Sea You, Sea Me

" You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there"

"The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"

Honestly, the water color covers of the pocket reissues of this series are so much better than the original comic-like covers...

Tanabata "Kick" Kikuno miraculously managed to (help) solve two major cases soon after her posting to the Homicide division of the Metropolitan Police Department, even though she was just intended to be a "pretty face" and now the attempt to mix her up in an international scandal failed, some people above her in the command chain are becoming very nervous, as at this rate Kick might climb the career ladder faster than them. Kick's boss Fushimi advises her lie low for a while and tells her to take a holiday. She decides to go to Hachijou-jima, and even Chika and Ryou (her former fellow members of the idol group Blue Sky G) as well as her current colleagues Higashiyama and Shinkai "Angler" Yasukimi decide to fly over for one day to fish together. It's not fish they find at sea though, but an old boat floating around with a decapitated head. Holiday becomes work as they quickly notify the local police. Based on the currents, it appears the boat came floating from Kikakujima, a small island nearby with about three hundred inhabitants. Kairyuuji Shinji, the younger brother of the current mayor whose family has ruled the island for generations, had already been reported missing and the decapitated head is indeed identified as Shinji's. Because Shinji's body is still missing and it's determined Shinji was on the island until his disappearance, it's decided to set up an investigation HQ on Kikakujima and because the islands around here still fall under Tokyo jurisdiction, Kick's unit is sent to the small island to find Shinji's body and catch the murderer. 

It doesn't take long for them to find Shinji's body inside the cabin of one of the fishing boats of the ship graveyard on the other side of the harbor, but the cabin is locked with a chain and padlock from the inside, meaning that the only one who could've locked the door was... Shinji's dead, headless body. This notion of a body rising to lock the door reminds some people of the rumors surrounding Kikakujima: just two generations ago, the islanders lynched a doctor who was said to be conducting human experiments in search of the secret of eternal life on this island, giving the island the nickname Mad Science Island. But while Kick and her team look for clues, more murders occur that seem to have an impossible angle, like Kick and Higashiyama witnessing a burning woman falling into the sea, but when they fish her up, they find she was stabbed hours earlier! With administration ready to demote Kick the moment she makes a mistake, the only option left for her is to solve the case and catch the killer in Katou Motohiro's Kikagakujima no Kioku - Tsukamaeta Mon Gachi! ("Memories of Mad Science Island - Those Who Make The Arrest Win!" 2019).

This third novel in the series about the former-idol-turned-police-detective Kick by Q.E.D. and C.M.B.'s Katou Motohiro is set immediately after the second novel, and it definitely pays to read these novels in order, as the subplot of Kick's management superiors trying to find some excuse to get her away from Homicide is directly tied to what happened in the second novel, and continues here. I first read the second book in this series, Quantum Man Kara no Tegami - Tsukameta Mon Gachi!, which I thought was the best complete work of Katou I had read until now, more enjoyable than his better known works Q.E.D. and C.M.B.. Kick as an underdog character was infinitely more interesting than Touma and Shinra in Q.E.D. and C.M.B. respectively. The real Holmes character in this series is the data analyst Shinkai "Angler" Yasukimi, who acts as a kind of armchair detective because he usually solves the cases based on the mails Kick sends him. Because of this, Kick might initially remind the reader of the female sidekick characters n Q.E.D. and C.M.B. due to her athletic talents, but she's actually quite intelligent and more often than not, she'll solve a large part of the mystery on her own. She's therefore much more fun to follow, being not as brilliant Touma and Shinra in Q.E.D. and C.M.B., but still able to move the plot with both her mental and physical abilities. The political plot surrounding Kick's position are also naturally woven into the mystery plot, which is really entertaining: her bosses want Kick to fail and are ready to jump on every mistake and even use the media to get her out of Homicide, which at times limits the moves Kick can make, which ultimately influence how the plot develops. It's a great way to incorporate Kick's personal story to the ongoing series of murders, as sometimes the murderer sees an opportunity that basically only exists because Kick can't move around freely without worrying about her job.

Kick's position as a protagonist different from the girl sidekicks we see in Q.E.D. and C.M.B. is also noticable in this book, with "Angler" only popping up once in a while on the island, while most of the plot of Kikagakujima no Kioku revolves around Kick's investigation. After the discovery of the locked room in the abandoned fishing boat, suspicions arise that the murderer may be focusing on the members of the Kairyuuji family, the de-facto rulers of the island. In the past, Kikakujima used to be a penal island and the Kairyuuji family acted as the island chiefs, but even now, the islanders all accept Kairyuuji Mitsugu was the mayor, like his father before him. While the island is quite small, there has been a small influx of outsiders lately because they're digging for precious metals in the sea, with lots of people taking the ferry to and from Hachijou-jima daily, so the investigation into Shinji's murder isn't going as smoothly as you'd expect on a small island. The two previous novels were distinctly urban, so it's interesting to see how this series now tackles the Yokomizo Seishi setting of an isolated community, while still being firmly set in a contemporary setting. The book focuses a lot on Kick's digging into the family history and the interpersonal relations of the current members in search of a motive and this aspect combined with the small island with a secret history (there's also a neat map!) definitely reminds a bit of the Kindaichi novels.

When it comes to the individual murder mysteries of Kikagakujima no Kioku, most of the concepts are perhaps a bit simple when viewed seperately. The locked cabin on the fishing boat for example is solved very easily by "Angler" early on in the story and while the following murders on the island (yes, more and more murders occur) usually have an unexplicable element to them initially, these minor mysteries about the murders are usually cleared up fairly soon. Kikagakujima no Kioku is therefore much more enjoyable seeing everything come together, as while the seperate parts don't surprise the reader too much, it's the story that's created with all of those concepts that makes this book a perfectly enjoyable entry in this series: there are a lot more twists and turns than you'd initially expect and the book also makes great use of the island setting to present a story that is at one hand very familar in detective stories (as said, the isolated community setting), but it's also a story that actually uses the characteristics of this specific setting to make the mystery plot possible in the first place: the story wouldn't have worked the way it did had it been set elsewhere. The book eventually builds up to a nice confrontation with the murderer where it's revealed a lot more was going on than appeared at first sight, and it also manages to hit those typical human drama elements you see more often in Q.E.D. and C.M.B. than in  Conan or Kindaichi Shounen.

Kikagakujima no Kioku - Tsukamaeta Mon Gachi! was thus another solid entry in this series and I think that on the whole, it's still the series by Katou Motohiro I manage to enjoy best overall. This entry on one hands builds on the subplot of the previous novels, but also brings something completely new by moving Kick and her unit away from the metropolis to a tiny island, bringing the type of story I hadn't expected with this series. While the mysteries taken seperately are not mindblowing, the overall story told is entertaining and manages to captivate the reader, so if you pick up this book, you're sure to have a good time.

Original Japanese title(s): 加藤元浩『奇科学島の記憶 捕まえたもん勝ち!』

A Break in the Chain

"Data! Data! Data!” he cried impatiently. “I can't make bricks without clay."

"The Adventure of the Copper Beeches"

You know, I like the watercolor-esque cover art for the bunko pockets better than the original covers.

During high school, Tanabata Kikuno was active as one of the three members of the local idol group Blue Sky G. Soon after the release of their first single however, their lyricist passed away: the elderly Takemoto was a very beloved industry veteran, but he had never written the text for a pop song before, but he was surprisingly fond of Blue Sky G and of course Kikuno paid her respects at his wake. When she accidentally overhears Takemoto's attorney discussing with a police detective that Takemoto's death was a murder, she can't help but get involved, and with the help of the mysterious young man who accompanied the police detective, Kikuno managed to clear up the circumstances surrounding Takemoto's death. This experience drove her to enter the police academy after Blue Sky G was disbanded and she finished high school, and a few years later, she has become a full-fledged police officer of the National Police Agency, who even has gained a reputation of sorts: the manner in which she managed to utterly destroy the Self Defense class teacher earned her the nickname Kick. To Kick's great surprise however, she finds she's appointed to the Homicide division of the Metropolitan Police Department, even though she's just a rookie. 

