The Case of the Seven Bells

"Blue flowers are fatal to you - remember that."

"The Blue Geranium"

This is one cover that probably looks a lot better in full-size printed on actual paper than as a small thumbnail on your screen...

The Demon God has been defeated and sealed away, but can not be killed. The Demon God will inevitably rise again, but the Goddess of Fate watches over the world, and when the Demon God starts to wake again, six heroes will awaken in the world, destined to seal the Demon God again. Each generation, warriors hoping to become a destined hero undergo a ceremony to present themselves as a candidate, and when the time comes, six of these people will receive the mark of the hero somewhere on their body in the shape of a flower's petal. Because nobody knows exactly when this happens, the six heroes who are awakened might all be in different corners of the world when their call for duty comes, so it is a rule for the Six Heroes of the Flower to make their way to a designated spot near the seal of the Demon God within a month, where they will gather and then set out to fight the evil again, while monsters and other minions of the Demon God will of course attempt to fight the heroes off. Adlet, a cocky young man who boasts to be the strongest man in the world and has absolute confidence he will be chosen as a hero, really turns out to be a hero when a flower mark appears on his body. There is the small problem of him being in prison now, but Nashetania, the princess of Piena and the Saint of Blades, which grants her the power to conjure swords out of nowhere, releases Adlet out of the Piena prison as she reveals she too is a hero. The two travel to the rendez-vous point, fighting against demons together as they make their way there. They end up with a motley crew, from the assassin Hans to Mora, head of all Saints and Goldof, a personal knight to Nashetania. But there's also Fremy, someone who until recently had actually been killing off potential heroes, but is now chosen as one of them. But when the heroes arrive at the temple where they are supposed to gather, a trap is set by the evil legions bent on holding them off until the Demon God revives again: a magical mist field that had been set standby around this temple has been activated. The mist messes with the sense of direction of everyone inside it, making it impossible for them to actually walk out of the covered area. It was originally intended to trap demons there, so the heroes could head towards the Demon God, but now this trap has been used to trap the heroes themselves in the mist field, making it impossible for them to wander far away from the temple. But what is even more distressing is the realization, there are not six heroes here, but seven! There have always been only six heroes, so they soon realize one of them must be a fake sent by the demons, and that this fake must have used the trap to capture all heroes, but which of them is the fake? They all carry the mark of the hero, but unless they quickly find out who the imposter is and force them them to lift the mist field, the Demon God will rise and take over the world. The six heroes can fight, but can they also think  their way out of this obstable in Yamagata Ishio's Rokka no Yuusha ("Heroes of the Six Flowers" 2011), also known as Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers? 

Rokka no Yuusha is a light novel series by Yamagata Ishio and featuring illustrations by Miyagi, with the main series being 6 volumes long running from 2011 until 2015, and was followed up by one additional extra volume one year later. There has been a manga and anime adaptation, and the books have also been released in the United States, so imagine quite some people are actually already aware of this series one way or another. I had known about the series for some while, but it took me quite some time to finally get started on it. I have read a few other mystery novels set in a fantasy setting, like Satsuryuu Jiken - A Case of Dragonslayer, Isekai no Meitantei, RPG School and Seijo Victoria no Kousatsu, but I always interested in seeing more, and Rokka no Yuusha in particular is so widely available, I knew I had to get started on it sooner or later.

As one would expect, the book starts out focusing more on the fantasy elements, first presenting the story of the Demon God reviving, the legend of the six heroes awakening, and then telling the story of Adlet, the young, over-confident protagonist who never even doubts he will be chosen as a hero, and who only dreams of becoming one and fighting the Demon God with his comrades. The first half is very, very focused on the "gathering of the heroes" part, and if you're here just for the mystery, you'll have to be patient, as this part is pretty stereotypical, with heroes slowly gathering and meeting each other, some of the heroes being typical hero-like characters and others who might not seem fit to be a Hero of the Flower initially. It's only in the second half the book really starts to focus on the mystery, when the heroes have arrived at the temple from which the magic mist field can be started. Someone starts the field while the heroes are still there, even though it was supposed to be activated after the heroes had left the area, so now they are all trapped, and they realize that seven heroes have gathered at the temple instead of six, meaning one of them has to be an imposter, likely someone sent by the demons to stop the heroes from reaching the Demon God.

Some of the heroes already know each other, others have more shady backgrounds, and even someone being well-known is no guarantee they are indeed a hero chosen by fate, so the deductions actually do end up being based on very "normal" evidence like testimonies and witness accounts, but even so, even after the plot shifts to the mystery, it does take some time for the story to focus on that. Partially because the book also presents a lot of combat: when in a "normal" detective story people start accusing each other of being the culprit, you might see some fighting, but obviously, fighting in a fantasy setting, with people being able to wield magic or are obviously superhumanly powered, is a tad different. At some point, Adlet ends up being suspected as the imposter, and as everyone thinks killing him is the way to lift the mist field, he has to fight off and flee from his fellow heroes as he tries to figure out who then is the real imposter. Lots of action here, and if you have ever read a shounen battle manga, you probably know what to expect from these fights, and how they are also used to help flesh out and delve deeper into the characters.

When it comes down to the mystery, it was... well, I have to admit, because the book ultimately did not focus very strongly on the mystery of who activated the mist field due to the many fights, and it seemed more intent on just dwelling on the "there's a seventh hero!" surprise mystery, I was getting a bit worried, but there are certainly parts regarding the mystery that are actually cleverly set in the world of Rokka no Yuusha (a fantasy world) and could only work there. Adlet 's main concern is that he arrived at the temple first which was locked from the inside, but saw nobody in the temple activate the mist field (making him the main suspect as the self-proclaimed first on the scene) and some parts of the trick behind how the imposter managed to activate the field even though the room was sealed are both foreshadowed and hidden well. I think some more focus on for example the working of magic and other world-specific "rules" would have helped faciliate the trick a bit better, but it was certainly better than I had started to fear. The motive behind the deed is a lot less memorable, it kinda comes out of nowhere, and because Rokka no Yuusha is a series, the problem is barely resolved in this first book: yes, they identify the culprit, but they have not gotten one step closer to fighting the Demon God, and the book actually ends on a cliffhanger by throwing another surprise at the reader at the very end, so as a standalone book, it offers an okay mystery, that is however just a small part of the whole story. And depending on how invested you are in the main story, the mystery is not 'big' enough to really keep you entertained all the time.

