Turnabout Memories

"I have to go over everything that's happened. I have to remember"

Another Code R: Journey into Lost Memories

I love Cing's Nintendo adventure games, but why do the protagonists in Another Code / Hotel Dusk always have to play memory games at the end every chapter? Why would I have troubles with recollecting an event that happened five minutes ago? What earthly reason can there for me to have forgotten the item I just picked up ten minutes ago? I mean, my memory is bad, but I doubt I would forget the name of the man I'd been hunting for years...

Though with books and plots, that might be a bit different, especially as I read quite a bit in 2011. I decided near the end of 2010 that I would definitely get rid of my ridiculously enormous backlog of Japanese detective novels (which was around 60 books big) in 2011, so I started with a rigorous one-book-a-week schedule. Which went pretty good actually in the first half of the year. Time constraints kinda killed that schedule the last few months of the year, but still, I doubt I've ever read this many pages in one year in my life.

 (Disclaimer: not actually the books read this year)

So I am happy I have a blog to help jog my memory, because without it, making a Traditional End-of-Year List (TM) would have been pretty impossible for me. Like I would have remembered when I read which books. Hah! So it's a good thing I actually blot my thoughts down nowadays. At least memory problems are not preventing me from making a End-of-Year List.

No, the trouble lies more in selecting an abritary number of stories and saying that those books represent the best of my reading year. What's the best? The most fun? Best plotted? The most satisfying read? All of these? What about articles I had most fun with writing?  So then I decided I was not going to make an uniform list. I was just going to make up a category for everything I was happy with.

So without further ado and in no particular order (as I write this as I go...):

Most Satisfying Reading of 2011:
Jinroujou no Kyoufu ("The Terror of Werewolf Castle") (Nikaidou Reito)
What a Night for a Knight (Part One: Germany)
Hassle in the Castle (Part Two: France)
Nowhere to Hyde (Part Three: Detective)
Who's afraid of the Big Bad Werewolf? (Part Four: Conclusion)

Four massive volumes. More than 2400 pages. Jinroujou no Kyoufu is a massive work. It is an impressive work. Nikaidou Reito came up with an amazing mystery (of dare I say epic proportions) that will remain in the annals of mystery writing forever. Or at least should.

But reading this novel was particularly satisfying because of what I had to overcome. Firstly, the act of gathering all the four volumes of this (out-of-print) set was quite troublesome and in the end I bought my four volumes at separate stores in Fukuoka and Osaka. Yes, I crossed half of Japan to complete this set (well, I just happened to spot the missing volumes when I was on holiday in Osaka... but still). Secondly, it was 2400 pages in Japanese. Yes, I read books in Japanse, but the sheer volume of the story would have been impressive in English, let alone in Japanese. Reading this wasn't just a matter of reading the longest detective novel, it was a matter of reading the longest narrative in Japanese I'll probably read in this life. In the end it took me a full month, a volume a week, before I finished it, but I was so glad, 'cause the story was great and I leveled up my Japanese Reading Stats.

And while the relation between the posts and the titles isn't always as strong, I'm pretty happy I managed to link the four posts through something as awesome as Scooby Doo.

Most Surprising Tricks of 2011!
Alice Mirror Jou Satsujin Jiken ('Castle Alice Mirror' Murder Case) Kitayama Takekuni)

This one was especially surprising as I knew very little practically nothing about the novel. I had only skimmed through a review at Konton no Hazama, but it seemed interesting enough. It turned out to be a fantastic story, and one trick in particular used in this story was so impressive that I'll say that it was the most surprising trick I've seen this whole year. And I have seen quite a few of them.

Oh, and this was also where I confessed I've never read Alice in Wonderland. Which is still true.

The Glass Hammer (Kishi Yuusuke)

Another novel of which I knew nothing about. I was just going by a name a friend dropped once, and chose this particular book because it was the first in a series that had an interesting name (Security Consultant Detective Enomoto Kei). And while certainly not perfect on a structural level, the main trick of this novel is original, surprising with just the right amount of insanity.

Me no Kabe no Misshitsu (A Locked Room With Walls of Eyes) (Ooyama Seiichirou)

Funnily enough, the trick within story an sich is not particularly surprising (certainly not bad though). But the main trick is how this whole story is penned: as one of the chapters in the game Trick X Logic, it had to adhere strictly to the three rules (excluding uttered statements, every word written has to be the truth / motive is of no importance / no supernatural explanations). Me no Kabe no Misshitsu is the story that makes best use of these rules, as the story's point of view changes between all known suspects, but despite that they all seem innocent! This is a really well-structured and plotted story and the main trick of hiding the murderer using the rules of Trick X Logic is great.