The Homicide division is the "face" of the Metropolitan Police Department and usually, only the best of the best are scouted into the division, but after a while Kick realizes why she was posted there: as a former idol, she's just to be a pretty face and to be used as a PR resource. Kick is determined to show that she's truly suited for the job and gambles everything on her first murder case, figuring that if a rookie like her can accomplish significant on her first case, the people above are sure to look at her differently. She's not alone either, for she's getting hints from two curious people connected to the investigation into the murder of a woman who was pushed off her balcony after an assaillant made his way into the appartment and locked her husband up in the closet. Kusatsuji Renzou is a criminal psychologist who has been assisting the police as an advisor and has solved a few impossible murder cases in the past. While he can be a bit eccentric and hardly speaks with people, he seems to get along with Kick and gives her some valuable hints at time. And while Kusatsuji appears at the crime scene from time to time, Kick's encounters with Shinkai "Angler" Yasukimi are usually at HQ. Angler is a data analyst who double-checks all the internal case reports for mistakes, and while the manner in which he points out all the mistakes and incongruencies in these reports are far from polite or educational, Angler has been able to solve cases simply by noticing small mistakes in the reports written by the detectives on the scene. As a rookie, Kick's reports of course have plenty of mistakes for Angler to jump on, but even Kick realizes that Angler is not just being a nuisance, but that the mistakes he points out are indeed often vital points in the investigation. With the help of these two minds and her own guts, Kick's out to catch her first killer in Katou Motohiro's Tsukamaeta Mon Gachi! Tanabata Kikuno no Sousa Houkokusho ("Those Who Make The Arrest Win! - The Investigation Reports of Tanabata Kikuno", 2016).

After starting with Katou's mystery manga Q.E.D. and C.M.B. irregularly two years ago, I also became curious about the novel series he had been writing, and last year, I read Quantum Man Kara no Tegami - Tsukamaeta Mon Gachi!, the second novel in the series about the former-idol-turned-police-detective Kick. And the reason I first read the second novel in the series was simply because I had put the wrong book in my shopping basket. I usually don't mind reading novels in a series out of order, and unless I'm following a series 'in real time' I often read books completely out of order. I mentioned in the review for Quantum Man Kara no Tegami - Tsukamaeta Mon Gachi! that luckily, everything you needed to know was explained in the first few pages, but now that I have read the first book in this series, I have to say I really regret having read these two books in the wrong order. I won't explain this in detail, but the second book does in a way spoil what eventually becomes a significant plot point of the first novel (or at the very least, strongly hints at it). So err, don't make the same mistake and read the books in order.

In the review of Quantum Man Kara no Tegami - Tsukamaeta Mon Gachi!, I wrote that I enjoyed the novel, as one complete product, the best out of all I had read of Katou by then. While thematically, it had a lot of similarities with Q.E.D. and C.M.B, including the pattern of an atlethic, impulsive female protagonist paired up with a male detective figure who works in the background, a scientific theme in the form of the Quantum Man and some human drama background, I found the focus on Kick's antics quite enjoyable. I was therefore quite surprised when Tsukamaeta Mon Gachi! turned out to be different in style. Whereas the second novel was completely focused on one single case (involving multiple murders), Tsukamaeta Mon Gachi! consists of two distinct parts, and even within those parts, the reader is treated to several smaller cases. The first quarter of the novel is focused on Kick as a high school student and her time in Blue Sky G and the mysterious death of their lyricist Takemoto. During the wake at the late writer's manor, Kick learns that the elderly Takemoto had intended to only let one of his two children inherit the manor and all his fortune: the money is needed to pay the enormous inheritance tax involved with the manor, which Takemoto wanted to be preserved. The other child would only get his second home, but that house is in need of a lot of maintenance and would only cost them money. So that's a motive for murder  for the children and their families before Takemoto would change his will. During the wake, Takemoto's attorney tries to get permission from the children to have an autopsy performed on Takemoto to prove it was murder, but they refuse. Kick and the mysterious young man who accompanied the police detective try to figure something out themselves too, when the body of Takemoto has disappeared from the manor. But how could anyone have gotten the body out of the casket without anyone in the room noticing? The mystery of how the body was spirited away is fairly simple, and the whereabouts of the body can be guessed at easily due to a segment that stands out a lot because it didn't serve any purpose but to establish one single, certain fact.

The second part of the novel is about Kick's first murder investigation, but this plot involves a few other minor story elements. For example, at one point, Kick decides to look up some of the old cases criminal psychologist Kusatsuji has solved, and we are treated to what's basically a mini quiz, where Kikuno shortly summarized the (impossible) murder cases and then tells the reader how it was done. If the backstories had been fleshed out more, I guess these ideas could've been used in Q.E.D. and C.M.B too, though only one of these stories can be considered as truly fair to the reader (as in: you are given all the hints in advance to solve it yourself before Kick tells you the answer) and ultimately, these old police reports are just filler. For the most part however, the narrative focuses on Kick's efforts to help out in the investigation of the murder on the woman thrown off the balcony. Most readers will probably have an inkling what has happened, as the case itself is fairly simple, but Katou does do a lot to make the story fairly engaging by pushing Kick in the right direction at set times. Katou basically uses the characters of Kusatsuji and Angler like a sort of Columbo, by making them ask Kick about all kinds of seemingly minor contradictions and small things that don't quite add up, which gives Kick a hint about what's really going on. Because of this structure, there's a proper build-up to the solving of the case and the reader isn't only confronted with all the things the murderer did wrong at the very end of the novel. Katou also tries to go beyond "just another case for Kick" by hiding a larger conspiracy behind her first case, but personally, I thought the "surprise" was telegraphed too obviously, and while overall, I think this book is entertaining in the sense that a lot happens/many cases are discussed, none of the cases that occur really manage to make that much an impression on their own.

I liked what was done with the subtitle The Investigation Reports of Tanabata Kikuno by the way! Throughout the novel, Kick writes several reports about the discoveries she's made and her questioning of suspects, and they are all included in the novel. At first, I thought they were unnessary padding, as they basically summarized the very events we had read about in the preceding pages, so you'd be reading about the same things twice, but Angler does actually pick out a few mistakes or omissions in Kick's reports that eventually help out in the investigation. In my review of the videogame A.I. The Somnium Files, I wrote a lot about the importance of information management in mystery fiction: who knows what at what time determines if and when a case can be solved. While not a major theme of Tsukamaeta Mon Gachi! Tanabata Kikuno no Sousa Houkokusho, it does show that even if the protagonist and the reader do learn certain facts, this information that should cause other characters to act can still be lost if it's not properly written or omitted in a report that is shared with others: an example of why information management is so important to a good mystery novel.

While I really liked the sequel, Tsukamaeta Mon Gachi! Tanabata Kikuno no Sousa Houkokusho didn't quite manage to make as strong an impression. While the story is entertaining enough and it's a very smooth read, the story set-up with several smaller cases is less engaging, and the individual cases themselves are also rather simple in terms of mystery, with some literally told in just a few pages. Kick's also less active/effective compared to her second appearance, where she's much more fun character to root for. On the whole though, I still like Kick as a character (best Katou protagonist I've read until now!), so I'll be sure to pick up the third volume in the future too, as well as pick up those crossover stories in Q.E.D. iff and C.M.B. at some point. 

Original Japanese title(s): 加藤元浩『捕まえたもん勝ち! 七夕菊乃の捜査報告書 』

Trouble in Warp Space

"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." 

