Murder by the Book

「峰子さんのことを信用しているんじゃなく、信用したいだけだろう？」
『友の助言』

"It's not that you trust Mineko, you just want to trust her, right?"
"A Friend's Word of Advice"

I find most of Higashino Keigo's work to be a kind of guilty pleasure. They almost never comply to the rules of a real orthodox detective, but you can always sense Higashino Keigo's knowledge of the genre and that he is in fact intentionally avoiding the classic model and instead opts to mix it with different themes. The one theme that is pretty much in all his works is love and the consequences of love. The murders in his books are usually quite personal and a lot of pages are spent building his characters. Higashino often explores the mindsets of the criminals and more often than not you will feel some kind of sympathy for them (Yougisha X no Kenshin is a great example of this).

Kaga Kyouichirou series
Sotsugyou ("Graduation") (1986)
Nemuri no Mori ("Forest of Sleep") (1989)
Dochiraka ga Kanojo wo Koroshita ("One of the Two Killed Her") (1996)
Akui ("Malice") (1996)
Watashi ga Kare wo Koroshita ("I Killed Him") (1999)
Uso wo Mou Hitotsu Dake ("One More Lie") (2000)
Akai Yubi ("Red Fingers")  (2006)
Shinzanmono ("Newcomer") (2009)
Kirin no Tsubasa ("The Wings of the Kirin") (2011)
Inori no Maku ga Oriru Toki ("When the Curtains of Hope Come Down") (2013)

His Kaga Kyouichirou series is a somewhat more orthodox detective series compared to Higashino's other works, but is still 'different'. Last time I looked at Dochira ka ga kanojo wo koroshita, which was as a classic a detective could be, except for the fact that the name of the murderer is never mentioned. This time I looked at another book in the Kaga Kyouichirou series, a short story collection to be precise.

Uso wo mou hitotsu dake ("One more lie") collects five short stories involving crime. I don't really want to call the stories inverted detective stories, but that term is probably the closest we have. The stories are more like psychological studies of the criminals than 'normal' detectives. Higashino explores how these criminals cope with their daily life after they have commited their crime, what drove them to their crime and finally, how the police detective Kaga arrests them. In schematics, it might look a lot like Columbo or Furuhata Ninzaburou, but in fact very little is told about the crime themselves and the focus is clearly on the criminal as a person, instead of the criminal as, well, a criminal. They are the protagonists of the stories and just like in Dochira ka ga kanojo wo koroshita, Kaga is more like a figure who only works in the background.

What is interesting though, is that Higashino did came up with murder methods which would have done well in any detective. Some solutions Kaga presented were truly quite entertaining and they would've been great for Furuhata Ninzaburou or other series; however Higashino intentionally wrote the stories so readers can't solve them and thus differs from the Columbo model. It is almost a shame Higashino wrote the stories the way he did and not in a more conventional way, but that is Higashino's M.O., I guess.

Once again, Higashino is close, but not close enough. And yet, I liked this short story collection and I do think the Kaga Kyouichirou series is fun enough to explore. It is easier to recommend than his Galileo series, which can be quite silly at times. 

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾　『嘘をもうひとつだけ』

「俺は煙草に火をつけた」

「事件が解決して素直に喜ぶものはいない」

『探偵神宮寺三郎：新宿中央公園殺人事件（携帯アプリ版）』

"Nobody is truly happy when a case is over"

"Detective Jinguuji Saburou: The Shinjuku Central Park Murder Case (mobile phone ver.)"

I've mentioned Tantei Jinguuji Saburou here once or twice, but as I've been playing quite a lot of the games lately, why not make a more general post about this awesome hardboiled detective game series?

While not very known in the Western world, Tantei Jinguuji Saburou is actually one of the oldest running game series, having survived many consoles and even development studios, and started in 1987 with Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken ("The Shinjuku Central Park Murder Case") for the Famicom Disk System. The adventure (which featured advanced graphics and sounds for those times) introduced us to the private eye Jinguuji Saburou, a hardboiled detective who operates from Kabukichou, Shinjuku, Tokyo. He's assisted by Misono Youko, a secretary who is fluent in several languages and quite capable of detecting herself. At the beginning of the game, Jinguuji is requested by his old friend inspector Kumano to help solve the mystery of a strangled woman in Shinjuku Central Park.

The game is set in a hardboiled world, with Jinguuji having to confront witnesses in hostess clubs and even the boss of a yakuza group during his investigation. To emphasize his hardboiledness, the game even has a smoke option, which allows Jinguuji to...smoke. And think. But most people just use it to smoke. It's actually one of the hallmarks of the series, with every Jinguuji game having a button solely mapped to smoking, accompanied by "I lit a cigarette".

