Finessing the King

"I have billions of eyes, yet I live in darkness. I have millions of ears, yet only four lobes. I have no muscle, yet I rule two hemispheres. What am I?"

"Batman: The Animated Series"

Rather than reading in a chair, I prefer reading lying in bed!

Anata mo Meitantei, or as the book also says in English on the inside: What A Great Detective You Are, is a short story collection originally published in 2022, which was re-released as a pocket in 2025. The book collects six stories by as many authors. The stories were originally published in the magazine Mysteries!, all being pure whodunnits/guess the criminal stories, meaning they are divided in two parts: the first part being the "problem", where the main mystery (usually a murder) is presented along with all the relevant characters and clues and which ends with a formal Challenge to the Reader. Originally, readers would then have some time to write in their answers, with money prizes awaiting the correct guessers. The second part would be published in the following issue, and of course consisted of the solution, where it is logically proven which of the character did it. While some readers might find these stories too artificial and puzzle-like, I absolutely love them: it's no surprise Suiri no Jikan Desu, a book with a similar set-up, was one of my favorite reads last year. Anyway, I was already familiar with all the writers in Anata mo Meitantei, and seeing them on the cover made me quite certain there'd be delights of detection here, so let's see what we have here.

The book opens with Ichikawa Yuuto's Akaenpitsu wa Iranai ("The Red Pencil Is Never Needed"), which is a part of his Maria & Ren series, though you don't need any prior knowledge, as this is actually a prequel story. It focuses on Ren's| teenager days, and is set in the early seventies, more than a decade before the main series starts with The Jellyfish Never Freezes. The story is set in the country of J(apan) and is (mostly) narratored from the POV of Kouno Matsuri, who, like Ren, is a member in their school's newspaper club. One day, Ren joins Matsuri on her way home, where he meets Matsuri's father Kouno Tadaharu, a famous photographer, though infamously a difficult man. He however seems to find Ren an interesting young man, as he invites him to stay for dinner, though Tadaharu himself seems more focused on his own work. Ren is given a tour of the house, which includes a work cabin in the garden with an electronic lock. Matsuri's aunt and uncle also arrive at the house, much to Matsuri's chagrin, as her aunt always bosses everyone around. Even though Ren's never met these people, even he can tell there's a lot of tension going between Matsuri, her mother and her aunt and uncle, so he sticks around and eventually it becomes so late he's offered a bed for that evening. In the middle of the night however, Matsuri is awakened by a knock on his door: Ren has noticed something very odd outside, two sets of footprints going to the cabin, but only one returning. Only Tadaharu's not found in the house, so they enter the cabin... to find Tadaharu killed. But which of the people in the house did it?

On the whole a very solid puzzle, though with some elements I personally don't really like in pure whodunnit puzzles. The atmosphere is great, with the reader feeling something will happen as all the actors gather in the Kouno house, and I think a lot of readers might find it pretty challenging to figure out even half of the lines of deduction needed to arrive at the truth. While the story isn't that long, Ichikawa actually manages to put (relatively) a lot of twists in this tale, all with proper clues and foreshadowing, and while some of the element used to 'cross out' suspects might feel a bit familiar, I think it's generally a good example of this type of story. I also like how Ichikawa used his main series for this story (this tale is also included in the first short story collection of the Maria & Ren series, The Boneyard Never Speaks), but I do have to say it doesn't feel very strongly connected to the main series besides for the appearance of Ren: it misses the light sci-fi elements of the main series, as well as the dual narrative all the novels have.

