Diagnosis of Murder

Primum non nocere

First, do not harm

I like the style of the illustrations on this cover, though I wish it was a bit more obvious which character is supposed to be who in the book. And before I had a good look at the cover at full size, I only knew it from a small thumbnail, and I thought the art would be similar to Tezuka Osamu's art, which... isn't really the case now I see it at full size.

EDS Kinkyuu Suiri Kaiketsuin, which also has the English title EDS Emergency Detective Services on the cover, is a rather interesting anthology of mystery writers, all using the same original setting: in the near future, Japan has erected the Emergency Detective Services, which functions like the emergency department of a hospital: people with medical emergencies that require a detective are brought here. The hospital has a large of number of specialist departments, from doctors handling children and animals to specialists who 'cure' impossible crimes and other curious mysteries. The doctors at this hospital are referred to Holmeses, while their assistants are called Watsons. This book contains stories by Ishimochi Asami, Kagami Masayuki, Kuroda Kenji, Komori Kentarou, Takada Takafumi, Tsukatou Hajime, Torikai Hiu, Matsuo Yumi and Nikaidou Reito, who is likely the planner of this large project as he also wrote the preface. All the stories in this book are set on the same day (the twenty-fourth of December), and each of these writers takes on one of the many departments of the EDS. Have a look at this hospital, where for some characters it's just another day at work, while for others it's a literal matter of life of death.

I first learned about the existence of this volume when I read The Uncollected Stories of Masayuki Kagami, which ironically included Kagami Masayuki's contribution to this volume, The Uncanny Deductions Department (which I won't discuss here, as I refer to that review for my thoughts on it). I say ironically, because obviously, his story was already collected in EDS Kinkyuu Suiri Kaiketsuin. Anyway, I wasn't aware of it at the time, but later I learned Kagami's story was just of many set at the EDS. Which also brings me to one other point I wanted to discuss before moving on to the individual departments/stories. When I read Kagami's story, I noticed how the scenes were all time-stamped, to give you a feeling of the "emergency" going in, but it actually had another function. While Kinkyuu Suiri Kaiketsuin features nine authors, writing about ten different departments, the stories are all set on the same day in the same hospital... so they decided to put all the scenes of all the stories in chronological order. So you are not reading story 1, and then story 2, and story 3, but it's scene 1 of story 1, then scene 1 of story 5, then scene 1 of story 4, etc. You are constantly jumping between stories, and while there are moments this feeling of "real-time"-ness is used for example for cameos between the stories, it's not actually necessary to read these stories like this: to be honest, they read a lot easier as seperate stories, instead of constantly being interrupted by other stories, so if you want to, you could just as well just read all the stories individually. The book's formatting and design is done really well by the way, with "tabs" on the edge of the page like it were a file folder, marking each department/story, so you can easily skip to the next part ("tab") of the story you want to read. 

Ishimochi Asami's story is set in the Inchoushitsu  ("Director's Office"), where the director of the EDS is visited by Minai Nanase, whose father used to work in the Poison Department of the EDS, until he died under mysterious circumstances last year: a John Doe who appeared to have been in a fire was brought in one night, but there were too few staff that night: the triage Watson couldn't find the right "Holmes" (specialist) to help the man, until the Holmes Minai happened to pass by and decided he'd try his hand. They failed in saving their patient, unfortunately, and later on the Holmes Minai summoned the Watson in charge to his office. Yelling and fighting followed, and when other people entered the office, they found both men dead: the Watson had been stabbed with a pair of scissors, which were being held by the dead Minai, who had apparently hit his head on the corner of a desk. It appeared Minai had stabbed the Watson, only to be pushed away himself, hitting his head on the desk fatally. The whole deal was hushed up, but now daughter Nanase has returned, demanding to know the real truth, because she can't believe her father would have killed the Watson for whatever reason. She threatens the director by showing she has planted a camera on Sayuri, the young daughter of the chief receptionist, who always at the hospital. Nanase has gifted Sayuri a Santa hat (with camera) and a bag with something that might "go off" if Nanase clicks her pen, forcing the director to give her all the infomation about the death of her father, hoping to clear his name. This is a pretty thrilling story playing out in the director's office, even though nobody in the hospital itself knows what is going there. The mystery regarding why Minai and the Watson ended up dead last year is pretty good, with subtle clues pointing to a well-hidden explanation for why the two men ended up fighting and killing each other. This story by the way also mentions a Holmes called Ukai, who hails from Ikagawa City... Author Ishimochi debuted together with Higashigawa Tokuya via publisher Kobunsha's Kappa-One program, which is why they know each other pretty well, and probably why Ishimochi decided to insert a cameo of Higashigawa's character here.

Nikaidou Reito is responsibile for two storylines, but both of them are very light. The Uketsuke ("Reception") story features more like intermezzos between the various stories, featuring cameos of characters from all the stories. The Shouni Suirika ("Children's Deductions Department") story stars six-year old Shibugaki, a guest Holmes who narrates like he's a hardboiled detective. He solves a few minor mysteries fellow children bring him, and the main mystery for him revolves around two children who have an argument about a place both of them supposedly visited, both calling the other a liar. The solution is basically just a trivia thing, so not really interesting as a puzzle.

Kuroda Kenji's Sports Suirika ("Sports Deductions Department") has a far more interesting puzzle. Banba, A father who coaches his own son, a promising swimming athlete, has a rather unique problem. His son is always losing to Hino Shouta, so Banba decided to adminster doping to Hino, in the hopes of getting him disqualified. Banba knew Hino's diet is closely monitered and that he always has to drink a certain energy drink before going in the pool, so his plan involved administering a forbidden drug in one of his drinks. Hino receives a month's supply each month, and is of course quite protective of his energy drink, but last month, Hino, Banba's son and other swimmers were all training together at a facility, and Banba found an opportunity to sneak into Hino's room, where he had stashed his newly delivered supply of his drinks. Banba had prepared a special gadget which allowed him to reseal a bottle, making it impossible for anyone to see the difference between an originally-sealed bottle, and the one he opened. And indeed, Hino broke a swimming record when the big competition came around, so everything seemed to go according to plan. Until... Banba heard no news of Hino being caught for doping. Was everyone covering up for Hino? Banba thus wants the Holmes to how Hino could've used Banba's doped drink without being caught, as he is absolutely sure Hino couldn't have known he had been doped. An interesting puzzle of the kind you don't often see in mystery fiction (a doped drink, i.e. not poison) and I also really like the way Kuroda used a hidden fact, which you can deduce based on the hints, to explain what happened to Banba's doped drink and how it was used by Hino. I'm always a fan of these kinds of stories, where you don't deduce the "main" mystery straight on, but it becomes a two-level type of mystery. 

Takada Takafumi's story is set at the Rekishi Suirika ("Historical Deductions Department"), fitting as Takada's mainly known for his Q.E.D. historical mystery novels. This story revolves around a dying message, where the victim was holding on to a page from a Japanese historical poem, which should point to one of three suspects for the murder. Like all good dying message stories, this story points at several possible interpretations of the message, all pointing to different suspects, until the Holmes comes with the correct solution, but this story does what is always risky with dying message stories: the final, correct solution fails to be really convincing as the final one, as in, it fails in convincing the reader this last solution is the actual correct interpretation and that the others are wrong. In reality, the 'wrong' possibilities feel as valid as the real one, which undermines the whole dying message.

Another disappointment for me was Torikai Hiu's Doubutsu Suirika ("The Animal Deductions Department"), where the Holmes is asked to save a dog who was poisoned, the third victim in a series of dog violence, one of them even fatal. The story is basically a missing link story (why is someone targetting these dogs?), but the solution is not really surprising or entertaining as mystery fiction, with the link feeling somewhat out of place and also over-telegraphed. This idea would perhaps have fared better if this was only the first part of a mystery, with more building on it/as part of a larger narrative. But on its own, it feels underwhelming.

