Art of Darkness!

「人を呪わば穴二つ」

 

"Curses return upon the heads of those that curse"

(Proverb) 

Huh, I have done more audio drama reviews than I thought... Though it's been a while!

Kitayama Takekuni is a writer strongly associated with the locked room murder mystery and other impossible crimes, and as his nickname of "Kitayama of the physical tricks" implies, he specializes in impossible murder mysteries that rely on a physical trick. And with that, I don't mean a string and needle, but like (hypothethically) houses that rotate or fly around, corpses being shot across a field with a cannon, that kind of thing. Most of the mysteries I have read written by him will feature visual aids like diagrams and floorplans to help the reader visualize the scene, as you often have to think in two, or three dimensions to figure out how the murderer managed to set the scene in such a way. When the murder is being explained at the end of  the story, you can often expect an updated diagram with arrows and other additions to explain how a corpse disappeared from scene A and appeared at scene B, or how a Rube Goldberg contraption helped lock the door from the inside.

In that sense, Kitayama Takekuni is basically the last author I'd expected to write an audio drama, precisely because his mysteries often rely on the visual aspect. Of course, he does not exclusively write such mysteries, but it's definitely his trademark style and his strength, and it is hard to imagine how a genuine Kitayama Takekuni mystery would work within the framework of an audio drama.

Which is why I was pretty surprised when I learned that Kitayama Takekuni has indeed written the scenario of a mystery audio drama: Shiromajutsu Tantei Mashiro Mami ("White Mage Detective Mashiro Mami") was released in 2020 by Mausu Promotion (a voice acting school) in their "Two Actor Theater" line: these audio dramas only feature two voice actors, each having a fixed role, so the stories play out via the conversations of these characters. Shiromajutsu Tantei Mashiro Mami features the talents of Kuwahara Yuuki and Takada Yuuki and starts off with Rina, a high school student, on her way to visit a venue with fortune tellers: the place is hugely popular, with a three month waiting list and a consultation session is far from cheap! But when Rina arrives the venue, she's spoken to by a girl with an eyepatch and a crutch, who tells Rina she really shouldn't go to that place, as the fortune tellers there are just money-grabbing charlatans. The girl then introduces herself as "the white mage detective" Mashiro Mami, and explains she too is a fortune teller, specializing in undoing curses (She choose the title 'white mage detective' to sound cooler). Because Mami looks as suspicious as her self-chosen name sounds, Rina is at first hesitant to listen to her any longer, but when Mami manages to accurately point out something that relates to the problem Rina has, she decides to visit Mami at her office for a consultation.

For Rina has an occult problem. Her family owns a painting which is said to be cursed: the painting depicts a woman, with wet hair and a haze covering the painting, like it's raining or there's mist. A rope-like line can be seen extending upwards from behind her neck, which is why the painting is known online as the hanged woman. The painting belonged to Rina's uncle, but he and his family died three years ago: he and his wife were hanging from a tree in the garden, while their son had been drowned in a puddle just outside the garden, having been hit on the head first. The circumstances seemed to suggest Rina's uncle had decided to commit suicide with the whole family (killing the son first). While the fact Rina's cousin had recently quit his job and was becoming more and more socially isolated had been weighing on her uncle's mind, it seems a weak motive for a forced suicide. The fact her uncle and aunt died in the same way as the painting doesn't help Rina's worries, especially as soon after their death, an image of the painting started to make its rounds on the internet, accompanied by the story it is cursed. Murder however seems ruled out: it had been raining earlier that night, and no foot tracks of outsiders were found in the grounds surrounding the house. Rina hopes Mami can investigate the painting and lift the curse, if there's one. But surprisingly, Mami's method of 'lifting a curse' depends a lot on meticulous investigation and deducing what really happened at the house...

As a mystery story, this is pretty short and while nothing mind-blowing happens here, it's pretty decent. You can tell Kitayama does know he's writing for an audio production with only two actors: the list of characters is fairly limited and there are little "tricks" to make some conversations feel natural, like Mami being too frightened to look at a photograph of the cursed painting, so Rina is forced to explain it verbally to Mami (and to the listener). Which is why it's funny how one of the most important twists in the story is actually visually based, but if this were actually a visual medium, the twist might have been a bit too obvious: while it may have been more fair, the twist does work better having the relevant object being described to the listener, who will then imagine the object as they listen to the drama, and then having the twist sprung upon them. As a mystery, Shiromajutsu Tantei Mashiro Mami is a fairly lite tale, with Mami solving not only the mysterious deaths of Rina's uncle, aunt and cousin, but also the mystery of why there's an urban legend surrounding the painting, but don't come in expecting some of Kitayama's best work here, but it's decent enough. Though I guess, a lot of it does implicitly includes the disclaimer of "within the confines of an audio drama". For at the same time, I can't deny the framework of the audio drama really doesn't allow Takeyama to do what he's best at (impossible crimes based on almost ridiculously grand physical tricks) and the drama isn't very long either (less than a hour). I would have loved to see more of this series, as this feels more like a nice prologue/first story, and you can are left wanting for the "main body".

I also like the two characters a lot: Rina's a lot sharper than she appears at first and certainly not just a gullible high school student, while Mami on the other hand is obviously a clever detective, but can also be very clumsy and she's a bit of a scaredy cat and these two have some really funny interactions. Which is another reason why I'd want to see more of this series: they are set-up as a really entertaining detecting duo and the epilogue of the story also shows the two having becoming close, so you feel more should come.

Shiromajutsu Tantei Mashiro Mami is in no way really a work that allowed Kitayama Takekuni to do what he's best at in terms of mystery writing, but nonetheless, it's an entertaining short mystery that shows potential for more. Though I guess since this originally came out in 2020 and nothing has followed, neither as audio drama nor in any format, I guess this will be all we'll hear from Mami and Rina.

Original Japanese title(s): マウスプロモーション、北山猛邦 (シナリオ）『マウス二人芝居     白魔術探偵・真白真実』

The King is Dead

“The trial cannot proceed,” said the King in a very grave voice, “until all the jurymen are back in their proper places—all,” he repeated with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as he said so.  

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

Huh... they did the title for these covers in yellow twice in row now...

Disclosure: I am a member of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. But as always, I didn't vote for the stories this year.