Bitter-Sweetest Reading of 2011
The French Powder Mystery (Ellery Queen)

My. Last. Country. Novel. One of the best too!

The Most Insane Decision of 2011!
Detective Conan volume 01 ~ 10
Detective Conan volume 11 ~ 20
Detective Conan volume 21 ~ 30
Detective Conan volume 31 ~ 40
Detective Conan volume 41 ~ 50
Detective Conan volume 51 ~ 60
Detective Conan volume 61 ~ 70
Detective Conan volume 72
Detective Conan volume 73
Detective Conan: The Time Bombed Skyscraper
Detective Conan: The Fourteenth Target
Detective Conan: The Last Wizard of the Century
Detective Conan: Captured in Her Eyes
Detective Conan: Countdown to Heaven
Detective Conan: Phantom of Baker Street
Detective Conan: Crossroad in the Ancient Capital
Detective Conan: Magician of the Silver Sky
Detective Conan: Strategy Above the Depths
Detective Conan: Private Eyes' Requiem
Detective Conan: Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure
Detective Conan: Full Score of Fear
Detective Conan: The Raven Chaser
Detective Conan: Lost Ship in the Sky
Detective Conan: Quarter of Silence
A Challenge Letter for Kudou Shinichi - Mystery of the Monster Bird Legend
Detective Conan - A Challenge Letter for Kudou Shinichi (TV)

• Episode 1
• Episode 2
• Episode 3
• Episode 4
• Episode 5
• Episode 6
• Episode 7  
• Episode 8
• Episode 9
• Episode 10
• Episode 11
• Episode 12
• Episode 13

Detective Conan: Rondo of the Blue Jewel (Nintendo DS)

Reviewing everything Conan. Not only the 15th animation anniversary releases like the Nintendo DS game and the live action series, but actually starting with volume 1 all the way up to the most recent one (well, technically a new volume was released a couple of days ago, but it hasn't arrived here yet). That's over a 70 x 180 pages of murder, mystery and mayhem! And the movies Not really sure why I did it, but this was a pretty ambitious effort that went... mostly well.

Readings That Translated Best To An Article. Of 2011!
Shounen Tantei Dan series (Boys Detective Club) (Edogawa Rampo)
Jukkakukan no Satsujin (The Decagon House Murders) (Ayatsuji Yukito)
Honjin Satsujin Jiken (Murder in the Old Daimyo's Inn) (Yokomizo Seishi)
Kakei Toshi (The Burning Metropolis) (Shimada Souji)
Murder Among the Angells (Roger Scarlett)
Akuma no Temariuta (The Devil's Ball Song) (Yokomizo Seishi)
The Greene Murder Case and The Bishop Murder Case (S.S. Van Dine)

The description to the right says this blog is about "Writing about (Japanese) detective fiction, food and stuff". So I focus mostly (but not exclusively) on Japanese detective fiction. Why? Because there is so little information about in English! Here we have a booming industry, with several interesting subgenres that have developed explosively, but nobody writes about it in English! A look through the English-language literary histories on Japanese detective fiction also show a tendency to focus on pre-WWII, which is all dandy and fine and all, but we are missing a lot of literature about the post-War period, which is as interestingly, or even more interesting than the pre-War period. On the other side: a lot of literary histories tend to focus solely on historicism, leaving behind any assesment of the work as is.

While the above are just badly written pieces, I did attempt to broaden the knowledge of Japanese detective fiction in English, without forgetting to look at the works under discussion as what they are: detective novels. These works allowed me to do some background research, but also allowed me to talk about them as just fiction, as creative works that can be assesed on internal characteristics. So these are the novels that I feel translated the best to an article. It did help that most of these books were actually good too.

Oh, and an honorable mention to that one article that wasn't a review at all. Just fun to write.

Most Interesting Game. Played in 2011 But Probably Older!
Kamaitachi no Yoru (Night of the Kamaitachi) (Chunsoft)

Ah, my other hobby, gaming. Have I mentioned that The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is awesome? Anyway, detective games do have a lot of flaws, but they also (ideally) give the player more freedom in advancing a story than just a novel. Chunsoft's seminal sound novel Kamaitachi no Yoru, with its branching storyline that depend on player choices, is an excellent example of how people should translate detective fiction to games, I think. Does the player pick up the clues, does the player act in time or is everything going to end in a massacre?

I enjoyed writing the Famicom Tantei Club post the best though. And the (non-detective) game I had most fun playing this year...? Probably Game Center CX: Arino no Chousenjou 2, I'm still playing the daily challenges. And I love Toriotosu. But Skyward Sword comes close.

The Readings I Had Most Fun With! In 2011!
Kubishime Romanticist - Ningen Shikkaku Zerozaki Hitoshiki (Strangulation Romanticist - Human Failure - