『揺れる警視庁１２００万人の人質』

「官憲の権力（ちから）なしでこの明治の世に、剣一本ではもはや何もできんのだぞ。」

「剣一本でも、この目にとまる人々くらいなら何とか守れるでござるよ。」

『るろうに剣心』

"Without the power of the government, there is very little you can do in the Meiji period with just one single sword."

"Even with just a single sword, I can at least protect the people around me."

 "Rurouni Kenshin"

Heh, reading English is a lot easier than Japanese, I can easily finish one or two books a day now! Of course, this does mean that I spend fewer days on Japanese books, which in turns means it will take longer for me to finish my backlog pile...

In Ellery Queen's Cat of Many Tails (Dutch translation: Paniek op Manhattan / "Panic in Manhattan"), a mysterious serial killer has been creating chaos in Manhattan. During an unbelievable hot summer, men and women from all classes and ages are found strangled, without a single clue to the identity of the murderer. Who is this "Cat", as the press call him, and how many lives is the Cat going to take? The police isn't able to find any connections between the victims and it seems like anyone in Manhattan could have committed the murders. Inspector Queen is made head of  the Cat investigation, but the police is stumped. What makes things even worse is that the population is getting very restless under the stress of the unknown assailant and the killer-heat. Ellery is appointed as a special advisor to the mayor to assist in the man-hunt, but can our man create logic out of chaos?

After several trips to Wrightsville better left unmentioned, Ellery Queen finally returns to his home-base: Manhattan! But the story is quite different from what we're used too: instead of a real mystery, a manhunt, a thriller, the search for that single killer amongst the population of Manhattan. And how to stop him! Or her! Or it! For who is the Cat, and why is he killing everybody? It's an interesting problem and the 'missing link' between the victims was wonderfully devious! Leave it up to Queen to find that single thread of logic. Of course, the search for something within a confined space was a specialty of Queen: see the search of the theater in The Roman Hat Mystery and The American Gun Mystery. Or compare to that other specialty of Queen, the reducing of suspects by comparing them to a list of characteristics of the killer (the killer is 1) left handed, 2) blind and 3) deaf, therefore it was A). Looking for a single killer within Manhattan is in fact a blown-up version of this, though executed in different way, as we don't even know what we're looking for.

I see many, many positive reviews of Cat of Many Tails, but I am not as enthousaistic about it as other, I think. It just feels too different from classic Queen. By the time you reach the plot-twist near the middle of the book, it's way too easy to see who the Cat is going to be and it's annoying to see post-Wrightsville!Queen angsting over everything, while we know that classic!Queen wouldn't have been so slow in getting to the truth. Seriously, it might be cool and post-modern and I don't know what for a detective to angst over his abilities to save mankind or something like that, but I sure don't like it (note: I'm very sure that I feel this also partially because I read Cat of Many Tails right after Rouletabille chez le Tsar, where Rouletabille ends up freaking out too at the end).

Cat of Many Tails has some great parts in the beginning though, with the descriptions of the lives of the victims of different layers of New York society. Similar passages are found in The ABC Murders, but the big difference to me is that our victims here are all inhabitants of Manhattan; the city is alive more than in other Queen novels, with the population feeling as one big entity. You feel that the fear for the serial killer is slowly but surely rising in the city and the culmination of that fear in riots was one of the more captivating parts of the book.

The way the victims are linked is smart and I like the depiction of Manhattan in this novel, but it's just so far away from what I expect, want from a Queen novel that I doubt I'll ever really like it as much as other people seem to do. Sure, Cat of Many Tails ranks amongst the better late-period Queens, but that is not saying much.

"I have eaten all your caviar. I am your guest. I am your friend"

Sometimes one only imagines things," said Rouletabille, keeping his hand on the door.

"Oh yes," said the other, growing more and more melancholy. "So a man suffers.He is his own tormentor; he himself makes the wheel on which, like his own executioner, he binds himself."
"Rouletabille chez le Tsar"

While I love Maurice LeBlanc's Arsene Lupin novels, I really regret I can't read them in the original French. I just can't seem to get feeling for the language. Strangely enough, I had few problems with Latin at school, but French... I just can't do it. I feel the same regret about Gaston Leroux's Rouletabille series, which I have read in English. While not perfect, it's hard to not acknowledge how some problems in Le Mystère de la Chambre Jaune were simply brilliant. I have to be honest and say I can remember absolutely nothing about the crimes in the sequel Le Parfum de la Dame en Noir, but as I don't feel an instant obnoxious feeling coming up like I feel with some Sayers' novels, I am going on a limb here and say it was at least entertaining.

