The Witch Tree Symbol

Deep into that darkness peering

"The Raven" 

Yes, this is an awesome cover.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Footnote to Murder

For want of a nail the shoe was lost. 

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Case of the Photo Finish

It seems his skin was sweet as mango, 

when last I held him to my breast

"Grim Fandango"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Crisscross Crime

ペガサス幻想そうさ夢だけは

誰も奪えない 心の翼だから 

「ペガサス幻想」（Make-Up）

 

Pegasus Fantasy Yes, dreams are the wings of the heart

Nobody can steal from you

"Pegasus Fantasy" (Make-Up)

Read the works of a certain author long enough, and you're bound to recognize themes or topics the author likes. Perhaps the author likes to make references to classical literature for example, or they like to address topics like racism or heritage. Some might have a nationalistic tone in their writings, others might just enjoy writing very detailed about the workings of machinery, but whatever it is, the attentive reader will surely, with time, recognize certain topics as being 'typical of that one author'.

Because of this, you sometimes just know that a certain work wasn't just written for the general public to read, but that it was written mostly for the author themselves as the main target. Some books just delve so deeply into certain topics and themes that it seems unlikely that the author was trying to reach a wide audience, but instead that they mostly wrote the book to satisfy themselves. And mind you, that's not a bad thing on its own. Plenty of readers stick with a writer exactly because these people write about themes the reader's also interested in, so novels that are in a way self-indulgent can still appeal to a lot of readers.

Shimada Souji's Alcatraz Gensou ("Alcatraz Fantasy" 2012) is a mystery-themed novel that is an extreme example of the above, and personally, I didn't like the novel at all, though I can imagine that some hardcore Shimada fans who love his oeuvre will see this as one of this greatest works, especially because he tries to involve a lot of the themes he likes to address in his books in one single story now. Depending on who you ask, some might describe Alcatraz Gensou as an ambitious work that tries to reconcile decades of different themes found in Shimada's work, but you'll probably find even more people who will find this a chaotic, forced patchwork of ideas that all go nowhere. Alcatraz Gensou is a book that I find extremely difficult to recommend to people, unless they are already familar with grander themes Shimada likes to talk about in the many mystery novels he has published and even then it's a work that chooses its readers.

Even a coherent summary of the story is hard enough to write because the book feels like it's a few seperate ideas forcefully put together like a Monster of Frankenstein. The book follows a four-chapter structure and it's the first chapter that still makes Alcatraz Gensou like a normal mystery novel, as the reader is brought to Washington D.C. in 1939, where the murdered body of a prostitute is found in a park. The poor victim was hung from a tree, and her nether region was cut open: the horrible murder soon reminded people of Jack the Ripper. A second victim soon follows, and the police is desperate to find the murderer. But the the second chapter suddenly shifts to a scientific paper on gravity and the impossibility of dinosaurs that's basically the same length of the whole first chapter. By the third chapter, we're following an inmate of Alcatraz and the planning of a prison escape, while the final chapter is a fantasy novel where the protagonist ends up in Pumpkinland, an underground kingdom of pygmies where he meets the love of his life. 

You're probably thinking "Huh?" now. I know I was. Especially if you're only familiar with Shimada through his work available in English, Alcatraz Gensou might sound like nothing at all like you'd expect from him. Of course, Shimada did move away from more conventional mystery fiction pretty soon in his career and even though I have only read a small selection of his rather long bibliography list, I could certainly recognize the various themes he also often uses in his other books in this story. The gorey, visceral account of the murders on the prostitutes, and the historical setting with a war background? Yep, that's something I've seen in Shimada's work. The pedantic 'scientific paper' where he digs deeper and deeper in a topic and ends up with a very, very long treatise on something, even though ultimately only 10% is actually directly relevant to the main plot? Yep, seen that in a lot of his longer works. And the fantasy-world setting that has is obviously connected to themes of psychology and suppressed dreams? Shimada has written several mystery novels with that theme.

