The Witch Tree Symbol

Deep into that darkness peering

"The Raven" 

Yes, this is an awesome cover.

Since Ishioka started writing down his adventures with his roommate Mitarai Kiyoshi, he's been making a name for himself as a mystery author, and it's through one of his fans he becomes involved with the mysterious death of Fujinami Surugu. The man was found dead the day after a storm on the roof of his parental home. There were no distinct clues indicating a murder, but why was he found on the roof? Suguru and his wife were living near Suguru's parental home, on the same block, in an apartment building owned by his mother Yachiyo. These buildings stand on Darkness Hill somewhere in Yokohama. In the Edo period, men were being decapitated here and it is said the gigantic true on the block of the Fujinami buildings grew that large because of the blood of the punished. Several decades ago, Yachiyo was married with the British man James Payne, who ran a school here. He was the father of three children, Suguru, Yuzuru and Reona, but when most of them had grown up, he just disappeared to return to Great Britain, leaving his family behind. Since then, Yachiyo and her children have remained here, but now her oldest son has died, and it's certainly not the first tragedy to happen on this block. The gigantic tree standing in front of the house is not only rumored to drink blood, but in the past, dead bodies have in fact been found hanging from the tree, and nobody ever figured out how those bodies ended up there. Mitarai Kiyoshi of course suspects there's more to this than just a cursed tree, so he and Ishioka investigate the case in Shimada Souji's 1990 novel Kurayamizaka no Hitokui no Ki ("The Man-Eating Tree of Darkness Hill").

Shimada made his debut in 1981 with Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken (AKA The Tokyo Zodiac Murders), which also introduced the world to his astrologist-turned-detective Mitarai Kiyoshi and his chronicler Ishioka. Kurayamizaka no Hitokui no Ki is the fourth novel in the series following Naname Yashiki no Hanzai (AKA Murder in the Crooked House) and Ihou no Kishi. This novel also marked a shift in tone, though the previous one already started that, though less ambitious. Kurayamizaka no Hitokui no Ki shares a lot with the novels that followed it: like books like Suishou no Pyramid, Atopos and Nejishiki Zazetsuki, this book is quite long (a so-called brick book) and it features Mitarai involved in a bigger adventure, even going abroad for some time to do some extra investigation. Also, these books take on a a different storytelling style, incorporating more themes like horror, and narratives-within-narratives where Shimada delves into topics that happen to be interesting him at the time of writing. These books are quite different from the two Mitarai Kiyoshi novels currently available in English, but are actually more "typical" of the series than those two, as Shimada stuck to this mode for much longer.

Because I don't really read these books in order, I already knew Shimada would eventually shift to this style, and in a way, Kurayamizaka no Hitokui no Ki is very predictable because of that. Structure-wise, it is quite familiar in the sense I knew we'd be sidetracking a lot while Mitarai and Ishioka are investigating the death of Suguru on the roof. Initially, the mystery revolves around how Suguru ended up on the roof in the first place, whether it was by his own choice or whether someone else arranged for that. Strangely enough, the reason why the two got involved in this case is quickly forgotten and ignored, but as they investigate the case, the reader is also taken along a trip in history, as Mitarai starts to develop an interest in the history of the school that used to stand at this place, and in the family history of the Fujinamis and their father James Payne. In the meanwhile, more mysterious deaths occur, which are clearly centred around the ominous tree standing near the Fujinami parental house and people start to fear it's really a curse that's doing all of this. 

Personally, I am not really a fan of the slower pace of the Shimada bricks, where Mitarai obviously has some idea of what is going on already, but he wants to delve deeper in the topic, and thus we get narratives-within-narratives detailing creepy histories or other stories. Some might appreciate the creepy atmosphere of the novel, and especially of the tree, better than I did, but I found the story to be slower than it needed to be, which after a while starts to become tiring. Ultimately, there are few "clear" mysteries that occur (like a death) even though this is a long book, and I didn't think the vague "but something feels off..." atmosphere the book was going for was strong enough to keep the plot engaging enough for the page count.

It didn't help my reading experience that even though there are few 'clear/focal' mysteries in the story, the solution to the mysterious deaths isn't... really surprising. Most of them can be seen as a variant on ideas Shimada uses quite often in his work, and therefore can be easily guessed if you have read a few works by him. This book was hardly surprising seen in a Shimada context in that regard. Of course, I don't read his work in order, so that may have "reverse-spoiled" me, but even so, I do feel the solution to the mysteries is a bit weak considering the length of the book, I would have wanted something a bit more intricately planned. While I guess there's also the bigger mystery of how all the incidents are connected to each other, including those that happened in the past like the dead girl found in the tree long ago and even smaller incidents that happened at the school decades ago, I felt that the merits of this narrative were more in its horror-esque implications, rather than as a detective story. Again, I know that is what Shimada was moving towards starting with this book, but his mode of trying to tie a lot of incidents taken place across a long period of time often ends up feeling rather forced and reliant on coincidences, and while the story can feel quite tenseful, it sometimes has trouble feeling like a proper logical puzzle, being more focused on the "feeling" of the mystery rather than the explanation.

There is a short part that is set abroad, which has its own mini puzzle revolving an odd building: I liked the idea behind that mystery, but it felt really detached from the rest of the book, and I would have perhaps liked it better if it had been its own story, instead of a kind of narrative-within-a-narrative.

Kurayamizaka no Hitokui no Ki was thus not really my favorite Mitarai novel. I do think there will be readers who can appreciate this book better than I, as there are distinct horror elements to the story that will perhaps appeal better to others than to me, and when seen as a series work, this book is also important as it marked the shift to a different story style and it also introduces a certain recurring character who you'll often in other books, so some might want to read this in order exactly so they don't get spoiled on who will survive this book to return in subsequent works, but I personally wasn't too big a fan of this one.

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司『暗闇坂の人喰いの木』

The Mistletoe Mystery

「世界は一つ　東京オリンピック」

東京オリンピックのスローガン

"One world - The Tokyo Olympics"

Slogan of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics

Came across a lot of familiar sights in this novel! Not only the main setting (more details below), but a fair amount of the story is also set in Takaragaike, which was right behind my dorm when I was studying in Kyoto, and I went there at least once a week as they had a nice and large used book store there!