The third Rouletabille novel picks up right where the previous left us. In Rouletabille chez le Tsar ("Rouletabille with the Czar", US: Secret of the Night), young French reporter Joseph Rouletabille is requested by the Czar himself to protect General Trebassof, responsible for subdueing a Nihilist revolution in Russia and the death of countless of young students. Designated as an enemy of the people for his deeds in the revolution by the Nihilists, there have been several attempts at the life of Trebassof. With his legs injured by a previous attempt with a bomb, Trebassof is confined to his house together with his wife and daughter. Despite an all-out security, somebody seems to be able to get into the house though, and it is up to the eccentric reporter to put a stop to this all.

Not sure what to think about the story. While the previous novels weren't that fair either, this novel was mostly a clueless mystery, with Rouletabille walking (crawling/swimming/etc.) around and then revealing unbelievable things we didn't know about. Yet, near the last two chapters some strings of plot were knitted together nicely and I felt positive about the book when I finished it. But I suspect I was just being fooled by a sweet aftertaste.

The poking around for the ways the Nihilists are going to attack the general is a big change from the previous two novels, which centered on good old crime scene investigation. Add in the change in writing style (no longer the notebook-style narration) and the new, rather antagonistic environment of Russia right after the subdueing of a bloody revolution attempt and and we have a novel that feels quite different from the previous novels. I guess you could do something really fun with the pre-emptive locked room mystery (solving how they're going to enter a locked room). But that is not really what Leroux did here. Too bad.

From the tone of my writings you can probably guess I am not really excited about this novel. If I think about the previous novels, I just see too much potential gone to waste. It's not completely awful, but it takes too long for just a small sniff of something nice.

「見た目は子供、頭脳は大人。迷宮なしの名探偵」

"He is the Napoleon of Crime, Watson, the organiser of half that is evil and nearly all that is undetected in this great city...",
"The Final Problem"

While it's always fun to see a master detective solve 'normal' crimes, we all know that things get serious when a master detective is pitted against a master criminal. We all know what happened with Holmes in his battle against Moriarty (but he got better). Or the battles of Holmes (or Sholmes) and Arsene Lupin. In more recent years, Tantei Gakuen ("Detective Academy Q")'s Q Class has been fighting against Pluto, an organisation that sells perfect crimes to would-be murderers. Tantei Gakuen Q's Pluto was a logical evolution of Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Young Kindaichi")'s Puppeteer from Hell, a consulting murderer who came up with perfect crimes for his clients.

I was actually very surprised to see that the master criminal was the main theme of Nikaidou Reito's Akuma no Labyrinth ("The Devil Labyrinth"). Going by the title, I was expecting some kind of trick with a building or something like that. Especially as this book was written after Jinroujou no Kyoufu ("The Terror of Werewolf Castle"). But no. Akuma no Labyrinth is the story of the first skirmishes between master detective Nikaidou Ranko and master criminal Demon King Labyrinth. And yes, calling yourself a labyrinth is kinda strange. Calling yourself after a structure. A name like Puppeteer from Hell is scary. A labyrinth is a bit... abstract. And yes, I know that the term meikyuu-iri (lit.: inside a maze) means unsolved cases and that Demon King Labyrinth refers to that, i.e. his crimes can't be solved, but still. It's a really abstract name. Like calling yourself the Demon Archway or something.

But I digress. Set just before the events of Jinroujou no Kyoufu, Akuma no Labyrinth is split in two distinct parts, much like how Arsene Lupin contre Herlock Sholmes was basically two novelettes strung together. In the first story, The Mystery of Sleeping Limited Express Asakaze, a magican called Demon Satan is sent a threatening letter by Demon King Labyrinth, saying he is not worthy to carry the name of Satan. Just to be sure, Demon Satan's agent arranges for a private detective to accompany him on his trip from Tokyo to Fukuoka on the sleeping limited express Asakaze. It was for naught though, as 1) Demon Satan disappears from his room, 2) the dead body of his assistent who had been standing on the platform when they took off is found inside the room, 3) and all that in a triple locked environment; inside a moving train, inside a locked room, right under the nose of the private detective! The police ask Ranko for her help (who had received her own warning letter of Demon King Labyrinth by now), thus beginning the battle between Ranko and Labyrinth. A locked room using a trick I have seen before, but executed well mostly, except on one little point, which was passed over all too easily, in my opinion. I might want to check with a train-expert fan, but it sounded a bit too easy.

