The Corpse Danced at Midnight

"What a good night for a murder, eh? I mean, if somebody wanted to kill anybody, nobody would know if it was a gunshot or a firework."

"Agatha Christie's Poirot: Murder in the Mews"

This reminds me, I really should check whether I can get a new capacitor for my kinetic-driven watch...

Also: I haven't mentioned the Honkaku Discord in the weekly posts for some time now, but errr.... there's a Honkaku Discord server! It's a pretty easy-going server where we talk about mystery fiction (not exclusively Japanese), do book clubs and things like that, so if that sounds like fun, come have a look: https://discord.gg/z3HMSmf8qd

It's been almost two and a half years since I last discussed The Clockmaker Detective series by Ooyama Seiichirou, a series also known as Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu ("Alibi Cracking, At Your Service"), which is the title of the books, as well as of the live action drama series. The temporary absence from the blog doesn't mean Ooyama hasn't been working on this series though. Two short story collections have already been released, but earlier this year, the third "season" of this series started officially with the publication of the story Tokeiya Tantei to Shinnen no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and A New Year's Alibi"), which can be read for free at the J Novel site of the publisher. The story starts in the usual manner: the narrator, who is still called a rookie by his fellow police detectives even though he's been in the team for over a year now, visits Mitani Clockmakers, a quaint shop run by Mitani Tokino, a young woman who inherited the shop from her grandfather. As per her grandfather's instructions, she also offers an alibi cracking service, because it is "time-related" and therefore should be part of a clockmaker's work. Tokino has been helping the narrator immensely in his investigations, and this time, he has another problem. After exchanging new year's greetings, the narrator explains the conundrum the police are facing now.

On New Year's Eve, just after midnight, a man was found shot to death on the street. As the man still had his wallet, the victim's identity is soon determined: Noto Shingo is better known as the manga artist NOT, who has a hit manga with Hi no Kuni ("The Land of Not"). It doesn't seem he has any enemies, but one fact does attract the police's attention: the crime scene was close to Shijou-ji, a temple Noto always visited at midnight on New Year's Eve, right after midnight. It turns out an old friend of Noto lives near the temple: Itsu Kouhei, also known as Itsutsuboshi, is the manga artist of Bouzu Deka ("Monk Cop"), and the two have known each other from when they were both still struggling artists. In the past, Noto would go visit Itsu on New Year's Eve and go to Shihou-ji together, though with both of them being busy with their respective hits, they hardly see each other anymore. Still, the police suspects Noto might have intended to go to Shihou-ji with Itsu, and that Itsu might have killed Noto then, so they pay him a visit and of course ask about his alibi for New Year's Eve. Itsu however has a perfect alibi: he had been working hard on the last day of the year because of a deadline, and his assistant was with him the whole day and evening. They worked until the afternoon, fell asleep until the early evening of the thirty-first. They then watched Kouhaku Uta-gassen together as per tradition in many Japanese households on New Year's Eve. When it became midnight, Noto invited his assistant out into the garden to take a breather, where they heard people crying out "Happy New Year" and the bell starting to ring at Shihou-ji: as at many temples, the bell is struck 108 times to drive away earthly desires, and at Shijou-ji, they start exactly at midnight. After that, Itsu also read some manga drafts of his assistant and gave him some pointers, so Itsu thus has a perfect alibi for the time of the murder. Yet, the narrator feels the alibi might have been falsified, but all his own attempts at breaking it seem to fail. Can Tokino solve this mystery?

Well, of course she can. She wouldn't be much of a clockmaker if she couldn't!

After two relatively stories Tokeiya Tantei to Niritsu Haihan no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Antinomic Alibi") and Tokeiya Tantei to Ichizoku no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and a Family's Alibi"), we have a relatively "simple" story this time in terms of structure. What is interesting though, is how Itsu's alibi seems to vouched for by two elements that seem completely out of his control: the assistant was watching Kouhaku Uta-Gassen, which is a live television program which also counts down to midnight, and he heard the striking of bell of Shihou-ji Temple, which again is an element that "proves" what time it is, and not only to the assistant alone, but to everyone else who were watching Kouhaku Uta-Gassen or heard the bell ringing: in a way the assistant (and Itsu) gained their alibi by being a participant in a "group event", and that is a lot harder to falsify than a clock in a room or something like that. I do have to admit that the solution feels a bit underwhelming after the previous two stories, which were much trickier, but I guess this works perfectly as an opening story for a third volume, as the two "communal" proofs for Itsu's alibi do really seem very strong at first sight.

Some elements regarding Itsu's trick are explained in a rather handwavey manner ("Oh, he probably did this...") and feel a bit cheap, but I do really, really like the clue that points to the biggest trick Itsu pulled: while I had guessed what it was beforehand, I actually didn't realize how that clue actually tied back to the solution, and I think that clue was really clever, and perfect in case you hadn't made a guess yet. I'm almost more a fan of mystery fiction that provides clear clue-trails, rather than expecting the reader to make some wild guess based on instinct, so I could appreciate that element. It is also nice to see the narrator is actually starting to get a hang for alibi cracking himself too, as he and his co-workers are clearly are getting the hang of it and starting to think a bit like Tokino, coming up with pretty good theories for how the culprit could've created a fake alibi. 

All in all, a not very surprising, but still consistent opening story to what will hopefully become another solid volume with stories with original perfect alibi stories! I will probably discuss the following stories too in the future as they release (probably not five months late the next time), so let's hope the next one will come soon!

Original Japanese title(s): 大山誠一郎「時計屋探偵と新年のアリバイ」

Masquerade Death

The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. 

"The Masque of Red Death"

Always happy when "an out-of-print book I'm eyeing, but won't buy because a used copy is too expensive" is re-released!

Kawamiya Keisuke and Naoko took over their father's detective agency after World War II, and have been slowly making a living as private detectives. It's 1947 when they are hired by Urabe Kiwako. Arriving at Maibara Station, Keisuke and Naoko learn how important the Urabe Silk Mill is around here, being the main economic motor of the entire region. The mill used to be run by Kiwako's husband Ryuuichirou, but before he died, he took in his two twin nephews Fumihiko and Takehiko as his heirs. Fumihiko and Takehiko's parents had been estranged from Ryuuichirou originally, but after their death and the war ended, Ryuuichirou, who had no children of his own, wanted Fumihiko and Takehiko to take over, especially as the family had a history of prospering whenever such identical twin brothers would lead the family. Fumihiko became the president and Takehiko the vice-president, and initially things seemed to go well. But after the suicide of Sayako, a girl who worked at the mill and about whom poison pen letters were being written, things quickly soured. It turned out Takehiko had a relationship with the girl, and he accuses Fumihiko of being behind the poison letters. Takehiko disappeared one day, leaving Fumihiko alone at the helm of the factory. But recently, a letter was sent to him, which prompted his aunt Kiwako to hire Keisuke and Naoko. The letter was accompanied by a newspaper article telling how an illegal plastic surgeon had been murdered, and that the records show his last patient (who killed the medical man) was... Takehiko. Apparently, Takehiko has changed his face and in the letter he says he has returned to Maibara and he'll have his revenge on Fumihiko. Keisuke and Naoko are to protect Fumihiko from the disguised Takehiko, and they stand guard in front of his bedroom the first night, but the following morning, he's found dead inside the room. It appears Fumihiko himself let the murderer inside the room via the window, meaning Takehiko must be a person who Fumihiko met in the last half year or so and won his trust (pretending to be someone else), but who? That's the big question in Ooyama Seiichirou's 2006 novel Kamen Gensoukyoku ("Masquerade Twin Fantasia").

My first encounter with Ooyama Seiichirou was via the PSP game Trick X Logic, and since that occasion, I've been a fan of his puzzle plot short stories, which range from a locked room short story collection with a unique Ellery Queen-style logic focus, to his cracking alibi-cracking stories and a fun collection where you never know who the main detective is, only the Watson, but you might have noticed one thing here: Ooyama specializes in short stories. In fact, Kamen Gensoukyoku is still the only full-length novel he has published at this moment. I had been wanting to read this for a while because I am a fan of his writings, but the original release wasn't really cheap on the used market, so I had been postponing it for a long while. Last year however, at the start of 2022, Ooyama wrote on Twitter he was working on the manuscript of the book to get it ready for a pocket re-release, which really made me enthusiastic... and then the year passed, and at the start of 2023, Ooyama tweeted once again he was (still) working on it. This was getting a bit worrisome, but fortunately, the pocket did get released in 2023, with a nifty new cover too!