Mitarai Kiyoshi series
Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken ("The Astrology Murder Case") [1981]
Naname Yashiki no Hanzai ("The Crime at the Slanted Mansion") [1982]
Mitarai Kiyoshi no Aisatsu ("Mitarai Kiyoshi's Greetings") [1987]
Ihou no Kishi ("A Knight in Strange Lands") [1988]
Mitarai Kiyoshi no Dance ("Mitarai Kiyoshi's Dance") [1990]
Suishou no Pyramid ("The Crystal Pyramid") [1991]
Atopos [1993]
Russia Yuurei Gunkan Jiken ("The Case of The Russian Phantom Warship") [2001]
Nejishiki Zazetsuki  ("Screw-Type Zazetsuki") [2003]
Okujou no Douketachi ("Clowns on the Roof") [2016]  
Tori'i no Misshitsu - Sekai ni Tada Hitori no Santa Claus ("The Locked Room of the Tori'i - The One Santa Claus In This World") [2018] 

If you have ever visited the city of Kyoto, it's likely you also wandered around the streets between Sanjo-Kawaramachi and Shijo-Kawaramachi, as that's the main shopping area of the city, with plenty of shopping arcades, department stores and even markets to be found here. It's almost always quite busy here, especially near Nishiki Market, where you can find many of the local food and goods. If you walk down Nishiki Market towards the river-side of the shopping area, you'll eventually stumble upon a weird sight: in the covered shopping area stands a tori'i shrine gate, wedged between a hamburger chain restaurant and a boutique selling used clothes and accessories. This tori'i gate indicates the entrance to the Nishiki Tenmangu Shrine, located right in the middle of the shopping area. The shrine was obviously here long before the shops and restaurants came and in their attempt to maximize the use of the ground, something unique happened. The Nishiki Tenmangu Shrine tori'i gate is not just wedged tightly between two buildings: it actually penatrates them. If you go to the second floor of either building, you'll find a piece of the tori'i gate sticking out of the wall into the room.

In the year of 1975, Mitarai Kiyoshi was still a student of Kyoto University and in an earlier novel, he became friends with Satoru, a graduated high school student who was still studying for the entrance exams of Kyoto University. Satoru tells Mitarai about Kaede, a girl he knows from his cram school, who had both a horrible and wonderful experience eleven years ago, when she was still an eight-year old girl who lived in one of the buildings flanking the Nishiki Tenmangu Shrine tori'i gate. It was on Christmas morning 1964, that she received her very first Christmas present from Santa, who even left a letter telling her sorry he had not come earlier. Jumping out of her room with her present in her arms, she found her aunt waiting for her and after a short talk, they both left for her aunt's home. What eight-year old Kaede didn't know at the time was that her mother was lying dead on the first floor, and that her father had committed suicide that morning jumping in front of the first train. Before her father died, he had called his sister to take care of Kaede and make sure she wouldn't see her mother's body. However, the police soon realizes there's something strange going on with this murder: all the doors and windows on both floors were locked tightly from the inside, and the only keys to the home were in the possession of Kaede's mother. Not even Kaede's father could've come inside, as her mother had kicked her husband out in preparation of divorce. Yet Kaede's mother was  strangled (ruling out suicide) by someone who must've come inside the house. And there's proof that at there was at least one intruder in the house on Christmas Eve, as Kaede's present most definitely did not come from her parents, so Santa Claus must've gotten inside the house some way to leave her a present. A suspect for the murder of Kaede's mother has been held in custody for eleven years now, even though Kaede does not believe that man did it, and having heard the story, Mitarai too decides to put his mind to the mystery of Santa Claus and a murderer intruding her house in Shimada Souji's Tori'i no Misshitsu - Sekai ni Tada Hitori no Santa Claus ("The Locked Room of the Tori'i - The One Santa Claus in This World", 2018).

Shimada Souji has been writing for a long time about his detective character Mitarai Kiyoshi. The character first appeared in 1981's Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken (known in English as The Tokyo Zodiac Murders) and since then, we have seen him appear in many novels and short stories. 2016's Okujou no Douketachi (later retitled as Okujou) for example was the fiftieth story featuring Mitarai. We have seen Mitarai in various phases of his life across these stories: he has solved mysteries when he was a just a wee li'l lad, but his resume also includes astrologist, private detective and university professor in neurology. Shimada's latest novel with Mitarai is set in his student days, long before he met his usual Watson/chronicler Ishioka, so the narration is this time reserved for his younger friend Satoru, whom he first met in Mitarai Kiyoshi to Shinshindou Coffee ("Mitarai Kiyoshi and the Coffee of Shinshindo").

I remember I found Okujou no Douketachi to feature an interesting idea, but that it didn't really work as a full-length novel: it had to twist and turn itself to accomodate for everything it wanted to do to approach novel-length, while in my opinion, it would've worked better in a simpler, but more focused approach. Tori'i no Misshitsu - Sekai ni Tada Hitori no Santa Claus is somewhat interesting in that regard, as Shimada wrote both a novel-length version, but also a short story version of the same story. Originally, Shimada wrote the short story Sekai ni Tada Hitori no Santa Claus ("The One Santa Claus In This World") especially for the 2018 anthology Kagi no Kakatta Heya ("The Locked Rooms"). Eventually, he decided to also extend this story into a full novel. Both versions were basically published at the same time: the anthology Kagi no Kakatta Heya was released on August 29, 2018, followed by Tori'i no Misshitsu the very next day!

As you read Tori'i no Misshitsu, it's pretty obvious to notice how this originally started as a short story, as in the end, all the mysteries presented in this book revolve around one concept, but unlike Okujou no Douketachi, I'd say Shimada really succeeded in making this one cohesive novel with everything tying nicely together, rather than just a series of very unlikely coincidences. Throughout the book, you are presented with various mysteries set in the ancient capital Kyoto: from a girl who says she saw monkeys moving the pendulum of an old grandfather clock and a series of nightmares haunting the inhabitants of a building, to the murder on Kaede's mother, as well as the mystery of how Santa Claus entered the house that fateful Christmas Eve. What makes this work is that these mysteries are all connectedly through one base idea, and it's by solving one of these mysteries that Mitarai instantly realizes the truth behind every other puzzling incident. I'd say that the basic idea might not be extremely original, but Shimada does show his experience as a novelist here by spinning a more than amusing yarn by incorporating all these variations on the underlying concept. The main mystery of the locked room murder in particular makes wonderful use of its unique setting in Kyoto. I myself have seen that tori'i of the Nishiki Tenmangu Shrine countless of times while shopping there, and I have even eaten once at the hamburger chain that is now inhabiting the building on one side of the gate, but I never really gave the shrine entrance that much thought besides "oh, that looks neat", so it's pretty funny to see that particular part of Kyoto used as the setting of a locked room mystery.

Picture (C) Hidehiro Komatsu

I have not read the short story version of this tale so I can't comment on the exact differences between the two versions, but I assume that much of the background story is exclusive to the novel version: a substantial part of the novel is not told from Mitarai and Satoru's point of view, but as a flashback to 1964 from the point of view of one of the other characters, which also delves a lot into character backgrounds etcetera, and my guess would be that most of this was added to the novel, with the short story focusing more on the core puzzle plot of the locked room murder and how Santa Claus entered the house.

By the way, I thought it funny how this novel feels 'kinda' timely. I mean, the last day of August isn't really the day before Christmas, but assuming you don't buy this book day one, it's certainly close by, and the Tokyo Olymics are also often referred too in this novel. The first Tokyo Olympics, mind you, not the upcoming.

Even though I prefer the short story form in general, and I could also definitely tell this story would've worked as well in that form, I found Tori'i no Misshitsu - Sekai ni Tada Hitori no Santa Claus to be quite amusing as a well-structured and plotted locked room mystery. No, this is not one of those grand impossible crime stories like the earlier Mitarai stories with some mind-blowing trick behind them, but as a cute Christmas story set in a rather unique corner of Kyoto, this book gets my thumbs up.

