Triple Death

"Our three weapons are fear, and surprise, and ruthless efficiency... and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope... Our four... no... Amongst our weapons... Amongst our weaponry... are such elements as fear, surprise... "

"Monty Python's Flying Circus"

The Honkaku Suiri ("Orthodox Deductive Fiction") and Shin Honkaku Suiri ("New Orthodox Deductive Fiction") anthologies were published between 1993 and 2009 by Kobunsha and were conceptualized as a place where amateur writers could send in their short stories to: publisher Tokyo Sogensha currently has the Sogen Mystery Short Story Award (formerly known as the Mysteries! Newcomer Award) as a counterpart to the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, which focuses on novel, but that didn't exist yet back in 1993. The original series was edited by Ayukawa Tetsuya, and the Shin series by Nikaidou Reito and supervised by Ayukawa Tetsuya (until he passed away in 2002) and in the fifteen or so years the anthology existed, a lot of people were selected who'd later on become well-known mystery writers, like Mitsuda Shinzou, Ooyama Seiichirou, Ookura Takahiro, Kirisha Takumi, Kuroda Kenji, Tsukatou Hajime and more. Interestingly, I don't think most of them consider having their stories published in these anthologies as "their debut moment", even though it'd be their first "formal" publication. In a very far-away past, I read the last Shin Honkaku Suiri anthology, which was actually one of the earliest books I read in Japanese.

Shin Honkaku Suiri 3 ("New Orthodox Deductive Fiction 3") was published in 2003 and features the subtitle The Heirs to Villa Lilac, a reference to one of Ayukawa's novels. This third entry in the Shin series would also be the final volume supervised by Ayukawa, as he passed away a few months before this book was published (I assume his work had already been finished by then). While I usually review all, or at least most, stories in an anthology, I'll only discuss three of the eight stories (+ essays) included in this book this time: not because the others are bad, but because I was borrowing this book and only had time to read three of them before returning it! So I might return to this other stories in this book in the future, but that's no promise, though going by the quality of the stories I did read, I probably really should read them.

This book features the first time Onuki Kazaki was ever selected for the anthology, but interestingly enough, they got selected three times: three of the eight stories in this book are penned by them. The book also opens with one of them: Tomurai Tetsudou ("The Mourning Railway"), a title reminiscent of Oosaka Keikichi's Tomurai Kikansha ("The Mourning Locomotive"). The story opens with Kasuga Karin sitting all alone on a bench at the station of Inone, a small village. Earlier that day, she attended the funeral of an uncle and was now on her way back home, when she fell asleep in the train. When she woke up, she thought she was at the station Noboribou, where she needed to transfer, so she jumped out. Unfortunately, she got out one station too early. Because it was the late afternoon, she figured more trains would follow... only they didn't, and the busses to Noboribou had also stopped. By the time she figured that out, it was already night and rain had started to fall, making it dangerous for her to walk the way to Noboribou and because the village of Inone is so small and surrounded by the forest, no cars pass by to pick her up. A young man approaches her suddenly and quickly guesses why she's sitting with such a hopeless expression on her face at the station. He offers to pay for her stay at the inn where he'll also be staying. She's a bit suspicious of him, but ultimately accepts his offer. She learns he's interested in a terrorist who's been bombing train lines lately that are financially unviable. Rumors have it they might strike on the train line connecting Inone and Noboribou. That evening, Karin notices the young man went out in the night, and returned... with a bomb. What is he exactly and what is his true motive for helping Karin?

Like I mentioned, the title invokes the famous Oosaka story, and in a way, it has a similar set-up in the way there's no clear mystery in this story. The young man acts suspiciously, but Karin can't figure out whether he's the bomber or not, but the story doesn't focus on Karin trying to investigate that: the story continues the next day, when everyone has to take public transport to Noboribou, and it's then the story reveals its true nature. It's a very clever plot, that might remind people of Father Brown stories, A Aiichirou stories or The Nine Mile Walk, where you don't really know what's going on mystery-wise, until it's suddenly revealed something sinister was going on, based on clues that seem very vague at first. The revelation in Tomurai Tetsudou is brilliant, and really dark, and I can definitely see why it was selected for publication. Cleverly plotted, and theme-wise very, very memorable.

