Two-Sided Affair

Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.

"The Detective Story Decalogue"

Like last week's regular review, this novel too is set around New Year. Weird coincidence that I happened to read these two novels one after another, and if I hadn't bumped up another review to be my first of the year, these two reviews would have been posted in the first week of the new year.

The last time I bothered to check, Nishimura Kyoutarou had over 600 novels on his resume. Most of them are of course about train-related mysteries featuring Inspector Totsugawa: there's a reason why people in Japan instantly associate the train mystery and elaborate alibi tricks using ingenious use of railway schedules with Nishimura (see for example this Sandwichman sketch, where Nishimura's name is used as a punchline for a gag about railway schedules). But as you can guess, churning out three, four novels a month will have effect on the quality of the mystery plots, and the couple of Nishimura novels I read once he started to be this extremely prolific were not particularly enjoyable or inspiring. I did have fun with several of his earlier novels though, including the weird crossover series with Ellery Queen, Hercule Poirot, Akechi Kogorou and Inspector Maigret, and once in a while, I enjoy exploring his earlier output.

Koroshi no Soukyokusen ("Hyperbola of Murder", 1971) is one of Nishimura's earlier novels and widely considered to be one of his best works, and it isn't even about Inspector Totsugawa or railway schedules! In fact, it's a very diferent type of story than we are used to with Nishimura, as it's a closed circle murder mystery that is written as a full-blown homage to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. Though with a very interesting twist. For once you open the novel, you'll find a short preface by the author, where he tells you outright that the main trick of this novel revolves around twins! Figuring that Knox and S.S. Van Dine had certain strong opinions about the use of twins in mystery fiction, Nishimura simply decided to make it clear right away that Koroshi no Soukyokusen will make use of twins as a plot device, as you can hardly complain that the reader has not "been duly prepared for them" with such a warning! And indeed, the story starts off right away showing how a pair of twin brothers have been committing a series of curious robberies on small supermarkets and other stores in Tokyo at the end of the year.  Each of these stores was robbed by a man with a pistol, but for some reason, the robber did not wear a mask. Eventually, the police manages to find this man, and twice even! For apparently, the robber has a twin brother, but both of them deny having committed the robberies despite not being able to present any alibi, and with no other evidence but the visual identification by the victims, the police can't do anything: they know the brothers must be in cahoots, but as the robberies were ultimately only committed by one person, they can't arrest both brothers, as one of them is not guilty of any crime in the practical sense. The police also has trouble locating where the stolen money has gone too.

At the same time, the reader is introduced to Kyouko, a typist who works in Tokyo, but is now spending New Year at a small hotel in the Miyagi Prefecture. She and her fiancé are among the lucky six inhabitants of Tokyo who have been offered a ski holiday completely free of charge at the Snow-View Hotel as a form of promotion: the owner, who runs the whole hotel by himself, hopes these guests will help promote the hotel to friends and acquaintances in Tokyo after their stay. Among the other guests are a student of criminology, a taxi driver and a girl working in a not-so-legal massage parlor. The Snow-View Hotel is located deep in the snowy mountains and at this time of the year basically only accessible by snowcat or skis. It doesn't take long for one of the guests to be find hanging from the ceiling in his locked room though, accompanied by a card with a strange circle mark and the message "Thus The First Step Of My Revenge Is Completed." Coincidentally, they realize that one of the bowling pins in the entertainment room has been removed too. They try to phone for help, but the phone line has been cut and even the snowcat has been disabled, meaning they are all trapped in the hotel for now. More murders soon follow, and the remaining guests sart to suspect each other. Eventually, the survivors manage to call once for help, but by the time the police arrives at the hotel, it's already too late: they find seven bodies in and around the hotel. At first, the police suspects one of the victims here must have killed the others and then themselves, but then the police receive an anonymous letter connecting these murders with the robberies committed by the twins, but what could that connection be?

Well, you certainly can't accuse Nishimura of not being ambitious here. First you have the daring declaration of the usage of twins at the very start of the novel, and then we are introduced to a dual narrative structure, with the second storyline obviously being inspired by And Then There Were None. In fact, even the characters locked up in the hotel themselves realize their situation is very much like And Then There Were None (including the bowling pins that disappear each time someone is killed), though unlike And Then There Were None, the characters here don't really know why they are being killed: they have not been accused of crimes like And Then There Were None, and none of them know each other. They have nothing in common, so why were they chosen to be killed? Don't try too much thinking about this yourself though: there might be a minor clue pointing at what connects these people, but the exact reason for why these people are killed is not something you can properly deduce based on what is shown in the story, and you just have to wait for the reveal. It's kinda farfetched though, to see the killer go this far because of that reason. I've seen the same idea used in other mystery stories too, but I find this particular iteration the least convincing.  

Anyway, perhaps the most interesting part of this novel is how it's a homage to And Then There Were None, using a dual narrative structure. I won't be the only one to be reminded of works like The Decagon House Murders (disclosure: I translated the English version) or The Jellyfish Never Freezes, which tackle the same story format. The dual story structure is a bit crude here though compared to these examples. In both The Decagon House Murders and The Jellyfish Never Freezes, the connection to the two narratives is very clear to the reader: in the former, we follow a series of murders on an island, while we also follow an investigation into the background of those murders on the mainland, while in the latter, we see the murders occur in real time, but also follow a narrative that is set a few days after the murders. In Koroshi no Soukyokusen, this connection is not clear at all until the very end. Each chapter, you have a section about the robberies committed by the twins and a section set at the Snow-View Hotel, but you never understand why you are reading about these completely different storylines. It results in a disjointed reading experience, as the story keeps jumping between these completely different events. Obviously, the connection between them is explained in the conclusion, and there is both an in-universe and a more meta-explanation to it, but both reasons feel a bit weak: the in-universe reason is incredibly convoluted, with far too many steps to get the intended results. The meta-reason is... your mileage may vary. I understand why, but it doesn't really work very well, even I find it interesting Nishimura declared outright he'd be using twins for this novel.

The robber-twins narrative is entertaining though, focusing on the police inspectors who know the twins are working together to ensure the actual robber of the two isn't caught, but they can't figure out where the loot went or how to pin the evidence on the actual robber. Meanwhile, the Snow-View Hotel narrative is definitely a straight-up homage to And Then There Were None. And as you can guess: the mystery for the reader at the end revolves around how the killer managed to kill seven people in a hotel surrounded by snow, and escape without the police finding any trace of them. I personally find these And Then There Were None homages the most fun when they have a solution to how it was all done that can be explained simply with one sentence, that makes you think "Aha, so that what it was!' the moment you hear it. That's definitely the case here, but while I think the basic idea is okay, it's just never going to work in a practical sense. I am the last person to be looking for realism in my mystery fiction, but the culprit's scheme here depends a lot on factors they can not exactly control, and 9 out 10 times, this would've blown in their face immediately, and there's no retries here. In a story with a smaller scale, this idea might've worked better, but even when I figured out what happened, I still couldn't believe it any culprit would go through all this trouble only to have the most crucial part of the scheme depend on pure luck, and the odds here weren't even in their favor from the start: they'd be betting on things happening in a manner that usually wouldn't occur like that and it would be difficult to influence the events in a way to become more favorable. I think the seasoned genre reader won't have too much identifying who the culprit is and how it was done,

Koroshi no Soukyokusen is definitely one of the best-plotted Nishimura Kyoutarou novels I've read, and as an And Then There Were None homage, it's quite entertaining, but some parts of the plot do feel weak/not very convincing. It has interesting ideas like the twins declaration and the core And Then There Were None variation that make it stand out, but perhaps the plot is telegraphed a bit too obviously, especially near the end when the story moves into the final act. But still an amusing read if you want read a Nishimura Kyoutarou novel that is not like the Stereotypical Nishimira Kyoutarou Novel.

