The Lamp of God

Rationality, that was it. No esoteric mumbo jumbo could fool that fellow. Lord, no! His two feet were planted solidly on God's good earth. 

"The Lamp of God"

Kitayama Takekuni is an author discussed on this blog and that is usually in his role as a writer who specializes in locked room murders with a mechanical trick behind them. If you look at his work in the Danganronpa Kirigiri novels, as well as the Danganronpa and Rain Code games, and of course his Castle series, and the adjecent novels Alphabet-sou Jiken/The Case of Alphabet (2002) and Gettoukan Satsujin Jiken ("The Moonlight Manor Murder Case" 2022), you'll quickly recognize his knack for inventing original and usually bombastic mechanical tricks to his locked room murder situations, almost like he's playing a round of The Incredible Machine. The first installment in the newest Castle book, which started its serialization in the summer, too promises to be another show his inventive mind.

But before that, we have a different kind of impossible mystery to discuss in regards to Kitayama. Late September saw the release of his newest short story collection Kami no Hikari ("The Light of God", 2025), which collects five stories set in different times and about different people, but all connected through one theme: the impossible disappearance of houses. In each of these stories, Kitayama pulls off the magnificent feat of making a whole building, or in one case, a while city disappear without leaving a trace. This might be the very first mystery short story collection that is built completely around this trope in the genre, and in fact, on the obi the editor of the book mentions how the mere suggestion of Kitayama to write such a collection caused them to feel dizzy. But Kitayama certainly managed it, and the result is a fine example of short mystery fiction.

The first story was originally published in 2004 and is titled 1941-nen no Mauser ("A 1941 Mauser") and starts in 1986, in an old bar in Leningrad. A hunter has ventured to visit this bar, named Heroes, because many old veterans who fought in the Second World War still visit this place: our hunter looks up to the military life and hopes he can become a sniper one day, so he hopes to chat a bit with the war veterans. One of the veterans, a former sniper, tells the man about a strange experience he had back in 1941, right in the middle of the war when the Nazis were entering the Soviet Union. The Nazis were also after treasures, and one of those targets was the Glass Room, a "sister" to the Amber Room in the Catherine Palace. As the name would suggest, the Glass Room consisted of beautiful glass and crystal ornaments and was worth a fortune. The Nazis were planning to move the valuables out of the room, but such an operation would take days due to the delicacy of the treasures inside. The Red Army therefore decides to install a two-man sniper unit at a place overlooking the manor faraway: they could easily take out any Nazis attempting to steal the Union's treasure, especially as the Nazis could only transport the treasures out during the day, meaning they don't even have to watch it overnight. The two men brought to an impromptu watchtower, which allows for a good sight on the manor. They spot a Nazi soldier on the rooftop, but don't take any action. When the sun sets, they move to their camp and return to the watchtower the following day, only to find the whole manor missing. Did the Nazis steal the whole building in one night, or something else going on.

This is a great opening story: like the other stories in this volume, it makes great use of the historical setting, both for the atmosphere, but also in terms of how it relates to the mystery, for example when it comes to clueing. While the story is fairly short, Kitayama manages to go over a lot of the "likely" theories that would explain the impossible disappearance and discard them for various reasons, from practicality problems to some "solutions" simply not making any sense to do in the first place. The way Kitayama manages to use a certain clue to both discard a likely theory, but also use it as a definite clue to point to the true solution is really great. The trick itself is grand, as you might expect from Kitayama. It's nuts in terms of how feasible it is in real-life, but it is thematically very fitting. You could easily imagine this trick being used for a "minor" disappearance, but it wouldn't be Kitayama if he didn't use it on something as grand as a whole building.

