Mind Over Murder

If I'm not back again this time tomorrow

Carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters

"Bohemian Rhapsody" (Queen) 

Disclosure: I have translated Arisugawa Alice's The Moai Island Puzzle.

Every Saturday, a handful of regulars gather at the bar April in the hopes Jizoubou will visit them again. Jizoubou is a yamabushi, an ascetic hermit who generally conducts his spiritual training in the mountains, but he sometimes comes down to... have a drink in a bar with other people. Because he's just human. Jizoubou's travels bring him to various places, where he meets even more people and for some reason, he has a knack for getting to know people just before a murder occurs in their vicinity. Jizoubou often relates these tales of murder to his friends at April, and as it turns out, it's always Jizoubou who ended up solving the case for the police. Each time, his fellow bar friends try their hand at solving the case too based on Jizoubou's retelling of the events, but none of them ever manage to match the brilliance of the travelling hermit in Arisugawa Alice's 1996 short story collection Yamabushi Jizoubou no Hourou ("The Wanderings of the Yamabushi Jizoubou").

As per custom, publisher Tokyo Sogensha usually adds an English title inside the book, which may be a translation, but often is a completely original title. In this case, the English title is Bohemian Dreams, after the cocktail served to Jizoubou. I wonder who comes up with those titles each time.

 Yamabushi Jizoubou no Hourou collects seven short stories that are all quite short and they all follow the same format. Each story consists of six segments, of which the first and last act as the framing book-ends: the first section sets up how Jizoubou ends up relating one of his old adventures to his friends at April, while the last section is dedicated to a few guesses by his friends, until Jizoubou finally gives the trick away. That means that each story only has four sections devoted them, and as you can guess, each story is pretty simple in structure, usually with one main trick that makes up the mystery. That said, most of the stories are pretty clever considering how short they are, and the overall book is quite enjoyable, even if after a while the stories do feel a bit samey. That does make it difficult to discuss the stories in detail though, as they are really very short: in some cases Jizoubou's story basically ends with the discovery of the corpse. So in this review, I'll only very briefly discuss the stories and highlight the points I liked about some of them.

The book opens with Local-sen to Cinderella ("The Local Line and Cinderella") which is indeed one of those stories that seems to spend all its time on the buildup, and then we learn about a murder, after which the story immediately returns to April, with the bar attendeed trying to guess what happened. In this case, Jizoubou had been s and he managed to catch the last train on a minor local train line back to Akino, the nearest city connected to the major Japan Rail network. He happens to share this last train with the actress Hoshimoto Mai and her entourage: Mai hails from the mountain village of Douno, the terminal station of the local line, and had been visiting her home town. The following morning, Jizoubou learns a murder had occured in the last train in the direction of Douno (so the counterpart to the train Jizoubou took to Akino): a stranger had been found stabbed in the train. Jizobou comes up with an explanation for the murder that is very clever: while the trick itself might sound familiar in some ways, Arisugawa manages to hide it well within the limited page count, and the application of the concept in this specific story is original enough to leave a very positive impression. In a way, the second story, Kasou Party no Yakata ("The House of the Masquerade Party") uses a similar underlying concept for its trick, even if the execution and the surrounding story is completely different. The set-up is prett funny though. Wandering in the mountains and in search for shelter, Jizoubou ends up at a manor where they're having a costumed birthday party, and other guests, assuming he's dressed up, help him inside. During the party, two costumed men are found dead in a room upstairs, one strangled and the other hit on the head. Witnesses had kept an eye on the door, and there seems to be no clear suspect, as only the two victims entered the room until they were discovered. I like the trick here, even if it's more a trick that seems feasible on paper than in real-life. I only realize in hindsight, as I'm writing this, that some of the underlying dynamics of this story and the first story are similar, but definitely not in a way that it's clear right away or that this story feels like a rehash in anway.

Gake no Kyouso ("The Cult Leader on the Cliff") has Jizoubou trying to help a man, whose girlfriend has fallen under the spell of a charismatic cult leader, who resides inside a cave in a cliff. Jizobou assists the man as he tries to find a way into the cave, but this attempt goes wrong and his attempts to save his girlfriend are also rebuted by the girlfriend herself. The following day however, Jizobou returns to find the cave half-collapsed: a bomb had been set off in the meditation chamber, killing the cult leader! But how did the culprit plant a bomb there, as it went off in the morning and his disciples sweeped the room earlier? The solution is simple but well foreshadowed, and I like the setting of a mountain sect/cult leader, as it fits the yamabushi motif of Jizoubou.

Jizoubou easily makes friends, so it's not rare for him to get invited for dinner, but seldom to one where one of the guests ends up poisoned! In Doku no Bansan ("Poisoned Dinner"), Jizoubou is invited by a friend to dinner, which is also attended by some other guests/family relatives. During dinner, one of them keels over, and it turns out his beer had been poisoned. But who did it? I love the trick behind this tale: it's so much not a mechanical trick, but a brilliantly psychological one, but even within the limited amount of pages Arisugawa has, he manages to very convincingly portray these characters in a way, that explains in a satisfactory manner how the murder was committed. I can imagine the same trick used in a full novel, but still, it wouldn't have the elegant simpleness of this version.

In Shinu Toki wa Hitori ("You Die Alone"), Jizoubou tells the story of when two hoodlums tried to pick a fight with him, but he was saved by their former boss: they used to form a gang of organized crime, but their boss has washed his hands clean and started a small bar. His former followers however still haven't quite gotten used to normal life yet. To apologize, the boss invites Jizoubou to his bar and offers him a drink. When the boss goes into his private office for a moment, a gunshot rings. Jizoubou and a former follower enter the office to find the boss shot and signs of someone having fled the office through the back door. Outside however, they can find a pistol, but also witnesses along all the alleys that swear they didn't see the murderer flee their way. So how did the killer escape? The trick behind the vanishing shooter is simple, but the story is quite memorable due to the underlying motive of the murderer: it is established very well, again, despite the limited amount of pages and it's surprisingly convincing. 

In Wareta Glass Mado ("The Broken Glass Window"), Jizoubou is invited to the home of a man hunting for truffles, When his host excuses himself for a moment to retreat to his study, a loud voice can be heard, and Jizoubou and the host's wife hurry to see what's happened: the host is lying dead on the floor with his head bashed in, one window broken and glass lying outside, as well as a book from the collection of the host. The matter seems simple: there was a struggle, a book was thrown at the assaillant and missed, and the host was killed. Or was that really the case? This is an interesting story, in the sense the murderer does something very over-the-top in order to create what is in essence a very simple trick, only made complicaed because of the 'over-the-top' thing. It's a bit silly to go so far, but it works. I wish it was clewed a bit better though, because I think the idea itself is good, only this is an example where I think the limited page count works to the story/trick's disadvantange.  

Whereas the previous stories were all serialized in magazines originally, the final story Tenma Hakase no Shouten ("The Ascension of Doctor Tenma") was written especially for the book release and it is therefore also a bit longer than the magazine stories. Wandering around in the forest, Jizoubou meets with an inventor who has been working on odd creations like a remote controlled boomerang. This inventor is later found dead in the early morning, apparently having fallen to his death from the cliff behind his house/lab. Footprints were left in the snow behind the house and they show how the inventor weaved a path from his house to the cliff, right above the spot where he was later found dead. He was found by someone passing beneath the path on his morning routine and at first glance, it appears this was nothing but a tragic accident, but of course, Jizoubou has different ideas. Because this story is a bit longer, we also have more/deeper theories proposed by Jizoubou's friends at April, which make this a more complex story. The trick revolves around something that seems a bit out of place in the world of this series, especially when we have a travelling hermit as our detective, and the trick itself is a bit simple to guess I think once a certain prop is introduced in the story, so I don't think it's the strongest tale of the collection, even if it's not that different in quality from the others.

Yamabushi Jizoubou no Hourou is a fairly solid, if simple short story collection by Arisugawa. Because each story is very short, there's simply not much room to paint really deep or complex stories, which results in most of these stories ending up as tales that revolve around one single thing, but most of the time, Arisugawa actually manages to make full use of the space he does have to bring satisfying stories with plots that are crafted with consistency and confidence. Few stories in the collection will probably manage to make an ever-lasting impression, but it's a quick and entertaining read that always retains a good level of quality when it comes to the mystery.

