The Poet and the Lunatics

"One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn't going to go off."

"Letter from Chekhov to Aleksandr Semenovich Lazarev"

I like this cute cover!

Publisher Tokyo Sogensha has been offering a fantastic platform for mystery writers who haven't been published yet for decades now with the prestigious Ayukawa Tetsuya Award: the award includes a publishing contract for the winning manuscript, and writers like Ashibe Taku, Asukabe Katsunori, Aizawa Sako, Aosaki Yuugo, Amon Junichi, Ichikawa Tetsuya, Ichikawa Yuuto, Imamura Masahiro, Houjou Kie and many more have all made their professional debuts by winning this award aimed at novel-length works. In the meantime, Tokyo Sogensha has also provided a platform for short stories, which would also be rewarded with publication in their literary magazine. 2022 was the last time this award was called the Mysteries! Newcomer Award, as it is now called the Sogen Mystery Short Story Award. The last winner of the Mysteries! Newcomer Award was Mamon Kouhei, with the short story Lunatic Retriever. This short story is included in Mamon's 2024 short story collection Bokura wa Kaishuu Shinai ("No Pay-Off for Us", 2024), which provides a nice showcase of his mystery plotting skills, as well as his talent for writing characters.

The book opens with Gaitou Interview ("Street Interview"), which offers a seemingly harmless mystery: Kirito is approached by classmate Fujiwara, who needs some help, and Kirito is known for having a very keen eye for details. Fujiwara's sister was recently interviewed on the street about a few topics, like the trend of younger people not reading newspapers anymore. Her sister thought the interview went well, but after it was broadcast, people on the internet started bashing her sister for giving stupid answers, and some even just bad-mouthed her appearance. Fujiwara doesn't know what Kirito can do, but hopes he can somehow make it stop. After a careful examination of the street interview video, Kirito is however indeed able to miraculously stop the bashing. This is a unique kind of mystery, as it doesn't involve any real crime, but it is set-up in a convincing manner, even if some of the clues are introduced too close to Kirito's proposed solution to resolving this matter. It's a mystery you could imagine happen in real-life, and I really like how the story eventually wraps back to Kirito's own backstory of how he became known at school as a kind of detective.

Kaeru-Goroshi ("The Murder of a Frog") is about the comedy duo Frogs in the Well, consisting of Shougo and Mitsunori.  Shougo is introduced to Miki, a great fan of the duo, via a mutual friend, and the two start seeing each other more often, eventually leading to them dating officially. While the two comedians have been working hard on their act, they never had their big break, until they finally manage to win first place in a prestigious comedy contest, which results in them getting more offers for appearances on television. The two are not used to their new succes, getting drained by the constant stream of gigs and to make things worse, Shougo is suddenly rejected by Miki, who, despite still being fond of him, somehow can't stand being with him anymore. It's during this period a comedian from the same agency, who has been in the trade for a very long time without any succes, finally wins his first contest. Masuoka Hideki never had much success, but he was always super nice to his juniors at the agency, so everyone is beyond happy for him, and they all gather at the offices of the agency to celebrate his long-awaited award. They all have something to drink and after a while, people walk in and out the room to make phone calls and smoke, but when Mitsunori goes out on the balcony on the third floor, he spots a dead Masuoka on the street below, and lying next to him, is a squished frog. Considering Masuoka just won an award and had his big break that very night, it doesn't seem likely this is a suicide, and suspicion falls on all who were in the building at the moment, but because it is not clear at first when Masuoka left the room and died, it is difficult to establish who was where when, and therefore who has an alibi or not. After reading the first story, I had mistakenly assumed this book would not feature murders at all, so this was a pleasant (?) surprise. Mamon spins a very Queen-esque whodunnit tale, where you use the various physical clues sprinkled across the tale to cross out suspects off the list, and there are some clever twists hidden in this process too, but what is the most memorable about this story, is definitely the motive for the murder. While a motive is a very subjective thing (one can find a motive satisfying, while someone else not at all), I find Mamon's efforts in presenting this aspect too as a fair-play mystery, and the way he set-up the motive with foreshadowing quite memorable. Considering how the whodunnit-part clewing went and the way the motive was so thoroughly foreshadowed, I can easily imagine this same short (very short!) story be fleshed out into a full novel, and it would've worked as well.

Tsuisou no Ie ("The House of Memories") is a very short story, where a father and his two adult children visit the home of the grandfather, who recently passed away. While going through his stuff, the narrator realizes something odd's going on: he has vivid memories of visiting his grandpa's study, which had bookcases filled completely with books. He hadn't visited his grandfather at home for many years, especially not because they had a fight a few years ago, but he knows his grandfather kept on buying books and that he never ever sold his books... But where have all the books his grandfather had bought after he last visited him, have gone to, as the bookcases in the study were already completely full back then? Cute little mystery that may have a very simple solution, but it just works very well with the theme of childhood memories.

Hayami Shirou wo Oikakete ("Chasing after Hayami Shirou") is a two-party mystery, where the narrator first tells how his classmate Hayami Shirou once saved him from a false accussation at school: trash had been thrown around the pool, and because the narrator had a fight with the teacher of the swimming club at the time, he was accused of the vandal act. Hayami however very ingeniously, and swiftly proves who the real culprit was. The narrator and Hayami now go to the same high school, and Hayami's talents are once again needed, when the football (soccer) club find their storeroom ransacked, with balls and other equipment stolen. The stolen items however are found the following day, having been left somewhere on the school grounds. The way Hayami deduces who the culprit is, and why, is clever and I do like the clues are based on physical senses that usually aren't featured as strongly in written fiction, though at the same time, that is also why the story kinda falls flat for me, as we read a lot about these senses, but while your mileage may vary, I did find it hard to believe how "exactly" for example a character could recognize a lingering smell. I do like the little twist at the end of the deduction process that allowed Hayami to point at the one and only culprit, and the motive works well in this school setting too.

Lunatic Retriever is set at a college mixed dormitory, which has one 'famous' inhabitant: Yoshida Haruka won a literary award at age 20 and has been publishing books these last two years. She's also quite arrogant and doesn't mingle much with the other students living in the dorm. However, that doesn't mean her death isn't a shock. On the day a solar eclipse happens, she is found dead in a storeroom inside the dorm. The storeroom was originally a smoking area inside the common room, with two doors (one opening in, the other door opening out). Before the eclipse, people tried going to the storeroom to get something, but found both doors locked for some reason. After the eclipse, the students find it odd the doors are still closed, so they force the doors open. They not only learn the doors were "locked" because they had been taped tight with duct tape, they also find a dead Haruka lying on the floor, as well as a burning stove. The room being taped shut and the burning stove suggests Haruka committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning, but on the other hand, they also are of the opinion Haruka would be the last person to commit suicide. But if it was murder, how did the murderer escape the taped storeroom? This is a very dense story, with a lot to offer: a taped locked room, Ellery Queen style deductions to determine who the murderer is, and we even have a solar eclipse... Because of the clue density, we even have room for multiple people presenting their theories, and interestingly, I think that in terms of the locked room mystery, the final solution isn't even as impressive as the earlier ones. What is really memorable about this story however, is the ending, when we are confronted with what is thematically an absurdly shocking revelation. It is a funny, meta-level observation that in a different work could have catastrophic implications, but it works in this short story setting and gives you some food for thought regarding the mystery genre, while also still functioning as a mystery story itself. The theme, in hindsight, can be found in other stories in the volume too, which wraps things up nicely.