Original Japanese title(s): 西村京太郎『殺しの双曲線』

Moving Target

「警察の正義とは、悪を地獄に落とす事であり、善を地獄より救い出す事である。真実の破片を集め、組み立てるのは天国・地獄行の切符を同時に発行するようなものだ」

「矢島喜八郎」

"The justice of the police is sending the evil to hell, and saving the good from hell. Finding the fragments of truth and putting them back together, is like issuing tickets destined for both heaven and hell."

"Yajima Kihachirou"

I might be wrong, but I have a feeling I am one of the few mystery bloggers who regularly also discusses mystery fiction in the videogame medium. For me, mystery fiction in the form of a videogame is as normal as mystery novels, TV series or audio dramas and there's all kinds of exciting things videogames can do with a mystery plot that are neigh impossible to do in any other medium, so I never really understand why people who like mystery fiction in general, would even want to ignore something as important as mystery videogames. One of the most important systems for mystery gaming was to be the original Nintendo DS line, where a plethora of mystery adventure games were released for. Its success is in hindsight no surprise: its dual screen, touch screen control and portability basically foreshadowed our obsession with smartphones now, making gaming both accessible and easy to take with you and the system also managed to hit an excellent price point for its games, as game cartridges (memory cards) were becoming cheaper, while a DS game in general didn't need as much development costs as games for home consoles like the Wii or PS3. Lots of mystery adventure games were thus released for the DS, as they were relatively cheap to develop, and these kinds of story-based games appealed to a lot of non-traditional gamers.

Nishimura Kyoutarou is an extremely prolific writer who, as of now, has more than 600 books to his name, is not only strongly associated with the travel mystery genre, but also with the numerous TV suspense dramas based on his books or original ideas by him. He was also one of the writers who jumped into gaming early on, with games based on his works released for systems like the Famicom (known as the NES in the West), PC and 3DO. What's unique about these games are that they aren't adaptations of existing novels, like sometimes happen with an author like Agatha Christie. The games featured originals tories, and Nishimura was usually credited with the original plot or at the very least, with his supervision over the project, making him usually at least somewhat connected to these games in terms of contents, instead of just signing off his name.

A while back I reviewed Nishimura Kyoutarou's not-so-good novel Tokkyuu Fuji ni Notteita Onna and a commentator asked about some of these games, and I had to admit I had only played one of them. But it was a long time ago, and I played it when I had just started studying Japanese, so I thought now was as good a time to play the game again. I had to dig around, but I finally found my cartridge of the Nintendo DS game with the overly long title DS Nishimura Kyoutarou Suspense Arata Tantei Series: Kyoto - Atami - Zekkai no Kotou Satsui no Wana ("DS Nishimura Kyoutarou Suspense - The Detective Arata Series: Kyoto - Atami - The Lone Isle In The Deep Sea - A Murderous Trap", 2007). Nishimura Kyoutarou is credited with the original plot and supervision for this game which features a new, original detective character. The 35-year old Arata Isshin is the son of the private detective Arata Kenshin, who was murdered three years ago. Unable to cope with the death of his father, Isshin left Japan to wander around the world for three years. Realizing he can't run forever, Isshin decides to return to Japan and step in his father's footsteps as a private detective. Upon his return to Japan, Isshin finds that his first task is to find his father's disciple Asuka, as he can't possibly run a detective agency without her help, but he finds that she has stopped working as a detective and is now working as a maid in a traditional inn in Kyoto. Isshin runs off to Kyoto to get her back, but he's only just arrived when a murder occurs in the traditional tea room in this faraway inn in the ancient capital of Japan.

I'll just refer to this game as DS Nishimura Kyoutarou Suspense Arata Tantei Series 1, as the full title is way too long. This game, which was followed by a sequel in 2008, is designed to be like the TV dramas based on Nishimura's work, which is also evident by its presentation, with the overly dramatic music and even "eyecatchers" for the "commercial breaks". Storywise too, DS Nishimura Kyoutarou Suspense Arata Tantei Series 1 feels very much like a "stereotypical Nishimura Kyoutarou" story, with a murder happening at popular tourist destinations or other exotic places and an emphasis in the mystery plot on alibis and the use of time-schedules (when you say Nishimura, you say elaborate alibi tricks using train schedules). This game consists of three stories, each set somewhere else: the opening story A Maze Four-and-a-half Tatami Mats Wide is set in the ancient capital Kyoto, where Isshin tries to convince Asuka to come back to Tokyo to work with him at the detective agency. The second story, A Miniature Garden of Love and Hate, starts Isshin and Asuka returning to Tokyo by Shinkansen, when their train is stopped in popular sea resort Atami because of a bomb threat. The final story, Broken Similarities, has Isshin and Asuka being kidnapped to a solitary island, where he's forced to prove that the current defendant for his father's murder is actually innocent.

As a game, DS Nishimura Kyoutarou Suspense Arata Tantei Series 1 is extremely beginner-friendly. It follows the standard adventure format: you wander around various locations as you interview people and gather evidence or testimony. The evidence and testimony you have gathered allow you to answer the quiz-like questions asked in dialogue confrontations with allies or suspects, which will further develop the plot and eventually allow you to solve the case. DS Nishimura Kyoutarou Suspense Arata Tantei Series 1 is very easy to pick up for non-gamers, as there's no penalty for giving wrong answers (it asks you to reconsider your answer), and the game also makes it clear to the player where you should go next or who to interview next, making it impossible like in older games to wander around for hours as you don't know who you should talk to about what in order to advance in the game. The downside of this accessibility is of course that this game is almost ridiculously easy, as you can't possibly stray from the correct path. So you're really here just to enjoy the story.

Mystery-plot wise, the game is never really surprising (again, the difficulty is fairly low), but the core ideas are usually okay, though one can question where they wouldn't have worked even better in a different format. A Maze Four-and-a-half Tatami Mats Wide has some nice ideas in terms of clews in relation to the crime scene (a small room for the traditional tea ceremony) and it really fits the Kyoto vibe. A Miniature Garden of Love and Hate is pretty ambitious and is perhaps the most "Nishimura Kyoutarou"-esque, with its focus on the Shinkansen bullet train and multiple crime scenes in both Tokyo and Atami. There's a pretty daring plot going too, but the step-by-step presentation that doesn't allow the player much freedom does prevent this story from becoming truly surprising. Interesting is the guest mention of Nishimura's most famous creation, Inspector Totsugawa and his subordinate Kamei, who are helping the Atami Police in this case. The final story, Broken Similarities, is set in a 1:1 replica of the building where Isshin's father was murdered. Isshin is first forced to prove that the current defendant is innocent, even though it was Isshin himself who first discovered his father's body three years ago, with the defendant standing near the body with a gun in his hand. During this new investigation however, a new murder happens in the exact same way his father's was murdered, and this time, it's his father's best friend Agata who's found holding the gun. While the "strange building on an island" reminds more of Ayatsuji Yukito than Nishimura Kyoutarou, the mystery is actually very Nishimura-like, with an emphasis on alibis and character movement. The trick behind the seemingly impossible murder is actually very clever, and there's a brilliant clew staring in you in the eyes that only becomes obvious in hindsight, but I can't deny that this final chapter is also a bit draggin, and it's a bit obvious who the murderer is as they have the widest variety in character animations prepared for them compared to the other characters!

