Now You See Him...

「全国の手品マニアの皆さん、マジックを見せるときは観客を選ばなくてはいけません。次の人々の前では決してやらないように。動物、子供、マジシャン。まず、動物は何が不思議なのか分かってくれません。子供はタネを見せろと必ず駄々をこねます。そして、マジシャンの前でマジックを見せるという事は、私の前で人を殺すのと同じくらい危険な事です…。ご注意を」

『古畑任三郎: 魔術師の選択』

"Magic maniacs all across the country, it is important to choose your public when you show your stage magic. Be careful not to show it in front of the following: animals, children and magicians. Firstly, animals don't understand what is so mysterious. Children always whine about explaining the trick. And showing stage magic in front of another magician, is as dangerous as killing someone before my eyes.... Please beware."

"Furuhata Ninzaburou: The Magician's Choice"

I like short stories collections. I seldom read them in order, instead selecting my stories based on the time I want to read, what seems interesting etc. But man, do I hate writing reviews for short story collections. It's hard to keep a proper line in my story / argument, making these reviews feel incredibly chaotic. And of course, they tend to get rather lenghty. Maybe I should really revise how I do these reviews. Or at least become a better writer (and no, once again I don't really proofread what I write on my blog, so I fear for quite some typos and sentences abandonded halfway).

All well, the next review should be about a novel. Of sorts. And an American novel too. That should be easy.

It took me actually quite a long time to finish Awasaka Tsumao's Kijutsu Tantei Soga Kajou Zenshuu- Hi no Maki ("Magician Detective Soga Kajou Complete Collection - The Book of Secrets"). Which was strange, because I should have been more enthousiastic about it. Well, yes the cover design is hideous, but the rest of the book's curriculum vitae was excellent! For example, Awasaka won (post-humously) first place in both the Kono Mystery ga Sugoi and Honkaku Mystery Best 10 rankings in 2009 with the complete Soga Kajou canon (consisting of Hi no Maki ("The Book of Secrets") and Gi no Maki ("The Book of Plays"). It won prestigeous titles. It's about stage magic. It's a short story collection. I should have loved this book immediately.

Well, I probably lost some of my enthousiasm when I discovered that this story collection wasn't like Jonathan Creek and not focused on a magician solving mostly impossible crimes. Which was kinda disappointing But the real killer was the first story in this collection, which is really not representative for the rest of the collection. But finally I picked the book again earlier this week (after 10 (!) months) and happily found out that the most of the stories here actually entertaining.

While best known as a writer of detective novels, Awasaka was also a great lover of stage magic and has actually won prizes in the past for his performances. His love for magic comes to life in the Soga Kajou series. The titular Soga Kajou was once known as the best magician in Japan, but retired from the business when she married. But she never really left the whole magic scene and she is still a welcome attending guest at various magic shows and lectures on magic. Because of her expertise on various kinds of stage magic, she is occasionally asked for assistance by the police with baffling cases, because who is better suited to explain mysterious events than someone who was known for creating mysterious events? And yes, in some way Soga acts as avatar for author Awasaka in the stories, as he writes very warmly about all kinds of magic, from rope magic to cups and balls magic and often manages to come up with interesting detective stories related to all kinds of fields within stage magic. No, Soga is not running around solving intricate locked room mysteries or other impossible crimes (well, not that often at any rate), but her knowledge of magic, the pleasant style in which in the stories are written and simply the love you feel Awasaka has for magic make these stories here worth a read.

Except for the first one. In Kuuchuu Asagao ("The Floating Morning Glory"), Soga comes across a very interesting flower arrangement at a flower arranging contest: a morning glory without a stem, floating over its flowerpot. Soga tries to purchase the wonderfully mysterious arrangement, but is told that it is not for sale. The rest of the story tells us how the background of the floating morning glory and why the flower is not for sale, but as a mystery this is a very weak story. There is no sense of mystery at all, as Awakasa doesn't even seem to place much attention to the 'mystery' of the floating flower, devoting much more attention to a background story that is only weakly linked to the flower. And to finish it off, the trick behind the floating flower is not particularly shocking. It's thus a weak mystery story, but also a very bad introduction story for this collection.

Hanabi and Juusei ("Fireworks and the Sound of a Gun") is a lot better and a favorite with a lot of readers, it seems. Soga is asked for assistance by police inspector Takenashi with the murder case of a blackmailer. The man was shot in his own room during a fireworks festival near his mansion and while the police has a suspect, he has a seemingly perfect alibi and no motive at all. Soga shows how misdirection is something not only used on stage, but also by criminals. Certainly a very entertaining story, but one important plot-point seems to be taken for granted by everyone, which it certainly is not. Basically the whole point of the story hinges on this plot-point and the extent to which the reader is able to suspend his disbelief on this point determines to what extent he'll be able to enjoy the story.

