The Haunted Bridge

 "I'm Guybrush Threepwood and I want to be a pirate!"

"The Secret of Monkey Island"

Awesome cover art!

Neville is a simple shoemaker in Salisbury and happily married to the mother of his soon-to-be-born first child. One day, after a visit by his father-in-law, Neville decides to walk him back home, but on the way back, they swing by a pub, a decision Neville would regret his whole life. For England is at war with France after the French revolution, and harbored at Southampton is the Halberd, a British warship which is severely short on sailors at the moment. All the actual sailors on trade ships know the navy are forcing capable people into service, so they have all gone underground the moment the Halberd approached Southampton, but the captain of the Halberd needs more men before he can ship off, so he decides to send his press gang to Salisbury to simply kidnap a group of men who are physically capable of the work. And so Neville and a few other of the locals, among which a co-worker and someone he knew since he was a child, are abducted by the Halberd's press gang and forced into service. Before they truly know what has happened to them, they find themselves on the Halberd, a formidable warship and Neville and the other new recruits barely get them to get used to the idea they are now navy sailors, in war with France. They get rudimentary training, and Neville fortunately gets assigned to a unit with some friendly faces, who gladly teach him the ropes, though they are clear to state he should abandon all hope of escaping, and all he can do is try to survive the best way he can, because that's what they are all doing. One evening, when Neville's group is assigned to the night watch, Neville hears a strange noise next to him, and the next moment, he find the sailor next to him is lying dead on the deck, his head having been bashed in! But while he couldn't see much in the darkness, he is quite sure he didn't hear anyone moving about near him before it happened, and other sailors in the vicinity testify the same. But the doctor soon determines the way the sailor was hit makes it quite clear this was murder, and an investigation is started. When later, another sailor is found murdered during a rat hunt, and Neville is once again the first one to discover the corpse, Neville finds himself in a rather risky position. But once again the witnesses seem fairly certain nobody else approached the victim. Who is the unseen assaillant on the Halberd, and why is he killing people on a ship on its way to war in Okamoto Yoshiki's Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin ("Murders on The Sailing Warship" 2023)? Could it be the ghost of the French captain who died while being held captive in the isolation cell of this ship?

Every year, publisher Tokyo Sogensha accepts manuscripts by unpublished authors for the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award: the award includes a publishing contract for the debuting author and due to its focus on puzzle plot mysteries, it's an award I always try to keep an eye on. In recent years for example I have read and loved 2019's winner Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei ("The Hourglass of the Time-Space Traveller"), 2017's winner Shijinsou no Satsujin ("The Murders in the Villa of the Dead") and 2016's winner The Jellyfish Never Freezes. The last two years however, no manuscript had managed to convince the jury, so there had been no Ayukawa Tetsuya Award winner since 2020's Goshoku no Satsujinsha (The Murderer of Five Colors). Fortunately, 2023 brought us Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin, the first winner in three years, and one with a rather unique setting. For I certainly hadn't read a mystery novel yet set in the late 18th century, aboard a British warship about to head for war with the French.

Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin certainly shines as a historical novel. We follow Neville as the Halberd's press gang force him and a few other physically capable men at the pub into service, and together with Neville, who of course has no experience on sea whatsoever, we the reader learn about the workings of a 18th century British warship. The start of the novel is fairly slow, and it can feel a bit like studying at times, as Neville and the reader are taught about all kinds of things about the warship itself, like all the names and locations for all the decks, masts, lines and more, but we also learn about the navy and the hierarchy on a ship, and the workings on a warship, from the tasks of each crew member assigned to a cannon during a naval battle, to how the clock works on a ship and how shifts are handled. I had very little knowledge about this, and I have to admit, I found the beginning, like Neville, a bit difficult to grasp at times, having to remember all the masts and decks and everything. There is a simple diagram a the beginning of the book with the parts of the Halberd, but even so, it can be a bit confusing being suddenly thrust into a setting where everyone is using terms you're not very familiar with. 

That said, it does create a fantastic atmosphere, and Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin is very memorable as a book depicting the life of sailors on a warship. Not surprisingly, life on a warship is not really fun, with many of the non-ranking sailors being just like Neville, basically kidnapped and forced into service and while they get food and drinks, the way sailors are bound to their ship and are basically not rewarded for their services and can be forced to work for an undetermined period in a rather life-threatening position, makes you realize it's basically just slavery. Neville, very obviously, feels a lot of despair realizing his child will soon be born even though their father might not survive for much longer, though there's something understandable seeing the more experienced sailors who know this isn't the good life, still trying to keep up appearances and telling dark jokes and trying to at least enjoy the little they do still have. It's clear the author has done a lot of historical research, depicting many facets of the sailor life, from their daily life and their tasks, to other aspects like the matter of what happens to sailors who try to bail.

But, of course, I wasn't reading Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin because I wanted to read a historical novel. At least, that wasn't the only reason: I was of course interested in Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin as a mystery novel. In that regard, I found the book to be quite entertaining, and not very surprisingly, the work as its best when the mystery aspects utilize its unique historical setting. The book starts out with some deaths that are semi-impossible at best: Neville twice stumbles upon a dead body during his shift (once at night, once while he's sent on a rat-batting mission by the cook), and twice he is fairly sure nobody was near the victim, besides himself and the other men in his unit, but of course, those situations are not really impossible, as Neville can't vouch for the other men, nor can he be absolutely sure nobody else (who didn't have their shift) didn't sneak into the scene. An officer is assigned to investigating the murders, as they are at least sure they're not accidents, but as there are few clues around, this investigation moves very slowly, and the focus of the book is more on the seafaring adventures of the Halberd as it prepares to wage battle, rather than the criminal investigation. We even get to see a genuine skirmish between the Halberd and two French warships, very exciting of course, but yes, the book is more often not about the investigation than about.

It's in the later quarter, when more deaths occur, the investigation finally seems to become the focus of the book. While Neville is not seen as the sole suspect at first, things move in a way that seem to implicate him more and more as the murderer, but he's quite sure he didn't do it, but what can he do to prove his own innocence, being a mere, lowly sailor with no freedom at all to do any investigation himself? One death is most definitely an impossible one, with two officers hearing a shot from the isolation cell, and when they check it, they find the man being kept there shot, but the officers swear nobody came out of this part of this ship after the shot, and all the rooms there have been searched. The trick used here to deceive the officers is perhaps when Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin is at its best, utilizing its highly unique historical setting for what is in essence a very simple trick, but it works very well, because it fits so naturally within the way we have seen life on the Halberd portrayed, and it's easy to completely overlook it. So here, I did find the book really managed to use the historical setting to create a naturally-feeling trick for the impossible situation. I was not a very big fan of the whodunnit aspect of the book though, sometimes the way the story limits the suspect pool feels very arbitrary (we're just getting a report of an off-scene investigation telling us that only like 5 men could've performed a certain action, without explaining how they limited it down to that). The book tries to go for an Ellery Queen-esque, "crossing off the suspects" type of denouement, but this part doesn't feel really satisfying. And the culprit's plan was rather... shoddy. Like he (yes, he, there are only men on the ship) had to be both lucky and unlucky at the same time, the way he learned certain facts and commited his murders... Some of the earlier murders are really not remarkable at all, so that is a bit disappointing, but I guess it works as build-up...

Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin is perhaps more a historical swashbuckling adventure novel that also concerns a mystery, than the other way around, but overall, I think it was an entertaining novel that really showed the author's love for the setting. The book offers a very unique location and time for a mystery story, and while the emphasis of the story is more about Neville's life as a sailor on the Halberd, it's a decent mystery novel, Definitely recommened to history buffs!

Original Japanese title(s): 岡本好貴『帆船軍艦の殺人』

Obituary for a Dead Anchor

If you have never been at sea in a heavy gale, you can form no idea of the confusion of mind occasioned by the wind and spray together. They blind, deafen, and strangle you, and take away all power of action or reflection. 