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

I don't like doing reviews of the same author in a row, so I'm glad I got to sneak Death Come True in between...

Tanabata "Kick" Kikuno was one of the members of the local idol artist group Blue Sky G as a high school student, but after the trio disbanded, Kick enrolled in the police academy and after graduation she was assigned to the National Police Agency. An attractive former idol in the force was considered to be beneficial to the image of the police, but after the rookie detective managed to solve a murder case with the help of the good men and women of the Homicide division of the Metropolitan Police Department and the brilliant police data analyst Shinkai "Angler" Yasukimi, people higher up in the NPA started to get nervous, as they fear the highly popular and capable detective might climb the career ladder faster they can. Attempts are made to undo Kick's posting to the MPD Homicide division, as any successes made there by Kick are bound to boost her career and make things more difficult for others. But it's not only internal politics that trouble Kick, but also international relations. Kick and "Angler" are sent to Boston to protect the Japanese MIT exchange student Sanjouin Haruhiko: as the scion of the Sanjouin clan, who have served for generations as important diplomats, Haruhiko is expected to become one of Japan's most important diplomats in the future. Haruhiko is also friends with Norman Kirk, son of a US senator who is currently on the committee negotiating an important US-Japan trade treaty in the making, and figures in the upper echelons of Japanese politics are convinced that Haruhiko's connections are essential to the negotations.

However, both Haruhiko and Norman's names have been found on a hit list. Some days ago, the body of Norman's bodyguard was found in a car hidden in a state park. There were also clear signs two other people had been killed and buried somewhere in the park, though their bodies have not been discovered yet. In the victim's pocket, the FBI found a letter signed by the "Quantum Man," who swears to avenge "Fiona" by killing the seven people who caused her death. It turns out Haruhiko, Norman and five others formed a little group of friends who regularly used drugs and that their dealer Fiona had been killed during a turf war while she was trying to buy cocaine for them. The Quantum Man apparently blames these seven for Fiona's death. So three of the group are already dead, and the first murder was apparently committed under impossible circumstances: the first victim had entered a large storage unit to retrieve their stash of drugs while the others were waiting outside the only entrance. The others were alerted by a pistol shot and rushed inside the storage unit, but inside they could not find a sign of the murderer. But how could the Quantum Man have shot somebody inside without being seen enter or leave the building and with all exits watched? The investigation in Boston ultimately doesn't lead to new results, but a few weeks later, Kick is shocked to learn that Haruhiko, Norman and the two remaining persons on the list are coming to Japan because of intensified trade treaty negotiations. A succesful murder attempt on the son of a US senator would surely lead to an international scandal and weaken Japan's position in the negotiations, so it's in everyone's interest to prevent any further murders. The whole party stays at a fancy hotel in Tokyo owned by the Sanjouin family, which boasts advanced and effective security measures like a moat and motion sensors surrounding three sides of the hotel grounds, a special VIP building with elevators that can only be operated with a valid room key and an intelligent hotel layout which allows security cameras to cover every inch of the non-private sections of the hotel without any blind spots. And yet the Quantum Man succeeds again! Can this murderer really never be observed directly, but only by proxy through their actions? The higher-ups are willing to make Kick the scapegoat for the blunder, so her only way out is to solve these impossible murders before she's demoted in Katou Motohiro's Quantum Man Kara no Tegami - Tsukamaeta Mon Gachi! ("Letters from the Quantum Man - Those Who Make The Arrest Win!" 2017)

I've been reading Katou's mystery manga Q.E.D. and C.M.B. irregularly for a while now, but ever since I learned Katou has also been writing a novel series, I've been quite curious about them. The first entry in Katou's Tsukamaeta Mon Gachi! ("Those Who Make The Arrest Win!") series about former idol Tanabata "Kick" Kikuno was published in 2016, followed by sequels in 2017 and 2019. And now you might wonder: "Huh, I can't remember seeing a review of the first novel, but this post is about the second novel..." The answer is: I didn't pay attention and put the second novel in my shopping cart instead of the first by accident. All well. Everything I thought I needed to know was explained in the first few pages anyway, so you can definitely start with the second novel if you wish to do so. By the way, readers of Q.E.D. iff and C.M.B. might remember the character Kick, as she has also appeared in crossover stories there. There's one big Katou-verse going on, and it was actually surprising we didn't see any explicit Q.E.D. references in this novel, given that the first part of the novel is set in Boston and MIT, where Q.E.D.'s Touma lived and studied for some years.

Interestingly, I think of all I've read of Katou until now, I think this novel was the one I enjoyed the best overall, as one complete product. Theme-wise, there are a lot of similarities with Q.E.D. and C.M.B., but I think the balance between the various elements and their variations was the best here. The tone of the novel is a bit comedic of course like Katou's manga series, but there's more. For example, at first the athletic Kick seems to follow the model of the female sidekick figures Kana and Tatsuki from Q.E.D. and C.M.B., but she's given a lot more depth as the narrator of the story and while she's ultimately not the detective-character (that's "Angler") and occassionally out of her depths as a rookie detective, she's a pretty sharp character who is entertaining to follow. And while she also shows off her athletic skills, Kick's antics aren't just physical. Over the course of the story, several people in the NPA try to get Kick kicked out of Homicide and make her the scapegoat of any mistakes made during the operation, but Kick manages to slip away in rather clever ways. These segments make up for smaller, but interesting mysteries that invoke the spirit of the Q.E.D. stories that focus on logical contradiction and human psychology. The manner in which Kick manages to evade demotion after the hotel murder in particular is brilliant: properly set-up and clewed, the solution not only saves Kick, but manages to chase the conspirators into a corner in an amusing manner. It makes Kick a more interesting protagonist to follow than for example Touma and Shinra in Q.E.D. and C.M.B. respectively, as Kick is more of the underdog who still manages to hang on. The underlying storyline of the internal politics inside the MPD and NPA surrounding Kick's posting to the homicide division make Kick's own narrative interesting, especially as it also ties into the overall investigation in meaningful ways.

References to fields of science are of course the bread and butter of Q.E.D. and as Kick's hunting after the Quantum Man in this novel, we find naturally some references to quantum mechanics (Yes, the Cat's here too. Or not). In this tale, the circumstances of impossible murders committed by the Quantum Man serve as a way for Katou to write, in a simple and accessible manner, about some basic concepts of quantum physics. The murderer seems to defy normal physics in any case, as they can enter and leave places under observation without being detected at all, as if they can simply walk through walls. The most surprising ones are the double murder in the hotel, where the murderer manages to enter their victims' hotel rooms and leave without ever appearing on the security cameras and another murder where someone wearing a bulletproof vest is shot in the heart, even though there was nobody standing at the place where the shot was fired. The whole book is filled with impossible murders, though I have to admit I wasn't always as impressed by them. The first one for example is very simple and I don't think the misdirection works very well. In other cases, I can appreciate the basic ideas behind these murders, even if they rely on familiar ideas, but they don't always seem feasible in the context of the story: the murderer must've been one very busy and also very lucky person, as it's nearly impossible nobody noticed anything during all the preparation of the murderer. The Quantum Man is of course unmasked as a normal person who only appeared to have done the impossible, but the things they did do require so much luck, they might as well be someone defying the laws of nature. If it had only been a single instance of these murder plots, I wouldn't have thought too much of it, but when the murderer pulls off things like that one time after another without anyone ever asking questions, it's almost like they're really superhuman.  Reminds a bit of the murderer in The Tragedy of X. That said, I did like how Katou stringed these murders all together to create the illusion of the Quantum Man. And the murder situations themselves are alluring.