Honkaku-Ou is the annual summer anthology collecting the best honkaku short stories published the previous year, as selected by the members of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. The publication is basically a companion to the Honkaku Mystery Award, which is awarded to the best published book (novel or short story collection) each year. Short stories often get lost as time passed by, as they are commonly published in magazines or online. Unless they are later collection in a short story collection or an anthology like this one, short stories can become difficult to track down several months later. Anthologies like Honkaku-Ou ensure these stories can be easily found. The current format of five, six stories in 1 volume started in 2019 and I have been discussing the books annually since, and there have been some really cool inclusions in these books, so I was of course also looking forward to this year's entry: Honkaku-Ou 2024 ("The King of Honkaku 2024").

Honkaku-Ou 2024 opens with Ja, Kore wa Satsujin tte Koto de ("Okay, So This Was Murder") by Higashigawa Tokuya, and the story is part of his Ikagawa City series (disclosure:  I translated Higashigawa Tokuya's Lending the Key to the Locked Room, the first book in the series). This is a hilarious inverted mystery, where Oomaeda Noriyuki plans to kill his uncle, Tokujirou, in order to become owner of Oomaeda Pharmaceuticals himself. The idea is Noriyuki will use the trick from a locked room murder mystery he read as a kid to make it seem like his uncle committed suicide in the annex of his seaside mansion, where his uncle usually sleeps. Noriyuki sets the plan in motion, and while the moment when his uncle didn't die immediately and was about to grab a pen to write down a message on the floor was a bit scary, his uncle died before he could hold the pen, so with that, the scene is set. The following morning, he drags his younger brother Toshiyuki and his aunt to the annex to discover the body after his uncle didn't appear at breakfast. Their aunt faints upon the sight of her husband's apparent suicide, but Toshiyuki reveals something to Noriyuki he hadn't been aware of: their uncle had a life insurance, and his two nephews are beneficiaries, but no money will be paid out in cases of suicide. So Toshiyuki suggests to his brother... to make their uncle's suicide appear like somebody killed him, using a locked room murder trick! Soon after, familiar faces from the Ikagawa City Police Station arrive, but can Noriyuki manage to walk this tight rope of 'multiple truths'? Absolutely hilarious story, and I really like the simple, but inevitable mistake Noriyuki made that of course eventually leads to the police solving this case of suicide/murder. Nothing complicated here, but a real short, but nice showcase of what can make trope-relient puzzle mysteries so much fun.

Yuuki Shinichirou was featured in last year's anthology too with a story in the same series as Akuryou Taisan Tebasaki Samgye-tangfuu Soup Jiken ("The Case of the Evil Spirits Begone Chicken Wings Samgye-Tang Soup"). And yes, that's another odd title. The narrator in this series is a struggling comedian, who has a part-time job as a kind of Uber Eats driver. One of the shops he works for is rather special: it is one cook who pretends to be running multiple restaurants offering different cuisines, but it also serves as a detective agency. By making very specific orders, usually combining different dishes which usually have no business being ordered together, clients can engage the detective/cook's services. The delivery guy acts as a kind of Watson, delivering the food, but also interview the client for details and occasionally do some extra research. In this tale, the cook is hired to investigate a rather creepy happening in an apartment complex: the client says food has been delivered to the empty apartment next to his more than a few times now. The food was placed in front of the door, and at first, the client thought it had been delivered to the wrong door, but nobody on his floor had ordered any food. This repeated itself more than a few times. Eventually, food and other items were even delivered to another empty flat on a different floor in the building too, where somebody had committed suicide before. After installing camera security and an auto-lock front door to stop the delivery men, the phantom deliveries stopped, but they never figured out who made the orders and why. Or was it really a ghost who wanted something to eat? I still don't really get the necessity of the set-up of the cook and the uber driver, but I do like this mystery. It's a harmless one, but the idea of food being delivered to an empty apartment is pretty creepy, especially if it's one where somebody died in the past. The explanation for the ghostly deliveries is not only convincing, but Yuuki does a great job at setting up the clues, making it a really fair story too.

Kitayama Takekuni's Mikansei Gekkou - Unfinished moonshine ("Unfinished Moonshine") is written as a homage to Edgar Allan Poe, and starts with the narrator visiting Toudou, an old writer friend, who wants to consult the narrator on something important: Toudou says he found an unpublished and unfinished manuscript by Edgar Allan Poe, but the manuscript has been occupying his mind since, making him hear "their" voices who tell him he needs to finish it. The problem is: Toudou doesn't know how. The manuscript tells the story of someone who returns to his destroyed home and runs into a girl in a hut outside of town, who soon dies. The man then goes to sleep in a lookout tower, with a view of the hut, but the following morning, the whole hut has disappeared completely. Toudou doesn't know how the hut could've disappeared, meaning he can't write the conclusion, so the narator must come up with a solution. This is a cute (?) short story, brimming with Poe themes, imagery and references. The explanation for the disappearing hut is rather simple and rather underwhelming on its own, but I think Kitayama did a great job using the Poe framing device to lay out all kinds of hints, though I think that it might be a bit too obvious because a certain hint is probably better hidden for Japanese readers than for those who also regularly read English. It's perhaps not the kind of solution you'd expect from Kitayama for an impossible crime, but it fits the setting well.

Aosaki Yuugo's Ningyo Saiban ("Mermaid Trial") is a story in his Undead Girl - Murder Farce series, and I have to admit I haven't read the books, nor have I seen much of the anime series yet. This story is apparently a prequel story revolving around a murder trial in which a mermaid was the suspect, and where the reporter Annie Kerber first became acquainted with the protagonists Aya (a decapitated head) and Tsugaru, her wise-cracking assistant. It was the first trial involving inhumans in eighteen years in Trondheim, Norway. Holt was a well-known public figure in Trondheim and notoriously anti-inhumans, which made it all the more shocking when after a gunshot, his family found him dead outside at the lake, with the mermaid bending over him. It appeared the mermaid had killed him and was busy trying to set-up the scene to make it look like Holt had gotten into an accident with his row boat, but the family quickly captured the mermaid. As per law, nobody has been able to talk with the mermaid save for the prosecutor. That is, until Aya appeared at the trial to defend the mermaid. The story then unfolds in a familiar courtroom mystery manner, with both sides interrogating the suspects (with their testimonies also serving as the way the reader actually learns about the precise circumstances of the murder), and Aya of course slowly picking up on small contradictions that eventually build up to a major revelation. This is a competently constructed mystery, with short, but good deductions based on the testimonies and physical evidence, though it perhaps lacks a bit in actual surprise, as in: none of the revelations made in this trial feel as triumphant and shocking as you'd like them to be. There are some clever turnabouts though, and on a technical level, I think this is the best story in the collection.

