The Second Shot

Prepare for trouble!

And make it double!

"Pokémon"

I read today's book as a digital release, but I have this slight annoyance with the bunko-size pockets published by some publishers like Bunshun (of today's book) and Kobunsha, as their bunko-size pockets don't actually fit in my bunko-size bookcovers. For some reason, they are just a few millimetres too high... why can't they just use the normal size...?

Akari is still in high school, but managed to win an award with her mystery short story. This of course meant the first step in a long and succesful career in the industry of mystery writing... or at least, so she had hoped, but she's hopelessly stuck on coming up with a plot of her first original book. According to her not-so-scrupulous editor, there are plenty of high school student girls who win an award with a story, but then fall of the radar because they are unable to write a follow-up work, so Akari certainly feels the pressure to not become one of them. Fortunately for her, her brother is a police detective, assigned to the Homicide division of the Metropolitan Police Department, the most prestigious section of the whole police organization. Thanks to the auspices of their father, a Senior Commissioner at the MPD, Daisuke's placed in the career fast-track, despite him not being the fastest thinker on the force. Reality is stranger than fiction, they sometimes say, so Akari decides to nag her brother for juicy inside information about weird crimes that have recently occured, hoping they will inspire her and serve as a basis for her first book. While straight-laced Daisuke knows he shouldn't just tell his teenager sister about confidential investigations, Akari is a lot wilier than her brother and always manages to fool Daisuke into bringing her to the crime scenes and have her meet the witnesses and suspects (with the story that it's part of her social studies class). And the crimes Akari hears about do sound like they would work as mystery stories: from a dead body that appears in a storehouse that is always kept locked to the same pistol being used in two different crimes at two different locations at the same time, there's plenty of inspiration to be found in Kurachi Jun's short story collection Doppelgänger no Juu ("The Pistol of the Doppelgänger" 2021). 

I have to admit, after reading the excellent Hoshifuri Sansou no Satsujin ("The Murders in the Mountain Lodges beneath the Shooting Stars"), which was my first time reading a work by Kurachi, I started looking into what more he had written, and Doppelgänger no Juu was one of the books that attracted my attention most. But not because the blurb on the back sounded especially appealing or anything. It was simply the cover: the art is so charming and attractive, and I knew I wanted to read this book sooner or later. I didn't know about the premise of the book until I opened it.

The book opens with Bungou no Kura - Misshitsu Kuukan ni Gotsuzen to Shutsugen Shita Tasatsu Shitai ni Tsuite ("The Storehouse of the Literary Giant - Regarding The Murder Victim Who Suddenly Appeared Inside a Locked Space"), where Akari manages to convince Daisuke to bring her to the murder scene involving the author Tokuyama Asen. Or to be exact, Tokuyama's storehouse. For Tokuyama Asen's been dead for some time now, but he's a well-respected figure in the world of Japanese literature, and the local municipality has been in talks with Asen's grandson to have Asen's house converted to a museum. Asen also had a large storehouse in his garden where he worked and kept his own book collection, which actually has a few rare editions and other collector's items. For the moment however, there's no budget reserved for this project, so for the time being, the plan was for the grandson, a civil servant attached to the town's culture preservation section, an acquaintance of the grandson attached to the literature faculty of a university and a local antiquarian bookseller to sift through the contents of the storehouse together, see what books can be sold to create an initial budget and see where they go from there. For about a month, these four have been meeting in the weekends at the storehouse, which is kept locked with a big padlock because of the valuable books inside. Last weekend however, one of the four didn't appear at the usual time, so the other three decided to go inside first, but to their surprise they found the fourth member already lying dead inside. The grandson, the only person with the key to the storehouse, swears absolutely that the key never left his side though this whole last week since their last meeting and he has an alibi for the time of the murder, so how did the body appear inside the storehouse?

As I have grown used to with Kurachi's work, this is a very well-structured and plotted mystery story, with comedic undertones (with Akari coming up with ways to fool her brother in doing her bidding and some sibling fights), but I have to say that this story is rather long considering the plot, and that is something that holds for all three stories in this volume. I feel all of these stories could have been at least one-third shorter, and they'd still feel as fleshed out as they are now mystery-wise. Some of the conversations just go on for much longer than they should, and they ultimately do make the mystery story feel less interesting too, at least to me, because while I do think the way clues and theories are set-up, say the technical writing of the mystery story, is good, I also feel like Kurachi have done more considering the rather lengthy... length of the story. In this story, the mystery revolves around how the dead body could've appeared in the storehouse despite the grandson saying the key never left him since the last weekend when they cleaned the storehouse. Kurachi, as a writer who works clearly in the Queen tradition, does a good job at laying out clues that allow you to build multiple theories to solve this impossible crime, and at the same time, he lays out other clues that disprove those theories, until you arrive at a simple, but elegant solution, but considering that took about 150 pages, I feel it's a bit too simple and there could've been one more twist or extra surprise to really sell the story, especially as the core problem (a body appearing in a locked space) isn't particularly unique when it comes to impossible crime tropes.