The detective-character of this series is the data analyst and former FBI agent Shinkai "Angler" Yasukimi. It's no surprise he reminds a bit of the protagonists of Q.E.D.. and C.M.B., though you see less of him because Kick's the one who's narrating and she has different tasks. I liked how near the end, the discovery of certain object allows Angler to set his trap to catch the murderer: the way he deduces the implications and true meaning of the object is truly clever. The stories I've read of Q.E.D. and C.M.B. don't often feature this kind of reasoning, with a focus on the interpretation of the physical evidence (as often seen in Ellery Queen-inspired mystery fiction), so that was a nice change. Though the rest of the impossible murders are more in the spirit of Katou's other series, with the focus more on looking at the known circumstances from a different angle and reinterpreting what we know already, rather than by finding physical clues or building a case through chains of deductions.  The plots in Katou's mystery manga also involve human drama, sometimes up to the extent that I think having a series detective kinda undermines the story, but here the human drama is mostly reserved to the end and I like the balance much better.

But seen as one complete story, I really enjoyed Quantum Man kara no Tegami - Tsukamaeta Mon Gachi!. It was fun to read, the various impossible murders are strung together in an interesting way through the Quantum Man even if the solutions aren't always as convincing, and while it's not a short novel, plenty of stuff happens here to keep the reader entertained from start to end. I'll definitely also pick up the rest of the series in the near future.

Original Japanese title(s): 加藤元浩『量子人間からの手紙 捕まえたもん勝ち!』

The Man Made Murder

"It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic."

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue"

Always welcoming specific story/volume recommendations for this series!

I have mentioned earlier that while there are definitely stories I enjoy from Katou Motohiro's Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou and its sequel series iff, I don't like the series enough to want to read all of the adventures of the brilliant prodigy Touma Sou and his energetic sidekick Kana, so now I'm picking my stories. Last year, three special "The Best" anthology volumes were released with stories selected by prominent mystery writers, and I already read the volume edited by Arisugawa Alice. Earlier this year, I also read an edited anthology of the spin-off series C.M.B. But now I'm back at Q.E.D. and it shouldn't be a surprise that my return to this series is once again through one of these anthology volumes: Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou The Best - Tanaka Yoshiki Selection (2019) is of course edited by Tanaka Yoshiki, who most people will probably not immediately associate with mystery fiction, as he's best known for his epic novel series like the space opera The Legend of the Galactic Heroes and the fantasy The Heroic Legend of Arslan. Like the Arisugawa-edited volume, this The Best volume contains five stories chosen out of the 50-volume run of the original series.

While I started reading Q.E.D. more seriously from 2018 on, I had already read a bit of it over a decade ago (also watched the drama!). The Faded Star Map (originally from volume 3) was probably the last story I had read before my reading hiatus, because the first three volumes of Q.E.D. have been in my bookcases for ages. The story introduces us to a derelict star observatory on a mountain, once the property of the amateur astronomer Tsukishima Fukutarou. He disappeared twenty-five years ago, but as the surrounding mountains are now all turned into a ski resort, the local authorities want to break the building down, and the local court has invited Fukutarou's two sons (and granddaughter), his brother-in-law and a close friend to the building, to determine who will become the legal owner of the observatory and to work out the financial side of the story. While they poke around the observatory reminiscing about old times, they stumble upon a horrible corpse inside the telescope. It appears someone, probably Fukutarou, had fallen inside the telescope and had been burnt to death by the sun, which would explain his disappearance. Given he was dead and all. The man from the court is sent back down the mountain to fetch the police, but a sudden snowstorm prevents them from climbing up to the observatory. It's the same storm which brings Touma and Kana to the observatory, as they are on a school trip nearby but got lost in the snow. The group is forced to spend the night here, but while the building is old, it doesn't take long for everyone to make the building suitable for shelter again. The following morning however, they find the brother-in-law hanging outside the bathroom window, but determining who could've killed him (and why) that night proves to be quite tricky. A story that makes very good use of its unique setting of a star observatory, but also a story that is a bit predictable exactly because of that, as you can make fairly educated guess about what happened simply based on the very long lead-up to the murder, which has quite a few scenes that don't do much to hide the fact they're going to be important later on. The murder itself has some links to the impossible crime trope, but I think the dramatic underlying back story leaves a bit more of an impression.

A Frozen Gavel (volume 9) starts with a scene beneath the Kachidoki Bridge, one of the many bridges that cross the Sumida River in Tokyo. A decayed hand falls on one of the boats going beneath the bridge, and when the authorities investigate, they find that a corpse has been stuffed inside a pipe, and the pipe itself has been jammed inside an opening between the sides of the lifting bridge. The police can only get the pipe out by raising the sides of the bridge again, which is easier said than done: Kachidoki Bridge has actually not been raised for thirty years due to the relentless streams of traffic here. But obviously, the pipe and the body need to be retrieved and so the bridge is raised again for the first time since 1970. Two surprising discoveries are made: the victim had a strange note in his pocket, but the victim was also wearing a special watch dated 1975, five years after the bridge was last raised! So how did the culprit manage to get the pipe wedged in between the sides of the bridge? While Touma and Kana poke around, they are approached by a strange, old man who seems to know more about the note, and perhaps even the victim, but why would he approach the two of them? A strange tale that has few interesting elements taken on their own, like the impossible problem of the pipe got wedged in the bridge, a strange old man who challenges Touma to solve the mathematics problem of the Seven Bridges of Königsberg and the mystery of the old man's personal history, but I feel it doesn't really work together. The pipe problem is pretty smart, but completely impractical in this specific setting (how would the culprit actually be able to do that on the Kachidoki Bridge?) and the reason to do so is also incredibly vague, betting on a one-to-a-million chance that things may occur in that manner. The same with the Seven Bridges of Königsberg: the solution and the way it relates to the actal case is interesting, but in the end, why go through all that trouble on some extremely minor chance things would go like this? This is a story where the parts taken seperately are far more interesting than the sum.

Crime and Punishment (volume 24) is obviously inspired by Dostoyevsky's book of the same title: we follow the graduate student Sendagawa, who hates how unfair life can be: how can a brilliant man like himself be so poor? When he hears of the news of a burglar being active and succesful in his neighborhood, Sendagawa decides to take matters in his own hands, and commit a burglary too and pin his crime on the real burglar. Sendagawa isn't stupid though, so he first plans to fake a burglary on his own room so the police will think of him as one of the victims. That part of the plan goes well, but his attempt at theft goes horribly wrong though: the moment he realizes the owner of the house he had wanted to burgle was in fact lying very dead in the living room, he also understood that things looked pretty bad for him, as it's a bit suspicious if a burglar is standing next to a dead body. He quickly runs away from the scene, but to his great surprise Inspector Mizuhara (Kana's father) seems to harbor suspicions about the theft at Sendagawa's place, and now he even thinks Sendagawa might've committed the murder! Desperate, he tries to plead with Kana and Touma to help him, and Touma is of course able to pinpoint the real murder rather easily. This was a story with a fairly limited scale, but I do quite like it. Like the original novel, it reads like an inverted detective, as we see how Inspector Mizuhara slowly starts to suspect that Sendagawa faked his own burglary to get himself off the hook, while Sendagawa obviously wants to not only hide that, but also avoid being accused of the murder. The clues that eventually lead the real murderer are a bit basic, but on the whole, Crime and Punishment is a fun story to read.