Araki Akane's Kotoeawase ("Checking Answers") starts with the death of the narrator Touma's adoptive father, who was found by Touma as he was lying in the snow-covered garden, bleeding heavily from a cut in his neck. It took five minutes for the ambulance to come, and in the ambulance, his father's final words to Touma were that he loves him and that Touma should take care of himself. When things have settled down, the young teacher however starts having doubts about what he heard. Why didn't his father say anything about who cut him in the neck? With the realization that Touma actually only heard what he wanted to hear from his father, and that it might in fact have been a completely different message, garbled as his father's strength faded, he tries to reconstruct his father's last word and find out who did this to him. This is a story that deals with a theme very important to dying messages (the interpretation of what was said), and it takes on this time in a rather surprising proper linguistic manner, exploring various ways in which Touma could've misheard what his father said. Ultimately, that does make the story feel a bit weak, because it feels a bit arbritrary what could be considered a "plausible" interpretation of the message, and what isn't. I think that thematically, it's a strong story, but all the talk about whether a certain word couldn't be that other similar-sounding word soon becomes a bit boring.

The final story, Saigo no Hitoshigoto ("His Last Job") by Miyauchi Yuusuke,  is about a writer on music, who decides to write a piece on Caustic, an indie duo consisting of lead singer and bassist Yuhara Seiichi and Shiga Makoto on the guitar and side-vocalist. In 2013, while they were recording their third album, Shiga died in the recording studio: he had been bashed in the head. However, Yuhara didn't report the murder until many hours later, even though he had been in that same studio. Eventually, their manager was arrested, but rumors always floated around that it was the eccentric prodigy Yuhara who murdered Shiga, and that their manager took the fall for him. The writer decides to learn more about the way in which Caustic fell apart,  and eventually arrives at a very surprising conclusion... Interesting story about a crime set in the past, in which a suspect was actually arrested and tried, but still, doubts exist about what actually happened, like Christie's Five Little Pigs. The crux of the problem lies in the question why Yuhara didn't report the murder immediately, as you are usually wont to die if somebody is murdered in the same room. The solution doesn't require as much imagination as the story pretends, partially because it is clewed and hinted at early on, so in that sense, it's a fair solution, but it does seem to show its card too early, making the finale, despite having a twist, feel a bit underwhelming.

On the whole, this year's Honkaku-Ou proves to be another fairly decent anthology, though I do think it starts off stronger than it ends, and it misses a story I am really a fan of this year, though I do greatly prefer this one over last year's. And perhaps it's just me, but because most of the stories included in this book are pretty short (and the volume itself isn't very long either), I do often find myself liking the more lighthearted stories better. I often read this anthology while reading other things, so I'll be reading a different book and occasionally squeeze in one of the stories in this volume, but I always end up liking the ones offering mystery and a laugh the best. So that'll always skew my view on these books, I guess. Expect another look at the Japanese short story mystery scene next year! 

Original Japanese title(s): 『本格王2024』:東川篤哉「じゃあ、これは殺人ってことで」/ 結城真一郎 「悪霊退散手羽元サムゲタン風スープ事件」/北山猛邦「未完成月光 Unfinished moonshine」/ 青崎有吾 「人魚裁判」/ 荒木あかね 「答え合わせ」/宮内悠介「最後のひと仕事」

Puzzle for Pilgrims

"It's morphin' time!"

"Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned

残酷な天使のテーゼ

少年よ神話になれ 

(残酷な天使のテーゼ」(高橋洋子)

 

A Cruel Angel's Thesis

Boy, become a legend 

"A Cruel Angel's Thesis" (Takahashi Youko)

A few weeks ago, I reviewed one of Kitayama Takekuni's earlier novels, today it's his newest one!

When Tenjin Hitoshi made his debut as a professional writer in 1970, people mainly read social school mysteries, but his puzzle plot mysteries, or honkaku mystery novels were received so well, he brought forth a revolution, leading in the revival of the honkaku detective novel and the subsequent shin honkaku movement. People therefore refer to him as the God of Honkaku Mystery, but not only for his personal accomplishments, but also because he has also been pro-active in nurturing his fellow puzzle plot writers. Tenjin and his teenage son Noah live in the Moonlight Manor, a mansion in the woods faraway from the city, but this Moonlight Manor has been the home for many, many mystery writers: Tenjin often invites fellow mystery writers to stay in his home as his guests, sometimes for weeks, months or even years, as the Moonlight Manor offers them an environment where they can focus completely on their writing, as everything they need is provided for by Tenjin himself. Before Tenjin made his debut and bought the Moonlight Manor for himself, he too had lived here with other mystery writers, an experience comparable to the legendary Tokiwa-so, an apartment building where some of the greatest names in manga history lived together, so he knows very well how great a home like this can be for his fellow authors.

Kogi Uron's the newest guest to be invited to the Moonlight Manor, as Kogi's editor hopes an extended stay will finally help Kogi get over that writer's block and get started on a second novel. Kogi arrives on the first day of snow: an ominous day, as snowfall in this region is extremely harsh, and every winter, the Moonlight Manor gets snowed in, keeping the inhabitants inside for a month or so. Kogi is the sixth mystery writer currently residing in the Moonlight Manor, with the other guests being people like Yumekawa Ran, who was accused of plagiarism with her debut novel, and Kuromaki Koryuu, a mystery writer who looks up to the classics and writes in a very classical puzzle plot style. Most of the guests keep to themselves while staying at the Moonlight Manor however, and most writers only regularly see the two servants, or perhaps Tenjin's son Noah hanging around in the library. A few weeks pass by, and by now the Moonlight Manor is truly snowed in, as expected. On the Winter Solstice, everyone is invited by Tenjin Hitoshi to attend to a dinner, though not everyone comes. During the dinner however, a tape suddenly starts playing in the dining room, which accuses all seven mystery writers in the house of being guilty of one of the seven Cardinal Sins of honkaku mystery: pride, theft, ignorance, greed, kitsch, sloth and envy, and collectivelly they are dubbed the Seven Fallen Angels of honkaku mystery. The parallels with And Then There Were None and Mr. U.N. Owen are obvious, but nobody admits to knowing anything about the tape and nothing happens, so dinner ends early and everybody retreats to their room, thinkin it's just a prank. Of course, until the following the morning. When Tenjin Hitoshi can't be found for his breakfast, Noah and the servants find the dining room has been locked from the inside, and when they break the doors down, they find a crucified Tenjin Hitoshi upside down from the chandelier. And he's missing his head. Everyone of course now understands the tape wasn't just a prank, especially when they learn the phone lines and their internet connection have been cut and they can't get help from outside. Noah and Kogi decide to investigate this locked room murder, but it doesn't take long for a second locked room murder to occur, and a third... What is happening in the Moonlight Manor and what will happen when all Fallen Angels have been killed in Kitayama Takekuni's Gettoukan Satsujin Jiken ("The Moonlight Manor Murder Case" 2022)?