Original Japanese title(s): 有栖川有栖『山伏地蔵坊の放浪』: 「ローカル線とシンデレラ」/「仮装パーティーの館」/「崖の教祖」/「毒の晩餐会」/「死ぬ時はひとり」/「割れたガラス窓」/「天馬博士の昇天」 

Tricky Business

Ah Why Why Ah Tell me why you hold me

"Why" (Color) 

Serializations of novels or short stories have become quite rare globally, but the format is still quite viable in Japan, with many novels/short story collections still being serialized first before they are actually published as books. Or in some cases, stories remain in serialized form. Ooyama Seiichirou is an author who specializes in the short story format, and nearly the entirety of his creative output is serialized in magazines in both physical and digital formats first before they get a book release. I have for example discusses his series like Watson-ryoku/The Watson Force, Alibi-kuzushi Uketamawarimasu/The Clockmaker Detective and Akai Hakubutsukan/The Red Museum, which are classic examples of Ooyama first publishing four or five stories in magazines first, before they are collected as one book, occasionally with Ooyama adding one original story for the book release. However, if you take a look at his (Japanese) Wikipedia, you'll notice some of the stories he's been serializing have not seen a collected release yet. For example, in the past I have reviewed a short story in a series where an actor specializing in villain roles turns out to be a gifted amateur detective, and while Ooyama has already released enough stories in this series to fill a volume, it has not seen a book release yet.

The same holds for the series I am discussing today: Wayama Yawa no 5W1H Jikenbo ("Wayama Yawa's 5W1H Casebook") consist of five stories Ooyama wrote between 2022 and 2023 for the magazine Shousetsu Tripper. The fifth story was in fact also announced in as the "final" story in the serialization, making this a finished story, but even now in 2026, there's no sign of a collected release being considered. And that's a shame, for the five stories have been very entertaining! As the title of the series suggests, each story in this series is centered around the five Ws (Who, what, where, when, why) and the one H (how). The series detective is the titular Wayama Yawa, a young, petite woman in her early twenties, who is absolutely fantastic at her work, with the catch being... that she's working somewhere else every time. For Wayama has nothing but admiration for all the kinds of work to be found in our modern society, so she tries out something each time (and always masters the profession in seconds). Each story follows new characters as they get entangled in mysterious incidents (sometimes criminal, sometimes not), with Wayama somehow getting involved too because of whatever new job she's doing now, and of course solving the case in an instant.

In a way, this series reminds me a bit of Awasaka Tsumao's A Aiichirou series: there, the titular amateur detective isn't the focal character either, as each short story focuses on a different cast, and then Aiichirou happens to get involved too, either in his role as travelling photographer, or because he happens to have found a different job for a period. 

Oh, in case you are wondering what the illustration is featured in this review? It is an illustration that accompanies the title page of the first story of this series as featured in the magazine Shousetsu Tripper, though I don't think it is specifically related to Wayama Yawa no 5W1H Jikenbo. At least, I'm pretty sure Wayama doesn't look like that, and none of the other stories have such illustrations.

The first story, Dochira ga Saki ni Shinda ka? ("Who Died First?"), opens in the hospital, where Futagawa Eisuke, director of Futagawa Funerals, drawing his final breath. Present are his wife Tomiko, his nephew Takashi and his wife, and Nagadate Michio, the corporate solicitor. Not present is Eisuke's younger brother/father of Takashi, Yuusuke. Nagadate is surprised Yuusuke isn't present at his brother's deathbed, but Takashi explains he hasn't managed to reach his father at home. Eisuke and Yuusuke never got along and indeed, before their wealthy father died, he wrote a will that put all of his fortune in a trust: Eisuke and Yuusuke would only inherit his money once they were both respectively 62 and 60 years old, to ensure they wouldn't try to kill each other in order to inherit everything. The two brothers therefore started avoiding each other for many decades, wtith Eisuke becoming a succesful funeral director, while Yuusuke remained an unsuccesful painter. Some years ago, their father's inheritance was finally released, but the brothers remained estranged. The day after Eisuke's death, Yuusuke still can't be reached at home, so Nagadate and Takashi drive to Yuusuke's remote home to check up on him, but there they find... Yuusuke dead in the bath tub. It appears Yuusuke too died yesterday, though the coroner can't determine a specific time of death. However, Nagadate instantly realizes the order of the death of the brothers will become a matter of great importance to Takashi due to Eisuke's will, in which he bequeaths one quarter of his tremendous wealth to Yuusuke and the remainder to his wife Tomiko. If Eisuke died before Yuusuke did, that quarter of his inheritance will first go to Yuusuke, and because of his death, then go to Takashi. However, if Yuusuke died first, Tomiko will inherit everything from her husband, while Takashi will only inherit from his not really well-to-do father. The moment Nagadate tells his new employee Wayama Waya about this conundrum however, she senses they have to work fast to prevent a murder from happening...

This story poses a very interesting problem, and in a rather devious way poses a double problem: the title in English ends up focusing on the "Who?", but of course, from the set-up you'll also see the problem presented is very much about "When?". One thing I have to say about this story that holds for all five stories is that these stories are very short, so it's hard to write a lot about them without giving too much away. I really like this story though! Ooyama actually adds this extra mystery at the end by having Wayama declare she sees a potential murder coming, so that leaves the reader with the question of which of the two brothers died first and also the question of who Wayama thinks is going to be murdered and why. There's some very cleverly hidden misdirection in this short tale, and while I don't always like unanswered questions in mysteries, this one has one I can live with very easily, as it really adds an ironic twist to the theme of the tale.

The second story, Doko de Orita no ka? ("Where Did She Get Off?"), a lawyer Shinpei is trying to locate a potential witness who can prove his client is innocent of a robbery. The problem however is that this witness can't be found, even though in theory, locating the person should be easy: according to the client, at the time of the crime, he ran into a woman dressed in ancient garments, like she had just come from the  Heian period. However, despite the police's best efforts, they can't find the woman nor any other witnesses who saw her that day. Until Shinpei discusses the case with his cousin Yuuna, a college student. It turns out that when Yuuna took the bus back home after her exam yesterday, that woman was already on the bus. Yuuna dozed off and woke up just before her own stop, by which time the woman had already gotten off. Yuuna and Shinpei decide to locate the woman and try to interview the bus driver who drove that bus yesterday, but it just so happens yesterday was that driver's last day before the start of his extended leave today after decades of being dedicated to his job. The new driver has not seen the woman in question unfortunately. This leaves Yuuna and Shinpei getting on and off at every stop between the university and the stop near Yuuna's home to see if they can find any clue leading to the woman, but then the new bus driver, a young woman called Wayama Yawa, has a suggestion for them... A relatively innocent story with no real crime as the main mystery, which adds some variety. There's some funny circular reasoning going regarding the woman: the reason the woman was dressed in very traditional garments is likely related to the bus stop where she got off: do you have to deduce why the woman was dressed the way she was and from there deduce where she got off, or do you have to deduce where she got off, and based on that location deduce why she was dressed like that? It's a bit of both of course. While the woman being dressed like that is a bit strange, I think there's one main hint given in the story that allows for a natural, intuitive guess why she's dressed like that. I am more of a fan of the clues that allow the reader to guess at what stop she got off and why, as that is a multi-layered one that also cleverly includes Wayama herself in the mystery.

In Nani wo Takurandeiru no Ka? ("What Has He Planned?"), the narrator is a former test driver who lost his job after gamble problems, but his skills allowed him to secure a very unique job: a transporter. Transport objects or persons from A to B and he's paid enough to accept the fact that some of these jobs aren't always safe. This time, he's asked to drive a wealthy hotel owner called Kureta Kouzou and one of his possessions from Tokyo to Karuizawa. The object in question is the Cretan Cat, a figure dating from the fifteenth century which is said to bring fortune to those who cherish it, and misfortune to those who don't treat it well. It has changed owners during the last few centuries, and has been the possession of some of very succesful people indeed. Kureta had purchased the Cretan Cat for a pittance after its previous owner died, but now two people are after the Cat: the nephew of the previous owner who sold the Cat to Kureta not knowing its true worth, and a high-ranking police official who might even use the power of the police to get his hands on the Cat in order to climb to the top. The driver and Kureta are joined by a hired bodyguard... a young small woman called Wayama. While the driver first thinks this must be a bad joke, he soon learns the woman is indeed suitable for the job, so the three drive off in a car especially prepared by Kureta, racing to Karuizawa via local roads. They get ambushed along the way, but Wayama not only finds a way out, she also immediately deduces which oppenent is behind the operation. 

Again, while this is a short stories, it's cool to see Ooyama use Wayama in all kinds of scenarios, this time in a more action-oriented story. There's of course a kind of hard-boiled atmosphere at play in this story with the first-person narration and a McGuffin in the form of the Cretan Cat, which again is very unique compared to the "everyday life mystery"-esque setup of the previous story. This story spends quite some time on the set-up of explaining who the narrator is and the backstory of the Cretan Cat, so by the time we get to the ambush, there are really not that many pages left to really develop the mystery. Guessing the mastermind behind the ambush is thus not very difficult simply because of the small scale of the story, though I like the motive behind the ambush: it's not simply greed that drives the culprit, but something more unexpected, despite it being fairly hinted at. Of course, that is the main problem of the story as proven by the title, but because most of the story is more focused on the who and how of the ambush, the question of why/what the goal was doesn't pop up until relatively late.

