tales. The clue might lie in a story their grandfather told about his father, who during World War II had been tasked with assassinating a nazi officer: while Finland had been working with Nazi Germany to fight off the Soviet Union, balance was going to shift soon, so they wanted to sabotage the operation, but without openly offending the Nazis. The operation occured during the transport of the railway gun Siegfried: two Fins (one of which their great grandfather) and two nazi officers were sitting in one carriage which was not connected to the other cars, meaning they could not leave it while moving. Meanwhile the Nazi commander was sitting in his own luxury carriage, which was connected to the railway gun carriage. The commander was seen to be alive when they boarded the train and set off. However, when they arrived at their destination, the commander was found on the roof of the railway gun wagon, at the controls, having been stabbed with a bayonet. But how could their great grandfather have done that, while he was in a different railway carriage, with three other witnesses?

You know, knowing Kitayama's work, I had actually expected a much more bigger, over the top trick. This was surprisingly.... normal. Okay, not really normal, but in comparison with his other works... I'm a bit torn on this story, to be honest. It's a good mystery story, that is for sure: I am familiar with other variants of the trick used here, but this specific iteration feels original to me, and it makes good use of the setting and of course, the idea of the murder happening on a moving train while we know the murderer is being watched, is pretty cool. But I don't feel this story is exceptionally fair, at least, not the degree we have seen in previous stories. While the story can be solved based on the hints, I feel this one does require a bit more imagination/intuitive guessing on the part of the reader, while personally, I think these stories with a Challeng to the Reader are the most satisfying when they do not require that, and allow someone with no imagination at all still solve the mystery by properly identifying all clues and following them to their logical conclusion. So in any other book, I would have liked this story better, but here it felt a bit off. 

Ibuki Amon's Hatozaki Taii no Homare ("The Honor of Captain Hatozaki") is set in Manchuria, where the detective Tsukisamu Sanshirou is sent by military command to investigate a certain unit. Command has been receiving letters accusing high ranking officers in that unit of illegally selling supplies to Koreans and other factions. However, command is actually aware of that, but turning a blind eye because they know that unit is stationed in a rather harsh place, so they give them a break. When the accuser threatens to blow the whole affair up if no measures are taken, Tsukisamu is sent (under the guise of being a journalist) to capture the accuser and silence him. Tsukisamu actually, by sheer coincidence, almost immediately learns his target is Captain Hatozaki, but during a skirmish, Hatozaki is injured and the surgeon won't allow Tsukisamu to question him just yet. In fact, Hatozaki was in a pretty bad shape and some of the medicine applied to him have put him in a rather confused state, so while he has been given sedatives now, he has been locked inside a room in the medical quarter's for his own, but also other people's safety for when he wakes up. Tsukisamu sees Hatozaki sleeping in the room, but has to wait until he wakes up. In the middle of the night however, as Tsukisamu wanders around the military complex, he sees someone shooting the lock off the door to Hatozaki's room, and while he and the surgeon immediately nab the guy, when they open the door to check inside, they find Hatozaki gone! But how could that be: the door was opened only just now by shooting the lock off, so neither someone on the outside, nor Hatozaki on the inside could've opened the door earlier.

This story has a bit of the same as the previous story, where it's an okay howdunnit, though not feeling as well-clewed as the other stories. The howdunnit itself is not as good as the Kitayama story, though I guess it's more solvable than that story too, with more hints. Oddly enough, I think the best part of this story is the whydunnit behind the culprit's actions; that part is actually really original and by far the most memorable part of the story and I would actually have preferred to have seen this worked out for the whydunnit part of the project, rather than it now feeling as a "bonus" to a howdunnit.

The book has a bonus section, where the autors themselves take on the stories of the others, and they can be interesting to read. You can really see how their thinking processses work and how they pick up on clues and more. The accompanying essays on the project are also I think also very useful to aspiring writers, as you can get an idea of how they plot these kind of logical problems and have to explicitly make it solvable.

Suiri no Jiken Desu is on the whole a really solid volume though, and a must-read if you're into fair play puzzle plot mystery. While these stories don't really offer much room for characterization or fleshing out of the background, they are good showcases of how to do stories with a Challenge to the Reader, and especially Houjou's story is a great example of how to plot clues and how to guide a reader's thinking process in identifying the culprit. It's very likely this will end up as one of my favorite reads of this year, and I hope they'll do a similar project again in the future!

Original Japanese title(s): 『推理の時間です』: 法月綸太郎　「被疑者死亡により」/ 方丈貴恵 「封谷館の殺人」/ 我孫子武丸　「幼すぎる目撃者」/ 田中啓文 「ペリーの墓」/ 北山猛邦　「竜殺しの勲章」/ 伊吹亜門「波戸崎大尉の誉れ」

At Bertram's Hotel

 "There's no place like home"

"The Wizard of Oz"

Semi-regular "Hey, there's a Honkaku Discord server so join it!" message!   

Ishinomori Shoutarou's HOTEL manga is pretty fun too by the way, if you're into fiction about the going-ons in a hotel!

The Amulet Hotel is, at first sight, an ordinary hotel, consisting of a main building, and an annex nearby. But, upon closer sight, one might notice the annex isn't quite ordinary after all. The annex is only open for special members, and if you look around the building, you might notice some peculiarities, like there only being one single entrance, and not even an emergency exit. The underground parking lot is also seperated from the parking lot of the main building, and for all intents and purposes, it appears that the annex runs seperate from the rest of the Amulet Hotel. And in fact, it does. For the annex of the Amulet Hotel serves a very, very special kind of clientele: criminals. The annex of the Amulet Hotel is a safe haven for criminals: here they can stay safely, and whenever they need something, they only need to ring reception, and within hours, you'll have a weapon delivered to your room, or even have a dead body disposed off. The Amulet Hotel is a world of its own, but it also has its own rules, and every guest is expected to abide by the iron rules: 1) one is not allowed to cause damage or harm the hotel and 2) One is not allowed to harm or murder someone on the hotel grounds. These rules ensure that even the biggest of rival criminals can stay safely here in the hotel together without having to worry about being ambushed, but of course, sometimes, people, especially criminals, don't follow the rules. But if someone violates these rules, they are of course not handed over to the police, but the hotel deals with such people in their own terms: the incident will be covered up, but the person who violated the rules will of course be "dealt with" accordingly too, and vanish from the face of the earth. The person responsible for this is Kiryuu, the hotel detective who not only has a very keen mind, but also a history as a feared assassin... In Houjou Kie's 2023 short story collection Amulet Hotel, we follow four crimes taking place in Amulet Hotel, and learn why one should never try to commit a murder there.

Oh, I like this cover a lot, very stylish!