Komori Kentarou's Gaikokujin Suirika ("Foreigner Deductions Department") deals with mysteries involving foreigners, with specialists from various cultures present. In this story, a Japanese man is accussed of the murder on his American wife Lucy, who was set to inherit her father's business, which would have greatly upset her father's business partner. Husband was working on the building project America Village in D City, with the husband acting as a liason for the city as he speaks English. Lucy was visiting Japan for the first time and after staying at her brother and sister-in-laws, she was given a ticket on the express train to Osaka to reunite with her husband. However, she did not arrive by the express train she was given tickets for, and the following day, she was found murdered near the hotel of the husband. The husband had since said a few things that seemed to indicate he knew more about her death than he was willing to admit, which has made him the prime suspect in the murder, even though Lucy's father's business partner, who was also in Japan, had a good motive for wanting Lucy dead, even though he has a perfect alibi for when Lucy would've arrived in Osaka. This story has both brilliant ideas, and very wrong concepts. The book presents great reasons for why the husband's a suspect, and these reasons are closely related to the mystery genre, as it involves linguistic misdirection (only in this case, it was the husband who accidentally said something that put suspicion on him), but then the trick behind the 'alibi trick' behind Lucy's death follows, which is a bit troublesome. For there's a brilliant piece of misdirection, one I truly love and which I think is incredibly well thought of, but it is immediately followed by an idea that hinges on a complete misunderstanding on the part of author Komori about how a certain thing works, and it makes the whole deal fail. For that... is not how it works. So that trick wouldn't work. Which is a shame, for the first part of the idea is really good and a good example of the mystery trick based on cultural differences.

Tsukatou Hajime's Fukanou Suirika ("Impossible Deductions Department") starts when two men are brought in: one is unconscious, the other has been strangled to death and in such a strong manner hand marks can still be seen around the throat of the victim. It turns out both men were found in the same storehouse, which was locked from the inside and the only key was also found inside. This seems to point to the unconscious man (Rokujou Eiichi) as the strangler of the other man. The Rokujous are a fashion mongul led by Eiichi's father, and the victim was a freelance writer who was visiting the Rokujous to interview them on the upcoming fashion show. Both Eiichi and the victim had vanished from the sights of the other people in the house after a fight, until they were found in the locked storehouse, one of them dead. Eiichi's brother however doesn't believe his brother killed the man, despite the fact the only key was found inside the locked storehouse and the victim clearly having been strangled by hand only shortly before he was discovered in the locked storehouse. This is a mechanical locked room as we have come to expect from Tsukatou, though I wouldn't consider it one of his best. While he sketches an interesting problem with a locked room murder trick that involves strangling, the solution to the locked room is rather simplistic, and you'd wonder whether it'd really fool the police for long as it seems a bit unbelievable it would work the way it is described here. So not one of my favorite Tsukatou tales.

Matsuo Yumi's Joseika ("Women's Deductions Department") has one of the more interesting stories in the tale: Migishi, the Holmes of this department, is visited by a pregnant woman who comes with a strange tale. Last week, the client, who will soon give birth to her first baby, was on her way to the Q University Hospital when she noticed a new gynecology clinic had opened nearby. As the place was less crowded than Q University Hospital, she decided to have her check-up there, and she was quite pleased with how things went, so today (two weeks later), she visited again, only to find the place was closed and everything had been removed, and there wasn't even a notice or anything explaining why it had closed. It is odd a clinic would close so suddenly, so Migishi takes the case, planning to call some acquintances in the medical world to see if they heard about anything about this, but to her surprise another client arrives directly after the first left, with the exact same story. What happened to this gynecology clinic to have it disappear so suddenly? While this is a variation on a well-known type of mystery story, I think Matsuo did a great job at spinning this into her own original version and at the same time, working this into the EDS theme of the Emergency Detective Services being a hospital too. To be honest, a lot of the other stories do extremely little with the hospital theme, so this one really stands out, which is surprising to me, as this was the one author I hadn't read yet before! I guess it helps Matsuo is best known for her Balloon Town series, about a town where only pregnant women live...

EDS Kinkyuu Suiri Kaiketsuin is a book that has a cool premise and few cool ideas, but it is definitely not a work where the total is greater than the sum of things. Not all writers truly make use of the unique EDS setting besides scenes of people being brought into the hospital, and while the intermezzos do their best to glue the stories together, as well as the device of having all the scenes of all stories printed chronologically, it often doesn't really feel like one coherent work of fiction. Having more of a running thread between all of them would have helped, or using a smaller cast and having Holmeses appear more prominently in each other's stories. Some of the stories are good mystery stories on their own, and others simply don't know what to do with the (relatively) little amount of pages each story gets alloted to them. So not a must-read as a whole, though some of the stories are worth a read.

Original Japanese title(s): 石持浅海、加賀美雅之、黒田研二、小森健太郎、高田崇史、柄刀一、鳥飼否宇、 二階堂黎人、松尾由美『EDS 緊急推理解決院』

The Third Bullet

"Sometimes, I just want to put this gun right against her head, and ever so gently, pull the trigger."

"Death on the Nile" (1978 film)

Huh, it's been over 13 years since I first heard about this book, and through that the Mikikaze series... and I end up reading this one as the last of the novels in the series...

Minami Mikikaze, professional photographer and amateur detective, is asked by his high school friend Kazuya for desperate help: Kazuya is the defendant in a double murder case, and the prosecution's case against him is very strong, as he was found together with the two victims inside an apartment room which was locked from the inside. The two victims were ex-convicts, who were working for a company that was actively recruiting ex-convicts to help them get their lives on the rails again. When they didn't show up for work, their boss went to the apartment room, but found it locked with the key, latch and door chain, so the building's caretaker had to break open the door. Inside, they found the two men shot through their head, one lying near the door, the other sitting on a sofa, with an unconscious Kazuya sitting next to him and the pistol lying on the floor. Based on what the three men were wearing, it seemed like they were planning to commit a robbery, but Kazuya denies everything: he knew the two men, because he once helped his brother-in-law who had written an article on the company's commendable efforts to help ex-convicts on their way back into society, but he swears he was not planning something criminal with them: he only had something to discuss with them, but after drinking something, he lost consciousness, so he claims to have no idea why the two men were shot to death, and why the door was locked thrice. The police investigation however fingers Kazuya as the culprit and some months later, the case is all ready to be handled in the court, at which point Kazuya asks Mikikaze to help solve this locked room mystery. Mikikaze manages to get hold of a lead, which leads him to the United States to visit a certain witness, but while talking with this witness, he's knocked out by something in his drink, and when he wakes up... he finds himself lying next to the dead witness he was talking to, in a locked room! Finding himself in the exact predicament as his friend, Mikikaze knows he's on the right track, but can he save both himself and Kazuya in Tsukatou Hajime's F no Madan ("The Magic Bullet of F" 2004)?

F no Madan is the second novel in the Minami Mikikaze series following Agni no Atsui Natsu, and with that, I have now read all the full-length novels in this series (I still have to read two short story collections). Misshitsu Kingdom (Kingdom of the Locked Room) is still by far the best one in the series by the way, but this novel too will probably interest locked room murder enthusiasts, as they will probably recognize the set-up of this novel: yes, this is Tsukatou's take on Carter Dickson's The Judas Window, focusing on the trial of a young man accused of murder because they were found in a locked room, with a murder victim in the same room. Of course, the similarities are in the base setting, as here we don't have a locked room in a large country house, but a very urban setting, with a triple-locked apartment in a city just across a giant department store. And there's the mirrored situation, where Mikikaze visits a witness at a farm in the American countryside and wakes up in a room with a dead body, but the twist here is that Mikikaze is aware the murderer is outside the room and busy "completing" the locked room situation. The book jumps back and forth in time, with the Mikikaze segments being in the present/real-time, and the segments that go over how Kazuya was discovered in the room and the subsequent investigations by his attorney set a few months before that. As you can understand, the Mikikaze segments are far more exciting, as Mikikaze knows the murderer is busy setting things up to make him into a scapegoat, but the fact he's been drugged and his own weak heart (and the fact the murderer is likely armed) prevent him from doing anything reckless to apprehend the killer, even if he knows the murderer is still in the house.

The book itself doesn't hide the fact it's basically a tribute to The Judas Window by the way, and I do recommend reading that one first before reading F no Madan. While the latter does not explicitly spoil the former, it is clearly written as a modern take, and while Tsukatou adds a lot of original, and frankly told very clever twists to it, I think you do get more out of it if you know the underlying context too. 

Purely seen as a locked room mystery, I think that F no Madan has both really clever parts, but also parts that do demand the reader to just with certain things. As a modern take on The Judas Window for example, I think the concept Tsukatou used is really clever, and the way it's a surprisingly safe method for the murderer to commit a double murder in a triple-locked room is quite memorable. However, to get everything into position, the murderer would need to manipulate a lot of moving parts and actors, and especially the latter part feels a bit unbelievable at times. This isn't a murderer who subtly manages to force someone to act in a way that benefits them, this is almost truly being a puppeteer, because it's quite unbelievable different actors would all exactly act in the way the murderer would need them to act without even one moment of hesitation. So in that sense, the locked room situation does feel a bit cheap, as too much works out for the benefit of the killer, simply because it needs to do so. On the other hand, I really love some of the preparations the murderer did do in order to make things go the way they needed to: I still don't think his preparations would've ensured everything would go the way they needed, but that one action they did explicitly take beforehand, in order to ensure at least two actions would be taken by one of the people they needed to manipulate, was done really clever, and worked perfectly to strengthen the trick of the triple locked room. That part alone does make this a memorable locked room, as it shows Tsukatou's eye for detail.