Naze Mainichi Ippon Dake Kau no Ka? ("Why Does She Buy Just One A Day?") is a variant on the famous real-life story of mystery author Wakatake Nanami: she worked at a bookshop when she was in university, and every Saturday a man would appear with twenty 50-yen coins, exchange those coins for a 1000-yen bill and leave again. She never figured out why that man did that, and her story has become the topic of two anthologies with both professional and amateur detectives providing a possible solution to her problem, and other writers have also utilized variations on this problem, like Ooyama here. The narrator works at Trico Mart, a convenience store and due to a lack of employees, often ends up working a shift all alone. For the last few weeks, a woman has been coming to the story every single weekday morning at forty-past-seven to buy one thing: a pencil priced at 95 yen. It is the only thing she buys every time she comes. The question of why has been weighing on the narrator's mind for some time, so he brings it up to the manager, but he has no idea either. The manager does bring good news: he has hired a new employee, a young woman called Wayama Yawa. When the narrator starts "training" Wayama the following day, he soon realizes she's a very fast learner. When he happens to mention the story of the pencil-buying woman, she asks him to guess why the woman would be doing that. The answer he arrives at, and the answer Wayama arrives at however are quite different. While the set-up is basically simply an inverted version of the 50-yen coin problem, I really like the problem presented. The narrator's main theory is actually quite interesting. Obviously, his one will end up wrong, so it's supposed to be a false theory, but I wonder how many people would have arrived at this one: his theory is built on a certain characteristic that is apparently present in convenience store registers, but I wasn't aware of that! The Wayama theory is of course far more interesting: the first part of her theory is pretty easily guessed, but the "jump" to the latter of her theory is a bit more difficult. Mystery fans might guess this "jump" rather easily as it is a trope that's sometimes seen in mystery fiction, but I think an extra hint to guide the step from the first half to the second half just a bit more cleaner, as making that connection is a bit more difficult without knowledge of that trope. Still, I think it's one of the better stories of the series.

The final story is Kyouki wa Douyatte Idou Shita no Ka? ("How Was The Murder Weapon Moved?") is set on the "Labyrinth", a so-called event train consisting of three carriages. The first and third carriage are normal carriages for passengers, but the second carriage has been completely stripped from its seats and instead, walls have been placed in the carriage to create a labyrinth, challenging passengers to find their way from the first carriage to the third or vice-versa. They change the layout of the labyrinth periodically, providing train fans even more reason to take this train frequently. It's the first time Hirokawa Daisuke is travelling all alone (knowing his parents wouldn't like this) and he's been having the time of his life. He recognizes one of his fellow passengers as Ootsuki Shinichi, the famous puzzle designer who also designed the labyrinth in this train. When the train conductor, a young woman in her twenties, announces someone has thrown paint on one of the walls of the labyrinth and that therefore she asks passengers to not use the labyrinth anymore, Daisuke is relieved he already explored the labyrinth. He dozes off. When he later wakes up, the conductor is here again, checking up on Ootsuki, who is sleeping in the seat in front of Daisuke. Or least, it appeared he was sleeping, but Wayama soon discovers Ootsuki is in fact dead, and the syringe cap lying on the floor seems to suggest a certain method of death. Then a passenger from the third carriage makes his way through the labyrinth, telling Wayama he found a syringe underneath his seat. The police soon discover that syringe was indeed used to give Ootsuki a lethal injection. However, an examination of the security camera in the labyrinth carriage show only Wayama made her way through the labyrinth between the time Ootsuki was last seen alive and then found dead, so how did the murderer move the syringe from the first carriage to the third carriage?

An impossible crime as our last story, and one in a rather fanciful setting too! Having worked on the English translation of Ayatsuji Yukito's The Labyrinth House Murders, I of course have a soft spot for labyrinths and I can't conceal my slight disappointment at the realization  Kyouki wa Douyatte Idou Shita no Ka? didn't feature a map of the labyrinth even if it's not directly needed to solve the mystery. This story is slightly longer than most of the other stories, so it has some more room for fake solutions, which is always appreciated. I think this case actually has one of the more outlandish tricks used in Ooyama's books (who is usually fairly realistic, and focuses more on the logic needed to solve the problem), so that actually came as a pleasant surprise, and it really helps sell the unique location. Still, it wouldn't be an Ooyama if the trail leading to the solution wasn't mostly built around logical deductions based on the crime scene and the actions taking by the people involved: a lot of theorizing is done on the reason why the syringe was moved to the third carriage after killing Ootsuki in the first place, and it serves as a first step towards the solution, which is clever, though it immediately points at one single character as the culprit, so it's a bit of a double-edged sword.

By now, you should know that I thoroughly enjoyed this series by Ooyama, and it's such a shame it hasn't been collected yet as a volume, as it can be difficult to obtain the stories now, as you can only find them in the magazines where they were serialized. I really like how unlike a lot of Ooyama's other series, we don't have a series detective (or "detective enabler", in the case of Watson-ryoku) who gets involved in most of their cases because of their profession/expertise (police detectives, alibi-cracking expert, locked room expert): Wayama can be in any role, and her stories can be about anything, from an impossible crime to a relatively cute story about where someone got off the bus and within these five stories, we already got a wide variety of characters, settings and problems. It would be so cool to see this series continued in the future...

Original Japanese title(s): 大山誠一郎　「どちらが先に死んだのか？」/「どこで降りたのか？」/「何を企んでいるのか？」/「なぜ毎日一本だけ買うのか？」/「凶器はどうやって移動したのか？」

The Corpse That Wasn't There

"It's me, Kaiba. And this time, you don't stand a *ghost* of a chance."

"Yu-Gi-Oh!"  

So I met Norizuki twice in my life, and the first time something funny happened (though Norizuki probably didn't realize it), though the Mephisto editor-in-chief sure did and he was a huge help to me...

Norizuki Rintarou's series about the adventures of the fictional writer/amateur detective Norizuki Rintarou and his father Inspector Norizuki finally gets a new volume later this month in the form of Norizuki Rintarou no Fukaku, which also has the English title The Unawareness of Norizuki Rintarou on the cover. The contents of the four-story-volume was recently announced and it turns out I already read half of the stories included. While the final story is an original tale written especially for the volume, I have already reviewed the first two stories in the book: Higisha Shibou ni Yori ("Due to the Death of the Suspect") and Shinritekikashi Ari ("Stigmatized Property") were both originally written as part of guess-the-culprit anthology projects, where the first part of the story would be published and then readers would have time to write in their solutions, before the second half of the story would be published. I read these stories when the volumes collecting these stories were published and enjoyed both of them as fair-play stories where we get to see Norizuki's logic-based puzzles in their full glory. 

The title of the third story included in the volume Norizuki Rintarou no Fukaku however didn't sound familiar to me at first, until I looked it up and learned I actually had the story already in my possession. The story had been written as part of an anthology project running in the magazine Mephisto titled The Finishing Stroke, fousing on stories with final lines that turn things around. I think I did know Norizuki had written something for this anthology project, but I hadn't quite realized it had in fact been a story starring Rintarou. While there's a dedicated The Finishing Stroke book release, which collects this story too among others, I happen to have the Mephisto issue where Norizuki's Tsugi wa Anta no Ban da yo ("You're Next!") was originally published, so I decided to read it (I am not aware of any (major) differences between the original publication and the collected version).

Pater Norizuki is investigating a rather kooky case and as always, he ends up discussing the case with filius Rintarou to see if the writer has some ideas. Komiyama Michiyo, an elderly, wealthy woman was found murdered in her own home: the woman ran several succesful businesses and was always staying in hotels during weekdays for all her business obligations, though she made it a rule to return home for the weekend: she was discovered dead on a Monday. While at first it seems like a robbery ending in death, the fact the murderer actually managed to switch off the security cameras and evade all the cameras in the neigborhood seems to suggest the "thief" had very detailed knowledge about the victim's house, its security measures and thus would have known the busy woman was seldom at home during the week: so why would a genuine thief would have picked the weekend, when the woman was always at home? This alone would just make for an ordinary case, but things took a weird turn when Suzumura Shigeki, an office employee who has made it a habit to jog in the evening after work, made a report about having found the body of a dead woman in the park he always visits: an elderly woman had died recently there due to dehydration, and it was at that same spot he saw an elderly woman collapsed on the ground. At first he thought it was another case of dehydration and tried to wake the woman up, but she was clearly dead and her arms had been tied with zip ties, indicating a crime. As he was out jogging, he didn't have his phone with him and had to report from the nearest public phone. When he and a patrolman returned to the park however, they found no trace of the woman, though it was clear someone had been lying at the place Suzumura saw the body. When he described the face of the woman however, it turned out to be the face of...Komiyama Michiyo, a woman who was already dead by then!