This game also has a mode called West Village (literal meaning of Nishimura), with 50 short mystery quizzes and riddles. In some of them you have pick out a contradicting line in a story to solve the mystery, in others you have to figure out an alibi trick with a train schedule by moving trains around to arrive at a certain spot by a certain time. These are usually fairly entertaining short quizzes that serve as a break for the main game, and the latter quizzes are easily the more challenging part of this game, surpassing the main story!

DS Nishimura Kyoutarou Suspense Arata Tantei Series: Kyoto - Atami - Zekkai no Kotou Satsui no Wana is overall never an exceptional game, though it's never a bad game either. It's obviously created in a way so non-gamers can also enjoy this game and in that sense, this game is a pretty good introduction for people to see how a mystery story can translate to a game. There's little challenge here, and the mystery plots do suffer a bit from this streamlining, but overall, I have to say I did have fun with this second playthrough of the game. I never got around to playing the second game in this series actually, and I might pick it up, as it's cheaper than lunch nowadays.

Original Japanese title(s): 『DS西村京太郎サスペンス 新探偵シリーズ「京都・熱海・絶海の孤島 殺意の罠』

Sailing In The Sunset

 どこか未だに知らない場所へ迷い込みたくない？　

君といたらもっといいのにな

痛みさえも老いてゆくよう

「涙のイエスタデー」（Garnet Crow）

Don't you feel like getting lost in some unknown place?

It'd be more fun if I'd be with you

Even my pain would eventually go away

"A Yesterday Made Of Tears" (Garnet Crow)

I think the only time I set foot on a sail boat was when I was a kid, at a birthday party of a friend... Now I think about it, I haven't set foot on that many boats in general.

After an eleven-month trip across the seas, Uchida Youichi returned to Japan as a hero, as the first Japanese person to succeed in sailing around the world non-stop on his own. The feat earned him fame, a beautiful wife and a very lucratrive contract to promote a series of consumer yachts. So when the news was reported that Uchida had died in a car accident, people thought of James Dean: here they had a man in the prime of his life, lost in a tragic accident. The discovery by the police that the victim had consumed cyanide before his death though suggests that murder is much more likely than an accident and young police lieutenant Totsugawa is ordered to investigate. Digging into Uchida's life quickly shows that all's not well: he cheated on his wife, he cheated with his sailing record and there were more than a few "fellow" sailors who were very jealous of Uchida. But as Totsugawa dives deeper in the case, he finds that his most likely suspect is also the least likely one, as this man was participating in a sailing contest from Japan to Tahiti during the time the poison was planted on Uchida. Can Totsugawa find out the truth behind this perfect alibi in Nishimura Kyoutarou's Akai Cruiser ("The Red Cruiser", 1973)?

The last Nishimura novel I discussed (Tokkyuu Fuji Ni Notteita Onna), I decribed as precisely what you'd expect from a mass-produced novel. The book, originally published in 1989, showed exactly why Nishimura's able to churn out three, four books a month and have almost 600 books to his name as I'm writing this. It wasn't fun to read at all. It was an uninspired, by-the-numbers tale of "mystery" that really wasn't about anything engaging. I noted that Nishimura's earlier novels were, even if not perfect, at least much more entertaining than that novel. So I decided to go back in the past, to read one of Nishimura's earlier novels, before he became the king of the Japanese travel mystery subgenre, and before his books were nothing more than The Stereotypical Two-Hour Suspense Drama.

This is actually the first book featuring Totsugawa, Nishimura's long-running series about a Tokyo police inspector (and his team) whose cases often involve ingenous faked alibis using train schedules. In Akai Cruiser though, Totsugawa is still just a lieutenant, and the first case through which the readers got to know him wasn't about trains, but about boats! Well, that's almost as surprising as reading the first Perry Mason and discovering he doesn't really do much in the courtroom in that novel either!

The main problem of this book is that it's way too long. I mean, the whole first half could've been condensed in a few pages, and I think the story still would've worked. After the prologue that details how Uchida was found after his car accident, the story decides to spend a lot of time looking at the backstory of the victim and of the various suspicious characters who may or may not have a motive to kill Uchida off. This part takes ages. And is written a bit boring. But okay, all of this is of course perfectly fine if this was a conventional whodunnit. But it isn't. Around the halfway point, you'll realize that the one person who got a lot of attention in the first half, but was ignored because he had a perfect alibi is in fact the most likely candidate for murder. So why devote all that time at pretending like the other people were viable suspects? Sure, there's such a thing like fleshing out characters and backstories, but no way did it need that many pages to do that. It feels like a fake-out, and a bad one too, as when a story decides to devote a lot of attention to a suspect only to pretend he can't possibly be the murderer because his alibi is that he was out at sea competing in a race to Tahiti, of course I'm going to guess that he'll turn out to be the murderer. Had the story right from the start pointed at him as the murder, emphasizing the impossibility of the situation, that'd have made a much more enjoyable story.

You don't even have to go all Crofts by making it an inversed story, but do it like Matsumoto Seichou's Ten to Sen and Jikan no Shuuzoku, by making it clear something fishy is going on, but not revealing what did happen. That'd have been more interesting that a large part of the story turning out to be fairly obsolete.

For the impossible crime angle is, at the core, quite interesting. How was the suspect capable in murdering the victim while also sailing (with two other crew members) to Tahiti? The solution to that conundrum is... workable. It's not mindblowingly brilliant, but fairly engaging (even if based on a story by Matsumoto Seichou, as the murderer confess at the end of the tale). Though I have to say, the murderer had to do an awful lot to succeed with his crime. What he did to commit his murder was ironically overkill.

So Akai Cruiser was not a perfect novel either, but at least I felt Nishimura poured effort in this book. The plot is fleshed out (too much so, at times), the impossible crime is alluring and original and the whole setting of the yachting world is actually quite interesting. Akai Cruiser may not be the best Inspector Totsugawa novel I've read, but it's far from the worst either, luckily enough.

Original Japanese title(s): 西村京太郎　『赤い帆船(クルーザー)』

Instead of Evidence

オレンジ色した極楽特急に乗り込んで彼に行くよ

「恋の極楽特急」（小島麻由美）

I'll get on that orange paradise express to go meet with him

"The Paradise Express of Love" (Kojima Mayumi)

I do want to climb the Fuji one day...

Inspector Totsugawa wasn't that surprised when he got a phone call from a private detective asking him about his subordinate Houjou. Considering her looks and age, marriage was probably something not too far off in the future, so the Inspector figured it was probably the parents or some other concerned family member of the partner who wanted to know more about Houjou. It is only after the arrest of Houjou on suspicion of murder of one Yamanobe Hiroshi on the Fuji Express to Kyushu that the Inspector learns she never had any marriage plans: heck, she wasn't even dating. Apparently, somebody had been dating the victim Yamanobe posing as Houjou, and the real Houjou had tried to find her imposter by boarding the Fuji Express, but with Yamanobe murdered and evidence piling up that "Houjou"' is the murderer, the Fukuoka Police has no choice but to detain their collegue. Inspector Totsugawa however believes his subordinate to be innocent, and starts an investigation into the murder in Nishimura Kyoutarou's Tokkyuu Fuji ni Notteita Onna ("The Woman Who Took The Fuji Express", 1989).

Another novel by Nishimura Kyoutarou, and another in the Inspector Totsugawa series. Yep, this one is about trains too, at least, it features a train at the start of the story. The titular Fuji was a sleeper train that ran between Tokyo and Oita, Kyushu, running (in one form or another) between 1929 until 2009. Unlike many other books in the Inspector Totsugawa series though, the Fuji's appearance is pretty much limited to the first couple of chapters: it is nothing more than the crime scene, and there are no clever time schedule tricks, nor do we see the Inspector and his team traveling across the country in order to find the imposter.