The title story Kami no Hikari ("The Light of God") goes one step further, and is about the disappearance of a whole city! A not-so-lucky gambler strikes up a conversation with someone at a bar who challenges our gambler, promising to pay out some money if our gambler can come up with a mystery our challenger  can't solve. The gambler himself doesn't even need to know the answer himself, as long as it's a mystery that occured in real-life in relation to himself. The gambler recalls the mysterious experience his grandfather had in 1930: unlike his grandson, his grandfather George was a great gambler: a well-honed sense of memory allowed him to win often at cards and other games and while he had to be careful, he managed to slowly amass enough money to allow him to leave his hometown and try his luck in Las Vegas. He knew the casinos there were careful for people like him who could memorize cards, so his idea was just to make one single strike that could set himself up for life. As he explores the various games, he happens to overhear some high-rollers, who talk about an exclusive invitations-only bus leaving in the early morning for a secret location. George quickly deduces the bus will bring those guests to a special casino with higher stakes and payout rates. He sneaks in the luggage compartment of the bus the following morning and an hour later, he finds himself in a secret city built in a kind of basin. He manages to win some money and decides to steal a bike to get out of town quickly before they realize he's not an invited guest, but soon after he's out of town, his bike breaks down, forcing him to spend the night in a small cabin. When he wakes up the following morning however and looks back.... he finds the whole city missing, and a mysterious light shining down at him. The whole experience makes him feel dizzy. The next moment, he wakes up at the airport, with some pocket money and a ticket for the first flight out of town in his pocket. What happened here?

The title of the story is of course inspired by Ellery Queen's The Lamp of God (another impossible disappearing house story) and the divine light George sees is a vital clue in this story too, but otherwise, there's not much that ties these stories together.This is a story with a great atmosphere though and we also have a Kitayama who's great at snubbing out the solutions you're likely to think of first with both physical evidence and otherwise logical arguments against them. While these stories are all fairly short, usually consisting of 5 segments of which only the middle ones are dedicated to the mystery, and the first and last sections to the framing story, Kitayama always manages to discuss multiple theories, which is pretty impressive. I think the build-up and the atmosphere of this story is great, but depending on your background, the solution might be a bit easier to guess than for the average Japanese reader. I like the story a lot, but certain references did nudge my mind towards a certain theory early on, which proved to be right. Which is a bit of a shame, because it makes me feel like I solved it partially not based on the clues, but just on random knowledge. Which is perhaps a thing here, the solution is definitely better more memorable than the actual path to the solution/the clues.

The third story I already discussed last year, as it was included in the anthology Honkaku-Ou 2024 ("The King of Honkaku 2024"). I refer to that review for my thoughts on the Poe-inspired Mikansei Gekkou - Unfinished moonshine ("Unfinished Moonshine"), but it is cool to see how that story too is part of the "historical setting" theme of this collection.

Fujiiro no Tsuru ("Lavender Cranes") is a story set in three different ages, focusing on three impossible disappearances of buildings. All stories focus on a female member of the Fujiwara clan who possess enigmatic abilities and the young men they protect in their respective ages. In the Heian period, in 1055, while a young male heir of the Fujiwara clan is on the run, a shrine maiden manages to make a whole shrine standing on top of a mountain disappear. In 1999, a young man who lost the ability to play the violin visits the countryside, where a girl preparing for a local festival spirits a shrine on a hill away. And in 2055, a woman of Japanese descent who is a member of the clan running FUJIWARA Industries is suspected to be involved in making a whole military fortress disappear. What binds these three mysteries across the ages? 

A mystery that is somewhat reminiscent of Rurijou Satsujin Jiken (The" Lapis Lazuli Castle” Murder Case): while they don't talk about reincarnation here, the fact we have similar characters appear across multiple ages in a kind of star-crossed destiny manner, and have them deal with similar mysteries of course rings some bells. This is a story, where the atmosphere wins it from the actual trick behind the disappearances: while the trick, which is basically the same across all ages, is one you can understand on a theoretical level, it becomes a bit fantastical when you have to imagine it being used for real. However, because there's a somewhat fantastical atmosphere in the first place, with the story jumping between the ages and presenting a similar disappearances in different contexts, it does work here.

 Synchronicity Serenade is a story originally written for this collection and deals with a reporter who has a recurring dream of an ash-white house, which is then swallowed by the fog and disappears. He mentions it on social media, and is suddenly contacted by a professor, who says he's been having the same dream, and that there are others too who experience the same. He invites the reporter to join his workgroup, as the professor has been researching this phenomenom, but while the reporter initially thinks it has to be fake, he slowly starts to have doubts when the professor shows him a picture of the very house he had been dreaming off. The professor even has an address, so the reporter decides to investigate the house himself to learn why he's been having these dreams, but can he reach an answer?