Caff's Memories (volume 41) starts with a call by Lin, an old friend of Touma's from Taiwan. Lin had gone to the United States to study when Touma was attending high school there, and Touma helped Lin with her English lessons. Later, Lin married Caff Darby, a highly succesful financier, and they lived a happy life together, but Caff is now in prison. Lin begs Touma to visit Caff and to go over Caff's case with him, and that's how we find Touma visiting Caff in prison. At first, the arrogant Caff wants to throw Touma out, but when he hears it was Lin who sent him hear, he calms down a bit, and Touma asks him to tell him his story, and how he ended up in prison. Caff claims he's been set-up, and starts his story how he first met Lin, how he became impressed with her fortune telling skills, and how they eventually fell in love, married and became rich as an investors thanks to Lin's powers. Eventually, Touma points out to Caff what really happened based on the story, but overall, I wasn't too big a fan of this tale. Like many of Q.E.D. stories, the core mystery plots revolves around Touma interpreting long chains of events (often a life story) differently than the persons who experienced it themselves and I think the basic idea isn't bad per se, but come on, Katou is cheating a bit here. It does result in a very emotional story that leaves an impression, but it feels like the story is just written completely around this punchline. It's not a story you'd see in Conan or Kindaichi Shounen, granted and if you're into reading more character-focused mystery stories, this is a good example of Q.E.D. being far superior to those series in that respect, but still, I feel cheated.

Touma meets up with Koyuki, a professional editor who sometimes needs to pick Touma's brain for her work regarding specialistic topics. In Pilgrimage (volume 46) however, she wants Touma's help for a more personal reason. Her deceased father was a well-known writer of non-fiction books, always based on meticulous research and great journalistic work. A while back, she came across an unpublished manuscript by him titled Pilgrim. The words "Coincidence? Or Intentionally?" scribbled on the folder seem to point to the reason why it was never published, but she doesn't understand why her father held on on this story, and she hopes Touma can shed light on the matter. Koyuki's father had done research on Usui Shigeru, a talented man in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during World War II. His wife had been murdered soon after they had gotten married in 1940. The murderer was an ordinary street robber Yamai Seimei, who had immediately fled the country. With the ongoing war, not much could be done about Yamai, but when the Japanese army occupied French Indochina, they stumbled upon Yamai, who was now finally captured for good and had to await his trial in Hanoi. Usui is given permission to travel to Hanoi to attend the trial of the murderer of his wife, but after passing Shanghai and arriving in the city of Nanchang, he gets off the train and tells his assistant he plans to walk the remaining 1000 kilometers to Hanoi. While the assistant tries to talk him out of it as it's not only an extremely long trip, but also very dangerous, Usui has made up his mind. It takes a harrowing two months for Usui to arrive in Hanoi, but at the trial, Usui makes a surprising statement: he advises the court not to give Yamai the death sentence, even if Yamai did kill his poor wife. In the end, nobody knew exactly why Usui made his pilgrimage on foot and why he had forgiven Yamai.

First of all: wow, I can safely say I'm absolutely sure that this is the first time I've read any story set in French Indochina during the Japanese occupation in World War II. So cookies for originality. Like Caff's Memories, this story is about Touma reinterpreting the events in a way completely different from the other people, though I think the reader can probably make a guess as to Usui's motives for pleading for Yamai's life and for going on the pilgrimage (especially as the other characters in the story propose a lot of theories, but seem to be avoiding one certain line of thinking). Ultimately though, I think Pilgrimage is an excellent example of the human-drama focused mystery tale that you definitely don't see in Detective Conan and Kindaichi Shounen and what really sets Katou's style of storytelling apart. These stories that focus on stories set in the past (often related to some actual historical event), about characters with very unique and strong-headed personalities that clash with each other and eventually do something that seems like a total mystery until Touma shows how one can interpret their actions in a way that seems logical to those specific characters.

By the way, I can sorta get Touma always flying across the world for a case, but how come Kana's also often going along abroad in this series? It's like these high school students get to go abroad every other volume...

Whereas the Arisugawa-edited volume seems to have focused more on stories with tropes like the impossible murder, locked rooms and serial killings, Tanaka Yoshiki's selection seems to be focused more on stories that focus on the human drama that eventually results in death. In that sense, I think Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou The Best - Tanaka Yoshiki Selection makes a better case for this series to show what makes it unique and distinct from other mystery manga series. For people who want more fleshed-out characters in a mystery tale and a focus on their drama and motives, Q.E.D. seems a far more logical choice than Detective Conan and Kindaichi Shounen, which focus more on the case-of-the-week. I do like how these two The Best volumes are so radically different in terms of theme, so it's likely I will eventually pick up the The Best volume edited by Tsuji Masaki to see what his take on the series is.

Original Japanese title(s): 加藤元浩（原） 田中芳樹（編）『Q.E.D. -証明終了- The Best 田中芳樹Selection』

The Ringmaster's Secret

「驚異の部屋（ヴァンダー・カンマー）をご案内します」

 『C.M.B. 森羅博物館の事件目録』

"Welcome to the Wunderkammer" 

"C.M.B. The Case Catalog of the Shinra Museum"

With Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou Katou Motohiro created a mystery series that was perhaps never as big a commercial success as Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo or Detective Conan, but it was, and still is, a fairly consistent mystery series that can boast of having a loyal fanbase that has kept the series running for over twenty years now, which is an impressive feat no matter what way you look at it. In 2005, Katou started a spin-off series titled C.M.B. Shinra Hakubutsukan no Jiken Mokuroku ("C.M.B. The Case Catalog of the Shinra Museum"), which is also still a running series. The titular C.M.B. stands for Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, the three Magi who brought gifts to baby Jesus. In the hopes of safeguarding the neverending search for knowledge for all generations, Queen Consort Charlotte in the eighteen century decided to appoint Three Magi through the British Museum, who were given the task of protecting knowledge. Each of these persons were given a ring, with the initial C, M. or B. With these rings, the Three Magi were given extreme authority to conduct research in all and every fields of science and to pursue knowledge, and the wearers of the rings are highly regarded throughout the academic world. The protagonist of this series is Sakaki Shinra, a fourteen year old boy who is the younger cousin of Q.E.D.'s Touma Sou (on Shinra's mother's side). Shinra has inherited all three C M B rings, and has thus become the sole protector of knowledge. Shinra has an own cabinet of curiosities he manages in Tokyo, where he also goes to school, but he also travels across the world to conduct research or to help people out who need his knowledge. Usually accompanying him is his schoolmate Tatsuki, who like Q.E.D.'s Kana is an athletic girl who is a lot better to handle at brawn and action than Shinra.

A few years ago I read the first one or two volumes of the series, but like with my early encounters with Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou, I found the stories not bad, but also not interesting enough to keep on reading. But I've been reading more of Q.E.D. lately by picking out my stories, which works a lot better, and I figured I might as well try that method with C.M.B. too. And right around the time I was considering how to best start with this series, two special anthologies were released. Both volumes were edited by current members of university mystery fiction clubs, and while the one by Tokyo University's New Moon Tea Party (the Mystery Club there) sounded interesting too, I was of course first drawn to C.M.B. Shinra Hakubutsukan no Jiken Mokuroku The Best Kyouto Daigaku Suiri Shousetsu Kenkyuukai Selection ("C.M.B. The Case Catalog of the Shinra Museum The Best - Kyoto University Mystery Club Selection", 2019), as it was edited by the Kyoto University Mystery Club. Given that I was a member too, I figured this was the best place to start. Each of the stories is also accompanied by a short introduction written by different club members in which they explain why they picked that particular story for this anthology.

Lacework was originally collected in volume 24 and starts with a request by Hilda Beauford, together with her younger sister Alba the last in a British family line of nobles. Their father Oswell died one year ago, due to a heart attack while alone at sea near the coast of the Greek island of Santorini. However, before he died, Oswell tried to burn his yacht down, presumably to destroy a piece of antique lacework. Ironically, the lacework survived the fire after it fell in the sea and was retrieved. A drop of blood has stained the lacework: the blood of Oswell's younger Pat, who was killed one night when he had snuck into Oswell's Santorini home and the guard shot him, thinking Pat was a dangerous robber. Hilda however thinks her father had her uncle shot on purpose, knowing very well it was Pat and believes the lacework can prove that. She asks Shinra to investigate the case, as she wants to know the truth before she gets married. Not a story that stands out much, but a fairly focused plot that gives a pretty good twist to the mystery of why the piece of lacework was so important to Oswell. A lot of these C.M.B. stories seem to revolve around the backstory/history of the characters involved in general, I noticed after reading this volume. In this story, I'd say the jump from the clues to the motive is a bit too large to feel natural, but the road from there to the significance of the lacework is done well, and as a standalone, short story, Lacework is a solid entry, even if rather tame.