I have to admit I was a bit surprised by the very Yokomizo Seishi-esque vibe of the book, being set soon after World War II, set in a rural place with a silk factory as its main economic engine, and of course a family traditions of focusing twins and family fueds playing a big role in the story. A lot of what I read by Ooyama is very contemporary, so I hadn't expected such a shift all, but that did really pique my interest. On the whole, I do think that if you like Yokomizo-style stories, you'll find a lot to like here too, though the writing style itself is contemporary, and definitely lightheartier than Yokomizo. There's of course also a distinct Carr feeling, as the plot is reminiscent of It Walks by Night.

The murder on Fumihiko occurs fairly early in the book, and because they know that a) Takehiko has secretly returned to Maibara the last few months after his visit to the brilliant plastic surgeon and has taken on a new identity, b) that Fumihiko must've been deceived by Takehiko, not knowing that one of the people whom he has become acquainted with/hired these last few months is actually his twin brother, the investigation of Keisuke and Naoko quickly turns to figuring out who of the people in Maibara could be Takehiko in disguise. Police investigation show that the plastic surgeon, Masuo, was absolutely brilliant, having his arts abroad, but he ended up in the illegal sector. While details of his records were wiped, it shows Takehiko did undergo a surgery to change his appearance, though we don't know the details. Still, because he only went facial surgery, Keisuke and Naoko of course realize Takehiko could only be disguised as someone who still resembles his original self somewhat, so being a man in the same age range (and that he's not likely to be living as an old lady now), but who could it be?

The book is fairly short, so while a few more events follow after the Fumihiko murder, including another murder and also a more thorough investigation into Sayako's death a year ago and who likely sent the poison pen letters about her, we're almost near the solution, and that's of course, as you'd expect of Ooyama, very much Queen-inspired, focusing on the actions we know the murderer=Takehiko must have taken to commit the murder on his brother to identify a few characteristics, which are then applied to the suspects to see which of them can be the murderer. There is one major trick here that is probably the one thing you'll remember about this book, and it's both quite brilliant, and a bit underplayed. The idea itself is really good: there's very clever misdirection going on regarding this that really invites you to re-read certain parts carefully to see Ooyama did indeed play very fair. It is a concept that nearly borders on concepts you'd also expect in Mitsuda's Toujou Genya books, which was perhaps why it caught me completely off-guard, because I might've expected in a Genya book, but I didn't because I was still so used to Ooyama's contemporary tales. It is a simple idea, but executed very well. At the same time though, one can also argue the trick only makes sense from a reader's point of view. One can't deny that for this trick to work, the characters of the book basically had to act in a certain way, even if it wasn't the most logical/obvious thing to do. Meaning, the trick itself is done brilliantly: but was it really necessary to do it like that? Would all the actors who are involved one way or another really always act like that? Taking a step back, the plan is a bit more convoluted than it ever needs to be for the murderer, but you know, the main trick is still memorable, and on those merits alone, I think the book's worth a read, as the biggest step on the logical road towards identifying Takehiko is really impressive in its simplicity.

If you're like me and you have read (a lot of other) Ooyama Seiichirou short stories, Kamen Gensoukyoku, will feel quite refreshingly different, despite feeling very much like a classic detective story. The set-up is not overly large in scale, but it is clear from Ooyama had one big idea as he wrote this book, which is executed in a clever manner, resulting in a satisfying mystery novel. Definitely worth picking up if you're an Ooyama fan! If you haven't read anything by him yet, this is still a fun novel, though he's mainly a short story writer, so this book is not really representative of his trademark style.

Original Japanese title(s): 大山誠一郎『仮面幻双曲』

Old Habits Die Hard

"Extra, extra, read all about it!"

Huh, I am really using the anthology tag only once a year...

Disclosure: I am a member of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. However, I didn't vote for the stories this year though. Or any year to be honest.... I just never read short stories published in magazines, making it impossible for me to vote in the first place...

We've made it halfway through the year 2022, so here it is: Honkaku-Ou 2022 ("The King of Honkaku 2022"). This annual summer anthology collects the best honkaku short stories published the previous year, as selected by the members of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. It is basically a counterpart to the Honkaku Mystery Award, which is awarded to the best published book each year. Short stories are usually published in magazines or online, which occasionally can make them difficult to track down several months later, so that is why each year, this anthology is published, to ensure these stories can be easily found. I've been reading this collection since they started the current format in 2019, and while it's not like I love every single story each time, the anthologies do give a good idea of what's going on each year in the mystery scene of Japan. Last year's volume for example had a #StayHome themed story because of a certain pandemic, so I was curious to see whether that would still find its way into this volume one way or another. But while each year can be quite different, the last two entries featured some stories that were really strong and some even ended up on my favorite reads of the respective year, so it's always worth it to at least take a look at these books.

Nemuranai Keiji to Inu ("The Detectives and Dogs That Don't Sleep") by Michio Shuusuke and Island Kitchen by Ashizawa You are the stories by the two novelists I had never read before, and to be really honest, these were also the two stories in this volume I liked least. I can easily explain why though, as both stories feature a somewhat vaguely defined problem/case, so it takes a long time for the story to get to a point where you really feel you are reading a mystery story, rather than something else. Both do start out with a seemingly "straightforward" case though. Nemuranai Keiji to Inu for example has a police detective hiring a... pet detective to find a missing dog. The dog's owners were murdered in their home, and their dog went missing on the same night, so it is assumed the dog is involved in one way or another with the case. The pet detective in question is Ezoe Masami, a pet detective who has an incredibly good track record, but the narrator, a female police detective knows Ezoe isn't always honest to his clients, occasionally finding pets early and keeping them hidden so they'll hire him for a longer period. She hires Ezoe to find the missing dog behind her superior's back and thus the two go looking for the dog together. What follows is a story that works pretty good as a character study, where parallels are drawn between the two detectives and dogs, but the reveal about how the dog is ultimately connected to the murder feels a bit... underwhelming, because most of the page count seems to be more focused on the characterization than the puzzle. Which is a matter of personal taste of course, but I feel like even with the same puzzle elements, this story could have been a tricker, and more amusing detective story had the emphasis on the themes been shifted a bit. The same holds for Island Kitchen, which starts with a retired police detective visiting a real estate agent, hoping to find a home with a garden for him and his wife. He spots an apartment building among the listings where he once investigated a deadly fall and he starts reminiscing. The case involved a woman living in the building falling to her death, but it was unclear whether it was an accident, suicide or murder. The woman had been stalked by someone for a long time, but the police hadn't done anything to help her, so suicide due to despair, or murder both seemed quite possible. As the former detective thinks back to the case, he realizes not everything was as it was, and personally, I think the *idea of the twist* is pretty good. But the "set-up" to the twist is so long and involves so many elements that ultimately aren't relevant to the twist specifically, it kind falls flat for me, because now it's almost like you're reading two seperate stories that are only linked in a very, very minor manner. I really do like the twist itself though, so I kinda wish it had a different story as the set-up.

Ooyama Seiichirou's work is always a joy to read, and he mostly writes short stories, so he fits here really well. Karamazov no Doku ("The Poison of the Karamazovs") is of course a story inspired by The Brothers Karamazov and is part of a series about Kayou Daisuke, an actor specializing in villain roles, but who is actually a gifted armchair detective. This time he is consulted by the elderly Yamazono Marue, who in her younger years as a housekeeper for an agency. She recounts the time she was involved in a murder case. At the time, she had been assigned by her agency to work at the house of the wealthy Karamura Tatsuo. On her first day, she met with the man, and his three sons, and they soon reminded her of The Brothers Karamov and the characters of Fyodor and his sons Dmitri, Ivan and Alexei. She has only just arrived when she is asked to pour in tea for everyone, and she quickly returns from the kitchen with the refreshments. But the moment Tatsuo has his drink, he starts coughing and gagging. An ambulance is called, but it is too late, and the man ends up dead. The police learn he was poisoned, but can't figure out how: the young maid had never met the man before and had just arrived on her first day here, while her three sons each had a motive to kill the man for his money, but couldn't have tampered with the drinks the maid had prepared. It's a very short story, so I think the actual explanation of how this seemingly impossible poisoning was done will not be incredibly surprising, but I do like the initial one or two clues that put the reader on the trail. I think that even when the actual "how" of an impossibility in Ooyama's work is simple at the core, he always does a good job at actually laying out a trail of clues for the reader to follow in order to arrive at that how logically (instead of just guessing), so in that sense, his stories never disappoint.

