Footnote to Murder

For want of a nail the shoe was lost. 

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Case of the Photo Finish

It seems his skin was sweet as mango, 

when last I held him to my breast

"Grim Fandango"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Adventure of the Lover's Leap

I'll be there for you

(When the rains stars to pour)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Mystery of the Fire Dragon

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

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

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

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

"Railway timetable sketch" (Monty Python)

Never been on a night express!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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