The battle continues in The Secret of the Glass House, which was like an Edogawa Rampo story, with too much strange happenings in a short time period. First the search of an abandoned mansion which seems to be an old hide-out of Labyrinth. A couple of Scooby-Doo secret doors and underground hallways lead to something which seems like a clue to Labyrinth's plans. And a lot of dead bodies. And then an intermezzo of a man discovering a cave holding frozen statues of naked dead men (think Kurotokage ("The Black Lizard")). And finally a locked room murder in a house of... well, mainly glass. Which was way too easy to solve. Other aspects of the mystery were impossible to solve on the other hand and Ranko's 'deductions' really came from nowhere. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced this was intended as an homage to Edogawa Rampo.That is the only explanation for the cannibal appearing.

And then it stops. Without a real conclusion. It seems like Nikaidou intended Akuma no Labyrinth to be a series-opener or something. As of now, we only have vague hints about who/what Labyrinth is and a lot of foreshadowing. As of now, this is really nothing more than just a teaser and we don't even get any real developments in the conclusion of the book. It's entertaining stuff, but it feels a bit incomplete. I guess I'm expected to read the rest in following books.

The introduction of a nemesis to Ranko is kinda... surprising though. I can't remember the last time I saw a master-detective/master-criminal show-off in a novel. Often enough in manga and movies, but in a novel series? On the other hand, seeing how Jinroujou no Kyoufu ended, it was not totally unexpected, I guess. You could say Nikaidou was just building on some themes introduced there. And yes, it's sorta cheap to set this book before the events of Jinroujou no Kyoufu, because it allows Nikaidou to write on with Ranko. No, she doesn't die there, or anything like that at all (so stop the guessing or saying I'm spoiling things), but it's significant that Nikaidou chose to set this book (and I guess subsequent books with Labyrinth) before Jinroujou no Kyoufu.

I'm reading my Nikaidou books in the worst order possible though. I still haven't read the first Nikaidou Ranko novel yet (yes, I have it), but I pretty much have read her greatest cases already and it seems that continuity in this series is actually slightly relevant.

Oh, and the reviews (yes, plural) for the following few days are of gasp! Western books.

Original Japanese title(s): 二階堂黎人 『悪魔のラビリンス』

「どうか私とワルツを」

「僕は宇宙から吊革のようにぶら下がる真理を常に鼻先に見ている。こいつを右手で掴んで立っているから、このぎゅうぎゅうの満員電車が右に左にいくら揺れ ても、一向に平気なんだよ。君たちにはこの吊革が永久に目にいらないんだ。ほら、ここにあるのにね」
『ある騎士の物語』

"I always see the truth in front of me, like one of those straps hanging in the train. Because I am holding it in my right hand, I'm always alright, no matter how much this jam-packed train moves left or right. But you never see the strap. Even though it's just there."
"A Story of A Knight"

Once again a book I'm sure I have read partially, because some parts are very familiar, but I never finished any of the stories here for some reason or another. All well, the last Mitarai Kiyoshi book I have here and as I don't plan to buy more books in the nearby future, the last Mitarai Kiyoshi review for the time being.

Mitarai Kiyoshi no Dance (Mitarai Kiyoshi's Dance) is the second short story collection in the series, after Mitarai Kiyoshi no Aisatsu.The stories are still written in the same formula: Ishioka Kazumi tells us about the strange cases he encounters with his roommate Mitarai Kiyoshi, a fortune-teller turned private detective. Like Holmes, Mitarai is a rather eccentric young man (and Ishioka suffers a lot) with a brilliant mind. In recent years, Mitarai has become quite famous, thanks to the books Ishioka publishes about their adventures. Mitarai fanclubs exist and in fact, the last story in this shory story collection, Kinkyou Houkoku ("Report of Recent Affairs") is not a mystery story, but a short essay where Ishioka gives in to the fans' demand and tells about what Mitarai has been doing lately, what he reads, how their apartment looks like etc. Cute for the fans of Mitarai as a person, but I'd rather have a mystery...