Houjou Kie has been a personal favorite of mine ever since she debuted in 2019 with Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei ("The Hourglass of the Time-Space Traveller"), where she showed off how an old-fashioned, densely plotted puzzler could still work wonderfully with a scifi background. Supernatural and otherwise special background settings are something Houjou also experimented with during her time in the Kyoto University Mystery Club, and it's remained a staple of her work even after her professional debut, ranging from slightly futuristic VR-games, to an unknown being on an island hunting humans down and a supernatural being that lurks in shadows. At first, the idea of a hotel might sound rather tame therefore, but it is still very much in line with Houjou's work: the Amulet Hotel is not a normal hotel, but a world ruled by criminals, and what is normal there, is definitely not normal in a realistic setting, from calling reception to get weapons delivered or having a body incinerated so there's no evidence any more. In the stories of Amulet Hotel, people often have to act a certain way because they are all criminals, and because they can't afford to have the police examine the case. Because the setting is always, in a way, a closed circle (the hotel), and the only authority is Kiryuu (and the hotel doctor), the suspects often act in a way to prioritize self-preservation, which results in very clever puzzlers where characters will act in certain ways you are not likely to see in other stories, in a way similar to how fair play sci-fi mystery stories or stories with magical fantasy stories also have rules that govern how the characters can act.

I had been looking forward to this release, because I had already read the original Amulet Hotel short story back in 2021. I don't know if it was already planned as a series at the time, but the unique setting definitely had potential to carry a whole series, so when I heard a second story had been released (magazine publication), I really had to contain myself and tell myself to patiently wait for a collected release and not buy the single magazine releases. It took a while, but it's finally here! The first story is, as said, Amulet Hotel and I reviewed it back in 2021 and I basically have little to add to that. It is a wonderful introduction to the whole premise of a criminal hotel.When a guest of the Amulet Hotel's annex reports to hotel staff that the door to his room can't be opened and they find out even the owner's master key can't open the door, they are forced to break the door down. Inside, they learn the door had been blocked by a serving cart jammed beneath the door handle. They find a murdered man and an unconscious employee of the hotel in the room. Hotel detective Kiryuu is asked to figure out whether the unconscious employee in the hotel room killed the guest, or whether someone else did and if so, how the locked room was created. Once they know what happened, the culprit will be dealt with accordingly. 

What follows is an insanely densily-plotted mystery story with a lot of ideas stuffed in a relatively low page count, but it works. This is basically a short story variant of Houjou's debut novel Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei, in the sense both are really dense. Amulet Hotel starts out as a locked room murder mystery, but quickly turns into a very amibitious "which of the three" whodunnit puzzler with a lot of clever and sequenced clues. I can't really mention all the ideas here because it'll spoil the experience, but this story could easily have been turned into a full novel, and at no time would it have felt dragging, as there's just so much going in in terms of clewing. The story makes excellence use of the unique setting, forcing characters to act differently compared to a "normal" hotel setting with the proper authorities in charge. Definitely a must-read in my opinion

Crime of the Year no Satsujin ("The Crime of the Year Murder") is touted as "Episode 0" and shows how Kiryuu came to work as the Amulet Hotel's detective. Kiryuu was originally a secretary, and assassin for Douke, one of the biggest names in the criminal world. Known as the crime planner, Douke specialized in drawing up the most brilliant of criminal schemes and have others execute them. Kiryuu was taken in by Douke as a child and taught the ropes as an assassin, and while Douke could be a cold, cruel man, he would at times also show a soft side to Kiryuu. But now Douke has passed away due to cancer, which also means Kiryuu lost the protection Douke offered. However, there is still one job left to perform as Douke's right hand. Every year, at the Amulet Hotel annex, the Crime of the Year award is presented to the person who came up with the most impressive crime. Douke was one of the three committee of judges and thus expected to be present at the ceremony, but now he has passed away, Kiryuu has taken his place at the ceremony. Douke however was not close friends with his two fellow judges. Akashi in particular had been trying to grow his organization at the expense of Douke's organization, trying to win over some of Douke's higher captains. At the ceremony, the three judges and the winner of the Crime of the Year award are expected to drink from a special cup in turn. All four of them are on stage, drinking one after another. But when Akashi drinks after Kiryuu, he suddenly collapses on the stage. The Amulet Hotel doctor is called for, who discovers Akashi was poisoned to death. When Kiryuu's bag is searched and a vial of the same poison is found, the hotel manager immediately points his pistol at Kiryuu, for it appears that Kiryuu violated the rules and killed Akashi on stage. They all drank from the same cup, but Kiryuu handed the cup to Akashi as last, so only Kiryuu could've administered poison in the cup, right? Kiryuu only has a few minutes to quickly sort this impossible crime out before the hotel will take "measures"...

The second story is a lot simpler in design than the first (in fact, the first is by far the most complex story in terms of clues), with a semi-impossible crime, as we know Kiryuu didn't try to poison Akashi, and yet Akashi died after drinking from the same cup Kiryuu and the other two also drank from, and they are all fine. All of them have their tongues stained by the special wine in the cup, meaning they all actually drank from the cup, so how could Akashi have been poisoned? While there were only three suspects on the stage (including Kiryuu), the plot doesn't really take the form of a normal which-of-the-three, as it solely focused on Kiryuu trying to at least find a way to prove the possibility someone else could've poisoned Akashi. The story does once again make interesting use of the unique setting (the poison for example, was earlier simply ordered via room service) and a lot of the tension comes from knowing that the police will never come here. While the basic trick behind the impossible poisoning is fairly simple, I think Houjou does succeeds in making it an entertaining story with a few more twists and turns that make use of the Amulet Hotel to serve a few more surprises beyond just the poisoning itself.

Ichigensan Okotowari ("No First-Time Guests") is about Seto, who really needs to break into the Amulet Hotel annex, despite not having a member card. He is however a criminal, though just a very low-level pickpocket, member of the group Kerberos. He grew up together with childhood friend Aria as brother and sister, as their parents abused and neglected them. Seto ended up a pickpocket to make a living, but eventually, it turned out Aria was the illegimate child of a rather wealthy person, who passed away. Aria became his heir, but one condition: she was not allowed to monetize anything of the inheritance until she became twenty (she'd get an allowance and school money via a fund during that time). When a "friend" Kiba borrows a unique key chain, Aria didn't think too much of it, but when that "friend" then transferred money to her account for that key chain, she realized she had been deceived: by making it seem she had sold the key chain to him, Kiba could now blackmail her. Seto decides to steal the key chain back, but just as he's going to strike, he sees Kiba taken away by a group of people. He follows them to the Amulet Hotel annex, where he spots Yamabuki, a high-ranking criminal in one of the "parent" groups of his own Kerberos. He's holding the key chain, which makes Seto realize Yamabuki is behind all this. A lawyer is going to check Aria's belongings in a few hours, so Seto has to get inside the hotel, but that is impossible without a member card. Or is it? He tries to find a way inside the impenetrable fortress, but that's a neigh impossible task, especially if there's a hotel detective roaming around...

A different kind of story, and quite fun to read! About 3/4 of the story is about Seto trying to get inside the hotel, and while it's not a pure puzzler at this point, you do see him logically trying to deduce where the weak spots in the security could be, with Kiryuu occassionally popping up to throw him out. Time ticks however, and eventually, a shocking reveal is made by Kiryuu to Seto about Yamabuki, which changes the dynamic completely, as now Seto not only has to find the key chain in time, but also make sure he's not accussed of breaking one of the hotel's rules. The nice thing is a lot of little clues to the grand conclusion are hidden throughout Seto's attempts to break in, where he listens in staff members and realizes how weird the Amulet Hotel really is. The story is quite different in that it's not straightforward murder mystery this time and a lot of the tale does hinge on the twist surprise at 3/4 of the story which changes the dynamics, so I can't talk too much about it, but as a change of pace, especially with a character who is not really part of the hotel's usual clientele, this is a fun story.

Titan no Satsujin ("The Murder of the Titans") is by far the longest story in the collection, and revolves around a meeting with the Titans: the main investors in the Amulet Hotel. These people are called The Seven, though due to some deaths (the life expectancy of a criminal is not high), there are only five now. The meeting is held each five years at the hotel, and this year consists of The Weapons Smuggle King, the Gamble King, the Drug King, the Swindle King and The Shadow Accountant. The meeting is held on the fifteenth floor, which is usually kept sealed. The Titans of the criminal world here discuss the future of the hotel, but this year, things are different: one of the Seven, Kasai, wants to have the hotel closed after his wife and daughter passed away at an incident that occured here. Morioka, the owner of the hotel, desperately wants to keep the hotel open, so a heated meeting is expected. All the people attending the meeting have to go through a body scan and their belongings are also scanned through an X-ray scanner, to make sure nobody brings any metal (weapons) inside the floor. Kiryuu and the hotel manager stand guard outside in the hallway, while the meeting between the Titans is being held. After the break however, Kiryuu and the manager are called inside, for an incident has happened: Kasai was found lying dead inside the anteroom. The others went looking for him when he didn't return to the meeting room after their break, and found him dead. And not just dead, but stabbed in the chest with a knife. But how could anyone have brought a knife inside? Everyone was scanned for metal, and before the meeting started, the floor had also been cleaned (by... crime scene cleaners hired by the hotel) and scanned with metal detectors. It appears only one person could've brought a metal knife inside: Morioka, the owner of the hotel, who has a prosthetic leg and could've smuggled a knife within his leg. Now Kiryuu is forced to "deal" with the owner of the hotel in order to uphold its rules, but is this really the truth?

A long story, but also one with a lot of twist and turns. The story basically has a two-tier structure, as some way in the story, we learn in the past, another incident happened at a Titans' meeting, which is what prompted the current X-ray scans. As an impossible crime, it's quite nice, though some of the clues feel a bit underdeveloped: there's one thing you kinda need to deduce to really get on the way in the long line of reasoning necessary to solve this case, but I thought that part was a bit hard to guess without proper set-up. From there though, you'll see all the puzzle pieces fall nicely in place, and due to the dual puzzle structure, there's a lot of surprises waiting for the reader. I think the basic idea behind how the knife was smuggled into the room was good, but a bit simple, but the way it was actually hidden in-universe is pretty clever. Overall a good impossible crime story that once again makes more sense exactly because it takes place in the Amulet Hotel and not a normal hotel.

Houjou Kie has not disappointed me until now with her works, and Amulet Hotel is no exception. While this time, we have no "blatant" supernatural/fantasy setting, the Amulet Hotel's annex still provides a very unique background setting with its own unique "culture" and "rules" that make it different from a conventional story setting, and it is used cleverly to present attractive mystery plots that are often surprisingly densely clewed relative to page count. You know, I'd love to see a television or anime series based on this world, it's really made for it! Kinda like Odd Taxi, with the story following all kinds of people involved with the hotel, be it hotel detective Kiryuu or just guests. Kiryuu by the way is a great series detective, and quite different from Kamo/Yuuki from Houjou's main series (the Ryuuzen clan), due to a criminal background as assassin, and definitely being a grey character in the Amulet Hotel itself too. Definitely one of my favorites for this year!

Original Japanese title(s): 方丈貴恵『アミュレット・ホテル』: 「アミュレット・ホテル」/「クライム・オブ・ザ・イヤーの殺人」/「一見さんお断り」/「タイタンの殺人」

Old Habits Die Hard

"Extra, extra, read all about it!"

Huh, I am really using the anthology tag only once a year...

Disclosure: I am a member of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. However, I didn't vote for the stories this year though. Or any year to be honest.... I just never read short stories published in magazines, making it impossible for me to vote in the first place...

We've made it halfway through the year 2022, so here it is: Honkaku-Ou 2022 ("The King of Honkaku 2022"). This annual summer anthology collects the best honkaku short stories published the previous year, as selected by the members of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. It is basically a counterpart to the Honkaku Mystery Award, which is awarded to the best published book each year. Short stories are usually published in magazines or online, which occasionally can make them difficult to track down several months later, so that is why each year, this anthology is published, to ensure these stories can be easily found. I've been reading this collection since they started the current format in 2019, and while it's not like I love every single story each time, the anthologies do give a good idea of what's going on each year in the mystery scene of Japan. Last year's volume for example had a #StayHome themed story because of a certain pandemic, so I was curious to see whether that would still find its way into this volume one way or another. But while each year can be quite different, the last two entries featured some stories that were really strong and some even ended up on my favorite reads of the respective year, so it's always worth it to at least take a look at these books.

Nemuranai Keiji to Inu ("The Detectives and Dogs That Don't Sleep") by Michio Shuusuke and Island Kitchen by Ashizawa You are the stories by the two novelists I had never read before, and to be really honest, these were also the two stories in this volume I liked least. I can easily explain why though, as both stories feature a somewhat vaguely defined problem/case, so it takes a long time for the story to get to a point where you really feel you are reading a mystery story, rather than something else. Both do start out with a seemingly "straightforward" case though. Nemuranai Keiji to Inu for example has a police detective hiring a... pet detective to find a missing dog. The dog's owners were murdered in their home, and their dog went missing on the same night, so it is assumed the dog is involved in one way or another with the case. The pet detective in question is Ezoe Masami, a pet detective who has an incredibly good track record, but the narrator, a female police detective knows Ezoe isn't always honest to his clients, occasionally finding pets early and keeping them hidden so they'll hire him for a longer period. She hires Ezoe to find the missing dog behind her superior's back and thus the two go looking for the dog together. What follows is a story that works pretty good as a character study, where parallels are drawn between the two detectives and dogs, but the reveal about how the dog is ultimately connected to the murder feels a bit... underwhelming, because most of the page count seems to be more focused on the characterization than the puzzle. Which is a matter of personal taste of course, but I feel like even with the same puzzle elements, this story could have been a tricker, and more amusing detective story had the emphasis on the themes been shifted a bit. The same holds for Island Kitchen, which starts with a retired police detective visiting a real estate agent, hoping to find a home with a garden for him and his wife. He spots an apartment building among the listings where he once investigated a deadly fall and he starts reminiscing. The case involved a woman living in the building falling to her death, but it was unclear whether it was an accident, suicide or murder. The woman had been stalked by someone for a long time, but the police hadn't done anything to help her, so suicide due to despair, or murder both seemed quite possible. As the former detective thinks back to the case, he realizes not everything was as it was, and personally, I think the *idea of the twist* is pretty good. But the "set-up" to the twist is so long and involves so many elements that ultimately aren't relevant to the twist specifically, it kind falls flat for me, because now it's almost like you're reading two seperate stories that are only linked in a very, very minor manner. I really do like the twist itself though, so I kinda wish it had a different story as the set-up.

Ooyama Seiichirou's work is always a joy to read, and he mostly writes short stories, so he fits here really well. Karamazov no Doku ("The Poison of the Karamazovs") is of course a story inspired by The Brothers Karamazov and is part of a series about Kayou Daisuke, an actor specializing in villain roles, but who is actually a gifted armchair detective. This time he is consulted by the elderly Yamazono Marue, who in her younger years as a housekeeper for an agency. She recounts the time she was involved in a murder case. At the time, she had been assigned by her agency to work at the house of the wealthy Karamura Tatsuo. On her first day, she met with the man, and his three sons, and they soon reminded her of The Brothers Karamov and the characters of Fyodor and his sons Dmitri, Ivan and Alexei. She has only just arrived when she is asked to pour in tea for everyone, and she quickly returns from the kitchen with the refreshments. But the moment Tatsuo has his drink, he starts coughing and gagging. An ambulance is called, but it is too late, and the man ends up dead. The police learn he was poisoned, but can't figure out how: the young maid had never met the man before and had just arrived on her first day here, while her three sons each had a motive to kill the man for his money, but couldn't have tampered with the drinks the maid had prepared. It's a very short story, so I think the actual explanation of how this seemingly impossible poisoning was done will not be incredibly surprising, but I do like the initial one or two clues that put the reader on the trail. I think that even when the actual "how" of an impossibility in Ooyama's work is simple at the core, he always does a good job at actually laying out a trail of clues for the reader to follow in order to arrive at that how logically (instead of just guessing), so in that sense, his stories never disappoint.

It's been while since I last read something by Morikawa Tomoki... Wa-wait! It's been 8 years!? The last one I read was back in 2014?? Anyway, Whodunnit Reception is a pretty interesting story that is foremost a puzzle. The story starts when Masatsugu and his classmate friend Yumiko sneak into the room of Masatsugu's brother Masakazu, a young mystery writer. Masatsugu is just looking for some files he knows are in the room that'll come in handy for a school project, but Yumiko accidentally knocks over some coffee over some hand-written documents, which turn out to be a finished, but unpublished manuscript, being the solution to a mystery story that's being serialized right now! Masatsugu knows his brother doesn't use computers and hardly keeps any copies, so he realizes in how much trouble they are right away as the coffee has erased a lot of the text. Masatsugu and Yumiko eventually manage to reconstruct most of the documents, but there are still spots that were tainted too much by the coffee, making it impossible to see what was originally written there, and it turns out they are the most important part of the story, where the detective explains how they figured it out and who the culprit is. Yumiko, a budding writer herself, however comes up with a plan: they are going to guess what is supposed to go in the blank spots based on the context of the surrounding passages, reconstrucing the solution of the story! A very interesting story, as it turns the solution of a mystery story into a mystery! There are 17 blank spots, and the reader, Masatsugu and Yumiko have to deduce what goes in each blank spot based on the surrounding context of the detective's explanation of the case (they do not have the first part of the story). It's very puzzle-like: you first fill in the spots that are very obvious based on the context, and that allows you to fill in other spots too because of the implications of the previously filled in spots etc. The story surprisingly has a few twists too while you fill in these blank spots, and it's pretty fun to read, but it does very "puzzle-like" because you are really filling blank spots, and some readers might find it a bit too "artificial." I myself enjoyed the whole concept though of a solution part of a mystery story being a mystery itself and have you deduce the solution of a mystery story of which you don't even know the first part!

Houjou Kie has been a personal favorite since she made her debut of course and I loved her short story Amulet Hotel last year, so I was really looking forward to her short story Kage wo Kuu Mono ("Shadow Eater"). And of course, this story features supernatural elements: the narrator is out camping deep in the woods with a friend and his dog. The narrator wakes up in the middle of night and happens to spot a Shadow Fish, a kind of yokai (supernatural being) that feeds on the shadows of living beings. The Shadow Fish can only move in shadows, jumping from one shadow to another, and it preys on the shadows of living beings. Once they have jumped into the shadow of their victim, they remain in their shadow (even if the person/animal wakes up) and feeds on the shadow until the shadow is gone, which kills the person/animal in question. The narrator sees how the Shadow Fish jumps out to the shadow of a dead fox and in the direction of his two sleeping companions and by the time he has waken both of them, he realizes it's too late: the Shadow Fish is in the shadow of either his dog or his friend, but they can't tell which of them. They happen to have a very powerful drug that can kill the Shadow Fish, but they have only one tablet, and the drug is so powerful it will kill a person/animal if they take it without a Shadow Fish being their shadow. With little time left until the Shadow Fish is done feeding on its prey, the narrator and his friend have to quickly deduce where the Shadow Fish is, based on the shadows at the time the Fish was spotted. Houjou once again brings a new kind of mystery story by using supernatural elements: this is almost like a "whodunnit", only you are looking for the "culprit" hiding inside a different person. You can also tell Houjou is a gamer (like with her third book), as there are (segments in) games where you have to move from shadow to shadow as a gameplay mechanic and this story of course feels very similar to that. While there is an emphasis on deducing where the Shadow Fish went based on "rules" (the Shadow Fish can only jump a certain distance, it will always go for the nearest sleeping target etc.), the way the story is also very focused on visuals do form an obstacle for this story, I think. A lot of the story hinges on how far each shadow of everything in their camp reached at the time the narrator spotted the Shadow Fish, and while this story has diagrams, you do have to consider multiple "moments" of where each shadow was, so I think this story, ironically, would have worked better as a game, allowing you quickly "scroll" between the various moments. It's a good mystery story though that as always shows detective stories don't need to be realistic to present interesting mysteries.