The spooky story reminds in a way of the classic, award-winning An Urban Legend Puzzle in this same series and indeed, while this story does not feature an actual, well-known urban legend/ghost story, the story does start as a genuine scary story, told as the experience of an "unnamed" office worker (Suzumura) who dreams of jogging at night and then running into a ghostly face of a woman and later, Suzumura testifies he'd been seeing that woman in his dreams long before he stumbled the dead body in the park. But ghosts and prophetic dreams can't be real....right? Of course, this is an experiment in logical deduction as are all of the Rintarou short stories and indeed, Rintarou does offer a very logical solution to what happened. As many of the Rintarou stories go (especially those with Rintarou and his father just discussing a case as armchair detectives), the story's cleverness lies in how the story is presented to the reader in terms of how every element is connected, and Rintarou then using clever questions to steer the reader (and his father) towards a subversion of the original presentation, showing how everything had been connected in a different manner in reality. This is also executed satisfactorily in this tale, and while some elements do feel a bit too familiar if you've read a healthy amount of the Rintarou short stories, Tsugi wa Anta no Ban da yo is a pretty solid entry in the series.

It's not a very long story, so there's not much more I can talk about without giving away too much. Looking at the already available three stories that will be included in the upcoming Norizuki Rintarou no Fukaku volume though, I think these were all really solid short mystery tales, with of course the first two being pure guess-the-culprit puzzles seperated in a "problem" and "solution" part, while Tsugi wa Anta no Ban da yo is a bit more open, but feels more unique with its ghost story set-up . I do have to admit that now that I have read three of the four stories, it's likely I won't be picking up a copy of Norizuki Rintarou no Fukaku right away on release just to read that one final original story.. Oh well, I'm sure I'll get to it eventually.

Original Japanese title(s): 法月綸太郎「次はあんたの番だよ」 

The Problem of the Red Rose

"There's the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it."

"A Study in Scarlet" 

Unsurprisingly, I have quite a few mystery books that have red as the main color on the cover. I wonder what color is the rarest though. Something like purple?

Terada Satoshi is a young detective assigned to the prestigious homicide division of the Metropolitan Police Department with a bright future awaiting him.... until he foolishly left confidential files at the house of a suspect during a house search. The woman living with the suspect posted the files online, making a laughing stock of the police, questioning their capabilities of actually conducting a criminal investigation. Terada wasn't a scapegoat, but the actual person who made the grave mistake of course, so he was severely punished for the deed: he was removed from the homicide division and effectively demoted by his assignment to the Red Museum. Following the example of the Black Museum of Scotland Yard, the MPD has its own Red Museum, where files and evidence concerning cases of which the statute of limitations have already passed are stored in the archives beneath the old brick mansion in Mitaka, Tokyo. His pride couldn't have been hurt worse, as gone are the days of investigating serious crimes, and left are just boxes filled with old evidence waiting for Terada to stick a nice label with a QR code on them so they can be registered into a database. The same old, day after day after day. 

The Red Museum is headed by Hiiro Saeko, an attractive woman but rather emotionally detached, and often referred to as the Snow Woman. Hiiro's rank is superintendent and she's supposed to be in the elite 'career path' within the police, so Terada suspects she must have really messed up too in the past to be stuck here despite her career history, staring at dead cases all day. However, soon after Terada's assignment to the Red Museum, Hiiro orders Terada to look into an old unsolved case they are registering into the database. Once he reports his findings to her, Hiiro manages to solve the case and identify the culprit decades after the murder happened! It turns out that while the Red Museum is storing away old cases, Hiiro doesn't consider all cases dead, and she goes over every case they register, solved or not, to see if she can uncover the real truth. In Ooyama Seiichirou's short story collection Akai Hakubutsukan ("The Red Museum", 2015), we follow Hiiro and Terada as they tackle five cases from the past... and the present.

In 2016, Akai Hakubutsukan had a live-action adaptation, which I reviewed back then. It was a feature-length special, adaptating multiple stories and in the end, I wasn't too impressed because it felt a bit chaotic. But on the other hand, I am a huge fan of Ooyama Seiichirou, which is partially connected to the fact I love short mystery stories, and Ooyama's a master in that form. As I have read most of Ooyama's work already (yes, I know I haven't written the review for the second Watson-ryoku yet...), it was just a matter of time I would get started on the Red Museum series. Actually, besides the television special, I had actually already read one of the stories collected in this first volume of the series, but for some reason it appears I never reviewed it, as I can't find a review of it on my blog. But as the third volume of the series released a few months ago, I knew it was time to finally get properly started on this series.

Pan no Minoshirokin ("Ransom for Bread") is the opening story. It was originally titled Akai Hakubutsukan ("The Red Museum") and is also about twice as long as all the other stories, so it was basically a pilot which was later extended into a full series. As such, it spends relatively much time explaining how Terada came to work at the Red Museum, his first impressions of the cold head of the museum, his meeting with the two other staff members of the museum and portraying Terada as someone who really is proud of having been in the homicide division, looking down at Hiiro as someone who probably has never conducted any real investigation herself and only being in a managerial role. Things of course change with this first case. Terada is sent to transfer evidence from the Shinagawa Police Station to the Red Museum for filing: the evidence is from a case that occured in 1999, when the director of the big bread supplier Nakajima Bread was murdered. Someone had been tampering with products of the company, introducing nails into the bread, which of course led to a huge drop in sales. The blackmailer then sent a letter to the director, demanding for a fortune if he wanted it to stop. The director was to bring the money in a suitcase by car, and he'd be contacted via his phone installed in his car. The police was of course not to be involved, but they were secretly informed and a police detective was hiding in the car's trunk, which allowed him to communicate with the director and maintain radio contact with the supporting detectives. The director was led to an abandoned manor in the forest. When he didn't appear after a while, the detective in the trunk sent supporting detectives in the house as he too entered the building, but they only found the suitcase with money in the house, and the director gone. While they did find an underground passage leading away from the house, they couldn't understand why the money had been left behind. Later, the director's dead body was found elsewhere, making this a murder case. The police soon suspected the ransom money had just been a ruse, an excuse to camouflage the real goal of murdering the director, but the person with the best motive for doing so had an iron-clad alibi and the case was left unsolved.

For some reason I thought this had been adapted as part of the first television adaptation, but I guess they only did the introductionary part and not the actual mystery. Which is a shame, as this is a great opening story. In a way, it reminds me a lot of the short story Y no Yuukai ("The Kidnapping of Y"), the last story in Ooyama's debut book Alphabet Puzzlers. It too deals with a case set in the past, an abduction case (a child in Y no Yuukai, the director who disappears from the house in this story), someone is ordered to drive around in a car as they are directed to deliver ransom money and the money ending up not being retrieved by the culprit, leading to speculations to their real goal. The mechanics behind the case and the way they are solved are completley different though. Pan no Minoshirokin cleverly disguises the main driving dynamics of its plot as a different kind of mystery, hiding the true solution behind a well-designed veil of deceit. Once you recognize the mystery for what it really is, everything falls nicely in place, showing the tight plotting Ooyama is known for. If there's one thing I would fault the story for, it's that it doesn't make as clever use of the series' premise as some of the other stories in the same collection: while the conclusion might feel more impactful because the story took place ago in the past, a lot of how the main mystery would've been solved, would have been the same whether the story had been told real-time (i.e. in 1999) or as it is now, as an account of something that happed long ago. I feel other stories, like the second and the last one in this volume, utilize the concept of these all being old cases to better effect.

Fukushuu Nikki ("Diary of Revenge") is Ooyama's take on a device seen in both Nicholas Blake's The Beast Must Die and Norizuki Rintarou's Yoriko no Tame ni ("For Yoriko"), being about the diary of someone planning to commit murder out of revenge. In fact, these three stories, written by different people at different times, form a kind of series: the diary of Yoriko no Tame ni starts the day after the diary in The Beast Must Die ends, and Fukushuu Nikki´s diary starts after Yoriko no Tame ni's diary ends! The diary in question is of Takami Kyouichi, a student who vows revenge for the death of his ex-girlfriend Maiko. The two had broken up some months ago, but one day, he suddenly got a call from Maiko who wanted to see him. When he went to her place, her body was found lying in the garden outside of her apartment building, having apparently leapt to her death from her balcony, but Kyouchi suspects there's more behind her death and based on evidence found in her apartment and the fact she had been pregnant when she died, he theorizes Maiko had been murdered by her current boyfriend, who wanted to get rid of her and the baby the easy way. Kyouichi feverishly starts to look for clues to identify this boyfriend so he can kill him, detailing his thinking process in his diary. After he managed to execute his plan, his diary was removed during a burglary in his apartment building and the diary was sent to the police, who of course wanted to have a talk with him: he died in a car crash while running away. 