Yonezawa Honobu also wrote his story as part of one of his series: namely the Shoushimin series (recently adapated as a television anime series).  Berlin Agepan no Nazo ("The Berliner Pfannkuchen Mystery") is interesting, as the reader is technically not looking for a culprit, but for a victim! Kobato is once again roped into 'trouble' despite aspiring to be 'Petite Bourgeoisie' minding his own business. His friend Kengo is a member of the newspaper club, where they were planning on doing an article on Berliner Pfannkuchen: a German doughnut with a jam filling. A local bakery has started selling them, which gave one of the newspaper club members an idea: they were going to recreate the end-of-year tradition with Berliner Pfannkuchen: basically Russian roulette by having one of the doughnuts filled with mustard. Four people were going to play the game, with one other member having picked up the Berliner Pfannkuchen at the bakery and then swinging by the Cooking Club to have one of them filled with mustard. However, the time of destiny apparently never came: all four members ate one of the four doughnuts, but they all claim to not have eaten the one with mustard. This of course doesn't make for a fun newspaper article, and some people are starting to suspect the "victim" is trying to make this article a failure on purpose, so Kengo hopes Kobato can figure out who lost the Berliner Roulette.

I absolutely love the innocent premise of this story and how it switches things around to have you figure out who the victim was. That said, I think that as a pure puzzle, this one was set-up far too easy, and I'd argue it's far more likely the reader will solve this story more based on feeling and instinct, than based on the clues per se. In fact, a lot of the necessary information doesn't even feel like they are obtained via logical conclusions, but simply via asking questions to certain characters, who then gladly give up that information, so as a puzzle, I do think this story is by far the weakest of the collection, even though as a story, it's very enjoyable.

The third story is by Higashigawa Tokuya, and I actually already discussed back in 2020, as his Alibi no Aru Yougishatachi ("Suspects With Alibis") had been featured in the anthology Honkaku-Ou 2020, so I'd like to refer to that post if you want learn more about it. Its inclusion in Honkaku-Ou 2020 was actually how I first learned about the project that would eventually culminate in the publication of Anata mo Meitantei.

The fourth story Momiji no Nishiki ("Breathtaking Red Leaves") by Maya Yutaka is also a series story, and while I think readers familiar with Maya's best-known series will soon recognize certain characters, the 'formal reveal' of their identities comes late, so I'll refrain from specificying what series this is. The main focus is on a group of students who have travelled to a traditional inn with a hot spring in the mountains to celebrate their graduation. They also have some interest in a local deity called Chuuruu, which has two small shrines dedicated to it on two points on the mountain: one near the base of the mountain, and one at the top, with them being connected via narrow (inaccssible) cracks and cavities in the mountain. At the top of the mountain is also a sightseeing deck. The students all enjoy their time at the inn, relaxing in the hot springs and playing games with each other and observing the other guests. Among the other two guests are two men, who at the end of the story discover a dead body lying on a cliff below the sightseeing deck on the top of the mountain. It is clear the victim was killed, but by whom?

Definitely of the best stories in the book, one that best shows off how cool these puzzles can be. The way Maya just throws the Challenge at the reader with the discovery of the corpse is fantastic, as all the information you needed is actually already collected before the murder even happens. You don't even learn who the victim is when you're challenged: you are expected to deduce the identity of the victim yourself too, and yes, Maya actually did leave enough hints and clues in all the events leading up to the discovery of the victim to allow you to guess who the victim actually is. And that's just the first half of the problem, because then you still need to deduce who the murderer is, and still based on the information presented to you up until the discovery of the victim, so you have no data available from investigation/interrogation etc. regarding alibis. This is really a very well-constructed puzzle, and a great example of the logic-based mystery story.

Also funny: all the characters are named after stations on the JR Kashii line in Fukuoka, which was near where I lived in Fukuoka! I instantly recognized those names together!

In Norizuki Rintarou's Shinritekikashi Ari ("Stigmatized Property"), Rintarou (the fictional writer) is asked by his freelance writer 'friend' Iida Saizou to look into the mysterious death of a colleague: Matsuoka Shoukichi was a freelance writer on matters of finance and gambling, but recently started having a hit with a series of articles on his new apartment: he was renting an old place where the previous two inhabitants had died: one had died all alone in the apartment from natural causes, while the other had committed suicide. Now he believed the place was haunted, and his articles on his home attracted quite some attention. But Matsuoka himself then was found dead in his apartment too, having hung himself by the neck. There were people who might have wanted Matsuoka dead, as he seemed to dabble in blackmail too, but Matsuoka kept his new address very secret, so how could any of the suspects have killed him?