"A Descent into the Maelström"

I honestly don't like writing posts about books I didn't really like. Which is also the reason why reviews on my blog tend to be relatively positive: if I really didn't like something, I probably didn't finish it, or I didn't want to spend more time on it by also writing a post.

The S.S. Meganaut is en route from New York to Cherbourg. Every night, an auction is held in the smoking room, when guests can bid on numbers, which correspond to the number of nautical niles they think the ship will be able to traverse the coming day (so, it's gambling). One of the passengers on board is the wealthy Victor Timothy Smith, accompanied by his daughter Coralie. He and his entourage seem to have quite some fun bidding against, and winning from the lawyer Saul de Brasto, who has not been able to even buy one number because Smith constantly uses his immense fortune to outbid de Brasto. The lights in the smoking room suddenly go out however, followed by a pistol shot. When the lights go back on again, Smith is lying dead on the floor, daughter Coralie has passed out and Saul de Brasto is holding a smoking gun in his hand. Not surprisingly, de Brasto is immediately detained by the ship detectives for the murder on Smith, but he denies having shot Smith, claiming he shot his pistol at someone else in the room, a hitman who was trying to shoot him! However, an examination of the crime scene soon proves de Brasto right: Smith was shot by two bullets one after another, while de Brasto only shot once, and his bullet is found buried in a table in the other direction than where Smith was. The detectives are baffled as to who the murderer then is, especially as the case becomes even grimmer with Coralie dying from the sheer shock of what occured, but it happens four psychologists on their way to London develop an interest in the case too, and they each think they can explain who the murderer really is in C. Daly King's Obelists at Sea (1932).

A few years ago, I read King's Obelists Fly High, a book that was certainly not perfect, but which I did think was a fun read due to some interesting points, most notably the Clue-Finder: an appendix at the very end of the book, a list of all the hints complete with page and line reference, sorted by category (clues to how, who, motive etc.). It was a very daring way to prove to the reader the game was being played in a fair manner, and I had always wanted to read the other Obelists books too, to see whether the other books could perhaps improve on the points I did find less impressive about Fly High.

Obelists at Sea is not that book. Oh well, there's always En Route...

Obelists at Sea is a book that has many of the same elements of Fly High, elements that can provide for an interesting mystery story. We have the murder happening in a closed circle situation (a luxury liner), a story built around multiple solutions, as provided by the four psychologists, a mystery surrounding someone being able to shoot twice at Smith in the dark and of course the promise of a Clue-Finder, a multi-page proof to show King has indeed provided enough clues for you to solve the murder. The book even features multiple very detailed floorplans of the S.S. Meganaut. Memorable are the punny names of most of the characters (Victim = Victor Timothy) too.

But all of this goes nowhere good. The floorplans for example? Basically just there for fluff, because they don't actually serve any role mystery-wise. There's plenty of interesting moments and points of mystery throughout the novel, like a corpse disappearing from the doctor's quarters and the mystery of the two bullets in the victim, but the actual solutions for these events are basically shrugged over, quickly explained in like two or three sentences without giving those moments any weight. The book focuses much, muuuuch more on the idea of having four different psychologists, who each champion a different school, offer different theories for the murder (of course all pointing at different people, based on different evidence). Of course, we have seen other books utilize such structures too, from The Poisoned Chocolates Case, which too has multiple detectives proposing different theories, similar to a lot of Brand's work, but also something like Ellery Queen, where sometimes you'll see Ellery himself proposing multiple solutions. But Obelists At Sea doesn't work for me, because the theories are all so based on pscyhology (King was a psychologist), I just can't take them really seriously in a mystery novel. In a way, I do get King attempted to portray psychology from a slightly ironic angle, making fun of the four psychologists (who are basically caricatures, embodiments of their respective schools) and their theories that aren't really based on anything but "X has shown indications they are of a certain character type, so they would have done Y", but this gets tiring very fast, especically as the majority of the book is written around this gimmick. The theories presented here feel like they would be spouted by a random character and immediately brushed off in a Queen-style, evidence-and-logic-based mystery novel, not the types you can structure a whole novel around. What doesn't help either is that while the book kinda wants to say "see, psychology doesn't work" by showing these psychologists arriving at very different solutions simply because they adhere to different schools, the final solution and the clues found in the Clue-Finder are still mostly built around psychological clues! So I don't really get what King was going for. The final solution does have elements I like for a final solution (the whodunnit etc.), but by that time, I didn't really care anymore, and I think the route towards this solution could've been so much more interesting and satisfying.

The book also has a rather noticable anti-semetic tone throughout. The book never, ever forgets to remind you the main suspect Saul de Brasto is a Jew. The book starting with Victor Smith harrassing de Brasto by outbidding him every time can still be seen as a form of anti-semitism commited by one character alone, but even after he's dead, everyone from the ship's detectives to the captain keep referring to de Brasto as the Jew or the Hebrew (note that no other character in the book is referred to constantly by their background), which isn't helped when they also learn he's a lawyer, because of course he'd be a crooked lawyer (because he's a....). Even after the initial supsicion on de Brasto should be cleared, the man is treated as as if they had preferred to have jailed him anyway. It gets very tiring very quickly.

Obelists At Sea just didn't do it for me. While on the surface, it has elements that seemed promising, or at least, elements that I have seen used in plenty of mystery novels that were fun, beneath the water level, it just ended up as a book I didn't enjoy. The main structure just doesn't work for me because I am not interested in solutions based solely on psychological analyses of characters, the more interesting elements mystery-wise for some reason are underplayed because of that and the Clue-Finder gimmick is still focused on psychological clues, something I had hoped it would have done differently from Obelists Fly High. I bought a Japanese translation of Obelists En Route (translated by Ayukawa Tetsuya!) a while back, so I'll probably get to that eventually!

The Sea Mystery

No swellings tell that winds may be 

Upon some far-off happier sea—

 No heavings hint that winds have been

 On seas less hideously serene.

"The City in the Sea"

Huh, that's funny, this is a detective game with a historical setting about Ryuunosuke, who studied in England, and who has to solve a mysterious death on a ship crossing the world. And it's probably not the game you were thinking of.

After the Great Kanto Earthquake in September 1923, private detective Toudou Ryuunosuke boards the liner Shouyoumaru in San Francisco to retun to Japan. On the second day of his trip to the harbor of Yokohama, a passenger and waiter bump into each other, toppling a barrel on the deck, but to the great surprise of the few people on the deck at the time, a skeleton comes falling out of the barrel. The captain of the ship is called, who wants to keep things quiet as he fears news of a skeleton on board might cause a panic, but one of the guests who was silenced finds it all a bit too creepy, so she confides in Toudou Ryuunosuke about the affair and hopes that he, as a detective, can find out where that skeleton came from. Toudou accepts the job and starts poking around on the ship, which is transporting many people from professors, photographers to military men, but also of course the large crew of the ship. But while Toudou is investigating the affair of the skeleton, a crew member is found murdered in the ship's barber shop and Toudou is officially asked by the captain to look into the murder. But how are the skeleton and this murder connected? That is the great mystery in the mystery adventure game Ougon no Rashinban ~ Shouyoumaru San Francisco-kou Kairo Satsujin Jiken ("The Golden Compass ~ The Murder Case on the Shouyoumaru on the San Francisco Harbor Route", 1990).