Both Terada and Hiiro read through the diary, which seems like an open-and-shut case as the murderer confessed to every detail, from motive to how he planned the murder, in his diary, but to Terada's surprise, Hiiro seems dubious about the "truth" behind this case, as she notes a few strange discrepancies within the diary's account. The result is an excellently plotted tale of mystery, where Ooyama managed to plant so many clues and foreshadowing in a surprisingly short diary: the diary hides an intricately designed plot that, despite the diary's short length, allows for clever red herrings, multiple solutions and a neat conclusion to it all. I actually recently did go through The Beast Must Die in anticipation of this story, but I liked the clewing in this story so much better and the way the plot is constructed so much better, being much closer to the type of mystery I like (Ellery Queen-like plotting).  

Shi ga Kyouhansha wo Wakatsu made ("Till Death Do The Conspirators Part") is about a murder exchange, a trope very dear to Norizuki Rintarou, so these two stories do make it feel like Ooyama had him in mind while working on this book. Terada is out driving when he becomes witness to a tragic incident involving a truck hitting a car. The lone driver of the car is hit fatally, but in his dying words, he makes a confession to Terada. Twenty-five years ago, he was involved in a murder exchange: he wanted to kill somebody, but he'd become the main suspect, so he swapped his murder with someone else, allowing both of them to obtain perfect alibis for 'their' murders. While the man manages to explain they committed the murders one week after another, Terada unfortunately couldn't make out the names the dying man was trying to convey and by the time the emergency services arrived, the man had already passed away. The man is easily identified by his wife and his driver's license and so Terada and Hiiro start looking into a death that occurred twenty-five years ago in his circle, for which he would've been a suspect if not for a perfect alibi. They learn his wealthy uncle had been murdered, supporting the claim of the murder exchange and leading to the next question: who killed the uncle and who was the person they ordered a hit on?

This was the main plot of the (first) live-action special, but whereas I remember nothing about the plot from the special, I think it is a great story here. The story certainly starts out in an open manner: you know there have been two murders twenty-five years ago, one being on the rich uncle, but Terada's investigations into murders in the same time window lead to two possible candidates, where someone was murdered and there had been an obvious suspect in the possession of a perfect alibi. Here the fact this series is about cases set long in the past helps develop the mystery, as what makes this mystery hard to solve is the fact you can hardly expect someone to remember what they did on a certain day at a certain time twenty-five years ago, and how are you going to prove that? So it's neigh impossible to prove either of those suspects committed the uncle murder, and yet... Hiiro is not the type to give up easily and despite these setbacks, she boldly proposes a theory that proves with whom the traffic accident victim swapped his murders and how the other murder was committed. At this point of the series, Terada is still hoping he can one day return to the homicide division and as he was the one to hear the dying man's last words, he also wants to show Hiiro he's a better investigator than she'll ever be due to his hands-on experience, but of course, we all know who's better at this...

Honoo ("Flames") is a relatively short story and the one I know I had read before, but for some reason I never wrote a review for it. Hiiro draws Terada's attention to an essay written by a photographer, whose family died in a fire: when she was in elementary school, she had gone off on a school trip, only to return an orphan. It was only later she heard the horrible truth: her aunt (sister of her mother) was going to stay at their home for a day because she and her boyfriend had a horrible breakup and they needed to talk things over to calm things down. Her mother, pregnant with a sibling, and her father had also been present. A fire broke out and the burnt bodies of her father, her mother and her aunt were found in the ruins. It turned out that all three of them had been poisoned before they were consumed by the fire, leading to the conclusion the jilted boyfriend killed everyone after their chat went wrong. The case was never solved, but Hiiro seems quite interested in the account of the now-adult photographer about her childhood. As said, this story is relatively short and features few characters, making it a bit easy to guess how everything falls into place eventually, but it is a neatly constructed mystery, with a lot of subtle clewing. This is the second time I read the story, but it only made me realize how well the story is written, as so many little passages and comments take on a completely different meaning once you know the truth.

Shi ni Itaru Toi ("A Question Unto Death") has a great premise: the Red Museum is asked to release the files and evidence on the death of a man found near the Tamagawa River twenty-six years ago to the homicide division of the MPD, as the exact same murder has occured: from the location of the body to the location of the wound, down to the fact a blood sample of an unknown person (the culprit?) was left on the clothes of the victim. The police fear the same murderer has striked again and thus need the old files to compare, and Hiiro of course hands over the files, as she too recognizes the eerie similarities between the cases. However, Hiiro is then approached by an old friend in Internal Affairs, who wants Hiiro on the case too: because the new body is too similar to how the body was discovered twenty-six years ago and there's no reason why the original murderer would go such lengths to replicate their own crime, he suspects the new murderer might be just a copycat, and more importantly, a copycat with precise knowledge of the police investigation twenty-six years ago, as the new murder also mirrors the old murder in ways not reported in the media and only known to people involved in the investigation. Hiiro accepts the task and starts investigating both the murders in the past and the present, while the homicide investigation too tries to find a connection between the two cases, focusing on the blood samples found at both crime scenes.

And as I am writing this, I learn there was actually a second adaptation of this series, and that second installment was based on this last story. This story introduces an interesting way to have Hiiro involved in an on-going investigation while also keeping her firmly tied to the work of the Red Museum. The mystery basically revolves around the matter of why the two murders are nearly identical down to every point: if it was the original murderer coming back again after twenty-six years, why would they mirror their own crime down to such detail, even down to something that obviously hadn't been planned originally (the bloodstain left on the victim)? On the other hand, if it's someone copying the murder, how did they get hold of such details and once again, what is the goal in mimicking an old unsolved crime, especially as it wasn't even a high-profile crime (i.e. not the type of murder to attract copycat killers in the first place)? The answer Ooyama has prepared for this question is fantastic: he provides the murderer with an incredibly original motive for this mystery to occur, and while it does require one character to be not quite sane for this story to work, the payoff is great, with a twist that will take the reader by surprise, not only because it's so unexpected, but alo because it's surprisingly well-clewed despite of the out-of-left-field-ness. This is the kind of surprise I'm reading detective stories for!

Akai Hakubutsukan shows once again why Ooyama is so well appreciated as a master of the short mystery story. All the stories except for the pilot/first story are pretty short in page length, but he always manages to pack the plots full with clues and foreshadowing that lead to surprising twists, all the while without telegraphing the solutions too much. I think the series works best when it makes actual use of the fact we're investigating old cases now, with limited options to doing reinvestigations. As I mentioned before, the third volume was released late 2025, but given how much I liked this first volume, I think catching up won't take long.

Original Japanese title(s): 大山誠一郎『赤い博物館』:「パンの身代金」/「復讐日記」/「死が共犯者を分かつまで」/「炎」/「死に至る問い」 

The House on the Cliff

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

"Saturae" 

Huh, guess this is the third Monzen review of this year on this blog within just a few months. Pretty rare for me to do reviews of the same author in such a short period of time.

Back in 2024, the bookshops Shosen and Horindou published a facsimile release of Monzen Noriyuki's Shi no Meidai ("A Proposition of Death", which was technically published as his fourth novel, but can also be considered his first novel (see the post for more about that). A "upgraded" version of this  facsimile release was also offered, as it included a booklet with a completely new, original short story by Monzen himself. Tsukiatari no Ie ("The Building in the Cul-de-Sac") isn't long at about fifty pages (which is usually around the lower page range of most Japanese short stories I read), but the set-up is rather memorable, and I think it deserves a brief discussion here.

he book opens with Ninomiya Seiji, a man in his early twenties, arriving at a small building near the sea, built in a clearing in the woods, only reachable by following an overgrown path from the nearest parking spot through the wood for five minutes. The concerete building, slightly bigger than a shed, was used by ama (free-divers, usually women) as a spot to get dressed, rest, and warm up, but has been long abandoned. Inside, Ninomoya finds his employer, Inuzuka. Ninomiya served time after killing a person, and once he was free, it was Inuzuka who was willing to hire him at his construction firm. Ninomiya owes a lot to Inuzuka, as he only still treated him as a decent human being despite his past, and he wasn't a truly bad person either. That said, Inuzuka isn't a truly good person either, and he's been duping people into far-too-costly reconstruction projects. Ninomiya has stood by his friend's side for a long time, but fearing Inuzuka might go too far with his criminal endeavours sooner or later, Ninomiya wants out. Inuzuka agreed, but Ninomiya had to do one last job for him.

And thus Ninomiya arrives at the building, where Inuzuka explains Ninomiya is to keep an eye on a person, who is being held captive. The building consists of two "rooms": entering the building leads to the larger entrance room. In the back of that room, is a smaller room, which has no windows and can only be accessed via the door in the entrance room. The prisoner is being held captive in the smaller room, which is locked with a key and also barricaded with a heavy, sturdy-looking barricade bar, which is held in place with four metal hinges on the wall and the door itself. Ninomiya is to not communicate with the prisoner at all, whether it's him starting a conversarion or the prisoner, but also not treat him badly.  The task will last for seven days. Ninomiya hasn't quite sized up the situation, when Inuzuka also locks the outer door of the building, meaning Ninomoya himself is also locked up. Inuzuka assures Ninomiya he'll come pick him up in seven days, and that someone will bring food for both Ninomiya and the prisoner twice a day (both the outer door and the inner door have a small door near the ground, meant for air intake, through which food can be pushed inside).