The title story Doppelgänger no Juu - Futatsu no Chiten de Douji ni Jiken wo Okosu Bunshin Shita Satsujinsha ni Tsuite ("The Pistol of the Doppelgänger - Regarding the Murderer Who Divided Themselves and Committed Crimes At Two Different Locations Simultaneously") is similarly a story that feels a tad too long, but the premise is at least a lot more appealing. One afternoon, a convenience story in the northern parts of Tokyo is robbed in broad daylight, by a masked man wielding a pistol who for good measure even shot some holes in the ceiling, but fortunately nobody got hurt. Around the same time, people in a tenant building hear some fighting going and shots fired at a shady detective agency located in the southern parts of Tokyo, and when later someone goes to check, the detective is found shot in his office. When the police reconstruct the murder and check the bullets in the body, they find out the bullets match the bullets shot in the ceiling of the convenience store, meaning they were shot from the same weapon but not only that, they learn that the two crimes must have occured practically simultaneously, with only one or two minutes difference, even though it takes about two hours to drive from the convenience store to the murder scene! How could the same pistol be used in two crimes that occured simultaneously at completely different places? I find this problem a lot more alluring than the one from the first story, and I think the clewing is better too. Once again, there are also enough clues that allow the reader to make wrong guesses/deductions, but I think the one major clue that allows the reader to tie these two crimes together is really clever, both the idea itself as well as the manner in which the clue is presented to the reader, hidden very well within the story and yet the moment it pops up again in the denouement you immediately realize what it actually means and how that could've made this impossible crime possible. This is the title story of the book for a good reason, for it is definitely the best story.

The previous story is clearly the best in the book, but I can't say for sure whether the last story, Tsubasa wo Haeta Satsui - Konseki wo Issai Nokosazu ni Kuuchuu Hishou Shita Hannin ni Tsuite ("Malice With Wings - Regarding the Murderer Who Left No Footprints and Flew Through the Sky") is better than the first story or not. Technically, the story is definitely "bigger", with more misdirection, clues and potential for false hypotheses and the manner in which it builds on theories to lead to the final solution is also better than the first story, but I think that the final solution is also a lot easier to guess than the first story, and some might even guess what happened by the time the basic premise is presented. Here Daisuke tells Akari about an elderly, rich man who was found dead in a teahouse in his garden. He was hanging from a rope hanging from a beam near the ceiling, and as his wife died some months earlier and the only footsteps found in the December snow from the main house to the teahouse were those of the man (only going) and the tracks of the wheelchair of his eldest son who found him the next morning, the police initially thinks it's a suicide, but the police detectives are also aware that the man's three sons all had their eyes set on their father's riches, and that any of the three might've wanted to get their inheritance early. But at the same time, it was impossible for any of them to commit the murder: the whole garden between the main house and the tea house was covered in snow and only the earlier mentioned tracks were found, and physically speaking, none of the brothers could've committed the murder either: the two oldest sons were involved in a car accident some months ago, which put the oldest son (who lived with his father) in a wheelchair, and the other a broken arm, which means none of them could've hung a man from a beam two metres high, while the youngest son is just physically too small and weak to have done the same. A rather traditional "which of the three" mystery story, with all three suspects having a specific reason for why they couldn't have committed the crime, which is strengthened by the fact there were no footprints left by the murderer in the snow. Technically a sound story, with all these classic elements and a proper build-up to theories and the discarding of them, but ultimately, it can't hide the fact that the solution isn't nearly as surprising as the story pretends it is. While not a disappointing solution per se, the fact that these three stories all feel a bit long-winded anyway doesn't help. It is a perhaps a good example of a technically solid story, but for a premise that shouldn't be used in a story of this length.

But did I like Doppelgänger no Juu? Yes, I did, and especially the title story is worth a read, as it's truly a solid mystery story. The other two stories however feel similar to me in the sense that they are structurally well-plotted, with thoughtful clewing, false hypotheses, and a proper logical build-up to the solution for the impossible crimes. Impossible mysteries often have a tendency to be just mystery stories that require the reader to have a spark of inspiration or just "think of the solution" based on one vague clue, but that's never the case with Kurachi, who often uses false theories to lead you to the true solution in a logical manner (theory X isn't true, but that if you consider this aspect of theory X, perhaps Y is possible). However, both the first and last story feel much too long for what they offer, as the base impossible crimes in these stories are fairly simple, and I feel that had these stories been shorter, I would have been more impressed by what was accomplished in a certain page count, while now, I have the feeling these stories were made muuuuch longer than they should've been just so these three stories would be the length of one book together. So in terms of mystery writing, this is a solid book, but it's not always as surprising as you'd hope it to be.

Original Japanese title(s): 倉知淳『ドッペルゲンガーの銃』:「文豪の蔵　密閉空間に忽然と出現した他殺死体について」/「ドッペルゲンガーの銃　二つの地点で同時に事件を起こす分身した殺人者について」/「翼の生えた殺意　痕跡を一切残さずに空中飛翔した犯人について」

The Emerald-Eyed Cat Mystery

"Then it doesn't matter which way you go,” said the Cat"

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

Finished the Himatsubushi arc from Higurashi: When They Cry and added my thoughts/inferences about that episode (and previous episodes) to the memo page for my playthrough of Higurashi: When They Cry. Himatsubushi was the last of the original Question arc chapters, so what follows now should be chapters that will give answers to the happenings that occured in the previous iterations of the Hinamizawa disappearance & murder cases. I don't know however if this is like Umineko: When They Cry, where the second half of the story still requires you to put some of the pieces together yourself, or whether Higurashi will just show you what actually happened, so at this point, I don't know whether I'll be updating the memo page with my thoughts while reading the Answer chapters (and the other Advanced Story chapters) or that everything will be so obvious I don't really need to comment anymore. At this point, I seem to have settled on a vague idea of what's happening in Hinamizawa, but I guess I'll find out soon how correct, or incorrect, I am.