I have mentioned in earlier reviews that Nishimura Kyoutarou is an extremely prolific writer, who has close to 600 novels to his name as I write this review. And yes, that takes an enormous toll on the quality. He sometimes publishes several books per month, and most, if not all of them will feature Totsugawa and trains, so you can guess how samey and uninspired they can become. I have reviewed some earlier novels in the series for this blog, like Terminal Satsujin Jiken and Blue Train Satsujin Jiken, which may not have been perfect, but they were still entertaining as mystery novels with a focus on trains, with murderers making clever use of time schedules and the unique setting of trains as a murder scene. Tokkyuu Fuji ni Notteita Onna on the other hand is a perfect example of a mass-produced product, with little originality and few signs of actual plotting. It really feels like it was simply written because another book needed to get finished that month.

The premise itself (a female police officer being framed by an imposter) was okay, I think, but the book turns into the most predictable, and boring tale once we leave the Fuji Express. The "deductions" Inspector Totsugawa makes about the murder and the imposter are all nothing but guesses, and what's worse, each of them is proven to be correct! The Inspector sometimes comes up with the most fanciful creations of the mind by inventing unfounded connections between the various points of his investigation, which are always validated as correct a chapter later by some witness who just very luckily exists. Rince and repeat several times, and that's Tokkyuu Fuji ni Notteita Onna. Each single clue the Inspector finds happens to be intricately connected to the murderer's plot, and anything that would require actual inspiration to resolve in an adequate manner is shoved away in the hopes nobody notices it (seriously; the handling of the imposter at the end of the novel is horrible).

Also add in the fact that the Inspector does some really awful things during this investigations. Sure, he's busy trying to save his subordinate, but to orchestrate things in the hopes of upsetting a suspect so they'll strike again to clean up some loose ends, leading to more murders is probably something a police officer should avoid. The way the Inspector tries to get a suspected accomplice to talk near the end of the novel is also ridiculous, and should've got him fired no matter his intentions and the results he got.

So yeah, there is pretty much nothing redeeming about Tokkyuu Fuji ni Notteita Onna. Sure, it is a story about a murder on a train and the desperate attempts by Inspector Totsugawa to find the real murderer, but every single element of the story is written without any fire, without any real thought. The thing is not solved because the Inspector made great deductions about the crime, it is solved because his random thoughts always turn out to be correct within this fictional world, with any random guess based on nothing proven to be right. The reason I started with the book, was because I hoped the story would also feature Kyushu a bit (as the Fuji Express ends there), but what I got was The Stereotypical Mass Produced Mystery Novel by Nishimura Kyoutarou. There's definitely some fun stuff in his early work, but this novel is what happens when you publish three, four books a month.

Original Japanese title(s): 西村京太郎　『特急富士に乗っていた女』

The Mystery of the Blue Train

“Yes, yes, I know. Life is like a train, Mademoiselle. It goes on. And it is a good thing that that is so.” 

"The Mystery of the Blue Train"

It's always weird reading books with complex and intricate alibi tricks that involve the railway, when you're actually waiting on the platform for a train that's ten minutes late already...

The discovery of the body of an attractive woman in the Tama River in Tokyo appeared to be nothing more than usual business for inspector Totsugawa and his team at first, until they find a reporter who swears the victim was with him on the Hayabusa last night. The Hayabusa is a Limited Express with sleeping carriages, departing from Tokyo and arriving at Kumamoto on the other side of the country the following day. Until both trains stopped their services in 2009, the Hayabusa and its sister train Fuji were both colloquially referred to as the Blue Trains, as a reference to their characteristic blue carriages, as well as one to the famous Le Train Blue. The travel reporter had been on the Hayabusa to write an article about the trip to Kumamoto and he is sure one of his fellow passengers in the private compartment carriage had been the victim. But if she had indeed been on the Blue Train to Kumamoto as the reporter says, she could never have made it back to Tokyo to be fished out of the river as a corpse the following morning. Inspector Totsugawa however has to move carefully in this case, as the discovery of the private business card of the current Minister of Transport in the victim's purse links her to a daring caper that happened several years ago, a case in which the culprits used that very business card to scam a bank out of funds. A long and puzzling case awaits Totsugawa in Nishimura Kyoutarou's Blue Train Satsujin Jiken ("The Blue Train Murder Case"、1978).

Nishimura Kyoutarou is an immensely pro-active mystery writer who since his 1970 debut has written nearly 600 novels, most of them in the so-called "travel mystery" subgenre, which focuses on traveling, tourism and means of transport. The subgenre has elements of the Croftian school, as it often involves alibi tricks using trains, airplanes and other means of transport, but also celebrates "the country": stories are often set across various areas in Japan, and so they also include a touristic element, as each book allows the reader to travel to a place faraway. Nishimura's most famous creation is Inspector Totsugawa, who made his debut in 1973. Nowadays everybody associates Nishimura with Inspector Totsugawa and his railway mysteries, but it was actually's 1978's Blue Train Satsujin Jiken that started it all, as it is seen as the very first of Nishimura's travel mysteries.

That said though, you wouldn't have guessed from the writing, as Blue Train Satsujin Jiken starts off really captivating, as it manages to paint an interesting portrait of the titular Blue Train Hayabusa and its image in the public's eye. There is a certain romantic image to trains, especially sleeper expresses, and descriptions of the children going out to take pictures of the Blue Train are certainly not a creation of Nishimura's imagination, but something that is grabbed from real life and it's parts like these that really help give the Blue Train a firm place in this tale. The opening chapters also do a great job at inviting the reader to the mystery of a woman who may or may not have disappeared from a sleeper coach only to re-appear on the other side of the country and an enigmatic assault on the reporter on the train.

Like the novels by Crofts and Ayukawa, we follow Inspector Totsugawa as he leads his team during the investigation. And indeed, like in the novels of those two writers, it's not just Totsugawa who has his moments throughout the story. Totsugawa's whole team is of importance, and he'll often remain in headquarters, while his men and women do all the footwork and follow up on their clues. It's here where we really feel the "travel mystery" element of the book. Totsugawa himself for example travels all the way to Fukuoka (Hakata) to investigate the Blue Train early in the book, while later in the book one of his subordinates actually travels on the Blue Train, seeing all the different sights, while another subordinate is investigating in a different part of the country alongside the route. We follow the team as they travel across Japan, giving you an amusing look at the country. Domestic tourism was of course already present in Japan, and with travel standards slowly raising in the post-war period, this focus on travel was well-received, as affordability, comfort and speed were all improving.

It is in the latter half of the book things start to fall apart though. Well, 'fall apart' might be worded too harsh, but the plot definitely looses steam, as it appears Nishimura appears to have problems giving a good explanation to the otherwise promising premise. Reasons he gives for why things happened the way they happened appear sound at first sight, but even a slightly closer look quickly reveals that doing those things doesn't really make sense. As it is now, the plot feels very artificial, as the actions of the characters only served to create the initial disappearance, rather than that characters were taking logical actions in regards to their own agendas. The thing becomes too complex, with the only reason being that those events need to happen so the initial mystery premise can become true. There is actually some really clever clewing going on, but a lot of that is overshadowed by the arbitrary manner in which the mystery is revolved.

The puzzle-plot driven mystery story is of course always a fairly artificial construct, but it's up to the writer to at least give a logical reason for the actors in the story to do the things they do. In this novel, it's not utterly unbelievable, but it sure looks like there were tons of ways to do things in a simpler and less conspicuous manner.

What I did really like about this novel, and a lot of railway mysteries in general actually, is that it's all based on real timetables. There's just something magical about mysteries that make use of the actual schedules of trains, and the land they traverse through. The Blue Trains as described in this novel don't exist in their original form anymore, sadly enough, so train aficionados might find some comfort in reading about those trains of the past in novels like these.

