The Corpse Danced at Midnight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Triple Jeopardy

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

"Sherlock"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overlooked Tick Tock

I'm late! I'm late! I'm late! 

And, when I wave I lose the time I save

"I'm Late" (Alice in Wonderland)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time After Time

Time after time 

君と出会った奇跡

緩やかな風吹く街で

「Time after time~花舞う街で」（倉木麻衣）

Time after time

The miracle of meeting you

In the city where the gentle wind blows

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stop the Clock

「時を戻すことができました」

『アリバイ崩し承ります』

"I have succeeded in restoring the time."

" ("Alibi Cracking, At Your Service")

So in the time between me reading this book and the review getting published, this book won the Honkaku Mystery Best 10 ranking of 2018!

In the Koikawa Shopping Arcade on the East exit of the Koikawa Station, there's a small watchmaker wedged between the butcher and the photo studio. Mitani Clockmakers is run by Mitani Tokino, a young woman in her twenties who learned the trade from her grandfather and has now inherited the shop from him. But Mitani Clockmakers isn't a normal clockmaker. Besides the normal services like selling and offering maintenance on clocks and other timepieces, Mitani Clockmakers also offers another, rather unique service. One day, a police detective walks into Mitani Clockmakers to have the battery in his watch replaced, but to his surprise, he spots a sign that says that the shop also offers an alibi cracking service. The detective inquires about the service, which according to Tokino was started by her grandfather, who was of the opinion that a clockmaker's work involved everything connected to a clock and time, and what is an alibi but a statement that someone was present or absent at a certain location at a certain time? As luck has it, the police detective is working on a case where the main suspect has a perfect alibi and intriqued by this unique service, he decides to consult Tokino on his case in Ooyama Seiichirou's short story collection Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu ("Alibi Cracking, At Your Service", 2018).

It was through the PSP game Trick X Logic that I first learned of the mystery writer Ooyama Seiichirou, as he was responsible for one of my favorite scenarios from the game. Some time later, I read Misshitsu Shuushuuka, an absolutely brilliant short story collection. What impressed me most about that collection was that Ooyama was a writer who was obviously writing in the Queen school, yet he was tackling the theme of locked room murders. These are two modes that you usually don't see together in mystery fiction, because it's prettty difficult coming up with locked room murders and other impossibilities, that are also solvable through the method of pure logical reasoning, which simply requires the reader to combine the known facts, make the logical conclusion from that combination, eliminate possibilities and identifying certain conditions which apply all to the murderer. Impossible crimes are usually focused on the how of an impossibility, while Ooyama focused much more on the logical processes required to solve the problems, resulting in one of my favorite reads of that year.

In a way, Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu feels quite similar to Misshitsu Shuushuuka in concept, as this too is a short story collection that focuses completely on one single theme from mystery fiction: in this case, the perfect alibi. An alibi can be a kind of an impossible crime, if you assume that the suspect is indeed the murderer, despite having a perfect alibi, but your mileage may vary on how impossible you think the impossibility really is. Anyway, I'm actually quite the fan of the perfect alibi story, and combined with Ooyama's plotting, I knew this book would be a must-read.

The opening story Tokeiya Tantei to Stalker no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi of the Stalker") introduces the reader and the narrator and unnamed police detective to Mitani Clockmakers and their unique service. Curious to whether Tokino can really help out, the police detective confides in her about the case he's working on. Hamazawa Kyouko, a professor of the local university, was found murdered in her own apartment room by her sister. Her time of death is estimated based on the pictures of her lunch/snack/dinner she posted on Twitter during the day, and also medically confirmed, and suspicion soon falls on her ex-husband, who had been stalking Kyouko for money. He however has an alibi for the time of death, as he had been drinking with friends. The detective has only just finished his story, when Tokino immediately solves the case and explains how this perfect alibi of the ex-husband was created. The solution is quite original, yet convincing and also somewhat "modern", as it's partly based on foodie photographs posted on Twitter, but while it can difficult to come up with the idea of how this alibi was created, I think Ooyama did a good job at clewing, as some of them really seem obvious in hindsight.

In Tokeiya Tantei to Kyouki no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi of the Murder Weapon"), the police detective decides to visit Mitani Clockmakers again, as this time, he has a problem that involves the alibi of a gun. A gun was found inside a mail box when the mail was collected at 15:00. It's suspected the gun has to do with the gang war going on between two gangs who have their headquarters near that mail box, but later an employee of a pharmaceutical company is found dead in his apartment, and while it seems he has no ties with organized crime, the bullets found on the scene and in his body matched those of the gun found in the mail box. Eventually, suspicion falls on the victim's superior, who does seem to have a connection with the local gangs, but he has an alibi for the time: he was having a family gathering with his cousins at the time the victim was killed and the gun was thrown in the mail box. The solution Tokino explains is quite brilliant for creating this seemingly impossible situation. The actual clewing is a bit on the weak side, so it kinda expects the reader to just guess what happened, but the solution is quite complex, and one I could even see expanded into a full novel.

In Tokeiya Tantei to Shisha no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi of the Dead"), the narrator has a rather nasty experience: one night, he was just out on a stroll, when he was almost hit by a drunken driver. Another man was less fortunate, and hit by the car. But in his dying breath, he confessed to the narrator that he had just committed a murder on a certain Nakajima Kasumi. Having been told the address of the victim, the narrator quickly notified his collegues, who indeed discovered a body inside the appartment of the victim. With a confession of the murderer himself, the case seems all wrapped up, until the police realizes that the man, who was a mystery writer specializing in alibi tricks, couldn't be the murderer, as it was impossible for him to commit the murder, and then made it back in time near his own home get hit by the car and die. The concept of a deceased person who himself confessed to the murder still having a perfect alibi is fun on its own, but it's the decisive hint to the solution that impresses the most, as it is absolutely brilliant and incredibly cleverly hidden: it's this kind of hint I love being fooled by!  In hindsight, there's not just a "decisive" hint, but a lot of hints that point to the major realization you should make, but Ooyama's done an ace job at hiding the clews in plain sight, and this is definitely one of the hightlights of the collection.