Asakura Akinari's Ito no Hito wo Sagashite ("Looking for the Person of My Thread") is tied as my favorite in this volume with Kage wo Kuu Mono and is in a way the polar opposite, as it pertains to a very "realistic" occassion: a goukon or group blind date. The narrator, Kawase, is an unremarkable university student who never had a girlfriend, which is why he didn't really believe his friend Yoshimi told him his girlfriend knew a girl who was interested in Kawase. The girl is rather shy however and doesn't dare to approach Kawase without "any cause", so the idea is having both of them appear at the same group date, with five men and five women. That would give the girl an opportunity to strike up a conversation with Kawase and see how things'll go from there. Kawase has never been in a group blind date before, so when Kawase first arrives at the restaurant, he's quite nervous, but the first girl to arrive immediatey says she knows Kawase from classes, so the plan to find the person on the other end of the red thread of fate seems to work... until the second girl also says she knows Kawase. And the third, fourth and fifth too! Kawase remembers he was never told what the other girl's name was or how she looked like, and now all five girls seem somewhat interested in him (to the chagrin of the other four men). At first, Kawase thinks that it shouldn't really mattter with what girl he ends up with: his friends may have  intended him to meet a certain girl and arranged for both them to attend this group date, but they can hardly critizie him if he happened to get along better with someone else, right? But then he receives information that tell him he has to be very, very careful, as there's "something dangerous" about each of the other girls: one of them for example is actually a married woman cheating on her husband, while another girl is the daughter of a boss of a crime syndicate, and another is an underground idol with very fanatic fans who are willing to kill if they learn their idol is dating someone... So can Kawase deduce which of the five girls in front of him is the girl he was supposed to meet? Okay, so the setting of this story is a bit silly, as apparently people around Kawase do recognize some of the women in their group date and know they are "dangerous" one way or another, but at the same time they don't actually know which woman they are or don't tell Kawase. The way the puzzle is constructed feels a bit forced, but you know, I can live with it, because this is just a fun story. It has a distinct, comedic tone where Kawase keeps falling in love with basically every girl all over again every time he thinks they are "safe". At the same time, this is a well constructed detective story, where you have to use the few hints Kawase did learn about each girl and try to deduce the identify of each girl. Some of the hints are a bit too obvious I think, or in some instances the "time" between a certain clue and the revelation which girl is who is a bit too short, giving you too little time to think for yourself. But overall, this is a very memorable story, because it is basically a "whodunnit" only now you're just trying to figure out which girl Kawase is supposed to be dating. So as mentioned earlier, this story is strangely enough very different, and similar to Kage wo Kuu Mono, as both are original takes on a "whodunnit" concept, but in very different manners.

Like the 2021 edition, Honkaku-Ou 2022 is a pretty solid anthology, with a few really strong puzzle plot stories. Personal favorites are the entries by Houjou Kie, Asakura Akinari and Morikawa Tomiki, but none of the six stories are truly bad, and while these volumes usually only have five, six stories, they tend to be fairly consistent in quality exactly because they have been selected by a whole group, rather than just one single editor. This is the fourth volume in this format, but I have really grown to appreciate reading this anthology once a year, just to see what is going on in the short story format. Hopefully we'll have a solid volume next year too!

Original Japanese title(s): 『本格王2022』: 道尾秀介「眠らない刑事と犬」/ 大山誠一郎「カラマーゾフの毒」/ 芦沢央「アイランドキッチン」 / 方丈貴恵「影を喰うもの」 / 浅倉秋成「糸の人を探して」 / 森川智喜「フーダニット・リセプション」

The Dying Game

「この世界は不思議に満ちている。どんなにあり得ないことでも起こり得る」

『名探偵に甘美なる死を』

"This world is brimming with the unknown. No matter how impossible it seems, anything can happen."

""Delicious Death" for Detectives"

Anyone here reading the manga Delicious in Dungeon by the way? I absolutely love it...

It's the very distant year of 2024 and the world has finally started moving forward again after an unparalleled pandemic called COVID-19 basically stopped the lives of everyone on the world. The last few years, many people were forced to stay at home, but there was one industry that profited from everyone barely getting out of their houses: the video game industry. The VR game industry in particular grew immensely, as the technology allowed people to go outside and explore fabulous locations, without actually going outside physically. One of the major companies to benefit from the increased popularity is Megalodon Soft, best known for its hit open-world RPG Battle Without Honor and the unique detective game Mystery Maker. The latter is of course similar to Super Mario Maker, allowing players to solve murder mysteries in a VR environment, but more importantly allowing players to create their own cases to challenge other players. Especially popular is the real-time versus mode, where one player has to plan and commit a murder in real-time, with other players roaming around on the stage. Once, and if the murderer succeeds in killing off one of the other participants, an investigation phase follows where all the players (including the unknown murderer) are allowed to investigate the scene for clues and question each other. The unique gameplay made Mystery Maker an immense hit, and Megalodon Soft is already working on its sequel, which also includes upgraded hardware: besides the usual VR-goggles and gloves, players can now wear a special feedback suit which can also simulate temperatures and a sensation of pain among others. The suit also synchronizes with the hardware module RHAPSODY, a special seat regulating the VR-environment and it has the advantage of making you not look like a fool in the eyes of the other people i the room while playing a VR game.

As part of the marketing campaign of Mystery Maker 2, Kurata Chiaki, the producer of the Mystery Maker series, plans to invite eight amateur detectives to play a session of the upcoming game within RHAPSODY. The idea is that they'll record everything, both inside the VR world and in the real world, to make a kind of web-series/documentary and show how these amateur detectives tackle a case. Freelance journalist Kamo, who has written on miscarriages of justice, is one of the people invited as an amateur detective, but he is asked a special favor by Kurata: she wants Kamo to become the murderer in their session of Mystery Maker 2. She hopes he can come up with a brilliant murder to fool the other seven detectives and stay undetected himself. Kamo agrees, and is given some time in advance to work with the development team to plan his fictional murders and to implement the things he wants for his plan into the special stage the eight detectives will be playing. Three months later and the eight amateur detectives are brought to a small island. The Megaladon House on this island is of course owned by the company, and they'll be playing the game and recording everything in this private building due to security reasons, as the game is still in development. Among the other guests are a famous private detective, a former police detective who still appears regularly on television as a criminal expert and a high school student detective. And then there's Yuuki, a budding mystery writer who also happens to the cousin of Kamo's wife. But they have only just arrived on the island, when everyone is knocked out by their coffee. When they wake up, they find that the only people inside the Megalodon House are the eight detectives. They find instructions that tell them to wear their personal VR gear found in their room and log-in in their ID-locked RHAPSODY units to come to the VR world.