This is a somewhat different story, as it's set in the modern time and we don't really have an impossible disappearance: it only disappears in the dreams, and the investigation is more focused on why they are having these recurring dreams, and whether the professor is really investigating these dreams or not. The whole story has a somewhat dreamy feeling to it because of that, and while I think the final solution presented is interesting on its own and fits the vibe of the tale, I think the false solution presented earlier feels more in-line with the other stories in this collection.

These were the five stories included in this book, but if you buy your copy of Kami no Hikari via the stores of Kinokuniya within a certain period, you actually get another extra story. At least, your receipt is extended to include an original illustration by Kitayama himself celebrating the release of the book, and a QR-code that leads to another Kitayama story about an impossible disappearance. The story Sayounara, Usagi-dan ("Farewell, Bunny Gang") was originally published in 2011, in issue 49 of the magazine Mysteries! and it was meant to be a farewell to the black bunnies that had been featured on the cover of the magazine for quite some years. Kitayama had been a fan of the illustrations, so he wanted to give them a grand farewell, which involved him reimagining the bunnies as a gang of children without parents, who act as phantom thieves while wearing bunny masks. Hot on their trail are two other children, a sister and a brother, who are great detectives. The tale starts off with the Bunny Gang pulling off another heist succesfully and the narrating bunny gang member announcing their next heist will be his last, as he's too old to remain in the gang. Their next taget turns out to be an entire building, but can the detective siblings prevent such an audacious heist?

This story has been described as a hidden Kitayana masterpiece, and indeed, it's much better than one would expect as a playful farewell story to some magazine mascottes. The story is fairly short, but withi that limited amount of space, Kitayama manages to set-up the whole fictional world of the Bunny Gang, our narrating bunny and the two detective siblings, and also set-up two impossible crimes: one in the in media res opening scene and the main mystery of the disappearing building. The solution of the latter is as grand as Kitayama can get, but it's a bit easy to guess and I have seen another impossible building story that uses the same basic foundation (but with a very different outcome). The first one is the kind of impossible theft you could imagine Lupin the Third of Kaitou KID to pull off and is pretty fun. But I honestly don't understand why this story isn't included in the Kami no Hikari collection properly. While I get it's a bit different in terms of atmosphere, as this is cartoonier than the historical, realistic settings of the stories in the collection and perhaps the story works better with the context of them being Mysteries! mascottes, but still, it's a damn fun story that should be in a proper collected release.

At this point, you can guess what I am going to say here: yes, Kitayama Takekuni's Kami no Hikari is definitely worth a read. It's unique as a collection focusing on disappearing buildings and while some of the solutions to these mysteries feel a bit more fantastical than others, I think these stories are worth a read, as they are all really solid stories, with great set-ups and fantastic atmosphere. If possible, I'd also recommend you to purchase a copy via Kinokuniya in Japan to get the bonus story, though this might only be applicable for physical copies and bought at the physical stores themselves (as I got the code printed as an extension to my receipt). 

Original Japanese title(s):　北山猛邦『神の光』:「一九四一のモーゼル」 / 「神の光」 / 「未完成月光 Unfinished moonshine」 / 「藤色の鶴」 / 「シンクロニシティ・セレナーデ」/「さようなら、ウサギ団」

Case for Three Detectives

"The more that you read, the more things you will know."

"I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!"  

I know I haven't been keeping up with my video game reviews lately, partially simply because I have found it more difficult to find the time to play games, and when I do finally finish them, I forget about writing the review. So err, Staffer Case review, I'll get to it one day!

And yes, I did also play Toshi Densetsu Kaitai Center, or as it's better known outside of Japan: Urban Myth Dissolution Center. I had of course already played the Wakaidou Makoto games by the same developer in the past and reviewed them here, so I been looking forward to playing Urban Myth Dissolution Center when it was first announced, and I did get it on the release date. Long story short, I loved the game overall, though it's definitely a game that was better in atmosphere and mood than the actual gameplay, which can be very tedious and repetitive. The game has been well received in Japan, with a lot of merchandise being produced, the series seeing a manga adaptation and a novel adaptation and it also won a Japan Game Award earlier this week.