Kieta Juudan ("The Disappearing Bullet") is the first of a series of 'magic shows gone wrong' stories collected here. The shooting trick was supposed to be rather harmless: the magician was to shoot at his own wife, breaking the glass frame she was holding in front of her, but of course not hit her. Because bullets have the tendency to kill people when they enter a human body around the heart. But yes, that is of course precisely what happened. The magician is naturally stricken by grief for killing his own wife during a show, but was this just an accident or did someone tamper with the gun, bullet or something else? Soga's solution is a good one, though it depends on whether the reader is also able to solve how the trick originally was supposed to go, but the hint pointing at the true criminal was really good.

The fourth story, Birthday Rope, is one of the best stories in the collections. While it is about a seemingly more boring field of stage magic, namely rope magic, this story's structure, hinting and pacing is really good. The mystery revolves around a woman found strangled in her hotel room. Or to be more precise, the mystery revolves around the fact that the murderer apparently took the time and effort to cut away a knot from the rope he strangled the victim with when he left the room. Why would anyone take away a knot? Soga's solution is simple, elegant and Awasaka's simple, yet effective story structuring really shines here. Add in some wonderful information on rope magic and knot communication in Japan (like the Aztecs and Mayas did) and we have a great short story on stage magic.

Zig Zag is sadly not as accomplished a story like Birthday Rope. While the problem is certainly interesting, with parts of a murdered woman found in the contraption used for the Zig Zag illusion which was stored backstage, the story suffers from overdependence on coincidences. It feels unsolvable for the reader, the motive is hard to believe and simply offers the reader little to really enjoy.

Cup to Tama ("Cups and Balls") is very similar to Detective Conan's Mystery Writer Disappearance Case (volume 19), or more precisely said, the other way around. Both stories are about a hidden message hidden in a seemingly innocent manuscript. This time the code is hidden in an article about cups and balls magic, but solving that code is just the beginning of the story. While the codes are pretty fun, elegant in their simplicity like many of the Conan codes, the story is running at a very fast pace and the reader has practically no time to solve the codes themselves, as new codes keep popping up. The story on cups and balls however is very interesting and shows a lot of Awasaja's love for that old trick.

Bill Tube is interesting as it feels very different from the other stories. Soga is sorta undercover in a snow resort: she has promised to give a small group private lectures on magic during the night, while her students teach her how to ski during the day. One night, a snow storm prevents Soga, her students and another group staying in the same ski pension from going out, and as the pension owner found out Soga's identity, he asks her to perform for everybody in the pension. She agrees and shows the classic trick of the disappearing money bill. She also signs a few signatures and all is well. Until the following day, when the guests discover that pretty much everything Soga had touched last night has disappeared. Is someone trying to erase every trace of Soga in the pension? A somewhat The Mad Tea Party-esque (Ellery Queen) story, with a lot of misdirection going on, but certainly a good one and while the final explanation also requires a bit of fantasy at times, this is a good mystery.

In Juuwa no Hato ("The Ten Doves"), Soga lends ten of her trained white doves to a marketing company filming a commerical. After the shooting however, the birds are stolen. Even more strange is that Soga's doves are found in the dove cages of a fellow magician performing not far away from where the doves were stolen. Who switched the doves and why? A two-layered story, of which the first layer is definitely stronger than the second layer. Which is hinted at... sorta... but Galileo-esque expertise was certainly required to deduce that much.

I am not sure what to think about Tsurugi no Mai ("Sword Dance"). A magician is found dead the evening after a show, stabbed to death by one of the stage-swords he himself used during the show. As he had three swords and only one was left at the crime scene, it is thought that more victims might fall. Soga, who was in the public during that last show of the magician, quickly solves the case, but the story leaves some ambigeous feelings. At one hand, it once again hinges on a couple of coincidences that require quite a bit of suspension of disbelief (even for this genre!) and the hinting is also a bit questionable. On the other hand, I love the theme and the motive for the crime, which really shows how much Awasaka thought about magic.

The show to be performed in Kyozou Jitsuzou ("Virtual Image / Real Image") was grand. Making use of a film shown on a screen and perfect timing, the magician was to tell a story in which it would seem that he was able to walk in and out of the virtual world depicted on the screen on will.The story was supposed to end with him being killed by a girl on stage, after which the girl was to return to the virtual world, and that's indeed how it ended. Except that the killing was real this time. The murderer was seen by the whole public to have fled into the screen and it seems like she has actually disappeared from reality. How did she disappear? I am not perfectly sure whether Awasaka was fair in this story, and neither was he, because the final pages of this story feel very much like a too eager explanation of how perfectly fair he was. Awasaka doth protest too much, methinks. The atmosphere is perfect though.