This is the first time I read anything by Mamon Kouhei, and while I am generally more a fan of short stories, and I did enjoy the short stories found here, I have to admit they left me wanting for more, for stories that show the same type of plotting, clewing and ways in identifying whodunnit, but with more room for depth and that is also the case for the motives, there are some really originaly character motivations at display here that result in interesting mystery settings, and I'd love to see Mamon for example trying to do a longer detective novel with such themes. So I'll keep an eye out for Mamon's future output!

Original Japanese title(s): 真門浩平『ぼくらは回収しない』 「街頭インタビュー」/「カエル殺し」/「追想の家」/「速水士郎を追いかけて」/「ルナティック・レトリーバー」

The Mystery of the Yellow Room

もしも 生まれ変わっても また私に生まれたい 

この体と この色で 生き抜いてきたんだから 

「Yellow Yellow Happy」（ポケットビスケッツ）

 

If I would be born again, I want to be born as myself again

Because I have survived in this body and this color until now

"Yellow Yellow Happy" (Pocket Bisquits)

No, this book is not set in a place where rocks levitate...

It has been three years since the traumatic events at Katsuragi Teruyoshi's family home, and now the great detective and his best friends Tadokoro Shinya and Mitani Rokurou are all studying at different universities, all having an idea of their future. They still see each other often, but they have not travelled together in ages, however, exceptions are made for special occassions: Katsuragi and Tadokoro have received a letter from Asukai Hikaru, the former high school student detective whom Tadokoro looked up to when he was young. A few years ago, Katsuragi and Tadokoro met her, now in her late twenties and working as an insurance agent, at the house of  mystery author Takarada Yuuzan, where they were confronted with a horrible murder. Katsuragi and Hikaru had clashed about their views about what a detective is, so Katsuragi and Tadakoro are surprised to learn she had written them a letter. She informs them she's going to be married to Dotou Kouki, the son of Dotou Raizou, the world famous multi-disciplinary artist, especially known for his paintings, sculptures and architecture. While Kouki is "a normal guy", his sisters have inherited their father's artistic talent, with Yukie being an accomplished illustrator, Tsukiyo a sculpter and Kanon a singer. Because of Kouki and Hikaru's engagement, they're going to have a rare gathering on the last day of the year at Raizou's home the Wasteland Manor: a house with four towers Raizou himself designed, located in what is basically a small, square valley, with the house surrounded completely by four rock walls. 

Raizou turns out to be a friend of Takarada Yuuzan, who has passed away since. It was Raizou who designed the house of Yuuzan, and in exchange, Yuuzan had written a mystery novel set in Raizou's home. It is this unpublished manuscript that worries Hikaru, prompting her to contact Katsuragi and Tadokoro. It appears Hikaru's presence at Yuuzan's manor three years ago had not been a coincidence, but set-up by Yuuzan, and she fears she's being manipulated again by this unpublished manuscript of Yuuzan. She hopes Katsuragi and Tadokoro will come to the house, as her "relatives" and see if they can get their hands on the manuscript and see what is hidden within the pages. Katsuragi has no intention of meeting Asukai again, but he agrees to at least join Tadokoro and Mitani on their way to the house. The three young men meet with Hikaru and Kouki outside the house to discuss what they'll do, but then they are surprised by a heavy earthquake. While they are all unharmed, the road has collapsed and trees have fallen on the road, blocking it completely. Very conveniently, Katsuragi alone finds himself on the outside world side of the road, while the rest are now trapped on the house-side of the road. Katsuragi says he'll go to the nearby town and stay there, while Tadokoro and Mitani will go with Hikaru and Kouki as planned. 

Things soon take a turn for the worse however. Tadokoro and Mitani are introduced to the rest of the family (as well as two other guests), though none of the Dotous seem very interested in them. Everyone is shocked to learn they have been cut off from the outside world, but they have enough supplies to last for about four days. And while there are occasional aftershocks, the house itself is sturdy enough to withstand the violent movements. However, the following day, patriarch Raizou is found dead in the courtyard of the house: the elderly man has been shish-kebab'd on a statue of a knight holding a sword up high and what's more: the murderer has left no footprints in the wet garden. When they go looking for Yuuzan's unpublished manuscript in Raizou's room, they find someone has taken it: is it a coincidence a manuscript about a murder case happening in this house is now missing? Meanwhile, Katsuragi has barely managed to find a room in the only inn in town, which is swarming due to the sudden earthquake and trains not running anymore. His attention is soon drawn to his roommate Ogasawara Tsuneharu, who is acting rather suspicious. Of course, Katsuragi has no way to know that Ogasawara is planning to kill the proprietor of the inn: not because he has a motive to kill her, but some hours ago, Ogasawara had agreed to do a murder exchange: when he was not able to go to Raizou's home due to the road collapse and fallen trees, a woman called out to him from the other side of the blocked road, who offered to kill Raizou for him, if he instead kills the inn proprietor for her. Can Katsuragi and Hikaru solve all the crimes happening in and outside the house in Atsukawa Tatsumi's Koudokan no Satsujin ("The Murder in the Earthy Yellow Manor" 2023)?

This is the third book in the series which now bears the name Manor Quartet, which obviously suggest this series will be four parts in total. The first book had fire and the summer as its theme, the second water and autumn and this third book revolves around earth and winter. So yes, that suggest the final book's theme will be wind (air) in the spring. A murder in a house during a typhoon? Anyway, I enjoyed the previous two books about Katsuragi, the young detective who has the ability to sense people lying to him, and while I had not read the premise of the book before, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Asukai Hikaru from the first book returned too in a prominent role, so once I got started with this book, I had gone through it really fast.

The book takes on a rather interesting structure: the first third of the book is actually an inverted mystery: we follow Ogasawara Tsuneharu as he makes his way to the Wasteland Manor to kill Raizou, whom he hates for a very personal reason, only to find the road collapsed and blocked by fallen trees. When he grumbles out loud he now can't kill Raizou now, a woman calls out to him from the other side of the road. While they can't see each other, she offers to kill Raizou instead of him, if he then kills the propriator of the local inn. The woman suggest she'll kill Raizou first and use a flare signal so Ogasawara will know she has succeeded in her task, after which he'll kill the proprietor. Ogasawara accepts the offer for a murder exchange, and arrives at the inn, but can only stay he shares a room with Katsuragi. And so Ogasawara slowly starts to plan his murder (luckily, he was already planning to kill Raizou so he has things like poison with him). But as this is an inverted detective, we of course see how Katsuragi slowly starts to suspect his roommate isn't just some innocent guest. But how did he figure it out? This part is fairly short, but I do like the clewing Atsukawa employed to allow Katsuragi to get on the trail of Ogasawara. We know Katsuragi starts to have his suspicions very early on, but the clues that allowed him to zero on his roommate are fairly clever hidden. In the aftermath, Katsuragi learns about the murder exchange, finally realizing his friends Tadokoro and Mitani may be in danger, as there's a murderer in Wasteland House. 