Inside the VR world, they find themselves in the Doll House, the setting of the murder game Kamo had planned. However, someone has taken over as the Game Master, and it's the same person who is keeping them captured inside the Megalodon House in the real world too. They are informed that the smart watches they are wearing have a poisonous injection installed into them and are advised to obey the game master's orders, especially as these injections are also installed in the smart watches "gifted" to the participants earlier on, and which they have all given to their loved ones, meaning people like Kamo's wife and daughter, and Yuuki's girlfriend, are in danger too. The game master's orders are simple though: the eight detectives are to play a game of Mystery Maker 2 as planned. The Murderer (Kamo) has to try to commit his murders undetected in the Doll House, while the Normal Players have to figure out who committed the murders and how. The game is divided in a Murder Phase, where in principle only the Murderer is allowed to move inside the Doll House to commit his crime (the others are to stay in their room, but are allowed to "fight" back against the Murderer), and an Investigation Phase, where the Normal Players can investigate the murder, while the Murderer of course has to remain undetected by pretending to be a Normal Player too. However, the Game Master makes this virtual game of life and death, one of real life and death. One of the eight amateur detectives is actually an accomplice of the Game Master called the Executioner. If the Murderer is found out by the others, or if a Normal Player makes a wrong deduction, the Executioner will kill them in the real world in the Megaladon House as punishment. Kamo is thus forced to commit murders in the VR world, while in the real world, everyone is on their guard for the Executioner, but it doesn't take long for locked room murders to occur both in the VR Doll House and the real Megalodon House. But who is the murderer? The Game Master has dubbed this game "Delicious Death" for Detectives, which is also the English title of Houjou Kie's Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo (2022).

 My first post of 2020 was about Houjou Kie's fantastic debut novel Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei ("The Hourglass of the Time-Space Traveller", 2019), and last year's first post was about her second, equally impressive novel Kotou no Raihousha ("Visitors on the Remote Island" 2020). I had hoped that 2022's first post could be about her third novel, but while the previous books were released late fall/early winter, Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo was released in the second week of January 2022, hence it not becoming 2022's first post. But you guess from my intention to make it the first post, that I had been looking forward to this book. Which is of course because I loved her first two novels. Houjou is a former member of the Kyoto University Mystery Club and also wrote whodunnit stories back then, and it shows in her writing style: these books are pure grand-scale puzzlers, plotted incredibly densely with almost any action, and utterence being a valid piece to the puzzle. While at one hand, you can feel Houjou is really trying to play as fair as possible with the crazy amount of clues laid down, these stories have also been deliciously hard to solve, challenging you to do long chains of reasoning in order to solve the impossible murders seen in her books and personally, it's the style of detective fiction I love best. The other interesting part about her writing is that she loves special settings: her debut novel Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei was a much a fair-play classic puzzler as you can get, but also included the brilliant plot device of time travel, while her second book Kotou no Raihousha cleverly had the characters fight against a true mystery, a being of unknown origins, of which they had to deduce its capabilities and intentions based on its actions and inactions. Houjou managed to write brilliant detectives using original, supernatural ideas, so I was really looking forward to the third novel in the so-called Ryuuzen Clan series, as these books all involve family members of the Ryuuzen clan. Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo features the both protagonists from the two previous books by the way: Kamo being the protagonist of the first book, and Ryuuzen Yuuki of the second.

Going from themes of time travel and unearthly beings to... a VR game might sound a bit... tame in that regard. Because while the VR-system in this book is slightly more advanced than the things we have now, it's not like the setting is really unusual or "special", because consumers have had access to VR games for years. And while the concept of the closed circle death game, where people are locked up in a location and forced to kill each other while others try to figure out who the murderer is, might not be as popular in detective novels, gamers are very, very familiar with them with popular games like Danganronpa, the Zero Escape series and many, many more about this exact theme (Oh, by the way, I started with The Sekimeiya a while back. It's both very fast, and very slow, so no idea when I'll be done with it...).  And the concept of having special phases for the murders is of course not only familiar for digital gamers (Danganronpa again), but also for real-life board game players who play games like Mafia/Werewolf. So on paper, Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo might feel not as exciting as Houjou's previous books. Especially not after my over-convoluted summary above!

Because in actuality, the plot of this book gets going surprisingly fast and it basically never stops until the very, very end, keeping you hooked all the way through. Because of the Game Master's rules, the story follows a basic "gameplay loop" of a Murder Phase, followed by an Investigation Phase in the VR World, which will lead to an accusation by one of the Normal Players aimed at who they think is the Murderer within "Delicious Death" for Detectives, while the accused is also given a chance to rebute these accusations. This is followed by a Murder Phase in the real world, where the players are forced to stay in their rooms while the Executioner tries to kill the person who failed in their role earlier in the VR game, which then loops back into a new cycle in "Delicious Death" for Detectives. The eight detectives are given two days to solve all the murders that occur in the closed circles in both in the VR world and the real world (with Kamo, as the Murderer in the game, having an advantage of knowing what happened in the game, but he'll be killed if any of the players figure his crimes out without figuring out those of the Executioner). Because all these phases follow each other and this insane death game keeps on going until the end of the book, Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo ends up being a very, very densely plotted mystery novel, with accusations, false solutions, clues and foreshadowing constantly flying around. There's the inverted angle for example, as we as the reader know Kamo is the Murderer in the game, but we don't see exactly how he manages to pull off his impossible murders there, so there's plenty of mystery there already, even without considering the other murders committed by the Executioner! Then you have the various characters arguing theories about the murders happening in the Doll House in the VR world, investigations in the locked room murders in the real world, people discussing the reason why they're being held by the Game Master in the first place, and so much more.. And with murders occuring both in the VR world and the real world, this book is truly a treat for those who love solving puzzles.

By the way, I love how the game Mystery Maker is portrayed in this novel. You can clearly tell Houjou is from a generation who grew up playing video games, as the way the game is shown feels so natural to gamers, all the way down to the little things. While the idea of RHAPSODY and VR suits feel a bit "near-futuristic", the actual "game grammar" will feel naturalistic to gamers with little details like having item descriptions for in-game items in your inventory, having save points and floating name markers. The Game Master also immediately rules out the cliched "they were using fake in-game names!' trick that is so outdated now, showing that Houjou is definitely a "contemporary" writer who plays games and is familiar with the cliches of how games in (mystery) fiction are sometimes portrayed. But it's not just the description of Mystery Maker that works; a lot of the ideas in this novel work only because half of the murders are committed inside a VR environment, and there are some brilliant tricks pulled off here! People who have played the Danganronpa games might remember a certain episode that made brilliant use of the game-within-a-game plot device and I'd say it's the same type of idea: some of the things the Murderer (Kamo) and the Executioner pull off are so original in mystery fiction, because they could only have been used within a video game context/world, and yet it makes perfect sense. That is why despite "a VR world" not being a theme as "supernatural" as time travel, Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo does do a great job at presenting murders that could only have been committed in these special circumstances.

People without experience with video games might find this book a bit too dense because of this though: with murders going on in the real world and the VR world, and having to learning the fundamentals of game grammar, one could say the book can feel a bit overwhelming even at times. I myself had to remind myself to really pay attention to what sections happened in the VR world and which in the real world, because even within one chapter people often have to go back and forth between the two worlds, so the book does require you to really pay much attention, more so than the previous two books, and if you already have trouble adapting to the idea of a VR game,  I can imagine Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo being a rather hard book to follow. I had to think to the Umezz Collection release of the classic manga The Drifting Classroom, which used different kind of paper depending on whether the narrative was in the present world or the place where the school had been zapped to, or to Shimada Souji's Okujou no Doukeshi, which used different fonts for the four different narratives, but such techniques wouldn't work here as good, as the section cuts are less "clean" with people going in and out the VR world within one chapter multiple times.