Anyway, I have been really into the game, so I had been looking forward to Toshi Densetsu Kaitai Center - Danpenshuu (2025) or as the cover also says: Urban Myth Dissolution Center - Collection of Fragments, which released last week in Japan. While there is a "straight" novelization of the game events available too, Collection of Fragments is a short story collection by five different authors, each presenting a completely original story. These stories are "fragments" set before, during and after the events of the actual game, so fans of the game who long for more material, should defnitely look into this book. For those who haven't played the game, the basic premise is that there is a shady organization called the Urban Myth Dissolution Center, a kind of detective agency specializing in abnormal occurences that are related to urban legends. The center is led by the enigmatic Meguriya, an absolute nerd for all things urban legend, but also cunning and manipulative in the way he controls his employees. The center has two "field workers": Jasmine, who provides transport and support and recently hired (duped) Azumi, a college student who has a weird ability that allows her to see ghosts of the past, a power that proves useful in solving the cases she and Jasmine investigate under the supervision of Meguriya. One warning however is that this book is best played after playing the game, as it does spoil certain key events and character reveals of the game. Also: you play the game from the perspective of Azumi, but the three stories of the five that focus on the center, are told from the POV of Jasmine, and because of that, certain things you only learn later on in the game, are revealed right away to the reader (as obviously, Jasmine herself would know about herself). So reader, be warned.

The first story, Ten wo Tsunagu Mono ("Those who Connect the Dots") is by Van Madoy, who mentioned on Twitter (what doesn't he mention on Twitter) that he did his best to make sure it was a proper puzzle mystery story. His story is set soon after the first case in the game, and starts when Azumi and Jasmine are asked to investigate a fried chicken restaurant's security footage, which for some reason has been leaked on the internet. The footage is of the owner closing his shop, but after the shop's closed, a mysterious animal-like creature walks by, sparking rumors of genetically modified chickens being used in the shop. As Azumi and Jasmine investigate the rumors and the footage however, they learn there's more behind this case than meets the eye. Of all the five stories in this collection, this is definitely the most orthodox mystery story. Because the story is told from the point of view of Jasmine, the story feels different from the game: important segments in the game where you'd play as Azumi and solve certain mysteries, happen off-screen while Jasmine is relaxing in the company van, and things like that, but overall, the mystery is decently constructed (though a bit obvious) and while the identity of the mysterious creature is a bit silly, it kinda works in this world, considering the theme of these games and the use of the social media aspect of the game in this story is pretty clever.

Shikku suru Bourei ("The Racing Phantom") has Jasmine and Azumi investigate a famous urban legend: the headless motorcycle racer! A video of an influencer has been gaining views lately, as the image of a headless motorcycle racer was spotted in the background, and more witnesses claim to have seen this racer on the mountain roads. Is this headless racer really a ghost, or is it the handiwork of a man? This story by Tsukinami Kira is very faithful to the atmosphere of the game, following the same structure of Azumi and Meguriya first determining what the urban myth is they are dealing with and the subsequential dissolution of the myth, and also includes the social media investigation aspect of the game; while the Madoy story use the social media aspect in a more clever way, the use here feels more like the game. While the trick behind the racer itself is not super surprising, I think as an Urban Myth Dissolution Center story, this one was by far the most succesful at providing "more content like the game." 

Ki no Mori, Tatariishi ("The Forest of Taboos, The Cursed Stone") by Miyamoto Mirei and Hibe Seika's Shinrei Flamenco ("Ghost Flamenco") both focus not on the center trio, but on fan favorite characters, going by all the fanart on social media: in the former story, we see the influencer Kinoko and Yamada Gasmask go on a camp together, while in the latter, we follow a certain tour guide soon after he returns to Japan after living abroad, and his experience with a ghost haunting the place he lives at. The first is barely a mystery story, but the tour guide story is actually a pretty fun, if predictable horror-mystery story that is also genuinely funny. 

Tomariki ni Kyuusoku wo ("To Perch") by Okita Yoshihito is set some months after the climatic finale of the game, so even more spoiler warnings here. The story once again opts to follow Jasmine, who this time is on her own as she's hired to help transport the young child of a high-ranking official to a safe place. The boy however claims he saw a ghost. Jasmine has no powers unlike Azami and Meguriya, so she doesn't feel like she's the right person to be doing this, but the reader soon learns she can certainly hold her own when t comes to investigating seemingly supernatural cases. The case itself is not super exciting, but it proides an adequate explanation to why the boy saw a ghost. While the story is set after the main game, it works perfectly as a bridge to the epilogue of the game, so definitely recommended reading for those who like Jasmine as a character.