I don't really get this cover. The protagonist of today's book is often described as cat-like, but this is a bunny, so it's...  not him?

I very much enjoyed the two books I read by Kurachi Jun I read last year, so naturally, I was also very interested in reading more of his work. Interestingly, he only appears to have worked on only one series, with all of his other works standalone works, so I decided to take a look at his Nekomaru-sempai series and for a change, I actually decided to do things in order and start with the first book. Nichiyou no Yoru wa Detakunai ("I Don't Want To Go Out on Sunday Evenings" 1994) is not only the first book in this series though, but is also Kurachi's debut book, a short story collection featuring seven (+ two) stories featuring Nekomaru, a man in his thirties, but who looks a lot younger despite his stoop and occasionally grouchy attitude. Nekomaru has been going from job to job ever since he graduated from university, and has a knack for being incredibly nosy and has no problems making a lot of use of the hospitality of his juniors from university (who do have fixed jobs, and therefore money to treat Nekomaru), but his friends have to admit: Nekomaru has a mysterious aura that attracts people, and perhaps more importantly, Nekomaru is actually really smart, capable of solving the most mysterious of cases within seconds (if you treat him on a drink, of course). In this short story collection, we follow different people, from friends of Nekomaru to complete strangers, who come across seemingly inexplicable crimes or impossible murders, but Nekomaru always manages to bring light to the matter.

Kuchuu Sanposha no Saigo ("The Death of the Mid-Air Stroller") revolves around the mystery of a man having falling twenty meters down to his death in the middle of town. Which on itself wouldn't be much of a mystery, save for the fact that the buildings surrounding the spot where the man fell aren't anywhere near twenty meters high. The closest would be a building of ten meters high, so where did the man came falling down from? While rumors of the "Bird Man" are roaming around, Nekomaru is told by a friend about a dream he's been having, about being to fly and that one day, he dreamt he was flying around town when he flew into a bird and crashed down... As a mystery story and as the opening story of this collection, I have to admit this was a bit disappointing. It's pretty easy to vaguely guess the general direction of the true solution for any reader I think and even then, the logistics and details of the solution Nekomaru proposes wouldn't actually work that way, so the solution, while predictable, doesn't even feel satisfying. The saving grace is that at the end of this book, this story is touched upon again, but even so, I was a bit disappointed with this start.

Yakusoku ("Promise") is a short, but sweet story about the young girl Mayu who usually stays at the park until late because she doesn't want to go home. One day, she sees an middle-aged man in the park, and she strikes up a conversation with him, and he confides to Mayu  he too doesn't want to go home. They meet up every day in the afternoon in the park, and the man shows the girl magic tricks, which she loves. He promises her one day to bring a prop the following day to show another magic trick, but the ollowing morning, the man is found frozen to death in the park, having stayed out drinking there in the wintery night. The girl, barely able to read the newspapers, tries to learn more about the man's death and one day, she ends up the park again, where she meets with Nekomaru, who after reading the newspapers, came to have a look himself too. After learning from Mayu the man had promised her he'd return with a magic trick the following day however, Nekomaru realizes there are deeper depths to his death. While this is a very short story, I really like the initial step that eventually leads Nekomaru to the conclusion it was a murder. While the overall plot has Christie-like qualities, hiding a more complex plot than you'd expect from the page count and also revolving around looking at a certain situation from the other way round, the way Nekomaru first focuses on a physical clue he gains from Mayu's story and then starts to build his deductions based on that, comes straight out of Ellery Queen's playbook. While the clue is small, Nekomaru manages to present very convincing inferences based on that one clue, and it's quite impressive how it manages to connect to murder so simply, even though the story itself is very short and minimalistic in set-up.

Umi ni Sumu Kappa ("The Kappa in the Sea") has two young students travelling to the beach hoping to find women... only to find it's off-season. Having nothing better to do, they decide to take a rowing boat tour. Turns out that Nekomaru's only just started with this job and has no experience with the boat: he overturns the boat and the three of them end up on the little island just off the coast. While they can see the mainland from the island, it's just too far for unexperienced people to swim back, so they decide to wait until the owner of the shop notices his part-timer and a boat have disappeared. In order to kill time, one of the students decides to tell a ghost story he had heard from his grandfather, a famous tale in the region where the old man came from. Set centuries ago, it tells about two young friends Takichi and Shigehiko, hailing from the mountains, who travel to the coast to sell and buy goods there. One day they end up on a boat, overturn out and wash up on an island, just like Nekomaru and the two students. And while the mainland isn't that far off, both mountain-bred men can't swim that far. They are then suddenly assaulted by a kappa (a river imp from Japanese folklore) who forces the friends to fight each other: the loser will be ripped into pieces by the kappa, while the winner shall be saved. Takichi throws the fight, and several days later, Shigehiko finds himself washed up on the mainland again, where he tells the story of his friend who sacrificed himself to save him. After hearing this story though, Nekomaru comes up with a rather horrifying interpretation of this folklore story. It's a brilliantly set-up folklore mystery story, that analyzes plot elements from the "supernatural" story and then interprets them in a more realistic way: assuming there was no kappa, how did Shigehiko actually make it back to the mainland, and what happened to Takichi? A great story, that's bound to linger for a while on your mind.