Very decent story, and I like it a lot for having an much more "open" set-up than most of the other stories, which featured closed-off settings. The latter format of course feels more fair as a way to limit the number of suspects, and the way it is done in this story might not be completely convincing (i.e. we know the victim approached a certain number of people, who seem to be the suspects), but Norizuki does actually make proper use of this more open set-up to write a whodunnit that genuinely utilizes its urban setting. We have a private camera of a nosy neighbor that catches the times people went in and out the apartment/crime scene and the location itself is used in a clever way to determine who the murderer is. I wouldn't have wanted all the stories in this volume to use this open set-up, but it works here exactly because the other stories are more limited in their settings.

Shirai Tomoyuki's Shiri no Aoi Shitai ("The Blue-Bottomed Body") is about a detective who is looking into the indie horror film Fufa and Kuha: rumors have it footage of an actual murder that occured during its filming had been used in the film. The detective manages to track down one of the few remaining copies of the film and someone who was involved in the whole ordeal, and he is told the story of how a few years ago a group of students in the university film club were helping out Sadoshima Souhei, a graduated former member who was directing his first indie horror film: Fufa and Kuha. The group were staying at a boarding house owned by the father of one of the members, located in the woods of a mountain, the perfect place to film a slasher. Shiori, the actress of the heroine, was contracted seperately, though from the way she spoke openly about very much wanting to fuck, and the way she was flirting with all the other men in the crew, she was hired by Sadoshima for other skills than her acting. However, one of the members then realized she was the same woman who caused the suicide of a former club member by seducing him and then fake a pregnancy to push for money. The following day, the actor playing the villain role hears some moaning coming from the van. He peeks inside through the half-open window, only to see Shiori being strangled by someone. He rushes back into the building to get the car keys and help, but by the time they return to the van, Shiori has been murdered. And she's lying completely naked in the van. It is at this point our detective claims he can point out who the murderer is, and the reader should be able to do that too!

Was this the shortest story? Anyway, it's interesting how Shirai uses some sexual elements in the solution's line of deduction: I think the first time he uses it, it's a bit tacky and not really convincing, but the way it's used later on is a lot better. The story reminds a bit of Hayasaka Yabusaka's work (the Raichi series) due to its use of sex in a mystery story, though I think at least in this example, Hayakawa generally does it better. I also found the murderer's plan rather risky: while I understand the underlying goal they wanted to achieve by doing all that, it seems like this was a rather dangerous plan (for themselves) to go for, with more a chance of failing at the first step of the plan than everything going as hoped...

On the whole, Anata mo Meitantei/What A Great Detective You Are is a really impressive short story collection, that shows off how fun the formal whodunnit/guess-the-culprit puzzle can be. We have a really talented group of writers in this book, and I loved they all wrote their stories as parts of their wel-known series (if applicable). I'd love to see another iteration of this!

Original Japanese title(s): 『あなたも名探偵』: 市川憂人「赤鉛筆は要らない」/ 米澤穂信「伯林あげぱんの謎」/ 東川篤哉「アリバイのある容疑者たち」/ 麻耶雄嵩「紅葉の錦」/ 法月綸太郎「心理的瑕疵あり」/ 白井智之「尻の青い死体」

Through the Looking Glass

You could not see a cloud, because 

No cloud was in the sky: 

No birds were flying overhead--

 There were no birds to fly

"Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There"

Gee, was it only last year I read the previous books in this series? Feels like two, three years ago...