The final story is one of the weaker stories unfortunately. Shinju Fujin ("Madame Pearl") was the nickname for the bearer of the Pearl of Venus ring and it was the Pearl of Venus the magician Jag Konumata used for his magic trick, having chosen Madam Pearl out the public to be his temporary assistent. But luck has it that a gull snatches it from his hand during the show, leaving behind a flabbergasted Konumata. How's he going to get the ring back? What is he to do? Soga tries her own hand at retrieving the ring, but discovers a strange plot surrounding the ring. A rather weak story that is disappointing as a mystery and also has weak ties to magic.

While the quality of the stories is not really even, most of the stories are interesting also because of Awasaka's inclusion of all kinds of magic-related trivia in the stories. When he shines, he's really good, which certainly makes me interested in the second part of the Soga Kajou series.

泡坂妻夫　『奇術探偵曾我佳城全集　秘の巻』: 「空中朝顔」 / 「花火と銃声」 / 「消える銃弾」 / 「バースディロープ」 / 「ジグザグ」 / 「カップと玉」 / 「ビルチューブ」 / 「十羽の鳩」 / 「剣の舞」 / 「虚像実像」 / 「真珠夫人」

「ユメヲミタミタイ」

ひとつの目で明日をみてひとつの目で昨日をみつめてる

『The Real Folk Blues』

I look at tomorrow with one eye, while keeping my other eye on yesterday

"The Real Folk Blues"

With the end of the year nearing, I am at one hand tempted to try to come up with a best-of-list, because looking at the past is some kind of ritual that needs to be done around this time. And as I have a) actually read a reasonable amount of books this year and b) I can actually rely on my blog instead of on my memory, it would be possible too! On the other hand, I don't really like best-of-list all too much.

Decisions, decisions.

Anyway, as I have wait for new books to arrive here, I chose a book from my pile of 'yes, I haven't read these yet, but I don't feel an urge to read them anyway' books. The lucky (?) victim was Higashino Keigo's Yochimu ("Foreseeing Dream"). And as I have reviewed loads of Higashino Keigo's novels and am usually fairly to very positive about them, one might wonder why this was on the non-priority list, but there's a simple explanation for that. Yochimu is a short story collection in Higashino's Galileo series (the second volume in the series actually), but I had knew the five stories collected here, as they were featured in the TV drama based on Galileo. So yeah, there was no real urgency in reading stories I knew already anyway. Besides that, most of the stories collected here weren't that interesting anyway. In fact, I only choose this book because I could finish it quickly.  Ah, I hope my books arrive here soon.

While the Galileo novels (Yougisha X no Kenshin, Seijo no Kyuusai, Manatsu no Houteishiki) are all quite good, the Galileo short story collection all suffer from the problem that they are insolvable for us mere mortal readers. Most of the Galileo short stories follow the same formula: cop Kusanagi handles a case that has a supernatural tone to it. A predicted murder. Poltergeists. Will-o'-the-Wisps. Those kind of things. Kusanagi asks his scientist friend Yukawa for assistance, who then comes up with a complex scientific explanation for the situation. While the 'supernatural-phenomena-turns-out-to-be-perfectly-natural-phenoma' is certainly fun, Higashino's stories end up with roughly two problems. One is of course that unless you happen to know something about the scientific theme of the week, you are screwed. The second problem is that Higashino is not as fair as he should be and that he keeps pulling information from nowhere during the explanation. Thus we have an unfairly hinted story that relies on specialist information too.

The first story in the collection, Yumemiru ("Dream"), sorta avoids this by coming up with a totally fuzzy, way too vague solution to the problem of a man who apparently has foreseeing dreams. Ever since elementary school, he had dreams about a girl called Morisaki Reimi and he has always said he would marry her. Fast-foward 20 years or so, and we have this man arrested for breaking and entering the house where high-school student Morisaki Reimi lives. How could the man have dreamt about this girl, even before she was born? Her name is very rare and all evidence shows that this man has really been talking and dreaming about her ever since he was a boy. The solution Yukawa provides however is certainly not satisfactory.

Mieru ("See") is better luckily A woman is found strangled in her house, but she was also seen at a totally different place, at the time of her murder, by her lover. Was that her ghost who said goodbye to him? Of course not, and the solution to the whole story is pretty good, but it is the story structure and page length that kinda kills the story. The story is just too short to really work out the ghost-angle, and the pacing is a bit too fast too really convey a feeling of space and bewilderment that is needed for this kind of story.

Sawagu ("Racket") is the definately the weakest story of the five. Kusanagi is asked by a friend of his sister's to locate her husband, who hasn't come back in five days. She suspects that something has happened at the house of an old lady he used to visit. The woman has died recently and her nephew, his wife and two friends of them have moved in the house, but they are acting very strange. Especially the fact that they all leave the house at eight at night, only to come back a bit later is unnatural. Kusanagi and the friend break into the house after eight to see whether her husband is being held there, but find nothing. Nothing? Well, they did discover that every night a poltergeist starts to make a racket in the house and that is the reason why the four always leave the house at eight... Yukawa comes up with a solution to explain the poltergeist phenomena which is so absolutely unfair and impossible that it frustrated me intensely when I read it, even though I already the solution from the TV drama!