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司　『鳥居の密室　世界にただひとりのサンタクロース』

She Sailed Away

We are all rowing a boat of fate 

The waves keep on comin' and we can't escape

"Life Is Like A Boat" (Rie Fu)

Note to self: need to try Russian food some time.

Mitarai Kiyoshi series
Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken ("The Astrology Murder Case") [1981]
Naname Yashiki no Hanzai ("The Crime at the Slanted Mansion") [1982]
Mitarai Kiyoshi no Aisatsu ("Mitarai Kiyoshi's Greetings") [1987]
Ihou no Kishi ("A Knight in Strange Lands") [1988]
Mitarai Kiyoshi no Dance ("Mitarai Kiyoshi's Dance") [1990]
Suishou no Pyramid ("The Crystal Pyramid") [1991]
Atopos [1993]
Russia Yuurei Gunkan Jiken ("The Case of The Russian Phantom Warship") [2001]
Nejishiki Zazetsuki  ("Screw-Type Zazetsuki") [2003]
Okujou no Douketachi ("Clowns on the Roof") [2016]  

Receiving fan mail was by no means a rare happening for actress Reona, but even she had to raise an eyebrow when she got Kuramochi Yuri's letter. One reason for Reona's surprise was that the letter had been delivered to her almost a decade late, as it had been sent to her former agency in Japan before she moved to the States, and it got stuck there. The other reason for Reona's surprise was the contents. Yuri wrote the letter on her deceased grandfather's behalf, as he begged his granddaughter to ask if Reona could go Charlottesville, Virginia, USA to locate a certain Anna Anderson, to tell Anna he was sorry for what happened in Berlin, and that it all could've been avoided if they had the photograph at the Fujiya Hotel in Hakone. Reona has no idea however who this Anna is, and why she was asked to pass on the message. A few phone calls also tell her the letter reached her too late: Anna Anderson had died in 1984, soon after the letter had been posted, and Yuri herself also died in an accident. Reona asks her friends Mitarai Kiyoshi (amateur detective/astrologist/neurologist) and Ishioka Kazumi (writer) if they could look into this curious request. The photograph mentioned in the letter shows the foggy arrival of a Russian warship in Lake Ashi near Fujiya Hotel in 1919, but it is an utterly impossible one: for how could a Russian warship have landed in a lake up in the mountains in 1919, a lake with no shipyards, no access to the sea and not even modern roads at the time! With their interests thorougly piqued, Mitarai and Ishioka chase after the mystery of Anna Anderson and the impossible photograph in Shimada Souji's Russia Yuurei Gunkan Jiken ("The Case Of The Russian Phantom Warship", 2001).

Narrator Ishioka starts his tale about this adventure noting that this was a unique case for him and Mitarai, as it did not involve murders, or even death. And yes, Russia Yuurei Gunkan Jiken is indeed probably a book very different from what you'd expect from the series, especially if you've mostly read the English releases, like The Tokyo Zodiac Murders. For Russia Yuurei Gunkan Jiken is not a classic detective story with an ingenious puzzle plot that dares to challenge the reader to solve its mysteries. This book is a historical mystery that mixes fiction with fact. You may noticed from the links in the summary already, but the Anna Anderson in this novel was a person who actually existed. She was the best known of all the people who claimed they were Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia. And yes, that means that this novel is about the mystery of Anastasia, the famous heir of the Romanov family of whom it was rumored she managed to escape the massacre of her family.

I guess that the term historical mystery could refer to two types of stories (which aren't mutually exclusive per se). A mystery tale could be set in a historical setting (for example the Judge Dee stories), or the tale could be about a mystery that occured in history ("Where did the hidden treasures of the Templars go?"). The latter of course don't need to be set in a historical setting themselves. Russia Yuurei Gunkan Jiken obviously belongs to the latter category and is a fairly entertaining example of the genre. I hardly know anything about Anastasia and the final days of Imperial Russia, to be absolutely honest, but the tale told in the pages of this book, which mixes facts and fiction, is entertaining at least. Mitarai, as a fictional character, deducing conclusions based on facts from 'our' real world is also an interesting sight, like Dupin's comments on the Marie Rogêt case (which was based on the real murder case of Mary Rogers). I have no idea whether the theories posed in this novel could survive close academic scrunity, but I for one enjoyed the tale about the alluring mystery of Anastasia with the changing world politics as its background.

The question is though, did this story need feature Mitarai? Yes, some of the deductions Mitarai makes about trauma in the brains and stuff are obviously ideas that 'belong' to him (as he is a neuroscientist), and there are some elements in this story that keep in firmly in the mystery genre, but still, most of the book consists of lectures on history. First it's a long history on Anna Anderson, then it's a history lesson on the Fujiya Hotel, then it's a historical account of the final days for the Tsar and his family... A lot of the time, it's just one or two people telling long tales from the history books. I am not sure whether this story needed the fictional world of Mitarai Kiyoshi, as it could've worked just as well without him. The character Reona also appears in other Mitarai stories by the way, like Atopos and Suishou no Pyramid.

The one element that is clearly something fit for a mystery novel is the titular Russian phantom warship, which apparently appeared in a mountain lake in 1919, despite the mere idea of that happening would've been impossible. In fact, the sheer scale of this mystery (a Russian Imperial warship making its way to a lake in the Japanese mountains) is exactly something Mitarai is used to solving. The actual solution however is... not something you'd expect from a mystery novel, as there were no hints available to the reader at all, and Mitarai just suddenly drops a surprising truth on both his allies and the readers. Sure, the explanation of Mitarai to the phantom warship is absolutely historically sound, but the truth behind the title is really not presented in the form of a mystery novel, as it does not follow the structure of mystery -> clues -> logical solution based on the clues. It's just sprung upon the reader now.

Russia Yuurei Gunkan Jiken is an interesting historical mystery on Anastasia, yes. However, it's definitely not what you'd expect from a book in the Mitarai Kiyoshi series. The puzzle plot mystery elements are far to weak for that. I have the feeling Shimada wanted to write a book on Anastasia, and thought it'd appeal to his readers better if Mitarai was involved with the case, but I think adding Mitarai only hurt the story as intended, as the fusion feels a bit forced. The fact a lot of the story involves plain info dumping, instead of a more engaging narrative is also a bit disappointing, as the material itself is interesting.

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司 『ロシア幽霊軍艦事件』

Midnight Luna Sea

ひとつの目で明日を見て

ひとつの目で昨日を見つめてる 

君の愛の揺りかごで

もう一度安らかに眠れたら

『The Real Folk Blues』（山根麻衣）

I look at tomorrow with one eye

While my other eye is fixed on the past

If only I could once again sleep in peace

In the cradle of your love

"The Real Folk Blues" (Yamane Mai)

So Photobucket changed its policy, which means you can hotlink to images anymore. That sadly means that most of the posts made from the start of this blog until somewhere in 2013 don't have their images anymore, as I used to use Photobucket for image materials. I *might* fix that in the future, but to be honest, it's going to be a hell of a job to change the image links for hundreds of posts...