Real estate mogul Hugh Sandford is one of the wealthiest men in the country and lives with his daughter in the penthouse occupying the top floors of Sandford Tower, a 72-story high tower in the middle of New York housing department stores, offices and residential floors (unoccupied at the moment). Unknown to everyone however Sandford also has a secret collection of rare animals hidden in his penthouse, only accessible through a hidden passage. Two-headed animals, animals on the verge of extinction: he has everything, but the pride of his collection are his Glass Birds, beautiful beings that manage to mesmerize everyone lucky enough to ever see them. As his collection is very, very illegal, Sandford only shows his collection to the people most loyal to him, like Travis Wineberg of SG. Sandford's forte may lie in real estate, but he's also the owner of SG, a glass manufacturing company which developed from the little glass factory of his late wife's family. SG has been experimenting with glass with variable refraction and transparency and while not all experiments have been succesful, SG's joint research with the scientist Ian Galbraith of M University has finally led to a working prototype of a glass panel of which they can change the transparency, which could for example be used in houses for optimal lighting, but then switched "off" for privacy. It's early in 1984 when Sandford invites Travis, his assistant Chuck, Ian and his girlfriend Cecilia to his penthouse to celebrate the invention of the special glass, but his guests are knocked out and wake up in... a closed off secret floor with many rooms in a weird layout. The four find they are locked together on this floor together with Sandford's housekeeper Pamela, who informs them they are all being kept here by Sandford and that even she doesn't have a key to unlock the doors leading away from this floor. The only message she has from her master is "that they know why they are here." Unable to understand why they are imprisoned the four roam the floor, but after a loud cry, the walls of all the rooms suddenly turn transparent, allowing everyone to see everything on this floor. And they find one of them is murdered in one of the rooms! But curiously enough, they don't see any murder weapon lying around nor a bloody murderer, even though they can see everything present on the floor due to the transparent walls, making it impossible for anyone, and anything to be hidden. After a while, the walls turn opaque again, but where did the murderer go to?

Meanwhile, an investigation into the smuggling of rare animals from M(exico) has brought Maria and Ren of the Flagstaff Police Station on the trail of Hugh Sandford and they travel to New York, to Sandford Tower to have a talk with him. They don't get to meet him, so they start their own investigation at the tower, trying to find out if there's some way Sandford could smuggle animals unseen into his penthouse. While Ren's off questioning the people working on the department store floors and the service elevators, Maria decides to climb the emergency stairs all the way to the top to see if she can break into Stanford's penthouse, but halfway up a bomb explosion occurs on the residential floors of Sandford Tower. Ren is forced to evacuate the building with everyone else below, but Maria is trapped on the higher parts of the emergency stairs as the fire caused by the explosion rages on below her. But who planted the bomb and what does this explosion have to do with the ongoing murder case in Sandford's secret floor? Maria, Ren and the reader are challenged to figure out what is happening in Ichikawa Yuuto's 2018 novel Glass Bird wa Kaeranai, which also has the English title The Glass Bird Will Never Return.

The Glass Bird Will Never Return is the third novel in this series featuring police detectives Maria and Ren, after The Jellyfish Never Freezes and The Blue Rose Never Sleeps, two books which ranked among my favorite reads last year. The books are set in a kind of alternate universe in the late 70s/early 80s, with the "Jellyfish" (a zeppelin-like airship) one of the biggest change in history. Each of the books focus on a different scientific (sci-fi) theme: the vacuum airsac of the Jellyfish was a major theme of the first novel, the second focused on the illusive blue rose and this book of course has the glass panes which can be turned transparent and opaque again in an instant. While it's kinda sci-fi, the inventions are kept practical and realistic enough to not feel fantastical at all. This book also follows the same dual structure of the previous books, with the story alternating between chapters that focus on the people of SG being murdered one by one on a floor with glass walls with changeable transparency, and chapters that focus on Maria and Ren as they investigate Sandford Tower and then get involved in the bomb explosion in the tower. The Glass Bird Will Never Return is definitely the most thrilling entry in the series up until now, with the chapters about Maria desperately trying to escape the fire while being trapped on the upper floors of Sandford Tower adding a sense of real-time danger we had never seen before. You should read these novels in order though, as The Glass Bird Will Never Return also makes a few references to earlier novels.