At this point, the book jumps back to the last day of the year, and we now follow Tadokoro, who together with Mitani visit the Wasteland House. Kouki's sisters Yukie, Tsukiyo and Kanon seem not interested in the two men, nor are the two other guests (an art broker and Kanon's manager), but Raizou himself seems interested in Tadokoro, as Raizou is aware Tadokoro and Katsuragi where involved in the incident in the house of his friend Yuuzan, and Raizou also seems more interested in Hikaru's past as a high school student detective, rather than as his future daughter-in-law. The following day however, the man is found dangling from the sword of the knight statue in the courtyard, but how could anyone have lifted the victim and stabbed him on a five-metre high sculpture? As there's no landline phone and for some reasons, their mobiles don't have any reception, all they can do is wait until the road's been restored or outside help comes via some other way, but they don't have much time, as more mysterious happenings occur, from sightings of a masked butler who can escape from a tower room with only entrance even though they were being chased by Tadokoro and someone being shot inside another tower room, even though it was locked from inside and the only window in the room looks out... on a rock wall. With Katsuragi not present, and Asukai Hikaru having sworn off ever playing detective ever again, Watson Tadokoro finds himself forced to be the Holmes himself this time...

In Gurenkan no Satsujin and Aomikan no Satsujin, the respective themes of a mountain fire, and a flooded river added a note of excitement to the mystery: like Ellery in The Siamese Twin Mystery, it wasn't just that Katsuragi and Tadokoro found them having to deal with a musterious murder committed in a house, they also had to deal with an unstoppable force of nature, a force that also had its influence on the murders. In Koudokan no Satsujin, we have one major earthquake at the very start of the book, followed by unpredictable aftershocks, but I have to admit I found the theme not as strong here as in the previous books. The initial earthquake creates the closed circle setting, and also sets up the murder exchange, but from that point on, we just have aftershocks happening now and then. They don't really serve as a constant threat, as they come and go swiftly, and it's not like you can predict them. The earthquakes are not a theme that permeate throughout the novel, only popping up now and then, so that kinda weakens the "earth" theme, even if the couple of themes they do feature in the mysteries, they are integrated cleverly.

 What you can't accuse Atsukawa of, is him skimping on the mysteries though. We have Raizou skewered on a sword in the courtyard, even though there are no footprints left in the courtyard, even though rain had softened the ground last night. We have masked butlers being chased into rooms with only one entrance and disappearing from those rooms. We have a body which appears in a room, even though everyone has an alibi for the time between the discovery of the body, and the last time people visited the room, and many more. What I do like is that a lot of these mysteries do share a common thread, used in a few ways. I have to admit I have read so many of these books by now, I found the big trick a bit easy to guess because I have seen similar ideas quite often, but the execution is well-clewed and because Atsukawa utilized the idea in various ways, it feels fairly substantial, rather than a one-trick pony. The earthquakes in return are featured now and then in the mystery, for example forcing the murderer to do something in a certain manner, or the earthquake creating an unforeseen situation for everyone. As mentioned before, the synergy between this 'force of nature' theme and the mystery isn't as prominent as I had hoped, but when it's done, it definitely presents interesting parts of the mystery.

That said, I do find the whodunnit rather disappointing. The first part is an inverted mystery, so of course who the culprit is, but Ogasawara himself never learns who his partner in crime is, so we don't know who the murderer inside the house is. However, the way Atsukawa planted the clues to point to the murderer are a bit too obvious. While from an in-universe point of view, it makes sense it takes some time for the detectives on both sides to catch up as you need information obtained from both in and outside the house to solve everything, it doesn't mean the reader isn't already in possession of that knowledge, and it makes the attempts to present false solutions feel a bit weak, as you know the big elephant in the room hasn't been addressed yet. 

Overall though, I do like how this book is set three years after the previous books, with a more mature Katsuragi Teruyoshi who has learned to deal with his trauma gained in the previous two books, and we see how that also helps Asukai Hikaru, who has her own trauma. I'm not really that interested in character development, but for those looking for that in a detective character, you can definitely find it in this series, and what I do like is how Katsuragi's character does influence his detecting style a lot: it's his experiences that leads him to act like he does now as a detective, so in that sense, I do like seeing the change in him, as it's directly reflected in the way the mystery is plotted and how Atsukawa decides to have the story solved.

Koudokan no Satsujin is overall a solid third entry. While the earth theme isn't as strongly present here as the force of nature themes in the previous two books and it is overall a bit simpler, I do like the twists Atsukawa presents here, like having an inverted mystery section, and focusing on basically three detective figures in Katsuragi, Hikaru and Tadokoro. Can't wait to see how the last volume will wrap things up!

Original Japanese title(s):阿津川辰海『黄土館の殺人』

The Time Thief

We could steal time just for one day

We can be heroes for ever and ever 

"Heroes" (David Bowie)

Gorgeous cover!

Earlier this year, I discussed Yuuki Haruo's Salome no Guillotine, a very memorable mystery set in the Taishou era, revolving around a series of murders among artists. It was only after reading the book I learned it was actually the latest entry in a series. In fact, I only realized that after I first opened the book of today's review, and saw the names of the protagonists of Salome's Guillotine on the first page... Yuuki Haruo's Tokeidorobou to Akunin ("Clock Thieves & Crooks" 2023) is the second book featuring the adventures of painter Iguchi Sakuta and his friend and former burglar Hasuno in the late Taishou era, with the handsome Hasuno with his criminal experience of course being the detective, while Iguchi functions as our Watson. Iguchi and his wife are good friends with the loner Hasuno, who after a short career in relieving people of their possessions has now become mostly an upstanding citizen, though the adventures of the two occasionally force Hasuno to make use of his unique talents again. And yes, this is the second book in the series apparently, so I'm reading these out of order and I have no idea how much about their initial meeting is explained in the first book, but in Tokeidorobou to Akunin, they form a great team. The book is technically a short story collection, but the stories do flow from one into the next, even if there's no tight overarching storyline. 

The book opens with Kaemon-shi no Bijutsukan ("The Art Museum of Mr Kaemon"), where Iguchi has a major problem. Long ago, his father had bought an antique Dutch clock which once belonged to the Dutch royal family. When he purchased the clock, he also received a very well-made imitation of the clock, as the previous owner had been scared of theft. When Iguchi's father sold the clock to the collector Kaemon, he gave the imitation to Kaemon. The latter never noticed it, and Iguchi suspects his late father did it on purpose. The elderly Kaemon has not long to live anymore, and has recently had his country house renovated to include an art museum to display the art collection he gathered throughout the years. This would include the Dutch table clock, and Iguchi is afraid fellow art connoisseurs who will visit the museum will realize it's a fake, and that it will become public his father sold Kaemon imitation art. Iguchi and Hasuno visit Kaemon at his house, to see if they could just apologize and give him the real clock, but the attitude of the grumpy old man makes it clear there is only one solution: Iguchi and Hasuno have to break in the museum and swap the fake clock for the real one themselves. What follows is a fun adventure of Iguchi and Hasuno trying to sneak inside the museum, but while they are there, they notice something is off about the museum, but what? This is one of those mysteries where you don't really know what the mystery is until the conclusion, so I can't say too much about the mystery. But I'd definitely say it's a memorable one! The ingenious twist is definitely set-up very well with both physical and psychological clues, and I love the themes (motive) behind this story. Great opening of the book, especially with the banter between Iguchi and Hasuno.