Sonoda Shuuichirou is an author who is featured in several of the (Shin) Honkaku Suiri volumes, but he never made a major debut as a professional writer, nor have his stories been collected in a single collection. I suspect he was a Kyoto University Mystery Club member, but am not 100% sure. I loved the story I read by him in the last Shin Honkaku Suiri anthology, so I was very curious to see what the story in this volume would be about. Dokusha Yo Azamukarurunakare ("Reader, Don't Be Fooled") starts with a segment where the narrator Sonoda discusses Chesterton's The Invisible Man with his friend Kurashina, a huge mystery buff who thinks very little of the trick of that story. When challenging Kurashina to come up with something better himself, Kurashina admits he already has a similar, but better idea in his mind, and soon after, Kurashina presents Sonoda with a whodunnit script with a Challenge to the Reader, explaining his story tackles the same themes of The Invisible Man, and challenging Sonoda to find the culprit.

The story-within-a-story is set at the building of the Engineering faculty of a university. It's the last day of the academic year, so the building is nearly empty, as classes have already ended about a month earlier and there are only a few professors here and students working on projects with those professors. That is why one of the two guards of the building finds it weird when a humanities student enters the building. Shibata Hirotaka has a student ID, so he can walk in freely of course, but he can't shake the feeling something's off, which seems confirmed when his co-worker mentions he didn't see Shibata when making his rounds, even though they have no record of him leaving the building. The guard makes another round, making sure to check who is in what room. He's at the third of the fourth storey, when he hears the alarm that goes off when a window is opened. He realizes it comes from above, but the next moment, he hears a loud crash, and he already knows what's happened: when he arrives at the open window on the fourth floor, he looks down and sees Shibata lying on the ground below. The police come questioning everyone in the building, and three of the students turn out to know Shibata from their theater group, but it appears they have a perfect alibi, so then who is the killer?

Well, I sure give it to Sonoda: this was an interesting take on The Invisible Man, a killer who is visible in the story, but also not. It only works if you make a very rigid assumption regarding how people talk, but I think it works here and it is absolutely fair. If you assume this story is 100% fair to the reader, then the method with which the killer is hidden works absolutely, but if you have even the slightest doubt about that, this story might feel unconvincing. As a whodunnit with a Challenge to the Reader though, it works, and that means I will have to read those other Sonoda stories that were included in these anthologies too, because that's two good stories out of two read now...

The final story I'll discuss this time is by Ooyama Seiichirou, and this is kinda technically his debut work, I guess, as this was the first story by him that got published in a 'proper' publication. His "author introduction" literally just says this is the first time he got selected. Saint Dionysus no Puzzle ("The Puzzle of Saint Dionysus") introduces us to the narrator (a detective writer), who is the Watson to Sakaki Kousuke, a private detective. Sakaki is asked by Kobayakawa Masatsugu to bring his sister back home: she is a member of a cult run by Kurusu Tokuzou, who thinks he's the reincarnation of Saint Dionysus (Saint Denis of Paris). The sister is actually one of his grand disciples and Kobayakawa tells Sakaki Kurusu and his grand disciples are currenlty staying on an island, marking the perfect opportunity to get to her, as she's usually in one of the well-guarded facilities of the cult. He suggest they use an inflatable raft to make their way there and rescue his sister. Sakaki and the narrator do as suggested and make their way to the island, but are immediately found by guards. The sister hysterically cries she has enough of her brother, and that she's here by her own free will. Sakaki and the narrator are thrown in a cell for the night, but the following morning, the grand disciples bring shocking news: Kurusu has been murdered! The head of the cult was found in the Meditation Chamber, with his head cut off and placed in his arms, just like Saint Denis of Paris. The grand disciples ask Sakaki to figure out who the murderer is: it has to be one of the grand disciples, as the lower-rank members all sleep together, there were guards making sure nobody would enter the island, and Sakaki and the narrator were locked up. Meanwhile, the remains of Kurusu are placed in the Heavenly Chamber, a private room for meditation for the head of the cult, set up at the highest point of each of the cult's bases. Sakaki and the narrator interrogate the grand disciples, of which none seem to have a good alibi for the night. The following morning, shocking news arrives again: the body of Kurusu was found in the Meditation Chamber again, holding his own head in his hands. Did he walk out of the Heavenly Chamber after being decapitated, just like Saint Denis of Paris? If not, why was his body moved?

A story with a very cool set-up with the cult and the ties to the story of Saint Denis of Paris, and while it might sound obvious now, but as this was Ooyama's first published story, I guess readers back then couldn't have known Queenian problems would be one of Ooyama's trademarks. And yep, we have that here too. While a tale about a corpse that leaves a room and walks in the night could easily have focused more on the horror or seemingly impossible aspects of the problem, Ooyama here focuses on the conundrum as a logical issue: why was the body and the head moved? The solution is of course brought by a logical process that focuses on the actions the murderer took and the motives behind it, and while the basic idea is pretty simple, it is a deliciously Queenian approach to the set-up, and I like the story a lot. I have a feeling Ooyama "now" would have planted more physical clues to facilitate the trail to the solution, but it's still very solvable while also making clever use of the story behind Saint Denis.