Shimeru ("Strangle") is the best, though that is not saying much, it seems. A man is found dead in his hotel room, with severe strangling marks on his neck. The main suspect is his wife, as they entered a life insurance program only recently. What is making this strange though, is that the daughter says she saw a will-o'-the-wisp fly around her father some days ago. Was this a sign of his death? This time, the story is fairly hinted, though the main trick to the whole problem is pretty much impossible to deduce based on that single hint. It's a thing that kinda makes sense in hindsight, but no way a reader is going to deduce this beforehand.

Shiru ("Know") is another fairly decent story: a woman commits suicide in the apartment in the building across of her lover's apartment, with her lover and his wife being actual witness to that. The strange thing is that in the apartment next to witnesses' apartment, a sickly girl claims that she had seen the woman commit suicide two days earlier (but she admits she did see her being alive and well the day after). Was this a foreseeing dream by an hallucinating girl? Yukawa's solution to this supernatural phenomena is decent, but a bigger problem lies in another problem Yukawa uncovers at the same time. This is once again a solution that relies too much in specialist information that no normal reader is going to have. Which really hurts this story, because the main plot is actually quite decent that could have been worked to something much better.

So no, I am not really positive about this selection of stories. Having now read all the Gallileo short stories and another short story collection by Higashino, I think short stories are just not his forte. On the other hand, a lot of his novels feature tricks and plots that actually don't need a full-length novel to work properly, I think (they read very comfortably though). Higashino really should try writing novelettes.

And still waiting for books to arrive.

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾　『予知夢』:　「夢想る　（ゆめみる）」 / 「霊視る　（みえる）」 / 「騒霊ぐ　（さわぐ）」 / 「絞殺る　（しめる）」 / 「予知る　（しる）」

"A railway guide, you say. A Bradshaw - or an A B C?"

Mr Hercule Poirot, - You fancy yourself, don't you, at solving mysteries that are too difficult for our poor thick-headed British police? Let us see, Mr Clever Poirot, just how clever you can be. Perhaps you'll find this nut too hard to crack. Look out for Andover, on the 21st of the month.

Yours, etc.,

A B C.

"The ABC Murders"

So even though I already owned a copy of Edogawa Rampo's (excellent!) Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination, I bought another one this week. Why? It was only 50 eurocents at the university library? Should I have left it there in the hope that someone with good taste would pick it up? Maybe. But I couldn't take chances. A book this excellent must be cared for and given to a proper reader.

But anyway....

Just to make it seem like my blog is about audio dramas (which it is not), the third review of a Momogre audio drama in a row! But a more... special one. The previous two audio dramas were based on Arisugawa Alice's novels, but the third of Momogre/KiKKa's mystery audio dramas is actually based on Agatha Christie's The ABC Murders. Yes, that classic, that famous Poirot story of a serial killer who kills according to the alphabet (the first victim was a person whose name starts with an A, in a town that starts with an A, etc, etc). That goold old classic which I am not going to review here, because it is like trying to write something innovative about Murder on the Orient Express or The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: I doubt I have it in me to actually offer new, interesting critical insights into these classics. It would probably just end up in meaningless praise (deserved praise, but not particularly adding to the discourse). But anyway, The ABC Murders is also a story that has been adapted to several media, including audio dramas. I for one very much like BBC Radio's adaption of The ABC Murders and so I was (maybe unfairly) expecting a lot of this Japanese adaption of the classic.

20 seconds into the drama however, I was very much tempted to switch off the audio-drama.

[Timestamp: 0:07] Poirot: "Please read this."

[Timestamp: 0:17] Hastings: "A letter? Now you got me. We meet again after a long time, so a love letter from Hercule Poirot?"

I did my best impression of Marge Simpson's groan here.

Was Momogre, with quite a big BL catalogue, going to add a BL subtext between Poirot and Hastings? That question was what bothered me quite bit, even though in the end it turned out that this first conversation was pretty much the only Marge-Simpson-groan-worthy line. Luckily. But still.

The overall adaption of Christie's masterpiece is pretty good though. While I do think that one vital clue's importance has been downplayed a bit in this adaption (though somewhat understandable because of the relation with the English language), the story is brought very well and for people not familiar with the original work (even if that's blasphemy), this audio drama will offer a fairly faithful adaption that brings you all the excitement of chasing the infamous ABC killer all across England together with Poirot and Hastings. In fact, it is extremely similiar to BBC Radio's adaption of the novel (and I am tempted to think it might have been used as a point of reference). 