What Shimada set out to do with Alcatraz Gensou was to incorporate all these themes he had used in previous works in one single work, but the result is a novel that's at the same time too eclectic and too focused: Alcatraz Gensou is about various themes Shimada likes writing about, but also only about that. The tonal shift between the chapters is enormous, so we're talking not about a Monster of Frankenstein made with all human parts, but like a torso of a human, the legs of a horse and tentacles for arms. It's in the epilogue that Shimada sews these radically different parts together with an 'explanation' as to how the four narratives are precisely connected, but it's mostly for show: the connecting tissue is fittingly enough also a theme Shimada likes to write about in his works, but this epilogue is mostly connected to the latter two chapters, so the first two chapters feel very detached and unneccesary for the 'overarching plot' as proposed in the epilogue. Alcatraz Gensou is a mystery novel in a broad sense of the term, but don't start with the book expecting anything conventional or even anything similar to what's available now in English by Shimada, because it's simply not what most people would expect from a detective novel.

By the way, the title Alcatraz Gensou has to be a reference to Pegasus Gensou (Fantasy), the legendary opening song to Saint Seiya, right? 

Alcatraz Gensou is a work only Shimada could've written, but I think it's really aimed at a very, very specific target audience, and I certainly am not part of that. As a mystery novel, it's just too chaotic and vague and exactly because this book uses a lot of the themes Shimada used in previous books, there's actually surprisingly little that actually... surprises. It's a book that allowed Shimada to revisit themes he likes, but you'll have to ask yourself whether you like Shimada's underlying themes enough and whether you'll settle for something that is less of a coherent mystery story, and more like a smörgåsbord of ideas.

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司『アルカトラズ幻想』

The Adventure of the Lover's Leap

I'll be there for you

(When the rains stars to pour)

"I'll be there for you" (The Rembrandts)

 
I do like travelling by train! Love just sitting in a train and see the scenery slide by while you do whatever you want to do.

A while back, I reviewed Shimada Souji's Izumo Densetsu 7/8 no Satsujin, the second novel in his series starring the police detective Yoshiki Takeshi. The series was initially conceived as a so-called travel mystery, a subgenre that focuses on, obviously, travel. Most strongly associated with trains and brilliantly fabricated alibis that make full use of complex railway schedules, other characteristics of the subgenre include the stories often being set in popular tourist destination/region outside the capital Tokyo and involving references to local habits, folklore and legends. The third novel in the series, Kita no Yuuzuru 2/3 no Satsujin ("The Northern Yuzuru 2/3 Murder", 1985), however, changes things a bit. The story starts with a phone call to Yoshiki by his divorced wife Michiko in the final days of December. They went their seperate ways five years ago, and Michiko had moved to the city of Kushiro in the northern island of Hokkaido. Michiko seems to regret having made the call, though she's glad she got to hear Yoshiki's voice once again. She explains she's in Tokyo now, but leaving right away on the Yuzuru Sleeper Express that evening. Yoshiki manages to reach the station in time to catch a glimpse of Michiko as the train leaves to the north. The following day however, the body of a dead woman is found in a sleeping compartment in the Yuzuru. Another day passes, when on the final day of the year Yoshiki hears the description of the victim and her belongings, and instantly realizes it must be Michiko. He races to the Aomori Police Station, but while some of the belongings do belong to Michiko, the murdered woman turns out to be someone else completely.

Yoshiki is glad his ex-wife is not dead, but also realizes this puts Michiko in a very dangerous spot, for what is her connection to that murder? He decides to look for her and travels to Kushiro, but he is shocked to learn that Michiko's been wanted by the police there for over a week now. Two bodies were discovered in Michiko's apartment in the Mitsuya Residential Area and as Michiko herself has not been seen since (save for her phone call to Yoshiki in Tokyo), it's no wonder the police suspects she killed those two women. The victims were also living in the Mitsuya Residential Area, but strangely enough, the murder seems to have impossible traits. While Michiko lives on the top floor of Tower 1, nobody had seen the women (who live in the other two towers) enter Tower 1 that night, with the caretaker and other witnesses having been next to the single front door all night and swearing nobody having entered the building. No unaccounted footprints were found in the snow covering the whole premise either. Also, it appears strange things have been happening here for some time now. Earlier that year, a young resident was suddenly slugged to death by an unknown assaillant in the fog, but despite several witnesses surrounding the crime site, no killer was found. On the night of the murders in Michiko's apartment odd happenings occured too: ghostly cries could be heard coming from the Night-Crying Rock on the premises, where in an ancient past two women committed suicide, and a student even made a photograph of a ghostly suit of armor that night. Yoshiki knows his ex-wife is innocent of the crime and that the only way to save her is to figure out who did kill the women and more importantly how, but how do all these ghostly stories tie in to the solution?

Okay, so we don't really have a travel mystery story this time, at least not one that focuses strongly on trains (like Izumo Densetsu 7/8 no Satsujin), though we do see a lot of Hokkaido in this novel. But the main mystery revolves of course around the impossible murder in Michiko's apartment: the statements of the witnesses make it impossible for the victims to have entered the crime site in the first place, and yet the murders happened. By the way, like in the previous novel, Yoshiki basically guesses who the real murderer is fairly early on in the novel (mostly based on instinct rather than facts), but of course, the murderer is completely protected by the impossibility of the crime (as well as Michiko's disappearance, which makes her the perfect scapegoat for the police), so for Yoshiki, the challenge lies in figuring out how the murder was committed. Though I have to point out that this novel sure takes it time to tell its story. Some readers will definitely enjoy how this novel explores Yoshiki's inner thoughts as he reminisces on his previous, married life and how he and Michiko eventually grew apart even though they never did, but things can get a bit melodramatic here. Yoshiki is desperate to save his ex-wife this time and is willing to put his work and everything at stake to get her out of this mess, but it does make some segments feel more like filler than actually necessary.

So while Yoshiki has set his eyes on the murderer very early on based on nothing but instinct, prejudice and hopeful wishing, he still has to solve the problem of how the two women managed to get inside Michiko's apartment unseen. Tower 1 has only one front entrance, and the caretaker's room is immediately next to the door. That evening, he had a group of students over to play mahjong, and none of them saw the victims enter the building (and both victims had been seen earlier that day near their own homes). Yoshiki's suspects were also seen in their respective apartments in the Mitsuya Residential Area around the time of the murder. So how did murderer and victims all get inside Michiko's room, at the top floor of the building? And how do all the ghost stories tie in to the case, about a crying rock and a ghostly suit of armor? The solution would probably have made more of an impression on me if err, Shimada hadn't already spoiled it to me earlier: the problem of the apartment room in Kita no Yuuzuru 2/3 no Satsujin basically features the exact same fundamental idea as a different short story by Shimada which I had read already, so it was very easy for me to guess how the trick was pulled off.

I guess that is also partially the reason why I thought this book felt lengthy, as I pretty much knew what the solution would be and had already seen it in (far) shorter form from the same author. Sure, the details are different, but there's no denying that both stories are simply variants of the same idea. The way it's expanded upon with the ghost stories is pretty entertaining though, as it sure adds to the atmosphere. In general, I'd say that this type of idea works much beter in Shimada's Mitarai Kiyoshi series, as Mitarai's more used to handling these kinds of utterly ridiculous, yet highly entertaining tricks, but I assume Shimada decided to allow the "realism" parameters of the Yoshiki Takeshi series to go down a bit with this novel. I do like the basic idea though, even if it's completely nuts. But that's Shimada at his best. I didn't like the way Shimada wrote the bridge from Yoshiki being utterly puzzled to suddenly figuring the whole thing out though. Because he basically got a free hint in the form of a dream. Which, to be fair, was partially based on what he had (unconsciously) seen (and the reader had unconsciously read about), but the most important nudge was coming from the author Shimada, not from Yoshiki's own thinking. Like I wrote earlier in a piece, I think there should always be a logical reason why a detective can't solve a crime until a certain point in a story (for example, because an important fact hasn't been uncovered yet at that point in time), but this novel is an example of what I don't like to see.

So I am a bit divided on Kita no Yuuzuru 2/3 no Satsujin. Not a big fan of the very melodramatic tone with the story focusing on Yoshiki coping with the way he broke up with his ex-wife Michiko, while I have to admit I'm also disappointed the main idea of this novel is basically the same as a different short story by Shimada (and it's not camouflaged enough to be considered a clever variant). I guess the novel is a good 'bridge' between the more fantastical Mitarai Kiyoshi series and the more realistic Yoshiki Takeshi series. At least, I have only read one other Yoshiki novel, but I am going to assume that Shimada decided to play the game more bombastically after this third novel, following the more realistic first two novels. I will probably read the first Yoshiki Takeshi novel first before I decide whether I'll read more of this series.

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司『北の夕鶴2/3の殺人』

The Mystery of the Fire Dragon

Lady Partridge: But the 7:58 stopping train arrived at Swindon at 8:19 owing to annual point maintenance at Wisborough Junction. 

John: So how did you make the connection with the 8:13 which left six minutes earlier? 

Tony: Oh, er, simple! I caught the 7:16 Football Special arriving at Swindon at 8:09. 

Jasmina: But the 7:16 Football Special only stops at Swindon on alternate Saturdays. 

"Railway timetable sketch" (Monty Python)

Never been on a night express!

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

Shimada Souji's Izumo Densetsu 7/8 no Satsujin ("The Izumo Legend 7/8 Murder", 1984) starts early on the morning of the twentieth of April at Ooshinotsu Station, where the conductor found a lost bag in the local train that had arrived from Yonago. As it appeared some kind of liquid was leaking through the package, the man opened the bag on the spot, only to find something wrapped in several plastic bags. When he finally unpacked the whole thing though, he was in for a surprise: inside he found the cut-off left arm of a woman! In the following hours, similar discoveries were made at local train stations in and around the region that was once the Izumo Province: some of the bags were found and opened inside a train like at Ooshinotsu, some parcels had already been brought to the Lost & Found at the respective stations. In the end, they retrieved seven body parts at seven different stations: two thighs, two legs, two arms and one torso, all seemingly belonging to the same woman. The missing head, and the fact her fingerprints were burned off with acid, make identifying the victim difficult though. Inspector Ishida is busy working the whole kooky things out when he's greeted by his old friend Inspector Yoshiki Takeshi of Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department. Yoshiki had a few days of holiday and had hoped to meet with his old friend, but those plans seem to be ruined due to the horrible murder in this region. As a fellow investigator, Yoshiki too becomes interested in the case and after studying the time table, he realizes that this might be the work of one single person: All the body parts were discovered on local train lines with stations on the route of the night express Izumo,, meaning that someone on the Izumo could've hidden the bags in the other trains as the Izumo stopped at each of those stations, and then the local trains would leave with the body parts. A few days later, the MPD receives an anonymous letter that indicates the victim might be Aoki Kyouko, a History scholar at Tokyo's K University who's been missing these last few days. Nomura Misao, a colleague at the faculty, had ample motive to want to kill Kyouko, as Misao lost battles with her for both academic prestige and romance these last few weeks. Thanks to the tip, it is confirmed that Kyouko was indeed seen riding the Izumo Express on the night of the nineteenth, but there's also a catch: main suspect Misao has an alibi for the night of the murder, as she was riding another night express, which left Tokyo Station fifteen minutes earlier than the Izumo Express the victim took.

Shimada Souji's best known series is about Mitarai Kiyoshi, the brilliant detective who had a weird career going from astrologist to private detective to neuro-scientist or something like that, but Shimada's second best known series is probably about the MPD Homicide detective Yoshiki Takeshi (which finally got a new volume last year I think, after a long hiatus). I myself hadn't read any of the Yoshiki stories before this one (which is the second in the series), but especially the first three novels are supposed to be Shimada's take on the "travel mystery", a subgenre usually associated with writers like Uchida Yasuo. The travel mystery is, obviously, often about travelling, especially by train. The genre has a distinct touristic angle, with the mystery set in popular tourist destinations/regions often outside the capital Tokyo and the stories also often include references to local habits, folklore and legends. The genre is often seen as a rather light subgenre within the broader mystery genre, often associated with two-hour television dramas that focus more on imagery and playing the tourist than providing a really interesting mystery plot, so it was kinda interesting to see what Shimada would do with this.

People familiar with Japanese mythology can probably make the connection themselves, especially considering the title references both Izumo and the number eight, but the legend of Yamata no Orochi plays a role in this story. Izumo has been always been 'the land of legends', with many myths of Japan originating, and taking place in Izumo. One of the most famous myths is about the mythological eight-headed dragon (snake) Yamata no Orochi. The celestial being Susaso'o no Mikoto was banned from heavens to Izumo, where he learned about the horrible monster Orochi, who each year demanded one of the daughters of two earthly deities. Susano'o prepared vats of liqour and had each of Orochi's heads drink until they became intoxicated and fell asleep: Susano'o then cut the dragon up in pieces, and from its eigh-forked tail he also retrieved the sword Kusanagi, which would become one of the regalia of the Japanese Imperial family. The legend of Orochi plays a two-folded role in Izumo Densetsu 7/8 no Satsujin: Misao and Kyouko's academic rivalry revolved around a theory Misao had about the roots and meaning of the Orochi legend, but of course, the fact the victim was cut up in eight pieces (of which the head's missing), and spread across stations in the Izumo region also invokes this myth, almost as if the murderer themselves considered them Susano'o cutting up an eight-headed dragon.

After the introduction and Yoshiki's first inferences on the case, we're pretty much just coping with one central problem for the rest of the novel. Yoshiki's pretty much convinced that Misao's the murderer the moment she appears on his radar (though I have to say, it feels really forced to have Yoshiki so convinced so early on considering she has a good alibi), so the problem is: how could she have killed Kyouko, who was seen on the Izumo Express, even though Misao was riding in a different night express that evening (in the same general direction, to the west, but via a different route) that had left Tokyo Station earlier than the Izumo? Much of the novel is Yoshiki weighing possibilities only to learn they're wrong, and it indeed seems like an impossible task. There is a possible male accomplice in the Izumo, but multiple witnesses state he had no luggage with him, which means he wouldn't have tools with him to cut Kyouko up in a relatively clean manner (without leaving blood in the compartment) and have bags available to put the body parts in. Misao on the other hand was travelling for a few days and had bags with her which might have held the necessary tools, but she was in another train. Even supposing Kyouko did get on Misao's train, how then would Misao get Kyouko's body back to the Izumo to get all the body parts in the local trains connected to the Izumo route?

Like any good alibi deconstruction story, Shimada does a good job at constantly dangling possibilities in front of you of how the impossible alibi could've been achieved, only to disprove them again and making the whole deal seem even more impossible. Each time Yoshiki thinks he's on the right trail, his experiments or some small comment earlier he had forgotten come back to dismiss his theories. I like the trick of how Kyouko's body parts were eventually disposed off, though I do have to say the book is a bit dragged out in the middle part. The novel is mostly focused on Yoshiki and his investigation, and the other characters barely have any screen time. This means you're often confronted with page after page of Yoshiki reading time schedules and train routes, which can be a bit boring as all you see are times and location names. I figured out a small part of the trick behind the body parts disposal, but I quite like the idea: it's daring, but juuuuust within the realms of what is practically possible. The one mistake that allowed Yoshiki to really seal the deal however, that is something I doubt anyone save for a really savvy train anorak would be able to figure out. The story is apparently based on the actual 1984 time schedule of the train by the way, similar to how the infamous "4 minutes" of Matsumoto Seichou's Ten to Sen was also based on the actual time tables.

What is somewhat unsatsifying however is how many lucky breaks Yoshiki got over the course of his investigation. If not for the anonymous letter at the start of the story, the police might not have had any idea about who this victim was, and there were more coincidental incidents in his favor, like random witnesses who happened to pop up. Even the finale where the culprit is found with the decisive piece of evidence is completely dependent on the actions of a third party who took them on their own will, and not based on any actions or inferences by Yoshiki. You'd almost think this story would've been the same if Yoshiki hadn't been present at all.

Izumo Densetsu 7/8 no Satsujin was on the whole a fairly entertaining novel. The problem of how all the body parts found their way to a different local train is interesting and the imagery with the Yamata no Orochi legend is also okay, though it's also clear that Shimada wrote the novel focusing completely on the main trick and Yoshiki's investigation of the murder. In that regards the novel definitely invokes the utter dryness of a Crofts novel, which might deter some readers (and attract others). For one interested in Japanese trains though, this is probably heaven, as it's based on real time schedules and you can really see how the thing was done by following all the routes and trains.

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司『出雲伝説7/8の殺人』

The Mistletoe Mystery

「世界は一つ　東京オリンピック」

東京オリンピックのスローガン

"One world - The Tokyo Olympics"

Slogan of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Picture (C) Hidehiro Komatsu

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

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

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

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

The Quest of the Missing Map

Convenient for reading this post: a post on glasses in mystery fiction.

Don't you just get excited when you open a mystery novel and you discover there are floorplans or other diagrams inside? There's just something romantic about a visual depiction of the setting of a story. In some stories, having a clearly drawn map might be necessary in order for you to solve the mystery, while in other stories, the map is merely there to assist the text, just to make things a bit more clear and perhaps to add a bit of flavor. And as I've also mentioned in my reviews of novels like Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken and Murder Among the Angells, settings like houses, mansions or castles can also act as a character on their own in mystery stories, and floorplans really help giving life to these sinister settings.

For this short post, I wanted to show a couple of floorplans that made an impression on me. I won't be talking about them too much, as in some cases one can even figure out something important by looking at these diagrams if you know what to look for, but I think that no matter what, these floorplans just look impressive.

Ayatsuji Yukito - Meirokan no Satsujin ("The Labyrinth House Murders", 1988)

The title basically says it all. After his debut novel The Decagon House Murders, Ayatsuji continued with this series featuring the creations of the architect Nakamura Seiji and this third novel features an underground 'house' designed after the Labyrinth of the Minotaur, and the building is absolutely insane.

Shimada Souji - Naname Yashiki no Hanzai ("The Crime at the Slanted Mansion", 1982)

The second novel in Shimada's Mitarai Kiyoshi series has an interesting diagram, as it's drawn with depth. Floorplans with perspective aren't really common actually, and I really like how this house looks with the tower.

Nakai Hideo - Kyomu he no Kumotsu ("Offerings to Nothingness", 1964)

These floorplans are a bit smaller in scale compared to the previous ones, but I love the hand-drawn feeling of these plans. Kyomu he no Kumotsu is an infamous anti-mystery novel where the protagonist detectives try to figure out how a murder was committed even though there's no proof it's a murder and they just want it to be a murder because it's more fun and they hope more murders happen. These plans of course help them with their deductions.

Ayatsuji Yukito - Kirigoetei Satsujin Jiken ("The Kirigoe Mansion Murder Case", 1990)

Another novel by Ayatsuji. Technically, Kirigoetei Satsujin Jiken isn't part of Ayatsuji's House series, though the connection is heavily hinted at and the floorplan certainly seems similar in its complexity. This one is remarkable because of its sheer size, and this is just the ground floor!

Nikaidou Reito -  Jinroujou no Kyoufu - France (" La Terreur Château du Loup-garou La Second Partie: France, 1997)

Jinroujou no Kyoufu is a mammoth of an impossible crime mystery, consisting of four volumes of 600~800 pages each. These 8(!) floorplans are of the Blue Wolf Castle, which lies in France. A serises of horrible murders and other gruesome crimes happen in this gigantic castle, but what makes this a true terrifying experience is that this just half of the mystery: the Blue Wolf Castle is just one half of a set of twin castles, and another series of murders happen in the Silver Wolf Castle, just across the border in Germany. The Silver Wolf Castle has the exact same layout as the Blue Wolf Castle, but the happenings that occur in these two castles is just amazing, and one can sense the scale of this story just by looking at these castle plans.

Chisun Inn

 Oh, wait, this isn't from a mystery novel. This is in fact a floorplan of the Chisun Inn, a hotel located in Nagoya, Japan. Which also happens to look exactly like something from a mystery story. The hotel is designed in a spiral form, with a lot of rooms in a fan form, but one can easily imagine this to be the setting of a series of murders, right? I for one would make sure my door was locked and double locked if I were to stay here, as there's bound to be someone who's planning some kind of ingenious alibi trick or an impossible murder!

Anyway, these were a few floorplans from mystery novels that made an impression on me because of how they were designed, the scale of the setting or simply how they were drawn. Feel free to leave a comment with the floorplans from mystery novels (or TV series/manga/games) that made an impression on you.

She Sailed Away

We are all rowing a boat of fate 

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

"Life Is Like A Boat" (Rie Fu)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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