Anyway, these were only three of the eight stories in Shin Honkaku Suiri 3, but I enjoyed all three of them a lot, so I'll try and get around to discussing the remaining five stories in the future. I probably should try read more of the (Shin) Honkaku Suiri anthologies anyway: I have only read about 1.5 volume, but the quality of the plots is generally really high, and if all 20+ volumes of this series retain that level...

Original Japanese title(s): 鮎川哲也（監修）二階堂黎人（編）新・本格推理 03 りら荘の相続人』: 小貫風樹「とむらい鉄道」/ 園田修一郎「作者よ欺かるるなかれ」/大山誠一郎「聖ディオニシウスのパズル」

「Mysteriousな時代の幕開け！」

「ありえない？誰が証明したんだ？」

『ガリレオ』

"Impossible? Who proved that?" 

"Galileo"

Wu... Wait, a book? Not even Conan-related? A miracle. But with a live action Detective Conan series starting tomorrow, I think the Conan-theme will continue for a while...

The title is impossibly long, but Shin Honkaku Suiri Tokubetsu-hen - Fukanou Hanzai no Kyouen ("New Orthodox Deductive Fiction Special - Banquet of Impossible Crimes") is a very nice anthology edited by Nikaidou Reito and includes two essays (one by Nikaidou himself), though I will only focus on the stories here. Like the titles suggest, this is an anthology that focuses on impossible crimes. The anthology I discussed last time was horrible, but with an editor like Nikaidou (who also specializes in impossible crimes), I wasn't too worried about this one and in fact I was kinda curious, as I didn't know any of these writers. Yes, when I bought this book, I accidently thought that a Nikaidou Reito novel was included. Oh, and for the tags for this posts: I didn't include the Japanese names for these writers as they took up too many characters (200 characters limit apparently).

The anthology starts off good, with Mitsuda Shinzou's Shirei no Gotoki Aruku Mono ("It Walks like a Ghost"). A man is found dead in a snowy courtyard, poisoned with a very violent poison. What's so utterly impossible about the murder is that the first man on the scene swears he saw a pair of geta walking away from the body towards the building. And indeed, the only footprints in the court are from a pair of geta leading away from the dead body. Was it a ghost that commited the murder? The plot and trick is pretty good, but I didn't really like Mitsuda's writing style and even though this is the anthology's first story, I finished this last as I had to give up several times midway through.

The second story is a more fantasy-like story, but a nice one nonetheless. Hana Chiru Yoru ni ("On the Night the Flowers Scattered") (Mitsuhara Yuri) tells us about the Devil's Fruit. The fruit is too hard to eat, but if you soak the fruit in liquor, the liquor acquires mysterious powers: it is capable to heal all illnesses, but it has two side effects: the patients falls in a deep, deep sleep (two days at the least) after drinking it and more importantly, it erases the patient's dearest memory. Ever since her grandfather died, Hatsune has been tending to the trees with the Devil's Fruit and preparing the liquor. One day, the king of a neighbouring country brings his queen to Hatsune, asking her to save his queen, who is dying from an ilness. She tells them about the side effects, but they decide to take the medicine anyway and Hatsune leaves them in a little hut next to her house on a hill. That night however, the king is found stabbed to death outside the hut, on a bed of scattered flowers of the Devil's Fruit. Nobody could have climbed the hill without the guards noticing, nor was the only other person (beside Hatsune) in any state to kill the king, as the queen was already sleeping soundly due to the Devil's Fruit. Nice, rather dreamy, story.

I have to admit that I don't remember everything about Higashigawa Tokuya's Jisoku Yonjuu Kilo no Misshitsu ("A Locked Room at 40 KM/H") as I read it a long time ago. If I remember correctly though, a private detective and his assistent are on a stake-out, trying to gather evidence in an adultery case. Their target however is on to them and she hides her lover inside a chest (or was it a sofa?) and aks a friend (who is a professional mover) to pick up the chest and help her lover escape, hoping to fool the detectives. They're not that stupid though, and the assistent follows the moving truck on his motorbike. After a long ride (@ 40km/h), he and the truck have an accident and he ends up on the truck. There he discovers a pool of blood coming out of the chest (or sofa?) and consequently, the dead body of the lover. Who killed him, and more importantly how, as the assistent was riding behind the truck the whole time. ever since they left the adulterer's home The trick is not totally fair, if I remember correctly, or at least, very dependent on luck and coincidences.