Ougon no Rashinban is the second entry in the Toudou Ryuunosuke series originally created by Riverhillsoft, a developer creating adventure games for Japanese PCs in the eighties. Their star writer was Suzuki Rika, who would later set-up her own company Cing which was responsible for a few great mystery-themed adventure games on the Nintendo DS and Wii (the Another Code and Kyle Hyde series). During her time at Riverhillsoft however, she also created a few well-known series in the mystery scene in Japan: besides the Toudou Ryuunosuke series, she also created the J.B. Harold series, about the Liberty Town detective J.B.. The Toudou Ryuunosuke series, also referred to as the "1920 series" as the games are set in that period, originally "ended" with Ougon no Rashinban by the way, but after Riverhillsoft closed, Althi acquired the IP. Althi would release the original games on the DS, but also on (pre-smartphone) mobile phones, and they would also create brand new entries in the series. I don't think Suzuki Rika was involved with the games after Ougon no Rashinban, but there are like nine of them in total. As a fan of Suzuki's work, but also because of my interest in mystery adventure games in general (also the older ones!), I had been wanting to play this game for a long time, as I had once seen footage of the original PC version, and it looked quite good. I ended up playing the Switch port of the mobile phone port of the game by the way. I can't quite find when this game was released on mobile phones, though I guess it'd be in the first half of the 2000s like most of these games, and the Switch port released earlier this month (Thanks to G-Mode, which has been releasing these old mobile phone games!).

Putting it bluntly, if you have played any of the major Riverhillsoft adventure games, you will have played all of them, as they are all extremely similar in design. And there is a caveat: the game design is really dated. So these games are not really something you'd want to play very often, in succession. Like always, after a short introduction of the case, you are just dropped in the game, and given extremely many locations to visit, to talk with also an extremely large cast of characters. I'm talking 30, 40 persons, spread across at least as many locations. Ougon no Rashinban in particular has insanely many locations to visit, basically the most of any of the Riverhillsoft games I have played. The game allows you to basically visit any room on the Shouyoumaru, but many of those rooms have to function at all in the game, and are just there to inflate the number of options. So a lot of it is just to waste your time (outdated game design). Once you have found someone to talk to, you can talk to them about like 60 different topics per person. 60(!), you say? Yes, you can ask each person about all the other characters on the ship, about the incidents you are investigating, about other things going on and also show them the evidence you have. Do that times 30-40 people, which you have to find on the ship, and you can see how dated the design feels.

 

I like the basic concept of these games though, as they give off a feeling of being open-ended. At the start of the game, you can visit a very large amount of locations from the start, and as you start talking with the passengers about all the topics, you slowly start to see the connections between each character. A might seem like a nice guy at first, but when you talk about A with B, B might reveal something interesting about A. By talking to everyone, you'll slowly start to connect dots to create lines, and very slowly, your suspicions regarding a character will be risen. But because initially, you are fairly free to tackle these interviews with the characters in any order you like, it feels kinda open-ended, especially considering this was a game originally released in 1990. Ougon no Rashinban does streamline this a bit, as the game is divided in chapters (a specific part of the trip/time of the day), and once you have obtained all the necessary information about everyone/everything of a chapter, it will move on to the next chapter, with time also passing by between each chapter. Within a chapter, you have relative freedom, but this chapter division does make the game feel more... alive, I guess, as characters move around between chapters and there are also actually story developments.

But because the game is quite old, the game design feels very tedious. In each chapter, you are just basically just going around EVERY room and talk to EVERY person, because you need to activate the story flags that will allow you to move on to the next chapter. But you simply can't know beforehand where those story flags are hidden. Sometimes, a character will suddenly decide they can reveal something about a different character, even though they wouldn't do that in the previous chapter. Sometimes, you just need to confirm they don't know something.  Sometimes, just meeting with a character turns out to be a necessary story flag. There is a flag counter for each chapter, but more often than not, I thought I had done everything, and then it turned out I had 140 out of 160 flags for that chapter. And then it turned out I hadn't spoken with a character about a character he didn't have anything to tell me about in previous 10 chapters, but now decided he knew something interesting about! Or when the men's bathroom is completely useless for 13 chapters long, but then you do need to search in chapter 14 to find a piece of evidence. The official site of G-Mode for this game actually has a hint guide/walkthrough and while it will direct you to do the trickier parts, it often skips necessary flags too, giving you only like 90% of the tasks you need to do each chapter. So I'd be following the walkthrough step by step, and still end up missing like 10 story flags, which I'd have to look for myself.

 

You'd think I hate this game, but I do really like the atmosphere, the character art, and the story that is told. But it is very much a game of its time, and this game has probably about 1.5 times the locations of the J.B. Harold games, making it feel much more tedious, as there are so many rooms that are just there as filler. But yeah, this is the type of game that truly deserves a remake, because mystery adventure games have come so far in three decades. I mean, even the most basic of things, like a menu with a character list or relation chart is nowhere to be found, even though the cast is huge! (as I am writing this, I learn the original PC version had one! Why didn't the mobile port have it too!?) There is not even an in-game map to tell you where every passenger is staying on board of the Shouyoumaru, you have to write that down yourself. Mechanically, all you can do in this game is talk to other characters. There is no real interactive mechanic by which you, as the player, have to solve the mystery yourself: you are never punished, nor are you asked to answer questions yourself. You just gather information, and the game will connect the dots for you. Searching rooms for evidence is also just selecting an option, and Toudou telling you whether he found something or not. There are so many things in Ougon Ranshinban a modern game would streamline and make more enjoyable to play. In the game, you "listen" to a lot of testimony of characters about others, and sometimes, that will allow you learn someone has been lying to you, but you can't actually actively confront someone with that knowledge. The player themselves have to remember character B told them something about A, which activates a story flag, meaning the next time you talk to A, Toudou will automatically press A about the matter. A modern game would probably use a testimony inventory system or contradiction mechanic to give the player more agency to actually detect the mystery themselves, or at least allow them to have some kind of mechanic to allow them to re-read important testimonies. And while the mobile phone version does show a little mark when you hear something for the first time (activate the flag), a modern remaster would streamline the general flow a lot, meaning less wandering mindlessly around having to check every location and talk to everyone about everything, and limit your options more. Meanwhile, a more modern take on the game would also allow you to see more directly of the Shouyoumaru itself, which is an interesting location. Each character actually has an interesting story behind them, even if their lines are fairly short, so it'd be cool if that could be developed more, allowing them to speak in more detail about the interesting parts of their part of the story, while cutting the huge amount of "I don't know anything about that" lines.

But as said, the art of the original PC version is really nice, and while the mobile phone port looks, understandably, very cramped, it does have a nice atmosphere...

As a murder mystery, Ougon no Rashinban doesn't rely on clever tricks or anything, it's really about slowly uncovering the various relationships between the many characters on the ship, and slowly zooming in on the suspect, but I think that, especially considering the time this game was released, this was a pretty good effort in terms of character-focused mystery fiction. So it'd really benefit from a modern take on the same base story and characters, as I do think this part is done well, it's only very dull and monotonous to play.

Having played so many of Riverhillsoft's adventure games, I can't say Ougon no Rashinban ~ Shouyoumaru San Francisco-kou Kairo Satsujin Jiken surprised me very much. It plays like I had expected it, and tells the same kind of human-focused mysteries I have learned to appreciate. But at the same time, I have the feeling this game tried to be more ambitious by having even more locations to visit, but that only resulted in a more tedious game as so many of the "added" content is just empty filler. I think that of all mystery games I have played, these Riverhillsoft adventures would benefit the most of a remake, with actual interactive mystery-solving mechanics, as the story itself is usually interesting. I wonder if there's a market for that...

Original Japanese title(s):『黄金の羅針盤 翔洋丸桑港航路殺人事件』

Secret Cargo

War, huh, yeah 

What is it good for? Absolutely nothing, uhh

"War" (Edwin Starr)

Just pointing back to the Honkaku Discord server, in case you missed it. Also: I should've planned these posts better, because now I mention the author of today's book twice in a row.... I recently played the second Nintendo DS game supervised by Nishimura, but I should probably not plan that post as my next...

Nishimura Kyoutarou was one of the most prolific mystery writers in Japan and a household name there, even known to people not interested in mystery fiction simply due to the enormous media output that used his name, from television films to video games. When he passed away earlier this year, he had nearly 650 books on his bibliography list. I have probably not even read three percent of that total list, and not surprisingly, most of the books I have read are the better-known ones, like Koroshi no Soukyokusen ("Hyperbola of Murder", 1971), Shichinin no Shounin ("The Seven Witnesses", 1977) and of course several entries in his Inspector Totsugawa series, like Akai Cruiser ("The Red Cruiser", 1973) and Terminal Satsujin Jiken ("The Terminal Murder Case", 1980). Nishimura will forever be associated with the "travel mystery" subgenre, which focuses on traveling (tourism) and means of transport. As you may guess, the subgenre does have have elements of the Croftian school, as it often involves alibi tricks using trains, airplanes and other means of transport, but more importantly they focus on "the country": stories are often set across various locations and areas in Japan (not just Tokyo) and so they also include a touristic element, often delving into specific local train lines, famous tourist spots or places with historical importance (which is one reason why there are so many adaptations of Nishimura's work on television).  

The first Nishimura Kyoutarou novel, and the first novel featuring Inspector Totsugawa, I ever read was, probably not surprisingly, the English release of The Mystery Train Disappears. The first one I read in Japanese however might be surprising, because it's not a very well-known book. I have seen on the internet a few people mentioning it's one of their favorites, but those mentions are rare, as with over 650 books, a story really has to stand out in order to attract the attention of many. So why did I end up reading Choutokkyuu Tsubame-gou [Event Train] Satsujin Jiken ("The Event Train Super Express Tsubame Murder Case", 1987) as my first Nishimura in Japanese? The simple answer: the book was free. There used to be a table in front of the library of all the East-Asian studies at my university, and they'd put books and magazines there they didn't need anymore, and sometimes you'd find a pile of fiction pockets too. So one day, I happened to stumble upon this book and took it with me and it was actually one of the very first books I read in Japanese. And that of course meant that I was reading this book with a dictionary next to it, as I had to look up (simple!) words every two sentences and all of that. Ultimately, I did finish the book, but never thought it was anything special, and most of it was already forgotten by the following week. But a while back, when I was cleaning up books, I came across this pocket again and decided to read it again: my first time was simply not optimal as I was still learning the language, so I thought a second read would result in a fairer experience.

The book starts in the late eighties, when Inspector Totsugawa receives an anynomous letter at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, which seems to warn the police about death coming to the Super Express Tsubame. Totsugawa and his subordinate Kamei, as people who grew up as children in post-war Japan instantly recognize the name: the Super Express Tsubame was the fastest train in Japan before World War II, and when it started running in the 1930s, it shortened the trip between Tokyo and Kobe by an hour, making it "just" nine hours. The train was seen as a symbol of luxury and admiration for all children before and after the war. Eventually, the Shinkansen bullet trains would of course become the fastest trains in Japan, but the romantic image of the Tsubame remains strong among people who grew up in that period. But of course, the Tsubame hasn't run for decades now,  so initially Totsugawa thinks this is just a weird letter, but he asks Kamei to see if he can find the sender, but when Kamei succeeds in that task, he finds the sender murdered. They also learn that in two days, the Super Express Tsubame will actually ride again, as an anniversary Event Train: in 1940 there had been a special event celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Tsubame, and a special, super luxurious observation car had been created to host a number of special guests. The new 1987 event train has a replica of that observation car and while ride along the same time schedule as in 1940, and the guest are either the same guests as in 1940 or their children/relatives in case they had already passed away. Inspector Totsugawa suspects something must have happened in the train in 1940, which is why the murder victim sent a letter to the police warning them, so he decides to board the train himself too, as he is also convinced the murderer is among the guests. Meanwhile, he also comes in the possession of an unpublished manuscript of a reporter who was one of the guests in the 1940 event, and through that manuscript, Totsugawa learns the story of a young Japanese army official who boarded the Tsubame heading for the ship heading to the China war frontlines, but who seemed to have disappeared on his way...

As I was reading this book again, I realized I really had forgotten most of this book, and while some segments seemed familiar, it was clear that reading a book when you're just starting to learn a language is probably going to result in you not remembering a book down to the details, simply because you "lose" a lot of time and focus as you try to struggle with the book at a linguistic level, having to look up words and grammar. Anyway, re-reading this book didn't reveal to me this was some kind of hidden gem, but I have to say I did appreciate the book better upon my second read, even if I wouldn't call this a must-read Nishimura work.

You might expect this book to be one of those stories where they jump between the present and past between chapters as I mentioned the old manuscript Totsugawa was reading, but in actuality the past narrative only takes up about one-third of the book, even though mystery-wise, it forms the core of the novel. Totsugawa (correctly) guesses *something* must have happened in 1940 to lead to a series of murders among the guests of the event train in the present, and indeed, in the old journalist's report he learns about a curious event, at least, from the reporter's point of view. In 1940, the Japanese army was already waging war in China and nationalistic sentiments were at a high in the country: many people were clamoring to fight Western powers like the United States to "liberate" Asia to be put under Japanese rule. This ultranationalistic, suppressing atmosphere comes alive in all aspects of the past narrative and definitely one of the more memorable points of this novel. The special guests who have been invited to the event train all have different thoughts about the war, some are absolutely against the war, while others seemingly welcome it and see everyone who dares to even pause to think about it a traitor to the country. Even the luxurious observation car of the Tsubame is seen as too decadent by some, as "luxury" was seen as a national enemy in times of war. It is under these circumstances that a young Japanese army officer forces his way into the observation car of the Tsubame during the celebration event in 1940: while the car is reserved for the train company's guests, the officer declares that he is heading to Kobe's harbor as he has been assigned to the frontlines and that as someone willing he give his life to the glorious homeland, he has at least as much right, nay, even more right to occupy the observation deck than any other person here. Considering the ultranationalistic, ultramilitaristic atmosphere at the time, nobody is able to shoo him away, so he stays in the train, though obviously as an outsider to the invited guests. The officer stays inside a private compartment during the trip, while the train stops at Kyoto and finally at Kobe, but there the reporter is surprised to see the officer has disappeared. He wanted to have a short interview with him at the end of the trip and had been extra watchful to catch the officer at the platform, but the reporter swears the officer never left the train at Kobe, or Kyoto and yet he wasn't in the compartment either. While one could just assume that the officer just managed to leave the station at Kobe without the journalist noticing, as according to the files the officer did reach China, where he died on the battlefield, the reporter still thought it was very strange. It's this seemingly impossible disappearance that Totsugawa sees as the motive for the murders in the present, and he is soon proven right, as he notices that all the guests in 1987 who also attended in 1940 initially lie about the officer being in the train and seem very evasive about his presence even after admitting he was there.

As said, the past narrative only makes up for about one-third of the book, so this disappearance isn't a really complex case: most of what happened can be guessed pretty easily as there are a few scenes that are telegraphing a bit took much, but I have to say: the reasons explaining what exactly happened in the past are really well grounded in the war sentiments of that time, and a lot of it makes only sense in that ultranationalistic atmosphere. It really builds on the idea of a society in war, where some are too afraid to open their mouths in fear of being accused of being a traitor, while others are seeing a higher cause in the war and think their actions are absolutely right. It results in a rather unique setting and this is definitely an aspect of the book I appreciated a lot more on this second read. And I am not sure if this was the intention, but for some reason this book also feels like it subverses/plays with the solution to one of Agatha Christie's better known stories (okay, *most* of her stories are well-known), and while it's not a *brilliant* play, I do find it funny how it could play with your expectations if you already knew the Christie story.

The present chapters in comparison aren't as interesting: more murders happen here and Totsugawa sees the officer's disappearance (?) in 1940 as the motive, but the murders that occur here aren't "mysterious" in the sense of how, as anyone could've committed them and it just comes down to Totsugawa having to figure out who could have some connection to the missing officer. The ending also feels a bit too convenient, with people having exact knowledge of what happened just turning up to explain things. Again, the motive here is really well-connected to the past and the circumstances there, but don't expect impossible disappearances or crafty time schedule-based alibi tricks here. The deaths here are straightforward, and mostly serve as a vehicle to tell the story of the past.