But still, personally, I think this book is a banger and certainly one of the best novels I'll read this year. The concept of having murders happening in a closed circle situation in both the game world of Mystery Maker and the real world isn't just a story set-up, it's an integral part of the puzzle plot. There are some great inspired ideas, like having the Normal Players who are killed in "Delicious Death" for Detectives reappear in the game (with a halo!) so they can join the investigation in their own deaths, meaning you have "ghosts" testifying about their own "murder." But you also have small occurances happening in one world that are later revealed to have been connected to incidents in the real world and more connections like these that tie the two worlds together, making this not a book consisting of two seperate halves, but a single story of ambitious scale.  The impossible murders happening here use tricks you are not likely to have seen anywhere else (the big reveal two-thirds in is truly memorable!), made only possible because of the special setting. The false solutions are also great, often very convincing and based on hints you thought were cleverly hidden, only to realize there were even more cleverly hidden hints that disprove those false solutions! For fans of the Ellery Queen-style of reasoning, with an emphasis on fair-play and long chains of deductions based on various clues spread throughout the book, Houjou has never disappointed and she doesn't disappoint in this book either.

In the end, I think I only need to mention two caveats for this book. Yes, this book can become insanely complex due to so much happening, and I also have to mention that it is definitely best read after the first two books in this series, because some of the moments work better having seen Kamo and Yuuki in their own adventures first. But besides that, I think Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo was another incredibly strong mystery novel by Houjou, one that I'd recommend everyone interested in pure puzzlers. This is the kind of mystery novel I personally love: an ambitious puzzle plot that's packed with clues from start to finish, detectives who throw theories at each other and debunk them, original murders that make good use of the unique setting of the book and long chains of reasoning where you see the detective crossing off each suspect one by one by utilizing every piece of information we've seen until that point until all the loose lines come together at one single point. Few novels manage to make solving a puzzle so fun with such a memorable concept. 

Original Japanese title(s): 方丈貴恵『名探偵に甘美なる死を』

Scent of Danger

Soup du jour / Hot hors d'œuvres
Why, we only live to serve
Try the gray stuff, it's delicious 

"Be Our Guest" (Beauty and the Beast)

In general, I'm not a big fan of anthologies, which is probably why I only get to use the anthology tag once a year...

Disclosure: I am a member of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. I didn't vote for the stories this year though. Or any year since I became a member.... Since I basically never read short stories published seperately, I only read them when they are finally collected in a full volume or... in an anthology like this one.

The members of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan vote on the best mystery novel published in the year and award the work with the Honkaku Mystery Award. This usually leads to the book in question getting a nice new obi to make sure you know it won the award. The Club members also pick the best short stories published in a year, but these are usually published in different magazines etc.  That is why the Club also publishes annual anthologies that collect the selection of chosen short stories of that year. The anthology got a new, smaller format in 2019, and because I also reviewed the 2020 edition last year, I guess that most people guessed that it was likely I would get around to Honkaku-Ou 2021 ("The King of Honkaku 2021") eventually. And in the same sense that the fact that I'm discussing this book isn't a surprise, it also sure isn't a surprise if I tell you that this volume, at the core, isn't much different from the previous volumes: Honkaku-Ou 2021 provides a nice collection of mystery stories and some of them are really good.

Cozy Boys, Arui wa Kieta Izayakaya no Nazo ("Cozy Boys. Or: The Mystery of the Disappearing Izakaya") is part of a series by Fuefuki Tarou, focusing on the Cozy Boys, a small club of people in the publishing industry who gather in a cafe to talk about mystery fiction while enjoying tea and cake. Today, they have a real mystery however. Mystery writer Fukurai Shouichi has a rather vexing problem: last night, Shimamura Etsushi was murdered, an editor/critic who had connections with everyone in the industry, and was hated by everyone in the industry. As someone with a connection to the victim, Fukurai is also questioned by the police, but he oddly has no alibi: he went out drinking last night, going from one bar to another, but while he can remember the first two he visited with a friend, both of them have very little memory of the third izakaya they visited, which would have been around the time of the murder. Fukurai has been going around the area looking for the mystery izakaya, but can't find it, so he hopes his Cozy Boys friends can help figure out where the elusive izakaya is. As the title suggest, this is more like a cozy mystery and the story unfolds through the discussions between the various people present in the cafe. It's the kind of puzzle where it's quite possible you'll just think of the solution instinctively, but the way the story is presented, with everyone trying to piece the location of the izayakaya together based on the vague memories of Fukurai is done competently.

I don't know if there's some rule, but the previous two anthologies had historical mystery stories too, and Hanyuu Asuka's Tomurai Senju ("Thousand-Armed Mourning") is part of that tradition. Set in 1184, the story follows Taira no Yorimori (half-brother of Taira no Kiyomori) as a detective. Yorimori is invited by Minamoto no Yoritomo in Kamakura. Yorimori has been a good friend of Yoritomo and his daughter Oohime, so he's surprised to see Oohime in a very depressive, and enraged mood. It turns out that the young Oohime had been married off to Yoshitaka in a political marriage, with Yoshitaka basically being a hostage of Yoritomo. Oohime had loved her husband though. One night, a maid loyal to Oohime overheard a discussion of Yoritomo and his men about attacking the family of Yoshitaka and this information was relayed through Oohime to Yoshitaka. He miraculously escaped from the Minamoto manor, but was eventually hunted down by pursuers and killed. An act which Oohime has not forgiven her father. Yoritomo however is slowly growing afraid for and of his daughter. Oohime has been isolating herself in her own quarters since the death of her husband, but for some reason she manages to always appear right in front of her father whenever he speaks of Yoshitaka, even when he's in completely different part of the manor or speaking privately with his wife. He fears Yoshitaka's spirit must have gotten hold of Oohime, but Taira no Yorimori can think of a less supernatural way by which Oohime can pull this impossible feat off, and he even manages to uncover a deeper plot behind all of this. This is a story that makes very clever use of the historical setting to create a convincing semi-impossible situation, but it's the deeper plot that hides below the surface that makes this a fairly memorable story, as the hints are rather subtle, but really start to stand out once Yorimori points them out.