I think the 2009 film MW, a live-action adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's thriller manga, was the first time I saw actor Tamaki Hiroshi. In the film, he played a extremely dangerous psychopath. First impressions are hard to forget, so because of MW, I sometimes still have trouble picturing him as a detective, like in Watashi no Kirai na Tantei and today's film.

Shimada Souji's 1981 Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken (published in English as The Tokyo Zodiac Murders) was a milestone in the history of Japanese mystery fiction. Not only was it a darn good mystery yarn in the model of the classic puzzle-focused mystery fiction, the novel also inspired a whole new generation of mystery writers in the country, who'd bring forth a revival of the puzzle plot mystery in Japan. The detective featured in the book was Mitarai Kiyoshi, an excentric, but brilliant astrologist, who'd dabble in amateur detecting as a hobby. His Watson, Ishioka, built a career as a mystery writer detailing the adventures he had with Mitarai, and over the course of years Mitarai managed to solve countless of baffling cases, but he also changes jobs. First hebecame an amateur detective (with astrology as a hobby) and he's currently a leading neurologist, teaching at universities across the world.

While Mitarai Kiyoshi made his debut back in 1981, he and Ishioka wouldn't be adapted for a live-action production until 2015, when they first appeared in a two-hour TV special starring Tamaki Hiroshi as the genius detective. Reception was certainly positive, so it seemed almost certain it would be followed by a TV series. To the surprise of many however, the production team decided to go straight for the silver screen. The 2016 film Tantei Mitarai no Jikenbo - Seiro no Umi ("The Casebook of Detective Mitarai - The Sea of the Starry Carriage"), which also carries the official English title Detective Mitarai's Casebook - The Clockwork Current starts with a strange request by Ishioka's newest editor Ogawa Miyuki. She hopes Mitarai will solve some crazy mystery for her, because that'd give Ishioka the material and inspiration to write a new novel for her. While Mitarai isn't really interested at first, the news of a series of unknown bodies washing up on the shores of a small island in the Seto Inland Sea. changes his mind, Mitarai decides to investigate this curious incident, taking Miyuki along (Ishioka has other prior commitments). The trail leads them to the city of Fukuyama, where a series of curious incidents await them: the death of a foreigner, the brutal torture of two parents (the father had his eyes gouged out; the mouth of the mother was stitched tight) and the murder of their poor baby, an attack on an associate-professor in History researching "the Starry Carriage", a mysterious term found on some old scrolls that document the sea battles held early in the nineteenth century and finally: the sighting of a mysterious Nessy-like creature in the Seto Inland Sea. However, only Mitarai is able to connect all these seemingly distinct cases together.

Detective Mitarai's Casebook - The Clockwork Current is based on Shimada Souji's novel Seiro no Umi ("The Sea of the Starry Carriage"; English subtitle The Clockwork Current), which was originally published in 2013 and the forty-ninth story in the Mitarai Kiyoshi series (I reviewed number fifty a while ago). I haven't read the original novel, so I have absolutely no idea how faithful an adaptation this film is, but I do know that the editor Ogawa Miyuki is an original character. In the novel, it's Mitarai's faithful Watson Ishioka who accompanies him on this adventure, but Ishioka was replaced for some reason in this film (even though Ishioka did appear in the 2015 TV special). It is a very strange change at any rate, as Mitarai and Ishioka are very much modeled after Sherlock Holmes and Watson, and replacing Watson with a random figure (his editor) is a bit odd to say the least. While the change is not bad on its own, it certainly doesn't offer any merits at all either. A lot of the charm of the original stories comes from the banter between the two, but that's gone too, as Miyuki is more a fangirl of Mitarai, rather than someone who knows him well and can fight back verbally.

To be honest, I had expected something much more from this first theatrical appearance of such an icon of Japanese mystery fiction. I have read only a mere fraction of all of the Mitarai Kiyoshi series, but I could've named quite a number of stories that would've worked much better on the silver screen than this one. That is the biggest problem of the film actually. The story isn't really suited for the big screen. It's basically about Mitarai investigating several distinctly different cases: bodies washing up on shore, a foreign drug ring, the brutal baby-murder and his tortured parents and a historical mystery about the identity of the "Starry Carriage". But none of them have the impact to really carry a two-hour film narrative, not even taken all together. The narrative jumps from one case to another at a rather high pace and none of them get really fleshed out in a meaningful way. The result is that the viewer is presented with a great number of incidents that don't seem really all that important, or even mysterious (or at least not mysterious enough to make you say you absolutely needed to see this in the theater). I think this story would have been much better if it had been adapted as a short TV series, which each episode first focusing on one case, and then the last few episodes bringing things together. While I admit that the scale of this film was grander than the 2015 special (which was set in urban Tokyo), basically everything The Clockwork Current had in terms of scale of the story and setting, you could also see in select mystery shows made for the small screen in Japan (save for some nice wide shots early in the film, I guess).

It doesn't help the mystery plot is a bit underwhelming. It's a (seemingly) random collection of smaller cases, of which only the baby murder/tortured parents plot makes any impact on the viewer, but as it is only one of the many subplots, it is given just too little time. Mitarai solves some minor mysteries about all of the smaller incidents as the story goes on, eventually revealing the connection between all the seemingly seperate cases, but even that feels a bit artificial, and not particularly surprising or impressive. I have a suspicion that in the original novel, these smaller incidents might all be seperate storylines, which only come together in the end. In the film however, we follow Mitarai and Miyuki as they stumble upon one case after another (in really rapid succession) and seeing Mitarai following up on all of them for seemingly no reason feels very arbitrary, as if the plot compels him to that, rather than his logic (as for most of the time, there's absolutely no reason to suspect any connection to the seperate incidents, save for the fact that this is a film, so of course everything is connected).

The part about the murdered baby/father with gouged-out eyes/mother with her mouth stitched tight appears at first a throwback to the delightfully horrible murder mysteries early in the Mitarai Kiyoshi series (like The Tokyo Zodiac Murders or Naname Yashiki no Hanzai), but the gruesome part is actually fairly superficial rather than functional to the mystery plot and the underlying mystery is kinda dependent on coincidence/sheer bad luck. Shimada has also been dabbling with historical mystery plots in the Mitarai Kiyoshi series for quite some time now, and the "Starry Carriage" subplot is in theory an interesting one, as it delves into the history of sea warfare in the Seto Inland Sea, but this too is a case of time constraints and weak connections to the rest of the narrative that weakening the impact of the plot.

Detective Mitarai's Casebook - The Clockwork Current is in the end not at all what I had expected based on the 2015 TV special. I think that by selecting this particular story as the basis of the film, as well as moving away from the style and framework set in the 2015 TV special, The Clockwork Current ended up as a film that has trouble to impress as a mystery movie. This story simply isn't really suited for the two-hour, single format of a theatrical release as it's too scattered and small-scaled, while leaving out an iconic series character like Ishioka, who is able to bring out the characteristic excentricities of protagonist Mitarai, results in a story that seldom truly feels like it's part of the Mitarai Kiyoshi series. It is definitely not what I had expected based on the 2015 special, so I hope that a future sequel (if it is produced), follows the classic format of the series more faithfully.