The present-day situation, where Mikikaze finds himself trying to fight the sleeping drugs he's been fed and figure out how to escape the room, without alerting the killer in the house, is an exciting read, and it does hold hints that are also applicable to the Kazuya locked room, but the story moves very slowly in those segments and ultimately, this part is far more simple than the Kazuya locked room, so it's not as surprising mystery-wise. It's more a grand way to allow Mikikaze to solve things and confront the killer.

While the book feels a bit artificial due to the machinations of the killer going so perfectly, F no Madan does happen to also be the one book in this series where Tsukatou clearly tries to work more on characterization and even tackles social school problems: a lot of the Kazuya-focused chapters focus on Kazuya and his stance in life: part of the mystery revolves around the question why he's so reluctant to talk about why he was visiting the two victims, if he was not involved in anything criminal and we learn a lot about his views on societal problems. I thought these parts were a bit too longwinded, but there's an interesting subplot hidden here that deals with his motive for keeping silent, and while it's not really presented as a "solvable" problem, the idea itself is good. Personally, I could've done with a tighter plot with less of the character musings, but your mileage may vary. I do have to admit I was surprised that early on in the book, we get a diagram of the crime scene, and then the narrative moves more to exploring Kazuya's character and his relations to everyone, and when the story returns to the locked room, we get the crime scene diagram again... and I do mean again, because it's the exact same diagram. As if Tsukatou himself suddenly realized he had drifted from the main mystery too much and feared the reader might've forgotten about it, so he showed you the same picture twice to jog your memory.

Also: for some reason the book does not really explain what the "F" in the title means..

Personally, I liked F no Madan the least of all the Mikikaze novels, though that's not very surprising: it's hard to beat the brilliant combination of the locked room mystery with Ellery Queen-esque deductions of Misshitsu Kingdom, of course I'm going to like the even more Ellery Queen-inspired Aru Girishia Hitsugi no Nazo ("A Greek Coffin Mystery), and in the end I prefer the brevity and focus on the mystery of Agni no Atsui Natsu simply better than the more prosey F no Madan, but readers who like more characterization, or the way the book builds clearly on The Judas Window might feel very differently. I do think it's a decent locked room mystery, and definitely worth a read if you have already read The Judas Window.

Original Japanese title(s): 柄刀一『Fの魔弾』

The Problem of Cell 13

“WORDS IN THE HEART CANNOT BE TAKEN.” 

"Feet of Clay"

To be honest, when I first heard about the story, I was hoping the book would be about a real Golem...

Mitsuki Usami is an academic researcher in natural history connected to a multi-disciplinary research facility in the United States. He has the tendency to get involved in odd crimes both real and fictional: while occasionally, he ends up solving cases via his work as a researcher, with his co-workers and even the police aware of his skill in problem solving, Usami also has the habit (?) of just finding himself in completely different world or realize his mind is now inhabiting the body of someone else. That doesn't seem to surprise him that much however, and wherever and whenever he faces an intellectual problem, he can't rest until he has managed to find a solution. In Tsukatou Hajime's 2005 short story collection Golem no Ori ("The Cage of the Golem"), Usami finds himself solving a murder in a world where the creations of M.C. Escher are real, a prisoner escaping a sealed prison in which he had been imprisoned for decades and the riddle of a man escaping a mysterious sun cult among others.

While the last three years or so, I have started reading Tsukatou's work fairly regularly, this is the first time I read anything in this specific series, though I had been wanting to read this for a long time. In a mook on locked room mysteries edited by Arisugawa Alice, a group of mystery authors was asked to vote for their favorite locked room mysteries, and the title story Golem no Ori was ranked in the top 20. When I learned about the short story however, the book was already out of print, but fortunately, Tsukatou's older works have been given a digital re-release the last two years, so I finally was able to have a look at the title story. 

The book however opens with Escher no Sekai ("The World of Escher"). During a break, Usami has a look at the art exhibition held at the research facility,  an event to invite people from the neighborhood to have a look inside the facility. The art exhibition shows the art of Harold Mueller, who was known as a successor to M.C. Escher, making all kinds of trick art pieces. His most famous work is a painting with a very unique backstory: the work was created after his wife and daughter were murdered, and according to Mueller, this painting shows who the murderer is. However, the painting contains multiple persons, depending on you look at the painting, including Harold's old housekeeper, himself and his art dealer. While contemplating about this painting, Usami dozes off and finds himself awakening in a world where the works of M.C. Escher are actually possible, like the waterfall where the water drops down and somehow ends up at the top of the waterfall again in an eternal loop. For the people in that world, the "impossibility" of these buildings seems natural, but they talk about a person who like Usami came from a different world with other rules, and that he eventually managed to return. Usami looks for the villager who might have talked with that man and know how he returned, but before Usami can find the villager, the villager is found dead. But who could've murdered him?

This is a weird story, with two very different parts that are only partially connected via M.C. Escher storywise. The murder in the world of M.C. Escher is obviously a fantasy-like story, but this story is more of an interesting idea, than one that is really worked out well. While I imagine it has to do with rights, the book is devoid of illustrations, so if you're not familiar with the M.C. Escher illustrations mentioned in this story, you have to imagine them based on the descriptions in the story, which probably doesn't really convey the essence of these works. Obviously, the fact that in this world, the M.C. Escher buildings can actually exist and function ends up connected to the murder, and while I think the essential idea is funny, it's also not really anything more than a funny notion, and the lack of visuals really hurt the story. The part regarding Mueller's painting is a bit more interesting, and is at least thematically cleverly connected to the M.C. Escher story (though story-wise, not at all), but the complete true meaning of the painting is impossible to guess simply based on the hints.

In the second story Schrödinger DOOR, Usami and his co-worker Hartman are called by the "colonel" (who runs the research facility) for an emergency at the research facility: the Moren twins, two researchers, are involved in a crazy situation which has already taken the life of one of the brothers. In a laboratory, one of the twins is found murdered, while the other has been put inside a special capsule nside a locked lab, but he doesn't react to anything. In a document signed by Karlie Moren, he confesses to being the PRA bomber, a serial bomber who had been active for several years. He states he has committed suicide, and that his brother Gerald is inside the lab. Last year, both brothers were suspects in a murder case commonly referred to as The Chinese Scissor Mystery, and Karlie now states that one of the brothers was indeed guilty and that he has now punished that murderer: if Karlie was the murderer, he's lying dead on the floor, and Gerald is knocked out, but alive in the locked lab, but if Gerald was the murderer, he's dead too. The authorities are challenged to put in a password, a keyphrase to show they understand what actually happened last year, to open the lab: if they're right, the door opens and they can check whether Gerald is alive, while otherwise, everything will be blown up with explosives. 

This is a a very chaotic story, with the story about the PRA bomber and the Moren brothers being in a Schrödinger's cat-inspired situation where you don't know whether Gerald is alive or not, and then "The Chinese Scissor Mystery" part set in the past, where both brothers were a suspect. To be honest, I didn't really like this story: "The Chinese Scissor Mystery" is an okay mystery story, but not remarkable mystery story on its own that relies a lot on Queenian deductions regarding certain used objects, like a set of scissors, and sets of footprints that seemingly make it impossible for either Karlie or Gerald to have murderered their neighbor, while they were having a masquerade at home, but like Tsukatou sometimes tend to do, the story is told in a way where you get fragments of information in in media res scenes, meaning you miss a lot of context which makes everything seem confusing at first, only to explain things a few pages later, only to do the exact same thing again the next scene, constantly jerking around with the pace. The Schrödinger's cat-inspired part also is interesting on its own, but misses real synergy with the Chinese scissor mystery part, and isn't really a "deduce it yourself" type of mystery, so this story just didn't work for me.

Mienai Otoko - Usami-shiki ("The Invisible Man, Usami-style") is a very short story where Usami is challenged to solve a mystery written by a co-worker. In the story, Helen, a career woman, is haunted by a voice of someone accusing of a murder she most definitely did commit to climb up the ladder. But while she keeps hearing the voice, she can never find out who is saying it, leading her to believe it is really a ghost. This is a very simple story, and the whole thing is very similar to a short story by a prolific American locked room mystery specialist whom I am sure Tsukatou has read, so it's hard to feel really enthusiastic about this one.