Choutokkyuu Tsubame-gou [Event Train] Satsujin Jiken isn't some kind of hidden masterpiece by Nishimura Kyoutarou, but I am happy to have given it a second chance. Of course, part of the fun for me was reading this book in just a few hours now rather than weeks with a dictionary, but I could appreciate some aspects of the book better this time now I didn't have to look up things all the time and could just focus on the narrative. The war-time atmosphere and the focus on the Tsubame are definitely the highlights of this book, resulting for some memorable moments, and while I don't think this is a book I would especially recommend to someone looking to read a Nishimura, it's definitely I can see as a Rank B book that I might suggest if you have already read the truly famous ones.

Original Japanese title(s): 西村京太郎『超特急「つばめ号」（イベントトレイン）殺人事件』

Footnote to Murder

For want of a nail the shoe was lost. 

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

Sometimes, people ask in the comments how I find/choose the books I read, and the answer is: I don't really know. I have a tendency to read novelists I already know, and stick with series I know/enjoy, but even then, the question remains how I first got started on them of course. Another matter that often pops up in the comments are people asking me to make lists, as they like to have some kind of guide to find books worthwhile to read, but I have to say, I don't look into lists myself too often, which might also be a reason why I am always very reluctant to make any lists. I think that when it comes to mystery fiction, the fact I like puzzle plot mysteries (i.e. the puzzle element), and not for example "locked room murders/impossible crimes" specifically, is related to my reluctance. People like to make lists of "best locked rooms" and analyze the trickery there, but it's for example harder to really analyze a good whodunnit puzzle plot in the same manner, and there's just so many ways in which a puzzle plot mystery can be pulled off, even outside familiar tropes like impossible crimes/closed circles/etc., so I myself seldom rely on such lists to find whatever to read, and it also doesn't really motivate myself to work on such a list. So how do I find the titles I want to read? Basically, very randomly. Sometimes it's just a title that's mentioned in a review of a book I liked, the other time it's part of a series I already know/writer I already know and the summary sounds interesting, sometimes it's just the title that convinces me to read the summary, other times it's for example through a link to a game or movie I like... I just find titles everywhere and see if they sound interesting.

Disclosure: I translated Shimada's 1985 short story The Running Dead.  

Shimada Souji's Kisou, Ten wo Ugokasu ("A Fantastic Thought Can Move The Heavens", 1989) is a title I had seen mentioned a lot basically everywhere. Sometimes people point at it as one of their favorites from Shimada, it ranked in at a very respectable 51st place in the 2103 edition of the Tozai Mystery Best 100 and it has a neat title. The book features Inspector Yoshiki Takeshi and this was actually the reason why I actually first started reading the Yoshiki novels back in 2020: Kisou, Ten wo Ugokasu wasn't available as an e-book yet (still isn't at time of writing), but they had released the first three books in the series already, so while I actually wanted to read Kisou, Ten wo Ugokasu, I started with the first three novels. Mind you, I didn't really know what the book was about, just that people often seemed to mention it, and as I am familiar with Shimada's work, I figured it'd be worth taking a look at it. The book isn't only published in 1989, but also set in 1989, when consumption tax (VAT) was introduced. Shop owners knew their customer weren't going to like having to pay consuption tax, but nobody could've guessed it would lead to murder! An extremely short, elderly homeless man wanders around the streets of Asakusa and buys a bag of snacks, but doesn't pay the consumption tax. He quickly makes off, but is chased by the proprietress of the shop who yells at the man to pay the tax. But when she finally catches up to him, the man stabs the woman, and she dies on the spot. Plenty of people are witness to this murder, and the man is quickly arrested, but the man doesn't say anything to the police. Of course, with all those witnesses around, and testimonies of people who had seen the old homeless man wandering around Asakusa for about a year, just playing the harmonica to entertain people, make it an open-and-shut case: there's probably something with the man's mind, and he lashed out over the consumption tax. But when Inspector Yoshiki has a look at the man, he can't shake the feeling the man isn't quite what he seems to be. It takes some time for Yoshiki to discover the man's name, but when he learns that the man had been in prison for thirty years for a murder and only recently released, he can't believe the man would just commit another murder so easily, knowing how harsh life in prison is. Yoshiki also stumbles upon a few short fantasy stories the man wrote while in prison, about white giants lifting trains up, and about a clown in a train in Hokkaido who shoots himself in the head in the toilet of a running train, but when the conductor closes the door, but a few seconds later re-opens the door, they find the clown's body disappeared. Yoshiki then learns that the events in these stories actually happened about forty years ago in Hokkaido and he suspects that somewhere in the past, somewhere in these stories lies the reason why this old man killed the shop proprietress.

The Yoshiki series started out as a way for Shimada to combine the puzzle plot mysteries he liked, with the so-called "travel mystery", a subgenre usually associated with writers like Uchida Yasuo. The travel mystery is, obviously, often about travelling, especially by train and has a distinct touristic angle, with the mystery set in popular tourist destinations/regions often outside the capital Tokyo. Travel mysteries are generally seen as a rather "light " sub-genre within the broader mystery genre. Kisou, Ten wo Ugokasu still has elements of the travel mystery, with a story about a disappearing clown body on a running train in 1950s Hokkaido, but overall, Kisou, Ten wo Ugokasu can be best described as an attempt to fuse the puzzle plot mystery (with travel mystery elements) with the social school of mystery fiction as championed by Matsumoto Seichou, with its emphasis on commentary on social problems. I say attempt on purpose, because I have to say I thought the narrative feels a bit disjointed, with neither side feeling fully realized, and with little synergy between both sides. 

The investigation Yoshiki launches into the homeless man's history is the vehicle for the social commentary in this novel. As Yoshiki digs into the man's past, he learns the man has been the victim of great injustice done to him, not only by individuals, but also by the whole system of law and order of Japan itself. A whole lifetime of suffering was forced upon the man at various moments of his life, often without great fault of his own, but simply because people in positions of power at various levels of the Japanese society decided to screw him over.  Yoshiki is apparently completely oblivious to a lot of Japanese history, even "recent" periods like during military rule and the immediate post-war period, which may be Shimada's way for Yoshiki to act as a reader proxy, but this part of the story is obliviously not directly "mystery-plot" related, it just paints the background of why the old man ultimately did what he did. The title A Fantastic Thought Can Move The Heavens in that sense means that certain unforeseen or out-of-the-blue events can ultimately lead to big changes anywhere, and in this novel, the homeless man is shown to have been the plaything of a lot of social injustice which, in a chain reaction, brought him to his final destination. 

When Yoshiki asks his superior for more time to investigate the homeless man's past, he is asked whether he thinks it'll lead to a different murderer. And Yoshiki is of course aware that nothing will change whether he learns more about the man or not. The man was witnessed by countless of people on the streets as he stabbed the woman. So the mystery of the novel lies not here, but in the why, and most of that is found within the old fantasy-esque stories the old man wrote while he was in prison earlier. Several of his stories are set in the 1950s, in Hokkaido and involve trains, and Yoshiki learns that there was indeed some funny business going on on a Hokkaido train at that time, involving not only the body of a clown who committed suicide in a toilet of a running train and disappeared when the conductor closed the doors for a few seconds and opened it again, but there was apparently another disappearing body on the train, of someone who had been overrun by the train earlier that night and that same train eventually had a big crash and people never found out how that train derailed in the first place. Yoshiki is convinced the old man was involved with those mysterious events 40 years ago and that's the reason why he wrote stories about them and is determined to solve these fantastical crimes. And... I think the reader will be able to solve a lot of them too, because most of the events are rather easy to see through. I think what I think is a shame is that most of the mysteries in this novel feel very discrete, like seperate events A, B and C, and each individual event hsa a rather obvious solution to it. Often mystery writers combine "simpler tricks" together to make events look more mysterious, but in the case of Kisou, Ten wo Ugokasu, I don't think there was really an attempt to do this. The fact all these events occured after another feels a bit forced (not coincidence per se, but still artificial) and the motivation for the culprit to do all of this seems rather farfetched, but ignoring that, the seperate mysteries just feel like seperate, simple mysteries, and it's quite easy to guess how the clown disappeared, to guess where the other body went to, to guess how the train derailed. The fantasy stories by the old man present these events as alluring mysteries, but the moment they are examined by Yoshiki as actual events, they become rather predictable surprisingly fast. Had these events been more intertwined, I think these mysteries could have been more impressive at a technical level, but now they just felt like a string of easy to solve problems.