But there are of course crimes to be solved in this collection. It starts with Yamatakabou no Ikaros ("Icarus with a Bowler Hat"), a fun story about a question I had asked myself too: what are those doors in buildings for that lead to nothing but air? You know, on the outside of the buildings, you sometimes see doors that aren't connected to emergency stairways or anything at all. One artist thinks it's for a select group of people who can fly. All the pictures he draws contain a man dressed in a suit and bowler hat, flying. He says his wife can fly. And he thinks he himself can fly too. And the police is inclined to think he's right, when one day they find his dead body lying on electric lines hanging high above his apartment. A not too difficult crime, but just very amusing to read because of the developments and because Shimada's grand tricks are always fun to read.

The second story, Aru Kishi no Monogatari ("A Story of a Knight") is the best of the bunch. Ishioka tells Mitarai a story he picked up at a wedding, about the murder of a man many years ago who had betrayed his employees/friends and his own girlfriend for money. The four friends and the girlfriend had the motive. They had a gun in their possession. In fact, the girlfriend was all ready to shoot him. But it was impossible for any of them to have commited the murder: they were miles away and with the heaviest snowfall in times, they just couldn't have made it to the murder scene, even though they wanted to. Mitarai of course solves this crime of the past just by listening to the story. Another of Shimada's grand tricks, a bit unbelievable in the practical sense of things, but oh-so-much fun.

The final story Butoubyou ("Dance Fever") is the weakest story of the three and sadly enough the longest too. Mitarai is asked by an restaurant owner in Asakusa to investigate a tenant, an old man who seems to have the strange habit of suddenly dancing at night. Add in a bunch of other mysterious events (the tenant's son paying a fortune for the room, a murder of an old dentist the same day, and Mitarai becoming friends with some homeless people) and you have a big mystery for Ishioka, but anyone slightly familiar with the classics instantly knows what is going on. But the story keeps dragging on and on and on... The only thing nice about the story is the setting in old Asakusa (also in the opening story Yamatakabou no Ikaros), which recalled old Edogawa Rampo stories.

Two good stories, one boring story and a non-mystery. Not sure what to think about the collection. Buy it cheap and only read the first half of the book? 

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司　『御手洗潔のダンス』/「山高帽のイカロス」/「ある騎士の物語」/「舞踏病」/「近況報告」

「あの娘のまえには多くの男の血が流されるであろう。彼女は女王蜂でる」

"Love is a moment of weakness that allows someone to hurt you more than you ever thought possible. Men were given the strength to be brutes to women, and women were given love to wreck their revenge"
"Discworld Noir"

And still the Yokomizo Seishi pile doesn't seem to shrink. It's going a lot slower than I'd expected. Even with a book every week it seems like that pile is still as high as ever.

Jooubachi ("Queen Bee") is another of those high-profile Kindaichi Kousuke novels, that often makes the jump to both the small and the silver screen. With a focus on beautiful women, it's not too surprising maybe. As per the will of her mother, Daidouji Tomoko is to move from the island of Gekkintou to her stepfather in Tokyo after her 18th birthday.. Brought up on Gekkintou by her grandmother and her tutor, Tomoko has turned out to be just like her mother: a beautiful woman who manages to capture the hearts of every man around her. She is not a temptress or something like that though, she just has something that attracts men,without herself being aware of it. However, someone seems to have something against her, as several persons close to her receive threatening letters saying she should never leave Gekkintou. For she, like her mother, is a Queen Bee, and the men who try to get close to her will die.

Kindaichi Kousuke is hired to accompany Tomoko, her grandmother and her tutor on their way to Tokyo, and they meet up halfway with Tomoko's stepfather, his son (no blood-relation to Tomoko) and three suitors for Tomoko he himself has selected. What was said in the threatening letters seems to be true though, because already after the first day one of the suitors is found murdered. And he is not the only one to go. The murders in the present seem to be connected with the death of Tomoko's real father, 19 years ago, a picture of a bat nobody has seen and a certain locked room, but is Kindaichi Kousuke able to solve these interlinked crimes in the past and present?