Akunin Ikka no Misshitsu ("The Locked Room of the Family of Crooks") follows Atsuko, the maid of the Minoda family, who live in a large manor in Yokohama. Patriarch Akiyoshi lives in England with his wife, while his four children live in their parental home in Japan. None of the children, all of different mothers, really like their father, nor each other, but money is a great binding tissue, so they all live together. Oldest son Yukimasa one day receives a letter from his father telling him he is returning from England and he has also sent boxes full of furniture back to Japan. It appears his wife died, and now he's coming back, but his father wants his home in England replicated perfectly in the annex of their Japanese home, hence Akiyoshi not only sending back sofas and chairs, but even the doors. Yukimusa arranges for builders to come and construction starts based on the photographs his father sent him. One night however, as the maid Atsuko returns, she notices a figure floating in the rooms under construction, and when she peeks through the window, she sees Yukimasa's body hanging from a rope, with his legs resting on the bolted door latch (which was also imported from England). She calls the other siblings, but they can only enter the room by breaking the door down: meaning this was a locked room. At first sight, this therefore looks like a suicide, but when Iguchi and Hasuno visit the place (Iguchi's patron had sent Iguchi and Hasuno to sort out something with Yukimasa), they soon uncover not only that all of Yukimasa's siblings had a motive to kill him,, but they also find clues that indicate this was indeed a murder. But how could the murderer have left the locked room? On a purely technical level, the locked room mystery is not very original perhaps, but the way it ties to the motive is really great! It provides a fantastic reason why such a rudimentary trick was used, and the small unique elements of this locked room, like balancing the victim's feet on the latch, do transform it enough to create a good story. But it's definitely the motive, and the final implication regarding the victim, that makes this another good entry.

Yuukai to Ooyuki - Yuukai no Shou ("Abduction and Heavy Snow: Abduction") and Yuukai to Ooyuki - Ooyuki no Shou ("Abduction and Heavy Snow: Heavy Snow") is a two-part story, each focusing on a different mystery. In the first part, Hasuno asked to come disguised as a salesman to Iguchi's sister-in-law's place. When he arrives there, he learns Iguchi's niece Mineko has been abducted and a ransom note has been left in their letter-box. They ask Hasuno for advise, but the latter soon notices several odd points about the ransom note, leading to a surprising conclusion regarding why Mineko was abducted. The story then deals with the drop-off for the ransom, which is done by Iguchi's father-in-law, while Hasuno and Iguchi, in disguise, try to spot the abductors. Again, Hasuno quickly sees through the trickery of the abductors and soon the two are on their way to save Mineko. This chapter is the most adventurous of the whole book, I think, with a good deal of suspense as Hasuno slowly deduces the bigger story behind Mineko's abduction simply based on the instructions in the ransom note. The trick regarding the ransom money drop-off is fairly simple, but it's basically just a set-up to lead into the second part of the story. There we follow the story first from Mineko's point of view, as she finds herself abducted by a group of men. In the night, she's taken by one of the leaders to a hut outside and thrown on a hay bed: Mineko fears the worst and is knocked out by the man. When she wakes up however, she finds that man stabbed to death lying next to her. It is at that time her uncle arrives together with Hasuno, having found out where she was being held, but they have two problems: one is that their car broke down and even if they try to get away on foot now, they'll probably be caught by the rest of the gang in the house next door. The second problem is that the only footprints leading to the hut are those of the dead man, Mineko and Iguchi and Hasuno who arrived just now, meaning the only person who could've killed that man is Mineko. While Mineko has no recollection of killing the man, and Iguchi and Hasuno also don't believe that is the case, who then did kill the man, and how? While it might be hard to guess the details of how this was done, I think the general idea behind the locked room is probably fairly easy to guess, even if it can be a bit tricky figuring out the exact timing. The story then ends in a kind of reverse Home Alone, where Iguchi, Hasuno and Mineko try to round up the whole gang themselves, which results in some funny swashbuckling scenes.

Iguchi, like many of his fellow artists, has found a patron in the art-loving businessman Harumi. In Harumi-shi no Gaikoku Tegami ("Mr Harumi's Letter from Abroad"), Harumi asks Iguchi for some help, or to be exact, he needs the help of Iguchi's friend Hasuno. Not because Hasuno was a burglar, but because Hasuno also knows languages and Harumi needs a translator. His wife passed away some time ago, and he only now got around to sorting out her possessions, but he came across a strange letter from France, even though she did not have any friends there. Hasuno translates the letter, which is sent by the nephew of Marcel Champlain, stating he writes on behalf of his recently deceased uncle, who implored him to write a letter to Japan to express his thanks, and love to Ms Harumi. Harumi has no idea who this Marcel Champlain is, and asks Iguchi and Hasuno to figure out who he is and what his relationship was with his wife. The two dig into the history of Harumi's late wife, which is rather complex: Harumi's recently deceased wife was actually his second, and his first wife was actually her twin sister, who also passed away early, and there was another older sister too. The precise relationship between Harumi and his wife and sister-in-laws is rather complex and can make this story a bit confusing, and again, this is the type of mystery you don't really know was even present until it is explained to you, though I do like the truth Hasuno eventually uncovers, and it gives a very sad, but memorable meaning to the letter sent on Marcel's behalf.

In Mitsukawamaru no Ayashii Bansan ("The Alluring Dinner on the Mitsukawa-Maru"), Iguchi, Hasuno and fellow artist Ootsuki find themselves on the ship Mitsukawa-Maru, as representives of Harumi. The Mitsukawa-Maru recently returned from India, but ran into trouble just off the coast: while the ship itself is in no direct danger of sinking and the crew safely returned to the mainland, it will take a few days before the ship itself can be pulled free. However, the ship was carrying a unique cargo: two tigers.... which are going to be served at dinner. Hirokawa Koutarou, the owner of the ship, also runs a shady secret club where the members can enjoy strange things, which is why he had planned a dinner party with tiger meat. Due to the ship's troubles however, he has decided to hold the party on the ship itself now, with the invitees being brought especially on the Mitsukawa-Maru as it lays off the coast.  While one tiger has already been prepared, the other is bit more troublesome: the ship's troubles led to one tiger cage being broken, and now that tiger is running free in two connected rooms in the hold. Terue is Hirokawa's maid, and she's on the ship too to take care of her boss' guests, but she comes across the dead body of one of them! She reports to her boss, but when they return to the place, the body is gone, and her boss is not really believing her. Hasuno and Iguchi however have reason to believe Terue might be right, as the victim was a reporter on the trail of a serial killer, who might be one of the other guests, and they start poking around and looking for the body. This is by far the longest story of the bunch, offering a closed circle mystery with unique elements like a friggin' tiger in the hold, but I feel this story was way longer than it needed to be, and even felt a bit tiring after a while. Hasuno and Iguchi are already aware of much of the background story by the time the story starts, so the reader is always at a disadvantage, and unfortunately, this story has no floorplan even though the characters move around a lot on the ship. Eventually, Hasuno deduces who the murderer is based on the actions they took, but to be honest, the whodunnit wasn't nearly as impressive as the whydunnit. At least, the whydunnit regarding the direct motive for the second death and the implications of that death was absolutely great, and I would perhaps have preferred a story focusing solely on that.