It's been while since I last read something by Morikawa Tomoki... Wa-wait! It's been 8 years!? The last one I read was back in 2014?? Anyway, Whodunnit Reception is a pretty interesting story that is foremost a puzzle. The story starts when Masatsugu and his classmate friend Yumiko sneak into the room of Masatsugu's brother Masakazu, a young mystery writer. Masatsugu is just looking for some files he knows are in the room that'll come in handy for a school project, but Yumiko accidentally knocks over some coffee over some hand-written documents, which turn out to be a finished, but unpublished manuscript, being the solution to a mystery story that's being serialized right now! Masatsugu knows his brother doesn't use computers and hardly keeps any copies, so he realizes in how much trouble they are right away as the coffee has erased a lot of the text. Masatsugu and Yumiko eventually manage to reconstruct most of the documents, but there are still spots that were tainted too much by the coffee, making it impossible to see what was originally written there, and it turns out they are the most important part of the story, where the detective explains how they figured it out and who the culprit is. Yumiko, a budding writer herself, however comes up with a plan: they are going to guess what is supposed to go in the blank spots based on the context of the surrounding passages, reconstrucing the solution of the story! A very interesting story, as it turns the solution of a mystery story into a mystery! There are 17 blank spots, and the reader, Masatsugu and Yumiko have to deduce what goes in each blank spot based on the surrounding context of the detective's explanation of the case (they do not have the first part of the story). It's very puzzle-like: you first fill in the spots that are very obvious based on the context, and that allows you to fill in other spots too because of the implications of the previously filled in spots etc. The story surprisingly has a few twists too while you fill in these blank spots, and it's pretty fun to read, but it does very "puzzle-like" because you are really filling blank spots, and some readers might find it a bit too "artificial." I myself enjoyed the whole concept though of a solution part of a mystery story being a mystery itself and have you deduce the solution of a mystery story of which you don't even know the first part!

Houjou Kie has been a personal favorite since she made her debut of course and I loved her short story Amulet Hotel last year, so I was really looking forward to her short story Kage wo Kuu Mono ("Shadow Eater"). And of course, this story features supernatural elements: the narrator is out camping deep in the woods with a friend and his dog. The narrator wakes up in the middle of night and happens to spot a Shadow Fish, a kind of yokai (supernatural being) that feeds on the shadows of living beings. The Shadow Fish can only move in shadows, jumping from one shadow to another, and it preys on the shadows of living beings. Once they have jumped into the shadow of their victim, they remain in their shadow (even if the person/animal wakes up) and feeds on the shadow until the shadow is gone, which kills the person/animal in question. The narrator sees how the Shadow Fish jumps out to the shadow of a dead fox and in the direction of his two sleeping companions and by the time he has waken both of them, he realizes it's too late: the Shadow Fish is in the shadow of either his dog or his friend, but they can't tell which of them. They happen to have a very powerful drug that can kill the Shadow Fish, but they have only one tablet, and the drug is so powerful it will kill a person/animal if they take it without a Shadow Fish being their shadow. With little time left until the Shadow Fish is done feeding on its prey, the narrator and his friend have to quickly deduce where the Shadow Fish is, based on the shadows at the time the Fish was spotted. Houjou once again brings a new kind of mystery story by using supernatural elements: this is almost like a "whodunnit", only you are looking for the "culprit" hiding inside a different person. You can also tell Houjou is a gamer (like with her third book), as there are (segments in) games where you have to move from shadow to shadow as a gameplay mechanic and this story of course feels very similar to that. While there is an emphasis on deducing where the Shadow Fish went based on "rules" (the Shadow Fish can only jump a certain distance, it will always go for the nearest sleeping target etc.), the way the story is also very focused on visuals do form an obstacle for this story, I think. A lot of the story hinges on how far each shadow of everything in their camp reached at the time the narrator spotted the Shadow Fish, and while this story has diagrams, you do have to consider multiple "moments" of where each shadow was, so I think this story, ironically, would have worked better as a game, allowing you quickly "scroll" between the various moments. It's a good mystery story though that as always shows detective stories don't need to be realistic to present interesting mysteries.

Asakura Akinari's Ito no Hito wo Sagashite ("Looking for the Person of My Thread") is tied as my favorite in this volume with Kage wo Kuu Mono and is in a way the polar opposite, as it pertains to a very "realistic" occassion: a goukon or group blind date. The narrator, Kawase, is an unremarkable university student who never had a girlfriend, which is why he didn't really believe his friend Yoshimi told him his girlfriend knew a girl who was interested in Kawase. The girl is rather shy however and doesn't dare to approach Kawase without "any cause", so the idea is having both of them appear at the same group date, with five men and five women. That would give the girl an opportunity to strike up a conversation with Kawase and see how things'll go from there. Kawase has never been in a group blind date before, so when Kawase first arrives at the restaurant, he's quite nervous, but the first girl to arrive immediatey says she knows Kawase from classes, so the plan to find the person on the other end of the red thread of fate seems to work... until the second girl also says she knows Kawase. And the third, fourth and fifth too! Kawase remembers he was never told what the other girl's name was or how she looked like, and now all five girls seem somewhat interested in him (to the chagrin of the other four men). At first, Kawase thinks that it shouldn't really mattter with what girl he ends up with: his friends may have  intended him to meet a certain girl and arranged for both them to attend this group date, but they can hardly critizie him if he happened to get along better with someone else, right? But then he receives information that tell him he has to be very, very careful, as there's "something dangerous" about each of the other girls: one of them for example is actually a married woman cheating on her husband, while another girl is the daughter of a boss of a crime syndicate, and another is an underground idol with very fanatic fans who are willing to kill if they learn their idol is dating someone... So can Kawase deduce which of the five girls in front of him is the girl he was supposed to meet? Okay, so the setting of this story is a bit silly, as apparently people around Kawase do recognize some of the women in their group date and know they are "dangerous" one way or another, but at the same time they don't actually know which woman they are or don't tell Kawase. The way the puzzle is constructed feels a bit forced, but you know, I can live with it, because this is just a fun story. It has a distinct, comedic tone where Kawase keeps falling in love with basically every girl all over again every time he thinks they are "safe". At the same time, this is a well constructed detective story, where you have to use the few hints Kawase did learn about each girl and try to deduce the identify of each girl. Some of the hints are a bit too obvious I think, or in some instances the "time" between a certain clue and the revelation which girl is who is a bit too short, giving you too little time to think for yourself. But overall, this is a very memorable story, because it is basically a "whodunnit" only now you're just trying to figure out which girl Kawase is supposed to be dating. So as mentioned earlier, this story is strangely enough very different, and similar to Kage wo Kuu Mono, as both are original takes on a "whodunnit" concept, but in very different manners.

Like the 2021 edition, Honkaku-Ou 2022 is a pretty solid anthology, with a few really strong puzzle plot stories. Personal favorites are the entries by Houjou Kie, Asakura Akinari and Morikawa Tomiki, but none of the six stories are truly bad, and while these volumes usually only have five, six stories, they tend to be fairly consistent in quality exactly because they have been selected by a whole group, rather than just one single editor. This is the fourth volume in this format, but I have really grown to appreciate reading this anthology once a year, just to see what is going on in the short story format. Hopefully we'll have a solid volume next year too!

Original Japanese title(s): 『本格王2022』: 道尾秀介「眠らない刑事と犬」/ 大山誠一郎「カラマーゾフの毒」/ 芦沢央「アイランドキッチン」 / 方丈貴恵「影を喰うもの」 / 浅倉秋成「糸の人を探して」 / 森川智喜「フーダニット・リセプション」

Triple Jeopardy

" There must be something comforting about the number three. People always give up after three."

"Sherlock"

I have mentioned it before that in general, I like the short story format more than a full novel, but when it comes to reading them, I have to admit I usually read these short stories when they are collected in short story collections and published as a single book. And in my case, that's basically always a short story collection of the same author, and very seldom anthologies. So I usually consume short stories as part of a bigger release, and rarely do I read just one short story on its own. Today however, I'll be briefly discussing three stories that I have read exactly in that matter, as just a single short story release. And strangely enough, all three of them were released in rather different ways.

The first one some readers might have expected already: while not exactly planned, the last two years I have discussed the winners of the Mysteries! Newcomer Award around this time of the year (here (2020) and here (2019)). Simply put, the Mysteries! Newcomer Award is the sister award to the better-known Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, as both awards are organized by the same publisher and aimed at unpublished works of authors who haven't made their major debut yet as writers. The Mysteries! Newcomer Award is meant for short stories, while the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award accepts full-length novels/short story collections. Ayukawa Tetsuya Award winners are obviously published as standalone book releases, while in the case of the Mysteries! Newcomer Award, publication means being published on paper in the mystery magazine Mysteries!. This changed however this year, as the magazine Mysteries! was cancelled, but a new magazine came its place: Shimino Techo (lit: "A Notebook for Silverfish") started in October 2021 and is of course a mostly mystery fiction-focused bimonthly magazine. So the winner of the Mysteries! Newcomer Award of 2021 was published in the inaugural issue of Shimino Techo, which the publisher Tokyo Sogensha was kind enough to send me, so I guess I'll be discussing the winner this year too! Aaaaand, no, I don't know why the award is still called Mysteries!