Despite the hardboiled world though, the plot of Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken actually has more in common with more orthodox detectives, as the biggest mystery is how the culprit managed to leave the body in the park without leaving any footprints. While Jinguuji does solves this using hardboiled methods (including threatening a yakuza boss in his own home!), the case is distinctly orthodox. In later Jinguuji games, the footprints in the snow theme or other orthodox detective themes aren't the focus of the games, but they never really disappear from the games either.

Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken turned out to be quite popular and by now, 15 games have been released in the main series for several consoles and handhelds, as well as about 20 games in a seperate series for mobile phones. Whether he is solving a crime in hometown Shinjuku, neighbouring Yokohama or even somewhere else,  Jinguuji always stays the same though; a hardboiled story that manages to touch you emotionally, great art, great music, GREAT MUSIC and a lot of smoking. Jinguuji even tried to make it to American shores, as Aksys localised the first Nintendo DS game as Jake Hunter: Memories of the Past. He still smoked, but it didn't really catch on. Maybe because the game was now set in fictional Aspicio U.S.A. instead of Shinjuku.　

Because, Shinjuku plays a vital part in the story. A big emphasis is placed on the hardboiled word of Shinjuku on a visual, a spatial, as well as on a social plane in later games. Places like the clubs in Shinjuku as well as other famous places like the Alta TV screen and Central Park are often visited, but the 'shadow' people of Shinjuku like hostesses, yakuza, homeless people and corrupt officals are also often featured in later stories. Actually, a remake of Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken for the mobile phone (as well as for the Nintendo DS) got rid of pretty much all of the plot of the original game, inserting... yes, more homeless people, yakuza and corrupt people in the new story. Whether that's good or bad change, I can't say, but it's certainly different. But in a sense, Shinjuku as a town, as an entity has been a very big factor in the more recent games, somewhat similar to how Shinjuku has played a very big part in Angel Heart. Of course, it's a very romantic image of Shinjuku, the image of dark town with dangers everywhere, which yet somehow charms its inhabitants.

This is somewhat outside the scope of my blog, but the role of environment in games and the interaction with environment is actually quite interesting, be it a totally fictional one (Hyrule of The Legend of Zelda) or like Shinjuku, based on a real location.

Shinjuku as a location also played a very big part in Tantei Jinguuji Saburou Episode Code: Hai to Diamond ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou Episode Code: Ashes and Diamonds") (PSP), the lastest Jinguuji I played. The story begins with the search for the legacy of a recently deceased real estate developer in Shinjuku, but the case will turn out to have ties with kidnapping cases of homeless people, buildings owned by yakuza, corrupt officals and... the infrastructure of Shinjuku itself. A town which has changed immensely since the war and which changes even now and yet maintains its Shinjuku identity. Gamewise, the game features the ingredients you'd expect from a Jinguuji game (smoking! great music!) and this time also features a branching storyline, something I hadn't expected, as the Jinguuji games are amongst the most linear games in existence.

The Jinguuji series will never be the deduction-fest that is Trick X Logic and even something like the Trick game is more orthodox than the Jinguuji series. However, it is The Lady in the Lake in gaming, that is to say, it features well written stories and character, as well as good music and a truly distinctive style make the Jinguuji series something a detective/gamer should at least try.

See you next trouble

Original Japanese titles:　『新宿中央園殺人事件』、『探偵神宮寺三郎Episode Code灰とダイアモンド』

The Armchair Detective

 「実に非論理的だ」、湯川学、『ガリレオ』

'Truly illogical', Yukawa Manabu, "Galileo"

Huh. I hadn't written anything about Carr yet?

Looking at my preference in detective novels, you'd think I'd be a big Carr fan, but I am not. Carr's The Hollow Man and The Judas Window are excellent novels in my opinion, but I just can't get very excited about Carr's works in general. Which is really weird. There are no reasons for not liking him and a lot to like him. I do want to be more enthusiastic about his works, so I'm always looking for the book which will convert me into a Carr-fan.

And I was hoping 13 to the Gallows to be that book when I started reading it. 13 to the Gallows , by Carr and Gielgud, is a collection of 4 plays by Carr en Gielgud, similar to the (excellent!) The Adventure of the Murdered Moths and other radio mysteries (Queen). It should have been the book that would have converted me, as I'm a fan of a) detective novels, b) radio dramas and c) detective radio dramas.

