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』