Yanagawa Hajime's Sannin Shobou ("Three Men's Bookshop") is named after the used bookshop Edogawa Rampo, the father of the Japanese mystery story, ran with his two brothers before he became a professional writer and took on the name of Rampo. As you can guess, this story is about Rampo himself, or rather Hirai Tarou (his real name), though the story uses "Rampo" for convenience. The narrator of the story is Inoue Katsuki, a friend of the real Edogawa Rampo who is also mentioned in Rampo's essays. Rampo wrote that Inoue was staying with Rampo and his brothers in the bookshop for a while, and this story is set during that period. One day, when two frequent female visitors/friends are at the shop, Rampo and one of his brothers happen to going through a collection of used books they bought, when inside one of the books, they find a note signed by a Sumako, that appears to be a farewell or suicide letter of some kind to a lover. Based on the writing style and the name Sumako, they quickly realize that this note was written by Matsui Sumako, the actress who committed suicide a few months ago, following in the footsteps of a director with whom she was having an affair, who died because of a disease. But the note they found seems to indicate Sumako had another lover besides the director. Curious to the person who received this note, Rampo and his brothers start to look for the previous owner of the used books they bought, as they fear the note might shine a different light on Sumako's death. 

An interesting story, though not completely my cup of tea. The best part of this story is without a doubt the historical setting, based on the life of the father of the Japanese mystery story. The idea of having Rampo and his brothers solve cases while running their used bookshop is pretty fun, and having actual persons like narrator Inoue, but also the link with actual Japanese history is done really well: at first I didn't even know Matsui Sumako was a real person, so it was interesting learning what kind of news/scandals were on the mind of the people in Tokyo in the early 1920s. In that sense, the way this story uses some familiar Rampo tropes like letters/correspondence and the hidden meaning/messages in them in combination with Sumako is pretty inspired. As a mystery story however, the plot feels a bit too slow for me: there is no clearly defined mystery for the reader to solve, more like vague questions raised about the note and Sumako's suicide, as well as other characters' actions, and then the story moves to an interpretation of the situation that addresses these questions, but you never deal with a clear-cut problem to solve. That's just something I personally don't always like, though I think that if you like (well-researched) historical mysteries, and Rampo of course, you'll find a lot to like here. Personally I do think the mystery plot has some nice ideas, like how it reveals how a certain situation is mirrored elsewhere, but things move just a bit too slow for me.

The whole world had to adapt to a new situation last year and to cheer people up, playwright and film creator Mitani Kouki decided to bring back Furuhata Ninzaburou in his long-running been newspaper column Mitani Kouki's Mundane Life for the Asahi Shimbun. Furuhata Ninzaburou was a highly succesful comedic inverted detective television series that ran between 1994-2006, which followed the adventures of the somewhat eccentric Lieutenant Furuhata of the Tokyo police. Heavily inspired by Columbo, each episode would show the viewer how the culprit committed the crime and the mystery presented to the viewer was figuring out how Furuhata was going to solve the case. Inspiration was also taken from the Ellery Queen television series, as each episode, Furuhata would turn to the audience and challenge them to guess what put him on the trail. While the show had stopped long ago, Mitani decided to bring Furuhata back last year by serializing the very short story Isshun no Ayamachi ("A Moment's Mistake") across four installments of his column. While obviously there's only that much you can do in the space of four newspaper columns, the story was actually quite fun to read. Earlier this year however, Tamura Masakazu, the actor who played Furuhata Ninzaburou on television, passed away, and as far as Mitani is concerned that means Furuhata will never return on television again. However, on paper is a different story, so this year too, Mitani decided to use up his columns between September 30 - October 21 2021  to bring back Furuhata Ninzaburou for a special appearance.

Satsui no Yukemuri ("Steamy Intent to Kill") follows Mitani, who is enjoying a stay at a hot spring inn when a new guest arrives at the same inn: the actor Chateau Jirou (a thinly-disguised Satou Jirou) has worked on many productions of the great director Mitani Kouki, but there's one thing that has always bothered Mitani: Chateau Jirou improvises too much! Nothing is left of the original script whenever Chateau Jirou is in the scene, and it's about time Mitani finally confronts Jirou about this. Late at night, Mitani manages to corner Chateau Jirou in the outdoor hot spring and pleads with Chateau to finally stick to the script from now on, but the two get into an argument and a push and an unlucky landing on the head later, Chateau Jirou is dead. After fleeing the scene, Mitani is sure no clues have been left at the scene, but surprisingly, Furuhata Ninzaburou wants to have a talk the following day regarding the death of Chateau Jirou. But how did Furuhata figure out it was Mitani who did it? Like the story last year, Satsui no Yukemuri is incredibly short due to its publication format, but it's actually surprisingly well-plotted. Sure, it's kinda a one-trick pony because 4 columns worth of text is really, really little, and to be honest, the dying message featured in this story is really, really not interesting at all, but there's some good clewing going on regarding the fatal mistake Mitani made, and there's even a genuinely shocking conclusion to the case, when Furuhata reveals how he managed to connect all the seperate clues and immediately figure out it could only have been Mitani who did it. I would love to see this idea worked out into a more substantial story, but even as it is now, I have to say it was a very nice surprise. Definitely a must-read for fans of Furuhata Ninzaburou, or Mitani Kouki's work in general. I wonder if Mitani will be killing off another actor he often works with next year too!

The last story to be discussed today is also a "continuation" of  a post of last year, in a way. Ooyama Seiichirou's Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu ("Alibi Cracking, At Your Service") was a great short story collection that focused completely about perfect alibi stories. The unnamed narrator (a rookie police detective stationed in Nano Ciy, Nano Prefecture) is a very frequent visitor of Mitani Clockmakers, run by Mitani Tokino who inherited the shop from her grandfather. Tokino, a young woman in her twenties, does not only sell and repair clocks, but she also offers a special alibi cracking service. The concept of one single series on cracking alibis was not only fairly unique, but the quality of the stories was very high. Ooyama started working on the "second season" of this series soon after the first book was done, publishing a new story once every few months, which for some reason can all be read for free on the official site. The previous three I have already discussed, so I figured, I might as well discuss the fourth story too!

Tokeiya Tantei to Niritsu Haihan no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Antinomic Alibi") starts in the familiar fashion, with the narrator needing Tokino's help to crack the alibi of the main suspect in a murder case. However, what is unique about this case is that Nakaishi Junichi is the suspect in two different murders committed in different places around the same time, even though it would only be physically possible to commit one of them! On the fifth of November, the narrator is forced to cancel a dinner date with Tokino due the discovery of the body of Nakaishi Satoko, who was found in her house by a friend with whom she had a lunch date earlier that day. The Nano Prefectural Police soon start to suspect her husband Junichi: the couple had been living seperately for a year now. They trace Satoko's last known movements on the night before, and find out she must have been killed on the fourth of November, after having dinner at a restaurant. Confronting the husband with his history of infidelity and the fact a neighbor saw someone like him leaving the house around the time of the murder, the husband claims he was alone in his home, but can not prove his story. The detectives of the Nano Prefectural Police are pretty sure Junichi's their man and hope to nab him after Satoko's funeral, when they run into homicide detectives of the Metropolitan Police Department, who reveal Nakaishi Junichi is the main suspect in the murder of Kawai Aki, Junichi's mistress who was slowly turning into a nuisance. It turns out that this Aki was also killed around eleven o'clock of the fourth of November in Tokyo, and the MPD too have enough evidence to at least bring Junichi along for questioning, but this leads to a problem: Both the local Nano detectives and the MPD detectives are sure Junichi is the culprit of their own case, but obviously, he can only have committed one of those crimes, because the murders were committed around the same time and whether you take public transport or the car, it's about ninety minutes between the two crime scenes. Both investigative parties refuse to admit they are wrong, but the harder the Nano police detectives try to prove they are right, they are just proving Junichi's innocence in the other case, while the work of the MPD detectives in turn weakens the Nano police's case, resulting in neither party being able to pin anything on Junichi!