There is one big difference though. Poirot himself has changed quite a lot. Like in the anime series Agatha Christie no Meitantei Poirot to Marple, Poirot first of all loses most his linguistic characteristics (his French Belgian accent), which to me, as someone who has studied role language and translation, is quite interesting. The second point is that Poirot has become quite a bit younger now (as seen in the cover art), resulting in that Poirot is now a young-ish gentleman who would probably be the perfect son-in-law. Or husband. Which probably has something to do with Momogre's normal audience, but on the other side, if the Christie estate allows Disney to sex up Marple, why not Poirot, I guess.

All in all an interesting experiment, this Japanese take on an English mystery classic, and the drama is certainly worth a try, but now I'm a bit worried how Momogre is to handle future mystery audio dramas that feature detective + sidekick duos.

Original Japanese title(s): モモグレ　（原作：アガサ・クリスティー）　『ＡＢＣ殺人事件』

『密室る（とじる）』

"The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. "Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked.

'Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end: then stop.'"

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The only reason I'm posting this review, is because I think four posts a month should be the minimum amount of posts here. About once a week on average. That's totally normal, right? All well, in two weeks I'll have time to read again, which will probably have some influence on the posting schedule. Oh, I'll think I write something about Kasai's critical work in the near future, as I actually am writing about him anyway for an end-of-term paper. Yes, totally going to re-hash material written for university.

As Swiss-dokei no Nazo turning out to be a pleasant surprise, my expectations for Momogore's audio drama adaption of Arisugawa Alice's 46 Banme no Misshitsu ("The 46th Locked Room") were pretty high. I have actually read the original work (and reviewed it) and found it be a very enjoyable novel. 46 Banme no Misshitsu has some novelty value because it is the first work in the writer Alice series, but it was also highly entertaining because it featured A) a villa-setting with a couple of detective novel writers and editors B) on Christmas. Experienced readers / listeners are naturally aware that adding factors A and B always ends in C) murder. Murders actually. In locked rooms. To be precise, two bodies are found shoved with their heads in the fireplace. Yes, there are less nasty ways to die than that. Anyway, like with The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword, I felt no objections to backtracking a bit to revisit this first adventure of Himura and Arisugawa.
aaaaaanyway. With the audio-drama of

I already mentioned it in my review of Swiss-dokei no Nazo, but some stories are better suited for an audio drama adaption than others. Despite being a (sorta mechanical) locked room mystery (in comparison to the pure reasoning-style in Swiss-dokei no Nazo), 46 Banme no Misshitsu is actually quite suitable for an audio adaption, I thought, so I was quite interested in this. Sadly enough, I don't think Momogre's adaption 46 Banme no Misshitsu works out that great. The voice-actors certainly performed their roles well and the foundation of the original story survives the conversion from the written text to the audio-play, but I feel that a lot of the 'fluff' that was cut (in order to keep the length of the drama in check) was actually very important to the atmosphere of the novel. With a group of detective writers and editors in one confined space, you simply need discussions on a meta-level on detective fiction, with a villa-in-the-snow setting you need a feeling of pressure, with a The Finishing Stroke-esque (Ellery Queen) storyline with mysterious 'pranks' being pulled on the guests, you need a certain feeling of madness, you need the fluff to really work out the story. Momogre's audio adaption, while not short, could have been improved a lot (when compared to the original story) with (at least) an extra half hour of play-length, I think. As it is now, you get the main points of the story and it's enjoyable nonetheless, but you miss out on a lot too.

This seems to lean towards old 'adaption = inferior' ideas (or "the film is never as good as the book!"), but I have listened to plenty of great audio drama adaptions of detectives (I really like BBC's adaption of the Poirot stories). A lot of those dramas are actually somewhere between two and two-and-a-half hours, which really makes me think that 46 Banme no Misshitsu could have been improved a lot with more running-time, allowing the story to develop on more levels (especially the first part should have been done more carefully).

On the other hand, I have the feeling that the main audience for Momogre's audio dramas doesn't consist out of mystery readers per se, which might explain the cutting of some of the meta-related discussions in the original story.

Oh, and now for something completely different. I think this is the first time I noticed background music being used in an audio-drama. I'll admit that I usually only listen to English-language audio dramas and have only listened to a handful of Japanese audio dramas, but all of these usually only featured theme-music at the beginning and ending; background music during the play itself is pretty rare. 46 Banme no Misshitsu featured relatively quite a lot of background music, which felt really weird. It suddenly felt much closer to something like a TV-series. But I'm probably the only one who found the inclusion of background music distracting... It's not a matter of good or bad, just unexpected.

I do understand I sound very negative about Momogre's 46 Banme no Misshitsu, which am I not actually. It's just easier to write reviews when you have something to complain about. While it's a bit skinnier than the original story, this is still an enjoyable locked room mystery by Arisugawa and the voice actors did a great job brining the story to life (once again narrator Arisugawa's voice actor steals the show IMHO).