World's End (volume 14) is two chapters long and starts with the discovery of a photograph of a Colias ponteni, a legendary butterfly species thought not to exists anymore, and of which it is unknown where the butterfly originated from. The only specimens are kept at the British Museum, but after comparing those specimens with the photographs, Shinra is convinced it's the real deal, so he decides to track the original photographer, together with Sho Bentley, chief researcher at the British Museum. They travel to Argentina and visit the woman who put the photograph on the market, who says it was an old photograph made by her husband. He died thirty years ago, but she only knows the photograph was taken "at the World's End." When the group starts poking around asking about the picture and the photographer however, they learn there are people both friendly and not so friendly who watch their movements closely. This story involves larger, real-world history (specifically the period of military dictatorship in Argentina) to sketch a mystery plot that follows a thriller mode mostly (as we see people who help out Shinra being abducted by a mysterious group), but there's a fairly neat whodunnit plot hidden within the excitement: the misdirection aimed at both the reader and the group works pretty well, and blends in well with the historical background of the story.

One Hundred and Thirty Million Victims (volume 8) is a deliciously ironic story that really shouldn't be spoiled. It's very irregular as a mystery story, but heck, the motive for this crime is really original. The story starts with Chief Inspector Kujirazaki being sent a mysterious photograph of flying antlions and a threatening letter that says that on the sixth of November, at 18:00, one hundred and thirty million persons in Japan will fall victim. Soon after, the inspector is visited by Takaaki, who suspects his father might be planning something: his father was accused and sentenced for a robbery in which a baby-cart was kicked over, throwing the baby on the street. Naturally, the media were all over the heinous crime and condemned the man at every opportunity, but five years later, it was discovered that he had in fact been innocent. He wa released from prison, but this time, the media remained silent about the false sentencing and their own role in the public shaming of him. Lately however, Takaaki's father's been behaving strangely, and it seems he was the one who sent that threatening note to the police. The conclusion is something you'd hardly suspect and the kind of story you seldom see in a mystery series, and that alone makes it a memorable read.

The Bag Story (volume 25) is a very strange story to be selected, and that's actually also mentioned in the introduction. It's not really a mystery story anyway. Shinra is in Florence, where he hopes a master craftsman will finally sell him a particular splendidly crafted handbag. The man has been refusing Shinra's offer for a long time now and is still not willing to part with it. A Japanese salesman who's desperate to find the perfect imported goods to sell overhears Shinra crying about the bag, and decides to make an offer to the craftsman too. The craftsman then decides that to pose a little riddle to the two potential buyers, saying he'll give the bag to whoever can answer the question: "What is the Thinker thinking of?" The story is mostly a historical introduction to Rodin and his life in Florence, and challenges the reader to imagine what must've been on Rodin's mind when working on the Thinker, but it's not a truly fair mystery story.

Phra Kurang (volume 29) is a story of the type I like to call 'whatthehell". Whereas whodunnit, whydunnits and howdunnits have clearly defined mysteries, the 'whatthehell' often does not feature an obvious mystery plot, and it's only at the end when things suddenly come together, revealing it had been setting up something all the time. In this story, Shinra is hired by Priscilla, granddaughter of the "Oil King" Cybil Rubin, who recently died. Among his art collection, they found a Buddhist pendant, but it was obviously cheaply made and even misses a part. They hope Shinra can shine more light on the question of what it is and why Cybil would have such a thing in his collection. Shinra recognizes it as an object made in Thailand and travels there and eventually manages to trace it to a little village to a man called Shida, who as a boy was given the broken pendant. Shinra, Priscilla and Tatsuki find Shida's home, but he too has recently died. When the party has learned all they can about Shida, Shinra reveals a shocking truth behind the relation between Shida and Cybil. The set-up could've been more extensive, but man, the truth is really creepy and terrifying, making this one of the better stories in this volume even if you wouldn't recognize it as a mystery plot right away.

Shinra and his classmates are fooling around when they find themselves wandering into a little piece of nature in the city in The Grass in Summer (volume 13). The little piece of vacant land is surrounded by high-rise buildings on all sides, save for a little passage, so it's not visible from the street. They find various flowers blooming here, which is quite surprising. When they visit the place once again, they find a woman crying there. Her father recently died and left her this piece of ground, but she does not understand what this vacant lot is: after her mother died, her father simply disappeared, until she was notified of his death and learned she had inherited this piece of ground. She had hoped to find answers as to why he left all of a sudden, but the shock of learning there was nothing here caused her to cry. Shinra however is able to tell her what her father must've been doing here until his death based on the few clues left on the vacant ground. This is actually one of the more 'conventional' mystery stories in this volume, as it features proper hinting and physical clues, which allow the reader and Shinra to deduce the existence of a certain object. I think it's fairly impossible to deduce the exact reasons for the father to have done that simply based on what we're told in the story, but it works good enough for a human drama based mystery story.

The Natural History of G. Plinius Secundus (volume 17) deals with the Berlin Wall: sometime in the 1980s the Mandel family tried to cross the border to West-Germany, using their anitiquarian copy of The Natural History to pay the smuggler. The two parents hid in a special compartment beneath the truck, while the son pretended to be the little brother of the smuggler Jan Backer, who could cross the border as an engineer. At the border however, things went wrong: just as they thought they were allowed to pass, they were halted again. From inside the compartment, the parents heard how the driver suddenly cried "Everything I told you was a lie!", the boy Erik running away from the truck and a rifle shot. Both parents were knocked out when they hit their heads against the compartment walls as the truck sped off, and when they came too, they found themselves in West Germany, but the driver had disappeared and their son Erik was nowhere to be found. Later, they were sent a newspaper article about the discovery of a boy in the river near the border who had been shot. And now Shinra is presented with the copy of The Natural History and asked to find out what happened that day at the border. The mystery revolves around what the parents heard the driver cry: why had he betrayed Erik by telling the guards he had been lying to them? The solution requires the reader to simply imagine things, as it's not a problem of putting the clues together, but more one of 'how could one also interpret this line' but I do like the true meaning of the line, even if it's a bit hard to imagine that Erik would really have acted like that.

I have read next to nothing of this series, so it's hard to tell to what extent C.M.B. Shinra Hakubutsukan no Jiken Mokuroku The Best Kyouto Daigaku Suiri Shousetsu Kenkyuukai Selection can be considered a representative selection, but I thought on average, I did enjoy this volume better than the single volumes I've read of C.M.B. In form, C.M.B. does resemble Q.E.D., though it has a focus on liberal arts (history, literature, art etc.) rather than the hard sciences of Q.E.D., but I do like Q.E.D.'s better focus on a clearer mystery plot better, I think. I might still pick up the other volume edited by Tokyo University's New Moon Tea Party at some later date.

Original Japanese title(s): 加藤元浩（原）、京都大学推理小説研究会（編）『C.M.B. 森羅博物館の事件目録 The Best 京都大学 Selection』

E=Murder

aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ

(Fermat's last theorem)

I'm horrible at the exact sciences.. I imagine that if Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou did its unique style of mystery telling not with mathematics or similar fields of science, but with literature or a field like that, I'd be a lot more enthusiastic.