A story with a very interesting premise: Junichi is the suspect in two different cases that occured at the same time, so proving his guilt in one case, would only provide him with an alibi for the other case! Considering this series is about perfect alibis, you can of course guess that Junichi is in fact involved with both murders, and that his trick naturally does not rely on him having hired an assassin to do the other murder. I have to admit that at first though, the story seemed a bit too obvious to me: one of the most important clues in this story is very similar to a (good!) idea from the first collection, so that allowed me to guess what Junichi must have done fairly easily, because the connection is quickly made in your head. But when Tokino explained the crime, I was pleasantly surprised by the way the story actually builds up to that solution. While I had correctly guessed the main trick behind the double murders, I had completely missed the two clever hints that serve as the first step towards the 'big' solution. They are very cunningly hidden in the story, and result in a mystery that really benefits from a well thought-out structure: it doesn't allow, or expect from Tokino, nor the reader, to just jump to Step 3: The Trick in one go, but you also have Step 1 and Step 2 to go through first in terms of clues, to have the proper build-up to the final reveal. It makes this a story that is more than "just a clever trick meant to surprise the reader", because it shifts the focus more to the logical process behind how to solve such a mystery, and it succeeds because of that.

Three completely unrelated short stories, published in three very different ways, being via a magazine, being serialized within a newspaper column and online. And contents-wise, they are really different too, now I think about it, from the historically grounded Sannin Shobou to the more comedic, single idea-focused Satsui no Yukemuri to the tricky puzzler Tokeiya Tantei to Niritsu Haihan no Alibi. As a matter of personal taste, it's of course the puzzler that I liked best of these three, but all three stories have interesting angles to them. And that about wraps things up for this post. The next time I'll be discussing individual, seperate short stories again outside of short story collections? I guess... next year, around this time of the year agan?

Original Japanese title(s):  柳川一「三人書房」/ 三谷幸喜「殺意の湯煙」/ 大山誠一郎「時計屋探偵と二律背反のアリバイ」

How Watson Learned the Trick

"I'm lost without my Boswell."

"A Scandal in Bohemia"

Not sure if anyone reads the page, but I added Turn of the Golden Witch to the Umineko no Naku koro ni playthrough memo.

I love short story collections, but it always takes so much time to write the review...

Ooyama Seiichirou has been churning out incredibly well-written puzzle plot short stories since his debut, so obviously, any news of a new short story collection immediately attracts my attention, even without me knowing what it's about. Though in this case, the premise also sounded so much fun I knew I had to read it. Wato Souji is a rookie police detective assigned to the top investigation unit of the Metropolitan Police Department, which sports an unbelievable rate of solved cases. Unlike his colleagues however, Wato himself is not exceptionally good at his job. Yet, it is absolutely thanks to Wato that his unit does so well, even if his team members don't realize that. Ever since Wato was a little, he has had a weird gift: people in his physical vicinity become better thinkers when faced with a mental problem. When Wato's around, it's as if the mist suddenly disperses and any person becomes capable of infering the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other, from just a drop of water. Wato has dubbed his unique talent the "Watson Force" as everyone around him unconsciously turns into Sherlock Holmes. Nobody knows that Wato is making people around him smarter, but his colleagues do notice things go more smoothly whenever Wato's around, so they like having him on the team. While Wato himself is not affected by his power and thus can not become a Holmes himself, he does have a trait only series detectives have: he tends to get involved in random murder cases even outside work. Luckily, the cases are always solved for him by everyone around him. But what if Wato finds himself in trouble without anyone around? Ooyama Seiichirou's  2020 short story collection Watson-ryoku  ("The Watson Force") explores Wato's ability in seven (+one) diverse stories.

In game-lingo: Wato's Watson Force is a passive ability that greatly buffs the intelligence stats of all friendly and enemy units around him.

The first time I heard of the premise of these stories, I just knew I had to read them, because the concept was just so funny. An ability that makes everyone else brilliant detectives, while the series protagonist is destined to play the Watson in each and every story? What's so interesting about these stories that you never know who in the end will end up as the detective. Everyone in the vicinity of Wato receives the temporary mental boost, but that doesn't mean that all the characters arrive at the same conclusion at the same time. Everyone is just getting a mental boost, so they all start forming theories about the murder cases they find themselves involved with, and as these characters present their theories to each other in fierce deduction battles, they slowly work together towards the true solution. All the characters always have something to add in terms of interesting theories (okay, some theories are less likely to be true than others), and the fun in these stories is seeing everyone bouncing off theories until one of them finally figures the whole thing out. But as there's no established series detective, you simply never know who will get it right. I once wrote an article about false solutions and the foil detective, but Watson-ryoku presents a brilliant method to prevent the reader from knowing a solution is fake simply because it wasn't the series detective who proposed it: by not having a series detective in the first place, and creating the possibility that every character besides Wato can be the Sherlock Holmes, you just never know what might come, which keeps the battle of wits and the whole plot exciting until the very end.

Take the opening story Akai Juujika ("The Red Crosses") for example. Wato is enjoying his Christmas holiday at a small ski pension, which has three other guests. On Christmas morning, the guests find that the owner of the pension hasn't prepared breakfast yet, nor is there any sign of the owner's sister, who also works here. The guests check the private rooms of the owner, only to find that brother and sister have been shot to death in their respective rooms. The owner however managed to leave a dying message while he was bleeding to death on the floor: five red crosses are drawn in blood in front of him. Wato reveals to the other guests that he's a police detective and notifies the local authorities, but they aren't able to come due to a blocked road and when Wato also discovers that there are no footprints in the snow whatsoever leading away from the lodge, he determines the murderer must be one of the other guests. At this point, his Watson Force kicks in, and lo, the other guests start their own investigation into the murder, arriving at a surprising answer to the question as to the meaning of the red crosses and the identity of the murderer. The story keeps both the characters and the reader on their toes by having the three guests all become brilliant detectives in their own right, allowing each of them to propose rather interesting theories about the double murder. Some of these deductions are sometimes a bit forceful: they usually turn out to be wrong, but do serve as a point for other deductions to build upon as elements turn out to be true. Having some of these "Holmeses" propose slightly farfetched theories that ultimately do help introduce the final solution works in the context of this series, as all the characters are capable of coming up with fairly original insights into the case. I like the final solution too: it's in the spirit of the Van Dine/Queen school, with a chain of reasoning based on the physical state of the crime scene ("why is this here in this form?"), giving a plausible reason why five crosses were drawn on the carpet and showing you step by step how to arrive at the identity of the murderer from there.

In Ankokushitsu no Satsujin ("The Murder in the Dark Room"), Wato has been given a ticket to the exposition of a famous sculptor. The exposition is held in one of the underground floors of a multi-tenant building. It's still early, so besides Wato, the sculptor himself and the receptionist, there are only two other visitors, but suddenly they all feel a rumble and all the lights in the room go out. It turns out a sink hole has appeared just outside and that broke the sewage pipes. Not only is the elevator disabled, water has also flooded the emergency staircase, preventing the party from opening the escape door to escape through there. Fortunately, rescue is on its way. It's still completely dark in the room as the people introduce each other using their cell phones as light source, but suddenly, they hear another thud, and they find that the sculptor himself lying dead on the floor, having been hit on the head. But why would someone decide to kill the man here and now, while they're all trapped in an unlit room and with no means of escape? Some of the theories proposed do feel like they come out of nowhere, and it's still weird when they turn out to be partially true, as a build-up for the actual solution despite being such daring deductions (guesses), but I do like the idea behind the reason for why the sculptor died: the motive relates to a very specific set of circumstances that happen to be true here and gives plausible reason for why the culprit acted so suddenly.

Kyuukonsha to Dokusatsusha ("Suitors and Poisoners") has Wato be summoned to a remote private island as a potential husband for Sasamori Tsukiko, the daughter of Sasamori Shunsuke, CEO of the renowned and influential Sasamori Electronics. Sasamori once spotted Wato being a kind person to the elderly and determined he was a good candidate as a son-in-law. Sasamori is also a personal friend of the Superintendent-General of the Metropolitan Police Department, who hopes his subordinate will be chosen by Tsukiko. Three other suitors are also summoned to the private island and the idea is that Tsukiko will spend some time with everyone there and make up her mind. The other three suitors are all in career fast tracks at various ministeries and they immediately realize that Wato isn't not a serious rival for any of them, which ironically means they can be friendly with him. The party has just arrived on the island and started on some drinking and dancing when one of the suitors falls dead on the floor: his drink had been poisoned. The trope of multiple suitors fighting for the same girl and one of them being murdered is a familiar one of course, but now the remaining suitors don't just fight it out, but actually use logic and theories to fight each other and figure out who the murderer is. It's a surprisingly complex story, with various theories that focus on questions on when the drink was poisoned and whether the victim was actually the intended target and not (and how to prove that logically). As always, you never quite know who's on the right track until the very end. This story makes very clever use of the concept of the Watson Force, showing how it can be used in a very original way to drive the plot and create a mystery that actually revolves around having all the characters come up with various solutions from different angles.