Kitayama's latest novel, released last week, is touted as being his attempt at a so-called yakata (house/mansion) story, the familiar trope of a creepy country house serving as a closed circle location as seen in works like The Decagon House Murders (*insert disclosure message about me translating said book*). Of course, in truth, Kitayama has written plenty of novels that follow that exact same trope, even if those books weren't formally set in buildings named as such. Three of the four books in his Castle series for example are practically speaking about "series of murders happening inside an isolated building" and Alphabet-sou Jiken, a book I reviewed just two months ago is basically the same too. And about half of the stories in his Danganronpa: Kirigiri novels follow the same trope too. So Kitayama tackling this type of story isn't really out of the ordinary at all, in fact, he's quite used to it, and you can definitely tell, for Gettoukan Satsujin Jiken is a very amusing novel, even if I don't think everything works out completely.

For example, Kitayama is of course best known for the mechanical trickery behind his locked room murders, and you have quite a few locked room murders in this book considering it's not actually a very long book. A decapitated man being crucified upside down in a locked dining room, a decapitated victim in a locked library, a decapitated man in an atelier... you might recognize a pattern here. Some of Kitayama's best work involve a lot of "moving parts" in the explanation of his locked rooms, with ingenious mechanisms that seal off a room and often in a way that is both absolutely ridiculous yet memorable and entertaining. Diagrams are a must in his books, and like I mentioned in my review of the last Danganronpa: Kirigiri novel, while Kitayama's puzzles are often very technical and mechnical, they are also at the core very simple, and can usually be explained with one clearly drawn diagram that explains all the magic, even if the concept and execution is fairly complex. The puzzles in Gettoukan Satsujin Jiken are, in comparison to some of Kitayama's other novels I'm familiar with, a bit smaller in scale, and while you can definitely recognize his hand in the manner in which he constructs his locked room murders, I do have to say they feel slightly underwhelming because of the more modest approach. A major warning by the way: this book explicitly re-uses, and spoils one of the locked rooms in Kitayama's own Rurijou Satsujin Jiken (and this is pointed out in the book), and while thematically, there's an explanation for it, it doesn't take away it does casually just use the same trick and tells you it's from Kitayamas novel, so I think a warning is fair. The other locked room murders that occur in this novel have fairly simple solutions and while none of them are "oh, wow, this is an idea I'm going to vividly remember in 10 years" they are functional and fit with Kitayama's style and are cleverly written in this tale. There's a different instance of misdirection that I will remember though, because I usually am not easily fooled by this type of misdirection, but Kitayama definitely caught me completely off-guard and I had to page back immediately to re-read the corresponding passages because I couldn't believe how I could have missed it!

For I do think the underlying themes of the book are really what sell Gettoukan Satsujin Jiken, but at the same time, it does feel a bit underplayed. The book is undoubtedly about honkaku and shin honkaku mystery fiction in Japan. While it rewrites history with the insertion of Tenjin Hitoshi as the "God of honkaku mystery" the book addresses a lot of "issues" that play among both authors and readers of the puzzle plot mystery. A writer being accused of plagiarism, even though she feels she was only inspired by a certain type of trickery in another novel, an novelist who is more about quantitity than quality, a writer who "abandons" mystery fiction because she can make more money in other genres, an author being so fixated on classic puzzle plot mystery he won't in the least accomodate to modern reading tastes and then starts criticizing the reading audience... Kitayama touches upon a lot of questions and problems that may play with contemporary mystery writers and makes it into a Grand Theme, calling them "Cardinal Sins" and having people murdered in this novel who are considered Fallen Angels of honkaku mystery. It is certainly an interesting approach... but you need to be somewhat familar with the history of honkaku fiction, shin honkaku fiction and trends in these genres to really appreciate what is touched upon here. For Kitayama doesn't do any of that for you. The book very much assumes you know all of this, and I think that without prior knowledge, the book does lose an important layer. Of course, this book is published in a line that is very much aimed at a very specific audience who is likely to know about all this, and had this book been written for a different publishing label, I think Kitayama might have expanded more on the history of honkaku mystery novels. In a way, it's similar to Garasu no Tou no Satsujin, which touches upon similar themes by looking back at the history of shin honkaku novels, but the latter tried more to explain the underlying themes by explaining more about the history within the book. But I do think Gettoukan Satsujin Jiken does point out some really interesting points about shin honkaku fiction in general and its future by focusing on the theme of the Seven Sins, and I think both authors of shin honkaku fiction, and people who are interested in the development of shin honkaku fiction will get a lot out of this book. Kitayama focuses on this theme in an almost fantasy-like manner/tone like we know from his Castle series, but it does keep you thinking about it even after you close the book.

The idea of a Tokiwa-so for mystery writers is pretty interesting by the way. People interested in the history of manga should of course know about Tokiwa-so: it was an apartment building where many of the legends of manga lived, including Osamu Tezuka, Ishinomori Shotaro, Akatsuka Fujio, Fujiko Fujio (both of them) and Mizuno Hideko. The idea of these young artists living together, helping each other out and inspiring each other is of course very attractive, and part of the reason why for example shojo manga legends Hagio Moto and Takemiya Keiko came to live together in a house that became known as the Ooizumi Salon. So the concept is very well known among people familiar with Japanese pop culture, so having the concept of a Tokiwa-so for mystery writers explored in this book was very fun, especially as I had been reading a lot on the Ooizumi Salon last year. While quite different from actually living together in one building, I guess a lot of university mystery clubs in Japan come close to the idea: young writers coming together, exchanging and bouncing off ideas at each other while all working on their own stories in their own style. I think it'd be pretty cool to read a story with a more straightforward take on the concept of a Tokiwa-so for mystery writers (without people ending up killing each other).