Houseki Dorobou to Okidokei ("A Jewel Thief and the Table Clock") brings up back to the Dutch table clock from the first story. Iguchi receives a letter from the (son of the) previous owner of the clock, who hopes to buy back the clock. Iguchi has two major problems: due to the conclusion of the first story, Iguchi is still in possession of the clock, even though it belongs to Kaemon and two: the clock was stolen. He had kept it wrapped up in a cloth in the bedroom, but for some reason someone stole the clock, and just the clock, with nothing else in the bedroom being disturbed. This was also only one theft in a series of thefts among friends of his wife: several rubies have been stolen, but all under nearly impossible circumstances: for example, one friend had a bracelet with a ruby embedded in it, and hidden it within an orange cloth, put in a box with many other wrapped up cloths, but the thief managed to steal only the one with the bracelet in it, without opening the other cloths. In another theft, the thief stole a ruby which had been put on a dress, but there had been four identical dresses, with the other three having very well made imitations, so how could the thief so quickly found the real ruby, not even having to touch the other three dresses? While the tricks behind each of these cases is fairly simple, I do like how some of them are connected, leading to some nice synergy moments: the explanation for the ruby on the dress theft for example is pretty clever on its own, but it also gives a great explanation for how the thief managed to find the antique clock in Iguchi's home. While I don't really think this is a very memorable story (I think I had expected it to connect a bit more strongly to the previous stories), it's an okay one, and it also leads directly into the events of Salome's Guillotine.

Overall though, I did really enjoy Tokeidorobou to Akunin. I think Yuuki Haruo especially excels in coming up with cool motives that not only are memorable, but they also often naturally lead to the core mysteries of howdunnit or whodunnit. I already noticed that in Salome's Guillotine, but as a short story collection, you of course see more instances of that here. The banter between Hasuno and Iguchi is also fun, and while some of the stories can become a bit darker, there is usually a slight comedic tone to them (the two stories told from the maid's POV for example have some funny moments where they lament having to work for their employers). So another recommended read! I should probably read the first book too...

Original Japanese title(s): 夕木春央『時計泥棒と悪人』: 「加右衛門氏の美術館」/「悪人一家の密室」/「誘拐と大雪　誘拐の章」/「誘拐と大雪　大雪の章」/「晴海氏の外国手紙」/「光川丸の妖しい晩餐」/「宝石泥棒と置時計」

The Labyrinth Seduction

"There is no need to build a labyrinth when the entire universe is one."

"Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings"

I wasn't aware the full title of this book was so long until I started writing this review...

Shizuku is a detective. At least, she plays one, in the virtual reality MMORPG Alfheim Online. As "Spica", she has her own detective agency, with even her very own Watson (her childhood friend, and narrator Endou). In reality, she has never ever taken a case, and the two just hang out in the office every day after school, but don't say that out loud in front of Spica. One day, the narrator finds a mysterious object in his inventory: he has no memories of ever picking up such an item, so how could it have been added to his inventory? When the two take a look at the diary, they realize they have in their possession an impossible object. For this diary purports to be written by a player of the VR MMORPG Sword Art Online, and written within SAO. Which is impossible: Sword Art Online was the infamous brainchild of Kayaba Akihiko, who made a revolutionary virtual game system with a helmet that stimulates all 5 senses, but when the game launched, the players found themselves trapped inside Sword Art Online by Kayaba. Players were unable to log out and they were told that if they died in-game, the helmet would also kill them in real-life, which would also happen if someone tried to forcibly log them out by messing with the hardware. In the end, players did manage to beat the game and escape, but many of the players had suffered deaths in the meantime. After the game was beaten, most of the data of Sword Art Online and all the records of what happened within the world was deleted however. The in-game world was completely lost, though the very basics of the system survived, allowing the creation of the (safer) Alfheim Online as a spiritual successor. So how could Spica and the narrator now have a diary that was written by one of the players in Sword Art Online during that period, and how did it appear in Alfheim Online?

The diary itself is written by a player called Jason, who is the leader of a party called the Argonauts. While they are fairly powerful, they are not strong enough to be leading the attempt to clear all 100 floors of Sword Art Online. The Argonauts however do fulfill an important role. Because the frontline parties try to clear each floor as quickly as possible, they are not able to explore each floor completely. Parties like the Argonauts are active a few floors behind the frontline parties and help explore every corner of each floor, because they might find hidden equipment, items or hints that may help the frontline parties. It is during one of these exploration missions Jason, and his comrades Orpheus, Hercules, Asklepios, Atalanta and Caenis find themselves transported in an underground labyrinth. While they explore the place, they are suddenly attacked by a menacing Blind Minotaur. While the party display fantastic teamwork, they soon realize that the Blind Minotaur is faaaaar more powerful than they are, and they are hardly able to chip off even a little of his hit points. As a hopeless battle, all they can do is flee, and then soon learn that they are safe if they manage to stay inside one of the few rooms in the labyrinth and keep the door closed, as the Minotaur is not able to get inside "uninvited." The Argonauts try to find a way out, but run into a different party who just made it here: the Legendary Heroes consist of Arthur, Evelyn, Rocky, Azrael, Mark and Omega, but unlike the Argonauts, it's clear this party isn't really a team, and their whole strategy revolves around Arthur alone. The two parties don't really trust each other, and decide to try to find a way out on their own, while avoiding the Blind Minotaur, who seems to have a set pattern of appearing from an underground lair once in a while and then return again. However, the Argonauts are later contacted by the Legendary Heroes with shocking news: it appears Arthur had gone out into the labyrinth on his own during the night, and was killed by the Blind Minotaur (something his party members can see "on screen" happen, as you can always check a party member's hit points and status). There are however suspicious points to Arthur's death, as why did he sneak out in the night and why would he try to take on the Minotaur alone? The two parties agree to find a way out together, and they suspect this dungeon isn't about beating the Blind Minotaur, but finding some kind of secret that solves the dungeon, but while they are trying, more and more people are killed, and they soon start to realize some of these deaths weren't commited by the Minotaur, but one of their own. But why?

As long as it's a mystery, I'm interested, so I occasionally consume mystery media based on IPs I don't even know or have ever seen/read. In the past I have for example discussed the Fate/Grand Order mystery novels by Van Madoy, even though I don't play the game and have still not ever played any of the Fate games or seen any of the anime series. I also originally had no interest in watching Oppenheimer, until someone told me you could totally watch it as a mystery film, and... he was right. So when I learned Konno Tenryuu had written a mystery novel for Sword Art Online, the franchise based on the light novels by Kawahara Reki. I was immediately interested, even though I have not seen or read the series. Yes, I know it's really popular, but I'm from the generation where "an isekai series of a boy having to clear floors to beat a RPG-like world" equals Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru. Anyway, I have read a few of Konno's books too, many of them dealing with fantasy elements, and I like his work, so I knew I wanted to read Sword Art Online Alternative: Mystery Labyrinth - Meikyuukan no Satsujin (2023), or as the cover also says: Murder in the Labyrinth Pavillion.

I can at least say that even with zero prior knowledge of the Sword Art Online franchise, this was pretty accessible. It is, as far as I know, not directly connected to any events from the series, and is mostly a standalone story, though it is set after the original Sword Art Online was beaten, so the first series/book. The mystery plays at two levels, the series of murders that occur in the Labyrinth Pavillion dungeon and the parties' attempts at finding an exit out of the maze, and a meta-mystery where Spica and the narrator try to figure out how this diary could've made it out of Sword Art Online, a world that has been destroyed, and into Alfheim Online.