Yuki no Hi no Majutsu ("Snow Day Magic") is set during Wato's time as a patrol officer. One early morning, he notices a car parked near the construction site of a new house. He decides to check this out, and walks up to the house, when Miyagi, the owner of the halfway house, comes running out. Upon seeing Wato, Miyagi tells him he found a dead body inside. The victim was lying face down on the foundation of the semi-basement floor. The man's been shot to death just moments earlier. There are no footprints in the snow surrounding the site that could belong to the murderer, only those of the victim himself and those of Miyagi, but these footprints show that Miyagi had only just arrived at the house and as he wasn't carrying the pistol on his body when Wato ran into him, Wato determines Miyagi couldn't be the killer. What complicates matters however is the fact that the victim and Miyagi are both members of the same shooting club, and they were rivals in being picked for the Olympics. A deduction battle sparked by the Watson Force starts upon arrival of the victim's family, who are convinced that Miyagi did it. A story which reminds me of Ooyama's The Locked Room Collector, as this too is an impossible murder that is ultimately solved through Queen school logic. It's a story that could've worked as "just" an impossible murder story, without the various characters trying to outsmart each other with their theories, but it's just more entertaining this way, as you see how Ooyama slowly builds towards the final solution, which is a nice one: the method of the murder is interesting on its own, but what's most commendable is how Ooyama arrives at this method through a logical examination of the circumstances of the murder, making it not just a random guess, but a carefully built-up chain of logic leading to the realization of how the impossible murder was done.

Kumo no Ue no Shi ("Death Above the Clouds") is obviously set inside a plane, one that is going from Japan to Los Angeles. It's not a busy flight, so Wato has the three window-side seats for himself, as does the man in the row behind him. Soon after the 'lights out'' time however, the cabin assistant notices that all's not well with the man behind Wato and after calling for a doctor aboard, it's determined the man is dead and that he was likely poisoned on board. Wato reveals himself to the crew and sky marshal as a police detective and they start investigating the murder on the Japanese-American, focusing on the question why the man died on board: was it a suicide or a murder, and why during a flight? Some of the theories proposed are a bit too farfetched this time, but they are needed to set-up the final solution and I guess they work in this particular series because anyone can be as brilliant as Holmes, even if they're going in the wrong general direction. The explanations proposed by the various characters keep the reader engaged as they tackle the problem from different angles, and I like how the final solution builds clearly on an earlier idea that had been discarded first, but which becomes "valid" again due to the introduction of a new fact, changing the circumstances again.

Tantei Daihon ("Detective Script") is one have discussed in the past already, as it was included in the anthology Honkaku Ou 2019. It's written as a homage to Abiko Takemaru's Tantei Eiga and follows the same basic idea, about a playwright who barely survived a fire in his home. What also barely survived the fire is the script of his troupe's upcoming murder mystery play. The partially burned scenario only offers the start of a murder mystery that happens on a remote island, but not the solution. The actors start discussing the script and guessing who the playwright intended to be the murderer in the presence of Wato (who saved the playwright from the fire). As the discussion continues, each actor comes up with a solution that indicates their own character as the murderer. I'll just copy-paste my own words here from the previous review: "Tantei Daihon is still a surprisingly tightly-plotted story with several fake solutions. The final solution is clever: if you just follow the clues "straight", you're likely to run into a wall, but once you figure out the true meaning of a certain passage in the screenplay, everything is turned upside down, allowing you to arrive at the correct solution. I love this type of whodunnit setups, where you can cross out most of the suspects if you simply carefully follow each clue, but there's one final clue that asks for a bit more imagination in interpretation, which can turn everything around. Short, but satsifying."

The culprit isn't the only one who's unlucky in Fuun na Hannin ("The Unlucky Perpetrator"): Wato's on a late highway bus heading for Toba when the bus is suddenly hijacked by an armed man, who's just has had enough of everything and forces the driver to change destination. When one of the passengers doesn't seem to listen to the hijacker's orders, they discover that this man has been stabbed to death with a knife. Wato can't do much about controlling his Watson Force even in an emergency situation, so the passengers and the hijacker start thinking about how this man was killed on the bus while the bus is headed towards its new destination. Interesting situation! It's funny how everyone starts playing Holmes right in the middle of a hostage situation and that even the hijacker plays along. This story does a great job at foreshadowing, placing Chekhov's Guns at the right place and time and finally bringing it all together for the final solution. The base plot of this story does remind of the previous story (murder inside a moving closed circle situation), but the solution is completely different and I like this one better as the various events that occur throughout the story really come together to form a cohesive plot.

While these stories were originally published seperately, the volume Watson-ryoku also includes a overarching storyline presented through special connecting segments that act as intermezzos between the various stories. The book starts with Wato waking up in a locked room. He remembers he was abducted by an unknown figure, and Wato suspects his capture is related to his Wato Force, so he starts reflecting on the previous cases that were solved through the Watson Force, introducing the seven stories discussed above. In the conclusion, it's revealed who captured Wato and for what reason, and it's perfectly possible to deduce who the abductor is based the few theories Wato himself proposes and the details of the previous stories. Interesting to see how these originally unconnected stories manage to form one narrative in the end.

Watson-ryoku definitely didn't disappoint, and the volume turned out to be a very entertaining short story collection, that not only has an interesting premise with the Watson Force, but makes the best of that original idea too: we have battles of the wits with all kinds of theories (false solutions) in all the stories, the reader is kept on their toes as you never quite know who will propose the final solution and while the basic plots of a few of these stories do feel a bit similar, with closed circle situations and relatively 'simple' murders like poisoning or just someone bludgeoned or stabbed to death, the core mystery plots always revolve around very different concepts. Recommended material, and man, I can't wait to see a live-action drama: usually the detective is the greatest star in a series, but now you can have an all-star cast in each episode and have everyone (besides Wato) play the great detective!

Original Japanese title(s): 大山誠一郎『ワトソン力』： 「赤い十字架 」/「 暗黒室の殺人」 / 「求婚者と毒殺者」/ 「雪の日の魔術」/「 雲の上の」 /「 探偵台本」 / 「不運な犯人」

Danger on Parade

There's far too much to take in here 

More to find than can ever be found 

"The Circle of Life" (Carmen Twillie, Lebo M.)

Anyone try that new mystery manga in Jump+, Kamonohashi Ron no Kindan Suiri ("The Forbidden Deductions of Kamonohashi Ron")? Still early days and it's a bit predictable, but for now, I'm still interested to see how it will develop.

Disclosure: I am a member of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. I didn't vote for the stories this year though. Or any year since I became a member.... I read far too few new releases each year to put in an informed vote...

Each year, the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan awards the Honkaku Mystery Award to the best mystery novel published in the year, as selected by the Club's members. Meanwhile, the Club has also been publishing annual anthologies with a selection of the best short stories published that year. Up until 2018,  the annual anthology was titled Best Honkaku Mystery [Year], with up to ten different stories, as well as one essay on mystery fiction. The format was changed last year however as it moved to a smaller pocket size with a slightly smaller selection, and the title too of the series underwent a transformation. After last year's Honkaku Ou 2019, we now have Honkaku Ou 2020 ("The King of Honkaku 2020"). The purpose of the second volume in this series is of course still the same: to offer a look at what recent Japanese short mystery stories have to offer.

Sansha Mendan ("A Terrible Parent-Tutor Meeting") by Yuuki Shinichirou introduces us to Katagiri, a college student who has a part-time job at a tutor agency. Usually, he acts as one of 'salesmen' who meets with prospective students and their parents, but depending on the wishes of the clients, he also tutors. This time he's sent to a new client, where he's to help a sixth grader with his grades. Katagiri makes his way to the Yano residence and meets with the kid and his mother for the first time. They start their first lesson right away, but as times passes by, Katagiri notices that something is wrong. The attentive reader can probably guess what's going on after a while, but the way Yuuki builds to the climax through the clewing is good, and there's even more to the story beyond the initial main problem, which makes this an amusing opening story. Kinda reminds me of some Detective Conan stories, where the Detective Boys get involved in some ongoing event without even realizing that.