If you are already familiar with Kitayama's Castle series, I think you already have a good idea of what you can expect from Gettoukan Satsujin Jiken: despite the isolated, closed circle situation, the book does addresses rather big themes concerning shin honkaku fiction, themes that may have troubled Kitayama himself even and I think the book in that regards does make you think about the genre in a meaningful manner. The locked room murders are perhaps slightly less grand than you might expect from Kitayama, but I think that thematically, it works very well in this book, so that's not really a problem, but perhaps this is not the book you'll want to be reading as your very first Kitayama. Overall though, I really enjoyed this book and I think people who enjoy Kitayama's books and themes in general, will find this one quite satisfying. 

Original Japanese title(s): 山猛邦『月灯館殺人事件』

Murder in F Sharp

"How do you go about writing a detective story?"

- ""Well, you forget detection and concentrate on crime. Crime's the thing. And then you imagine you're going to steal something or murder somebody."

"Dial M for Murder"

When it comes down to it, I do really like reading series though, not because of recurring characters per se, but because it gives me a framework (settings/themes) of what I can reasonably expect. Which is why I often stick with series and seldom seem to try "new" things.

The Box of Genesis is a coffin-like box created in medieval times, of which it is believed it can make objects appear out of nowhere. While most believe it is an urban legend, its powers were proven to be true in 1982, when a German scientist who managed to obtain the Box of Genesis held a reception to show the Box off. Early in the party, a reporter asked to take a look inside, and everyone saw the Box was empty. The Box was left in the middle of the room, with the party going on around it, until near the end of the reception the reporter asked to have have another look inside. To the shock of everyone present however, they found a cut-up corpse inside the Box of Genesis, even though the Box had been right in the middle of the reception all that time and nobody could've just walked up to the box to put a bloody body inside without anyone noticing. While for some time, the police suspected its new owner of foul play, they never managed to figure out how where the body had come from, cementing the legend of the Box of Genesis. 

Eventually, the Box of Genesis found a new owner in Japan. The art collector Iwakura is also the owner of the Alphabet House, a mansion in the mountains that used to house missionaries. Long ago, these missionaries placed sculptures of some letters of the alphabet in the courtyard, and subsequent owners all added similar sculptures, and by now, all 26 letters of the alphabet are found in the mansion's main building, its annex and the courtyard that connects the two buildings. Iwakura often has house parties, and it's in 1998 that he invites a rather curious bunch, from a private detective to a doctor to Mikutsuki Miyuki, an actress in the theatre troupe Polka, who is accompanied by felllow actress/roommate Miiko and "De", a friend with a mysterious past. "De" has lost all memories of his past, but is a brilliant detective specializing in impossible crimes, hence his name "De" (from "Detective"). Once they arrive at the Alphabet House, the guests learn that their host isn't present yet, though the two part-time servants he has hired have all the instructions they need to entertain his guests. But Miiko hears from one of the guests that their host Iwakura might actually have been murdered some months ago already, leading to the question who actually invited them here. The guests also find the Box of Genesis in the large hall in the annex, and one of the people present happens to know about this out-of-place artifact (OOPart), telling them about the legend and the 1982 murder. The following morning, one of the guests staying in the annex can't be found anywhere there, despite the lack of footsteps in the snow in the courtyard, meaning they must still be in the annex. The Box of Genesis is missing. When the guests move to the main building, they find the Box of Genesis in the large hall on the second floor of the main building... with the murdered missing guest inside! But how did the victim, and the Box of Genesis go to the main building without leaving any footprints in the snow in the courtyard? The people are still wondering about what has really happened when another murder happens and a decapitated head appears inside a locked Box of Genesis. Can De figure these murders out in Kitayama Takekuni's Alphabet-sou Jiken (2002), which also has the English title The Case of Alphabet? 

I have read more than a few mysteries by Kitayama, but in a way, my reading of him is also very limited, as everything I have read of him fall into just two series: either it's his own four-novel Castle series, or it's the work he has provided for the Danganronpa franchise, like the Danganronpa: Kirigiri novels. Kitayama's best known for his technically-constructed locked room mysteries, with ingenious (and slightly over-the-top, ridiculous) mechanisms that create these impossible situations, and this aspect of his work is very clearly visible in the above-mentioned two series. Alphabet-sou Jiken was originally published in 2002, being a revised version of a novel he had written before his professional debut. The book had been published in a label of publisher Hakusensha, which was surprising to me, as it was not a publisher I immediately associate with mystery novels, even though they have mystery manga (like the classic Puzzle Game ☆ High Schooi). The book had been out of print for a long time, but saw a re-release by a different publisher in 2021 with a brand-new cover, and I figured it'd be an interesting way to read something beyond the two series I already knew.

Which is why it surprised me that thematically, Alphabet-sou Jiken is basically a side-story to the Castle series. There's a brief mention of a legend of the "Six Daggers of the Headless Knights" in this book, which is a recurring motif in the four books in the Castle series: while the settings/characters of those books are all completely unrelated, they do all refer to legends concerning cursed daggers and headless knights. But besides the cheeky reference, I'd say Alphabet-sou Jiken also feels very close to the Castle books in terms of atmosphere, with somewhat stange, almost cartooney characters and a distinct, fantasy-like vibe that delves into themes of fate and destiny, as well as a focus on legends. Had this been touted as a "full" spin-off of the Castle series, I would have believed it, and as this book was written before Kitayama's professional debut, I can't help wonder whether this book served as a prototype in terms of characterization and world-building for the Castle books, or whether he added these elements later when he revised it for the publication. One of the more obvious parts is early in the story, when one of the characters remarks the setting they are in is basically a detective story, and the character proceeds to destroy/damage the landline phone and the mobiles of the people present to intentoinally create a closed circle situation, to intentionally tempt fate so a murder will happen. This is also why, together with the harsh weather conditions the following day, the people inside the Alphabet House are not able to send for help immediately after the discovery of the murder. This is the type of meta-action we've seen in the Castle series before (especially 'Alice Mirror Jou' Satsujin Jiken), which have a distinct, fantasy-mystery-like atmosphere, but the first time you come across it in Alphabet-sou Jiken, it is rather surprising. Some may not like these kind of characters/actions, but it's another reason why I thought this book was basically a stealth entry in the Castle series.