I do have to say that after the murders in The Jellyfish Never Freezes and The Blue Rose Never Sleeps, The Glass Bird Will Never Return will feel a bit familiar and it never manages to be as surprising as the previous books. By now, the reader already has a good idea of how Ichikawa likes to use his dual narrative structure to present a mystery plot, jumping back and forth between the two narratives to make the situation more baffling than it actually is. It's done competently here as expected, but there's definitely also a bit of coincidence going on to make the mystery more baffling than it actually is. When it comes to the actual murders of the people being detained on the hidden floor with walls that can turn transparent, I think the biggest "problem" is that it's ultimately a very limited set-up: there are very few characters here, who die too soon after another and while the idea of the "impossible mystery" of the survivors not being able to find the murderer even though all the (inside) walls are transparent and you can see every nook and cranny on the floor, you can never shake off notions like 'perhaps there is a hidden passage' or 'perhaps there are some shenigans going on with the transparent walls'. When the solution of how the murderer managed to kill everyone and roam the floor completely unseen is finally revealed, I think some readers will think it's a cheat, while others might well, not exactly shrug, but not be very surprised by it because it had still been one of those 'perhaps?' solutions in their mind. I like the core idea of the trick of the disappearing murderer, but due to the very limited situation of The Glass Bird Will Never Return, this impossible element of the story seems to be less surprising than it could've been. For this plot to work, the murderer also decided to concoct the most convoluted murder plot to accomplish something that could have been done infinitely times easier and your mileage may vary on how willing you'll be to accept that.

The Glass Bird Will Never Return is more than just the (semi-)impossible murders though and I think that taken on the whole, the book is a lot of fun to read. There's the mystery of the Glass Birds that have escaped their cages and a lot of the plot also revolves around Maria and Ren trying to figure out how Sandford managed to bring his illegal animals to his penthouse without anyone in Sandford Tower noticing. Late in the novel, Maria and the reader stumble upon the aftermath of the series of murders on the floor with the animal cages, and there's not a survivor anywhere in the penthouse, which leads to a new mystery: how did the murderer escape from the burning Sandford Tower penthouse unseen and unnoticed? The book keeps on adding smaller mysteries all the way to the end, making it a very fun read as the mysteries keep piling up until the final chapter.

So while I think that at a micro-level, The Glass Bird Will Never Return has fewer truly surprising/impressive elements to its plot compared to its two predecessors, I think that on the whole The Glass Bird Will Never Return is a well-plotted mystery novel, that is perhaps even the most entertaining entry in the series to read, as it's also the most thrilling one with focus on how the events unfold in real-time. As the third novel, some parts will feel a bit familiar perhaps as all three books follow the same story structure, but it's definitely a solid read that will entertain fans of the series.

Original Japanese title(s): 市川憂人『グラスバードは還らない』

The Greenhouse Jungle

薔薇が咲く 薔薇が散る

君の中に 僕がいる

「薔薇が咲く 薔薇が散る」（愛内里菜）

Roses bloom, roses scatter

I live inside of you

"Roses Bloom, Roses Scatter" (Aiuchi Rina)

Huh, I'd swear that when I read The Jellyfish Never Freezes, this series didn't really have a set series title yet, but now apparently the series is named after the series detectives. Not original perhaps, but at least it's a clear title.

The blue rose has been considered the Holy Grail of horticulture, but sometimes miracles happen. Twice even. When the news broke that a pastor had managed to grow a genuine blue rose by coincidence in the church greenhouse, people with green thumbs and academics alike were baffled and figured the man must have had a bit of help from above. What really surprised everyone however was the press conference of Professor Tenniel the following day, who too announced they had succeeded in creating a blue rose titled Abyss and the genetics scholar also seemed to imply that the pastor's blue rose was very unlikely to be a genuine blue rose. Police inspectors Maria and Ren of the Flagstaff Police Station didn't have much to do after the events concerning the inventors of the Jellyfish, but immediately after the two consecutive announcements of the blue roses, they are approached by their colleagues over at Phoenix and asked to, discreetly, poke around both Professor Tenniel and pastor Cleaveland and their blue roses. Figuring something must be up, Maria and Ren visit the two and ask some questions, but as they had no idea what was about, the two detectives can hardly be blamed for the subsequent murder on Professor Tenniel. All the people attached to the professor's lab were to attend a conference in the state of A that day, and as the professor had a second home there, the professor and one of the students would be staying there the night before, to prepare documents and drive from there to the conference. When the professor didn't arrive, the police was notified, and the two 'lucky' officers stumbled upon a horrid sight: bloody words were written on the inside of the doors of the greenhouse in the back garden, and inside, they found the head of the professor with the greenhouse key, together with the bound and gagged student. And to top off the mystery, the greenhouse had been locked completely from inside when the police found the victims. The doors and windows were all locked from the inside, and while they could theoretically be manipulated with strings, the problem is that all the greenhouse windows and walls are covered by long, interlocked rose vines: their combined weight, thorns and vulnerability make it impossible for anyone to have left the greenhouse through any place but the door, but the bloody letters on the door make it clear the doors were not opened after writing the message, and the greenhouse key was found inside the professor's mouth. The case is mysterious on its own already, but then Maria and Ren are shown fragments from a diary dated one year earlier retrieved from a house that had gone up in flames recently and they are shocked to learn how this diary details how Professor Tenniel had succeeded in growing a blue rose and was murdered in a greenhouse. Maria and Ren have to find the missing link that connects the old diary, the murders and the blue roses in Ichikawa Yuuto's Blue Rose wa Nemuranai (2017), which also has the English title The Blue Rose Never Sleeps.