But like I said earlier, I have a feeling that the more fantasical crimes in the past don't really work well together with the more realistic, socially conscious tone of the narrative revolving around the homeless man's past. Kisou, Ten wo Ugokasu feels like a combination of a lot of ideas and concepts that can work perfectly in mystery fiction, but I don't feel like they work really well in this particular novel. Neither side benefits really from the other side of the spectrum, it's not like the fantastical crimes feel "extra" fantastical, nor the realism "even more realistic" by juxtapositioning the two, it just feels like there were two books here that were crushed together. Personally, I think the tone of the series as seen in earlier Yoshiki novels could easily have worked for books that focused on either side, but this particular book just feels a bit disjointed. So nope, this is not my favorite Shimada novel, nor my favorite entry in the Yoshiki series. People seem in general to be fairly positive about, so your mileage may very well vary.

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司『奇想、手を動かす』

The Case of the Silver Bullet

この真相、最高機密（トップシークレット）

「永遠の不在証明」（東京事変）

 

This truth is top secret

"The Eternal Alibi" (Tokyo Jihen)

Two weeks ago I discussed a book on the earliest trains in Japan, today a film focusing on a very modern train.

Detective Conan manga & movies:
Part 1: Volumes 1 ~ 10
Part 2: Volumes 11~20; The Timebombed Skyscraper (1) / The Fourteenth Target (2)
Part 3: Volumes 21~30; The Last Wizard of the Century (3) / Captured in Her Eyes (4)
Part 4: Volumes 31~40; Countdown to Heaven (5) / The Phantom of Baker Street (6)
Part 5: Volumes 41~50; Crossroad in the Ancient Capital (7) / Magician of the Silver Sky (8) / Strategy Above the Depths (9)
Part 6:  Volumes 51~60; Private Eyes' Requiem (10) / Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure (11)
Part 7: Volumes 61~70; Full Score of Fear (12) / The Raven Chaser (13) / Lost Ship in the Sky (14)
Part 8: Volumes 71~80; Quarter of Silence (15) / The Eleventh Striker (16) / Private Eye in the Distant Sea (17)
(You will find the links to the reviews of volumes 70, 72~76, 78, 82~100 and the films Quarter of Silence (15), The Eleventh Striker (16), Private Eye in the Distant Sea (17), Dimensional Sniper (18), Sunflowers of Inferno (19), The Darkest Nightmare (20), The Crimson Love Letter (21), Zero the Enforcer (22), The Fist of Blue Sapphire (23) in the library)

The biggest international sports event, the World Sports Games, are held every four years and this year, Japan's capital Tokyo will host the prestigious games. The opening ceremony will be viewed across the world, so it's also decided that the Hyperlinear bullet train, the pinnacle of Japanese technology, will commence operation on the same day. The Hyperlinear runs between Nagoya and the new Shibahama Station in Tokyo, connnected to the stadium where the WSG opening ceremony will be held, and the Maglev train can reach speeds up to 1000 km/h, meaning the trip between Nagoya and Tokyo won't even take thirty minutes! VIPs for the opening ceremony of the WSG will arrive by Hyperlinear from Nagoya to Tokyo. The Suzuki Zaibatsu is one of the sponsors of WSG Tokyo, allowing Sonoko to bring her friend Ran, and of course Conan and the other kids to an early reception for sponsors and other related parties to the upcoming festivities. During the party however, Sonoko's father (the president of the conglomerate) is abducted, but thanks to the Detective Boys, he's quickly found in relatively good health. It turns out that a similar incident occured 15 years ago too, in the run-up to the WSG in Boston. The directors of three major companies sponsoring WSG Boston had been kidnapped one after another. One of three was even killed by the kidnapper when the industralist was trying to run away. It appears that the same serial sponsor kidnapping case is repeating itself now in Japan with WSG Tokyo, but why? Conan of course has an interest in the case, as does the Sleeping Detective Kogorou, who is hired by automobile industrialist John Voit, fearing he may be the next victim. But there are more interested parties: high school student detective Sera Masumi and her "extraterritorial sister" seem to be involved too, much to Conan's surprise, but more dangerous are the FBI agents active in Japan right now under command of James Black, because they consider this a continuation of "their" case 15 years ago and they're determined to "clean up" themselves. When all of these interested parties learn that the likely targets will be riding the Hyperlinear on its maiden voyage from Nagoya to Tokyo to attend to the opening ceremony of the WSG, they realize that the kidnapper will likely try to strike on the "Japanese Bullet" but can they prevent a repetition of the tragedy of 15 years ago in the 2021 theatrical release Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet?

When I described Detective Conan as one of the biggest detective franchises ever, I honestly wasn't exaggerating. As a multimedia franchise, few mystery-related franchises can even come close to how absolutely massive the machine has become in over twenty-five years and one of the most obvious markers are of course the annual animated theatrical releases. Since 1997's The Time-Bombed Skyscraper, a new film has been released each year in April, and it's become a tradition of Japanese popular culture in general. Everyone just knows there'll be a new Conan movie out in April and over two decades later, they're still drawing massive audience numbers, with the movies usually ending up high on the list of best-grossing Japanese-produced movies each year. But even traditions and set plans can't stop a pandemic, so 2020 was the first year since 1997 that did not see a new Detective Conan movie released. The marketing campaign was already working full power, but due to the state of emergency declared in Japan just two before Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet was supposed to premiere, the twenty-fourth film in the franchise was first postponed, and later that summer it was officially announced the movie would be pushed back to April 2021, leaving 2020 Conan-less. I bought the home video release of The Scarlet Bullet by the way, which was released last week, and you can find traces of the "pandemic delay" in various ways by the way, with artwork, trailer and promotion material for both 2020 and 2021. So for fans, the wait for The Scarlet Bullet was certainly not short, though the push back to 2021 did make sense, because as you can guess from the summary above, the film was also created to coincide with the Summer Olympics of Tokyo, which were of course also delayed to 2021. The World Sports Games are the Olympics in all but name, though I guess it'd be hard to get official branding for a detective story about sponsors being kidnapped and killed and the FBI involved and operating in Japan and all of that! 

In the article celebrating the release of volume 100 of the Detective Conan comic, I also talked about the movies, and how the tone and atmosphere has changed in these two decades, partially because different directors with their own styles would take over. The earlier movies were basically like the original comic, with some added spectacle in the form of action scenes (explosions!). Then we got a few movies that seemed to focus more on the action, taking inspiration from panic action films and recently we had a few Detective Conan movies that seemed more inspired by political thrillers. Things come in waves though, and for example 2017's The Crimson Love Letter felt in my view a lot more like the earliest films, focusing more on a robust puzzler plot despite also featuring the bombastic action scenes of the movies we had become used to by then. In that sense, I think The Scarlet Bullet can also be described as a throwback to earlier Conan films, with the latter half of the story focusing on the Hyperlinear bullet train, the latest Conan movie reminds of the tone of the entries over a decade ago, like Magician of the Silver Sky (2004), Strategy Above the Depths (2005) and Lost Ship in the Sky (2010), but with current director Nagaoka's own touch.