And that's the point I am now at. The first volume of Rokka no Yuusha, which corresponds with the contents of the anime series, has an okay mystery in it, but it's at least equal parts fantasy action and it's also just a minor part of a bigger story that is not even close to being resolved in the first volume. I don't think I am invested enough in the story to want to read the rest too, at least not now, and I also have no idea what kind of mysteries the next novels will throw at you (the cliffhanger kinda has me worried to be honest, though I can only hope it's not really to going to do that in the second volume). It's worth a look at if you want to read a fantasy mystery novel, but be aware the mystery element is fairly light and that it is just the prologue to a larger story.

Original Japanese title(s): 山形石雄『六花の勇者』

The Message in the Haunted Mansion

"Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch."

Genesis 6:14 (KJV)

This reminds me, I still haven't finished Another Code: R in Another Code: Recolllection... I am a bit torn about the remake of the first game: I like the visuals a lot and how they reworked the mansion, but I do miss the darker vibe of the original manor, as well as the more memorable (but hardware-restricted) puzzles. I liked the original R a lot too so I really should get back to Recollection soon...

Suzuki Rika is now best known for her writing work on games like the Another Code and Kyle Hyde series for Nintendo hardware, which she developed at Cing, the company she co-founded. However, before her jump to the consoles, she was best known as a game developer working on adventure games for the PC for developer Riverhillsoft. Her best known work from that period are probably the J.B. Harold games, as most of them she worked on, like Murder Club and Manhattan Requiem, have seen an English release. The other series she developed at Riverhillsoft is the 1920 series, which was later retitled the Toudou Ryuunosuke Detective Diaries series. As the title suggests, you take up the role of private detective Toudou Ryuunosuke in these games set in the 1920s and work on serial murder cases in settings you know from classic mystery fiction, like a country house or an ocean liner. Suzuki wrote and designed two games with Toudou: Kohakiiro no Yuigon (1988) and Ougon no Rashinban (1990), but afterwards, the series stopped. However, developer Althi acquired the rights to the series in the early 2000s and starting in 2003, they first release feature phone ports of the first two games, and then continued on releasing more games in this series (of course, by that time Suzuki Rika wasn't involved anymore in the development). These games were a moderate success on feature phones and later smartphones it appears, as they released nine full entries in the end!

While this series was mostly developed on feature phones in Japan, they did port two of them to the Nintendo DS at the time: Kohakuiro no Yuigon (the first game) got a port on the DS on 2008, and one year later, they released a port of Aen no Hakobune - Soumatei Renzoku Satsujin Jiken ("The Zinc Ark - The Serial Murder Case at the Souma Manor"), a game originally released in 2005 on phones. And let me tell you: this release is rare. These games are pretty niche on their own, but Aen no Hakobune in particular released in very small numbers, and you could only get it used in Japan for insane prices. The problem however that it was also the only way to play Aen no Hakobune this last decade: the feature phone and smartphone games have not been available for purchase for a decade, and the games themselves are also not supported anymore by modern firmware iterations, so you can't even run the games anymore even if you had purchased them in the past. Heck, I have the iOS versions of Kohakuiro no Yuigon (and D.C. Connection), and I can't even re-download them or access the store pages anymore unless I whip out an old iPhone! But Aen no Hakobune was one of the few mystery games on the DS I figured I wouldn't be able to play due to the insane prices and no other way to play it.

Until G-Mode started doing their ports of feature phones games a few years back, and in 2023, they actually got started on the Toudou Ryuunosuke series! Previously, I already reviewed Ougon no Rashinban, the Switch port of the feature phone port of the second game, and earlier this year, G-Mode released the feature phone port of Aen no Hakobune, so I finally got to play this unicorn of mystery adventure gaming for a normal price. While prices have dropped slightly on used DS copies, at one time I have seen them go for as much as fifty times more expensive than the port you can now buy on the Switch. Being a fan of mystery fiction can be expensive...

 

That said, it's not like Aen no Hakobune is a paragon of mystery adventure gaming: it is basically the exact same game like Kohaku no Yuigon, Ougon no Rashinban and the earlier J.B. Harold games. The game is set at the gloomy manor of the Souma family standing on the edge of a cliff. The men in the family have always studied medicine, and they are running a mental hospital attached directly to the manor. The story starts with Toudou being hired by Kimura Tetta, a medical researcher and friend to investigate the curious death of his childhood friend Souma Keiichirou,who is a military doctor. Kimura is one of the researchers attached to the mental hospital who live in the Souma manor with the Souma family. When he went to the bathroom in the night, he noticed blood seeping from beneath the door of a basement room which haven't been opened for years, as the key has been lost. When they break the door open, they find Souma Keiichirou lying dead on the floor. He has apparently stabbed himself with an ornamental dagger, but he's also been sliced with a scalpel, which has not been found inside the locked room. While the police decides this is just a weird suicide, Kimura thinks it might be murder and he and the butler decide to hire Toudou to investigate the case and as Toudou starts asking questions to all the curious people who live in the Souma manor, he learns everyone has a secret to hide, but which of them is actually involved with Keiichirou's death?