Blue Train Satsujin Jiken in general is an okay novel on average, with a great first half, but a less impressive second half. It's certainly entertaining on the whole and one can easily imagine how Nishimura found his groove and his audience with this first travel mystery novel, despite its shortcomings. A lot of Nishimura's later works feel very similar and not very inspiring actually, with trainy train plots with simple mystery plots barely worth writing about, but Blue Train Satsujin Jiken, as one of his (relatively) early works is a moderately amusing classically constructed puzzle plot mysteries of some quality, like many of Nishimura other early works.

Original Japanse title(s):　西村京太郎 『寝台特急（ブルートレイン）殺人事件』

Pursuit

Yes Wonderland

歌は国境超えて

どこまでも進むよ

「ここにいるぜぇ」（モーニング娘。）

Yes Wonderland

Songs can cross over borders

And go everywhere

"I'm Here" (Morning Musume)

Trains have always been important as a binding factor for nations (connecting different places), but I wonder if in Japan's example, the nation's love for trains is also related to the fact that the period the train network was laid down, was also the period that the common folk were permitted to freely move around in the country in the first place? I mean, before that, it was basically impossible for the common man to move around not just physically, but also legally. And then the world suddenly opens up, with trains as the perfect symbol for that.

Train-fanatics all over the country rejoiced when it was announced that the Orient Express would make a second trip to Japan. The legendary luxary train would go from France, through Germany and the USSR, and finally be shipped to Japan, where it would make a trip across the country. The Orient Express safely crosses the sea and is sent off for maintenance for a few days (to adjust for the different size of tracks). During the maintenance, a stash of Tokarev pistols is found hidden within one of the carriages, accompanied by a letter that suggest that the recently deceased ex-Secretary of State was connected to the smuggling. In fear of a scandal, police HQ sends Inspector Saeki to Europe to find out when the pistols were hidden in the train and by whom. Saeki however disappears from Berlin during his investigation, and the police have no choice but to send Inspector Totsugawa after him in an undercover operation to find his collegue and personal friend. Inspector Totsugawa goes to Berlin accompanied by his subordinate Kusaka, but discovers that a Berlin right after the fall of the wall isn't always a nice and safe place to be in Nishimura Kyoutarou's Orient Kyuukou wo Oe ("Pursue the Orient Express", 1991).

The names Nishimura Kyoutarou and Inspector Totsugawa are basically synonyms for "travel mysteries", a particular subgenre of mystery fiction that place a focus on traveling, tourism and means of transport and. Trains in particular are very important to the Inspector Totsugawa series, as they feature heavily in the old inspector's adventures, usually as part of some kind of ingenious alibi trick. As the title of this book also featured the Orient Express, I was hoping for an interesting appearance of the (in)famous train in a Totsugawa-setting, but I really should learn to read the cover blurb of books, because this was a very different book from what I had expected.

Orient Kyuukou wo Oe is basically a shakaiha (social school) version of a Inspector Totsugawa adventure. Shakaiha is a style of crime fiction popularized by Matsumoto Seichou, with the dark side of society, with all its big corporate and government organizations, usually providing the motive for crimes. In this book, we already catch an early glimpse of this, when first Inspector Saeki, and then Inspector Totsugawa are sent to Europe to investigate the smuggling in secrecy to protect the reputation of the ex-Secretary of State. Because it's probably not good for a country's 'face' if people hear your Secretary of State deals in guns. The political, and socio-economical situation in East-Berlin are also of importance of the plot, when Totsugawa and Kusaka discover that not all are happy the wall went down.

The mystery plot of the book is fairly boring. The 'investigation' of Totsugawa and Kusaka basically consists of making it rather obvious they're searching for Saeki (which is, I think, probably not the way to go in a secret investigation) and afterwards they're just following directions given by an unknown party that claims they know what happened to Saeki. Back in Japan, Totsugawa's number one subordinate Kamei is investigating the ex-Secretary of State (helped by private detective Hashimoto, an ex-subordinate of Totsugawa). Their investigation is surprisingly useful, but that's mainly because of incredible luck: basically every person they see over the course of the investigation turns out to have something to do with the smuggling. The plot hangs together by threads of coincidence and after a while you just stop caring, because heck, coincidence will solve everything, right?

I do have to say that I'm especially disappointed the Orient Express is only used in the very beginning of the story, as the hiding place for the Tokarevs. The "Pursue" in the title of the book just refers to the route the train took. The story has a interesting international angle to it, something I'm not used to in the Inspector Totsugawa series (which is very oriented on domestic tourism), though I can't say it was really impressive. Actually, most of the time in Berlin, Totsugawa and Kusaka just stay in their hotel room waiting for phone calls, so it barely feels like they're abroad.

Orient Kyuukou wo Oe really isn't an Inspector Totsugawa book I'd recommend. It has nothing of what you'd normally expect from a Totsugawa book, and there's little in here that manages to stand out (and the little that does, only does so because the rest of the book is so bland). This is one train you don't need to get on to.

Original Japanese title(s): 西村京太郎　『オリエント急行を追え』

End and Start

スタートを切ろう 君とリセットして

次に来る運（チャンス）試したい

「START」（ 愛内里菜）

Let's start and make a reset together with you

I want to take the next chance that comes

"Start" (Auichi Rina)

I think that Shinjuku Station is still the most complex railway station I've ever visited. It's more like a chimaera, with a maze-like structure of stations from different railways and metrolines merged together with other facilities like department stores. Ikebukuro Station is a solid second place.

Ueno Station is one of the major railway stations in Tokyo, used extensively not only by commuters, but also by tourists from outside Tokyo (or the country), being near Ueno Park and the Keisei-Ueno Station which connects to Narita Airport. And traditionally, Ueno Station has also been the terminal station for the lines that connect to the north of Japan. With many people moving from the more rural northern areas to the big city, Ueno Station is to any both the terminal station, as well as the starting point of a new part of their lives. To seven friends from F High in the Aomori Prefecture, Ueno Station stood symbol for their new lives in Tokyo and seven years passed, each going their own way in the metropolis. Now the seven friends once again gather to fullfil an old promise: to go on a short trip together back to Aomori in the night-train Yuzuru. Six of the seven friends board the train together, thinking the last one just couldn't make it, but little did the group know that their friend had been murdered in the bathroom of Ueno Station. When another friend disappears from Yuzuru overnight, the group of friends, as well as the police start to think something is going on. While Inspector Totsugawa is leading the investigation of Nishimura Kyoutarou's Terminal Satsujin Jiken ("The Terminal Murder Case", 1980) from the Tokyo-side, his faithful subordinate Kamei is taking the case personally, as he himself also hails from Aomori and he knows what it is to be far fom his hometown.

Nishimura Kyoutarou is best known for his Inspector Totsugawa series, starring the titular inspector in what is often called a travel mystery in Japan: mystery stories with a travel theme (usually by train), often set outside Tokyo or the other major cities. And when you're talking about mysteries involving trains, then the words alibi trick probably pop up in your mind, and indeed, Totsugawa's M.O. often involves figuring out some ingenious alibi with the use of the railway timetable. Terminal Satsujin Jiken (1980) is one of Totsugawa's best known adventures, having won the Mystery Writers of Japan Award and been made into a TV drama three times. Detective Conan's Aoyama Goushou also recommended this title in his regular corner where he introduces the reader to other mystery series (in volume 22, which also features an Inspector Totsugawa-esque story involving a train).