At first Ninomiya adheres to his assignment, not talking to the prisoner and keeping to himself. Food is also properly delivered around noon and the evening, so he has not to worry about being hungry. The prisoner however is surprisingly quiet, which makes Ninomiya wonder whether there is a prisoner inside. Fortunately, after some time he does hear a person inside. As the hours and days pass by however, Ninomiya starts to wonder. Who is the prisoner? Perhaps Inuzuka has kidnapped someone, and making Ninomoya a scapegoat, keeping him prisoner too so he can be the fall guy. Ninomiya starts to wonder out loud and even starts to talk to the prisoner, who very occasionally answers with short replies. Ninomiya also keeps a diary, detailing the little that happens during these seven days.

Seven days later, the murdered bodies of Ninomiya and Inuzuka are found: Ninomiya in the entrance room, Inuzuka's body in the locked room, which is still barricaded.

So we have an interesting two-folded mystery here: why is Ninomiya asked to watch a prisoner, while he's being kept imprisoned in the building himself too, and how come both Ninomoya and Inuzuka end up dead in the house (with Inuzuka being inside the room where the prisoner was). It's a very short story, so　I do think some details should have gotten more attention, but on the whole, I did enjoy this story a lot. The first two-thirds of the story read as a thriller, as Ninomiya starts to get more doubts about the task he has been given by Inuzuka, slowly realizing he might be set-up for some huge crime and trying to negotiate with the prisoner in the room to see if they can get out together. But then we shift to a police investigation after the seventh day, in which we not only learn that Ninomiya was mudered, but that also Inuzuka was found dead in the locked room (and Inuzuka died hours before Ninomiya too). While I have only read Monzen's novels, I was both surprised, and not surprised, to see he included diagrams in this story too: he always makes very detailed diagrams and floor plans for his stories, as he studied architecture and it's often an important motif in his mysteries. One could say the same here, though I wasn't that surprised by the "architectural" deception going on in this story: it was in fact the whole deal about why Ninomoya is being kept captive together with the prisoner that presented a fun mystery. Not completely fairly clewed perhaps, but an interesting, and most importantly, suspenseful plot nonetheless.

As this was written exclusively for the Shosen/Horindou facscimile release of Shi no Meidai, I doubt this would be collected in a short story collection if Monzen would decide to write more short stories in the future. I personally would be interested in his short stories though, going by what Tsukiatari no Ie brought! He apparently has at least three other short stories published, so I might try and see if I can obtain them/get copies of them.

Original Japanese title(s):  門前典之「突き当たりの家」

By Dawn's Early Light

"Well, I'll be tougher than the toughies, and sharper than the sharpies -- And I'll make my money square!"

"The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" 

Visited Sapporo recently actually. All the dairy products (soft serves!!!) were amazing.

Golden Kamuy is a highly succesful manga series created by Noda Satoru, set in Hokkaido, soon after the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War. It follows Sugimoto, a war veteran and the Ainu girl Asirpa on their quest to find a fortune of gold of the Ainu people, with other parties also after the enormous treasure. The manga is well-known for its historical setting, incorporating real historical events into the plot. It also focuses a lot on Hokkaido and the Ainu culture, exploring the Ainu people in that period in time. The manga has been adapted into a succesful anime series, and there's also a live-action film series. 

And of course, there's a mystery spin-off book! Or else I wouldn't be writing about it here.

I have in fact not read the manga nor seen the anime. And I only caught like the only first 15 minutes of the first Golden Kamuy film. So I know next to nothing about the series. But when it was announced last year that not only the very first Golden Kamuy spin-off novel would be a mystery story, but that it was also written by none other than Ibuki Amon, I knew instantly I wanted to read it, even without knowledge of the series. It would not be the first time I have read a mystery book based on a Shonen Jump franchise I'm not super familiar with (which reminds me I also need to read the second Kinnikuman mystery short story collection), and more importantly: Ibuki Amon is basically the person you want to be writing mystery short stories with a historical setting, with plots that utilize the time period to their fullest, ranging from objects and historical events to culture. Golden Kamuy: Tsurumi Tokushirou no Shukugan ("Golden Kamuy: The Aspirations of Tsurumi Tokushirou") is a prequel short story collection set during the Russo-Japanese War and it follows Tsurumi Tokushirou, First Lieutenant of the 7th Division of the Imperial Japanese Army. Tsurumi is in fact the antagonist of the main series, but his popularity have thus earned him the honor of being the protagonist of the book. Tsurumi is a highly strategic, calculating officer who nonetheless cares about the men serving beneath and besides him. The 7th Division is sent deep into Russian grounds as they move from one battlefield to another to support other divisions and Tsurumi, in his position of First Lieutenant, acts as the platoon leader, being the link between command and the men on the ground. In Tsurumi Tokushirou no Shukugan, we see how the 7th Division moves deeper into Russia as the war wages on, but during their deployment, the members of the 7th Division come across several mysterious incidents, including sightings of the ghost of a fallen comrade patrolling at night, the disappearance of a war prisoner from a guarded tent and a series of murders on Japanese soldiers right in the middle of their own camp, without the enemy ever being detected. While these cases baffle his soldiers, it's always Tsurumi who holds the answers to the questions.

I have to admit that while I bought this book without much worries about my non-existing familiarity with the series, I was taken aback by the first few pages of the book, which featured 15(!) named characters of the 7th Division, all with profile pictures and character introduction, and then more pages that explain the military ranks of the people in the 7th Division, and a chart of the battles the 7th Division were involved with during the war. Once you get reading, you'll realize you'll get explained all of this within the stories themselves too, but the front-loaded info-dump pages were a bit intimidating. The book features five stories, which all follow different members of the 7th Division as they encounter weird cases and see how Tsurumi handles all of them. Each of the stories show how these men become devoted followers of Tsurumi, recognizing not only the aspirations of the man, but also the heart he has for the mission and for the men who fight along him, which earns him the respect and loyalty of the men that see his actions in person. While the stories are all completely original creations by Ibuki Amon, the book does feature several original illustrations made for this book by the original series creator Noda Satoru. 

The book opens with Yuurei Hoshou ("The Ghostly Sentry"), which follows Tanigaki Genjirou, Private First Class. The story follows Tanigaki who is put on night guard. He stands on top of a hill, when he hears a bell, and then he briefly spots someone else standing on an opposite hill: for a moment he fears an enemy, but he soon recognizes the face of his fellow soldier Yoshino. He calls out to Yoshino, but the figure disappears, followed by Tsurumi appearing next to Tanigaki. Tanigaki mentions seeing Yoshino suddenly appear, when Tsurumi informs him that Yoshino already died two days ago on the battlefield. So who did Tanigaki see patrolling in the night? This is a story that is less about the how of how the ghost of Yoshino appeared in front of Tanigaki, but more about the why: which is absolutely fantastic. The reason is firmly grounded in the historical and cultural context of the story, being incredibly convincing. It is hard to even hint at the explanation, because I have the feeling a simple nudge in the right direction might give it all away because it's ultimately a surprisingly simple matter, but Ibuki does a great job at not pointing too much at it until the reveal.

Shiroi Nipponhei ("The White Japanese Soldier"), told from the perspective of Warrant Officer Kikuta Mokutarou, starts with Mokutarou on the verge of being shot by a Russian soldier who surprised him, but for some reason the Russian soldier hesitates for a second before he cried out "the White Japanese!" in Russia, giving Mokutarou's comrades the time to save him. Everyone is puzzled by the Russian soldier's cry, because Mokutarou, and all the other Japanese soldiers, were wearing their black uniform. After interrogating the soldier, Mokutarou learns that the soldier had previously had encountered a Japanese soldier in a white uniform, whom he shot at point-blank range, but the soldier was unharmed by his bullet. The Japanese soldiers doubt the accuracy of the story, suggesting the Russian soldier just missed his mark, though they have no idea why the soldier would have mistaken their uniform for black. When later Mokutarou visits a comrade, he's shocked when that comrade asks Mokutarou why he's wearing a white uniform instead of his usual black... This is a mystery story that has a cool idea in regards to the solution, but the way it works as a mystery story is a bit uneven: it's not really structured as a fair clue-to-solution style of story, making the reveal not as satisfying as it could've been. Again, it's less the how that is memorable, but more the why, with this why being a lot more ambitious than the previous one, but at the same time, because of that wider range, a little bit harder to swallow, because it immediately raises questions about the feasibility, something that the first story did much better.