As I mentioned, if you have played any of the major adventures that follow the Riverhillsoft adventure game model, you will have played all of them, and Aen no Hakobune is exactly that. You are just dropped in the game, and given many, many locations to visit in the Souma manor, and you are required to talk to a large cast of characters (over a dozen) and question them about a large number of topics (20~30 depending on the character). They might have something interesting (compressed into two text boxes...) to tell you about character X or Y, or about related topic 1 or 2; they might not. But you are still required to ask them about everything. Multiple times sometimes. The underlying idea is cool: at the start you know absolutely nothing, but as you interview everyone, you slowly start to make connections between all these topics: character A and B might offer you insights about character C (or even allow you catch them lying). You are initially free to choose who to interview about what in any order you like, so in that sense, it allows you a kind of freedom you seldom have in mystery games. But in practice, it just means talking to everyone about everything, which activates certain story flags, so then you go ask everyone about everything again, because *someone* might tell you a bit more now you have learned more information, but you seldom actually know what changed, so you are forced to explore every option you have just to make sure you didn't miss out on something. Sometimes learning fact A from characters B and C simply activates the possibility to talk about D to character E, even though it's not related at all. 

That said: Aen no Hakobune is one of the nicest games following this design, with a more limited cast and smaller location. Earlier games had you interview like 30, 40 people about as many topics, now it's just over a dozen! And some of them die over the course of the game! It's definitely the least tedious entry of the series to play and I barely needed to use a walkthrough this time (Yeah, I needed help to find that piece of evidence suddenly spawning in the bathroom at a certain point of the game even though it hadn't been there before...).

These games are ones that really would benefit from a modern remake though, more so than the Another Code games I mentioned at the start. The game design of these games is so horribly outdated, even though the atmosphere in these games is usually really good, and there are genuinely interesting characters to be found here, but they are usually just confined to speaking two or three text boxes about each topic, and can't really speak freely. But in Aen no Hakobune specifically, there are glimpses of really interesting topics that could've been put in the front much better, also to make the mystery more enticing, like a female researcher who is not respected by her peers because she's a female doctor in 1920s Japan, the rising militarism in the country, musings about the Great War in Europe and its consequences for the people in Japan, the mental hospital and the secrets it holds and so much more, but because of the very limited speaking freedom of all the characters, it never feels like you get the full picture. The locked room mystery in Aen no Hakobune isn't really interesting, but there's a pretty gruesome second death, but you don't see enough of the people's reactions to that, and the investigation into the decapitation seems a bit.... dry, even though you can make that so much more interesting mystery-wise. The motive of the murderer and the underlying backstory is also very interesting, firmly set in the context of the 1920s setting, but it is presented to the player is such a disjointed manner, it never feels as impressive as it could've been. There's honestly a lot of potential to tell much more compelling mysteries in these games, if the presentation and design was just more player-friendly.

A huge problem of these games as they are is also the fact you can't actually re-read most dialogue. Unlike so many other mystery games, you barely collect evidence or testimony in this game. Especially the fact you can't gather testimonies (or at least have a kind of summary) really hurts these games. Character A will mention once they saw character B doing something, and that'll allow you to press on B on that, but you'll only see the dialogue once (and there's a small mark on the screen for a second to indicate this was a story flag), but there's no way to re-read that in any way, so if you decide to do something else first, there's a good chance you'll forget that. A more modern game would likely record the testimony in same way and then allow you to present that evidence to the corresponding character. Or if these games were made now, at the very least they would give some kind of screen that records what testimonies you have gathered about each person to guide your investigation.

By the way, while I was happy I could play this game for a normal price, the DS version and subsequent iOS version do have much nicer (and larger) art... I wonder why they never put out the iOS versions of this series on Switch; they did release the first three J.B. Harold games on the Switch, based on the iOS versions...

Anyway, Aen no Hakobune is not a remarkable mystery adventure game by any means. It follows the model of the Riverhillsoft adventure games very rigidly, though the slightly more limited scope does make it a much more easier game to play. You play these games more for the atmosphere and the potential for a good story/characters, rather than the actual game, I'm afraid, but I always end up playing one of them once every two years or so... But I really, really hope someone would try to do an extensive remake of either this series or the J.B. Harold series, implementing completely different gameplay mechanics but keeping the underlying story beats and character reveals the same while also fleshing everything out. But I guess that's an impossible dream...

Original Japanese title(s): 『亜鉛の匣舟～相馬邸連続殺人事件』

Menace, Anyone?

"Submitted for the approval of The Midnight Society, I call this story..."

"Are You Afraid of the Dark?" 

I remember being really scared by a few Are You Afraid of the Dark episodes...

Disclosure: I translated Imamura's Death Among the Undead and Death Within the Evil Eye.

After his last summer break as an elementary school student, Yuusuke volunteers for a position for the class newspaper club: as a fan of the occult, he hopes to write about spooky stuff going in in the town in his last year. He is joined by class outsider Mina, who transferred late to this town and has still not managed to really mingle with the rest of her class, as well as former class representative Satsuki, who surprised everyone when she didn't offer to be the class representative this time. At first, Yuusuke is afraid Satsuki won't let him write a class newspaper on ghosts, but to his great surprise, she is actually very interested in such stories. To be exact: she is interested in the Seven Mysteries of Okusato, a collection of local ghost stories everybody in Okusato has heard about, even though it's not a set collection of stories, so there are actually more than seven. Satsuki's older cousin Mari was murdered one year ago, on the night before a great town festival. The murder was never solved, but Satsuki found files on Mari's computer indicating Mari had been investigating the Seven Mysteries of Okusato: Mari had compiled a file collecting six of the stories, like the Passenger in S Tunnel, Suicide Dam and The House with the Well. For some reason,  the seventh story is missing though that is often part of the "mystery" of the seven mysteries, but even so, the versions Mari has compiled all seem a bit different from the usual versions the locals hear. The three students decide to investigate the six stories as detailed by Mari, going to each spot in Okusato corresponding to the stories and see if they can find a clue that connects these stories to Mari's death. But as they dive into these stories and Mari's death, Yuusuke and Satsuki often find themselves on opposite sides, with Yuusuke believing in the supernatural, while Satsuki adheres to the rational. With Mina as their judge, can they decide what links these stories with Mari's death in Imamura Masahiro's 2022 novel Dispel?