Sadly enough, The Silver Bullet also seems inspired by those movies in terms of mystery plot, because it's rather light this time. The movie has a few minor mystery moments that are solved in a swift way with pretty good presentation too, preserving good pacing throughout these scenes: we already saw this technique in storytelling in the previous movie The Fist of Blue Sapphire, which had some fantastic scenes planned out to quickly show how KID would prepare a theft and then act, while also being clear to the viewer. The Scarlet Bullet has a few of these well-paced moments too, like the Detective Boys locating Sonoko's kidnapped father in the prologue and a few other moments, but the big storyline, regarding the series of kidnappings of the sponsors and the identity of the culprit, isn't really interesting at all. There are barely any suspects, so the moment when Conan and Sera figure out who did it doesn't even feel clever. It's basically a shrug moment, and at the same time, I can't say I was really surprised by this disappointing climax of the mystery, because throughout the film, the "overall" mystery plot just felt underwhelming, even if at specific, select moments, the film does have nice and even memorable scenes that involve some kind of mystery for the viewer to solve, like a certain chase scene at the end of the film and of course the part that actually involves the bullet. The action and explosions in this movie seem toned down compared to previous entries by the way, so for some it might might feel a bit disappointing, but after a pirate war fought out in Singapore previously and explosions and more that could wipe out whole city blocks or valleys a few movies back, I'm okay with them dialling back the chaos a bit. 

But while The Scarlet Bullet feels a bit like an "old" Conan film because it returns to the "panic on a moving vehicle" pattern, it also feels very like a modern Detective Conan film due to its character focus. Ever since The Darkest Nightmare, the spotlight of these films have been aimed at different specific persons or groups from the original comic besides protagonist Conan, allowing select members of the secondary cast a chance to shine or to show a different side to them we usually don't see in the main series. This is also the case with The Scarlet Bullet, which naturally kinda expects you to be somewhat aware of, and up to date with the storyline of the main series. But that also means that this film will casually spoil some plot elements of the main story if you're still at like volume 70, as this film basically assumes you're up to date with the latest release at the time of the (original planned) premiere (so around 98). If you don't know who Sera and her "extraterritorial sister" are, you'll understand next to nothing about their actions in this film and the appearance of shogi player Haneda Shuukichi will also be a complete enigma if you haven't read or watched Detective Conan the last few years, but for fans, The Scarlet Bullet is a pretty awesome showcase showing these fan-favorite characters interacting in ways you don't really see in the main series. It's such a shame that the actual mystery plot they are inserted into isn't anything special, because the manner in which they are featured in The Scarlet Bullet is actually done really well. I loved Shuukichi's scene in particular: he doesn't really appear very often in the comic and seldom does anything memorable there, so this was genuinely the first time I think he was really shown off as the shogi genius he's supposed to be. The film also plants a few minor seeds that tie in with the storyline of the comic, as has been the case the last few years.

By the way, the pandamic delay did lead to an interesting new project: a second film. The Scarlet Alibi is a compilation film that saw a limited release in theatres in February 2021, serving as a kind of 'refresher' regarding the story arcs of the four focus characters of The Scarlet Bullet. It uses material from the television animated series to bring the viewer up to date on the various characters and what storylines they're involved this last... decade, but interestingly, The Scarlet Alibi hadn't been originally planned for the original 2020 release of The Scarlet Bullet: they only made it because of the year delay of the main film. The Scarlet Alibi is included in the deluxe edition of the Japanese home video release of The Scarlet Bullet by the way!

Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet is by no means the best Conan movie of the last few years: the mystery plot is simply too light and due to its focus on a specific set of characters, it's also a bit difficult to recommend to casual fans because there are just so many character interactions going on that rely on context. Fans of these characters will have a blast though: I'm a fan of Sera myself, but she hadn't been featured in the films since Dimensional Sniper, and Shuukichi had never appeared before. I also think The Scarlet Bullet is worth a watch if you like the other panic action Detective Conan films, because this one feels very much like those older films, but with a modern feel to them. The teaser at the end of The Scarlet Bullet and a recently released Halloween-themed illustration has already shown us what the theme of next year's film will be, which probably won't surprise fans who have been keeping up with the spin-off series too, but we'll have to wait for the proper trailers to see what the next film will be about!

Original Japanese title(s): 『名探偵コナン 緋色の弾丸』

The Secret of the Lost Tunnel

"The train had already begun to move as Holmes spoke. Glancing back, I saw a tall man pushing his way furiously through the crowd, and waving his hand as if he desired to have the train stopped. It was too late, however, for we were rapidly gathering momentum, and an instant later had shot clear of the station"

"The Final Problem"

I find traveling by train soooo relaxing, though I guess some countries don't really have a train culture.

It's the year 1879. After the Meiji restoration and the opening of Japan for foreign relations, the immediate focus of the new Japanese government was on modernization and industralization of the country, and one of its pillars to connect the whole country and consolidate the central government's power was of course a railway network. As the dirctor of the Railway Board, Inoue Masaharu is responsible for laying this network of lifelines, and the project that is currently on top of the priority list is the railway tunnel through the mountain Ousakayama: this tunnel will connect former capital Kyoto to Ootsu. The project is also a matter of honor. Up until now, all the major railway projects in Japan were led by foreign engineers from countries like Great Britain and the United States, but this tunnel will be the first major railway project completely planned and designed by Japanese engineers, which will prove that Japan is ready to stand on its own feet. However, several incidents have been happening at the tunneling site: rocks falling from the mountain, measurements to ensure they're tunneling at the correct angle being changed, faulty material popping up or materials missing and there's even an incident with a supplier who fell of a train on his way back from the tunneling site. Worried that these incidents are an attempt to sabotage the project, Inoue decides to hire Kusakabe, a former policeman back when Tokyo was still called Edo. Kusakabe is reluctant at first, because he suspects the only reason why Inoue doesn't call the actual police is because of old rivalries from before the Meiji Restoration still being kept alive through political games, but he gives in and travels to the site accompanied by his Watson, engineer-in-training Onodera. It appears there are a lot of people who would like this project to fail: from other government departments who want the Railway Board's budget to the local people who will lose their jobs due to the railway. Things are murkier than Kusakabe had initially expected, so he decides to give the matter a serious look in Yamamoto Kouji's 2017 novel Kaika Tetsudou Tantei, which also bears the English title The Detective of Meiji Period Railway on the cover.

If you travel to Japan now, you realize that trains are still an important part of Japan as a country, not just as a vital lifeline, but also as part of the culture. This is also reflected in Japanese mystery fiction, where trains are a very common sight, sometimes revolving around iron-clad alibis that make brilliant use of time schedules, sometimes focusing on other related elements ranging from ekiben (lunch boxes with local specialties), the layout of stations, the morning rush and much more than I can name. However, Yamamoto Kouji, who works at a railway company, however interestingly doesn't write about the modern day railway in Japan, but about its past with The Detective of Meiji Period Railway. Most of Yamamoto's novels are mystery stories in a historical setting (Edo period) that predate railways, but with this novel, he decided to look at the earliest days of the Japanese railway network, which is a highly original theme. 

If you're into history especially, this book is really interesting. It genuinely presents the Japanese railway network as the focal theme of the book, and looks at it from various angles. Inoue for example suspects there's a political motive behind the sabotaging of the project, putting the railway network in a 'big history' context about the various parties involved with the Meiji Restoration. At the same time, the book also looks at the railway as an element that juxtaposes Japan and the West, as something that Japan needs to master in order to become a player on the international scene, while foreign powers wish to use the railway to assert their superiority over Japan. And as the investigation continues, we also look at the railway at a smaller level, focusing on people who once earned a living by transporting people and goods across water and who are now losing their jobs, to people who are now able to travel across Japan more swiftly which can sometimes even save lives. The manner in which The Detective of Meiji Period Railway presents trains and a railway network as something new in society, all the changes it brings and how that can lead to crime is highly entertaining. It does help if you have rudimentary knowledge about political/sociological/economical circumstances around that time for the details, but I think that even without that, you can enjoy this as a historical mystery about trains.