After reading a couple of volumes of Katou Motohiro's Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou series and the sequel series Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou iff the last year, I realized that I don't have any interest in reading all the adventures of the brilliant, MIT-graduated prodigy Touma Sou and his classmate Kana. There are definitely some interesting stories in this series, especially when the stories involve mathematics and other special fields of interest of author Katou himself, but few stories are truly memorable as mystery stories, so I have decided I am just going to pick my stories now, instead of going through all fifty volumes of the original series, and another dozen or so for the still running sequel iff, as that's just too pricey. Fortunately for me, special anthology volumes were released earlier this year, with the three mystery authors Tanaka Yoshiki, Tsuji Masaki and Arisugawa Alice each editing their own volume. These volumes seemed interesting enough, and when I asked for story recommendations a while back, I noticed a number of the recommendations I got happened to have been selected for Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou The Best - Arisugawa Alice Selection (2019), which made it the most logical next step in my reading of this series.

The volume starts with Jacob's Ladder though, which I already reviewed earlier, so I'll be skipping that story. The second story is Infinite Moon (originally in volume 20) and starts with the arrival of an email from Touma's Chinese friend Hu. Which is a bit strange, Hu was presumed dead, due to a heart disease he had been suffering of his whole life. The email to Touma also prompts a visit by the Shanghai Police, who tell Touma that Hu is known to them as a member of Xi Xing She, a crime syndicate in Shanghai led by four men: the two Liang brothers and the two friends Huang and Wu. While the gang was basically divided in two factions (the Liang brothers, and the two friends), the four bosses carefully kept everything in balance, until three weeks ago, when Huang was fished dead out of the river. While the police had trouble getting information out of the lower-ranked members of the Xi Xing She, it appeared Huang's murder was retaliation by the younger Liang, as Huang had killed the elder Liang brother earlier. The police hope that Touma's friend Hu can tell them more about the power struggle going on, but time is ticking as the remaining Xi Xing She bosses kill each other off, while Touma has to figure out Hu's mysterious message: Come to ϕ. I have read several stories with a series of murders, where the murderer becomes the next victim and then the second murderer becomes the next victim etc., so Infinite Moon was not really surprising to me. I like how Katou links the story with mathematical theories in infinity and 0, but the core mystery plot is not really surprising: a lot of pages are used to simply explain the basic setting, but after that, you don't really need much explanation/clue-hunting to figure out what's going on.

The Kurogane Manor Murder Case (volume 36) reunites Touma with Karasuma Renji, a cocky assistant-professor in Physics who has a soft spot for Touma. Karasuma is a "person of interest" to the police in the investigation into the suspicious death (apparent suicide) of Professor Kurogane of K University in Kyoto. It was Kurogane who had sent Karasuma away from K University all the way to A University and even then, Kurogane kept the brilliant Karasuma shackled: he arranged so Karasuma's research at A University would become a joint project with K University under the supervision of Kurogane's own pupil Shida, which would mean Karasuma's name would end up below both Shida and Kurogane's names on his own research paper when published. Kurogane however was found hanging in his study in his manor one day ago, precisely when Karasuma returned to Kyoto. Kurogane had no reason to commit suicide, but murder also seems impossible as there were no footprints in the snow around Kurogane's study, nor did the help see anyone come or leave the study that day. The police can't really pin anything on Karasuma, but at the wake in Kurogane's manor, a more obvious murder happens: an arrow is shot right in Shida's neck during the night, but due to the long, covered galleries of the traditional Japanese house, none of the suspects could have shot Shida with a bow and arrow from their respective positions, due to the distance and most importantly the low ceilings of the hallways.

The death of Kurogane in his study itself is rather simple, though I do like how it makes clever use of the way a traditional Japanese manor is built (Katou studied Architecture in college). One important hint to the whereabouts of the culprit at this crime site is rather brilliant though, being a reference to Zeno's arrow paradox, though it does expect the reader to guess a certain's character behavior for it to work. Shida's murder is... original, but kinda hard to swallow. The way the building is used to create an impossible situation is great: it makes references to a special archery competition that challenged people to hit a target from one end of a covered gallery to another, the low ceiling making it difficult to shoot an arrow far enough (as an arrow needs to get high to be able to fly further). Karasuma for example had a clean shot on the victim from his position for example, but he'd need to be the strongest person around to have made that shot straight across the gallery. The trick behind the murder however requires you to kinda roll with it: it's original and it definitely works better due to the visual format of the story, but it kinda expects you to a) to know that's possible in the first place and b) that it would actually succeed in one try (even if with some practice), for the arrow was just as likely to hit a non-vital part or simply miss the target. In fact, an acquaintance with experience with archery basically rolled her eyes in disbelief when she saw the solution.

Locked Room No. 4 (volume 40) brings Touma, Kana and Himeko as members of the Sakisaka High School Mystery Club to the classic mystery setting: a mansion on a remote island. Sparrow Tours is a small tour operator/planner specialized in unique experiences, and now they're planning to do a mystery tour on this island, where the participants have to solve a mystery (locked room murders) during their stay. The story for this tour is written by the mystery author Yoimiya Sodehara, and the three kids have come along to act as a test panel. Another 'outsider' is Komaki, the head of Accounting of the parent company World Tours, who says Sparrow Tours' expenses are way too much and that he needs to take care of it right away. Once the group arrives on the island, Komaki goes off on his own, while Toum, Kana and Himeko are presented with the three locked room murder situations of the tour (the victims being played by the various employees of Sparrow Tours who have come along). The three kids quickly solve the three locked rooms (to the frustration to the author Yoimiya), but when they go to the dining room to rest, they find it locked. When they unlock it, they discover the body of Komaki sitting at the dining table, with lit candles illuminating the knife in his chest. With the door locked and the window looking down a cliff, it seems the gang is being presented a fourth, unplanned locked room in their tour. The first three locked rooms are pretty much child's play, and the gang manages to solve them almost instantly. The fourth, main locked room is of course more interesting: it's not super complex, but makes clever use of all that has presented before (like always Q.E.D. stories usually take a long time to set the story up). It's pretty obvious who the murderer is once you see through the main piece of misdirection, but I think this was a nicely plotted tale within the usual 100 pages.

In Question! (volume 44), Touma, Kana and Loki arrive at a mountain lodge house after Touma receives a mysterious letter that says "Question!", featuring Fermat's theorem inside. Included were also directions to the mountain lodge, and curious as to the meaning of this letter, the trio decide to go there. There they find two other groups, who happen to know each other from the local family court: both an elderly couple and a younger couple with a daughter who are living seperately now and busy working out a divorce. At first, the two groups figured this was some kind of last effort by the family court to have the two couples talk things over, but Touma's presence obviously proves that idea wrong. All of them have received the same mysterious letter, though with different riddles. The story unfolds as a kind of treasure hunt, with the solution of each riddle pointing towards another riddle and all coming back to Touma's Fermat's theorem. Don't expect to do much mystery solving yourself as the reader, as that's pretty much impossible and a lot of the story is also devoted to Touma's lecture on Fermat's theorem. It's pretty easy to guess what the story is really about though. Detective Conan also often features stories like these, but I find them more enjoyable there, as they work better as standalone mystery stories with a riddle that can be solved by the reader themselves, whereas even with knowledge on Fermat etc., Question! is mostly just guessing.

Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou The Best - Arisugawa Alice Selection is on its own a fairly entertaining volume. Not a big fan of the opening and ending story of this selection, but the middle part is good Q.E.D. stuff and include some of my favorite stories I have read until now of this series. Arisugawa also obviously selected stories that showcase Katou's interest in mathematics and other academic fields: those topics are often mentioned in the Q.E.D. series, but they play an especially important thematic role in most of the stories included in this volume. I might also pick up one of the other The Best volumes in the future, as I think this approach (picking my stories to read) is probably the best way to enjoy this series for me.