The last two stories in the collection, Intruding Shadow and She Slept Lightly didn't impress much, but I was very taken in by the first two stories, Inspector Silence Takes the Air and Thirteen to the Gallows. Inspector Silence Takes the Air was more Queen-ish than Carr, as the plot revolves around a gun used in a murder disappearing from a BBC studio. The setting of a BBC studio is also used in Thirteen to the Gallows which is classic Carr with a seemingly impossible murder. Both stories are great in their setting, the problem and the solution. And I quite enjoy reading detective plays.

And yet, I wouldn't say this book made me a Carr fan. I will happily recommend this book to everyone (after they've read Queen's The Adventure of the Murdered Moths...), I don't really have any complaints about this book, in fact, it features quite interesting problems. So I like it on a personal level, it's also solid on a more technical level. Heck, this book even features an introduction and notes and everything I get all happy about in book releases. And yet... it didn't convert me. Even after reading this, Carr is just "the writer who has some excellent books among his books" to me.

Therefore I conclude there is some irrational part within me that just doesn't want to get all fanboyish with Carr's work like I am with Queen's work. Or maybe it is rational, as I can only read that many books in this lifetime...

Luckily, I've already ruled the possibility I will ever like Sayers' work (except for Lord Peter Views the Body). I keep trying, but it never, ever pays off. Strong Poison, the last one I read, actually had a simple, yet effective plot. Which had its interesting parts. However, the interesting parts were either in the first chapter or the last chapter. The 20-ish chapters between those chapters were awful. This will be the last time I'll mention Sayers here. I give up on her.

「むろん、お前はABCをしっているな」

"You have to excuse me, but I've seen you play this routine time and time again. The paper shuffling, the distractions, the talk about your wife, or in this case your broken percolator. If you've got me in your cross hairs, you really have to do better than using all that crap.", 'The Gun that Wasn't', " The Columbo Collection"

Desperately trying to shorten the backlog before a ridiculous amount of books is delivered here from Japan. But I don't really think I'll be able to shorten it significantly. Especially not if I forget which books I have read and which not.

The week started with ABC Satsujin Jiken ("The ABC Murders"), an short story anthology named after Agatha Christie's classic. Like with Y no Higeki, a book discussed earlier, stories in this anthology all play with the theme of Christie's The A.B.C. Murders. Both Arisugawa Arisu and Norizuki Rintarou contributed to ABC Satsujin, as well as Onda Riku, Kanou Tomoko and Nukui Tokurou.

And as I was reading this book, I realised I had actually read half of this anthology before, but I couldn't remember what happened in the stories, so I had to re-read them. However, the fact I couldn't remember a single fact of most stories was indeed a sign the stories weren't that interesting. Maybe I had supressed them in my memories.

Which in hindsight seems plausible. Veterans Arisugawa Arisu and Norizuki Rintarou offer slightly entertaining stories with "ABC Killer" and "ABCD Houimou" ("The ABCD Line"). ABC Killer is closest to Christie's ABC, with a string of serial murders of people who are killed in alphabetic order. "The ABCD Line" starts with a man who keeps confessing to murders (and saying he's responsible for accidents), but whom it was impossible to commit those. Why would someone confess to murders he didn't commit?

Howver, the remaining stories are not interesting at all. Onda Riku's Anata to yoru to ongaku to ("You, the night and music") has an interesting setting, at a radio station, but is a mediocre story. And the strangest part is that it is less of a homage to The A.B.C. Murders, than to Ellery Queen's The Mad Tea Party or The Finishing Stroke. Kanou Tomoko's Neko no Ie no Alice ("Alice of the House of Cats") does revolve around a plot of poisoned cats (yes, in alphabetical order), but is full of distracting Alice in Wonderland references. Which again reminds more of Queen than Christie.Nukui Tokurou's Rensa suru Suuji ("Connected Numbers") is actually bad, with bad pacing in story, a bad plot and bad characters. I won't even bother writing about it.

Compared to the very entertaining Y no Higeki, this anthology is mostly disappointing. The A.B.C. Murders is one of the most famous detective stories ever and you'd think writers should be able to do more with the ingenious theme of the book. And not really related to that, but maybe I should finally start reading Alice in Wonderland.

Luckily I read The Columbo Collection afterwards, a new collection of Columbo short stories! Written by series creator William Link and published by Crippen & Landru, this set of 12 stories revive the old show. In a new setting though. It's hard to imagine the lieutenant using a cell phone. But he does. Still, what is there to complain about a continuation of good old Columbo, who'll keep hounding his suspect till he catches them on one small mistake?