Higashigawa Tokuya's Alibi no Aru Yougishatachi ("Suspects With Alibis") has an interesting backstory: it was originally written for the whodunnit contest that runs in the magazine Mysteries! The first part of the story was published in Mysteries! issue 93 (Feb. 2019), and ended with a Challenge to the Reader. Readers who had sent in the correct answer regarding the identity of  the culprit and the reasoning behind that conclusion could win a money prize. The solution was of course published in the following issue of Mysteries! The story is about a young man who after a long day at work returned home, only to get knocked out by someone and later wake up to find out that a valuable family heirloom was stolen. He realizes however that only four people could've opened the safe in his house: his estranged brother, the uncle who found him lying at home, his cousin and his girlfriend are the only suspects, so he decides to not call in the police, but to hire a private detective (with a rather sassy smart speaker as an assistant) to resolve the case privately. Initially, it seems like all four suspects have iron-clad alibis for the time of the theft, but despite that, the detective claims he knows who the thief is. This is a very well-constructed whodunnit story, that at one hand is very fair toward the reader and can be solved if you read everything in detail and think carefully what doesn't fit, but it still has some clever tricks up its sleeves to make sure that not all readers who would send in their answers would get it completely right. I love these kind of whodunnit stories which basically reward the reader for being an attentive reader, but which can still put out a rabbit from their top hat even though you were sure you had found everything already. A good example of how a whodunnit story should be written.

Last year, I reviewed the short story Kangokusha no Satsujin ("Murder in Prison" 2015) by Ibuki Amon, which was set in the early days of the Meiji period (1868-1912). Torawareru Moromitsu ("Moromitsu Imprisoned") is part of the same series and set on the third day of 1868, as the Meiji Restoration was approaching its climax. The struggle for power has now also reached Kyoto, and being at the wrong place at the wrong time, Shikano Moromitsu of the Owari Domain finds himself captured by men of the Satsuma Domain. Moromitsu might not have an extremely high status, but thankfully he's still not someone you can just kill without any consequences, so he's held captured in a cell in the Kyoto manor of the Satsuma Domain. Moromitsu learns that another man is kept in a neigbouring cell, but that man seems to have given up completely and laments that he isn't even allowed to die as a warrior. Moromitsu however has not given in to despair yet, and plans his escape from his cell, even though he has no resources. This story is obviously inspired by Jacques Futrelle's famous short story The Problem of Cell 13, only now this cell is located in 1868s Japan and the props used by Moromitsu are of course also unique to the time setting. Don't expect to be able to solve this conundrum yourself, but watching Moromitsu as he MacGyvers himself out of that cell is certainly very enjoyable material.

Fukuda Kazuyo's Kikime no Osoi Kusuri ("Slow-Working Potion") is a story I should probably not explain in detail, as it's really the type of story where you need to see things unfold for yourself. The case revolves around a man and a woman in their twenties, who were enjoying a meal in a fancy Italian restaurant, when suddenly the man keeled over after drinking his coffee and died in the hospital. What follows is a series of accounts from various characters which slowly unveil what actually happened in the restaurant. Each new account gives you more insight into the man and woman in the restaurant and the build-up to the man's death, but also seem to make things more confusing as you also realize that it doesn't really make sense why the man ended up dead. Good build-up to the climax where you finally realize why the build-up and the death didn't seem to mesh completely.

Nakajima Kyouko's Benjamin is the odd one out in this anthology, and on the "message from the author" page, Nakajima herself writes she was surprised her story was chosen and that she didn't even realize it was a puzzle plot mystery. Narrator Yuugo tells the reader about his father, a zoo director, his big sister Sachi and "Benjamin", a slightly odd animal that lives in their zoo and the odd discovery Yuugo made about Benjamin, but explaining more would be spoiling the plot. Personally not a big fan of this story as I think it's closer to science-fiction, with a twist that seems a bit telegraphed too well.

Yoru ni Ochiru ("Fall in the Night") by Kushiki Riu tells the story of a mysterious attack on a child in a nursery school: a man suddenly barged in the room during the break and threw a girl out of the window. Luckily, the little girl survived, but obviously, the horrible incident attracted the attention of everyone, raising questions about the attacker, but also about the security measures of the nursery school. Journalist Katou Katsuki is put on the story, because his family home is nearby, which means no extra travel expenses. The story works towards a sad denouement when Katsuki realizes what the motive behind the attack is, which has a parallel to the situation at his own parental home. I would definitely believe it if someone would tell me that this story was based on real events, as the topic matter addresses real social problems, but this story does that without sacrificing anything of the mystery. It's perhaps the most 'realistic' story of the whole volume, but it's still a satisfying read as a mystery story.

The final story... I am not going to discuss here, because I have already reviewed Ooyama Seiichirou's Tokeiya Tantei to Oosugiru Shounin no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi with Too Many Witnesses") earlier this year, in a seperate review! I liked the story a lot, so I'm not surprised it ended up in this volume. This story was also adapted as the final episode of the Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu television drama which aired earlier this year and according to the introduction by Ooyama, this story was actually written because the television production staff came up with this plot for the series finale.

On the whole, I liked this year's iteration of Honkaku Ou better than that of last year. Tokeiya Tantei to Oosugiru Shounin no Alibi I already knew, but it's definitely a strong puzzler, as is Higashigawa's whodunnit story (I wish I had read this in real-time, because I actually solved it correctly!). This year's volume is also surprisingly diverse, with stories set in the far away past (Ibuki Amon's story), but also stories that seem to tackle real social issues (Yoru ni Ochiru) or tales with a more dramatic angle (Kikime no Osoi Kusuri). As a reader who often tends to fall back on the works of authors I already know, reading an anthology like this one once in a while is a safe and enjoyable way to get to know a few new names without having to invest too much money/time.

Original Japanese title(s): 『本格王2020』:  結城真一郎「惨者面談」/ 東川篤哉「アリバイのある容疑者たち」/ 伊吹亜門「囚われ師光」/ 福田和代「効き目の遅い薬」/ 中島京子「ベンジャミン」/ 櫛木理宇「夜に落ちる」/ 大山誠一郎「時計屋探偵と多すぎる証人のアリバイ」

Overlooked Tick Tock

I'm late! I'm late! I'm late! 

And, when I wave I lose the time I save

"I'm Late" (Alice in Wonderland)

Which reminds me, I still have to finish reading that short story collection where all the stories feature unreliable narrators. And yep, they still manage to fool you despite the warning...

Earlier this year, I reviewed two short stories that are set to appear in the second volume of Ooyama Seiichirou's Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu ("Alibi Cracking, At Your Service"). I loved the first volume about the visits of the unnamed narrator (a rookie police detective) to Mitani Tokino of Mitani Clockmakers, a young woman in her twenties who not only sells and repairs clocks, but also offers a special alibi cracking service. The focus of one single series on cracking alibis was not only fairly unique, but the quality of the stories was also rather high and the television drama broadcast earlier this year was an entertaining adaptation of the source material. Ooyama started working on the "second season" of this series last year, and you can read the review for the first two stories of the second volume here.

At the end of that review, I said I wasn't sure whether I'd do more seperate reviews of these stories, as I suspect the standalone book release will feature an originally written story exclusive to the volume, so I'll be purchasing it anyway, but when the third story was released three weeks ago, I just had to read it and I figured I might as well write the review. While the whole series is built around cracking perfect alibis, Tokeiya Tantei to Ichizoku no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and a Family's Alibi") manages to feel fresh due to its original story structure. It's almost like the previous story, Tokeiya Tantei to Oosugiru Shounin no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi with Too Many Witnesses"), was an experiment or trial, as that too featured a two-act structure, though it's worked out in more detail this time. The narrator has an interesting problem for Tokino. Usually they have a good idea who the murderer is, but can't prove it because of a perfect alibi, but this time, the police investigation has led to three suspects with perfect alibis and they don't know which of these three did it. The elderly Fuzai Kenichi was found stabbed to death in his living room after the weekend when the housekeeper came for work. The victim had retired early and accumulated a nice fortune through daytrading. As he had no family of his own and his siblings had already passed away, suspicion soon falls on his next of kin: his niece and two nephews. The famous actress Ukawa Makie, Asakura Shouhei (a former French cook) and Ida Yasuaki (basketball coach) were all summoned to the police station and asked about their alibis for the time of the murder, but all three of them could account for their movements. Ukawa Makie had been in her second home with her manager and while she had gone on a stroll on her own, she couldn't have made it  from her second home to her uncle's home and back in the time she was gone. Asakura Shouhei had received a parcel and signed for it during the estimated period, and he too lived too far to have made it to and back either before or after signing for the parcel. The same holds for Ida Yasuaki, who had been videochatting with a friend-colleague to talk about basketball teaching methods.