Overall, I'd say Collection of Fragments is a pretty fun read... if you're a fan of Urban Myth Dissolution Center. It does the bare minimum to explain the basic setting/characters of the game, but on the other hand, it is not afraid to spoil certain twists of the game early on, so it really knows it audience. This also means the mystery plots are not that complex, as they were not like that in the game either. In that respect, I do think Madoy wrote the most complex one (even if on a scale, it's still fairly simple). The second story is the best Urban Myth Dissolution Center-esque story though, and the one you must read if you long for more of the type of stories you played in the game.

While I am at it, I wanted to very briefly discuss two other game-related stories I read earlier this week: they are so short they don't really warrant their own post, so I might as well talk about them here. The first one is Kamaitachi no Yoru: A Novel (Night of the Sickle Weasles - A Novel", 1995) by Abiko Takemaru. This was a completely original novella included in the Kamaitachi no Yoru Official Fan Book and acts as another "variant" of the basic story of the first and very influential Kamaitachi no Yoru game on the Super Famicom, a game that plays as a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure and which revolves around a murder that happens in a small lodging house that has been snowed in. Abiko was the original writer of the game, and so it's only fitting he wrote this extra scenario, which again revolves around murders happening in the pension Spur. The story is presented as a Guess-the-Culprit scenario, with seperated "problem" and "solution" parts and a Challenge to the Reader, but the story is fairly short and Abiko spends a lot of time focusing on the clues necessary to solve the mystery, making it too obvious what the main trick is about. This scenario was included in certain later ports/remakes of the game (I believe the GameBoy Advance port, as well as the PS Vita remake), but it's not something you're really missing out on if you happen to have a different version that lacks this story. Interestingly, this novel is actually printed "backwards" in the Kamaitachi no Yoru Official Fan Book: if you start from the normal "front" cover, you get all the fan-oriented content like interviews and things like that, if you start from the "back", you simply start reading Kamaitachi no Yoru: A Novel. 

The other story I wanted to discuss is Kitayama Takekuni's Choutantei no Narikata - Halara Nightmare no Baai, or How To Be A Master Detective: A Halara Nightmare Case, which is a short story Kitayama wrote for the enhanced release of the game Rain Code (Rain Code +), with Halara being one of the master detectives who works with game protagonist Yuma as they investigate the curious incidents in the Kanai Ward. This story is set in the past and starts with Halara being transported in a prison van. They infiltrated the prison in search of missing mafia money, but things went wrong, and now Halara's being treated like a real prisoner. An accident later means an escape not only for him, but also for the other inmates who were being transported. It's snowing heavily outside though, so they seek shelter, but when they arrive at a little cabin, they find the murdered body of another fellow inmate who was being transporte. Who is the killer? The story is fairly short, but I think Kitayama did a great job at presenting a story that builds on Halara as presented in the game, but used in a way the game couldn't do. I was actually surprised by how neatly he pulled it off. If you already have vanilla Rain Code, I wouldn't say it's worth upgrading to Rain Code + just for this story, but if you can read it, definitely do!

I didn't really manage to write too deeply about the mystery plots of today's books, but the main theme is the same for all three books: these books are definitely meant for the people who have already played the games they are based on, so don't even consider reading them if you haven't played them. Of these three, I think the Urban Myth Dissolution Center and Rain Code ones do have interesting points about them that make them worth a read, while the Kamaitachi no Yoru story fails to add something substantial or original (and you can actually play it in game form in certain versions of the game anyway).