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司（原）　『探偵ミタライの事件簿 星籠の海』

Down Town Game

flying fall down 

羽ばたきながら墜ちてゆくの

君の傍へ

「Flying」（Garnet Crow）

Flying fall down

As I fly, I fall down

To your side

"Flying" (Garnet Crow)

I actually quite like the cover of the book in today's review in terms of artstyle and design. If only it did not feature a clown....

Mitarai Kiyoshi series
Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken ("The Astrology Murder Case") [1981]
Naname Yashiki no Hanzai ("The Crime at the Slanted Mansion") [1982]
Mitarai Kiyoshi no Aisatsu ("Mitarai Kiyoshi's Greetings") [1987]
Ihou no Kishi ("A Knight in Strange Lands") [1988]
Mitarai Kiyoshi no Dance ("Mitarai Kiyoshi's Dance") [1990]
Suishou no Pyramid ("The Crystal Pyramid") [1991]
Atopos [1993]
Nejishiki Zazetsuki  ("Screw-Type Zazetsuki") [2003]
Okujou no Douketachi ("Clowns on the Roof") [2016]

Toshiko had no reason at all to commit suicide. Sure, she was not particularly good at her job at U Bank, and unlike the other female workers her age, she was still single at the moment, but unbeknownst to the people making fun of her behind her back, she did manage to get herself engaged with a nice, extremely handsome younger man, who looked a lot like Tom Cruise. With their marriage planned for the following month, Toshiko had every reason to want to live. Yet for some mysterious reason, she jumped off the roof of U Bank. Her boss obviously is perplexed. Toshiko had just bragged about her boyfriend moments before she went up to the roof to water the bonsai plants there, so why would she commit suicide? Yet a witness swears he saw Toshiko go over the railing by herself, with nobody else present on the roof. With a witness present, even Toshiko's boss has no other choice but to accept it was a suicide, but soon after, another of his subordinates jumps to his death after being sent up to water the bonsai plants. This man too had absolutely no reason to die, but once again, it appears the victim jumped on their own volition, as there was nobody else on the roof at the moment it happened. Both suicide and murder are impossible considering the circumstances, yet these deaths did happen. When a third man jumps however, their boss is finally convinced that their roof is cursed. A journalist informs private detective Mitarai Kiyoshi of these strange events, but Mitarai is convinced there is a logical explanation to this series of deaths in Shimada Souji's Okujou no Douketachi ("Clowns on the Roof", 2016).

Okujou no Douketachi is the fiftieth story in Shimada Souji's Mitarai Kiyoshi series, which started with Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken (1981), known in English as The Tokyo Zodiac Murders. As most people reading his blog will probably know, it were the early works in this series that later inspired writers like Ayatsuji Yukito, Arisugawa Alice and Norizuki Rintarou (and many more), which in turn would lead to a new wave of puzzle plot mystery stories in Japan in the late eighties/early nineties of the previous century. If you take a look at the list above, you'll see I've only reviewed a very minor selection of this long-running series starring a genius astrologist-turned-private-detective and his Watson, the writer Ishioka. Over the course of the run of this series, there have been a variety of adventures for this duo. Early stories like The Tokyo Zodiac Murders and Naname Yashiki no Hanzai were very classically built puzzle plot mysteries for example, while works like Ihou no Kishi or Nejishiki Zasetsuki were much more character-focused. What these works do often have in common are fantastic, alluring premises, as well as a tendency for very ridiculous tricks, in a good sense of the word. I think I make this comparison every time I do a Shimada review, but whereas most people would a needle and thread to come up with a locked room trick, Shimada would use iron wire and jackhammers. This also holds for Okujou no Douketachi.

I'd say that the premise of Okujou no Douketachi is probably the best part of the book. The mysterious roof where people who have absolutely no reason to commit suicide, who even state they have no intention to commit suicide, still jump off from is a strangely eerie place. I say strangely, because this roof is situated on top of a bank, next to a department store, in a fairly lively neighborhood. Yet, despite this modern setting (the story is set in the 90s by the way), there's definitely something uncanny going on the roof, as one by one, the bank employees take the quick way down to the street. I really enjoyed the chapters that detail this impossible situation, as you feel something anti-modern slowly creeping up.

I am not as overwhelmingly positive about the how and why behind the mysterious deaths however. On one hand, the solution definitely features the over-the-top elements I'd expect from Shimada (I correctly guessed the solution), which show that imagination is more important (and more fun!) than realism in mystery fiction. On the other hand, you need a truckload of coincidence for all the events in this novel to happen. One or two events, okay, I might accept that as possible and plausible, but there's a ridiculously long chain of coincidences necessary to result in what actually happens in this story. The way Mitarai sees through that all is a bit unbelievable, because there's too much luck involved.

The unbelievable number of coincidences necessary is also connected to another 'problem' of this book. I think I had the same with Atopos, but the plot tends to meander at times and the result is a fairly long novel, but in a way, unnecessary so. I think the idea of this story would have worked much better as a short story. A short story also means a more streamlined plot, which in turn would also get rid of a good amount of coincidences the current novel form needs to work. To call it dragging, would be to overstate my feelings on the matter, but I do feel this story is a lot longer than actually needed, and all the meandering is mainly used to set up coincidence after coincidence.

What was interesting is that there are several narratives in this book that cross each other. So you'd get a few chapters of narrative A, and then a chapter of narrative B, and than back to A, etc.  The neat idea behind this is that each of these narratives has its own font. So narrative A uses font A, narrative B font B, etc. It reminded me of how the deluxe edition of the manga Houryuu Kyoushitsu (The Drifting Classroom) used different kinds of paper depending on where the narrative was (the unknown world/Earth). I really like these ideas of using the book format to bring the reader an unique experience. I did not like all the fonts used in Okujou no Doukeshi however. Especially the first one was hard to get through, as it was like a font in bold. There was another section with a very round, cute font which was also a bit difficult to read quickly through. I think there were about four, five different fonts used in total. But especially now publishers and readers use the e-reader more and more, I am happy to these kinds of design ideas behind old-fashioned printed media.

Is Okujou no Douketachi a story fit be a landmark, to be the fiftieth work in the Mitarai Kiyoshi series? As I ask myself this question, I start waggling my head about. Not really. While it has an interesting premise I did really like, the story has to twist and turn itself around to accommodate to a novel-length plot. The problems I have with the story mostly result from stretching out an otherwise interesting idea in a manner that is at best questionable. This premise would've worked much better as a short story, which is a shame. Though this book might work quite well as a TV production, now I think about it.

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司　『屋上の道化たち』

He Came With The Rain

I'm singing in the rain

Just singing in the rain

What a glorious feelin'

I'm happy again

"Singin' in the Rain" (From: Singin' in the Rain)

Today's topic has a rather long title. I think the longest and boring title that has passed by on this blog for now is of a game though: A Steamy DS Suspense Mystery - The Data Files of Freelance Writer Tachibana Maki - Toyako / The Seven Spas / Okuyu no Sato.