Even though the series stopped many years ago, reading these stories will make you realize Columbo is a series that will never age. While these short stories are indeed short (compared to the 60 till 90 minutes episodes), the psychological fencing between murderer and Columbo is still as entertaining as ever. Looking for the one mistake the murderer made is still as exciting as ever. And everyone will read Columbo's lines with Peter Falk's voice in their heads. It's classic Columbo, in 2010. And it's good.　

Original Japanese title(s): 『ABC殺人事件』/有栖川有栖　「ABCキラー」/恩田陸　「あなたと夜と音楽と」/加納朋子　「猫の家のアリス」/貫井徳郎　「連鎖する数字」/法月綸太郎　「ABCD包囲網」

「君ね、決め台詞のない名探偵なんて、存在価値がないも同然だよ」

"But what is often called an intuition is really an impression based on logical deduction or experience. When an expert feels that there is something wrong about a picture or a piece of furniture or the signature on a cheque he is really basing that feeling on a host of small signs and details. He has no need to go into them minutely - his experience obviates that - the net result is the definite impression that something is wrong.But it is not a guess，it is an impression based on experience.", Hercule Poirot, "The ABC Murders"

Upon my return, I discovered I had a bigger gaming and detective fiction backlog than expected, so it was nice (and more efficient) to have something that was both a game and detective fiction. Trick X Logic Season One was a game I bought only days before I left Japan (because I have wa~hay too many point cards), but that doesn't mean it was just chosen on a whim. I had been actually looking forward to this game for some quite time.

This visual novel, developed by veteran Chunsoft, caught my attention because many big-name Japanese detective writers collaborated on it. Seven writers wrote ten scenarios for the game, with the reader being forced to solve the mysteries themselves.

The premise: after being pushed off of a building, prodigy prosecutor Yoshikawa Itsuki wakes up in Hell. Where the judge of human souls, Yama, asks Yoshikawa for his help with some unsolved cases. Yama usually reads a record of human deeds, the Akasha, to pass judgement on human souls, but in some cases he can't figure out whodunnit just by reading the Akasha. Hence the need for Yoshikawa's mind. He is to read the Akasha and figure out the culprit. If he cooperates, Yama promises to return him to the land of the living.

Cue the scenarios of the detective writers. Season one consists of 5 and a half stories, being 0) Yubisasu Shitai ("The Pointing Corpse", credited to Chunsoft), 1) Nusumerata Figure ("The Stolen Figurine", written by Abiko Takemaru), 2) Akari no Kieta Heya de ("In the dark room", written by Takemoto Kenji), 3) Yuki furu Joshiryou nite ("At a snowing Women's Dormitory", written by Maya Yutaka), 4) Setsudan sareta Itsutsu no Kubi ("Five Necks Cut Off", written by Ooyama Seiichirou) and the story part (no solution chapter) to 5) Bourei Hamlet ("The Ghost Hamlet", written by Kuroda Kenji). The stories all feature classic detective themes like dying messages, impossible disappearences, cut up bodies and alibi tricks.

In practice, you get to read a story (or for the lazy: listen to a reading of the story!), with no conclusion. Then you select keywords from the text ("He can't read" and "He was seen reading a book"), in order to generate mysteries (the previous keywords might lead to "Why was the man reading a book if he can't read?" for example). This mysteries can be combined with other keywords to solve them, thus creating insights ("It was an imposter" or "He actually can read"). Finally, these insights are used to answer the questions of who- and howdunnit.

It's like a more advanced version of Gyakuten Saiban (Ace Attorney); reading the text you'll find suspicious sentences, which you pursue further. The difference being the scale: whereas Gyakuten Saiban usually gives you 5 pieces of testimony a time, Trick X Logic will give you a 200 page story to find all the clues. And the mysteries and insights you find while reading the story? A lot of them are plausible, yet false. This combination-of-hints-to-produce-hypotheses system is kinda reminiscent of the Trick game (not related), only at a much higher level.

Which is also the frustrating part of the game: at times you'll figure out what happened and how, but have severe problems finding the right combination of keywords out of a 200 page story. It's a complaint I hear a lot about Gyakuten Saiban, knowing what happened without knowing how to activate the story flags to actually proceed. I personally never had any problems with that in Gyakuten Saiban, but let's say that a 200 page version of that is indeed very vexing.