Dispel is the first original full-length novel written by Imamura Masahiro that is not part of his Hiruko series (and coincidentally, by a different publisher). I adore the Hiruko novels of course, and I even translated them, so when I heard Imamura was going to write a non-related novel, I was really excited, as I knew the kind of gold he writes. The summary of Dispel also caught me at once, as I love my "seven mysteries of [locale]" trope in Japanese fiction. In terms of mystery fiction, there's of course the famous Kindaichi Shounen story that serves as the anime and live-action series' pilot, but I'm also for example a big fan of the horror game series Gakkou de Atta Kowai Hanashi ("Scary Stories at School"), a long-running series where you get to hear about seven ghost and horror stories set at a certain school. Knowing how Imamura mixes the supernatural with tightly plotted mysteries in his Hiruko novels, I therefore was more than thrilled to start with Dispel.

The book is quite different from the Hiruko novels though. First of all, the book is definitely written with a younger audience in mind, using the elementary school students Yuusuke, Satsuki and Mina as the protagonists. While they don't always talk and act as actual children, they do cope with problems appropiate for their age/phase in life, and that coupled with the simple narration from their point of view, it's clear Dispel was written for a juvenile ~ TA audience. As said, the three don't always come across as a real children because they are a bit too clever/quick on the uptake and feel more like older teenagers at time, but the way the three all have their growth arcs as they tackle this mystery while preparing to graduate from elementary school is something some readers might find very attractive.

As for the mystery, Dispel is surprisingly very oriented on the seven mysteries of Okusato. Every two weeks or so, the members of the club travel to a different location in Okusato to investigate one of the stories left by Mari, hoping to find out why she was investigating these variants of the stories. These stories function both as a ghost story, as well as a mini-mystery episode. As horror stories, they sound just familiar enough to recognize as "classic urban legends/ghost stories", but with enough unique details to keep you interested in the story itself and fans of urban legends and Japanese ghost stories will probably find them entertaining. Each time, the trio realize something in the story as left by Mari is actually a hint to something else, something they only notice when they visit the place in question. Some of these hints are pretty clever, and thus the ghost stories work pretty ingeniously as "mystery stories", as the reader is required to compare the scary story with reality, and has to figure out 1) what is actually not the same as the story and 2) try to explain what this difference actually means. While some of these questions are a bit open-ended, so hard to explain solely from the reader's point of view, it's stil fun seeing basically folklore study methodology applied to these stories, and often, the revelation feels quite satisfying. These revelations of course chain into some bigger revelation, all tied to Mari's death.

What is interesting is that the book also follows a structure reminiscent of Hayarigami, with Yuusuke preferring a supernatural explanation, Satsuki a rational one, and Mina acting as the judge. As the story progresses, we see both Yuusuke and Satsuki proposing their own explanations to the mystery and also attacking each other's arguments, and for the longest time, the reader honestly never really knows whether there's a rational explanation, or whether there perhaps really is something supernatural (but fairly clewed) going on. Mina works well as a fair judge, not favoring either side and willing to poke holes in both Satsuki and Yuusuke's theories. The book really keeps things thrilling until the end regarding who'll be right, and while with a lot of mystery authors, you'd be inclined to believe the "rational" will automatically win at the end, it's the fact we know Imamura of all people is writing this, that makes this work: you know he's not afraid of using the supernatural, but that doesn't mean he will use it, so you honestly don't know until the end.

To be honest though, I thought the actual explanation to how it was all connected to Mari's death was less interesting than the whole journey to the revelation. Finding glimpses of what seemed to be pointing to a bigger truth with each story worked better for the 'urban legend' atmosphere, than actually revealing everything at the end, I guess, but then again, this is still a mystery novel so you can't really skip this part....

Overall, I did find Dispel an enjoyable novel though. It is certainly a very unique work, and I don't think I have really read any mystery novels that follow a similar structure, something like a hidden treasure hunt within a kind of short story collection. While I don't think Dispel was as good as Imamura's Hiruko novels, it's still a fun horror-focused mystery novel aimed at a younger audience, and I am looking forward to seeing him fan out even more in the future!

Original Japanese title(s): 今村昌弘『でぃすぺる』

Art of Darkness!

「人を呪わば穴二つ」

 

"Curses return upon the heads of those that curse"

(Proverb) 

Huh, I have done more audio drama reviews than I thought... Though it's been a while!

Kitayama Takekuni is a writer strongly associated with the locked room murder mystery and other impossible crimes, and as his nickname of "Kitayama of the physical tricks" implies, he specializes in impossible murder mysteries that rely on a physical trick. And with that, I don't mean a string and needle, but like (hypothethically) houses that rotate or fly around, corpses being shot across a field with a cannon, that kind of thing. Most of the mysteries I have read written by him will feature visual aids like diagrams and floorplans to help the reader visualize the scene, as you often have to think in two, or three dimensions to figure out how the murderer managed to set the scene in such a way. When the murder is being explained at the end of  the story, you can often expect an updated diagram with arrows and other additions to explain how a corpse disappeared from scene A and appeared at scene B, or how a Rube Goldberg contraption helped lock the door from the inside.

In that sense, Kitayama Takekuni is basically the last author I'd expected to write an audio drama, precisely because his mysteries often rely on the visual aspect. Of course, he does not exclusively write such mysteries, but it's definitely his trademark style and his strength, and it is hard to imagine how a genuine Kitayama Takekuni mystery would work within the framework of an audio drama.