And now to look for Momogre's adapation of Christie's The ABC Murders. Though I have to admit that I'm absolutely freaked out by the Poirot on the cover art for that.

Original Japanese title(s): モモグレ　（原作：有栖川有栖）　『４６番目の密室』

The Glass Domed Clock

"Professor! Niet te vroeg juichen! Hoe laat is het? Tingelingeling!"

"De Speurneuzen"

"Professor! It's not over yet! What's the time? Ring-a-dingding!"

"The Great Mouse Detective"

Yes, I actually chose the Dutch dialogue, because the original English dialogue was not as fun.

I don't think it's healthy to cram several books by Kasai Kiyoshi (= influential critic of detective fiction) in just one weekend. Sure, his literary history of Japanese detective fiction takes an interesting angle if we compare it to other literary historians like Rzepka and Silver, and Kasai's more Formalist reading of closed circle classics like The Siamese Twin Mystery and And Then There Were None is very interesting, but it really makes your head hurt if you cram it all in a few days. Unfortunately, I don't really have a choice as I have to hand in a paper next week... Which is just the first of a series of deadlines I really have to meet. Time. I need it.

Lately, I haven't had time to actually read novels anymore, so I did the next best thing: listen to audio dramatizations of novels. 'Cause listening to dramas is considerably shorter than reading the original novels. And I can listen to them during that Twilight time of the day when you're too tired to read but too active to sleep.

Of course, there is material that is good for adaption and material that is not. For example, mechanical locked rooms can be done as audio dramas, but these often require unnatural dialogue in order to provide the listener the exposition needed to fully understand a certain structure / locale / architecture, which in a novel can be 'hidden' in regular explanatory lines. On the other hand, stories that lean heavily on pure logic, on pure reasoning seem more suitable, as these stories usually develop through through repeated questioning and answering, through pure dialogue. Which is naturally the base of any audio drama.

So Arisugawa Alice's Swiss-dokei no Nazo ("The Swiss Watch Mystery") seems like a logical choice for an audio drama adaption (by Momogre (Momo and Grapes Company)). Swiss-dokei no Nazo belongs to Arisugawa's writer Alice series, where criminologist Himura Hideo and detective writer Arisugawa Alice combine their awesome powers to fight crime. And like the title suggests, the story's very much like Ellery Queen's early novels: a murder mystery that revolves around the presence / absence of a certain object, which forms the basis of all of the deductions of our detective. Here, our star is of course the titular wristwatch. Early on in the investigation, Himura deduces that the glass shards found on the crime scene came from the murder victim's wristwatch. Which has disappeared from the crime scene. Did the murderer take the watch away and why? The story at the same time takes a look at the memories of a younger Alice, as the victim and the suspects turn out to be old classmates of him and the memories they share provide for some funny moments.

As a Queen-like story, Swiss-dokei no Nazo is pretty good. The fixation on objects (or fetish, as critic Kasai even calls it) is used by Arisugawa just as interesting as the old master used to do and the denouement in particular is an impressive tour-de-force of pure reasoning simply based on the (absence of a single) object. Like done so expertly in Queen's The Tragedy of Z, the denouement here is based on an all-covering process of elimination, with Himura examining every single possible reason for taking a watch away from the crime scene until he arrives at the murderer. The setting of a small group of friends and the importance of a broken clock of course strongly suggest some relation with Queen's own short story The Glass Domed Clock.

I'll blame my own Japanese proficiency here, but the denouement was a bit confusing though. Like I said, Swiss-dokei no Nazo strongly invokes the early Queen spirit, and any reader of Queen knows that things can get complicated when we get down to the explanation. Yes, it's all logical and it all fits and stuff, but hearing multi-layered deductions based on a multitude of factos in fast-paced dialogue (in a foreign language!), took quite quite a toll on pretty much of all my mental faculties. I have the feeling that the deduction is not completely flawless like Himura (and Arisugawa) posed it to be.... but I'll read the novel one day to make sure.

The voice-acting was pretty good too. I had never heard any of Momogre's audio dramas, but they had an impeckable actor for Alice. As I have never read the original, I am not sure how much of the 300+ pages of the original story made it into the audio drama, but the drama was running at a good pace and it at least never felt like anything was cut from the story. I did had the feeling that a lot of the humor that exists between Himura and Alice (with Himura usually looking down at Alice) had disappeared. They should bicker a bit more.

Anyway, this audio drama sure has made me interested in Momogre's adaption of 46 Banme no Misshitsu, as I have actually read that one.