Habutae Tent to Misshitsu ("The Sealed Field Tent") follows Usami Tokishige, Superior Private of the 7th Division. The division has been hastily moving across the battlefield as they are needed to support an important attack. On their way, they manage to capture a group of Russian soldiers and Tsurumi is ordered to interrogate the leading officer, as they need information on the Russian platoons stationed at their destination. While everyone, from Tsurumi's superiors to the men beneath him, suggest beating the information out of the officer, Tsurumi alone suggests treating their prisoner of war with the respect his rank deserves, and the man is kept in a private tent. Usami is one of the two guards placed at the exit of the tent, while Tsurumi goes out for a bit. Tsurumi returns later with some food for the officer, but apparently can't get anything out of the man, so Tsurumi leaves again. Another prisoner however manages to escape and attacks Usami's fellow guard, but eventually Tsurumi and Usami manage to take out the escapee. They suspect the escapee was trying to rescue his commanding officer, but when they look inside the tent, they find the Russian officer is gone! But this is impossible, as there's only one exit out of the tent, and while Usami had been distracted by the attacker for a while, he swears nobody escaped from the tent during his fight in front of the tent. So how did the Russian officer escape? This is the best story of the collection, as it manages to best combine both a good how and why. The way the Russian officer disappeared from the tent is perhaps a bit simple, but it makes great use of the historical/cultural setting and Amon also manages to introduce enough depth to also delve into false solutions a bit. The why is absolutely stunning, and really only works in a war-setting and with certain characters, but it works so insanely well in this story. It is an insane motive and while not as intuitive as what you'd see in the Father Brown stories, there's an essential core to it that does feel like it could've been in a Father Brown story: it hinges on a very instinctivee, emotional concept that doesn't sound logical at all, and yet it is very convincing.

Toki ni wa Yasashiku Minai Furi ("Sometimes Gently Pretending Not to Notice") is told from the perspective of Superior Private Ogata Hyakunosuke. The soldiers in the 7th Division are slowly becoming restless, when they learn there's been a second murder on one of their fellow soldiers. While soldiers dying on the battlefield is not a surprise at all, there's something special about two specific murders: these soldiers were killed in the middle of their own camp. As one would expect, the Japanese camp is set-up far away from the Russian enemy, with night sentries making sure that the camp itself is safe, but twice already an enemy has managed to strike at fellow Japanese soldiers, who assumed they were safe within the confines of their camp. While at first, they assumed some lone Russian soldier might have made his way into their camp and killed one of them before escaping, this theory quickly loses credibility by the second murder, as it's rather unbelievable an enemy could sneak inside the camp twice. Suspicion therefore turns to someone within the camp, so who is this traitor? This story is basicallly all about the why, as the story basically soon points out all the victims were basically just surprised by whom they thought was a comrade. The why is, as is basically the norm for this collection, a memorable matter that only makes any sense in the specific historical/cultural context of the story, being a war-time story of soldiers being gone for months from home, fighting daily deep within enemy grounds. This may even be the shortest story of them all, but the motive definitely ranks among the strongest of the collection in terms of memorability. In practice, you'd think some of the actions of the murderer are a bit contradictionary, but again, this being a story set right in the middle of an on-going war basically makes the motive not only viable, but even believable. 

The final story, Tsurumi Tokushirou wa Madowanai ("Tsurumi Tokushirou Does Not Waver") is about Sergeant Tsukishima Hajime, a very loyal subordinate to Tsurumi, who will follow his orders no matter what. The 7th Division is visited for an inspection by a commander who has been wavering in his leadership of the army as the war continues: while the soldiers fighting the battles on the ground have a feeling they'll get through, the commander is having second thoughts, which might endanger their opportunity at defeating their enemy. Tsukishima is handed a suspicious package by Tsurumi and is ordered to plant alongside the route the commander will be taking during his inspection. The very precise Tsurumi gives about where to place the package make it clear it's not a safe package, and Tsukishima understands Tsurumi is trying to take matters into his own hands to push the Japanese army forward, but Tsukishima apparently mistimed or misplaced the package, as the explosion does result in multiple casualties, but the commander goes unharmed. Will this botched-up attempt at the commander's life mean the end of Tsurumi and his aspirations? Well, now, because otherwise the main series wouldn't have an antagonist.  This one feels more like a thriller than a conventional mystery story, with Tsukishima being ordered to do something that obviously is illegal, and we see him have to deal with the aftermath of his mistakenly planted bomb. Because of this, it's also not a really a well-clewed story, as the emphasis lies more on the emotional turmoil within Tsukishima as he realizes his mistake will have consequences not for him alone, but also for Tsurumi, whom he sees as vital to the division. Of course, as the title says, Tsurumi does not waver and he manages to deal with the matter nonetheless, but the "solution" to what he does is not really set-up with clues or anything. While the solution does recontextualize a few things Tsurumi did or said throughout the story, the twist doesn't feel as strong as some of the surprises we saw in earlier stories in terms of character motivations/actions. It does portray a strong Tsurumi, in a way I suspect that ties deeply to the main series, and in that respect, I can't really fault this story, because I assume most people who read this book are interested in the character of Tsurumi, rather than the mystery set-ups, but I did find it disappointing I found the previous four stories stronger than the finale as mystery stories.

As I haven't read the original series, I can't say whether Golden Kamuy: Tsurumi Tokushirou no Shukugan contains anything that makes this instant recommendation to Golden Kamuy fans: perhaps just knowing it's about Tsurumi's time in the Russo-Japanese War is enough, or knowing which people of the 7th Division are featured in this book. As a fan of mystery fiction however, and as someone who has constantly been admiring Ibuki Amon's historical short story mysteries, I think Golden Kamuy: Tsurumi Tokushirou no Shukugan is overall a very solid book. Ultimately, I don't think my unfamiliarity with the source material really hurt my experience, as Ibuki always manages to write solid mysteries based on well-researched historical and cultural settings and presenting them well to the reader. The stories here are no expection, so it didn't take long for me to be all familiar with the setting, and at the same time, be amazed with the plots Ibuki comes up with based on the setting of the early 1900s setting and the Russo-Japanese War background. So I can safely recommend this book if you're just into cool historical mystery fiction!

Original Japanese title(s): 野田サトル（原作・イラスト）, 伊吹亜門（小説）『ゴールデンカムイ 鶴見篤四郎の宿願』: 「幽霊歩哨 《谷垣源次郎》」/「白い日本兵 《菊田杢太郎》」/「羽二重天幕の密室 《宇佐美時重》」/「時にはやさしく見ないふり 《尾形百之助》」/「鶴見篤四郎は惑わない 《月島 基》」

While the Clock Ticked

 Are you death or paradise?

 Now you'll never see me cry

There's just no time to die

"No Time to Die" (Billie Eilish) 

Disclosure: I translated Ayatsuji Yukito's The Decagon House Murders, The Mill House Murders, The Labyrinth House Murders and of course, The Clock House Murders.

In 2024, Hulu released a wonderfully produced live-action adaptation of The Decagon House Murders. It just so happened I actually was going to meet author Ayatsuji Yukito the day after it was released, so I binged the series the night before, so I could actually talk about it to him. Like many others, I too was curious how they were going to actually film the book, as it is a very difficult work to adapt for certain media, but the result was honestly really, really good. So when I learnt last year they were going to do an adaptation of The Clock House Murders in 2026, I was thrilled: given how good The Decagon House Murders was, I have only high expectations for this new release, which was released this very week. Obviously, The Clock House Murders is a book dear to me: not only because it's easily one of my favorite books in the series, I also did the English translation of the novel, so I spent a lot of time on, and with the book. 

The live-action series releases today (Friday 27th), so I haven't seen the series yet at the time of writing this post. While they released the complete The Decagon House Murders series on the release day two years ago, this time they are splitting the release across two batches, with the first six episodes presenting the main problem released this week, and the last two episodes, with the solution, releasing next month. So I might binge everything next month in one go. 

To celebrate the release of this adaptation, the literary magazine Shousetsu Gendai (published by Kodansha, the Japanese publisher behind Ayatsuji's House books) featured a The Clock House Murders special in its March 2026 issue, with not only interviews with Ayatsuji, Arisugawa Alice and one of the main actors of the series, the magazine also featured no less than five (!) original "House"-inspired mystery short stories, written by as many authors. 

The first story featured is Aosaki Yuugo's Kubisogiyama no Kaiten Yashiki ("The Revolving Manor on Mt. Kubisogi"). The titular Revolving Manor is one of the six manors built by the legendary architect Kurotsubo Shinku. This particular building stands on Mt Kubisogi in the Hyogo Prefecture, and is best imagined as one of those revolving restaurants that offer a 360-degree panoramic view. The "entrance" of the house is actually just an elevator shaft: the elevator that leads up to the circular house built on top of that shaft tower. The house consist of three "rings". The fixed outer ring is the outer wall of the building, and is made of acrylic: the whole outer wall functions as a window, offering a panoramic view. The middle ring is built right against this outer window/window and holds most of the rooms, liking a sitting room, study and bedroom. This ring slowly revolves clock-wise, meaning each room not only has an amazing view, this view actually changes depending on the time! The inner "ring" is the static center of the house around which the second ring revolves, holding the elevator entrance, bathroom and kitchen.