Earlier this year, I reviewed Ichikawa Yuuto's debut novel The Jellyfish Never Freezes, the first novel in this series and you may remember I liked it a lot. It was a novel that was quite open in showing where it took its inspiration from: Like Ayatsuji Yukito's The Decagon House Murders/Jukkakukan no Satsujin (Disclosure: I translated Ayatsuji's The Decagon House Murders), The Jellyfish Never Freezes followed a dual narrative structure, with two simultaneously developing narratives in alternating chapters: the reader jumped back and forth between chapters that portrayed the serial murder case in real time, and chapters set a few days after, focusing on the subsequent police investigation. The Blue Rose Never Sleeps does the same: we follow Maria and Ren's investigation into the blue roses and Professor Tenniel's murder in the so-called "Blue Rose" chapters, while in the "Prototype" chapters, we follow the story of a boy named Eric who ran away from home and was taken in by Professor Tenniel and his family.

Mystery stories with such dual narrative structures often feature some kind of narrative trick aimed at the reader, urging you to assume certain connections between the two narratives even though they are not there in reality, or the other way around. The revelation that the two characters by the same name in the two narratives were actually different people or something like that is then sprung at the end on the reader. The Blue Rose Never Sleeps however starts off making it quite clear there's something not right between the two narratives. The names and people Maria and Ren find in the diary are very similar to the people involved in the actual murder case, as is the theme of the blue rose, but there are all kinds of minor differences with reality, and a large part of the mystery revolves around figuring out why the narratives are so alike, and yet not the same. It's pretty refreshing to see a mystery story which tells you right away there's something wrong between these two narratives. The reasons behind these discrepencies as revealed are at times a bit farfetched (wait, that was all done just in the hope that something else would occur?), but I have to say I was quite amused by the dual narrative and even though I was ready to suspect everything, I still didn't quite manage to evade that piece of misdirection that was created due to the dual narrative, even in essence, it's fairly simple (and even if you saw through the misdirection, there was still a lot more the reader needed to solve).

Early in the novel, the reader is 'treated' to a mini-lecture by Professor Tenniel about genetics, DNA and how to create blue roses. It can be a bit technical, and while you don't need to have a PhD in genetics to be able to solve the mystery in The Blue Rose Never Sleeps, one part of the plot does kinda involve a "Oh, by the way, this could be done with genetics too!' surprise which no reader is going to guess. It's a bit unfair, and while not directly involved with the locked room murder in the greenhouse, it's definitely an important building piece, so readers might feel a bit cheated there. The locked room murder itself is interesting. The trick the murderer used to escape from the locked greenhouse covered in thorny vines falls a bit in the mechanical category and the set-up to the reveal of the trick could've been more comprehensive, but I do like the idea and it definitely fits the theme of the roses. There are more mysteries that build upon this locked room mystery by the way: at one point, the student witness actually sees the dead professor inside the locked greenhouse, but is knocked out. When the police later found her, she was tied up inside the greenhouse herself, but that means the murderer unlocked the greenhouse to put the student inside and sealed the greenhouse again. Ichikawa skillfully builds several mysteries like that on top of the actual act of murder itself, making The Blue Rose Never Sleeps a fairly complex novel, with the locked room murder only a part of the whole picture.