The murders in the Labyrinth Pavillion are of course the meat of the mystery and I found it highly entertaining. Konno does a great job at actually incorporating the game-element of Sword Art Online to create highly original mysteries, that are truly only possible in such a setting. For example, we have characters witnessing a murder and learning the exact time of a death not because they seeing the death with their own eyes, but because they can see their party member's HP bar dropping in the party member status screen: where else could you ever see such a way to establish a time of death and alibis for the suspects!? Other cool things are how there are no corpses in the world of Sword Art Online, with the player's body simply disappearing from the game world if they are killed, though they do leave whatever they have equiped at the time, again opening up possibilities for shenanigans as the murderer doesn't have to deal with hiding bodies. As a closed circle setting, the Labyrinth Pavillion is also interesting, as the rules of the game make it a place you can't easily get in or out to, making it a very convincing confined location. Add in the rules of how many people can stay in a room and how you have to invite people inside, and the characteristics of the Blind Minotaur (the players slowly learn its attack and reaction patterns through their various encounters, which again tells them how the Minotaur could've been used to faciliate the murders) and you end up with a novel that is just fun to read because you're constantly confronted with new ways to present a mystery due to the unique setting. Clever things are done here, and the fact the Blind Minotaur (a force of nature/a game enemy) is used as a "murder weapon" is of course also really interesting. The motive for the murders is also rather unique to this series: while I don't think it's completely convincing, I do think Konno did a great job at really making this a motive that works in Sword Art Online. The one thing that didn't really work for me was solution to beating the Labyrinth Pavillion: that part of the mystery is just too farfetched, and nobody would be ever able to solve such a puzzle...

Meanwhile, the meta-mystery at the Alfheim Online level is probably easier to guess, as Spica seems to know what the trick is from a very early stage and gives out hints. The answer might seem a bit predictable once you reach about the middle of the book, but overall, I think it provides a nice side-story to Sword Art Online, being completely seperate of the main story, but still firmly set within that world. It probably helps the book was based on an idea by series creator Kawahara, and also supervised by him!

So even without ever having seen any Sword Art Online, I can safely say Sword Art Online Alternative: Mystery Labyrinth - Meikyuukan no Satsujin is a fun mystery novel, that makes great use of its VR MMORPG setting to present a mystery with elements you won't find in other mystery novels. It is a book that fully utilizes the fact it is based on an existing IP, building on the story and rules of the franchise, yet at the same time is not at all dependent on the main story. It's really impressive what Konno managed to do here in that sense.

Original Japanese title(s): 川原礫（草案・監修）、 紺野天龍『ソードアート・オンライン オルタナティブ ミステリ・ラビリンス 迷宮館の殺人』

Murder, Country Style

"Blood was its Avatar and its seal—the redness and the horror of blood"
"The Masque of Red Death"

I knew this book only from the listings on webshops with just a small picture of the cover; I only realized those were wisterias on the cover when I actually got the physical book and saw the cover at a better resolution...

Kazuichi was the heir of the Sekimori clan, one of the two prominent families in the isolated village of Umesato in Tochigi Prefecture, but he left the village for Tokyo, having had enough of the struggle for power between the Sekimori and the Hasumi clans. The Sekimoris run a succesful plum business, a driving force for the local economy, which has earned the Sekimoris the name "The Plum Clan" in the family. The Hasumis are known as the "Wisteria Clan" due to their splendid wisteria garden and have lately been gaining political and econimcal influence by opening a waste processing plant. Kazuichi's wish of becoming independent in Tokyo didn't work out well, as business didn't go well, but he did find the love of his life: Ayako, a single mother, with whom he was going to have a child. In order to care for Ayako, her daughter Mana and the upcoming second child, Kazuichi decides to return home and to work in the family business, but as he had feared, his grandmother, mother and uncle, as well as far relatives and other people with close ties to the Sekimoris try to push him to become the Sekimori patriarch and have him run for mayor in the upcoming election. After one of these family meetings in the annex, Kazuchi stays in the room to clean up, while everybody leaves the room. Just as they are all out in the hallway and the last one shuts the door behind him, they hear a loud bang. They all run up to the door, but when they look inside the room, they find Kazuichi has been shot, with the pistol lying near him. However, because the windows were all shut and the shot rang very soon after everyone had left the room, with most people still in sight of others, Kazuchi's death is considered a suicide.

Ayako had not yet married Kazuichi, but as she is carrying their baby, she is, somewhat begrudgingly, allowed to stay at the Sekimori family as the mother of the future heir of the family. However, her stay in Umesato Village is a very dangerous one: an old legend tells about the curse of Aya, a villager who was wronged and who since has cursed the village. Because of that, the name "Aya" and variations of it are a taboo in the village, and many villagers even blame Ayako for the death of Kazuichi, believing her to be an omen of ill fortune. Some time passes, with Ayako simply trying to live her life in the village, but things start to develop when Sakoshima Hiraku, a photographer and old friend of Kazuichi, visits the village: he had been travelling and had only recently learned of his friend's death. When he learns about the mysterious circumstances surrounding Kazuichi's death, he starts poking around, and he learns some months ago, a monk of the local temple had died too, in what appeared to be simple accident of slipping in a hot spring and hitting his head. Some people blame Ayako for this death too, but Sakoshima starts to suspect something is going on in the village, and his suspicions are confirmed when another death occurs in another of the hot springs managed by the Sekimoris. While the villagers are becoming more and more convinced this is the result of Aya's curse and Ayako's presence in the village, Sakoshima is sure there's a rational and humanly evil explanation for the mysterious deaths in the village and he's determined to find out who is behind Kazuichi's death in Nikaidou Reito and Uzumi Miyuki's 2022 novel Jubaku Densetsu Satsujin Jiken ("The Murder Case of the Legendary Curse").

While I have read a lot by Nikaidou Reito, I think this is the first time I read one of his collaborative efforts, though I do know he has quite a few of those. Uzumi Miyuki is an author I was not familiar with at all, though it appears she made it through the first judging round of the 18th Ayukawa Tetsuya Award with a manuscript with a title that also features the name "Aya" in it, and now I am wondering if that manuscript served as a base for this book. My attention was mainly drawn to this book when it first released, because it was the first substantial new release by Nikaidou in years, timed with the 30th anniversary since he first debuted, but I honestly had no idea what it was going to be about or how the collaborative work was done on this book, and sadly enough, the book does not feature an afterword that goes into detail.

Of all of Nikaidou's work, I love his Ranko series best, and specifically, the earlier Ranko novels, up until Jinroujou no Kyoufu, as the books take on a different tone afterwards. With a summary about a locked room murder, an isolated village and a legendary curse, I had hoped Jubaku Densetsu Satsujin Jiken would be a book close to the Ranko novels in spirit. Perhaps not surprisingly however, the most direct inspiration of this book is probably Yokomizo Seishi's work, and especially the Kindaichi Kousuke novels. Isolated village in the middle of nowhere, rivaling families with fueds going back centuries, a local, bloody legend which is believed by the villagers and will cause them to act on their fears and a free-minded, disarming detective who happens to visit the village. A lot in this book feels very familiar, and that's not a bad thing per se, as if you're looking for a book with such an atmosphere, you'll definitely be pleased with Jubaku Densetsu Satsujin Jiken. At the same time, and I have to admit I was surprised by this knowing Nikaidou's work, the book is decidedly less gruesome and horrific than you'd expect of such a story. Considering the graphic imagery shown in a lot of Nikaidou's work, I assume this is Uzumi's writing shining through strongest, with somewhat distached depictions of the various deaths in the story, and a narrative that is mostly told through Ayako's point of view, offering a lot of insight in her thoughts on not just the events, but her own situation too and her somewhat fragile relationship with her in-laws. It's a lot more "internally" focused than I would have expected of a book bearing Nikaidou's name as one of the authors, which is a reason why I was a bit disappointed, as it was exactly his style I was actually hoping to find in this book, even if that's not really the fault of this work.