The house is currently owned by Nishikubo Hiroyuki, who runs a make-up company. He and his wife are visited by a crew from a magazine on architecture for an article on the house. The crew are to stay for the night at this unique creation by the enigmatic architect Kurotsubo. The members all stay in a different room. The following morning however, a gigantic hole is found to have been carved out of the acrylic window. It's clear it wasn't just broken by accident, but someone actually bothered to open a hole in the outer wall. Down on the ground, at the base of the elevator shaft, they find one of the crew members lying dead, seemingly having fallen through the hole down the tower. Everyone is perplexed by the situation: did someone kill him and then cut a hole in the window to dump the body downstairs? But what purpose could that have?

This story is actually a sequel to an earlier Aosaki story, which features another house (The Glass Manor) by the architect Kurotsubo. I have the book, but I haven't read it yet. But it's no problem if you start here. The house in this story is actually pretty "normal" all things considered: I can easily imagine someone wanting a revolving house in the mountains with the complete outer wall acting as a window so you can always enjoy the view! It's not a particularly long story, which is why I was surprised Aosaki manages to pack quite a lot into the story, from a secondary storyline involving the narrator to a few (very short) wrong theories and then we have the actual explanation of what happened and it's... pretty hilarious if you visualize what happened and how the victim found their death. It's not mind-blowing good, but I do like the story for its subdued silliness and I'd love to see a live-action adaptation of this! I think Aosaki could even have gotten away with just that one main idea, so I do appreciate it how he decided to still add some more story details that weren't that necessary.

Ibuki Amon's Tsubaki Fujin no Subarashii Yakata ("Madam Tsubaki's Wonderful Home") is a historical mystery, as we may expect from Ibuki. Set in Manchukuo, we follow private detective Tsukisamu Sanshirou (also appearing in this collection), who is hired to find the brother of a young woman. When their father died, the whole family fortune was stolen by their uncle. The young woman and her mother managed to find some work to earn a humble living, but her brother ran away. He became a robber and eventually made it to the position of captain within his gang of robbers: his robbers already took revenge on their uncle. His sister had not seen her brother in a decade, but recently got a letter saying he had been wounded and was now recovering in a strict medical institution run by a Mrs. Tsubaki: patients aren't allowed to write or receive any letters, but he managed to get one of the suppliers to deliver a letter to his sister for him. He would write again later on, but she never got more news from him and when she asked the deliveryman to go ask at the institution, he was found out by guards and beaten to death. Tsukisamu happens to know Mrs Tsubaki from his time working for the railway ministry. He decides to pay the institution a visit, and is shown a truly wonderful place where wounded Manchurians, from criminals, to simple women and children, are slowly nursed back to health with all the love and care they need... but Tsukisamu knows there's something wrong about the house and the intentions of Mrs. Tsubaki.

I'd be lying if I didn't say I was a bit disappointed when I realized the "house" in this story was not as important as in the other stories in this feature: the focus of the mystery lies more on the intentions of Mrs. Tsubaki and why she is running this hospital. As one can expect from Ibuki, it's a great historical mystery though, set very firmly in the time period and setting of the story, which is of course also fairly original as you don't have many present-day mystery writers anymore who use Manchukuo as a setting. The motive for Mrs. Tsubaki's actions is set-up wonderfully and eventually, Tsukisamu arrives at a heinous plot hiding within Tsubaki's seemingly wonderful hospital. Less of a "add-clue 1-and-clue 2-to-arrive-at-answer 3" mystery, more of a "given-these-remarks, can-you-imagine-why-someone-would-do-this?" type of mystery, but still well-done.

Kesshoukan no Satsujin ("The Crystal House Murders") by Ooyama Seiichirou is set in November of 1990 and first introduces the reader to a group of friends, consisting of Ryouta, Kouji, Shuuichi, Rikka, Maki and Satomi. They are staying at the Crystal House, a small hexagon-shaped hotel in Hokkaido. They have been friends since primary school, and still meet once in a while even now they're all adults. The Crystal House is owned by Ryouta and not in business just yet, but he's giving his friends a sneak peek at his new business adventure. The friends have a pleasant night in the Crystal House, surrounded by nothing but nature and snow, but the following morning, Rikka is found murdered in her room: her head's been bashed in and for some reason, her left hand has been cut off. Rikka has always been the mysterious one of the group, with strange powers of clairvoyance, but is that why she got killed? When they try to call the police, they find the line's dead. Is the murderer someone from outside, or is it one of the friends, and why was the victim's hand cut off? 

This is probably my favorite story in the feature, partially because the story feels the most like a story inspired directly by Ayatsuji's House series, with a few cool nods like the cut-off hand, as well as a great set-up of the narrative: the tale actually starts with a news report detailing how the Crystal House went up in flames and how everyone but one person staying at the hotel had died: one person made it out alive and was saved by the emergency services, but is seemingly suffering from amnesia, with no recollection of the events that led to the deaths of all the people in the hotel. This "book-ending" mystery of who the survivor actually is, and what their role was in the deadly events that occured inside the Crystal House starting with Rikka's death, add a great extra layer to the mystery. The mystery of the cut-off hand, as said, invokes a few moments from Ayatsuji's house series, but the way Ooyama develops this clue feels much more Queenian than Ayatsuji would generally do. So even though the "prop" is the same, Ooyama definitely makes best use of his own expertise, using the cut-off hand for a proper physical-clue-based chain of deduction. I really like what he does with the Crystal House here as a setting too, giving it a unique vibe, and the whole tale feels really complete.

Shasendou Yuuki's Goumonkan no Satsujin ("The Torture House Murders") has the WeTuber Kugi Hikage and her assistant visiting the Torture House, as Kugi is best known for visiting houses with a nasty background stories. Twenty years ago, Horikoshi Toutarou, the original owner of the house kidnapped a few people to torture them to death in his basement with his collection of torture device. One victim managed to escape eventually and notified the police, leading to Horikoshi's arrest. The house, now known as the Torture House, was later bought by Nukube Ikurou and he had an exact copy of the Torture House built next to the original. He has preserved the original Torture House and has a caretaker there keep an eye on things, while he lives in the copy. As this copy houses his collection of antique wares, he has dubbed it the Nostalgia House. He has invited a few people interested in the Torture House and the torture devices kept in the basement to view them, with Kugi as one of his guests. The tour is to be held the next day, but when Nukube doesn't appear in front of the Nostalgia House the next morning as agreed upon, the group crosses a snow-covered field to head for the Torture House themselves. The caretaker there states he did see his master come to the Torture House yesterday. He had assumed Nukube had returned to the Nostalgia House for the night, but the complete absence of footprints in the snow suggest Nukube never left the Torture House. When the group enter the dark basement, they find a dead Nukube, who has been clearly tortured to death, with his joints and bones broken. Unfortunately for the caretaker, it seems that he's the main suspect as he was the only other person in the Torture House last night.

Setting-wise, I really love this story, as the backstory of the Torture House is really cool, as well as the idea of a Nostalgia House full of weird, antique curiosities. It's why I am a bit disappointed that due to the way this story was structured, one person stands out a bit too much as the only viable suspect, which immediately limits the ways the murder could've been committed. The story does make cool use of the torture theme though. I also like the idea of how Kugi manages to trap the murderer in principle, but the way it is written now, the clue depends very much on trivia, while I think it could probably have been written in a way to be a bit fairer towards the reader, if they happen to not have certain knowledge.

The last story, Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken ("The Black Arrow Mansion Murder Case") by Takemoto Kenji, is one I'm not going to discuss in detail. The story is about the detective Norimuzu Rintarou who's asked to look into the disappearance of the owner of the Black Arrow Mansion in Saga Prefecture. Some readers will probably already have realized it by now, but this is a full-on parody of Oguri Mushitarou's Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken, one of the most notorious anti-mystery novels from Japan. Takemoto goes full throttle here, doing not only direct mirrors to scenes from that book, but the story is also absolutely brimming with countless of literary references that may or may not be real and characters who don't speak like humans but like... well, I guess, like AI that tries to sound smart and well-read. The story is basically only fun if you know the original Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken and recognize what this story is mirroring exactly. For Takemoto does that really good, it feels as frustrating to read as the original! (Considering the author's intent, this is praise).

Overall, I think this The Clock House Murders feature in Shousetsu Gendai was pretty fun though, and it's great seeing all these authors doing a take on a house-based mystery. I'm looking forward to watching the live-action adaptation too. If you haven't already though, please consider reading the English translation of The Clock House Murders too, as it's really a great mystery novel!

Original Japanese title(s): 青崎有吾『馘殺山の回転屋敷』/伊吹亜門『椿夫人のすばらしい家』 / 大山誠一郎『結晶館の殺人』/ 斜線堂有紀『拷問館の殺人』 / 竹本健治『黒矢館殺人事件』