I haven't read much of the Inspector Totsugawa series: some random volumes (like The Mystery Train Disappears, available in English) and none of them were really remarkable. But considering it's basically always an alibi trick, I was sorta interested in this well-received volume of the series. And indeed, it has a rather alluring situation, where one man is killed, while all the suspects were on a moving night-train towards the north of the main island of Japan. There are also some other complications, like a (rudimentary) locked room murder, but the main dish is the alibi trick. Which is actually very disappointing. For someone as experienced as Inspector Totsugawa, you'd think that actually checking out the railway timetable in detail should be one of the first things he'd do in such a case... The trick used in the book is only surprising in the sense that you wonder why the police hadn't noticed it right away. Even the other elements of the story can't do much to make the story more appealing on a plot-level. Matsumoto Seichou's Points and Lines is somewhat similar in that the main trick makes use of a blind spot, but there's a lot going around besides that.

On a sidenote, I am pretty sure that stories involving alibi tricks using trains/the subway only work well in Japan, as in general, the trains do actually run according to schedule. By which I mean to the minute, and not with two to five minutes of leeway. I still remember that some years ago, the train I took to school in Tokyo had a very minor delay (less than five minutes), but the company still issued official papers stating they had indeed a delay (to show at school/work, to prove you're not lying). It must be great if you live in a country where you can depend on the punctuality of the trains when commiting a crime.

I do have to admit that Nishimura does a fantastic job at depicting Ueno Station as a special gateway point of Tokyo: the place where people from the north arrive to start their new lives in the metropolis, or where people leave to go back to their real home. Nishimura succeeds in portraying Tokyo as a sometimes alienating melting pot of people from many different regions, not nearly as nice as the more rural areas further away from the capital. I never really felt it in other works I read by Nishimura, but here you really get the feeling you're reading a travel mystery novel, involving human beings moving around the country, each of them carrying their own past and the scent of their hometown. Shifting the focus from Totsugawa to Kamei, like the victims and suspects someone from Aomori working in Tokyo, was certainly a great idea.  The book reminded me of the film Kirin no Tsubasa, which was also about people from outside Tokyo arriving there and building up a new life.

The motive for the crimes is rather weak, or at least not very convincing as it is written now, and basically impossible for the reader to guess in advance because of the lack of proper hints, but I have to admit: the build-up to the reveal of the motive is absolutely fantastic and when all the curtains are drawn, it still manages to impress, despite the earlier mentioned hiccups.

Is The Terminal Murder Case a real masterpiece in the travel mystery subgenre? No, the mystery plot is a bit too underwhelming for that, even if it certainly does some great things in terms of characterization. When the alibi trick was first revealed I was really disappointed with the story, but having finished it and looking back, I'll admit that I enjoyed the book a lot more than I myself had expected to do.

Original Japanese title(s): 西村京太郎 『終着駅（ターミナル）殺人事件』

The Lost Special

なんなんだなんなんだ

この毎日はいったいなんだ

窓に映る僕は誰だ

ここはどこで　どこまで行くんだ

「ファイティングポーズの詩」 (馬場俊英)

What is this? What is this?

What kind of life is this?

Who is the me reflected in the window?

Where am I and where am I going?

'Fighting Pose Song' (Baba Toshihide)

It would have been so much more logical if I had started out reviewing English-translated Japanese novels and then moved on the non-translated novels. No offense meant to anyone, but moving back to English does feel like taking a step back.

One of the most prolific writers in Japan is Nishimura Kyoutarou. He is famous for his travel/train mysteries, that seem like a mix between detective stories, the railway schedule and a tourist guide. Keenfully constructed alibis that make use of the detailed and complex railway system in Japan and cops who have to travel across Japan by train to investigate their cases, it's the formula Nishimura has used for many, many years now and what made him popular. He is also strongly connected with TV productions and if you're watching an afternoon rerun of a two-hour mystery drama in Japan, there is a one in a three chance it's based on a plot by Nishimura (the other candidates are Uchida Yasuo and Yamamura Misa). Wikipedia tells me he has written 469 novels as of today, at the rate of almost a book a month. Sometimes two. And yes, that does has effects on the quality of his novels. I've seen a couple of the TV dramas and read one or two of his train mystery novels, but they are usually not really that interesting (I liked the first DS game though!). But no, I am not a big fan.

In fact, the only Nishimura Kyoutarou novels I've discussed here until now were the four novels of his Great Detectives series. Not Afraid of Great Detectives, Too Many Great Detectives, Even Great Detectives Don't Have It Easy and Cheers To The Great Detectives feature the four detectives Hercule Poirot, Ellery Queen, Maigret and Akechi Kogorou in a grand murder investigation crossover. These are some early works by Nishimura and the books are out of print (also because Nishimura never bothered clearing the rights for the use of the characters), but they are 'normal' orthodox detectives and not train-mysteries at all. The series started out pretty fun but ends in a mess, but the idea is fun. Anyway, it is pretty strange to have discussed four novels of Nishimura without any of them featuring a train...

The first Nishimura Kyoutarou novel I read was The Mystery Train Disappears (original title: Misuteri Ressha ga Kieta), which is as far as I know the only novel available of him in English. The novel was originally published in 1982, with the translation dating eight years later and is part of Nishimura Kyoutarou's Inspector Totsugawa series, his most famous creation. I have to admit that I know very little about Totsugawa, but there is actually little to tell about him except for the fact that he is a homicide inspector at the Metropolitan Police Department, who with his partner Kamei has been solving crimes since the 1970s. And he's also the hero in Nishimura's most recent work (to be released this Wednesday),  Totsugawa Keibu Seibu Shinjukusen no Shikaku ("Inspector Totsugawa - The Dead Angle of the Seibu-Shinjuku Line"). So Totsugawa's been around for some time.

The title of The Mystery Train Disappears tells the reader everything, actually. The Mystery Train is a special train run by the Japan National Railways with an unknown destination and schedule. All people know is that they are promised an entertaining ride on a train that is to leave Tokyo on a Saturday and return the following Monday. And this sense of mystery of course attracts people. Over 8000 people applied for a seat, but only 400 passengers were lucky enough to receive tickets for this exclusive train. A day after the Mystery Train's departure, the JNR's director receives a phone call: someone claims to have taken all 400 passengers hostage and demands ransom money. At first, nobody believes this story, but a couple of a phone calls makes it clear: the Mystery Train has indeed disappeared! The train definitely left Tokyo on Saturday, but it never arrived at Tottori, one of the secret destinations of the Mystery Train's schedule. The trains that were scheduled after the Mystery Train were all running on time, so there couldn't have been an accident on the track midway. How did the kidnappers manage to get hold of a complete train and all 400 passengers?

The problem with the disappearance of a train has traditionally been that there are not many ways to make a complete train disappear. I think I've read Conan Doyle's The Lost Special and Queen's Snowball in July, and I like the latter's solution more, but let's admit, there are only so many things you can do with a gigantic heavy metal tube that usually needs some kind of rails under it to move. Nishimura's solution to the problem is interesting, but though I am no railway fanatic, even I see several problems with the way Nishimura explained how the Mystery Train disappeared. Indeed, the Japanese wiki-page for this novel even makes an explicit statement that the disappearance trick used here is not possible now and not even when the book was originally published. Which kinda kills the magic. A big problem also lies with the scale: Nishimura's trick might have worked on a smaller scale, but certainly not with a 12-wagon train with 400 passengers.

There are actually two investigations going on at the same time: one is the search for the disappeared train and another is related to the transfer of the ransom money and the latter one is actually more interesting. The criminals manage to get away with the ransom money from a running train, even though the windows were locked and every passenger searched by the police. This disappearance trick overshadows the trick of the Mystery Train as it is more believable, which could not have been Nishimura's original intent.