Of course he solves it. Like so often, Kindaichi only manages to solve the crime after dozens of people have died, true, but he does solve the case. Seriously, Kindaichi Hajime might not be very much like his grandfather, but they both have the knack of not being very useful in preventing serial killings, only in solving them afterwards. Even if they have their suspicions, they never seem to actually act on it and well, maybe try to shorten the list of the dead.

For a Kindaichi Kousuke case though, the setting of Jooubachi is pretty different: most of the novel is set in relatively urban spaces (murders occur in a hotel and theater amongst others) and I have to say I was really surprised when I realized not much was going to happen on the island of Gekkintou. I was expecting murder and mayhem before Tomoko could ever leave the island, but when they left the island in like a two-sentence description, I was both disappointed (no island murders?) and happy (at least I don't know what's going to happen). Despite the urban setting though, this novel does feel like a genuine Kindaichi Kindaichi novel with the serial killings, complex family relations, multiple persons with their own agendas working against each other making the mystery that more hard to understand and a lot of scratching of the head by Kindaichi.

The mystery itself though, is not entirely fair, as even though the red herrings were easy to spot and I had set my sight on the right person, there was actually little proof that definitely indicated the real criminal. You sense who it is quite quickly and then you might come up with indications with hindsight, but it would be harder to build a case beforehand, I think. A lot of the backstory was told (too) late in the game too, which is a shame, because I do think this was a very enjoyable book. But don't expect much of the problem of the locked room. The plot runs at a high speed with things happening all the time and it simply never bores, something Yokomizo excels in. Unlike the last two Yokomizo novels I discussed (Yoru Aruku and Yatsu Haka Mura), this novel is written in a third person narrative, and like I thought, this style is much more suitable for the stories Yokomizo writes.

It's a perfectly enjoyable story at any rate and I'm actually pretty curious to the many movie/drama versions of Jooubachi, if only to see who is selected to play Tomoko. 

Original Japanese title(s): 横溝正史　『女王蜂』

「ばんなそかな」

"Oh, yes,” said Miss Marple fervently. “I always believe the worst. What is so sad is that one is usually justified in doing so."

"A Pocket Full of Rye"

I always try to expect as little as possible of anthologies. Because often, the majority of the stories in an anthology are somewhere between mediocre to outright bad. There might be one or two stories that make the collection sorta worthwhile, but you usually have to fight a couple of frightful dragons.

Futoumei na Satsujin - Mystery Anthology ("Opaque Murders - Mystery Anthology") is probably the most boring anthology I've ever read and not even the big names like Arisugawa, Norizuki and Maya were able to save this anthology. It might explain why I've had this anthology for almost three years now and I only finished it just now. When I first started it, three years ago, I thought my proficiency in Japanese was to blame for not enjoying the stories. I gave up halfway through. But now I've read everything, and even re-read some stories, but the conclusion is that this is just an awful anthology. Halfway through I noticed there was no editor for this anthology and that should have tipped me off. The title is horribly wrong too, as several stories don't even have murders, and this is not so much a mystery anthology, but rather a crime anthology.

Arisugawa Alice's Onna Choukokuka no Kubi ("The Head of the Sculptress") is a Himura Hideo / writer Alice short story, so it's the usual: Himura and Alice are asked by the police for their assistance. The problem? The murder of a sculptress, whose head has been cut off and replaced by the head of a Venus statue. With only two suspects (her husband and the neighbour), this is  a rather small story that gives a reasonable explanation for the decapitation. A decent story, but nothing more than that (and that final clue... I'm sure I've heard it somewhere else before).

Kujira Touichirou's Animal Iro no Namida ("Animal-colored Tears") is the first story in this collection that doesn't actually contain murder. Anyway, it's the narrator's first day at a psychiatrist as the new assistant, but he is quite disappointed when he first meets doctor Namida, the head of the clinic. She is rather ditzy and doesn't even seem to be properly educated in psychology. When the first client of the day arrives and comes up with a story of seeing animals like tigers and mice, the narrator thinks the man should be sent to a mental home rather than treated here, but Namida shows that there is more behind the illusions of this patient. A story that just barely falls under the genre and really not worth reading.
   