You could say the book not only has a dual narrative, but also a dual mystery, as ultimately, the motive behind the murder remains quite vague until the denouement. Like I mentioned above, the backstory can be come across as slightly farfetched and contrived, but on the whole, I do like how everything tied together and how you kinda end up with a second mystery plotline. I guessed the second part of the mystery and who was behind it, but it wasn't really based on any clear evidence: I wasn't really happy when it was revealed my gut feeling was right, as I had no proof and that feeling didn't improve when Maria did manage to point out all those little things I missed that proved who the culprit was!

The Blue Rose Never Sleeps was another satisfying mystery novel by Ichikawa after The Jellyfish Never Freezes. While the sequel uses the dual narrative structure too, its application is quite different, and unlike the first novel, which took inspiration from And Then There Were None and spy thrillers, The Blue Rose Never Sleeps feels more like a "conventional" mystery story focusing on an ongoing murder investigation. Personally, I think I liked this novel better, but they're both great reads, and I do hope the third novel will see its pocket re-release soon!

Original Japanese title(s): 市川憂人 『ブルーローズは眠らない』

Into Thin Air

波の上漂う海月を見るのが好きで

「君という光」（Garnet Crow）

I love looking at the jellyfish floating on the waves

"The Light That Is You" (Garnet Crow)

Jellyfish as a dish (Asian cuisine) is actually quite nice!

The publication of Professor Philip Phifer's thesis on the "vacuum airsac" in 1973 changed the history of airships. The invention of Professor Phifer and his team led to their creation of the Jellyfish, a zeppelin-like airship that was not only much smaller and lighter than previous airships due to the vacuum airsac that provided for the machine's buoyancy, it was also much more silent and safer than for example zeppelins, helicopters or planes. The airship derived its name from its appearance, resembling a jellyfish floating in the sky and in the ten years since, (former) Professor Phifer and his students set-up a venture and were bought by UFA, the leading aircraft manufacturer in the country of U (totally not the United States). Early February 1983, Phifer and his five team members set out on the final test flight on their experimental version of a new and improved Jellyfish, a small vehicle with three bedrooms, a kitchen and bathroom. They were to fly for several days through several states and return to UFA, but something goes horribly wrong during the test flight. First Phifer dies in his room due to what appears to be poison in his drink, immediately followed by a renegade automatic pilot program which for cedthe team and their Jellyfish to land and strand on an enclosed part on a snowy mountain. Surrounding by steep rock walls and no mountain climbing equipment packed, it'd be suicidal to even attempt escape on their own, but as time passes by, it appears one of them might have killed Phifer and lured them to this isolated place on purpose. Some days later, the Jellyfish and the six passengers are found by the police, but it's too late: everyone is dead. But the curious thing is that they were all murdered. At first the strong-headed police detective Maria and her subordinate Ren think they might've killed each other off during some sort of hysteric attack and that the last one committed suicide, but forensic shows all of the victims were murdered. But how could this be possible, as no signs of a seventh person was found at the crash site in the mountain? Was it the work of spies from the country R (totally not Russia)? The two detectives start digging in the past of the Jellyfish and uncover a surprising conspiracy in Ichikawa Yuuto's debut novel Jellyfish wa Kooranai (2016), which also carries the English title of The Jellyfish Never Freezes.