Which is why I was pretty surprised when I learned that Kitayama Takekuni has indeed written the scenario of a mystery audio drama: Shiromajutsu Tantei Mashiro Mami ("White Mage Detective Mashiro Mami") was released in 2020 by Mausu Promotion (a voice acting school) in their "Two Actor Theater" line: these audio dramas only feature two voice actors, each having a fixed role, so the stories play out via the conversations of these characters. Shiromajutsu Tantei Mashiro Mami features the talents of Kuwahara Yuuki and Takada Yuuki and starts off with Rina, a high school student, on her way to visit a venue with fortune tellers: the place is hugely popular, with a three month waiting list and a consultation session is far from cheap! But when Rina arrives the venue, she's spoken to by a girl with an eyepatch and a crutch, who tells Rina she really shouldn't go to that place, as the fortune tellers there are just money-grabbing charlatans. The girl then introduces herself as "the white mage detective" Mashiro Mami, and explains she too is a fortune teller, specializing in undoing curses (She choose the title 'white mage detective' to sound cooler). Because Mami looks as suspicious as her self-chosen name sounds, Rina is at first hesitant to listen to her any longer, but when Mami manages to accurately point out something that relates to the problem Rina has, she decides to visit Mami at her office for a consultation.

For Rina has an occult problem. Her family owns a painting which is said to be cursed: the painting depicts a woman, with wet hair and a haze covering the painting, like it's raining or there's mist. A rope-like line can be seen extending upwards from behind her neck, which is why the painting is known online as the hanged woman. The painting belonged to Rina's uncle, but he and his family died three years ago: he and his wife were hanging from a tree in the garden, while their son had been drowned in a puddle just outside the garden, having been hit on the head first. The circumstances seemed to suggest Rina's uncle had decided to commit suicide with the whole family (killing the son first). While the fact Rina's cousin had recently quit his job and was becoming more and more socially isolated had been weighing on her uncle's mind, it seems a weak motive for a forced suicide. The fact her uncle and aunt died in the same way as the painting doesn't help Rina's worries, especially as soon after their death, an image of the painting started to make its rounds on the internet, accompanied by the story it is cursed. Murder however seems ruled out: it had been raining earlier that night, and no foot tracks of outsiders were found in the grounds surrounding the house. Rina hopes Mami can investigate the painting and lift the curse, if there's one. But surprisingly, Mami's method of 'lifting a curse' depends a lot on meticulous investigation and deducing what really happened at the house...

As a mystery story, this is pretty short and while nothing mind-blowing happens here, it's pretty decent. You can tell Kitayama does know he's writing for an audio production with only two actors: the list of characters is fairly limited and there are little "tricks" to make some conversations feel natural, like Mami being too frightened to look at a photograph of the cursed painting, so Rina is forced to explain it verbally to Mami (and to the listener). Which is why it's funny how one of the most important twists in the story is actually visually based, but if this were actually a visual medium, the twist might have been a bit too obvious: while it may have been more fair, the twist does work better having the relevant object being described to the listener, who will then imagine the object as they listen to the drama, and then having the twist sprung upon them. As a mystery, Shiromajutsu Tantei Mashiro Mami is a fairly lite tale, with Mami solving not only the mysterious deaths of Rina's uncle, aunt and cousin, but also the mystery of why there's an urban legend surrounding the painting, but don't come in expecting some of Kitayama's best work here, but it's decent enough. Though I guess, a lot of it does implicitly includes the disclaimer of "within the confines of an audio drama". For at the same time, I can't deny the framework of the audio drama really doesn't allow Takeyama to do what he's best at (impossible crimes based on almost ridiculously grand physical tricks) and the drama isn't very long either (less than a hour). I would have loved to see more of this series, as this feels more like a nice prologue/first story, and you can are left wanting for the "main body".

I also like the two characters a lot: Rina's a lot sharper than she appears at first and certainly not just a gullible high school student, while Mami on the other hand is obviously a clever detective, but can also be very clumsy and she's a bit of a scaredy cat and these two have some really funny interactions. Which is another reason why I'd want to see more of this series: they are set-up as a really entertaining detecting duo and the epilogue of the story also shows the two having becoming close, so you feel more should come.

Shiromajutsu Tantei Mashiro Mami is in no way really a work that allowed Kitayama Takekuni to do what he's best at in terms of mystery writing, but nonetheless, it's an entertaining short mystery that shows potential for more. Though I guess since this originally came out in 2020 and nothing has followed, neither as audio drama nor in any format, I guess this will be all we'll hear from Mami and Rina.

Original Japanese title(s): マウスプロモーション、北山猛邦 (シナリオ）『マウス二人芝居     白魔術探偵・真白真実』

8 1 3

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do

"One" (Filter)

This is not the cover of the edition I read, but this is a great cover, so I'm going to cheat!

The Harrigans are a religious, and wealthy clan, though the three siblings carry their faith in different manners. Oldest brother Wolfe has dedicated his life to exposing religious confidence tricksters, second brother R. Joseph is a laywer with influence across town and sister Ellen is deeply religious and has remained single all her life, Recently unemployed Matt Duncan happens to become acquainted with Wolfe when he visits the Harrigan house: initially there to see Concha, Wolfe's daughter and the fiancee of his university friend Gregory (at least, Gregory claims she's his fiancee), Duncan happens to catch one of those swindlers who was exposed by Wolfe trying to kill the man. Wolfe is very grateful to Duncan and offers him a job as his assistant and writer, hoping Duncan can sift through all the data Wolfe has on religious fraudsters and write a book based on his research. The current target of Wolfe is the Temple of Light and its leader, who claims to be Ahasver, the Wandering Jew. Wolfe and Duncan attend a meeting of the Children of Light, where they hear Ahasver, clad in a yellow robe, set "Nine Times Nine" (nine prophets and the nine that serve those nine) upon their mortal enemy Wolfe Harrigan: his death will follow within a month. Only they didn't have to wait that long, for the following day at dusk, Duncan and R. Joseph are in the garden when they see a figure dressed in a yellow robe standing in Wolfe's study through the French windows. They rush inside the house to enter the room, but find one door locked from the inside, and the other door to the chapel turns out to have been under observation for quite some time now, and the witness didn't see anyone leave through this door either. Duncan makes it back to the French windows again, where he sees Wolfe lying dead on the floor, having been shot, but no trace of the figure in the yellow robe! The police of course also confirm later the study, save for some mouse holes, was indeed completely sealed from inside, from the doors to the French windows. Did Ahasver use his mystical powers to kill Wolfe and leave the study even though it was locked from the inside? Duncan is quite eager to help the police solve the murder on his new boss, but he's not alone, as Sister Ursula, of the Sisters of Martha of Bethany who have a close tie with the Harrigans, too seems interested in solving the mystery in Anthony Boucher's Nine Times Nine (1940).