Anekouji Yuu's Fukuzatsu na Izou ("A Complex Bequest") is slightly more interesting, with a rookie solicitor having to deal with the problem of two wills: which of the two is to be executed? Add in some references to Oooka Echizen, and we have a story that does actually belong to the genre, but not really an outstanding one.

Yoshida Naoki's Snow Valentine doesn't belong here. At all. Man traveling back in time, wants to change his future. A twist ending doesn't equal a mystery story! And a murder doesn't mean a mystery story per se either, but this is another story without a murder, despite the title of the anthology.

Wakatake Nanami's OL Club ni Youkoso ("Welcome to the OL Club") is heavily inspired by The Moving Finger, as both stories revolve around poison pen letters. In this story, anonymous letters are spread at a big company and a secretary is requested to find the sender of these letters. Too bad most of the deductions made are very much like those in The Moving Finger, so nothing new here. It does offer some ideas though, looking at these Japanese companies with their hierarchy and OL's and human relations as a counterpart to those Marple-ish small English villages.

Nagai Surumi's Omosugite ("Too Heavy") is another of those stories whose inclusion in a mystery anthology can be justified only barely. An OL has some problems with a former lover/co-worker in the stairs and he accidently falls down the stairs. She thinks he's dead and leaves him to be, but it seems he's still alive, even if in critical condition. And then she thinks a lot about killing him or not killing him just to get rid of him and how this all came to be and stuff and then it's really really boring and all.

Tsukatou Hajime's Eden wa Tsuki no Uragawa ni ("Eden is on the other side of the moon") is the only story with a map. My interests were aroused. A visit to a tech company by the two protagonists (who were looking for someone who used to work there) ends in a murder, as they see two men fighting on the roof of the tower opposite them, and one of them suddenly falling down into the pond at the foot of the tower. When they come looking for the man in the pond, they see he is dead, with an arrow in his back. Who shot the man down with an arrow? The solution is a rather surprising one. Maybe because it was part of this anthology, maybe because I'm not familiar with Tsukatou, but the story clearly belongs to the scientific kind of detectives like Higashino Keigo's Galileo series. I wasn't prepared for that. A sorta decent story, if you're into this kind of stories.

Kondou Fumie's Saishuushou kara ("Starting at the conclusion") indeed starts with the conclusion, when a female writer tells that she has just killed her boyfriend, an aspiring actor, and she then explains why.  It's not a bad story, but surely not impressive either.

I had some expectations for Maya Yutaka's White Christmas. His stories have amused me until now, so I had no reasons to do otherwise here. Takeshi and his daughter has invited four men to his cottage to spend Christmas.His daughter doesn't know that Takeshi has relations with all these four men. The four lovers however do know this of each other and they all vie for Takeshi's attention. As he is the center of everything, it shouldn't be too surprising when I see that Takeshi gets killed. A story that ends in a Queenian way with identifying the characteristcs of the culprit and then crossing off suspects and it is easily the best story of the bunch, but that's not saying much. It's a pretty decent story on its own, but I doubt it would rank among Maya's best.

Double Play is surprisingly a crime story by Norizuki Rintarou and not a puzzler. The story is about a murder exchange (you know, I'll kill someone for you if you kill someone for me, it's easier with the alibis and stuff), but the more interesting anecdote about this story is that Norizuki sorta rewrote this story as the puzzler Return the Gift for the short story collection Norizuki Rintarou no Shinbouken ("The New Adventures of Norizuki Rintarou"). I was planning to link to a review, but because I read the book before I started writing reviews, I don't have one on the site. Hmm..

Nevermore, I hope.

Original Japanese title(s): 『不透明な殺人　ミステリー・アンソロジー』/ 有栖川有栖　『女彫刻家の首』/ 鯨統一郎　『アニマル色の涙』/ 姉小路祐　『複雑な遺贈』/ 吉田直樹　『スノウ・バレンタイン』/ 若竹七海 『OL倶楽部にようこそ』/ 永井するみ　『重すぎて』/ 柄刀一　『エデンは月の裏側に』/ 近藤文恵　『最終章から』/ 麻耶雄嵩　『ホワイト・クリスマス』/ 法月綸太郎　『ダブル・プレイ』