I am also not exactly sure whether a series detective like Totsugawa was needed in this book at all. The police and the JNR are being played with by the hostage takers throughout most of the book and in fact, the story reaches its conclusion pretty much on its own, without any real interference of the police. I am not a Totsugawa fan at all, but I can imagine that some readers might have felt unsatisfied with his portrayal, because literally any police inspector could have filled in the role of Totsugawa here.

In the end, I do wonder why this novel was selected to be translated. As far as I know, it's considered pretty average even among Japanese fans of Nishimura, so why not one of his better books? Most of the Japanese mysteries translated to English are pretty good / considered classics, but The Mystery Train Disappears does not really feel worthwile. If in need for an awesome Japanese train mystery, see Matsumoto's Points and Lines.

Original Japanese title(s): 西村京太郎　『ミステリー列車が消えた』

"But now I am very humble and I say like a little child: 'I do not know...'"

「密室は、今や黄昏だ。密室は滅びだ。この二つの文字は、もはや、人々の追憶の中にしか存在し得ない。だいたい、密室そのものが、密室にせねばならぬ理由を欠いているのだ。そんな密室が、現代に生き残れるはずがない。」，明智小五郎，『名探偵に乾杯』

"The locked room, it is in its twilight years. The locked room is dying out. Soon, it will only live in the memories of man. Locked rooms often lack a reason to be locked rooms. Such locked rooms can not survive in this day and age." Akechi Kogorou, "Cheers to the great detectives"

And then there were none. Curtain for Nishimura Kyoutarou's Meitantei series. And I will stop with the bad puns now. Ellery Queen's Ellery Queen, Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, Simenon's Maigret and Edogawa Rampo's Akechi Kogorou have had their share of fun solving crimes together, but there is an end to all good things. The era of great detectives have passed. People don't read detective stories starring great detectives anymore; they long for hardboiled detectives, the normal man as detective! And so the four detectives slowly fade away from existence. And then Poirot demises. Ragnarok for the great detectives.

At the beginning of Meitantei ni kanpai ("Cheers to the great detectives"), Akechi Kogorou hosts a small memorial party on his private island for their recently departed friend. Guests naturally include Ellery Queen and Maigret, as well as Poirot's dear friend Captain Hastings. But un-invited guests also arrive at the island: a small crew of reporters, dragging along a shaman. A young couple happened to have trouble with their boat and somehow managed to swim to Akechi's island. And the most surprising one: a young man who claims his name is Hercule Poirot Junior. A man who claims he is the son of Hercule Poirot and Cynthia Murdoch.

I put the book away at this point. I was hesitating to continue. The chapter preceding Junior's appearance was awkward enough, with everyone debating on whether Poirot had a love life or not. But someone claiming to be the son of Poirot? Who knows what kind of madness Nishimura would come up with in the following chapters?

Junior says he can prove his story with two things. One: he has a manuscript with him written by Poirot, a critical assessment of the detective story. Two: he has inherited his father's little grey cells. Naturally, Hastings doesn't believe a word of Junior's story and in the end, the party decides to communicate with Poirot's ghost through the shaman, to ask him whether he really had a son.

I put the book away for a second time.

During the seance, a murder is commited. Junior comes up with a great deduction, which turns out to be wrong. Akechi, Ellery and Maigret do nothing. A second murder is commited, in a locked room nonetheless. Junior comes up with a great deduction. It turns out to be wrong. Akechi, Ellery and Maigret do nothing. Rince and repeat for several times. And in the end, Akechi solves everything. And an alternate solution for Curtain is proposed.

Yes, Meitantei ni kanpai is a tedious, awful book. Not only was the whole concept of Hercule Poirot Junior ridiculous, it was executed ridiculous too. Why would someone raised by Englishmen in South-America suddenly start using random French vocabulary because he thought his real father was Belgian? Everytime he said mademoiselle, I asked myself why. The rest of the book wasn't any better either. The locked rooms were awful and just like the previous book, the great detectives were reduced to one single entity, The Old Great Detective, who does nothing except for watching other people do stuff. The great detectives really don't show any signs of having a personality at all and it would hardly have mattered whether there were three great detectives present or one.

This is the only book in the Meitantei series that is written in the first person, by Akechi's assistent Kobayashi. Once known as the boy Kobayashi, he has become a middle-aged men with a daughter. Yes, Nishimura tried to draw parallels with Curtain. But the years and especially Nishimura have not been kind to Kobayashi, as he is reduced to an idiot. The boy who once battled The Fiend with Twenty Faces, the Robin to Akechi's Batman, is now a man who is impressed by Hastings' deductions. By Hastings' deductions!  This book is one out-of-character disaster after another.

The series had a good start. Meitantei nanka kowakunai ("Not afraid of great detectives") really was about four great detectives tackling a case togther, each using their own methods. Meitantei ga oosugiru ("Too many great detectives") was kinda busy, with four great detectives and two phantom thieves outsmarting each other, but the story was still focused on them. But Meitantei mo raku janai ("Even great detectives don't have it easy") and this book don't focus on the detectives anymore. Meitantei mo raku janai ("Even great detectives don't have it easy") is a book that laments the disappearance of the great detectives from detective novels, that sacrifices Akechi, Poirot, Ellery and Maigret for the story. And I am not even sure what Meitantei ni kanpai is. It sorta builds on the theme of the previous book, but kinda rejects it through its solution to the locked rooms. Was is it a vehicle to show the alternate solution to Curtain? If so, Nishimura coud have proposed it without imbedding it into a story. But as it is, the Meitantei series has ended in the worst way possible.

「ミステリー・マニアの弱さでしょう。考え過ぎてしまう弱さです」

"'You mean these Baker Street societies and all that,' said Miss Lemon. 'Grown men being so silly. But there, that's men all over. Like the model railways they go on playing with.'", "Hickory Dickory Dock"

To my own surprise, I'm actually close to finishing a series of detective novel reviews now. I've been enjoying Nishimura Kyoutarou's Meitantei series ("Great Detective") for some time now, starring four famous detectives, Ellery Queen's Ellery Queen, Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, Simenon's Maigret and Edogawa Rampo's Akechi Kogorou. And no, Nishimura didn't ask for permission to use them. But ignoring the problem of copyright, the previous two works, Meitantei nanka kowakunai and Meitantei ga oosugiru were quite entertaining, pitting the quartet against the infamous 300 Million Yen robbery and two phantom thieves. So my expectations for the third work were quite high.

Meitantei mo raku janai ("Even great detectives don't have it easy") starts with a group called the MMM ("Member of Mistery (sic) Mania") which invites the four detectives. MMM is a group for people with mystery mania, very fanatic fans of the detective genre. With a critically acclaimed magazine published by them and a rich hotel owner backing them up, MMM is a well known club in the Japanese detective novel world. However, in modern times, the quality of detective novels seem to have fallen and in their desparation, MMM urges detective writers everywhere to come up with a new, modern great detective. And that is why they invited the four great detectives of a time long gone, to promote this event.

It doesn't take long before a young man named Samonji barged in on the meeting between MMM and the four detectives, claiming to be the modern great detective. At which, the head and financial backbone of MMM, Okabe falls dead, poisoned. Thus starts a chain of serial murders, with members of MMM being killed one after another. The four detectives however, do not act. They express their interest for Samonji, saying he might indeed have the skills to be the modern great detective and that they want to see how Samonji handles this case. Which lieutenant Yoshimuda just can't accept, so a battle of wits begins between Yoshimuda and Samonji to solve the MMM serial murder case.