Tokino is asked to find an alibi in Tokeiya Tantei to Ushinawareta Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Lost Alibi") rather than breaking one. Kawaya Toshiko was a private piano teacher, who was found beaten and strangled to death in her own apartment room. The main suspect is her younger sister, with whom she was having an argument about selling the parental home they had inherited together (where the younger sister is still living). She however reluctantly confesses to the police she has no alibi for the murder, saying she was probably not only asleep, but even sleepwalking during the time of the murder. The narrator does not believe the younger sister did it, so this time, Tokino has to come up with an alibi. While this is still about alibis, the search for an alibi, and in extension, the identity of the real murderer, is a welcome shift in style. This solution is a bit hard to swallow, though admittedly more than adequately hinted at (the question lies more in whether that really could've been pulled off). Once you make a guess who the murderer is based on the very limited cast though, it becomes very easy to guess what they did to create their alibi.

Tokeiya Tantei to Ojiisan no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi of Grandfather") is a cute story in which Tokino tells about her grandfather and how he trained her in alibi cracking when she was young. One day, he had a challenge for her. The shop's closed on Tuesday, so he would go out that day, but he would come and stop a certain clock in the shop at a certain time (while Tokino was upstairs doing her homework). However, he would also submit evidence he was elsewhere. And that Tuesday, the clock was indeed stopped, yet Tokino's grandfather also had some photographs developed that proved he was at the clock wall in the neighboring town around the same time. Tokino's guesses are quickly elimated one by one, as the roll of film was proven to be definitely of that day (because they celebrated her grandfather's birthday the day before and photographs had been taken on the same roll, and on the clock photograph, he was wearing the handkerchief he was given as a present by Tokino herself). The solution is very different from the kind of solutions in the earlier stories, which is pretty smart: usually it might be easy to think of this particular solution, but this one is almost so simply you're likely to overlook this one due to the complexity of earlier stories!

Tokeiya Tantei to Sansou no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi in the Mountain Lodge") has the narrator hurrying back from a holiday to Mitani Clockmakers, as he wants Tokino to save a boy. The police detective was forced to use up his free days, so he had gone to a ski hostel in the mountains. There he became friends with a fellow guest, a boy in junior high who wanted to become a police detective himself. On the first night, another guest was murdered in the annex clock tower of the hostel, with footprints left in the snow proving that the victim had first gone to the clock tower, later followed by the murderer who returned to the hostel. The police detective himself had been a witness, together with the boy who was visiting him in his room, of how the victim had gone out to the clock tower late at night, but subsequent police investigation show that nobody could've followed the victim at the estimate time of the murder, save for the boy after he had left the room of the detective. What follows is a story is that is the most like the Queen-like stories of Ooyama, as the solution is based on the interpreation of the physical clues (the footprints). There's a nice reversal at play too, where after a certain realization is made, the matter of the alibis is turned completely around.

Tokeiya Tantei to Download no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi of the Download") is perhaps the most "modern" of stories I've read in a long time. The narrator is working on the murder of Tomioka Shinji, a wealthy man, who himself turns out to be a murderer, as a few months after his murder, a skeleton was found buried in his garden. The skeleton is identified as the body of Wada Yuuichirou, an employee of Tomioka who disappeared some years ago. He was suspected to have fled because of embezzlement, but the discovery of his body on Tomioka's premises means he was likely killed to take the blame for Tomioka's crimes. The suspicion of the murder of Tomioka therefore falls on the son of Wada. The murder happened a few months ago on the sixth of December, but Wada remembers he had a friend come over to his room that night to play videogames. The friend is not sure about the exact date, though he knows he was there early December. Eventually, Wada manages to present an alibi: he downloaded a new song by a famous artist, which was only distributed on the sixth of December. It was a limited event and his friend saw both the download screen on Wada's smartphone, and even listened to the song, so that seems to prove Wada's alibi for the sixth of December, but of course, Tokino manages to poke a hole in his story. I think this is the first time I read a story where downloading something becomes an alibi, and I had a lot of fun with it! It's such a normal action in this time and age, and yet it's not something you often see in mystery fictoin, and the way it's used here is perfectly believable. The concept behind how this alibi was set-up is a bit tricky, as it depends heavily on a certain person not doing a certain thing, which is really something you can't control, but I do really like the way it was set-up.

Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu therefore ends up as an excellent short story collection that really delves into the theme of cracking the perfect alibi. There's quite some variety to be found within these seven stories and while the standard is quite high overall, there are some stories that really stand out due to their unique clewing or concepts. Misshitsu Shuushuuka didn't get a sequel, but I hope at least we'll see more of Tokino and Mitani Clockmakers in the future!

Original Japanese title(s): 大山誠一郎 『アリバイ崩し承ります』:「時計屋探偵とストーカーのアリバイ」 / 「時計屋探偵と凶器のアリバイ」 / 「時計屋探偵と死者のアリバイ」 / 「時計屋探偵と失われたアリバイ」 / 「時計屋探偵とお祖父さんのアリバイ」 / 「時計屋探偵と山荘のアリバイ」 / 「時計屋探偵とダウンロードのアリバイ」