The title 163-nin no Mokugekisha ("163 Witnesses") refers to the number of people in the audience that saw how a stage actor fell down after drinking a glass of wine on stage, during a play. It turns out the bottle of wine (a prop) had been poisoned, but nobody could have poisoned that bottle. The bottle actually had real wine in it, and someone had taken a sip of the bottle before the play started, and from that moment on, the bottle had been on the stage, in view of all the audience. Nekomaru, who was cast in one of the minor roles in the play, however quickly realizes how the poison had been administered into the bottle despite all those witnesses. This story does some good things in terms of misdirection, and the way it uses the timing of when the bottle was poisoned to prove who the murderer is, is pretty good, but the actual method of how the bottle was poisoned isn't that memorable and is basically a variant on a trope often seen in mystery fiction.

The title of The Parasite Museum Murder is based on the Japanese title of Carr's He wouldn't kill Patience, but it's not snakes we find in this museum, but parasites. A freelance writer has been given a very tight deadline to write something about the Parasite Museum, so he decides to quickly visit the free museum, which he finds mostly empty. After receiving the pamphlet from the receptionist, he goes upstairs, where he finds Nekomaru as an early visitor. While they're talking on the second floor, the writer notices a man taking the stairs to go up to the third floor. Later, when they arrive on the third floor themselves however, they find the receptionist lying dead there. But the writer is absolutely baffled, for the woman couldn't be here: the elevator was in repair, and the only person he noticed coming upstairs after he had arrived at the second floor, was another museum employee, so when and how did the receptionist arrive on the third floor? Again a very simple story, that makes use of misdirection that might have worked better in 1994, in Japan, but it might not ring any bells if you're reading it now outside of Japan/Asia. It fell a bit flat for me because of that, because it reads differently in a "modern" context (1994 is not thaaat long ago, but still). The trick is worked out pretty well though with some well-placed clues that support the trick, and I think the misdirection *does* work if you are very, very aware in what time/context this story takes place.

Namakubi Yuurei follows the story of an NHK licensing fee collector, who one day is assaulted by a woman with an ash tray while trying to collect fees at an apartment building. After going to the hospital and complaining about the woman to his friends at a bar, he becomes drunk enough to decide to visit the woman, a certain Akemi, at night to give her a scare. He sneaks back into the apartment building in the middle of the night, making his way to her room, but to his great surprise he finds the door unlocked. He takes a look inside, and finds the woman's severed head lying on the floor. The man is running for his life down the street before he even knew it. Obviously, he's also highly disturbed when he learns that the following day, the torso of a woman is found on the riverbank of the Edo River, and he's convinced it must be the body of Akemi. He doesn't tell the police about his experiences because it'd put him on the scene, but then he remembers he lost his hat that night, and he fears it must be lying in Akemi's room. Later in the day, more parts of the woman are found, and eventually the head is found and identified as Akemi, and the police of course go investigate her room... which they find completely clean and not a single hint of a crime of any kind having happened there, not even a report on a hat being found. The man is utterly baffled, for he is sure he saw Akemi's cut-off head in her apartment that night. Nekomaru, who happens to overhear the discussion the man has with his friends, barges in however, and can easily explain how the man could've seen Akemi's severed head that night in her room even though she hadn't been killed in her room. Again I think it's the clewing that make these stories really good: while the explanation of how the man could've seen Akemi's head in her room that night is simple on paper, it's the way Kurachi manages to move the story in that direction that's done well, with proper hinting that expect the reader to deduce a whole story based on a minor clue, but that give just enough of a hint to lead you to the next hint, which again is just subtle enough to point you to the next clue, etc. In Kurachi's story's, you never have to guess the whole solution based on one clue, but it's always a clue that works in conjuction with other clues, which tell you part of the story and also point you towards another clue, allowing you to fill in the gaps. The plotting is always very deliberate, and can make seemingly simple stories feel very satisfying from a "problem-solving" point of view because it shows a genuine attempt by the author to lead the reader to the solution.

Nichiyou no Yoru wa Detakunai ("I Don't Want To Go Out on Sunday Evenings") reads like a thriller and has the narrator, a young woman, telling about the man she's dating. The man is sweet and she enjoys his company, and they go out every Sunday. Lately however, there has been a series of attacks on women in the neighborhood where the woman's living, so her boyfriend always tries to make sure she's gotten back home safely, and they also call after he's arrived home. But slowly the woman starts to realize that her boyfriend might not always be telling the truth, and she starts to suspect the man's been staying in her neighborhood after their dates... for what reason? The woman confides in her ex-boyfriend and Nekomaru, who seems to interpret her story in a very different way. A Father Brown-esque experience, where a seemingly straightforward, but odd situation can be flipped around to mean something completely different, and where clues that seem to point one way, turn out to be pointing in the opposite direction. It's by no means difficult to guess where this story wants to go, but there are surprisingly many clues supporting the final solution, making it a fairly satisfying read.