Original Japanese title(s): モモグレ （原作：有栖川有栖）　『スイス時計の謎』

Primitive or Abstract

「信用できるかどうかは問題ではない。問題は、裏切らないかどうかだ」

『クビツリハイスクール　戯言遣いの弟子』

"It is not a problem of trusting or not trusting. The problem is whether you'll betray or not"

"Hanging High School - Disciple of the Nonsense Bearer"

Sometimes, the hardest part of writing a post is not finding time to read a book, or finding time to write a review. Though those are actually problems I do have at the moment. Sometimes it's not even finding the inspiration to write an x amount of words. Sometimes it's just finding a good topic for the introduction that can serve as a bridge to the main topic. So when I don't have ideas for that, I write stuff like this as an introduction.

But to be honest, I was not even sure whether I should write about Kubitsuri High School - Zaregotodukai no Deshi ("Hanging High School - Disciple of the Nonsense Bearer"), the third entry in NisiOisiN's Zaregoto series. Why would I consider not writing about it, even though I discussed the excellent previous Zaregoto novel? Well, I hinted at it in the last part of that review, but even though the Zaregoto series starts out as a funky modern pop-orthodox mystery, the series slowly moves away from that premise. That change is very noticable in Kubitsuri High School, which strangely at the same time feels like a logical continuation of the last novel, as well as a drastically different novel. But as I have no other material to post about at the moment (I need time to read books!) and it does include a locked room murder, strictly speaking, I figured I might as well discuss it.

Kubitsuri High School - Zaregotodukai no Deshi starts with Aikawa Jun, nicknamed the World's Strongest Private Contractor, asking (mentally blackmailing) the narrator to help her rescueing a friend of hers. Yukariki Ichihime wants to leave her girls' academy, but circumstances make it difficult to do that without help. The narrator is not entirely sure what that means, until he discovers that the school Ichihime is attending is actually training the students to be... assasins. Every student is trained in martial arts and the use of weaponry. And the students have the mission to hunt down Ichihime, making it kinda difficult for her to leave the school.

The narrator and Aikawa manage to sneak into the school and make contact with Ichihime, but when they sneak (break) into into the principle's office, they discover that the principle has been killed. Or rather, sawed into pieces with a chainsaw. And they are pretty sure the room was completely locked before they entered it. Aaaaaand, they also realize that they have been set up, because anyone would suspect them of being the murderers, seeing as they are intruders and Aikawa used brute force to break into the office. Who is trying to frame them and why?

But in reality, the locked room mystery is not really a big mystery. The basic trick for this novel's locked room mystery is really primitive and cliched, and the smoke and mirrors of Kubitsuri High School are not nearly as effective as that of the previous novels. On the other hand, a lot of the mystery surrounding the locked room in Kubitsuri High School is done excellently by NisiOisiN's (and the narrator's) precise choice of words and playing with readers' expectations. It is amazing how easily NisiOisiN changes the meaning of a sentence by simply adding stress to words. NisiOisiN really makes wonderful use of the so-called ambiguity of the Japanese language. Japanese is a language where a lot of information can be left out as much is assumed between the speakers. For example, one does not have to repeat the topic of a sentence every time. NisiOisiN's word-tricks / word-plays make use of these assumptions, luring you into linguistic assumptions that are false. It is pretty difficult to do effectively, because a reader only has to take only one step back to see the linguistic trap, but NisiOisiN cleverly never allows you to take that one step back, always keeping you close to his fantastically written text.

Like mentioned, the emphasis of this book is on the locked room mystery though, but on the escape of Ichihime and the interactions between the narrator, her and the other students trying to capture Ichihime. Like always, the narrator appears as a very hard-to-understand person (even though it is written in the first person), easily lying to everybody (including himself). His interactions with Ichihime, who calls herself the narrator's disciple, are fun, but do not feel nearly as satisfying as the narrator's interactions with his fellow-students in the previous novel. Kubishime Romanticist had brilliant discussions and observations, Kubitsuri High School was just funny. Interesting was also how the school is first described almost as a character itself, basically a gigantic locked space where students are held and with such an enigmatic structure that everybody keeps getting lost in it, but that kinda faded away near the end (which is a shame!).

The previous novel also featured some fight scenes, but assassin high school girls fighting each other (and the narrator) with weird weapons? Yes, we are definitely moving towards a more animanga-esque story now. Yes, I know the previous novels had hints to that too, but tsundere assassin high school girls fighting each other with weird weapons is very in-your-face animanga-esque element. I really liked the off-beat characters and wonderful dialogues in the previous novels, as the balance between those elements and the mystery elements was perfect in my opinion, but in Kubitsuri High School, the mystery element has moved quite a bit towards the background. Which at one hand seems like a logical continuation of the previous novel, but I had really prefered the style of Kubishime Romanticist.

And thus I am not sure whether to continue this series. I like NisiOisiN's writings, but I don't think I like the Zaregoto-world enough to continue reading it if it is going to move away from Kubishime Romanticist's form even further.