Nine Times Nine, originally published by Boucher under the name of H.H. Holmes, is the first book featuring the character of Sister Ursula, and while I have radio plays by Boucher, this is the first time I read a novel by him. The book certainly reads very pleasantly: while not much really happens, the story feels like it's always moving about, and there are even some minor hardboiled-esque segments where Duncan has fisticuffs with people. While those segments aren't really necessary puzzle plot-wise, I found the story as told at least pleasant enough, and it didn't feel like it had been padded too much, nor did it really ever drag. 

Overall, I also did very much like the plot about the Temple of Light, the cult and of course the Wandering Jew Ahasver. Makes you wonder why someone who's been wandering the Earth for almost two thousand years would just resort to murder, you'd think they'd have created a better network of dealing with things if you've been around for so long already! I do wish the book had explored the cult in more detail, as the book ultimately focuses much more on the Harrigan family in general, and to a somewhat lesser extent Ahasver alone, rather than the whole organization around him. The other cult-related element is the person Swami Virasenanda whose attempt on killing Wolfe was foiled by Duncan the first night he visited, but you don't really hear much about how he worked as a religious fraudster, he's just used as the character who already tried to kill Wolfe once before.

The main problem of the book is certainly the locked room, which is probably also signalled by the fact the book is dedicated to John Dickson Carr. In fact, a whole chapter of the book is basically also dedicated to the infamous Locked Room Lecture of Carr, as at a certain point, the characters actually start quoting from the lecture in an attempt to solve the locked room murder of Wolfe Harrigan. The problem itself is technically not a true locked room by the way: why almost all windows and doors were indeed locked from the inside, there was one door that had been under observation by one single witness. So the situation only becomes a true locked room mystery if we choose to believe this character. I think Boucher did consider this point, and tried to sell to the reader we could absolutely believe this character regarding this point, but I do think it didn't work too well. The thing Boucher tries to pull off regarding the credibility of this witness testimony definitely has interesting elements, and I can also see it working in specific situations, but here it kinda falls flat, for ultimately, it's still basically just "let's believe the witness for the sake of the story". You either need to explore that specific character a lot more, or have a very specific kind of situation or world, where you can really sell the idea that witness would not lie regarding what they saw, for this to work, but in Nine Times Nine, the attempt to guarantee to the reader the witness told the truth, still feels like Boucher is just imploring you to believe him for the plot to work. It also kinda falls flat, for the same argument for some reason doesn't work for the actual culprit, whom is portrayed somewhat similarly to the witness, but for some reason, it doesn't hold for them? The two clues I refer to are the kind I actually really like, and they can work really well in specific settings (not explaining in more detail here as it would spoil the book), but here they just don't work the way the story pretends they are doing. There is also a kind of dying message. If you're better educated than me, it might have been very useful. It's somewhat Ellery Queen-esque clue, not just because it's a dying clue, but also the meaning behind it. Though one does wonder how trustworthy the dying message would be in practical terms, as to pull that off while a person is dying...But if this had not been a Anthony Boucher, but Berkeley book, the dying message would certainly have been fake and been used to manipulate Sheringham into arriving at a false conclusion!

The actual how behind the locked room is... alright? Practically speaking, it seems like a bit of a risky trick to pull off, especially with only one single attempt and also it having been impossible for the culprit to control all possible witnesses roaming around the house at the same time: if even one person had been standing at the wrong place at the wrong time, they'd have been found out. It's not my favorite type of trick to create a locked room, but it's alright, though what I actually liked better, was the simple set-up by Sister Ursula to guide the other characters (and the reader) at arriving at the same conclusion as she did. The simple questions she asks at the start of the denouement are so obvious, but they very firmly guide you to the right answer. Sister Ursula is also quite a fun character; though religious, she's not quite as religious as say Father Brown, with an almost cheeky, mischievous side to her.

Nine Times Nine supposedly ranks among Edward D. Hoch's favorite locked room mysteries. It comes nowhere close my absolute favorites, but it's an enjoyable read nonetheless. I do think it shows a lot of potential elements that could have been worked out even better, but as a mystery novel written by someone who obviously really looked up to Carr (and while not reflected as strongly here, Queen), Nine Times Nine is certainly a book I can safely recommend for a few hours of fun mystery.

Mischievous Scientist

Once we were a race of beings roaming the universe on the search for answers and knowledge, but only found more questions and misery. Eons have passed before the first member of our people realised that there was a deeper structured process behind the common reality we were able to see and live. 

"Mystery of Time and Space"

A non-fiction book for a change!

While Detective Conan is at the core a fair-play mystery manga, it remains a series that also has a lot of unrealistic elements that are a part of the series identity: the core premise of high school student detective Kudo Shinichi being turned into a child due to an experimental drug is of course the prime example, but because the rom-com and action genres are also a fundamental part of Conan, we also see characters sometimes pull off things that would be completely impossible in a "realistic" setting, and if their feats were part of the mysteries, it'd definitely feel unfair, but usually, these superhuman scenes only occur after the core mystery has been solved. That said. sometimes it's fun to think a bit more about these superhuman feats. Kuusou Kagaku Dokuhon ("The Fictional Science Reader") is a long-running series by Yanagida Rikao that explores the science in anime/manga/tokusatsu/games etcetera. Can our current knowledge of science explain how a certain scene in an anime played out? Or how much strength would be needed for someone to pull off that one memorable scene? Earlier this year, Yanagida released a special crossover volume with Detective Conan: Meitantei Conan Kuusou Kagaku Dokuhon ("Detective Conan: The Fictional Science Reader" 2024) looks at the long-running mystery manga with a wink, exploring questions like "How does the drug that shrunk Conan's body work?", "How many murder cases *does* Conan encounter on average?" and "How hard can Ran kick people?".