The book ends with two short epilogues titled Dare ni mo Bunseki dekinai Message ("A Message Nobody Will Decipher") and Dasoku - Arui wa Mayonaka no Denwa ("Adddendum, Or: A Midnight Call"), which take a look back at the seven stories in this collection, and point towards another, hidden story that's occuring within those stories. It's nearly impossible to notice it until it's pointed out to you because there are barely any hints, so as a mystery story, it's not always really convincing and satisfying, but it's a fun way to connect these stories together. It's definitely worth it to read these epilogues though, as it does show off a technique I had seen in other Kurachi stories too, with stories featuring both an "overt" and "covert" plotline developing simultaneously, with the latter only revealed later and it's interesting to see he already used it in his first book.

So on the whole, I enjoyed Nichiyou no Yoru wa Detakunai. Not all stories are as strong as others, but you can easily recgonize Kurachi's plotting and clewing skills in these tales and some stories, like Umi ni Sumu Kappa and Yakusoku really show off how even a relatively simple plot can be turned into a very satisfying read by clever clewing. The way the book in the ends presents connections between all the included stories, making it feel more like a novel rather than just a collection of random stories, also shows off the plotting skills of Kurachi and I can see how someone who'd start off with this as their debut, would end up writing a great novel like Hoshifuri Sansou no Satsujin. I'll definitely read more of Nekomaru in the future!

Original Japanese title(s): 倉知淳『日曜の夜は出たくない』:「空中散歩者の最期」/「約束」/「海に棲む河童」/「一六三人の目撃者」/「寄生虫館の殺人」/「生首幽霊」/「日曜の夜は出たくない」/「誰にも解析できないであろうメッセージ」/「蛇足―あるいは真夜中の電話」

Hear No Evil

All the world's a stage

"As You Like It"

More fictional detectives should use a tablet...

As the third son born in a family with a lineage of famous kabuki theater actors, Katagiri Daisaburou too was expected to become one of the best in the art, but early in his career, he decided to switch to acting in films, a choice which would change the course of history. He starred in many of the formative films of the 50s that would define Japanese cinema, and when television set started to appear in everyone's homes, he didn't underestimate the new medium and started taking roles in television dramas too. Many decades later, and there's nobody who does not know the face of Katagiri Daisaburou as he's been a household name in media since forever, and even to this day, he's often seen in commercials and other big events as one of the biggest stars of Japanese media. Only a few years ago however, Katagiri had to retire as an actor, not because of his age, but because he developed a sudden deafness, making it impossible for him to properly act anymore. He decided to quit the Thespian art, instead focusing on his own entertainment agency, which manages many of today's film stars. Nonoko was hired one year ago as Katagiri's new assistant and his 'pair of ears,' which in practice means she has to accompany Katagiri everywhere and type out in real time everything says to Katagiri on her laptop, allowing him to read the 'subtitles' from his tablet. Unfortunately for her, Katagiri does not only work at the office and she's often dragged along whenever Katagiri decides to spend some time on his hobby: assisting the police in murder investigations. In the past, the great actor has solved many crimes for the police and now he has the time, he's even more eager to stick his nose in whatever seems interesting. Kurachi Jun's Katagiri Daisaburou to XYZ no Higeki ("Katagiri Daiburou and the Tragedy of XYZ" 2015) presents the reader with four puzzling stories about the exploits of the deaf former actor Katagiri.

Even if you're not familiar with the original stories, the title The Tragedy of XYZ should ring bells and if you have read Ellery Queen (Barnaby Ross)'s Drury Lane novels, you're bound to recognize a lot in the summary above: a famous actor turned deaf who's an amateur sleuth? Kurachi's book is obviously inspired by the four Drury Lane novels and it's a joy to read if you like those books, but fortunately, this book is perfectly readable without any prior knowledge. Katagiri Daisaburou to XYZ no Higeki is not a parody of any kind and there aren't even really direct references made to the Drury Lane novels, but there's a kinds of little elements that you might recognize as being inspired by those novels, without this ever becoming too reliant on that knowledge. It's a very cleverly written book in that regards, for it's simultaneously a book for fans of the four Drury Lane novels due to the clever, but subdued references, but also for people who don't know anything about those books and they'll honestly not miss anything of importance, as all the stories can stand alone perfectly.

Take the first story for example, Fuyu no Shou: Gyuugyuuzume no Satsui ("Winter: Fully-Stuffed Malice"). Nonoko is asked to pick up a certain delicatesse for her boss on her way to work one morning, which means she has to take the dreaded Yamanote-line during the morning rush. As expected, it's like sardines in a can inside the train, with everyone pushed right into each other. Nonoko and many others get of the train at the major hub Shinjuku Station,  but she stumbles across a man who had been pushed outside the train when everyone got out. The man seems unwell, but when another person checks, it turns out the man is dead! Inspector Kawaharasaki later visits Katagiri and Nonoko with more details: the man had been poisoned with an injection of nicotine. The hypodermic needle had been found trampled inside the train, and traces in his clothes show the needle had been jammed through his coat and clothes into the body. Based on the time it takes for nicotine to start working, it appears the man had been stabbed during his morning commute and that by the time his train arrived at Shinjuku Station, he was already in critical state, not even able to stand: it was just so incredibly packed inside the train that he was forcefully kept on his feet as everyone was pushing into each other. The problem the police faces however is when and how this man was given the injection: the man lives only a minute away from his station, and after that he had only been moving between stations inside trains during the morning rush. But how does someone stab a hypodermic needle unseen, into someone else inside a train packed so insanely full there's no space for anyone to move?