As for the mysteries in this book, I felt the book does feel less refined than other works by Kitayama, probably because it was based on an older story. Most importantly, the two plot elements of the Box of Genesis and the alphabet structures in the Alphabet House feel completely unrelated, and you keep wondering why the book is about these two things: a box which can conjure objects out of nowhere, and a house with letters of the alphabet spread across the two wings and the courtyard. These are two completely different themes, so it just feels weird this book is about these two curious themes. I would've liked it if there was some kind of stronger backstory linking the two parts, rather than just "the current owner of the Box of Genesis also happens to be living in the Alphabet House." This book is fairly short, but I think it would have benefitted from more pages, allowing to build a stronger link between these elements and flesh out some of the events more.

As for the mysteries, I think the solutions are a bit simply, and perhaps undeveloped at times. For example, eventually, De also decides to tackle the 1982 case and he proves the cut-up body appearing in the Box of Genesis during a reception wasn't magic, but foul play, but the trick used there is in concept perfectly fine, even if simple, but doesn't quite practical, as it'd be easy for anything to go wrong with that method, (especially timing!), resulting in a botched plan rather easily. I do like how the fundamental concept of this trick is used in a very different, but related way in one of the 1998 murders, even if the method used there also seemed rather risky and prone to early discovery. The biggest mystery in this novel is of course the first 1998 murder, where the Box of Genesis and the first victim manage to disappear from the annex and reappear in the main building in one night, without anyone leaving any footprints in the snow in the courtyard. This part of the mystery is probably fairly easy to solve if you've already read a few Kitayama novels: it's the kind of trick he likes to use, and especially once a certain prop is introduced in the story, it's rather easy to guess how the murderer managed to pull the thing off. I think the misdirection that's pullled off here is interesting though: while I do honestly think it's easy to guess what happened even now, I think it is hidden in a way that can works best in its current form, in prose, in the letters on the page. If you'd visualize everything, I think the trick would have been even more obvious, so I did like that, because I only realized how really easy it'd be to guess the trick if you actually saw everuthing. That happens quite often with Kitayama's work I suppose, because of his love for more mechanical tricks, utilizing space and making use of moving object in general.

The ending has a nice bitter-sweet taste to it, like we often have in the Castle series (another similarity!). I like how the ending, almost surprisingly, does address some of the lingering questions I still had, specifically why these people had been invited to this party, and the themes of romance, fate and destiny touched upon in this ending are also themes we see developed more further in the Castle books, cementing Alphabet-sou Jiken as a proto-entry in the series. If you like the tone of those books, you'll definitely like this book too.

So in the end, I did not manage to move away from my familiar corner of Kitayama Takekuni's work by reading Alphabet-sou Jiken. It fits perfectly in the model of the Castle novels I already knew, but I do think I enjoyed the book more exactly because of it. As a mystery novel, Alphabet-sou Jiken does feel a bit lacking compared to the other Kitayama novels I've read: the tricks used are a bit simple and practical problems are ignored a bit too easily. Had it been a longer novel, some of these problems could've been helped I think, though I guess that ultimately, the four Castle novels are exactly that: more developed versions of the story found within the pages of this book. I wouldn't consider this book a must-read, but definitely interesting for those who have already read a few Kitayama works, to see what they can recognize in this work.

Original Japanese title(s): 北山猛邦『アルファベット荘事件』

Beautiful Ruin

「所詮始まりの終わりは終わりの始まりなどではなく、どうしたところで始まりの終わりでしかない。その後に終わりが始まるかどうかは、結局は終わってみないことには分からないのだ。」

『サイコロジカル 兎吊木垓輔の戯言殺し』

"After all, the end of the beginning is not the beginning of the end. Ultimately it's nothing more but the end of the beginning. Whether the end will begin afterwards, is just something we won't know until the end begins.'

"Psycho Logical - The Killing Joke of Utsurugi Gaisuke"

Ha, I knew the cover for this volume would connect to the previous one!

Sixteen-year-old Samidare Yui and thirteen-year-old Kirigiri Kyouko may appear to be normal students of a Girls Missionary Academy at first sight, but they are also both officially registered detectives who have solved many crimes. A curious murder case at the Sirius Observatory first brought these two girls together and in the few months that have passed since, the two have become best of friends. But the two are also united in their fight against the Crime Victim Salvation Committee, a secret organization that sells perfect murder plans and the means to commit them to crime victims, their family and/or loved ones looking for revenge. However, while the Committee draws up these intricate murder schemes, they will also invite a detective on the scene who will attempt to solve the murder and catch the culprit. This game of wits where the Committee arranges for both a criminal and a detective to be present and forearmed is dubbed the Duel Noir and this clash is broadcast to the Committee's financial sponsors as a form of entertainment. The last few months, Yui and Kirigiri have managed to inflict heavy blows to the organization and their sickening games by defeating the executive members of the organization and with that, the Crime Victim Salvation Committee is near destruction.

Kirigiri receives one final Duel Noir challenge: in the next 168 hours, a locked room murder will occur in the Sirius Observatory, where her battle against Crime Victim Salvation Committee started. Kirigiri and Yui travel back to the cold, snowy place there they first met, but they find they are not the only visitors. Three other "0" Class detectives (the highest class) are also present. The three detectives are all after the immense fortune managed by the Committee, as they have received information that the Crime Victim Salvation Committee is about to fall and that the Committee's financial resources are hidden within the Sirius Observatory. Kirigiri and Yui notice the Sirius Observatory has undergone quite some renovation since their last visit, one of the changes being a special door that only opens if five different persons register their biometric data in the system. The five enter the renewed Sirius Observatory, which is shaped like a five-pointed star, with five triangle-shaped rooms surrounding a main hall. The five detectives learn they have to chain themselves to each other in order to start the system inside the observatory: each chain is twenty meters long and connects to the right hand of a person at one end, and to the left hand of another person at the other end. Everyone is thus connected to the person next to them, and the chains themselves are also connected to the doors of the guest rooms in the building, meaning everyone is chained tight to the building itself too. Putting the chains on reveals a two-meter-wide pillar of ice is standing right in the middle of the main hall, holding a little black box in the centre: presumably the box will hold both the key to unlock these chains and the whereabouts to the Committee's fortune. The other three detectives are desperate to get their hands on the box, but the pillar of ice forms a formidable obstacle, as there are no tools to be found inside the observatory, and most of the furniture either burns badly, or is bolted down to the floor.