One day, mystery writer Ishioka Kazumi tells his friend and detective Mitarai Kiyoshi about an interesting story he heard on the radio: according to the caller, some nights ago, during a heavy rain, he saw a beautiful woman dressed in a white one piece place her umbrella on the road. Several cars evaded it, but finally one car drove over the umbrella, breaking it. The woman then picked up the umbrella and continued down the road. Ishioka thinks it's a mystifying tale, but Mitarai quickly deduces that there must have been a reason for the woman to do so and infers a criminal event behind it all. A corpse is indeed discovered in an apartment building near where the woman was seen and the police once again (unofficially) depend on Mitarai to help find the women in white in the TV drama special Tensai Tantei Mitarai ~ Nankai Jiken File "Kasa wo Oru Onna"~ ("Genius Detective Mitarai ~ Difficult Case Files: The Woman Who Broke Her Umbrella") (or Kasa wo Oru Onnna for short. Why do Japanese TV specials always have these impossibly long titles?!)

The Mitarai Kiyoshi series is a long-running novel series about the astrologist-turned-private-detective-turned-neurologist Mitarai Kiyoshi and his mystery writer friend Ishioka Kazumi, written by Shimada Souji. Since their debut in The Tokyo Zodiac Murders (1981), the duo have been solving a great number of strange cases, with some of their adventures widely seen as among the best of Japanese detective fiction in general. The TV drama Kasa wo Oru Onna ("The Woman Who Broke Her Umbrella"), broadcast on March 7 2015, is the first time the series has been adapted to the screen and is based on a short story originally included in Shimada's novelette collection UFO Oodoori ("UFO Main Street", 2006).

I have not read the original story, but overall, I quite liked this TV special. The opening parts are definitely the best: it starts off with a great scene where Mitarai and Ishioka show off their Sherlock Holmes-Watson-esque relation and where Mitarai manages to deduce a shocking truth behind Ishioka's story about the woman and her umbrella. The problem itself resembles one of those everyday life mysteries (a woman purposely breaking her umbrella in the rain), but it soon turns into a full-fledged murder investigation, where Mitarai manages to show his superior intellect. I really enjoyed the first quarter of the special.

But the special then fails to get in a good pace then, which is partly intentional, partly unintentional, I think. The first half of the special is mostly done with just four characters: Mitarai, Ishioka and two police inspectors, who discuss the case from various angles. This is a set-up I usually really like in novels, just characters bouncing off ideas of each other, but in Kasa wo Oru Onna, it is a bit dry, even if actually a lot of ground is covered through those discussions. I can definitely understand if people find this part too boring too, as there is little tangible progress done in these scenes. By the time we reach the latter half of the TV special, I feel the novelette has been stretched out too thin: most of the elements needed to solve the case have already been mentioned, but it still takes ages to get to the conclusion. The final solution to the mysterious case of the woman and the broken umbrella is okay: its scale works for a TV production (I'd love to see Naname Yashiki no Hanzai on the screen, but whether it would work?), and it has the TV-drama angle, but personally, I find the deductions that started the case a lot more interesting than the truth revealed in the conclusion.

Oh, and a highlight in Japanese TV dramas of the last 10 years or so are the scenes when the detective solves the case in his/her head. Catchphrases have always been a thing, but I think the first 'big' one is Galileo, where the titular Yukawa "Galileo" Manabu suddenly starts writing equations at random surfaces (ground, windows, tables, glass showcases...), and it appears that each new TV drama tries to top that with its own take on it. Recent examples of fairly elaborate "it's solved" scene are throwing paper in the air (SPEC), random flashes of the relevant facts together with irrelevant and slightly disturbing shots of an unknown woman (Watashi no Kirai na Tantei) and multiple personalities talking to each other (Subete ga F ni Naru). Kasa wo Oru Onna naturally also features one that visualizes the way Mitarai sorts out the case in his head.

I have to say, the actors chosen for Mitarai Kiyoshi and Ishioka Kazumi were quite interesting, to say the least. Mitarai was played by Tamaki Hiroshi, who fairly recently played the lead detective in the TV series Watashi no Kirai na Tantei. Ishioka Kazumi is a non-detecting Watson-esque role, but actor Doumoto Kouichi played the armchair detective in Remote (2002), as well as the supernatural-werewolf-detective in Ginrou Kaiki File (1996). I wonder if there's some kind of shortlist for possible leads in detective series in Japan.

Also, I thought it is worth noting that the leads were two males. The last few years, Japanese TV dramas based on novel series seemed to have been pushing the male + female duo as protagonists (for the romantic tension it creates on screen). Well, I guess Subete ga F ni Naru is just following the original S&M novels, but the original novels behind TV drama like Galileo and Watashi no Kirai na Tantei did not feature (heavily) the male+female duo: characters were rewritten just for the TV series. But on the other side, this series was also (slightly) catering to the fangirls(or boys) with some lines between Mitarai and Ishioka, similar to what Sherlock has been doing. I think it is also (slightly) present in the original novels, but never as obvious and elaborate as in Arisugawa Alice's Writer Alice series.

I think they were planning to produce more of these specials in the future, depending on the ratings. I am not sure how well it did, but I think Tensai Tantei Mitarai ~ Nankai Jiken File "Kasa wo Oru Onna"~ was a fun TV special that serves as a good introduction to the long-running series. Now I hope they take on one of the older, grand-scale locked room mysteries in the series.

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司（原) 『天才探偵ミタライ～難解事件ファイル「傘を折る女」～

The Last Vampyre

Like a Bloody Storm

熱く Like a Bloody Stone 

血脈に刻まれた因縁に

浮き上がる消えない誇りの絆

握りしめて

『Bloody Stream』 (CODA)

Like a Bloody Storm

Hot like a bloody stone

The ever-floating bonds of pride

that are carved within the blood lineage of destiny

Hold on them tight

"Bloody Stream" (CODA)

I'm finally nearing the end of my backlog book list! That said, 'nearing' is just a relative word: considering the fact I lived off my gigantic to be read stash for more than a year, I could still continue normal business on this blog for months without getting new material.