Many years ago, I wrote a short piece about how I wanted to see more reference/guidebooks on established mystery series: I referred to a Conan guide among others, that had short summaries for each case, including a focus on the important clues/trick/murder weapon, and a Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney guide that had timelines for each case, showing what everyone was doing at what time. I haven't seen many interesting guides released since then, sadly enough. But while Detective Conan: Meitantei Conan Kuusou Kagaku Dokuhon isn't exactly what I was talking about at the time, I think this was a pretty funny book for fans of the series, though not really for general mystery fans.

In the book, Yanagida explores several memorable scenes and pivotal moments from the Detective Conan series, focusing specifically on the manga until volume 105. He then uses science to muse about these scenes: a funny example is from one of the earliest chapters in the series, when Ran kicks a kidnapper and he flies a few meters until he lands on the ground. Obviously, it would be impossible in real-life for her to kick a grown adult so far: if she *could* be so strong, it'd mean other people in this world could also be so strong and use their strength to pull off what appear to be "impossible" crimes for us. But as I mentioned earlier, Ran's "super strength" (and that of other characters) is only seen after the core mystery plot has been resolved, so it's not really jarring, as you can easily see this is just "comics reality". Which is why it's so funny when Yanagida starts calculating how much force it'd require for Ran to kick that man the way she did, and ending up with the conclusion she has the kick strength of nearly 600 kickboxers.

There are some other interesting statistical analyses that are more mystery-related. It turns out that over the course of the first 105 volumes, there were "just" 202 murder cases,  a number which surprised me a bit, but I guess with the anime and other media around, you just get the idea there are more. As in-universe, not even a full year has passed since the first volume, Yanagida then uses that to compare Conan's "murder encounter" rate to that of the average Japanese civilian and to that of homicide detectives in Tokyo, which... of course makes it too clear Conan is really a death magnet. And if you count all the non-murder (but criminal) cases, it turns out Conan even averages over 1 incident per day. Something you kinda expect when reading the series of course, but it's more amusing by seeing the scientific support for the gut feeling. Life in Beika City is also shown to be a real dystopia, considering the murder rate in one single city...

Other funny musings are about the efficiency of Conan's tranquilizer wristwatch and his other gadgets like his turbo skateboard and ball-dispensing belt, the speed required for Kyougoku Makoto to dodge a shotgun shot at point-blank range, how painful would it really be to have a bag full of gold fall on you from a meter or ten (spoiler: very painful). Most of the scenes picked will be very familiar to Conan fans, and seeing them "nitpicked" like this is more than entertaining.

But as I said, this is really just for Conan fans, and not for mystery fans in general. But! I was thinking, it would be cool if there was a mystery-focused volume of Kuusou Kagaku Dokuhon, just not focusing on one specific IP, but exploring several famous mystery novels. Sure, it'd be full of spoilers, but imagine Yanagida going over the science behind the locked room murder trick in Honjin Satsujin Jiken/The Honjin Murders or all of those Kitayama Takekuni locked room murders. Going over the physics behind physical locked room tricks would of course be the major attraction, but I could also imagine a shorter column going over how poisons are shown to work in the novels and checking whether they really work like that. 

Anyway, Meitantei Conan Kuusou Kagaku Dokuhon is a fun coffee table-type of book for Detective Conan fans, with just the right about of "seriousness" about silly subjects. Because it's mostly about really specific scenes, I can't recommend it to anyone else, but it does show a lot of potential for a more "general mystery" entry in this series, and I hope that in the future, such a volume will be released!

Original Japanese title(s): 柳田理科雄『名探偵コナン空想科学読本』

Against the Rules

Thou shalt not kill.

"Exodus" (King James Version)

It took me longer than I like to admit to realize this cover was an island in the sea.

Oomuro Rie was quite fond of her uncle Shuuzou. Shuuzou started out with great successes on the stock market, and used his fortune to invest in other businesses that only resulted even more money. The small island he owned, was one of the ways in which he managed to use the money he had at his disposal.The island holds a larger two-story house, and five smaller bungalows, and when she was small, Shuuzou would invite her parents and their children to stay there on the island for holiday. The last few years however, she hadn't really seen her uncle, so the news her uncle had died in a traffic accident came as a shock. As he had no other relatives, Rie's father inherited from his older brother, though the size of the inheritance wasn't as big as it once had been. The island was of course also part of the inheritance, but when the president of a small leisure company contacted Rie's father about wanting to buy the island to develop into a resort, her father was quite positive to the offer, as it's kinda inconvenient to own a small island. They agree to have a look at the current state of the island and the buildings there together, as even Shuuzou himself hadn't visited the place the last five years. The president of the leisure company was friends with Shuuzou, and coincidentally, Shuuzou also knew presidents of a real estate agent and constructing company, who also want in on developing this project, so they and their assistants come too. Rie too wants to come along, as this might be the last time she can see the island of her memories, and as she didn't make it into college this year, she still has time now as she studies for her entrance exams. Ultimately, nine people make their way to the small private island, which can only be accessed via a small pier. When they arrive at the island, they find the buildings to be in pretty good shape, but to their surprise, they find that one shack is filled with explosives, hooked up to a system communicating with a smartphone. The bungalows are all locked, but also seem to be holding bombs. It seems someone has been on the island making these bombs for some reason, but because Rie's father can't be sure his brother is not involved at all, he wants to sleep over it one night before they call the police.