Original Japanese title(s): 西尾維新 『クビツリハイスクール　戯言遣いの弟子』

Sunset Men

「誰にもとけない問題を作るのとそれを解くのとではどちらが難しいか」

『容疑者Ｘの献身』

"What is more difficult? Constructing a problem nobody can solve, or solving that problem?"

"The Devotion of Suspect X"

Finding free Japanese mystery novels at the university library is always fun. Now only if I actually had to read all those books! Even this post's topic, a Higashino Keigo novel, took me almost two weeks. In the holiday, I could easily finish a Higashino Keigo novel in one or two days. Oh, free time, where art thou?

Higashino Keigo's Manatsu no Houteishiki ("A Midsummer's Equation") is the third novel-length entry in the Detective Galileo series. The previous two novels, Yougisha X no Kenshin and Seijo no Kyuujo were quite different from the short stories within the series: whereas the Galileo short stories are usually about the use of the hard sciences in murders / solving murder, the novel-length entries have always been rather 'serious' police procedurals where physicist Yukawa, nicknamed Galileo, (sorta unwillingly) helps the police with their investigations, with only a very shallow link to the sciences (making the novels also more accessible).  Manatsu no Houteishiki continues this trend, but sadly enough isn't as interesting as the previous two novels.

The story starts with Kyouhei, an eleven-old kid, going to his aunt and uncle's place for the summer vacation, as his parents are out of town because of work. His aunt runs a pension in Harigaura, a little resort town that has seen better days. Even though it's the middle of summer, the pension only has two other guests. One is Yukawa, who is a invited speaker for a panel discussion on a planned natural resources development project in the sea of Harigaura. The other guest, an elderly man called Tsukahara, is apparently an interested party too, as he shows up in the public of the panel discussion. The panel discussion is quite heated, with lots of villagers wanting to preserve the sea, like Kyouhei's niece Narumi. Others see no future in Harigaura as it is now and strongly believe that the development project will save the town.

The night after the panel discussion however, Tsukahara is found dead on the cliffs. The police at first thinks it's a simple accident, but when they discover that Tsukahara was an ex-cop and that he didn't die of the fall, but of carbon monoxide poisoning, they start to suspect it was murder. Where did Tsukahara die and more importantly, why? Did it have to do with some of his old cases? And meanwhile, the kid Kyouhei is having the worst vacation ever, as his aunt, uncle and niece are too busy dealing with the police. He does find an unexpected friend in Yukawa though, who seems to have some interest in the Tsukahara case too.

While Manatsu no Houteishiki is mostly a police procedural like the previous two novels, it feels quite different. One reason is that we have about five interested parties, with the story's point of view changing between them. Yukawa, Kyouhei, Narumi and her parents, the local police and the Tokyo police all look at the case from different angles, with information flowing from one party to another, some information being hidden from another party and yes, it's a bit too much. The story never gets confusing or anything and the constant changing ensures the story developments keep up a certain pace, but at times it also just feels like unneccesary padding out of the story.

The many perspectives on the case do make it kinda vague what the main problem of this novel is. The previous Galileo novels were clearly about an alibi trick and an impossible poisoning, but there is nothing like that in Manatsu no Houteishiki. The promotion phrase for this book was "Accident? Murder? The truth Yukawa noticed...", but even the question of accident or murder is not as important as one might think. Near the end, the story focuses on the why and how of Tsukahara's death, but it's pretty sad to see that Higashino basically reuses a plot-device he did much better in one of his other novels. The twists in the previous two Galileo novels were devilishly simple, while Manatsu no Houteishiki's trick is more like 'oh, well, yeah, that was simple and not very interesting'.

While there is little discussion on science in this novel, the interaction between Yukawa and the kid Kyouhei does give some interesting insights in Yukawa's idea of science. However, I had troubles seeing Kyouhei as a real kid in the novel. Which is maybe because he is 11, which means he is not a real kid anymore and thus can act more adult at times, but his character seemed to swing to much depending on the situation. Of course, Kyouhei is a lot more realistic than kids like Conan's Detective Boys or Edogawa Rampo's original Detective Boys (and Kyouhei isn't even playing a detective), but I would guess that realistic children are harder to create on paper than adults.

While Yougisha X no Kenshin, Seijo no Kyuujo and Manatsu no Houteishiki are about different kind of criminal problems, the three novels are in the core very similar novels. Higashino uses a similar plot-device in all three novels, he constructs a 'simple-and-therefore-effective' problem in all three novels, the police procedural angle with opposing forces plays an important role in the story development in all three novels. The 'problem' for Manatsu no Houteishiki is that even though it's a decent mystery, the other two novels are simply better at pretty much everything.

Original Japanese title(s): 東野圭吾　『真夏の方程式』