If you're familiar with The Tragedy of X, you might recognize the basic premise of a man being poisoned by nicotine inside a tram. But that's basically all this story takes from The Tragedy of X, and the rest is a completely original take, focusing more on the 'impossibility' by setting this murder inside the absolutely nightmare that is the morning Tokyo rush. I've only experienced it myself for three months during a study course in Tokyo many years ago, but the Yamanote-line in the morning is nuts, as in I-can't-move-I-have-an-elbow-in-my-back-and-my-nose-is-almost-in-this-other-person's-hair packed, so I was pretty easily convinced of the impossibility of this murder scenario! The story does develop in a way you'd expect from a Queenian story, with Katagiri focusing on the logical implications and contradictions arising from the physical evidence found, and then building a chain of reasoning that ultimately explains how the murder was committed. The whodunnit aspect of the story is a bit weak, but the build-up to the explanation of how the man was injected with nicotine is great, with clever deductions being built upon the physical evidence and spatial movements of the victim to show what was possible and what not, and several characters like Nonoko proposing possible solutions, these being logically discarded, but still forming a basis for the final explanation by Katagiri.

In Haru no Shou: Kiwamete Youki de Nonki na Kyouki ("Spring: A Cheerful and Nonchalant Murder Weapon"), Katagiri is asked to assist in a murder case. An elderly, famous artist was killed with a blow on his head with an ukelele inside his home, but the police has trouble pinning the crime on any specific person. The victim was found in his wheelchair inside the storage room,  which had probably not been opened in many years. The man had been struck by the instrument, but the police can't figure out why that weapon was chosen, as there were a lot more objects inside the storage that would've been more suited as a murder weapon, like the contents of a toolkit and a baseball bat. Four generations lived together inside the house, but while the his great-grandson did see the victim enter the storage room in his wheelchair, nobody else admits to having known that the victim had been in the storage. But even so, why kill the man there, with an ukelele?!

This second story is of course inspired by The Tragedy of Y, where the victim was bashed on the head with a mandolin, but this time the question focuses solely on the matter of why the ukelele was chosen over objects that would've been much better suited as a killing weapon. The jumps in the reasoning this time are sometimes a bit too far, making some of Katagiri's deduction seem more like fantasy than based on actual fact, but overall an interesting variation on the basic idea of The Tragedy of Y, landing in a completely different region.

A spy app Katagiri had installed on Inspector Kawaharasaki's smartphone allows him to always track the police's movements, but this time, Katagiri finds himself in an unexpected situation. In Natsu no Shou: Togiretogire no Yuukai ("Summer: Half-Connected Kidnapping"), his idea was to have his 'ears' Nonoko use the app so they could just 'run into Kawaharasaki by concidence' and ask if there was any case going on he could help with, but it turns out the police are having their hands full with an ongoing kidnapping case: the babysitter was bludgeoned to death last night and the child gone. The kidnapper has already gotten into contact with the poor parents, and after sending them a morning letter announcing when they'd call, the kidnappers are now asking for a hefty money sum in exchange for the child. When the money's prepared, the kidnapper asks for the mom to follow instructions, sending her to several places where he can get a good look at her and the money and then sending her to the next place, but for some reason, the phone calls always seem to disconnect halfway through a sentence, only to call back right away and go on like nothing happened. The inspiration for this case is of course the abduction that occurs in The Tragedy of Z, but that's basically the only common point. The way in which Katagiri manages to resolve the kidnapping is rather forceful and not really convincing and there's also a part in the story that is both brilliant and undeveloped: Katagiri manages to build a very convincing line of reasoning based on a physical object that tells them the true intentions of the kidnapper, but it doesn't really manage to sound convincing because not everybody would be able to use that specific physical object, which is an essential condition for Katagiri's deduction. However, the underlying truth behind the kidnapping is absolutely fantastic, and features a horribly original reveal at the end of the story, which is likely to stick with the reader for a long time.

The final story Aki no Shou: Katagiri Daisaburou Saigo no Kisetsu ("Fall: Katagiri Daisaburou's Final Season") has Katagiri invited to a local community center to do a lecture on a deceased film director with whom Katagiri made several cinema classics. Inspector Kawaharasaki, who's not only a professional contact of Katagiri, but also a film buff who loves Katagiri's work, is of course also there. The community center is also where Katagiri will meet an old acquaintance, who's a fan and scholar of said director.  Together with the director's son, he has recently discovered what appears to be the final screenplay written by the director before his death, but he wants a second opinion by Katagiri to see if it's the real deal because he had worked so much with the director. They meet before the lecture and a quick look seems to convince Katagiri that it's indeed an unfilmed scenario, but as it's almost time for the lecture to start, they have to prepare and then move to the auditorium. It's decided to keep the screenplay inside an old safe (so old it even has a small 'airvent' because of fear children would lock themselves inside) in the office of the community center during the lecture. But both Katagiri's 'pair of ears' and Inspector Kawaharasaki can't help worry about the screenplay and return to the office. They peek through the airvent... only to find the safe's empty! But who could've stolen the screenplay from the safe?