After three medicore stories, I was glad to learn Golem no Ori ("The Cage of the Golem") was indeed a lot more interesting, though again, I am not that big a fan of the double story structure of these stories. The plotline of a handyman falling off the roof of the research facility and calling for help, and his rescuers not being able to find him despite going to the exact spot the handyman says he is at, is not very interesting. However, at the same time, Usami has another of his weird experiences where his mind ends up in the body of a prison warden in 17h century England. "He" has been newly appointed to this prison, where there is one special inmate: a man only known as the Golem, a man so feared his name and records have been completely obscured and who has been kept for decades in a specially built cell from which there is no escape, as the door has been completely sealed, shuttered and barricaded. The door of this special cell has never been opened in the decades since the Golem has been kept: there's only a special small opening just large enough for a tray of food and water to slide through, and this opening is always kept shut from the outside until the food is brought. While he has been in the prison for decades, the arrival of the new warden seems to have changed something, as the Golem starts hinting at an imminent escape, which scares another inmate in the prison, who had a personal fued with the Golem. The warden can't believe the Golem can escape: the Golem is put in a room with thick stone walls, the door can't even be opened as it's completely barricaded and has been like that ever since the room was finished and you can barely get an arm outside the window. But on the night the Golem announced, the Golem does indeed appear to manage to escape his prison, and even kill the other inmate on his way out. How did the Golem manage to do this? This part of the story is probably the best of the whole book, and I do quite like this mystery, even if I have already seen a variation of the same solution before. It goes over the many seemingly possible situations there are for escaping a locked cell like in The Problem of Cell 13, but these possibilites are of course discarded. The solution however is clever as it plays with your expectations of why the Golem escaped his cell now, leading to a surprising way to escape the cell that seems so utterly impenetrable.

The final story bears the title Taiyouden no Isis (Golem no Ori Gendaiban) ("Isis of the Sun Temple - A Modern Cage of the Golem), the rescued handyman from the previous story tells Usami about a mysterious case at the headquarters of a sun-worshipping cult, where he worked once. A former follower of the cult had been detained inside a room at headquarters so he could "repent". This cell was made especially to punish the followers, so the windows were all frosted, allowing no direct sun inside the room. While the man was being held captive, the head of the cult, Ra, was worshipping the sun with his trusted assistants in the deepest parts of the headquarters. But the man somehow managed to not only escape his cell, which was being observed by a guard in the room outside, the man even managed to escape headquarters unseen! Even if the man managed to get out of his cell somehow, he'd only be able to go two ways from that point: one leading to the main entrance where plenty of other followers are, or one leading into the sun worshipping room where Ra and his assistants were, but none of them have any reason to have let the man go, so how did he escape both his cell and the sun cult's headquarters? The first part of this problem indeed offers an interesting twist on the idea of used in the original Golem no Ori, but in terms of feasibility, it seems very unlikely it would ever work: the story even says it was a gamble whether this would work, but simply addressing this problem doesn't mean it suddenly becomes more feasible, and while I like the idea on its own, it just seems like it needed something more to make the trick more... useable. The way the man escaped the building itself though is brilliant, and I really like the thematic implications of this trick. 

Overall though, I wasn't that big a fan of Golem no Ori as a short story collection. Most of the stories follow this two-plot structure, with one "outer shell" story and a narrative-within-a-narrative with Usami somehow being placed into this narrative-within-a-narrative (often with a fantasy twist), but I often felt the synergy between the two plotlines was not as strong as they could've been, and because of that, the stories just felt a bit chaotic, as if they were two stories mashed together for... reasons I simply don't get. The book also starts a bit weak, with the last two stories being the clear outliers and having the most memorable mystery plots, but even then, I don't think the "outer shell" stories really add that much to the plot, so it's difficult for me to feel truly positive about the book. I'd recommend reading the last two stories if you happen to have the opportunity, but don't expect anything as good in the earlier stories.

Original Japanese title(s):柄刀一『ゴーレムの檻』:「エッシャー世界」/「シュレディンガーDOOR」/「見えない人、宇佐見風」/「ゴーレムの檻」/「太陽殿のイシス（ゴーレムの檻 現代版）」

Fire, Burn!

"You call it hope—that fire of fire!"

"Tamerline"

When I read this... it was not a hot summer day, but a surprisingly cool one, and by the time this review is posted, it's probably a cold winter day...

Agni no Atsui Natsu ("Agni's Hot Summer") sounds like an adult video title, but it's actually the first novel starring the young photographer and amateur detective Minami Mikikaze, whom first made his debut as a character in a short story collection by Tsukatou Hajime. The story is told from the point of view of Seiji, a young man who is the second son of Kyoujirou, a famous fossil fuel scientist who is involved with several companies in the fuel and energy industry. Kyoujirou was married to Erika, mother of the brothers Kouji and Seiji, but she was murdered six years ago, and her murderer was never caught. They still hold a small service every year to commemorate Erika and after that, a small circle of family and friends gather at private resort that used to belong to Erika's grandmother: it's a huge park with a lot of green and even a hiking path, with several cottages and two communal buildings spread across the property. The whole resort is of course fenced off completely and the private park has been used by Kyoujirou as both a second home, as well as a more relaxed location to entertain guests and discuss business. While most of the people are already there on the day of the service, like of course Kouji and Seiji, but also their aunt (Erika's sister) and uncle, Kyoujirou himself had to bring some of his foreign guests back to the airport after the service, and he and his secretary stayed at the hotel that evening to return the day after. Upon his return to the resort, he has a business meeting with Kouji and one of his advisors, after which he goes jogging with Kouji and then they split up, with Kyoujirou retreating to his own room in the large main building. A perfectly normal, hot summer day.

Kouji and Seiji are relaxing on the terrace of Kouji's cottage, when they suddenly hear a loud crack, and when they look up and notice black smoke rising from the main building. They remember their father is still inside so run up to his room, as do the two other guests at the resort. The source of all the smoke is in Kyoujirou's private rooms, but they can't open the door, as a wild fire is raging inside. They quickly scan the other rooms in the main building, but can't find any trace of Kyoujirou, so it is feared he's indeed in his own room. When the firefighters have finally extinguished the fire, the room is completely lost: even the flooring has fallen through. And everyone's greatest fear is confirmed: Kyoujirou died in his room. But not the way they expected: Kyoujirou had been stabbed with a knife! It appears his murderer killed the man and then set fire to the room. The firefighters also find a memento of Erika, which had been placed at the small shrine in the other communal building just after Kyoujirou arrived at the resort that morning: Kyoujirou had been in the presence of other people since that moment, who can swear he didn't bring the memento to his room himself, meaning it must have been the murderer who placed it at the crime and arson scene for some reason. The fire was also surprisingly intense, being much hotter than a normal fire and even completely burning Kyoujirou's body, making his face completely unrecognisable, and it is suspected some kind of chemical was used to start the fire: in other case an unusual thing to do, but as the people here were all involved with Kyoujirou's fuel company... As there were only four people at the resort at the time of the arson, it seems clear one of them must be the murderer, but police investigation soon shows this seems impossible: witnesses not only the main entrance of the main building under observation basically the whole time after Kyoujirou entered, they also had eyes on each other most of the time, as they were all standing in front of their own cottages. Meanwhile, Seiji's aunt and uncle return to the resort to bring a surprising guest: Minami Mikikaze is a photographer who was supposed to make pictures of Kyoujirou for an upcoming event, but the young man seems rather interested in this murder case and soon asks some very clever questions...

It's interesting how Agni no Atsui Natsu is the first novel with Mikikaze, as it's actually really short. Most of the stories I read with Mikikaze, are relatively long: the phenomenal Misshitsu Kingdom (Kingdom of the Locked Room, 2007) is one of the longest locked room mysteries, but that is an outlier, of course. Still, in more recent years, Mikikaze has been starring in a sub-series with stories inspired by the first few Ellery Queen novels: some of the "short" stories (more like novellas) in these short story collections are much longer than Agni no Atsui Natsu, a standalone release, itself!

Because of its relatively limited length, Tsukatou has to move pretty quickly, and the first half of the book might feel very artificial: it's clear he's just setting up all the pieces of his mystery, moving characters around to get them into position and to give you all the necessary clues. As often in the Mikikaze series, his writing style is one the reader really needs some adjusting too: while the language Tsukatou uses is not complex at all, his narration style can make his stories somewhat hard to read, as he often likes to start a scene kind of in media res, with characters talking about information you had never heard about, and then it jumps back again to introduce said information, but it's not like the in media res beginning adds anything mystery-wise: there's no payoff, just a short moment of confusion. He might as well have presented all the information in chronological order from the beginning, as he always just explains everything properly a few pages later. He does this a few times every chapter, so it makes his stories far harder to reader than they should be. It's somewhat reassuring to know he did this from the beginning, and it wasn't something he developed recently... Anyway, the first half can be a bit boring as you'll hear about how character A wasn't watching the main building for two minutes, while character B saw character A for three minutes etc., but do pay attention, because Tsukatou manages to cram a lot of clues and foreshadowing in this segment, which do pay off in the second half.