The following morning however, one of them is found dead down the cliff of the island, but more importantly, there is a note addressing all surviving eight of them: in it the murderer says they have taken the smartphone that controls the explosives on the island, and that they will detonate the island, killing everyone, unless the rest will follow the ten rules stated in the note. The ten rules range from everyone having to hand in their smartphone and keep them together in a sealed bag to not contacting the police or the outside world, extending their stay to a full three days and most importantly: they are to not even try to figure out who the murderer is, or they will all die. Can the eight survive their stay on this island while following these hard rules in Yuuki Haruo's Jikkai ("The Ten Commandments", 2023)?

Hakobune ("The Ark", 2022) was the first time I ever read anything by Yuuki and it was easily one of my favorite reads of 2023, so when I learned that soon after reading that book, Yuuki released another book with a similar, Bible-inspired title, I of course was more than interested in the book. I wonder what the next book will be! Revelations? The Tower of Babel? Resurrection? The Parting of the Sea? The potential! Besides the title, Jikkai is not connected story-wise to Hakobune by the way, so you can read them in any order.

* September 2024 edit: Okay, so I read Jikkai last year, and also wrote this review then, but I had a long queue of reviews waiting so the post got delayed until today... but earlier this year, I also reviewed Yuuki's (excellent) Salome's Guillotine: I read it soon after its release date, so I decided to push that review up ahead. While that book also has a title from an episode of the Bible, it is in fact part of a different series.

While Jikkai s basically a closed circle mystery in a very familiar form (an island!), the concept of the "ten commandments" laid upon the survivors is interesting, in theory. The final rule, that forbids them from trying to investigate the murder and learn who the murderer is, makes for a catchy marketing slogan, but the rest of the rules are far more practical, like not allowing them to use their phones unless observed by everyone else, or the rule where nobody is allowed to be with someone else for longer than thirty minutes, after which a five minute cooldown period must follow where you need to be alone. It is clear from the way the rules are laid down, the murderer must be one of the surviving eight: the rules only benefit if the murderer is among them, allowing them to control the rest and not have them solve the mystery, without having to reveal to the rest who they are. They also soon realize the murderer has probably set the explosives to go off unless they reset the counter every thirty minutes, meaning the five minute cool-down period is used to reset that counter, making it more difficult for the rest to do anything to counter the murderer. Due to these rules, the first half of the book might feel more like a suspense novel than a detective novel, as obviously, Rie and the other innocent survivors don't dare to do anything that goes against the ten commandments, and so they can't investigate the body or even ask about each other's alibis, something that would usually be done right away in a novel with a similar setting.

To be honest, I was a bit disappointed when the rules were actually introduced, because just based on the marketing slogan, I had expected something else. I guess I had expected something more game-like. The rules are very practical, but at the same time, because we know the murderer has to be one of the eight survivors on the island, they seem a bit inconvenient. How is one person going to keep track of the other seven innocent people on the island as they roam about and occasionally talk with each other? The rules don't forbid that, and it's not like the murderer has tracking tech or anything. Rules like "don't be in each other's vicinity for longer than thirty minutes" make more sense in a setting with more technology present. I was honestly first expecting something more Battle Royale-esque, or something like the Future arc of Danganronpa 3, where everyone had bombs attached to themselves, which would detonate if they violated a personal forbidden rule which was different for everyone. Here many of the rules were just so specific "Place this here, put that away", instead of rules that would be important to remember the whole time, which made the whole concept feel less impressive than it could've been. Ultimately, the only rule that mattered really was the one of not trying to find out who the murderer is, with the rest just being offshoots of that to ensure they wouldn't.

As the survivors wonder why the murderer told them to wait for three days, after which they are allowed to contact the police, the days pass by, but more people are killed. The murderer leaves more notes, telling the others that the new victims were only killed because they violated the rules and that the rest don't need to worry if they obey the rules, but of course, the others aren't really able to enjoy the holiday feeling on the island now. Because they are not allowed to investigate or basically even discuss the deaths, in fear of being bombed, the story offers, ostensibly, only minimal clues to solving the mystery, which is course also what makes the story interesting mystery-wise. That said, it's not like the story is completely devoid of clues, and there are a few things discussed shortly that serve as clues, before they are shut down in fear of the killer, but some notes, like the question why the murderer doesn't just command the others to destroy all clues for the murderer or else they will be blown up, is a very fair one. Of course, a lot of these minor questions would normally be developed more in discussion, but that's not possible here, so the questions linger a bit longer until they are picked up at the end again.

And as a mystery novel that tries to give you very little clues while being fair and giving a justification for why there are so few clues, Jikkai is surprisingly fun. Some things that are done here, were already done in Hakobune and I also think they were done better there, but the type of deductions presented here are still quite enjoyable: as in Hakobune, the deductions revolve around Queen-esque logic, focusing on the state of physical clues and the actions performed by the murderer as seen by the state of the scene of the crime, and there's a segment surrounding foot marks that is very interesting: regarding a late murder, the killer finally does order the rest to erase the tracks left by the murderer on a wet field, but for some reason, the murderer already did that for the victim. Why did they erase the victim's tracks themselves, but didn't erase their own? The deductions here are fun, and certainly also part of what I liked so much abotu Hakobune. In terms of the identity of the murderer, and also the whole motivation for why the murders were committed, and also the (barely existant) backstory to the explosives, I have to admit I felt less convinced. A lot of these aspects are barely justified in the narrative, and you keep wondering whether there wasn't some other way (some less convoluted way) to get things done...

Overall, I think Jikkai is a fun, and exciting mystery novel: it is suspenseful, it is mystery-wise interesting because it actively gives you a reason why there are few clues, and thus also challenging you to get as far as you can with the few clues you do have, but some elements are rather rushed, and ultimately, I think a lot of what Jikkai does, was done better in Hakobune. In fact, I would have totally expected these two books being released in reverse order, as Hakobune feels like the upgraded version of Jikkai. Anyway, I do hope Yuuki will continue with this Bible-themed series, as even if this book wasn't as good as Hakobune (which I thought was exceptionally good), I still had fun with it.

Original Japanese title(s): 夕木春央,『十戒』