『DRINK ME』

「ある金持ちが鏡をほしがっている。依頼が俺のところに回ってきた。それだけのことだ」

「結局あなたたち探偵の存在は、あなたの云 う『それだけ』のものなのでしょう？ シャーロック・ホームズもエラリー・クイーンももういない。彼らが探偵として勝ち得たはずの誇りは、現代において既に失われているのです。姿かたちばかり 彼らに似せた、まるで紙人形のような人たち！探偵たちの終わりを戦争のせいにしますか？時代の流れのせいにしますか？好きなように何かを責めるといいです ネ。でも、これだけは云えるのです。探偵は生きていてはいてかない。死ぬべきなのです。」

『『アリス・ミラー』殺人事件』

"Some rich guy wants the mirror. He came to my place. That's all."

"In the end, 'that's all' is all there is to you detectives, right? Sherlock Holmes and Ellery Queen are no more. The pride they fought for as detectives, has been lost in the modern age. You only look like them in appearence. Like paper dolls! Are you blaming the war for this ragnarok for the detectives? The change in trend? You can blame whatever you want. But I'll tell you this. Detectives shouldn't be alive. They should be dead.", 

"'Alice Mirror Castle' Murder Case"

I think that Alice in Wonderland is the non-detective novel referenced most often here, but I have to confess: I haven't read the book. Nor its sequel. Nor have I seen the Disney films. All I know of Lewis Carroll and Alice derives from writers like Queen and Arisugawa Alice. If you'd ask me about Alice in Wonderland, I could tell you about how it's an awesome source of inspiration for detective writers, but little more.

And of course, the Alice in 'Alice Mirror Jou' Satsujin Jiken ("'Castle Alice Mirror' Murder Case') refers to Alice in Wonderland. A group of detectives is gathered on the island of Erikajima, all with the same objective: to find an item called the Alice Mirror. They reside in the Alice Mirror Castle, a strange castle with mirror-rooms, doors that seem to appear and disappear and various references to Carroll's work. Their search for the Alice Mirror changes into a game of survival, as they start to get killed one after another. From locked room murders (how did the first victim get through the Alice Door, a very small door? Did he drink the shrinking potion?!) to a murder in a gigantic mirror-room and cut-up bodies, the murderer seems to be a connoisseur of classic murders. Which is also shown by a chessboard, with white chess pieces disappearing one after another every time a murder is commited, until there were none.

My first reading Kitayama Takekuni and it was a pleasant experience. As the main players in the novel are all (fairly genre savvy) detectives, the discussions they have on mechanical locked room tricks are very interesting, almost nearing the philosophical. Because all these chesspieces are so genre-savvy, the novel also clearly messes with the reader on a meta-level, and you always wonder how many levels you have to enter in the 'if Kitayma thinks I think that he thinks that I think...' game. The denouement shows that Kitayama manages to pull off hard to do things quite nicely. The locked room behind the small Alice Door is basically a rather gruesome variation on a very widely used locked room trick, but it was done so wonderfully with the Alice in Wonderland references that it manages to impress. What I liked most though was again how Kitayama (the murderer) makes uses of meta-level knowledge and justifies the locked room murder and the cut-up bodies in a way that works.

Thematically, this novel is very much like Ayatsuji's Jukkakukan no Satsujin, and it's certainly nice to read these two as a set. Discussions of the genre on a meta-level have of course been in detectives for ages, but it's nice to see how it develops as an actual field of study and how modern novels build on the knowledge to explore new realms. Once again, this is not a new practice, but it's a bit more rare to see in modern times. Well, it's a staple of New Orthodox novels, but a more global approach to it would be nice too, right?

The only thing I really, really didn't like was the characters' motivation for participating in the game. You'll probably never ever hear me talk about character motivation here again, but it's one thing to have characters that are brought to life to die (in most detective novels), but to have genre-savvy characters brought to life to die is something completely different. The characters know that they'll probably die if they go to the island to look for the Alice Mirror, but go nonetheless. For the money. I think I'd rather have a more nihilistic approach to accompany the dreamy atmosphere that's present anyway: a gathering of detectives who are destined to die, without all the 'we're in it for the money' justification, and without the utterly weird motive of the murderer.

One of these days I really have to read Alice in Wonderland though... 

Original Japanese title(s): 北山猛邦　『『アリス・ミラー城』殺人事件』