Agni no Atsui Natsu is not formally an impossible crime, but it is practically one: there was only a very limited window of opportunity (two minutes) for the murderer to get in and out the main building where the victim was without being seen by any witnesses, in which they then would have needed to kill an adult man and somehow set fire to the room. While such impossible crimes usually focus more howdunnit, Tsukatou clearly enjoys the Ellery Queen-mode of culprit-focused deductions more, something we also saw in Misshitsu Kingdom and of course the Nationalities books, but I was surprised to see it being his preferred mode in this first Mikikaze novel too. Tsukatou does a great job exploring how each of the suspects could perhaps have committed the seemingly impossible crime, which involves the murderer retrieving Erika's memento, go in the main building unseen, commit the murder, set fire to the room and escape the main building again: it is here you might be surprised to learn how so much of the (slow) first half ends up being used as a clue upon which to build chains of reasoning, and of course, those densely laid-out clues are also used to disprove many of these otherwise convincing sounding theories. I honestly fell for some of the false theories, thinking I had an idea of what happened, only to be proven in a completely fair and logical way how that wouldn't work.

As more and more theories are crossed out, few possibilities remain of course, and ultimately we arrive at a solution that might not be super surprising, but I really liked the logical route to that revelation. To be honest, the actual howdunnit behind the murder on Kyoujirou seems a bit doubtful in terms of actual feasibility, but in the end, that's a relatively minor part of the novel, as the focus lies more on the logical process of determining who of the suspects could've committed the crime in that way, and considering this is actually a very short novel, I find the result quite impressive: I've read much longer novels that don't have even half the number of properly clewed, but false theories or feature so many "traps" for the reader. The way the current murder ties back to the murder on Erika six years ago also has some clever features: while it is mostly an "epilogue" thing and you aren't really expected to solve that murder based on the clues provided, there's a really cool element to it that honestly could've been explored more, and it would have made this novel a bit longer/give it more volume. As it is now, it's definitely a puzzler-type of story and little beyond that, but delving more into the past murder would've given us more context to why certain characters acted certain ways.

So Agni no Atsui Natsu is a very short, and very focused mystery novel that doesn't try to be anything more than an Ellery Queen-type of whodunnit puzzler, but considering the page length, it's quite impressive how much Tsukatou managed to stuff in the plot. Is it perfect? No, it definitely has holes and parts that could've been fleshed out more to make it a more convincing novel, but as someone who loves these kinds of deduction-chain-based mysteries, I'd say Agni no Atsui Natsu is worth a read, especially as an example to see how you can have a(n) (quasi) impossible crime, and not focus on the howdunnit. Tsukatou does this better in Misshitsu Kingdom of course, and that is a must-read I think, but that book is also six times longer...

Original Japanese title(s): 柄刀一『火の神（アグニ）の熱い夏』

Topsy-Turvy Land

The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain

"The Rain in Spain" (My Fair Lady)

I do like how all the covers in this series have managed to incorporate elements of all stories included, and not simply only the title story.

Professional photographer/amateur detective Minami Mikikaze has been close friends with the Kittridges for some years now, ever since father Kittridge acted as the surgeon who successfully conducted Mikikaze's heart transplantant a few years back. Daughter Elizabeth Kittridge, a medical forensic expert, has been visiting Japan to attend an international symposium and workshop program on criminal forensic investigation, and Mikikaze has been showing her around his home country since, but for some reason the two keep getting involved in various murder cases. After a few shorter cases in Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo ("An Egyptian Cross Mystery") and Aru America-Juu no Nazo ("An American Gun Mystery", 2022), and a longer adventure in Aru Girishia Hitsugi no Nazo ("A Greek Coffin Mystery), Beth is almost ready to return to the States, as the symposium is over and her father has been in bad health lately. But before she leaves, she's of course going to visit her old friend Takizawa Atsushi, who lives in Wakayama. Atsushi is very fond of the country Spain, and his Spanish wife Alicia, and his home has been built like a Spanish house. A few years ago, they built a giant sculpture and set it on fire like the Fallas, which attracted the attention of a lot of locals, and ever since, they've been doing it every year, with more people participating with their sculptures. It's for this reason the cliff where Atsushi's house stands is known as the Spanish cape. During their visit, Mikikaze and Beth see how Alicia's daughter Akemi from a previous husband is attacked in the garden house, even though she should be alone in there and the doors and windows were locked. They also learn about an earlier attack on Alicia a year ago, when she walked out in the garden, but was found by her uncle lying naked in the garden, having been knocked out. Her clothes however were found neatly folded in the house hallway. Who is after Alicia, and why had she been left naked in the garden a year ago? That's the big mystery in Tsukatou Hajime's Aru Spain Misaki no Nazo ("A Spanish Cape Mystery", 2023).

With this final book, Tsukatou Hajime finally ends this miniseries starring his series detective Minami Mikikaze. As one can guess going by the titles, this miniseries took its inspiration from the earliest Ellery Queen novels (the 'nationality' books). These stories are not directly based on the respective Ellery Queen novels though, but only built on themes or just the title: in the case of Aru Spain Misaki no Nazo, we have a location called the Spanish Cape, and there is a naked victim. The collection itself features three stories, which might sound surprising to the more attentive reader: for The Roman Hat Mystery, The French Powder Mystery, The Dutch Shoe Mystery, The Greek Coffin Mystery, The Egyptian Cross Mystery, The American Gun Mystery and The Siamese Twin Mystery have all been adapted already in this series, which should only leave The Chinese Orange Mystery and The Spanish Cape Mystery, so two stories. Well, in Japan, the book The Door Between is published with a title that translates to The Japanese Jay Mystery, which is why it's considered quasi-part of the Nationality novels. It's actually the same in this book too, as it's basically a bonus story, set after Beth has already left Japan, so it's not "really" the same kind of story as the ones preceeding it.

In the first story Aru China Daidai no Nazo ("A Chinese Orange Mystery"), we folllow Mikikaze and Beth during their visit to Nara General Art College: Atsushi's son Shigeru is a student here, and they're having a campus festival today, and Shigeru is actually part of the committee. The big artistic project they show off today is a hall where everything has been turned around and topsy-turvy. They actually made two of these rooms, as one was used during the day, but they have a second room prepared for the evening part of the festival. One of the guests at the festival is the Chinese artist Xu Yuan and his interpreter, as he'll be doing a speech in the evening, and in the meanwhile, they are being shown the campus by people of the committee. When the students can't find Professor Tachibana, they learn someone has locked the storeroom serving as the evening topsy-turvy room from the inside on all three entrances. They break the door open, and find a dead woman lying on the ground, but whose face has been burned off. And that's not all, want the victim is wearing her clothes the wrong way around, with the front facing her back. Meanwhile, the main topys-turvy room is discovered to also have been tampered with: somebody has put everything back in its proper place and facing the correct direction. What has happened at this university?

I kinda liked how this story came up with a reason to have a topsy-turvy room like the original The Chinese Orange Mystery, and it even has a mystery with a "normal" room which should have been topsy-turvy. This was a story I partially liked, and partially didn't like. The mystery part for the room which has been turned back normal was by far the part I didn't like: a lot of the deductions leading to the solution came out of nowhere, and it was dependent on so many outlandish assumptions by the culprit to do that, but also an outlandish idea to create the exact motive that forced the culprit's hand, it didn't feel at all convincing as a mystery. The murder victim in the "straightforward" topsy-turvy room however, was a bit more interesting. While the locked room mystery isn't really an important factor in the grand picture and a lot of other clues seem a bit simple, I do like the reason given to explain why the murderer did all kinds of seemingly silly things to create the crime scene, as the reader is just as likely to fall for the trap as the in-universe characters. As a mystery story, I don't think Aru China Daidai no Nazo ranks among the best of this miniseries, but hey, it's not the worst story in this book!