Little is achieved the first day and when the night falls, the five detectives learn that they all have to sleep in seperate rooms, which are all locked automatically until the morning. Not complying with these rules results in the detonation of a bomb, so they have little choice. The following morning, the doors are unlocked again, but they find one of them has been murdered in their room during their sleep! But how is this possible? All the guest rooms were locked automatically, there were no footprints in the frost on the floor of the main hall, the windows were locked from the inside, there were no footprints in the snow outside and the twenty-meter-long chains on each person's arm only allow little freedom of movement outside the observatory itself, so none of them could've sneaked out through the windows anyway. Chained to each other and with little food and water left for the following days, Kirigiri and Yui have to work fast to identify the murderer and escape this icy observatory in Kitayama Takekuni's highly anticipated Danganronpa Kirigiri 7 (2020).

For this volume is the long-awaited finale to the spin-off prequel series of the videogame series Danganronpa. The references to the main series are fairly lite by the way and knowledge of the games is not really necessary to read this novel series which focuses on the past of the popular character Kirigiri Kyouko. Kitayama Takekuni started in 2013 with this series, but the release schedule was rather irregular: sometimes we had two volumes within a year, sometimes nothing in over two years, so you never knew when the series would continue. He finally managed to finish this series now, on the tenth anniversary of the Danganronpa franchise, and I'm happy he did, because I do like the series, but the long wait between certain volumes was really frustrating.

This volume makes it clear right away that this is really the grand finale to the series: the story goes full circle by returning to the place where the series first started, we go more in-depth in the past of the novel-exclusive character Yui which was mostly alluded to in the first volume and even the core mystery plot feels like a grand finale, as it cleverly incorporates elements from previous stories. Five detectives locked and tied up in the Sirius Observatory, every detective being given a stash of cash money and the existence of rules governing their movements during the night, other elements originating from the obstacles faced during the trial of the Twelve Locked Room Temples (volumes 3, 4 and 5): nothing is spoiled from these earlier volumes, but the faithful reader will definitely notice the little references here and there to the whole Danganronpa Kirigiri series, with certain ideas and concepts from earlier murder plots making a reappearance, making this specific case really feel like the end point of the story. It's an interesting way to a finale in a mystery series: thinking about it, I don't think I have ever read a final story in a detective series that so cleverly incorporated elements mystery plots from earlier stories in a meaningful manner: Kitayama obviously isn't doing these references just because he's out of ideas and rehashing old material, he's intentionally making you recall earlier events and tricks to give you the "grand finale feeling," but also to play tricks on the reader, daring them to guess how he'll cook those ingredients this time to fool them.

The mystery plot itself is the kind we've come to expect from Kitayama: we have all these grand gimmicks like all the people being changed to each other and carefully thought-out settings that limit the movement/possible actions of all the actors in the tale (the dimensions of the observatory and the available furniture) and of course there's the Kitayama Special: the very silly, but highly entertaining locked room murder that depends on some mechanical trick that involves the layout of the setting. Interesting is how it uses the Sirius Observatory from the first volume in such a different manner: while the building is slightly renovated, it's still the same basic place, so I wonder whether Kitayama had already planned to use this place as the finale and knew he'd use this spot for two different stories, or that he came up with the trick for this novel at a later stage. For the idea is really fanciful and almost cartoony, but I really love the impossible locked room murder in this story, as it's just the type of ridiculousness I want from my mystery fiction and it fits perfect with the location. One thing I always like about Kitayama's locked room murders is how you often the trick can always be explained visually. Most of the books I've read of him, including this series, feature a lot of diagrams, and often there's that one diagram that explains all the magic in just one simple figure, even if the concept and execution is fairly complex. The same here, where all the little things and hints suddenly fall in their right place the moment you see the corresponding diagram. The idea also works wonderful with all the side-elements Kitayama introduces for this story and it even allows for some really nice deduction scenes that are less about "somehow guessing how that ridiculous trick was done", but more about layered logical reasoning based on the evidence we see before us and the logical implications of the actions taken by the characters. This volume and volume 2 were the longest volumes in this series, and they were also by far the best parts of this series.

This volume even finds room to add in false solutions and actually tell a genuine story, which some of the previous volumes really struggled with: volumes 3 until 5 especially were far too short and often felt like lengthy summaries of a mystery tale, rather than actual stories that could stand on their own. It didn't help that they were also written in a way that certain cases weren't solved within the same volume, but would carry over to the next one, but even if you'd ignore that, it can't be denied that most of the locked room murders we see during the Trial of the Twelve Locked Room Temples lacked depth because it had to handle a lot of locked room murder cases within limited page numbers, while something with the length of Danganronpa Kirigiri 7 really shows what this series could have done. Danganronpa Kirigiri 7 takes the time it needs to properly end its tale of how Kirigiri and Yui bonded over the course of this series and to set things up for the events of the first Danganronpa videogame. Oh, and for Kirigiri fans: ever wanted to know the backstory of why Kirigiri wears gloves? It's here!

Danganronpa Kirigiri has been a series that did not always live up to its potential. While the core impossible murder plots were always interesting, the hasty middle part lacked depth, making the series feel more like a work-in-progress at times. Danganronpa Kirigiri 7 however brings the series back to form in its long-awaited finale, and it was worth it! A great conclusion with much-appreciated references to past events/murder plots and a genuinely well-built up ending to the tale of the besties Yui and Kirigiri. At one hand, I'm happy this series has ended now, especially in this form, but I have to admit I'm sad we won't see the duo of Yui and Kirigiri anymore, as the whole franchise has moved on already, and it's unlikely we'll ever even hear references to Yui, as she's a character exclusive to this novel series and Kirigiri's story in the other media (games/anime) is now over. Danganronpa Kirigiri might not always do what you want it to do, but in the end, I'm glad I decided to read this series, and that's not even said only as a Danganronpa fan.

Original Japanese title(s): 北山猛邦　『ダンガンロンパ　霧切り７』

The Girl Who Couldn't Remember

Memento mori

The last few years, all my encounters with Kitayama Takekuni were through Danganronpa, whether it being through his spin-off novel series Danganronpa Kirigiri or through his advisory role for New Danganronpa V3. Today, I go back to his Castle series, which is how I was first introduced to him in 2011.