Original Japanese title(s): 加藤元浩（原） 有栖川有栖（編）『Q.E.D. -証明終了- The Best 有栖川有栖Selection』

The Ozark Witch Switch

"A false tongue will never make a guilty person."

Susannah Martin (From the Rev. Parris account of the examination at Salem Village Meeting House.)

Funny how Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou never got an anime adaptation actually, while it did have a live-action adaptation.

When I asked for recommendations for Katou Motohiro's Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou series earlier, I was pointed to a storyline that starts in volume 10. The mysteries the young teenage prodigy Touma Sou and his impulsive athletic friend Mizuhara Kana usually encounter in Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou only span one single chapter, but In The Hands of the Witch was the first time a story spanned two chapters, and it even had a seperate story that acted as its conclusion in volume 12. I was quite interested to see what Katou could with the series when using a different format for his stories for a change so I decided to read these two volumes. Volume 10 (2001) opens at Kana's home, where Kana is entertaining Touma Yuu.Yuu had traveled all the way from the United States (where she lives) to visit her big brother only to learn that he's not at home, so she decided to hang out with Kana for the moment as she knows nobody else in the vicinity. Yuu has brought a postcard that was addressed to Sou in the United States. The postcard is not signed, and shows three children dressed for Halloween, with the message "See you again in the next winter." The children stand in front of what appears to the Witch House in Salem, and Yuu explains to Kana about the Witch Trials in Salem and how the town's relatively close to MIT in Cambridge, where her brother studied some years ago. She then remembers a case her brother was involved with five years ago that had to do with "witch trials", when a young Touma Sou had just started his studies at MIT at the tender age of 10.

Touma had a part-time job inputting data for the district attorney's office back then, which is where he also met Annie Crainer, a young prodigy district attorney and daughter of Daniel Crainer, a prominent figure in the legal world. The first case of the rising star of the Massachusetts District Attorney's Office was the murder on Marcus Osborne. Marcus was a wealthy man who in secret, was also the mastermind behind the arms smuggling in the region, even if the police couldn't find proof of his involvement. One night, cops on their beat heard a loud gunshot near the Osborne house and inside they found the man with a bullet hole right through his right eye. The only other person in the house was his young wife Sarah. The Osborne house stands at the end of a cliff, and the road was immediately closed, and the woods searched, but nobody was found, meaning that the only two persons present on the cliff at the time of the murder were the victim, and his wife Sarah. The fact that Sarah's twenty-two years younger than her husband and that she joined a shady sect called the Path to Arcadia a year earlier to which she donated a lot, raises suspicion with Annie, who soon decides to prosecute Sarah for the murder on her husband for financial gain. As the trial continues however, the defense attorney manages to take down each and every argument Annie can bring forward. Whats more, Annie becomes the target of public outcry, as she is accused of conducting a witch trial, persecuting Sarah only because she married an older husband and trying to get her convicted on flimsy evidence. Meanwhile Touma too is having doubts about himself, as he learns that his advice isn't always appreciated by the people around him. When Annie and Touma have a talk however, the two prodigies manage to give each other some well-considered advice, and Touma even manages to solve Annie's murder with one simple question that reaches the whole crux of the problem.

In The Hands of the Witch explores Touma Sou's past in a way I had not seen in this series yet, and the result is quite captivating. The core mystery plot is not incredibly impressive to be honest, but it works great as a vehicle to tell a genuine tale about Touma and Annie, resulting in definitely the most enthralling Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou story I've read until now. The story unveils itself to be a courtroom drama, following Annie as she tries to convince the jury that the defendant is guilty, while the sly defense attorney does a great job at turning each of Annie's witnesses and exhibits around in the defense's favor. I do like how Touma succeeds in pointing out the truth to Annie by asking her one simple question, suddenly connecting all kinds of small questions and happenings, and changing all the various points into one single line leading to murder. That said, there are still little things about this murder plan that seem rather difficult to swallow, as the whole plan needed either a lot of coincidence and luck, or uncanny planning powers that were not explained, to work out the way it did. The murderer would've needed to obtain a certain object for example, that was 1) not even sure to come into existence in that form and 2) it was unlikely they could actually retrieve the object. Also, the plan needed the presence of a certain person, bringing along a certain object, which again was something they couldn't count on 100%. So I really how Touma manages to point out this plan, but the plan itself is less impressive.

In The Hands of the Witch ends in a tragic way, which convinces Kana to hide the postcard from Touma, as she doesn't want to bring up bad memories again. Volume 12 (2002) therefore opens with In The Outskirts of the Universe, a 'normal' story where a witness drawing of an 'actual' alien is stolen from a storage of an 'authority on alien lifeforms', with Kana ending up as the main suspect, even if it seems impossible for anyone in general to have taken the picture from the suitcase it was kept in, as somebody was near the suitcase all the time. It's a minor story, and it's pretty easy to identify when the picture must've been stolen (which immediately points to the real thief and also in the direction of how it must've been done). Nothing remarkable here but the story ends on a different note as Touma happens to come across the "See you again in the next winter" postcard in Kana's room in the very last pages, prompting him to go to the United States to find out who sent him this postcard.

The Rainbow Mirror forms the concluding chapter of the Witch Trial storyline and opens with the shocking murder on an prison inmate, who was five years ago jailed due to the events of In The Hands of the Witch. The poor woman's drink had been poisoned while she was entertaining a guest visitor, and that visitor is none other than Touma himself. Naturally, Touma is taken into custody on suspicion of murder, and the scene of the boy being ushered into a police car outside the prison are broadcast all over the world, including Japan. Kana is contacted promptly by Yuu and Touma's friend Loki, and Kana decides to fly to the United States to find Touma. The three arrive too late in Massachusetts however, as Touma was already released by the police, as video security footage in the prison showed someone else tampered with the drinks machine in the visiting area of the prison. They learn Touma has gone off to visit the other related parties to Sarah Osborne's case and they chase after him, but to their shock they learn more incidents happen to these people after Touma's visits, like Sarah's defense attorney getting into a traffic accident because his car brakes had been tampered with. Fearing the bad outcome of the Osborne case might've weighed on Touma's mind more heavily than they could've ever imagined, his friends try to trace him, but find they are too late each and every time. But is it really Touma who's committing a series of murders, or is some other force at play?

Well, of course it's somebody else. The Rainbow Mirror concludes this arc in the manga, but taken as a mystery story on its own, it's very weak. There is little mystery as to the how of the deaths and other incidents that occur over the course of the story, while the whodunnit aspect is also rather undeveloped. The precise events that led to the motive are very hard to swallow for example (especially considering the way In The Hands of the Witch ended) and with a character like Touma, there' not even a single second where you'll be doubting whether he really did commit the murders. So the story is mostly just about Yuu, Loki and Kana chasing after Touma and visiting all the people related to the Sarah Osborne case again. It works as a book-end to the storyline, giving you a glimpse at the aftermath of the Sarah Osborne case and the five years that have passed since, but in an attempt to bring an emotional gripping story, Katou goes way too far, pulling cards out of nowhere that just don't seem very convincing.

It was fun reading Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou stories for a change that didn't feel so limited in reach. The core mystery plot of In The Hands of the Witch might not've been super-complex (in fact In The Outskirts of the Universe is far more complex I'd say), but it works well as a device to also tell a story about both Touma and Annie in a courtroom drama setting. The Rainbow Mirror is more troublesome. I definitely recommend reading it, as it's definitely part of In The Hands of the Witch's story, but some of the events that occur there are a bit ridiculous, at least in the world of Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou (had this been Detective Conan, I would've been more willing to swallow the premise).
 
Original Japanese title(s): 加藤元浩 『Q.E.D. -証明終了-』第10, 12巻