The second and title story is by far the longest, and the story is in scale also quite large, as it spans two periods of time: Mikikaze and Elizabeth see how Akemi crumbles down in the garden house as they approach it, but find the building locked from the inside, and when they do get inside, they can't find any trace of an assailant hiding. Afterwards, another character disappears from the Spanish Cape, making the matter even more baffling. As "impossible crimes", these present-day mysteries aren't really memorable, though I do like some of the deductions Mikikaze poses in regards to Akemi's attack, as it does require you to have spatial awareness, which is something I always like in mystery stories. My favorite part is definitely the past mystery, when Akemi was knocked out by someone in the garden, and left naked there. While the fact she was found in the garden does seem to indicate the attacker was someone of the household (she was not sexually assaulted either), the mystery remains baffling, for why did the attacker undress Akemi and why did they go all the trouble to fold her clothes up and leave them in the hallfway of the house? This mystery is also related to Akemi's dark past, as she actually committed two acts of arson during a stressful time. After surviving her attack, she decided to come clean, but some of the victims of course never forgave her even to this day, which would provide a motive for attacking her now, but what then about the attack on her in the past? I love the explanation to why Akemi was left naked in the garden: it is sooooo simply, but so easily overlooked, and I like how elegant it is: once you figure out why Akemi was left naked, you immediately realize it could only have been one person, and this would immediately also explain some other mysteries lingering in the background. Definitely the best story of the collection.

Both these stories still have the usual problems this series has had with its writing by the way. In my review for the first book, I wrote: "Tsukatou often jumps a few minutes ahead and has the characters discuss all kinds of things that seem slightly vague to the reader and after that section, the narration catches up and explains how they got to that point (which explains the vague allusions in the earlier dialogue). It's a story device you often see in detectives, especially in the conclusion when the detective suddenly unveils the identity of the murderer, and only after that, the narrative explains how the detective laid their trap, but these stories, it happens too often: Tsukatou does this 'jump a bit forward, have some dialogues that include facts the reader hadn't heard about yet and then explain afterwards' thing few times per story. It's like you're being driven around in a car, but the car speeds up for no reason, only to turn around and do the same part slowly once again. It's jerking you around all the time, which makes enjoying the stories a bit difficult. At first, I thought it was just me needing to adapt to Tsukatou's writing style with the first story, but it happens in all four stories." This hasn't changed at all in this fourth book. The stories feel unusually long, because each time you get a scene in media res with some cryptic comments and names, then it jumps back in time to explain everything, and then you get the original scene again, and the next section it happens again. Every scene feels much longer than they need to be, being told in a roundabout manner. Even after so many stories, I still can't get used to this writing style, and each time, I can't help but feel annoyed by it.

The final story Aru Nippon Kashidori no Nazo ("A Japanese Jay Mystery") feels more like a gaiden story, as it's set after Mikikaze and Beth have gone their own ways. During a stay at an acquintance's place, Mikikaze hears Tanemura Kaitarou has been arrested on suspicion of murder of his roommate Kyouko. The elderly poet was living together with a woman whom he considered a soulmate, though not in the romantic sense of the word. The two live in a small house near Mikikaze's acquaintance, and the woman was bed-ridden, being taken care of by Kaitarou. After a rare visit to the city to talk with his publishers, Kaitarou returned home to find Kyouko had been murdered, having been attacked by someone, but instead of contacting the police or the physician, he decided to go on a stroll in the forest to process the death, as, as he claims, he had promised to Kyouko to write a poem immediately after she died. It was only long after Kaitarou had, by his account, found Kyouko's body he bothered to inform the authorities, and this of course seems more than suspicious to them. But as Kaitarou himself also says the house was locked when he returned, it does seem only he could've committed the murder on Kyouko.

This story just didn't work for me. Part of it might simply be because I don't feel as strong about the original The Door Between as for the Nationality novels, but some of the mystery in this story also seems a bit forced. A large section of the otherwise not very long story is for example dedicated to a certain theory the inspector in charge has, but the theory seems to come out of nowhere and they keep going on about it for such a long time, it felt a bit tiring. There had to be a more natural way to introduce that theory, because it comes so sudden now and I do like the idea behind this theory, but the story is so short, it doesn't feel like its full potential has been tapped into. Perhaps a re-read at a later time might change my mind.

So overall, Aru Spain Misaki no Nazo was a somewhat uneven end to this miniseries with Minami Mikikaze. The first two stories are the best, but I can't love them unconditionally, and I didn't like the last story at all, which is always a sad way to end a series. Overall, I think the first two books in this series were better than the last two books, but I'm still glad I read them all as a fan of Ellery Queen, and also because it was Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo ("An Egyptian Cross Mystery") which got me reading Tsukatou seriously four years ago, and it has brought some interesting things on my path. I wonder whether Tsukatou will have Mikikaze take on other "series" in future books! Only the future will tell!

Original Japanese title(s): 柄刀一『或るスペイン岬の謎』:「或るチャイナ橙の謎」/「或るスペイン岬の謎」/「或るニッポン樫鳥の謎」

The Unseen Door

 "My thanks! I find the dead no acquisition, And never cared to have them in my keeping."

"Faust" (Bayard Taylor tr.)

I read this book in December, but the book is set during a heated summer, which by the time this review is posted, should be approaching...

Yabusaka Ichirou had a birth defect that manifested in his childhood, affecting the use of his fingers. He however did not give up, and overcame his defect and became the well-known illusionist the Mephisto on Stage. When the condition of his fingers worsened again, he had to give up the mantle and he left Japan for many years, but he managed to recover once again, and is now ready for his great comeback. Young Mikikaze and his older sister Mikiko have become family friends of the Yabusakas in the period since Ichirou, his wife and child have returned to their family home to prepare for his comeback: Mikiko, a writer for the local town magazine, happens to be friends with Ichirou's assistant and sister-in-law Haruka, while Mikikaze, a teenage boy with a very weak heart, is one of the best students at Ichirou's magic school. The Minami siblings are of course invited to the big comeback show of The Mephisto on Stage in a hall in Sapporo, but the great magician has an extra surprise for a small group within the audience: fifty guests are randomly picked based on their ticket numbers to come to the special second half of the magic show, held at Yabusaka's own home, which has a special stage hall. Furthermore, he will show off an incredible piece of escape magic on their way. The Mephisto on Stage has one of his special guests tie his back, another guest has to sign a piece of (frail) Japanese paper tied to the rope, and then he is put inside a coffin, which is locked with a padlock on the outside, with the key being given to another guest. This guest is to hold on to the key, while the guests are brought in a tour bus to the Yabusaka manor, while the tied-up and locked-up Mephisto will be driven to the home by his assistants. He has a microphone on him allowing him to do some small talk while they're being brought to his home, and of course, the idea is that he'll escape from the coffin when the second half of the show starts. 

Mikikaze and Mikiko are among the lucky ones to get invited to the show, and like the other guests they arrive a bit earlier at the house. The other guests are entertained by Mephisto's assistants in the garden, while Mikikaze and Mikiko, as family friends, wait with the rest of the family in the parlor, while the coffin with Mephisto in it is brought to the stage hall in the manor, where he is left alone for the final part of this escape act. The house is also brimming with reporters who are going to write about the big comeback of Mephisto, hanging around in the hallways that surround the stage hall. Speakers are placed in various rooms in the house, allowing everyone to hear Mephisto talking to everyone via his microphone. At first, his escape act seems to go as planned as he chats along, but suddenly, he cries out and then there's no sound anymore. When the family realizes this is not a part of the show, they run to the show hall, but find the double doors locked from the inside, as are the side door and the backstage door. When they eventually break inside, they find an empty stage hall with not a living soul inside. For in the center of the room, stands the coffin, but for some reason, the coffin is now locked from the inside with the padlock. When they open it, they find Yabusaka Ichirou, stabbed in the chest with a stake. The big comeback of the Mephisto on Stage has become the death of the Mephisto on Stage, but it doesn't take long for everyone to realize the whole situation is impossible: the victim was found in a coffin locked from the inside, the stage hall doors were also all locked from the inside, and there were reporters walking around the hallways around the stage hall, so how did the murderer get away without anyone seeing them? This alone seems quite baffling, but it doesn't take long for more locked room mysteries to occur within the Yabusaka manor. Mikikaze is intent on solving the murder of his magic mentor, but will his heart hold in Tsukatou Hajime's Misshitsu Kingdom (2007), which also has the English title Kingdom of the Locked Room on the cover?