Castle series
'Clock Castle' Murder Case (2002)
'Lapis Lazuli Castle' Murder Case (2002)
'Castle Alice Mirror' Murder Case (2003)
'Guillotine Castle' Murder Case (2005)

Rurijou Satsujin Jiken ("'Lapis Lazuli Castle' Murder Case", 2002) starts in 1989, inside the so-called The Library At The End of the World, a small private library situated outside town on the northern-most tip of the northern Japanese island Hokkaido. One of the few frequent visitors of the library is the eighteen year old Kimiyo, who unfortunately due to a brain tumor only has about a half year of life left. She spends her days here in the library, accompanied by her friends: the two librarians Kirisame and Utamika, and the student Miki. One day, Kimiyo is suddenly spoken to by a new visitor, a man calling himself Kito. He has a rather odd story: he claims Kimiyo and he have already met in a previous life. In fact, he says that they have come across each other countless of times, destined to find each other with each new reincarnation. He claims this is the Curse of the Six Daggers, which each time will attract them to one of the daggers (and indeed, the library has one of those daggers in the storage). Kito says that each new life, Kimiyo and he become lovers, but in the end, one of them always ends up killing the other with one of the cursed daggers. The curse is supposed to originate from the thirteenth century, with their "original" souls being a French lady and her knight. Kimiyo obviously doesn't believe much of the story initially, neither do her friends, but the whole thing escalates in the worst possible manner, when one morning, Kirisame arrives in the library to find Kimiyo lying in a pentagram made out of books, with the decapitated heads of Utamika and Miki hanging in the room. But not only was the room completely locked from the inside, what makes this really baffling is that Kirisame swears Kimiyo wasn't stabbed yet when he saw her lying from outside the room, but she was stabbed by the cursed dagger when he finally made her way to her. Kirisame has no idea what's going on here, until a mysterious androgenous person calling themselves Snowy appears on the scene and declares they will solve this mystery.

Meanwhile, the reader is also introduced to two other time periods visited by this Snowy. In 1916's Germany, a French Second Lieutenant is fighting in the trenches, when one day, he hears of a story of German soldiers suddenly losing their head. He later finds an underground room in the trenches where four decapitated soldiers lie, but after a short fight, he finds all four bodies have disappeared completely from that room, even though there were soldiers on guard in all the passages leading away from that room. Snowy is also a visitor in 1243's France, home of the Lapis Lazuli Castle, inhabitated by Geoffroy on the orders of the House of Toulouse. Geoffroy's daughter, Marie is in love with Rayne, one of the "Six Knights for Marie", a special unit Geoffroy appointed to his daughter. Her mother disappeared several years ago without any trace from the castle, and she has confided in Rayne to investigate it. However, Marie's knights have only started when one night, all six knights disappear mysteriously from the heavily guarded castle too. Eventually, the six decapitated bodies of the knights are found near an upstream lake. But what is odd is that the knights were discovered there the morning after their disappearance, but it takes several days to travel that far upstream. Marie is desperate when Snowy appears to explain how Rayne and the other knights managed to disappear.

Rurijou Satsujin Jiken is the second book in Kitayama's Castle series and the last one I hadn't read yet, but if you go through the other reviews, you might notice that the books do not form one narrative or even share the same world. They are all standalone stories, each set in rather unique worlds with some supernatural elements, with the main connecting tissue being that they all feature castles or manors as their main decor. So you can read them completely independently from each other, in any order. There are some small references shared between them, but nothing major. For example, there is mention of a tale of six decapitated knights too in Guillotine Jou Satsujin Jiken and the titular Clock Castle's official name is actually Geoffroy's Manor. The major similarities between the stories are the castle settings, the emphasis on impossible murders (often featuring some grand mechanical trick behind them) and fantasy/science-fiction elements playing a role in the background. For example, reincarnation in Rurijou Satsujin Jiken is actually real, and yes, Marie from thirteenth century France is really Kimiyo in twentieth century Japan. You have to roll with these ideas in this series, but more about this later.

First: the mysteries. We are presented with three different situations this time, all set in different time periods and quite different, even if they have some thematic similiarities (decapitated bodies). One problem all three situations have is that the set-up for each of them is rather short: Snowy basically appears immediately afer the mystery is presented, and they start deducing right away. The 1989 library murder for example has few good ideas about how the room was actually locked, but you barely get any time to think about it. What is important to note however is that this trick is... really hard to imagine just by reading the explanation. I had to read the text a few times and still didn't really get, but one look at the diagram that followed was enough for me to finally comprehend it, even without the textual explanation. Kitayama's pretty infamous for his rather technical, and mechanically sound construction of locked room mysteries, but I often do need a visual aid to really get it. The trick behind how Kimiyo was stabbed in an instant is a bit shakey, but it's nicely camouflaged and relatively easy to imagine. But still, everything feels a bit hasty.

The 1916's disappearance of the four soldiers from the trenches is the least interesting mystery presented in the novel. The solution itself is a bit mundane, and it doesn't really help that the prose didn't do much to really support the presentation of the mystery: some parts are rather vague, so when the whole thing is explained, you just shrug and think, 'Okay, that could happen if it was like that, but it wasn't really clear in the text.' The disappearance from the knights from the Lapis Lazuli Castle is likely the one to leave the most impression. The concept behind how the bodies actually ended up so far within half a day is basically one of those 'if you happen to know this piece of trivia, you're good and else you're out of luck' which don't do much for me. How the knights actually disappeared from the castle is incredibly obvious once a certain prop is introduced in the story, but it's so wonderfully silly and grand, reminiscent of those early Shimada Souji stories, that I can't help but have a weak spot for it. It's insane, in a good way, and that's actually when this series is at its best.

Back to the reincarnation topic though. While reincarnation is treated as real in this story, and it's also used to spring some surprises on the reader, one might be surprised that it's not really part of the mystery plot proper. Some of the reveals Snowy makes about how reincarnation works and how it influences the plot of this novel come almost out of nowhere, and while they make internally sense, you are never really expected to figure how things work for yourself. Kitayama does use the reincarnation theme for a small, but clever event late in the book, but it almost feels like an extra. For the most part, you just roll with the reincarnation thing, and accept that some events work out this or that way, because of how it is explained within the novel (mostly by Snowy), rather than working the thing out in advance yourself.

Like all the other books in the Castle series, I think I ultimately do like them, but they are also always rather hard to just recommend to people. The science-fiction/fantasy settings can be a bit disorientating for some readers, especially as each novel has a completely different setting and you often feel like you're only reading part of a story, as if you're missing context regarding the rest of the world. This is also true for Rurijou Satsujin Jiken, though I have to say it's perhaps the best at presenting a complete, standalone world compared to the other novels in series. The three impossible situations are a bit hit or miss though as each time, the process set-up-discovery-solution is rather short. Unique however, this book certainly is and overall, I am definitely glad I now read all of Kitayama's Castle books.

Original Japanese title(s):  北山猛邦『「瑠璃城」殺人事件』