Some novels are quite eager to show where their inspiration came from and yet few do it as obvious as The Jellyfish Never Freezes. With two simultaneously developing narratives in alternating chapters, telling a story about a closed circle murder mystery where eventually everyone is found dead, and an investigation that is conducted on the mainland, it's more than obvious that Ichikawa was inspired by Ayatsuji Yukito's The Decagon House Murders/Jukkakukan no Satsujin, and in extension, Christie's And Then There Were None (disclosure: I translated Ayatsuji's The Decagon House Murders). It is quite daring to model one's novel so strongly after another (well-known) story down to the story structure, though it has to be noted that in The Decagon House Murders, the narratives ran simultaneously (you followed the events on the island and the mainland of the same day), while in The Jellyfish Never Freezes, we alternate between the Jellyfish chapters which are set a few days before the police investigation chapters, and you jump back and forth in time. The effect is different of course: we learn in the first chapter of the police investigation that everyone aboard the Jellyfish died, while in the corresponding Jellyfish narrative, things haven't gotten nearly as desperate as that.

The main problem is thus a familiar one: how do you explain a situation where everyone was murdered by another person, but in a closed circle situation which prevents any third person from either entering or exiting the place? This particular novel uses the Jellyfish, a new type of aircraft as a unique way to first create a floating closed circle situation in the sky, and after the forced landing another closed circle situation which no normal vehicles can reach (high up in the mountains, in a spot that is enclosed by high rock walls). Nobody could've escaped this place or even entered this place, so at one hand the conclusion is that the murderer must've been one of the persons in the Jellyfish, but on the other hand, no person could've left that place either (impossible to climb without proper equipment) and none of the victims had committed suicide. Jellyfish are still relatively new airships that have been becoming popular recently, but still with a relatively limited number of private owners, and it's also quickly determined that no other Jellyfish could've gone there on the day of the incident. The result is an interesting closed circle situation. The narrative that follow the crew members of the Jellyfish is of course the one most concerned with the stress that arises from these circumstances, and once the first two men are dead, it soon becomes a familiar story in which people start to distrust each other and ugly pasts start to pop up again. Meanwhile, the police investigation is busy trying to explain how the Jellyfish could've gotten off course and whether this was a 'private' murder, or some machination of the rival country R, which must've been interested in the new Jellyfish too.

Ultimately, the mystery revolves around two questions: who is the murderer, and how did they manage to make the crime scene look the way it did (did they physically escape from that site, or did they do something else, etc.)? The whodunnit part of the mystery is telegraphed a bit too early due to the multi-angle narrative, but also a bit unfair: one part very early in the book especially is basically lying directly to the reader (not even to the characters in-universe). Making the reader erronously assume some fact is a trick I find perfectly acceptable in a mystery novel, but blatantly telling falsehoods is another thing. It is addressed at the end, but the excuse is rather weak. The book adds in short interval chapters between the Jellyfish and police investigation chapters, which are told from the viewpoint of the unnamed murderer who tells about their motive, but I think a lot of readers are going to suspect a certain person already due to the facts addressed there and in a way, it gives too much information away regarding who you should suspect.

The howdunnit part of the story however is far more impressive. The way the murderer managed to create the crime scene the way it was is daring and basically an impossible situation (how to escape a locked "room"), and at first read you might even think it's unfair, but once you go over the clews and foreshadowing, it's clear this part is far better plotted than the whodunnit part. Like The Decagon House Murders and And Then There Were None, it's a solution that is soooo simple that you can literally summarize it in one sentence and someone who's reading the book will instantly understand what the trick is, but of course, you're not going to think of it yourself while you're reading the book yourself. Like I mentioned it before, a good mystery story doesn't tell blatant lies, but makes you assume something while there's another, perfectly fine alternative that you simply oversee. That's what happens here, and the solution is a memorable one because of that. Mind you, at times the plot still feels a bit forced: the murderer had a lot of luck that circumstances and the actions of the people around them worked out the way they did and it evens feels like the the culprit managed to manipulate the people around them a bit too easily.

But on the whole, I think The Jellyfish Never Freezes is a satisfying take on the And Then There Were None-motif, which uses it original idea of the Jellyfish aircrafts to create an interesting story setting which mixes the more conventional mystery thriller mode of And Then There Were None with a slight touch of the spy thriller and science-fiction stories. It's definitely not perfect, but I found this to be a more than capable debut novel and I'm sure I'll try more of Ichikawa's novels.

Original Japanese title(s): 市川憂人 『ジェリーフィッシュは凍らない』