This first part already proves to be an original take on the formula, as this time, Tokino and the reader don't even know who the murderer is likely to be, making this an alibi-based whodunnit. Tokino has to determine which of the three offered alibis could've been fabricated, and more importantly, how. Ooyama makes this an interesting problem by not just pointing at one alibi and claiming that this was the only one that could've been faked, but also considering the other alibis in detail: he offers plausible hypotheses about the other alibis first, but also shows how they couldn't have worked in this situation. The tricks here used are basic, but well-implemented and the way they are discarded works convincingly enough. This helps set up Tokino's line where she says she knows which alibi she could crack, meaning that's the only alibi that could've been fabricated in her eyes. The trick used here is, as often in this series, very simple in concept, but always worked out in a very practical manner. It doesn't feel farfetched and the attentive reader can definitely guess what happened once Tokino's given the first few clues to the narrator/reader.

The story however takes a completely different turn when in the second act, the person accused by Tokino manages to prove they could not have committed the murder and soon after, this person ends up dead themselves too. Suicide is suspected at first, but then the police starts to suspect the real murderer committed this act too, and interestingly enough, the two remaining suspects have no alibi this time (as the death occurred in the middle of the night). The narrator doesn't feel much for visiting Mitani Clockmakers again to ask Tokino to solve the same case again, but Tokino is determined to finger the correct person this time after her earlier mistake. The second half is a tad unbelievable as the murderer's plot only makes sense by assuming the police will make a certain discovery and in reality, the police only made that discovery only because of Tokino, so what would've happened if there was no Mitani Clockmakers? I do like the two-act plot though, as it's pretty devious and the trap of the murderer is well-thought off, only it does require the presence of a person like Tokino to point the police in a certain direction, and that makes this story a bit too meta.

Overall though, I think Tokeiya Tantei to Ichizoku no Alibi is another entertaining and well-plotted addition to the second season of The Clockmaker Detective series and it's interesting to see how Ooyama's also experimenting with the story structure formula to bring a bit more diversity in a series which is ultimately just about one single thing. Reminds me though, I really hope he returns to The Locked Room Collector one day....

Original Japanese title(s): 大山誠一郎「時計屋探偵と一族のアリバイ」

Time After Time

Time after time 

君と出会った奇跡

緩やかな風吹く街で

「Time after time~花舞う街で」（倉木麻衣）

Time after time

The miracle of meeting you

In the city where the gentle wind blows

"Time after Time ~ In The City Of The Dancing Flowers) (Kuraki Mai)

One of the first reviews of last year, and one of my best reads overall of 2019, was Ooyama Seiichirou's Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu ("Alibi Cracking, At Your Service", 2018), a wonderful short story collection revolving completely around the problem of the perfect alibi. The stories introduced us to Mitani Tokino of Mitani Clockmakers, a young woman in her twenties who inherited the shop from her grandfather, who also taught her the art of cracking alibis. For a good clockmaker should offer all services related to time and clocks. When the narrator, a rookie police detective, first noticed the sign saying they also offer the service of alibi cracking, he didn't think much of it, but when Tokino easily solved a case where the main suspect had a perfect alibi, he became convinced of her talent and since, he's been occasionally visiting Mitani Clockmakers whenever the police is struggling with a tough case. The stories were a delight to read: while all revolving around the theme of the branch of the impossible crime involving a perfect alibi, there was actually quite some variety (an alibi that depended on the download of a song that was only available for a limited period for example, or a murderer confessing to a murder in his dying moments even though he had a perfect alibi) and the plotting of Ooyama was excellent, with story structures reminiscent of the Queen school.

The first collection was released in September 2018, but it was received quite well, and to my surprise, it was promptly picked up for a live-action television series adaptation. The drama Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu started last weekend, so things went really fast. The show does feature a larger cast than the original stories, and the personalities/background setting of the characters are also changed slightly (Tokino being more bubbly, the narrator now being given the name of Saji and not being a rookie detective), but the core mystery plots seem to be adapted quite faithfully. The stories do really lend themselves wel for fairly straight adaptations, as they are not too long, and the visual aspect of the medium also helps visualize/convey the notion of time quite well (with graphs/diagrams explaining why an alibi appears to be perfect). And oh, man, the main theme of the soundtrack is excellent. Anyway, it seems Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu will become a good and entertaining adaptation of the source material.

Meanwhile though, I thought it might be fun to take a sneak peak at the "second season" of the original stories. Ooyama started working on new set of alibi cracking stories last year, and at the moment, two of them have been published. The first book featured six stories + one story especially written for the collected volume, so I assume the second volume will be of similar length, but as I couldn't wait anymore, I tried the two new stories out already.

Tokeiya Tantei to Shizumeru Kuruma no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi of the Sinking Car") starts in the familiar manner, with the narrator visiting Mitani Clockmakers for help. One morning, a car with the driver inside was found submerged in the dam lake far away from the city. The victim was Fujimura Kouzou, a wealthy, elderly man who liked to fish. At first the police thought he might've just lost control of his car and gotten off the road into the lake where he drowned, but medical examination proved he had been drugged, so the police suspects someone may have lured Kouzou to the lake with the excuse of going fishing together and that the culprit drugged the victim and pushed his car in the lake, after which they made their escape. The main suspect is Kouzou's nephew and only relative Hiroki, but of course, the man has an alibi for the time of the murder: he had a gathering at a friend's house, and all the friends there swear the longest time he was gone was to go to the bathroom, hardly enough to ride up and down the lake to kill his uncle. Personally, I thought the exact method in which the culprit managed to fake his alibi was a bit simple, as the trick is a relatively often-seen one in these kinds of stories, but I did like the chain of clues that first led Tokino on the trail, as she notices a few things about the crime scene that allows her to ask the right questions. So I guess I like the plotting of the clues/the line of reasoning that guides you to the solution better than the solution itself. Sounds negative perhaps, but I actually think that good clewing is perhaps harder than thinking of a good solution/trick in mystery fiction, so I wasn't in any way disappointed in this story.

Tokeiya Tantei to Oosugiru Shounin no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi with Too Many Witnesses") starts with a somewhat nervous narrator visiting Mitani Clockmakers and for a good reason: the death count in this case is already at two, as the murderer in this case is apparently also willing to kill witnesses, and the narrator fears what might happen to Tokino if the murderer would find out about her. The case started with a riverside discovery of the burnt body of Nagoshi, the secretary of Tomura Seiichi, member of the House of Representatives. Nagoshi's body was in a horrible state, but his personal belongings and subsequent DNA examination helped identify his body positively. The night before the murder, Nagoshi had been present at Tomura's fundraiser party in a hotel, but he had been called away by a, what turned out to be a fake, emergency phone call about his father being carried to the hospital. Due the state of Nagoshi's body, the time of death had to be estimated based on the contents of his stomach, as he had eaten the exclusive risotto served at the party and it was determined he was killed not too long after that. When Nagoshi's father reveals to the police that his son may have been blackmailing his boss with some dirty secret to become his political successor, the investigation naturally starts to focus on Tomura as a suspect, but he has a perfect alibi: he was present at his own fundraiser party, with about five hundred guests witness to that, and he was of course also there long after Nagoshi had left the party (which was also seen by witnesses and captured on hotel cameras). A few days later, a man tied to his bed is found dead in his own apartment, and it is discovered that this man was one of the people at the fundraiser party, raising suspicions this man may have seen something which led to his murder, but how could Tomura have snuck away from his own fundraiser party to kill and burn Nagoshi without anyone noticing save for the dead witness?

The story interestingly reminds me of a certain well-known Agatha Christie novel with Poirot: it hits a few familiar notes in terms of why the witness had to die and in very abstract terms, how the perfect alibi was created, but the execution is completely different and it's in no way a redressed version: Tokeiya Tantei to Oosugiru Shounin no Alibi is in fact a pretty good alibi-cracking story as it's pretty comprehensive: there are a lot of little mysteries like why did the murderer set fire to Nagoshi's body and why was the other victim tied to his bed, and there's even the talk about risotto and other elements: at first, the story may seem a bit disorienting, with too much going on, but once the truth is revealed, it turns out all these 'clashing' elements all work really well together. I do find the actions of one certain character a bit hard to swallow (like, you had no suspicions whatsoever?), but this way the perfect alibi was created does do justice to the evenly alluring premise of an alibi vouched for by five hundred guests.

At the moment, I don't know whether I'll be reviewing more single stories from the second season, or whether I'll just wait until the whole volume is released, as I suspect the standalone volume will feature an originally written story exlusive to the volume anyway. But the two stories discussed today definitely make me want to read more about the brilliant deductions of Tokino. Considering the usual length of a television drama series, I wouldn't be surprised if some episodes of the adaptation will be based on stories of the second season, so I'll be keeping an eye out to see if there's an episode based on source material I haven't read yet. But it's clear I will pay more visits to Mitani Clockmakers sooner or later.

Original Japanese title(s):  大山誠一郎　「時計屋探偵と沈める車のアリバイ」/「時計屋探偵と多すぎる証人のアリバイ」