Original Japanese title(s): 『都市伝説解体センター　断篇集』:円居挽「点を繋ぐ者」/月並きら「疾駆する亡霊」/  宮本深礼「忌の杜、祟り石 」/ 日部星花「幽霊フラメンコ」/ 尾北圭人「泊まり木に休息を」 

我孫子武丸『かまいたちの夜　A Novel』 

北山猛邦『超探偵のなり方 ハララ＝ナイトメアの場合』

The Sound of Murder

「『ミステリ』では人が死ぬ。人が死なない『ミステリ』もあるが、ほとんどは人が奇妙な死に方をしている。串刺しされたり、バラバラにされたり・・・それは忌むべき物語だ。だがどうして昔の人たちは、『ミステリ』を書き、『ミステリ』を読んだのだろう。どうしてそれを喜んで受け入れたのだろう。人が殺されると嬉しいから『ミステリ』を読むのではないのか？もっとたくさん、人が死ねば、君たちは喜ぶのではないのか？」

 『オルゴーリェンヌ』

 

 "People die in mystery stories. There are mystery stories where nobody dies, but in most of them, people die in curious ways, like being impaled or cut in pieces... these are stories we should abhor. So why did the people of yore write mystery stories and read them? How could they embrace them with such joy? Does it mean they read mysteries, because they become happy when someone is killed? Don't you find it more joyous when even more people are killed?"

"Orgellienne"

I'm never sure what to think of when they change the cover of a book when they release the paperback pocket version, but still keep the same general style/idea of the trade paperback version. Why change it in the first place then...?

A long time has passed since books were banned from the world: books were seen as the source of evil, planting ideas in the minds of people and thus needed to be eradicated from the world. Mystery novels in particular were seen as a shameful past: how could people find pleasure in stories about killing others? However, before all the books were burned, some great mystery fans did everything to make sure future generations could still enjoy mystery fiction: they decided to store all mystery fiction as pure data. These people hid specialized data sets, like a set on "locked room mysteries" with the relevant books and secondary literary in so-called "Gadgets": jewels that hold the data sets and which are imbedded in other items, like a scarf. Chris has inherited such a Gadget, holding the set on The Narrator in mystery fiction, and since then, he has become interested in the forgotten art of mystery fiction, and he hopes to become a mystery writer himself. For that, he needs to find more Gadgets, and that is why he is travelling the world. However, that is a dangerous trip, as Censors are desperately hunting after any remaining books in the world: whenever they locate a book, it's not only the book that gets burned down, but the whole place it was found, just to be sure there are no other books there. The Boy Censors are particularly feared throughout the world: they have been trained since their childhood to look specifically for Gadgets and are relentless in their hunts. However, during a previous adventure, Chris became somewhat friendly with the young censor Eno, who let Chris go despite knowing he was carrying a Gadget.

During his travels, Chris learns an old friend, Kirie, has been looking for him, and he receives a message telling him to go to the place they first met. Chris carefully makes his way towards the harbor town, but on his way there, he runs into the mute girl Yuyu, who is being chased by censors. The two are detected and chased throughout the city, but are surprisingly saved by Eno, who picks the two up in his car. Eno drives to the harbor town, where they find Kirie at a small clinic, as he's very ill and has not long to live anymore. Eno explains Yuyu is being suspected of being in the possession of a Gadget. Yuyu is a housemaid who lives in Carillon House, a house located on one of the "new islands" that have emerged ever since the sea levels have been rising (i.e. it is a part of a city that has become mostly submerged, making it into an island). The censors got anonymous information a Gadget was hidden at the house, and the boy censor Karte and his lieutenant Eve are now at the house looking for it, but last night, Yuyu disappeared, which of course made her the prime suspect of having taken the Gadget away. It turns out that very rarely, once every few months, a cramped path appears between the island and the mainland at low tide, and last night happened to be such a time, which is why Yuyu managed to escape without a boat. Yuyu manages to explain that her master sent her away from the island, but she was not given a Gadget with her. Eno is torn between wanting to let Chris go, and his devotion to his work, and eventually, they decide to go to the island together: they can prove Yuyu's innocence by finding the Gadget in the Carillon House, which should resolve everything. 

The Carillon House is owned by Crowley, a wealthy man who loves music boxes above everything. He has allowed several people to live with him, paying for their food and life expenses, who create music boxes for him and the whole house is full of them. When Chris, Eno and Yuyu arrive at the house, tey find Karte and Eve are rather off-hands with their search for the lost Gadget, claiming it will find their way to them. While Chris and Eno start searching for the Gadget however, they stumble upon a horrible sight: one of the disciples of Crowley is discovered impaled on a steel beam at the light house. But how would one lift an adult body several meters up in the sky and drive their torso through a beam projecting towards the sea? As the search for the Gadget intensifies, more people end up dead, like someone found in the ruins of a toppled building and someone found killed in a tower room which was locked from the inside... Is someone using the knowledge of mystery fiction from the Gadget to commit all these murders in Kitayama Takekuni's Orgellienne (2014), or as the inner work also says: The Girl Who Became a Music Box.