Furuta Ten's Kao ("The Face") is part of a series revolving around an incident where someone started stabbing other people in the subway. From what I understand the focus lies not on the actual incident, but on the various people who got involved one way or another. In this story, we follow high school student Ikebuchi Ryou, who was present in the subway during the incident and hurt his leg while trying to escape from the station. Ryou was once the ace of the tennis club, but he had been in a slump the last few months, and with the injury on top of that, things at first looked grim, but he's been slowly recovering and hopes he can regain the position of ace again. The dramatic story of a young talent who got hurt because of the stabbing incident and the path back to rehabiliation has also been made into a documentary by Noe Hibiki, a member of the newspaper club who once exposed a pollution scandal. However, it seems that there's more behind this story, because while Hibiki is following Ryou in his daily life with her camera, she starts asking questions about the stabbing incident and little by little, Ryou notices that her questions seem to lead to a conclusion he had never thought of himself. It's not a story where you'll be solving a lot yourself, as the focus lies more on the slow build to Hibiki's reveal, though this story might be more interesting of the other stories, as I assume that all stories in this series will intersect in some ways.

Each of the stories in this anthology comes accompanied by a message from the author, and on the page Fue wo Fuku Ie ("The Piper House"), Sawamura Ichi explains that this story was originally written for a special feature with ghost stories, and that he added a twist, first making you think it's a normal ghost story only to reveal it's actually a mystery story. Which... of course doesn't work if you're reading this story in a mystery anthology, as he himself notes. And indeed, with the context of this being a mystery story, the tale of a family of three coming across a strange, empty manor in their neighborhood isn't half as creepy, as you 're already prepared and waiting for some twist. And knowing a twist will come, it's kinda easy to guess what the twist is. It's a story that would've worked quite well without knowing it's a mystery story, but that's impossible here.

Shibata Katsuie's Stay Home Satsujin Jiken ("The Stay Home Murder Case") is a story that screams 2020, as you can tell from the title. If someone will be reading this fifty years later, they'll probably have to look up what's so special about 2020, unless we're dealing with COVID-70 by then. Due the state of emergency in Tokyo, maid cafes in Akihabara have to close too, but some cafes still maintain contact with their customers through livestreams. The narrator is one of those customers, and of course always present whenever a maid of the cafe Happy Bloom is doing a livestream. The day after one of those livestreams, the manager of Happy Bloom is found dead in the (closed) cafe, and the maid who found her boss, swears the door was locked from the inside when she went in the cafe that morning. The boss' own key is also found inside the cafe, meaning he was killed inside a locked maid cafe. The narrator is dragged around by Fugashi, a legendary maid who is also a gifted amateur detective who has solved cases in the past and who was asked to look into Happy Bloom because something  had been going on there. As a locked room mystery, this story is fairly simple, but it makes clever use of the maid cafe setting and with all the little references to how life was in 2020, it will make for an interesting read in the future too.

Kurai Mayusuke's Hannin wa Itta. ("Thus Said The Culprit.") has an interesting, and ambitious angle: it thrives to be both a pure whodunnit, and an inverted mystery. So while we see how the murderer commits the crime at the start of the story, we also have to guess who the murderer is despite having seen the murder scene ourselves! Yasuda Hiroshi is found murdered in his house, having just returned to Japan that evening, has he had been working abroad for a while. Earlier that evening, he had met with his friends and the girl he had promised to marry after he'd return to Japan, but to the great shock of everyone, he had declared he wanted to distance himself from them for a while and even the marriage was off. Given that his friends are very close and were thus betrayed by him, every single one f them had a reason to kill him, and because basically only them (and the victim's aunt and cousin) knew he had returned that day, it seems likely one of them did it. Inspector Shishidou, known as "Sphinx" of the Metropolitan Police Department is put on the case, and as her nickname implies, her method consists of asking everyone a lot of questions. A very cleverly written story: the way the inverted part of the story is incorporated into the whodunnit plot is done surprisingly well, and it really rewards you to reread that part again once you're done. The story unfolds like a classic whodunnit puzzler, with the story requiring the reader ot identify what the murderer must've done and using that information to cross off names of the suspect list. The manner how the whodunnit plot (where the reader doesn't know who the murderer is) and the inverted part (where the reader does know what the murderer did and what they talked about with the victim) is used very cleverly to make a very puzzling riddle.

My absolute favorite of the volume however is Houjou Kie's Amulet Hotel. The two novels Houjou has written until now all involved supernatural elements like time travel to present very cleverly written, puzzle-focused whodunnit stories, but in her first published short story, we have a setting that is not supernatural, but definitely not normal either. When a guest of the Amulet Hotel's annex complains that the door to his room can't be opened and it turns out even the owner's master key can't open the door, they break the door down: the door had been blocked by a serving cart jammed beneath the door handle. Inside the room, they find a murdered man and an unconscious employee of the hotel. Normally, this is time to call the police, but not in the Amulet Hotel: the annex of the Amulet Hotel serves a very special kind of guest, the kind of guest who likes their privacy very much, who doesn't like the police and who will make use of the special hotel services like having guns delivered to their rooms. Everyone is a criminal here, so whenever anything happens here, the Amulet Hotel will "clean up" themselves. But while the Amulet Hotel does cater to the criminals, there are still rules they expect their guests to obey to, and the most important one is that they should never ever inconvenience the hotel. Hotel detective Kiryuu is asked to figure out whether the unconscious employee in the hotel room killed the guest, or whether someone else did and if so, how the locked room was created and once they know what happened, they will deal with things properly. What follows is an insanely densily-plotted mystery story with a lot of ideas stuffed in a relatively low page count, but it works. It reminded me of Houjou's debut novel Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei, which I also described as having an incredible number of ideas: this is basically the short story variant. Which starts out as seemingly a locked room murder mystery turns into a very amibitious "which of the three" whodunnit puzzler with a lot of clever clues that remind you that Houjou was a member of the Kyoto University Mystery Club and thus used to writing whodunnit shorts with twist and turns. I can't really mention all the ideas here because it'll spoil the experience, but a lot of the ideas implemented here could also have served as the basic idea for one single story, but Houjou somehow manages to stuff multiple of those ideas in one story, and still make it work. The setting of a hotel for criminals is also used in various clever ways, leading to a mystery story that only works because of this unique setting, as all the characters have their reasons to act very differently than in a "normal" hotel. Fans of whodunnit puzzler short stories should definitely take a look at this one.

There have only been three volumes in this format, but I think that Honkaku-Ou 2021 might be the best year yet, with all the stories being amusing on their own, and a few really nice ones included too. Not one of the stories included feels out of place, which occasionally happens with anthologies.There's quite some diversity too, from historical dramas to a story that is clearly written during the pandemic, and we have pure puzzlers, but also a horror-focused story. Amulet Hotel is definitely the star of the volume, but the book is on the whole quite consistent in terms of quality. I am not a fan of anthologies in general, but reading books like these once a year at least allows me to try a few authors I might want to keep an eye on.

Original Japanese title(s): 『本格王2021』笛吹太郎「コージーボーイズ、あるいは消えた居酒屋の謎」/ 羽生飛鳥「弔千手」/ 降田天「顔」/ 澤村伊智「笛を吹く家」/ 柴田勝家「すていほぉ～む殺人事件」/ 倉井眉介「犯人は言った。」/ 方丈貴恵「アミュレット・ホテル」