Misshitsu Kingdom is a book I had wanted to read for ages, and it was the book that made me really aware of Tsukatou's name in the first place. This book was mentioned in a mook edited by Arisugawa on locked room murder mysteries, and the title and description sounded interesting, but by the time I learned of its existence, the book was already out of print. Besides a random short story, my 'real' start with reading Tsukatou was only two years ago, with Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo ("An Egyptian Cross Mystery", 2019), followed by the John Dickson Carr-inspired John Dickson Carr no Saishuu Teiri (John Dickson Carr's Last Theorem, 2020). Some of Tsukatou's earlier novels had also been made available as e-books at the time, but his most famous books, like Misshitsu Kingdom, were not available for some reason. But late December 2022, those books were finally put on digital storefronts, so I picked up Misshitsu Kingdom immediately. At the time, I didn't know that this book also stars Mikikaze by the way. Mikikaze stars in Tsukatou's novels with Ellery Queen-inspired titles (Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo ("An Egyptian Cross Mystery"), Aru Girishia Hitsugi no Nazo ("A Greek Coffin Mystery") and Aru America-Juu no Nazo ("An American Gun Mystery"), but he's older there, having had a heart operation and working as a freelance photographer. In Misshitsu Kingdom, we have a much younger Mikikaze, who still has a very weak heart, meaning he often has to rest between events and his older sister Mikiko always keeping an eye on him, because her young brother's heart could stop beating any second.  

Misshitsu Kingdom is also a very long book, clocking in at 1200+ pages, while most of the Japanese novels I usually read here, have a page count between 300-500, so that's somewhere between at least two-four times as long! And don't worry, that's not 1200 pages spent solely on the triple locked room situation explained above, as there are a lot more locked room mysteries that occur throughout the book, though not all are murders. Though that brings me immediately to what I thought was the interesting part of the story, and definitely the thing that made me love this book. This book is undeniably about locked room mysteries, but also not, and it's the latter part I love. Sounds confusing, so I should explain. To start with the first part of that sentence: this book has a distinct occult atmosphere, with a murder happening inside the house of a magician, a triple locked room murder no less, and the sheer impossibility of this bizarre scene, of a man dressed as Mephisto staked inside a coffin, reminds me of the earlier books with Nikaidou Ranko, with the gothic/occult vibe. This is also seen in some of the other locked room situations, with the murderer seemingly disappearing in an impossible manner from rooms within seconds and it doesn't even take long for Mikikaze to refer to the murderer as the Anti-Mephisto on Stage, as the whole thing feels like theatrical, like a magic act, but used in a way to kill the real Mephisto. How did the Anti-Mephisto on Stage manage to pull of these acts? Well, the funny part is, that isn't really the focus of this book. At least, not the how. Sure, there are segments where we examine the physical evidence, and this allows Mikikaze to solve the various locked room mysteries, and like I have seen in other impossible crime-focused Tsukatou works like John Dickson Carr no Saishuu Teiri and Kiseki Shinmonkan Arthur - Kami no Te no Fukanou Satsujin ("Miracle Inquisitor Arthur - The Impossible Murders By The Hand of God"), his locked room mysteries tend to rely on fairly mechanical tricks. It's a shame the book doesn't feature many diagrams, for I feel some locked rooms would have felt more fair with a better presentation of the situation. But still, for a book that is titled Kingdom of the Locked Room, you'd perhaps be surprised how simple some of the locked rooms are, and I think only two, maybe a third one, are really memorable, and that's often not even because of the technical merits. The way they are hinted, I think most of them are pretty hard to really solve yourself (though again, diagrams would've helped!) and personally, I'm not a really big fan of these mechanical tricks, though I have to say the third locked room mystery has some really good mechanical ideas: there are a lot of moving parts in that situation, but they all serve a specific purpose, and the way they work together is really clever, especially when it comes to the matter of a certain witness.

But what is there to like about the book then? Well, while the locked room mysteries themselves invoke Nikaidou or for example Carr, the segments in between are surprisingly much more like an Ellery Queen story! In a way, this book allowed me to make a connection in my mind between the aforementioned 'impossible crime' focused Tsukatou books I had read, and the three books with Ellery Queen-styled titles with Mikikaze, because Misshitsu Kingdom sits right in the middle, with its focus on locked room mysteries, but also large investigation scenes and discussions that play out like an Ellery Queen novel. Long ago, I reviewed Ooyama Seiichirou's Misshitsu Shuushuuka ("The Locked Room Collector"), a really cool short story collection where Ooyama employed Queenian-type deductions to solve locked room murders. Misshitsu Kingdom does this in a very different manner, where the solving of the locked room murders themselves is still very "technical" similar to Carr or Kitayama Takekuni's work, and while Mikikaze often manages to solve (large parts of) the how of the locked rooms fairly quickly, the investigation then moves to the why. Why did the murderer create a locked room situation in the first place? Why go through all the trouble to create one, and why use this specific trick, and not for example a different one? What merit has choosing this option over the other one, or were there other factors that forced the murderer's hand? The triple locked room murder for example is, in hindsight, surprisingly simple and I can even imagine some people really disliking this solution, but I really like it because the build-up with discussions regarding the why (this was done) are really good, justifying the simple solution. There are also other very Queenian aspects to the mystery: the stage hall of the first murder for example wasn't just a locked room, but for some reason the furniture had been moved and all glass objects in the room had been removed. But why? This is of course the type of mystery you often see in Queenian mysteries (the crime scene with something strange done by the murderer with an unknown reason), but it is certainly not the only Queenian element you will feel throughout the book. There is even the matter or Later Queen Period problems, where Mikikaze starts to suspect the murderer counts on the police figuring certain things about the various locked room mysteries, which makes it almost impossible to guess whether they have found a real clue, or whether the murderer had already counted on the police on finding it. But I love all these Queenian aspects of the book, as it allows for the type of deductions a reader is more likely to make themselves (like I wrote about in this editorial), compared to the 'figure how this thread and needle were used to lock this door from the outside' type of mystery. And of course, these type of deductions are also more interesting in the way they tie to the whodunnit question, as often, Mikikaze will notice things that allow him about the choices the murderer made or the actions they took, to zero in slowly but surely on the murderer.

The Ellery Queen-type of novel, I very much associate with the pure whodunnit, using a chain of deductions to allow you to eliminate the suspects one by one, and identify the one and only murderer. As a whodunnit, I think Misshitsu Kingdom is very much like what I said about the first locked room murder: at first sight, the identity of the murderer is almost ridiculously simple, and again, I can guarantee some people will not like this solution, but I can't help but admire some of the hints laid out to point to whodunnit. I probably missed all of them, but some are really cleverly hidden, though some are really not worth mentioning. For example, the final act of the book basically tells you straightout who the murderer is with the police basically coming across the equivalent of finding camera footage of the murderer buying the murder weapon and smiling at the camera, and that's pretty disappointing, but then Mikikaze starts pointing out other clues we came across throughout the narrative, and a lot of those are really good, hints that seem so obvious in hindsight but which you don't notice beforehand. That said, I don't think the identity of the murderer is hard to guess, but to actually find the corresponding hints Tsukatou laid out is a lot more difficult, though unlike the early Queen novels or for example the Student Alice novels, this isn't really a super long chain of reasoning that allows you to eliminate suspects of a list until you get to the last one, but more like different kind of clues spread across various events that happen to indicate a certain person.

And while the book is really very long, I myself didn't find myself bored with it. Sure, the crime scene focused investigations and the subsequent discussions about why each locked room exists can be a bit slow, but they are always on topic, and never feel dragging, at least, not if you're used to these Queen-esque novels. And because it's quite lengthy, it manages to do quite some interesting things like also addressing the aforementioned Later Queen Period problems, or even fleshing out a backstory for the whole Yabusaka family that eventually becomes relevant to the case and more. For if this book had not been so long, it certainly wouldn't have been able to give as much attention too to the locked room mysteries themselves. For they are presented in full detail, and where for example a book like Misshitsu Ougon Jidai no Satsujin  - Yuki no Yakata to Muttsu no Trick or The Murder in the Golden Age of Locked Rooms - The House of Snow and the Six Tricks may have had six locked room murders, things were really hasty in general, basically just throwing the locked room situation on the table immediately followed by the solution. The extra page count of Misshitsu Kingdom is definitely used well to flesh out most of the important aspects of the book (though some characters seem to have little page-time), so both the mechanical aspects behind the locked room as well as the whydunnit behind it are satisfying reads.

By the way, the book is book-ended by two parts where an older Mikikaze happens to meet one of the characters again, and they mention how the whole crime was like a Showa-era crime. Which is one of the reasons why I mentioned the book felt, at least in terms of appearance, a lot like a Nikaidou Ranko novel, because those books are also inspired by Edogawa Rampo-esque novels, with fiends with names like Golden Mask, the Black Lizard and the Fiend with Twenty Faces who do battle against a young detective. Only those novels were seldom as intricately plotted as Misshitsu Kingdom!