The book opens with a very nice map of Umesato Village, with the two manors of the Plum and Wisteria Clans, as well as two waterfalls with accompanying hot springs, the "Aya Lake" where the legendary Aya died and more rather detailed diagrams depicting the various crime scenes.... but for some reason, it feels like this was a bit overkill for a story, that ultimately isn't so complex you actually need such detailed diagrams. So funnily enough, the effort put into those diagrams made me assume the plot would be much more complex than it actually turned out to be. The various mysteries that make up the plot of the book, often feel a bit too disjointed from each other, with no real sense of interrelated set-up and pay-off, with one event naturally resulting in another. One "accident" Sakoshima quickly deduces to be a murder for example, is basically resolved the moment we first hear about it, with no build-up at all. Meanwhile, the death of Kazuchi is introduced in great detail in the first chapter of the book, but is then mainly left untouched until the very end of the book, even though most of the information needed to solve the mystery already being introduced in the first part, but then not addressed until the denouement, again making things feel detached. Because of that, each single mystery remains fairly simple, as they too often feel like discrete events, despite it all happening in the same village in a short period of time. While the book tries to tie these events through the legend of Aya and a local song (yes, we have a mitate/resembling or themed murder case here), for some reason it didn't quite work for me. Perhaps because the song is introduced relatively late, perhaps because we ultimately dwell on each crime scene so shortly they don't make enough an impression, but overall, the book feels too much like a few fairly simple murders strung one after another. The solutions to the  locked room murders miss the grandeur we see in the earlier Ranko novels, while as a whodunnit, the book has some good ideas, but also has trouble presenting it in a satisfying manner, as the hinting to certain elements of the murderer feels lacking. The book is on the longer side, but because the narrative doesn't always feel as connected, and in fact sometimes has to rely on a few coincidences to tie things together, the feeling of catharsis when everything is explained also feels a bit lacking. Oh well, I did like the trick and clewing to the second hot spring death though, as well as one certain linguistics-based clue that seemed to invoke the Yokomizo spirit.

Overall though, I do think the atmosphere of the book is good, even though it didn't go as far as I had hoped for. In fact, I can easily imagine a book based on the exact same plot structure, addressing the same story beats, but going deeper into the curse and the horror behind it, and it'd probably be much more to my liking as a mystery novel. It's probably not the book Uzumi wanted to write, but the book I did want to read based on Nikaidou's name, to be very honest.

While it's not really Jubaku Densetsu Satsujin Jiken's fault, I have to say I was a bit disappointed with it. With Nikaidou's name on it, and the fact it was timed with his 30th anniversary as a professional writer, I had hoped it would be a book that'd harken back to his earliest novels in terms of style and plotting, but in a way, this book was intentionally written as a more lite-version of those themes. While it does capture the Yokomizo Seishi-vibe really well and there are, mystery-wise, also interesting clues, it was simply not the book I was looking for, though I do think it's an enjoyable mystery on its own if approached with the right expectations, as it does feel like the classic Japanese mystery novel it is obviously emulating.

Original Japanese title(s):羽純未雪, 二階堂黎人『呪縛伝説殺人事件』

Six Were Present

Six little Soldier Boys playing with a hive; A bumblebee stung one and then there were five

"And Then There Were None"

Today: an English review of a French novel translated to German. 

On a May day, the people on the streets are surprised by screams coming from above. A woman stands near the window of a flat above, yelling for help. The people below recognize her as Simone Vigneray, standing near the kitchen and it's clear some assaillant has barged into the Vigneray's flat. The Vigneray couple is in danger, and people run up to the flat, but find it locked. They call for the concierge to open it, while they hear shots and other sounds going on on the other side of the door, but when they finally manage to open the door and enter the flat, they find Marcel Vigneray lying dead on the floor, Simone nearly dead in the kitchen... but no sign of the murderer. The kitchen window was still watched by others, and while there's a back door leading to a staircase for the servants, that door is locked from the inside. Private detective André Brunel (and his friend the narrator) is on the case, as well as Roland Charasse, Marcel's cousin and a famous criminal lawyer. But it doesn't take long for more impossible crimes to follow: not only did the unseen assailant managed to escape the locked Vigneray apartment, not long after, the maid is also found murdered in her own room in the servants quarter of the flat block, but the police checked her room earlier, found it empty and posted an officer in the hallway, and yet the second time they visited the room, they found her dead on the floor! The investigators desperately try to stop the invisible killer from striking more, but they will strike six times in Pierre Boileau's 1939 novel Six crimes sans assassin ("Six Crimes Without a Killer"). And because I forgot most of the French I learned at school, I read the German edition Sechsmal Tödlich ("Deadly Six Times") translated by Ernst Sander.

I have to admit I am nearly ignorant when it comes to French mystery fiction. Some months back I read comic adaptations of the work of Stanislas-André Steeman, who is Belgian but wrote in French, but beyond that, it's basically just Lupin... The name Pierre Boileau is one I had seen often however, and connected to that were of course references to Six crimes sans assassin, which I'd guess is his most famous work when it comes to fair-play mystery fiction? The premise of six impossible crimes sounds interesting at least, so when I heard there was a German translation (which I can read infinitely quicker than French), I immediately got on the case.

To begin with the conclusion right away however, I don't think that the book is really a must read if you're only interested in the book as an impossible crime story, especially in 2024. While yes, the book is full of impossible crimes (locked room murders), with a rather surprising amount considering the short page count, it can't be denied that basically all the tricks in this book are very outdated for a modern reader. The tricks we see here for the locked rooms, are basically the "base form" of familiar locked room murders, and you will not only likely have seen many, many variants on these ideas, you're also likely to have seen more original and captivating iterations of what is done here. I can't even imagine that in 1939, the locked room mysteries in Six crimes sans assassin were genuinely shocking or original, and while some authors can weave a more complex web out of basic tricks by having various situations interact in surprising ways or for example using clue synergy to intertwine basic tricks into a stronger whole, Boileau doesn't really manage to accomplish that in this novel, with most of the situations feeling like distinct, discrete events: which is also a reason why the book feels very simple, as it's jsut event after event after event. I have seen the novel be praised for how fair the book is, but while the book is fair, I do have trouble seeing the 'fairness' of this book being in any way outstanding. It is fair in the way I normally expect a puzzle plot/honkaku mystery novel to be, as in, that is the bare minimum I expect of such a novel. There are no clues that are particular clever or audacious, so on the whole, the book just feels... it's there. 