With Katagiri in the auditorium doing his lecture, it's time for his capable assistant (and the inspector) to try to solve the mystery, and it's a fun one this time! Like Drury Lane's Last Case, this story revolves around an unpublished story by a famous artist, though this time it's presented as an impossible theft. During their discussion of the case, they actually arrive fairly soon at the only method possible to get the screenplay out of the locked safe, but what follows is what you'd really expect from a Queen-inspired story, as then the deduction shift focus to the question of which suspects would've actually have taken those specific actions, and what suspects can be discarded as it wouldn't make any sense for those specific person to take those specific actions. The logical reasoning here is great, and convincing (more than the actual theft from the safe actually). While one twist I certainly I had seen coming early on, the last one was certainly unexpected and a brilliant surprise: the book expertly built towards this 'series' finale throughout the four stories, but you won't know what's happening until it hits you. 

This is, on the whole, a pretty funny book too by the way! Katagiri Daisaburou is portrayed as a larger-than-life figure, who has ruled Japanese popular culture for decades and knows it. The way everyone has to adjust to his whims is entertaining to see, as are Nonoko's attempts to function as his 'ears' and attend to his whims, while also fully realizing that her boss isn't quite normal. The stories do always feature some segments that go deeper into the career of Katagiri as an actor, with a lot of details on what roles he did and how he grew out to be the household name, but because usually only a small part of that backstory i actually relevant to the mystery at hand, you might find these parts a bit superfluous.

The four stories in Katagiri Daisaburou to XYZ no Higeki might take their inspiration from the four Drury Lane novels, but even without any knowledge of the Lane stories, this short story collection provides very engaging mystery plots, that as you might expect from a Queen-inspired book, focuses a lot on chains of reasoning and back-and-forth discussions about possible solutions. It's the kind of mystery I personally I like best and the grander-than-life character of Katagiri and the idea of having a deaf detective with an assistant typing out 'subtitles' in real-time are also fun, resulting in a book that's definitely found a place in the list of my favorite reads for this year.

Original Japanese title(s): 倉知淳『片桐大三郎とXYZの悲劇』:「冬の章 ぎゅうぎゅう詰めの殺意」/「春の章 極めて陽気で呑気な凶器」/「夏の章 途切れ途切れの誘拐」/「秋の章 片桐大三郎最後の季節」

The Secret in the Stars

夜空を見上げ一人ほうき星を見たの

一瞬ではじけては消えてしまったけど

「ほうき星」（ユンア） 

Looking up at the night sky alone, I saw a comet

But it appeared and was gone in a second

"Comet" (Younha)

First time I read something by Kurachi, but certainly not the last!

While he may have been morally right, Sugishita Kazuo knew there would be consequences for the undiplomatic, and especially physical manner in which he dealt with his abusive superior. He liked working at the marketing company, so he feared he'd be fired, but surprisingly, he was "only" moved to a completely different part of the company to give the whole deal some time to die down. Given that he liked marketing, he wasn't especially happy with his appointment to the new and small entertainment section, but it was better than losing his job. Sugishita is made manager-in-training (basically just a personal assistant) of Hoshizono Shirou, a "star watcher" and popular television personality who's been making women crazy with his handsome looks and romantic talks about the stars and constellations. Sugishita develops an instant dislike for the arrogant and showy Hoshizono, but the day after they first meet, he's already forced to go on a trip with him, as Hoshizono has been invited by the boss of a big land development company. This Iwagishi has recently bought a run-down campsite in the mountains. The original owner was a lover of camping, and wanted people to come down here in their caravans and spend a nice time in the nature, but financially, this wish was just not feasible and Iwagishi got the whole campsite, complete with ten log houses and a main building, for a dime and nickle. His plan is now to develop this campsite into a kind of leisure facility with the stars as the theme, as the location in the mountains make it perfect for stargazing. 

The camp is still in its original condition, but Iwagishi has invited a few guests who he thinks can help make his stargazing leisure facility a success: besides Hoshizono, he has also invited the highly successful romantic novelist Kusabuki Akane as well as the famous UFO expert Sagashima Kazuteru. The three guests (and their assistants, as well as two female companions) are to spend a night here at the camp with Iwagishi, to see what suggestions they may have for the facility and whether they would be could involved in some way, like having Kusabuki write a novel set around the location. The initial talks about the facility during dinner are good, but the following morning, Iwagishi is found murdered in his log house at the camp. The camp has no phone lines however, and when Iwagishi's assistant tries to drive down the mountain, he finds that the heavy snowfall of last night has completely blocked off the road. The survivors realize they are trapped by the snow on the campsite with a murderer on the loose. To Sugishita's great surprise however, he learns that Hoshizono is actually a lot sharper than he pretends to be, and together, the starwatcher and the assistant start investigating the murder on Iwagishi in the hopes of preventing more murders in Kurachi Jun's Hoshifuri Sansou no Satsujin ("The Murders in the Mountain Lodges beneath the Shooting Stars" 1996).