And that's why Misshitsu Kingdom will probably end up on my list of favorites of the year. It manages to mix a lot of elements in a surprisingly good manner and while not every aspect of the story is perfect as a mystery novel, I can't help but admire how well Tsukatou managed to have a book so much about mysterious locked room mysteries and other impossible crimes work so well with a very Queenian set-up and execution. I haven't read that many Tsukatou novels, but I have a feeling this will be the one I will always be thinking of whenever I read one again.

Original Japanese title(s): 柄刀一『密室キングダム』

A Case of Immunity

" I hate guns. Besides, I'm a bad shot"

"Troubled Waters"

At least these covers are still really neat...

Professional photographer/amateur detective Minami Mikikaze has been playing tour guide for the American forensic expert Elizabeth Kittridge in Japan since Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo ("An Egyptian Cross Mystery"). When he was younger, Mikikaze suffered heavily from a weak heart, but it was Beth's father who was the surgeon who successfully conducted Mikikaze's heart transplantant a few years back, and they have kept in touch ever since, which is also how he became friends with Beth. Beth is visiting Japan for an international symposium and workshop program on criminal forensic investigation, and Mikikaze has been tagging along as her guide and personal photographer, though she can speak (a kind of) Japanese herself. The two of them also happen to get involved in all kinds of mysterious crimes during Beth's visit to Japan, from shorter adventures to a novel-length adventure in Aru Girishia Hitsugi no Nazo ("A Greek Coffin Mystery", 2021). And after a short story collection and a novel, we of course get the novella form: Tsukatou Hajime's Aru America-Juu no Nazo ("An American Gun Mystery", 2022) is once again titled after an Ellery Queen novel and is also the title of the first novella included in this book. Beth has been accompanying Mikikaze, who has planned to this trip to take some nature pictures, but after taking a fantastic photograph of a sunset and making their way back through the forest back to civilized world, the two of them are stopped by a police detective, who is obvious looking for something or someone. When he learns that Beth is an American coroner, he makes some calls and Mikikaze and Beth are asked to come along, and they are brought to the American consulate nearby. They had two events today at the consulate, a cultural exchange fair during the afternoon, and an evening masquerade party to celebrate the birthdays of the wife and daughter of the consul, as their birthdays are within days of each other. However, around sunset security noticed a suspicious figure in the large garden, and when they went to look for him, they found him shot to death, the pistol at his side. The victim was Ethan Matthews, the ex-husband of Vanessa Lang, one of the security officers in charge of the consulate. His obsessive behaviour caused their divorce, but that only changed him in a genuine stalker, which is why he might have been hanging around the consulate, but how did he end up with a bullet in his body? While everyone hopes it was just an accident and that he shot himself with his own pistol, they can't be sure, and as Beth, as an American, happens to be around, they ask her to examine the body and determine the cause of death, because obviously, they want to clear up this murder on consulate grounds as quickly as possible and don't want to wait for FBI agents to arrive from elsewhere in Japan or the US. However, while they are handling this case, and some people are waiting in one of the lounges, another murder occurs, with a man being shot in the head through the window of the lounge. What is going here?

What is going on here? As you may guess from the titles of these books, Tsukatou is greatly inspired by Ellery Queen in this series. These stories are not directly based on the Ellery Queen novels though, but only built on themes or just the title: in the title story's case, two people being shot, and of course this happening at an US consulate, and the victims being Americans. The stories were also inspired by Queen in terms of plotting, featuring chains of reasonings based on physical evidence, focusing on the state and circumstances of how something is found and the logical implications of those lines of thoughts. The state of an object tells something about when the culprit did something, with what purpose they did something, which knowledge they had that allowed them to do something, etc., and all of that serving as clues to identify the killer: the bread and butter of Queen-style plotting. Aru America-Juu no Nazo however does not feel like such a story: it is a mish-mash of seperate ideas that could've found a better place in different stories, but together they... don't add up to very much: there's little synergy between the various events and mystery-to-solution moments, and in the end, this rather long novella just feels... chaotic. 

The story starts promising though, with a consulate party being the "setting" of the story, but it doesn't take long for pretty much all the guests to be sent away, leaving a rather small cast of characters (suspects), and it's here when the chaos begins. What starts as an investigation into the death of Ethan Matthews soon becomes a muddy series of events that just happen, but don't really feel connected in terms of story, with for example Beth disappearing for a moment, followed by a second murder, and the appearance of a surprise character. You have all these events happening, but if you break it down, you see you just happen to have seperate things occuring simultaneously... simply to make the story seem more complex, and not because the incidents are connected to each other, even at the lowest level. This is of course the easiest, and least impressive way to present a "mysterious" story, just by stuffing unrelated events together in one box. Some ideas used in this story are okay or even memorable, but they just don't really work together, and there are certainly a few ideas here that really don't work in this story. The second murder for example, where a man sitting in a chair on the second floor of the consulate is shot from outside, has a solution that really doesn't fit this story or the world of Mikikaze and Beth, while I certainly would've swallowed it easier if it had been used in another story. One aspect of Beth's disappearance on the other hand is brilliant, and does work perfectly in this series, but ultimately, the story doesn't work as one cohesive mystery story. There are few elements that work specifically because they are in this story, while I do recognize there are ideas that would've worked better in a different story, or at least not together.

Oh, and then there's the way this story addresses a certain real-world issue with a fictional substitute. It was kinda daring to do this so close to the real-world counterpart, especially with the fictional twist it uses and while I think the core idea/thought behind this was pretty neatly used, this too feels out of place in this story, in this series.

The second novella, Aru Siam Futago no Nazo ("An Siamese Twin Mystery") is much shorter than the title story, but also much better. Beth and Mikikaze are visiting Kunou Junjirou, a professor researching quantum entanglement within twins. At his lake-side laboratory are more people, like his assistant, his (second) wife and James, his stepson from a previous marriage. James and Alistair used to be Siamese twins, but the two brothers were seperated some years ago, and now Alistair is living his own life as an illustrator in Australia. Present as test subjects are also the Zenba twins. The laboratory is located near a lake in the mountains and they are having a bit trouble with their equipment due to a solar flare, but their problems were not as drastic as those of the people in a private plane flying above them. One crashed plane later, a fire has started in the forest on the opposite side of a gorge. This is also where the main road is, so the people in the lab can't escape the fire, though fortunately, or unfortunately, the crash also took down the one bridge connecting the lake-side to the main road, meaning the fire won't reach their side for quite some while. Still, it is decides to already move the women to the island in the middle of the lake, as the professor has another house there. The party is split in two, with four remaining in the laboratory for the night to watch the fire, while the other four use the motorboat to cross to the island and sleep there for the night. During the night however, the party on the mainland discovers one of them was murdered, and when they phone to the island, Beth tells Mikikaze the professor was also killed in the motorboat when he made a second trip back-and-forth that night. Why were two murders committed during the mountain fire?

Okay, the mountain fire and closed circle situation are of course a homage to The Siamese Twin Mystery, and the presence of one half of a Siamese twin and another pair of twins is not a coincidence either, of course! Where the first story felt chaotic,  Aru Siam Futago no Nazo makes much better use of its page count, and brings a story that feels much more in line with the rest of this series, focusing on Queen-like deductions. We get plenty of deductions revolving around how the two crime scenes on the mainland and the island looked like and what the murderer must have done there, or chose to not do, and that ultimately all adds together to lead to a solution that feels quite satisfying, especially compared to the first story. The book actually cleverly invokes a different early Queen novel too, but that's for the reader to find out more about. But what this story does much better than the first one is the connection between the various events. Yes, at first this story too sounds a bit chaotic with two different murders occuring on the mainland and the island in the same night, and the circumstances are quite different too (one of the twins who was supposed to stand guard on the laboratory roof was found stabbed on the mainland, the professor was killed in the motorboat, and the other twin was found knocked unconscious near the boat), but Mikikaze manages to connect these two incidents not just by guessing they must be related due to them occuring in the same night, but using logic to show how these two incidents must be connected, and how they ultimately point to the identity of the murderer. I really like the hints that point directly to the murderer too, and the motive is quite memorable.

But would I recommend Aru America-Juu no Nazo? I'm really not a fan of the first story and consider the weakest of the series until this point, though I'd say the second novella is definitely worth a read. If you have already read the previous two books, I'd say read this one too, but I wouldn't recommend this as your first adventure with Mikikaze and Beth, as the gap between the highs and lows are too big. I think overall, the first collection is still the best, so start there and see if these stories interest you. 

Original Japanese title(s): 柄刀一『或るアメリカ銃の謎』:「或るアメリカ銃の謎」/「或るシャム双子の謎