The core mystery plot feels a bit like a Holmesian adventure, which is fitting considering the time period of course. Don't expect a Queen-like densely clewed puzzler, or mystifying impossible situations: it's more about Kusakabe and Onodera poking around, stumbling upon some fact that may or may not be relevant and other incidents occuring that push the story forward. A lot happens between the first and final pages of this book, but not everything is actually directly connected to the problem of the sabotage and like a lot of Holmes' adventures, the story feels a bit 'open', making it seem like anyone could've done it, and that you're just there for the ride to see what did actually happen. Ultimately, an interesting plot is revealed and we see some events connecting to others in unexpected ways, but I think the merits of this book as a mystery lie more on the historical setting and its focus on railways, than on specifically the manner in which this story has been plotted.

Strangely enough, the book does feel a bit... cramped? The story is about railways, but most of the story is set just around the tunneling site, and the town nearby, so there's not really a lot of travelling by train done here, and when it occurs, it's never actually shown in detail. This is really a railway mystery, not a train mystery. Most of the important events also play outside or around the half-finished tunnel, so in that regards, it feels more open than you'd expect from a railway mystery (not just inside a train), but at the same, it's less about the connection between various/multiple locations.

So if the topic of the history of the railway in Japan appeals to you, Kaika Tetsudou Tantei (The Detective of Meiji Period Railway) is a must-read, as it brings a rather fascinating story that really focuses on what the railway really means for a modernizing society and uses those changes to bring an interesting tale of mystery. In terms of writing, it's perhaps closer to the adventure-like stories of Sherlock Holmes, so don't expect minute-perfect alibi tricks that use twenty train lines to make the impossible possible or super complex plotting, but it keeps the reader entertained from the start with lots of incidents happening and also a surprisingly broad (economical/sociological/political) look at the Japanese railways.

Original Japanese title(s):  山本巧次『開化鉄道探偵』

The Case of the Photo Finish

It seems his skin was sweet as mango, 

when last I held him to my breast

"Grim Fandango"

Never been to Kagoshima even though I lived relatively close there for a while...

Disclosure: I translated Shimada's 1985 short story The Running Dead. Different series though!

It's very early in the morning, before sunrise, when a writer decides to step out on his balcony again and indulge in a rather bad habit of his: spying on people. He has a look inside other apartments with his binoculars and he thinks he's lucky when he finds a half-open bathroom window, and inside he sees a woman in her bath tub. A little while later though, he realizes the woman hasn't moved at all and that she's kept her window open despite the cold. Eventually, the body does move, only to reveal a horrible sight: the woman's face has been torn off. The writer makes an anonymous call to the police, who find the dead woman in the tub. Even the veterans among the team had never seen someone with the skin torn off the face and the eyeballs removed. The victim is Chizuru, who worked as a companion at a night club. During the investigation into Chizuru's movements on the night of her murder however, they stumble upon a great mystery: around the estimated time of her death, she was also witnessed in the Hayabusa Night Train from Tokyo to Kagoshima. Several witnesses had seen her on that train that left on the evening of her death, and some even saw her after the time of her murder. Was it her ghost that took the Hayabusa or did her body somehow teleport from a riding train back into her apartment? It's Inspector Yoshiki Takeshi who has to make sense out of this in Shimada Souji's 1984 novel Shindai Tokkyuu Hayabusa -  1/60 no Kabe ("The Night Express Hayabusa -The 1/60 Second Wall).

Earlier I have reviewed Izumo Densetsu 7/8 no Satsujin ("The Izumo Legend 7/8 Murder", 1984) and Kita no Yuuzuru 2/3 no Satsujin ("The Northern Yuzuru 2/3 Murder", 1985) on this blog, which were respectivally the second and third novel to feature the character of Yoshiki Takeshi, a Tokyo-based police detective. This series was initially conceived as Shimada's take on the so-called travel mystery, a sub-genre that focuses on, obviously, travel. The genre is strongly associated with trains and brilliantly fabricated alibis that make full use of complex railway schedules and other characteristics of the subgenre include the stories often being set in popular tourist destination/region outside the capital Tokyo and involving references to local habits, folklore and legends. Shindai Tokkyuu Hayabusa -  1/60 no Kabe was the first novel in this series, but yep, I never read things in order. The series is quite succesful, having about 15 novels with the latest being released in 2019, though I am not sure whether later Yoshiki novels are also written to invoke the travel mystery genre.

Though the first pages of this book seem to invoke Edogawa Rampo more! The discovery of the horribly mutilated victim could have come right out of a Rampo story, with its theme of sexual voyeurism which ends in the discovery of a murder victim. It's a technique Rampo used a lot in his stories, and you'd almost expect the foe of this villain to be some kind of serial killer with a crazy name like The Magician, The Dwarf or The One-Eyed Clown. Once the intitial horror has passed though, you're confronted with a familiar sight in mystery fiction: the unrecognizable corpse. The story's main mystery revolves around the question of how the victim Chizuru could have been seen by multiple people in the Hayabusa Night Express, even after her estimated time of death, while her body was back in Tokyo lying in her bath tub in the early hours of the day. Readers are of course likely to immediately become suspicious of the identity of the corpse, but Shimada of course knows the familiar trope and doesn't play this one straight, and it can be quite tricky to figure out what's really going on here. The reason for the skinned face is quite ingenious actually, and perhaps one of the better ideas of this novel.

While the police is investigating Chizuru's private life and the men with whom she had affairs, it is discovered that Chizuru was seen on the Hayabusa express to Kagoshima (the other side of the country) on the night of her murder and some even saw her leave the train. And it aren't just eyewitnesses: people on the train spoke with her, and one of them even took a picture of the beautiful woman (hence the title The 1/60 Second Wall). The mystery of who this Chizuru was, whether she was the real one and or a fake and the connection to the dead body in the tub back in Tokyo is what drives the plot of this book... in theory, though a lot of time is actually spent by Yoshiki to just find out more about Chizuru, so he also travels to her home town to learn more about her family and life before she moved to Tokyo on her own. It results in a mystery novel that at one hand does have an alluring problem of a victim who is seen alive in a train while the medical records say she was dead at that time, but the narrative seems to not dwell on this too much: rather than really proposing new theories or going over time schedules to see how it could be done, Yoshiki spends more time chasing after more 'tangible' leads like the men in Chizuru's life and her estranged family, which might be more realistic, but it weakens the 'ghostly' part of the story a bit. In the end, it never felt like the book really managed to sell the problem of how Chizuru could be at two places at the same time, both alive and dead, as the core mystery. It just felt like Yoshiki going here and there asking questions about the victim's past, rather than about the current situation.

Ultimately, a tricky plot is unveiled of course that manages to explain everything. While the underlying concepts might sound familiar, the execution is done well, using a lot of misdirection and the use of the train theme to create a good variant on the idea and to make the mystery of the dead and alive Chizuru possible. The plot does have to take a few shortcurts to become possible though, which means that the motives for some people to act in certain ways to allow the mystery to come alive, feel a bit underdeveloped, or at least not very convincing at this point. One character in particular just feels like a walking plot device, doing things solely so the mystery can be constructed. And it's perhaps I just happened to pick these specific novels these last few years, but the writing of the women in the last few Shimada novels I have read all have a distinctly negative undertone. It does kinda undermine the core mystery plot I think, because I think the ideas how this and that were done to create a particular mystery and the clues leading up to the solution are okay, but then the characters, and especially the women, have to act in certain, often forced ways to make that mystery possible.

At the end of my post on Kita no Yuuzuru 2/3 no Satsujin, I wrote "I will probably read the first Yoshiki Takeshi novel first before I decide whether I'll read more of this series," but to be honest, I still don't know whether I will continue. Shindai Tokkyuu Hayabusa -  1/60 no Kabe is a perfectly passable travel mystery that has a few really good ideas, but at times it also felt it focused on parts of the story I myself didn't find as interesting as other parts, so it didn't quite manage to win me over to think of it as a must-read. There are some other novels in this series that appear to be fan favorites, so I might try those in the future, but for the moment, I think I'll take a break with this series and be content with having the first three novels.

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司『寝台特急「はやぶさ」1/60秒の壁』