I have mentioned quite often on this blog that the logic school of mystery writing, as seen in the works of novelists like Ellery Queen and Arisugawa Alice, is my favorite. Some might prefer the 'flash of inspiration' style of writers like Agatha Christie and to a lesser extent John Dickson Carr, where a small clue is supposed to tip off the detective or reader on the whole crime and you're expected to "just" suddenly see how everything fits, but I always have been a fan of the slower, and more deliberate manner of the logic school, where you add up a lot of minor clues like 1) the murderer was right-handed, 2) the murderer had to know fact X because they did action Y, 3) the murderer only learned of fact X after time Z, 4) the murderer is not one of the characters who were at A, etc. to eventually find out who the murderer was and how everythhing fits together. I spent a whole post trying to explain why I love this kind of clewing and my feelings on this have not changed: I love how this kind of plotting tries to really make mystery fiction like a game, because it makes the process more fair. This kind of whodunnit-focused novels often have you identify a list of characteristics of the murderer and compare them to the known suspects. These stories feel fair because as you slowly start to cross off suspects on the list, you usually figure out for yourself you're still missing one or two identifying conditions: perhaps you already know the murderer must be right-handed based on Scene 37, and you know they had to know about the clock in Scene 23, but it's only when you're left with three suspects and go over the story again that you realize the fact two of those suspects didn't take sugar in their tea was significant!

Hoshifuri Sansou no Satsujin is a fantastic example of the logic school of mystery writing. It might have a rather familiar story setting, with a group of people trapped in the mountains due to heavy snowfall and the murders are certainly not committed in a spectacular or baffling manner, but it's completely focused on offering a puzzle that challenges the reader to logically infer who the murderer is. The reader is actually made aware of this the moment they open the book, for this book has a very unique chapter naming convention. The chapters are not really titled: they always open with a two, three sentence notice that summarizes the contents of said chapter and notes what's important or not. For example, the first chapter literally opens with the notice that the protagonist of the story will appear there and that "The protagonist is the narrator and the Watson. They share all information they learn fairly with the reader and are not the murderer." The next chapter, where Sugishita meets with Hoshizono for the first time too starts with a notice that "the detective becomes involved with the case by pure coincidence and is not the murderer", while in a later chapter where Hoshizono and Sugishita discuss the murder and they focus on several important facts, the chapter opening states that these observations made by Hoshizono are indeed correct. The whole book is playing the game open and fair from start to finish, and it's almost surreal to see little post-its by the writer that say what's important and whether some incident was just a coincidence or not. They do make Hoshifuri Sansou no Satsujin an exciting read though, because at the same time, you know it really won't be that easy and that Kurachi is trying to present a puzzle that will surprise the reader with how the murderer will be identified in the end. It's also fun to go over the chapter introductions again once you're done with the book: some of these notifications might seem a bit too cryptic the first time you read them, but they make more sense once you know everything and some of them are quite clever! I played Umineko: When They Cry after reading this book, but the chapter 'titles' here are somewhat similar in idea to the concept of Red Truths in that game.

And yep, the whodunnit puzzle is pretty ingenious even with the help of those chapter openings. If you love early Ellery Queen or for example The Moai Island Puzzle (disclosure: I translated that book), you're in for a treat, because Hoshifuri Sansou no Satsujin is exactly what you're looking for! Finding all the clues that will eventually lead you to the identity of the murderer is very tricky, but never unfair: each time one of the identifying conditions is mentioned, it's likely you'll have noticed (part of) it, and even if you didn't, you're sure to realize that they are very convincing logical conclusions drawn from what you have seen at the crime scene and in other parts of the story. It's of course ultimately combining all these facts together to form an image of the murderer which will prove to be difficult: I for one had a good idea about who the murderer was, but I really couldn't find the clues that could logically exclude everyone else besides the person I had set my eyes on, as I always would end up with other suspects based on the clues I had found! It's at these moments I love this kind of mystery fiction, where I have to decide whether I'm just on wrong track, or simply missing some kind of clue or misinterpreting a clue that would allow me to logically arrive at a different person. You'll need to identify quite a few conditions to be able to cross off all the names save for the murderer and that does mean some of these conditions are a bit easier to identify than others (and some of them feel will probably feel familiar as they're popular ideas in mystery fiction), but getting all of them is difficult and some of them are pretty clever that make good use of this particular story setting, like strange circling mark in the snow as if made by a rotating UFO's expulsion device.

In terms of appearances, Hoshifuri Sansou no Satsujin might feel a bit too familiar, with its tense closed circle situation in the snow, and the familar story beats like the surviving people becoming suspicious of each other, attempts to get through the snow to find help and more, but I think Hoshifuri Sansou no Satsujin is a great showcase that it's possible to write a great tale of mystery and logical reasoning even when using familiar building blocks: Hoshifuri Sansou no Satsujin is easily one of the best mystery novels I've read this year, because it's so dedicated to offering a solvable logical puzzle, where the reader is rewarded for activally thinking along and trying to figure out whodunnit by carefully considering the clues and considering the precise implications of each action of all the characters. Some readers might feel this book feels a bit too like a puzzle, but for me, this is exactly the kind of mystery story I love. 

Original Japanese title(s): 倉知 淳『星降り山荘の殺人』