I was actually very excited after the first chapters or so, because a group of detective novel fanatics always make a nice background for a detective. It should also push the writer, as such characters are usually a lot more imaginative and experienced when coming up with deductions and thus the writer needs to come up with something that is truly brilliant (or else a in-story character could have solved it, and there would be no use for a detective).

But there is big however, as the novel was just so badly written, I lost interest halfway. Because of Samonji, the four detectives pretty much do nothing and in fact, they weren't needed in the story at all. In the end, this was just a story of Samonji versus Yoshimuda in a horrible serial murder case. I can understand why you'd confine the suspects to one hallway of a hotel, while you're conducting your investigation. In theory, you can keep your eyes on them much easier. But you'd think you'd at least let one guard guard the hallway. Because you know, you might not want to let the murderer go running from one victim to another, killing them in their rooms. Which he indeed did. Several times. The police placed someone in the hallway only after the fourth or fifth murder.

While the ending was sort of interesting, featuring a triple-layered solution, it was too bad the last solution (of course posited by the four) was impossible to deduce for the reader. Furthermore, the book had to end in a certain way from the very start and while I really hoped it wouldn't be that way, it did. Which made the book very boring, because it was more of a waiting game.

What makes the Meitantei series so much fun, is the gathering of the four detectives, doing their own things. However, in this novel, the four have been reduced to one entity, "the old generation" to contrast with Samonji and one single great detective would have done the job. Of course, putting the four detectives in the backseat, while watching Samonji and Yoshimuda's attempts to take control of the car, is bad too; I read this series to see the four detectives in action. And it could have been such a great work which this setting... I hope the final novel in this series places the four detectives back in the spotlight.　

Original Japanese title(s): 西村京太郎　『名探偵も楽じゃない』

『Ｌの悲劇』

「『第一私は、アルセーヌ・ルパンが、このよに実存することさえ信じていないんです。ルパンというのは、本当にいるんでしょうか？』（・・・）メグレは、黙って微笑している。事務長が、自分が自分の言葉の矛盾に気付いていないらしいのが、何となく可笑しかったのである。アルセーヌ・ルパンが存在しなければ、メグレとエラリーも存在しないのである。だから、メグレたちに向かって、ルパンが本当にいるのかと質問することは矛盾しているのだ。」
『名探偵が多すぎる』

"'I don't believe in the existence of Arsene Lupin in the first place. Does Lupin really exist?" (...) Maigret laughed silently. It seemed like the manager hadn't noticed the contradiction in his own words, but it was strange. If Arsene Lupin didn't exist, then neither would Maigret or Ellery. That's why it's a contraction to ask to Maigret and the others whether Lupin really exists"
 "Too Many Great Detectives"

I finally picked up the volumes I was missing in Nishimura Kyoutarou's Meitantei (Great Detectives) series, which stars four famous detectives, Ellery Queen's Ellery Queen, Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, Simenon's Maigret and Edogawa Rampo's Akechi Kogorou. I thoroughly enjoyed the first in the series, something I've never done with Nishimura's train mysteries, so I was very happy seeing these books in the Book Off. Especially for a 105 yen price.

And reading the back covers, I instantly decided I should read Meitantei ga Oosugiru ("Too many Great Detectives") at once. Because this book did not only contain a crossover between the aforementioned four great detectives, the story would pit them against the legendary French gentleman thief Arsene Lupin. Which made this awesome crossover series into something that words can not describe. I actually opened the book with an enormous grin on my face. And some pages in, I decided this world must be from another world, as even Akechi Kogorou's nemesis Kaijin Nijuu Mensou ("The monster with twenty faces") makes an appearance. How many awesome-ness can one single story from this world possible contain?

The story is set upon a cruise ship (points added!) where Akechi has invited the other detectives for the holiday. It's not long before Ellery Queen gets pickpocketed by Arsene Lupin, a warming up before Lupin makes his formal challenge to the four detectives, as he proclaims he'll steal juwelry from under their noses. The goods are indeed stolen, but the detectives do not only find the disappearence of the juwelry, they also find a dead body inside a locked room. Has Lupin, the gentleman detective, finally commited a murder, or is someone else pretending to be Lupin?

While this story is not as satisfying as the first book, not even containing a challenge to the reader, the book is still really fun to read due to crossover-awesomeness. References to whether the person claiming to be Lupin in Edogawa Rampo's Ougon Kamen ("Golden Mask") was really Lupin? Nice nod to the grandfather of Japanese detective fiction! Queen getting pickpocketed by Lupin? Hilarious! Someone calling Queen out for being an expert on persons playing multiple roles (or in Queen's case, multiple people playing one role)? I couldn't help but smile. Poirot not liking the American Ellery Queen? I could see it happen. The four detectives not wanting to solve the mystery in the hallway, but prefering to first move to a parlor or a lounge? Classic! The somewhat vengeful Lupin in the novel feels a bit out-of-character at times, but the post-813 Lupin is indeed a bit darker. And the ending is almost heart-warming. Almost.

I really wonder whether there is any other detective novel in existence with such a grand scale, pitting 4 great detectives against 2 phantom thieves!　

Original Japanese title(s): 西村京太郎　『名探偵が多すぎる』

『終わりよければ全てがいいか』

「殺人事件は現代の神話だというのだ。神話というのは、神と悪魔と人間の物語だが、殺人の場合、神は探偵、悪魔は殺人、被害者は人間だと言うわけだよ。」、明智小五郎、『名探偵なんか怖くない』

"He said murder cases are the modern myths. Myths are stories of gods, devils and men, and in the case of murders, detectives are the gods, murderers are devils and victims are humans", Akechi Kogorou, "Meitantei nanka kowakunai"

Crossover fiction tend to turn out either horribly wrong or superspecialawesome. Usually, there is no middle ground. Opinions on even the mediocrest of stories can dragged all the way to the positive side, merely due to the presence of characters of different series. Nishimura Kyoutarou's Meitantei nanka kowakunai ("Not afraid of something like great detectives") just had to be immensly entertaining, as it features four famous detectives, Ellery Queen's Ellery Queen, Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, Simenon's Maigret and Edogawa Rampo's Akechi Kogorou. I hold a special interest in three of these characters, so I was really excited about this book.

But then again, I had read some other books of Nishimura Kyoutarou before. He is an insanely prolific writer, famous for his train mysteries in Japan. In pretty much every Book-Off I visited, a minimum of 30 novels of him were to be found. Heck, the small Book-Off in Ekota had at least 60 novels of him in the bookcases, and two large discount boxes filled with exclusively his books. Two stories of him are translated in English, The Mystery Train Disappears and the short story The Kindly Blackmailer (in: Ellery Queen's Japanese Golden Dozen), but both were not very impressing. Thus even though I was excited about Meitantei nanka kowakunai, I was afraid this might be one of those trainwreck crossovers.

Luckily, this was the best novel I had read of Nishimura. With a plot that revolves around the infamous 300 Million yen robbery it was an OK story on its own, but having those four detectives together makes it a worthwile book. It does spoil the solutions to some famous stories however (spoiling both Murder on the Orient Express and The Murder of Roger Akroyd? Blasphemy!) and the discussion where Akechi Kogorou's hints at more than friendly relations with both his chronicler Edogawa Rampo and the kid Kobayashi, is kinda disturbing.

But overall, the book is entertaining and it even features a Queensian Challenge to the Reader, where the story stops to signify every clue needed to solve the mystery has been presented and thus the reader should be able to solve the mystery now. Fair play mysteries at its best.

Of course, having four great detectives on the scene is hardly fair to the murderer. Or to the normal people, who have to suffer quite a bit from the sarcasm and haughty behavior of those great minds. Luckily for those people, crossovers in detective fiction are not very common.　

Original Japanese title(s): 西村京太郎　『名探偵なんか怖くない』