Orgellienne is the second entry in Kitayama's Boy Censor series, and.... no, I haven't read the first one. Yep, I seldom read things in order. I am not sure how much this book spoils about the first, but the book explains the basic premises of the Gadgets and the Censors are the start of the story, and that's the most important thing to know, so it's not difficult to get into this world even if like me, you decide to start with the second book.

Besides Kitayama's Danganronpa Kirigiri series and a few short stories, all the books I have read by Kitayama are either formally, or informally part of his Castle series, which has a distinct, almost fantasy-like atmosphere. While the degree in which differs per book, some of them really don't take place in our world, but a more fantastical world and that's also in Orgellienne: while concepts like book burning and censors isn't fantasy per se, the way people think about books, Gadgets and the way Gadgets work as data sets that can only be activated by special means do make it sound like books are magic in this world. There's also a fairy tale-esque backstory to this book: the prologue tells about a young boy who is taken in by a master music box maker, becoming his youngest disciple and him falling in love with the master's blind daughter, and the ending is tragic, but very fantasy-like.This backstory that of course somehow connects to the current murders at the Carillon House, somehow. Chris' interactions with the mute girl Yuyu also have a dream-like element, as Yuyu shows him the ruins on the island, which is when the post-apocalyptic atmosphere of the series is felt the most, perhaps. The idea of an urban island, a part of a town + forest which has become an island due to the rising water, is pretty cool, as you have complete buildings (that have become ruins) on the otherwise almost empty island. And... for some reason I know had to think of Arkham City from the same-titled Batman game.

As Chris tries to learn more about the house and its inhabitants, he finds them all being rather secretive and before he knows it, people get killed in seemingly impossible manners. Which is of course Kitayama's bread and butter: impossible situations that are quite grand  and almost ridiculous, in this case best exemplified by the stabbed man hanging over a sea cliff, and later someone being murdered in a tower room full of music boxes. To be honest, the actual solutions to these impossible crimes are not the kind of absolute insanity I've come to expect from Kitayama: while they do rely on physical tricks as always, the solutions miss just the right amount of crazy I usually like about Kitayama's work (they are still pretty much of the string & needle variety though) and in that sense, this book was a bit disappointing.I think I liked the impossible death in a building that toppled over the best: the building was lying completely on its side, and the victim seemingly either fell down themselves, or was pushed down through the broken windows of one of the higher floors (which because it was lying on its side, basically became a huge pit). The trick behind the fall is pretty simple, but well hidden with the clues and a good example of Kitayama's focus on physical tricks.

Mystery-wise, I found Orgellienne more interesting in the way it explored multiple/false solutions: Kitayama has the various characters fire various theories and solutions at each other, resulting in a rather exciting story, as everyone has very different reasons for wanting to wrap up the case quickly, but they all come up with reasonably convincing theories and it keeps the reader guessing whether they themselves are on the right track or not. Interestingly, Karte isn't really used as a straight rival detective in this book: while he's younger than Eno, he knows Eno's gone a bit soft as a censor, and Karte definitely works more ruthlessly, but at the same time, he's also content at allowing things to develop on their own and see where it gets him, and he doesn't feel as much as a rival, rather than someone who may have conflicting goals, but can end up on either side depending on his mood and how he wishes to accomplish his goals in the end.

Orgellienne is not exactly the book I'd immediately think of when I think of Kitayama's work: while it does feature Kitayama's trademark locked room murders and physical trickery behind them, the actual tricks themselves are relatively tame, in comparison to his other work. The fantasy-like world he depicts here is perhaps the best I've seen in his work though, with a young boy in look for detective fiction, because it's been banished from this world, and a mysterious house full of music boxes with a romantic, but tragic background story. The series is only two volumes long at the moment, so it's likely I'll read the first one too in the future.

Original Japanese title(s): 北山猛邦『オルゴーリェンヌ』

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』