I certainly had fun with this game; the stories were fun, production values are quite good for the budget price at which this game is sold and I am looking forward to the second season. However, at times it was kinda frustating to actually find the right keywords and mysteries within the story to complement the (correct) ideas I already had in my head. Still, I guess this is the closest you can get to a one-on-one conversion of a classic detective novel to a game.

Original Japanese title(s): 『TRICK X LOGIC』/チュンソフト　「指さす死体」/我孫子武丸　「盗まれたフィギュア」/竹本健治　「明かりの消えた部屋で」/麻耶雄嵩　「雪降る女子寮にて」/大山誠一郎　「切断された五つの首」/黒田研二　「亡霊ハムレット」

A Study in Terror

Something old, something new,

Something borrowed, something blue,

And silver sixpence in your shoe

My backlog is horrible. While I have sent quite some reading materials back home, I was (pleasantly?) surprised to find I had left a lot of reading homework before I left. But as I had already started the book at Hong Kong Airport, I figured I might as well finish Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks by Curran first.

The book contains as the title sorta suggests transcripts of Agatha Christie's notes on the books she wrote, with Curran commenting on them. While not really interesting for the casual reader, the Christie fans will love the book. It's fun to see how awfully clever Christie was, brainstorming on every available piece of paper in random order. Readers will see how some novels evolved into their final form, or how some plot-ideas were incorporated into other novels.

And the main selling point of the book must be the inclusion of two unpublished Poirot stories! The first one, The Capture of Cerberus is actually the first version of the same-named story Christie wrote for The Labours of Hercules short story collection. The contents are totally different from the published version and while Poirot acts somewhat out-of-character at times, the story makes for an amusing read.

The second short story, The Incident of the Dog's Ball, is as the name suggests an alternate version of the novel Dumb Witness. The main ideas are the same, mainly the incident of the dog's ball, and I think the story works better in short story form than in novel-length, though I am kinda biased towards short stories.

The book is a very entertaining read for the Christie fan, but I can hardly recommend it to other people: the notes spoil a lot of books and it's just not as interesting if you don't know anything about the stories, while the new short stories are entertaining, but not among Christie's best.

Murder in the Mews

「最初は湯気のしずくに花火の色が映ったのかと、そのまま見すごしていたのですが、やがて、紅の飛沫は益々はげしく降りそそぎ、彼自身の額や頬にも、異様な暖かなしたたりを感じて、それを手にうつしてみれば、まがう方なき紅のしずく、人の血潮に相違ないのでした。そして、彼の目の前の湯の表に、フワフワと漂うものを、よく見れば、それは無慚に引き裂かれた人間の手首が、いつのまにかそこへ降っていたのです。北見小五郎は、その酔うな血腥い光景の中で、不思議に騒がぬ裸女達をいぶかりながら、彼も又そのまま動くでもなく、池の畔にじっと頭をもたせて、ぼんにゃりと、彼の胸の辺りに漂っている、生々しい手首の花を開いた真赤な切口に見入りました。か様にして、人見廣介の五体は、花火とともに、粉微塵にくだけ、かれの創造にしたパノラマ国の、各々の形式の隅々までも、血液と肉塊の雨となって、降り注いだのでありました」
『パノラマ島の奇譚』

"At first he just looked at it, thinking the drips of dew were reflecting the color of the fireworks. But the scarlet splashes rained down more and more; he himself felt the strangely warm drops on his head and cheek and when he put some on his hands, there was no doubt those scarlet drops were in fact human blood. And when he looked carefully at the thing floating lightly on the surface of the hot spring in front of him, it turned out to be the wrist of a man, cruelly ripped off; unnoticedly it had fallen down. Amidst that drunkenly blood spectacle, Kitami Kogorou wondered about the naked women who strangely enough didn't panick at all; and he too didn't move one bit, leaning his head on the footpath of the pond, dreamingly gazing at the scarlet fresh wound on the wrist floating near his chest. And thus Hiromi Kousuke's body had exploded into countless of pieces, and it was his flesh and blood that was raining down onto every corner of the Panorama Kingdom he himself had created."
The Strange Tale of Panorama Island

The summer means firework in Japan. And the biggest firework event in Fukuoka, is probably the firework in Oohori Park. Which was yesterday. Luckily, no people who blew themselves up together with the fireworks. Though I was certainly mentally prepared for it.

Somehow, I feel cheated because nobody yelled kagiya or tamaya. The kid behind me did scream tamago (egg) several times though, when the fireworks burst in circle-patterns. Close, but not really what I wanted to hear.

Oh, and also an annoyance when hanami-ing: people who only use half of the space of the giant sheets they lay out to reserve sitting place. Use space more efficiently!