Mitarai Kiyoshi series
Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken ("The Astrology Murder Case") [1981]
Naname Yashiki no Hanzai ("The Crime at the Slanted Mansion") [1982]
Mitarai Kiyoshi no Aisatsu ("Mitarai Kiyoshi's Greetings") [1987]
Ihou no Kishi ("A Knight in Strange Lands") [1988]
Mitarai Kiyoshi no Dance ("Mitarai Kiyoshi's Dance") [1990]
Suishou no Pyramid ("The Crystal Pyramid") [1991]
Atopos [1993]
Nejishiki Zazetsuki  ("Screw-Type Zazetsuki") [2003]

Shimada Souji's Atopos starts a while after the troublesome shooting of the film Aida '87. Actress Matsuzaki Reona's new Hollywood adventure is Salome, a musical drama movie she wrote, with some help of horror writer Michael Berkeley. who has just released a new book based on the infamous female serial killer countess Elizabeth Báthory. The Salome project is a troubled one however. Starting with the murder on Barkeley, Tinseltown is struck with one horrifying event after the other: the drowned body of Sharon Moore, an actress in Salome, is discovered, and the baby children (and grandchildren) of several people in Salome's production staff are kidnapped. Some witnesses claim to have seen a bald, bloody monster at the crime scenes, but the police thinks that Reona, who has a history with drugs and a reputation of being mentally unstable, might know more about the case. The police can't prevent the main cast and production team of Salome from going to the Dead Sea for on-location shooting though. But Death seems to have chased the project all the way from Hollywood to Israel: both the mysterious building (with maze-like layout) where the team stays and the gigantic floating movie set in the Dead Sea serve as the background for more bloody murders, with Reona as the obvious suspect (it certainly didn't help her case when she was discovered covered in blood next to one of the victims).

And at around eighty percent in the novel, detective Mitarai Kiyoshi finally arrives to save Reona and explain what happened.

Atopos is very similar to Shimada Souji's Suishou no Pyramid: both novels revolve around the shooting of a film starring Matsuzaki Reona at an isolated location. Both novels feature an incredibly long prelude: you won't reach the main story until half way through the book. And you have to wait even longer for series detective Mitarai Kiyoshi to appear. I am also not precisely sure how I feel about both novels.

You can hardly call Atopos a short book, as it is nearly 1000 pages long. One might call it two books though. The first 400 pages consists out of a novel-within-a-novel: the book about Elizabeth Báthory by Michael Berkeley. It's bloody horror amusement and quite captivating if you're interested in these kind of famous crimes in history (Nikaidou Reito's Jinroujou no Kyoufu similarly told the story of Gilles de Rais amongst others. But then again, it also featured Nazi Werewolves). But... this narrative about Báthory is actually not really related to the main story of Atopos. The novel-within-a-novel is just to strengthen the atmosphere of the book, suggesting that Matsuzaki Reona might be possesed by the same sadistic bloodlust as the countess, but it's kinda overshooting its goal. To put it in perspective; most of the full novels I review on this site, are shorter than this novel-within-a-novel. A bit of background information and the creation of a setting/atmosphere is good, but this is just too much. But it's entertaining, I'll admit: Suishou no Pyramid did the same thing, but I didn't care for the narrative-within-a-narrative there at all.

So when you have gone through nearly half of the book, you finally reach the main story (the filming of Salome at the Dead Sea). There are quite some murders in this part of the book, with the impossible murder where someone of the staff is impaled on the sword sticking out on top of the floating movie set the most eye catching one: with no cranes in the neighbourhood and no real means of climbing the set (unless you deconstruct the set), nobody could have placed the body there. Another murder is a semi-impossible situation: only Reona could have commited the murder of one of her fellow actresses, but she denies having done so. The murder was commited in the strange building the staff found all ready for their stay right next to the Dead Sea, with a four distinct wings and a maze-like interior: the building is incredibly strange, so as the reader you know something is wrong with it and that it has to do with the murders, but even if you realize that, it's next to impossible to deduce its role in the grand scheme of things (also: compare to the mysterious 'tofu' structure in Onda Riku's MAZE).

I liked how all the murders were connected to one daring solution: even though the murders took all kinds of forms, you could all bring it back to one common factor. However, that solution is quite farfetched and nobody would think of it. In that respect, Atopos really resembles MAZE. And I say Atopos is ridiculous having read other books by Shimada Souji like Naname Yashiki no Hanzai and Suishou no Pyramid, so I know how absolutely crazy (and awesome) Shimada's solutions can turn out to be: but Atopos's main revelation... well, it's not coming out of completely nowhere, but really only Mitarai Kiyoshi could have arrived at the solution based on those hints!

Atopos is very similar to Suishou no Pyramid in terms of set-up and execution, but my feelings towards them are precisely the opposite: I liked the main story and the locked room situation of Suishou no Pyramid, while I thought the first, narrative-within-narrative part of the book almost a waste of my time. On the other hand, I quite liked the first, narrative-within-narrative about Elizabeth Báthory part of Atopos, but I am not that big a fan of the mystery (and its solution) presented in the main story. In general though, Atopos does a better job at presenting itself as one coherent narrative though.

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司　『アトポス』

Confused Memories

Confused Memories

過去や悲劇さえ

ない箱の中

世界をとじこめたいの

"Confused Memories" (円谷憂子)

Confused Memories

A box

Without any past or tragedy inside

That's where I want to put the world

Confused Memories (Tsuburaya Yuuko)

A new Gyakuten Saiban project led by Takumi Shuu and a new Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo TV anime series to start in April?! Lots of interesting news this morning!

Mitarai Kiyoshi series
Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken ("The Astrology Murder Case")
Naname Yashiki no Hanzai ("The Crime at the Slanted Mansion")
Mitarai Kiyoshi no Aisatsu ("Mitarai Kiyoshi's Greetings")
Ihou no Kishi ("A Knight in Strange Lands")
Mitarai Kiyoshi no Dance ("Mitarai Kiyoshi's Dance")
Suishou no Pyramid ("The Crystal Pyramid")
Nejishiki Zazetsuki  ("Screw-Type Zazetsuki")

You open your eyes. You're stting on a bench in a park. You've fallen asleep there. It's afternoon. About time to leave. You get up, walk towards the road. You don't see your car here. Did you park it on the other side of the park? You walk back. No car here. Think. What kind of car did you drive? You can't remember. Maybe you didn't drive here? Think. How did you arrive here at the park? You can't remember. Think. Why are you here in the park? You can't remember. Think. What do you remember? Nothing. Nothing? Who are you? You can't remember. The protagonist of Shimada Souji's Ihou no Kishi ("A Knight in Strange Lands") has no memory whatsoever of his life before waking up in a park. He's naturally terribly confused, but a chance encounter with Ryouko saves him: they fall in love and start a simple, but satisfying life together. But our protagonist still wants to know how he lost his memories and what his life was before the incident, but the clues lead him to a horrible truth.

Wait, a Mitarai Kiyoshi novel about amnesia? Hadn't I already written something about that? Or was it a false memory? Actually, I did. About one year ago, I wrote about Nejishiki Zazetsuki, a 2003 novel which also featured astrologist/detective/neuro-specialist Mitarai Kiyoshi involved in a case with someone suffering from severe amnesia. Same writer, same series, same concept. How do the two novels compare?

But first, a small note. Shimada Souji's first published novel is his phenomenal Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken, but Ihou no Kishi is actually his first written novel: just published later. The title is derived from the album (and song) The Romantic Warrior by Return to Forever (which in Japanese is rendered as Rouman no Kishi, "The Romantic Knight"), because, well, music is a recurring motif in the Mitarai novels.

Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken and Naname Yashiki no Hanzai rank among my favorite detective novels. They're pretty classic in set-up, featuring familar tropes like locked room murders, decapitated bodies and murders around Christmas. Ihou no Kishi, the third full-length novel in the series, is less classic, featuring a plot less grand in scale. The first part of the story is set solely around the protagonist slowly setting up a life with Ryouko and also getting to know Mitarai Kiyoshi (who is still an astrologist at the time, and not a private detective). It's a set-up necessary for the rest of the story, sure, but compared to the beginning of the previous two novels, it's a bit slow and.... non-criminal. Ihou no Kishi's plot is of course built around the protagonist's search for his identity and finding out how he lost his memory, but it takes quite some time before the plot is actually there. It's only around the halfway point before the protagonist actually starts chasing after the clues, by which the reader might have already given up on the book, because the plot took too long to really start moving.

Nejishiki Zazetsuki was mostly built around reading a document, which held the clues to finding out about Egon Markut. I wasn't too much a fan of it, because it was based on the interpretation of a fantasy story, which to me seemed a bit too open-ended. Shimada has done more with deducing based on memories, be it memories in a person's mind, or written down in a document, see for example his debut work Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken. The tropes of a story-inside-a-story and the unreliability of the human memory can thus be considered something of pet peeves of Shimada and they are used again in this novel, but in a different way than the above mentioned novels. It's also a lot shorter, making Ihou no Kishi easier to read, with more events happening in real-time (in the story), rather than happening within documents.

I have to admit that I'm a bit disappointed Ihou no Kishi does not feature a grand trick like the previous two novels. Or does it? In a way, Ihou no Kishi features a plot just as ridiculous (in the good sense of the word) as other Shimada novels, but the way it's written it's hardly as convincing as stories as Senseijutsu Satsuji Jiken (and I can assure you that the things that happen there are actually quite crazy). But comparing Ihou no Kishi to Nejishiki Zazetsuki, which are very much alike, I'd say that Ihou no Kishi is more fun. Which is maybe because the underlying story works better. Both Ihou no Kishi and Neijishiki Zazetsuki can be read as 'simple', tragic love stories, but I prefer the one in Ihou no Kishi.

Not even near my favorite Shimada Souji story, but Ihou no Kishi has its interesting points as Shimada's first novel and also as part of the Mitarai Kiyoshi series. It also forms a bridge between the somewhat 'artificial' first two novels in the series, to the novels with a more fleshed-out story later in the series. Not must-read materal, but maybe when you've a bit more of Shimada's works.

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司  『異邦の騎士』

The Fourth Side of the Triangle

「落ちよ 時の狭間に！ゴールデン・トライアングル！！」

『聖闘士星矢』

"Fall between the cracks of time! Golden Triangle!!"

"Saint Seiya"

Now that I think about it, this blog passed it third birthday two weeks ago. Well, technically, the blog itself already started in March 2009, but the switch from posting about studying in Japan, to posting (sorta) regularly on (mostly Japanese) detective fiction, was somewhere around September 2010. Heh. I am probably the most surprised of all about me still writing this blog. Anyway, and now for something not completely different, namely another, ancient mystery.

The title of Shimada Souji's Suishou no Pyramid ("The Crystal Pyramid") refers to a copy of the Great Pyramid of Khufu made of both stone and glass, situated near New Orleans, facing the Gulf of Mexico. The monument was made by Paul Alexon, a scholar, who needed his own pyramid to prove a revolutionary theory regarding the Great Pyramid. Paul died however, leaving his pyramid (and adjoining tower-annex-living-quarters) to his brother Richard. The odd structure is now to be used as a film set for the Hollywood movie Aida '87, starring famous Japanese actress Matsuzaki Reona. Richard is also on the set, trying to hit on Reona. The first night of filming, during a hurricane, Reona swears she saw a strange creature walking near the pyramid, though nobody else of the staff saw the beast. And then the next day, Richard is found dead in his bedroom at the top of the tower next to the pyramid. The police is astounded to discover that not only was the room completely locked from the inside, the man also drowned to death on top of the tower. The police orders a stop on the filming of Aida '87 until they crack the case, but figuring that might take too long, Reona decides to ask an acquaintance, Mitarai Kiyoshi, to solve the case for her.

As much as I love Shimada's Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken and Naname Yashiki no Hanzai, I can't but say that Suishou no Pyramid is a highly flawed story. It has a very clear and easy to explain problem: it is unnecessary long. The book itself is over 700 pages, but there are many, many parts that feel as nothing more than bad, bad filler. Examples: the first 200 odd pages are dedicated to two narratives, one set in ancient Egypt, one on the Titanic, that have no significant relation to the actual case. The narrative of the actual case starts after this overly long and unneccessary prologue, but it doesn't end there. From there until the end the book is filled with passages that don't seem to serve any purpose in terms of the plot and I think the basic story could have easily been done in 300 pages, instead of more than the double. This is the biggest problem Suishou no Pyramid has, and it made this a very tiring reading experience, which could have easily been avoided. I really have no idea why it's written the way it is.

Because get rid of all the superfluous parts, and you're left with a great locked room mystery. People who have read other stories in the Mitarai Kiyoshi series like Naname Yashiki no Hanzai, Shissou Suru Shitai or Aru Kishi no Monogatari will know that Shimada Souji's impossible crime plots are... grand. I remember once watching the first, and then the last episodes of the animation series Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. In the beginning of the series, small robots fight each other on earth, but by the time of the final episode, gigantic combining robots use complete planets and galaxies as weapons. This difference in scale is also detectable here. Shimada Souji has a tendency to come up with mysteries of a completely different scale: whereas 'normal' people would use needle and thread to create a locked room murder, Shimada will use steel wire and jackhammers. And still make it work. The same holds for Suishou no Pyramid, where Shimada will baffle the reader with one of the most impressive solutions I've ever seen to a locked room murder.

Shimada's stories do sometimes feel a bit artificial at times though. I didn't think it was very obvious in Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken, but Naname Yashiki no Satsujin is probably a good example of a greatly executed locked room mystery, but which feels very forced and artificial at the same time.The same holds for Suishou no Pyramid, up to an extent. The setting of a gigantic glass pyramid in the United States is a bit artificial, of course, but this time, Shimada actually plays with this characteristic of his novels and it has very entertaining results. It works mostly if you're familiar with Shimada's works though, so I wouldn't recommend this novel if you've never read his novels before. In fact, it might be a little bit hard to get into, with the above mentioned stray narratives, and the fact that the series detective Mitarai Kiyoshi 1) appears very late in the story and 2) the introduction here isn't enough to really capture enough of his essence as a character.

Between the unneccesary passages and sub-plots, there is also quite some interesting information and background research on pyramids and in particular the Great Pyramid of Khufu. Fun if you're interested in ancient Egypt and it really adds to the mystery. The way the mysteries surrounding the Great Pyramid connect to the locked room murder in the present is surprising and definitely the highlight of this novel.

Cut away half of the novel, and you'd have a fantastic locked room mystery that also interacts with Shimada's earlier novels on a meta-level. But as it is now, it has too much excess luggage, which really hurt the core story. Suishou no Pyramid is one I can only recommend by adding a lot of 'but's and disclaimers. Which is a shame, because the core is really solid.

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司　『水晶のピラミッド』