While overall, this anthology is really good, I like Ishimochi Asami's Hanging Game the best. It's the first story in his This Country series, a set of stories set in a fictional single party state (that is almost totalitarian). Capital punishment is still in use here and even exploited: executions (by hanging) are held in big stadiums and tickets are sold to the masses, who love these shows. Panem et circenses. One day, the head of a rebel party is to be hanged, but the executioner, Major Banjou, is pretty sure that members of the rebel party are hiding in the audience, hoping to free their leader. What follows is a mind-game of if-you-think-that-I-think-that-you-think of Major Banjou and the two sub-leaders of the rebel party. It's almost like a Conan story (with the need of having to find out what someone hidden in a big group is planning to do), but as the viewpoint of the story switches between Banjou and the rebels, the reader has no idea who is going to win until the end.

Kagami Masayuki's Sei Alexandria Jiin no Sangeki ("Tragedy of Saint Alexandria Chapel") is set in Russia, 1920. After the revolution, Sonya has been forced to live with her mother in the Saint Alexandria Chapel, originally as paying guests, but nowadays working there as they couldn't pay back their debts. One day, the head of the chapel is found murdered, hanged besides the bells up in the chapel tower, seven meters from the floor. Who could have gotten him up there? The trick itself, or at least, one part of the trick is pretty cool (another part was utterly ridiculous though) but very clumsy clueing kinda ruins the surprise of the trick. It's just too obvious how it was done and consequently who the murderer was.

Kaburagi Ren's Karegusa no Yuki Toketareba ("When the Snow of Dried Leaves Melts") has one of those tricks that you _will_ scream at, no matter what. Something like 'this is brilliant', or 'this is utter crap!', or both. If you had told me this was a Shimada Souji trick, I would have believed it immediately. The story's set in the Taishou period, and Miyazawa Kenji (of all people!) is requested to help the main suspect in a murder case: the victim was killed on the fourth floor of the local government office (this building to be precise. Yes, it really exists) and the suspect was seen coming down the ladder from the fourth floor right after everyone heard the blood-curling scream of the victim. The suspects says he was on the third floor when he heard the scream and climbed to the fourth floor, where he only found the dead body of the victim. If the main suspect didn't do it, how did the murderer escape from the fourth floor?

This anthology brought us from a fantasy land to fictional countries, Russia and the past and now the future. In Sonoda Shuuichirou's Dakara dare mo inaku natta ("And that is why there were none"), space-traveling has been perfected and humans have been colonizing other planets. One day, Earth receives a message, with a diary, from one of the colonies in development, accompanied with video material. It seems that all eight members of the colonizing mission are dead and what's more: they have clearly been killed as most of them were decapitated. The police can only confirm seven dead bodies on the video material though. As this was sent from a far-away colony, the message was actually sent seven years earlier (and only reached the Earth recently). As it was an old mission, with most data on it lost, the police has nothing to go on except for the diary of one of the crew members and the video material. The diary says that among the crew of eight humans, one (or more) was actually an android (yes, they run according to Asimov's Laws), but none of the others know who the android was. Was it one of the defective androids, that only followed the third law of Asimov (self-preservation)? Or was it a human killer? Great story, my first SF detective actually, and one that make great use of its setting.

A really fun anthology. I liked pretty much all stories and even though these stories tend to be quite long for short stories (around 70~80 Japanese pages), most of these stories make perfect use of the page count. Nikaidou made a really nice selection, with the Mitsuhara's fantasy story and Sonoda's SF story being surprising, but great choices, as well as Ishimochi's That Country story. Especially the latter was awesome, with the rebels trying to accomplish the impossible and the major trying to prevent that. I'll be sure to pick up Ishimochi's That Country, as well as more anthologies in this series.

Original Japanese title(s): 二階堂黎人（編集）　『新・本格推理 特別編―不可能犯罪の饗宴』 / 三田信三 「死霊の如き歩くもの」 / 光原百合 「花散る夜に」 / 東川篤哉 「時速四十キロの密室」 / 石持浅海 「ハンギング・ゲーム」 / 加賀美雅之 「聖アレキサンドラ寺院の惨劇」 / 鏑木連 「かれ草の雪とけたれば」 / 園田修一郎 「だから誰もにいなくなった」