(And while some murders André Brunel really couldn't do anything about, there are also some murders that really makes you question how effective Brunel is as a detective, or at least, if he was more interested in protecting a possible witness, he probably should take different actions because some deaths were totally avoidable)

What the book can be lauded for, is the amazing pace the story moves at. One page in, and we hear Simone Vigneray scream for help, and from that point on, the story keeps on moving and moving. There's nearly no rest, and Boileau keeps pushing his characters to the next murder, but again, this also prevents each crime scene from really developing, as everything is "what you see is what you get" and more often than not, you can already make a very, very close intuitive guess about what happened even before the scene is over, precisely because everything is dressed so simply, But on the other hand, you really are never bored, and the murderer gets rather busy as they have a lot to do before the end of the book! There's also some melodrama, which despite my very, very limited contact with French mystery fiction I'm going to call a trope of the genre because it does remind me a lot of the melodrama in the Lupin novels, but it never interferes with the story of detection, and in some ways, it does tie back nicely to the mystery plot, though the melodrama does seem to also push the murderer in some ways that seem a bit dramatic at certain points in time (like, the third and fourth crimes seem... rather excessive at that point in time still...).

So I wasn't really a fan of Six crimes sans assassin, which is a shame as you do hear a lot about it when it comes to classic French mystery fiction. Some more work of Boileau is available in German and it certainly reads easily away, so I might try another of them in the future. In the meantime, let's just pretend Poirot is French mystery fiction!

8 1 3

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do

"One" (Filter)

This is not the cover of the edition I read, but this is a great cover, so I'm going to cheat!

The Harrigans are a religious, and wealthy clan, though the three siblings carry their faith in different manners. Oldest brother Wolfe has dedicated his life to exposing religious confidence tricksters, second brother R. Joseph is a laywer with influence across town and sister Ellen is deeply religious and has remained single all her life, Recently unemployed Matt Duncan happens to become acquainted with Wolfe when he visits the Harrigan house: initially there to see Concha, Wolfe's daughter and the fiancee of his university friend Gregory (at least, Gregory claims she's his fiancee), Duncan happens to catch one of those swindlers who was exposed by Wolfe trying to kill the man. Wolfe is very grateful to Duncan and offers him a job as his assistant and writer, hoping Duncan can sift through all the data Wolfe has on religious fraudsters and write a book based on his research. The current target of Wolfe is the Temple of Light and its leader, who claims to be Ahasver, the Wandering Jew. Wolfe and Duncan attend a meeting of the Children of Light, where they hear Ahasver, clad in a yellow robe, set "Nine Times Nine" (nine prophets and the nine that serve those nine) upon their mortal enemy Wolfe Harrigan: his death will follow within a month. Only they didn't have to wait that long, for the following day at dusk, Duncan and R. Joseph are in the garden when they see a figure dressed in a yellow robe standing in Wolfe's study through the French windows. They rush inside the house to enter the room, but find one door locked from the inside, and the other door to the chapel turns out to have been under observation for quite some time now, and the witness didn't see anyone leave through this door either. Duncan makes it back to the French windows again, where he sees Wolfe lying dead on the floor, having been shot, but no trace of the figure in the yellow robe! The police of course also confirm later the study, save for some mouse holes, was indeed completely sealed from inside, from the doors to the French windows. Did Ahasver use his mystical powers to kill Wolfe and leave the study even though it was locked from the inside? Duncan is quite eager to help the police solve the murder on his new boss, but he's not alone, as Sister Ursula, of the Sisters of Martha of Bethany who have a close tie with the Harrigans, too seems interested in solving the mystery in Anthony Boucher's Nine Times Nine (1940).

Nine Times Nine, originally published by Boucher under the name of H.H. Holmes, is the first book featuring the character of Sister Ursula, and while I have radio plays by Boucher, this is the first time I read a novel by him. The book certainly reads very pleasantly: while not much really happens, the story feels like it's always moving about, and there are even some minor hardboiled-esque segments where Duncan has fisticuffs with people. While those segments aren't really necessary puzzle plot-wise, I found the story as told at least pleasant enough, and it didn't feel like it had been padded too much, nor did it really ever drag. 

Overall, I also did very much like the plot about the Temple of Light, the cult and of course the Wandering Jew Ahasver. Makes you wonder why someone who's been wandering the Earth for almost two thousand years would just resort to murder, you'd think they'd have created a better network of dealing with things if you've been around for so long already! I do wish the book had explored the cult in more detail, as the book ultimately focuses much more on the Harrigan family in general, and to a somewhat lesser extent Ahasver alone, rather than the whole organization around him. The other cult-related element is the person Swami Virasenanda whose attempt on killing Wolfe was foiled by Duncan the first night he visited, but you don't really hear much about how he worked as a religious fraudster, he's just used as the character who already tried to kill Wolfe once before.

The main problem of the book is certainly the locked room, which is probably also signalled by the fact the book is dedicated to John Dickson Carr. In fact, a whole chapter of the book is basically also dedicated to the infamous Locked Room Lecture of Carr, as at a certain point, the characters actually start quoting from the lecture in an attempt to solve the locked room murder of Wolfe Harrigan. The problem itself is technically not a true locked room by the way: why almost all windows and doors were indeed locked from the inside, there was one door that had been under observation by one single witness. So the situation only becomes a true locked room mystery if we choose to believe this character. I think Boucher did consider this point, and tried to sell to the reader we could absolutely believe this character regarding this point, but I do think it didn't work too well. The thing Boucher tries to pull off regarding the credibility of this witness testimony definitely has interesting elements, and I can also see it working in specific situations, but here it kinda falls flat, for ultimately, it's still basically just "let's believe the witness for the sake of the story". You either need to explore that specific character a lot more, or have a very specific kind of situation or world, where you can really sell the idea that witness would not lie regarding what they saw, for this to work, but in Nine Times Nine, the attempt to guarantee to the reader the witness told the truth, still feels like Boucher is just imploring you to believe him for the plot to work. It also kinda falls flat, for the same argument for some reason doesn't work for the actual culprit, whom is portrayed somewhat similarly to the witness, but for some reason, it doesn't hold for them? The two clues I refer to are the kind I actually really like, and they can work really well in specific settings (not explaining in more detail here as it would spoil the book), but here they just don't work the way the story pretends they are doing. There is also a kind of dying message. If you're better educated than me, it might have been very useful. It's somewhat Ellery Queen-esque clue, not just because it's a dying clue, but also the meaning behind it. Though one does wonder how trustworthy the dying message would be in practical terms, as to pull that off while a person is dying...But if this had not been a Anthony Boucher, but Berkeley book, the dying message would certainly have been fake and been used to manipulate Sheringham into arriving at a false conclusion!

The actual how behind the locked room is... alright? Practically speaking, it seems like a bit of a risky trick to pull off, especially with only one single attempt and also it having been impossible for the culprit to control all possible witnesses roaming around the house at the same time: if even one person had been standing at the wrong place at the wrong time, they'd have been found out. It's not my favorite type of trick to create a locked room, but it's alright, though what I actually liked better, was the simple set-up by Sister Ursula to guide the other characters (and the reader) at arriving at the same conclusion as she did. The simple questions she asks at the start of the denouement are so obvious, but they very firmly guide you to the right answer. Sister Ursula is also quite a fun character; though religious, she's not quite as religious as say Father Brown, with an almost cheeky, mischievous side to her.

Nine Times Nine supposedly ranks among Edward D. Hoch's favorite locked room mysteries. It comes nowhere close my absolute favorites, but it's an enjoyable read nonetheless. I do think it shows a lot of potential elements that could have been worked out even better, but as a mystery novel written by someone who obviously really looked up to Carr (and while not reflected as strongly here, Queen), Nine Times Nine is certainly a book I can safely recommend for a few hours of fun mystery.

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』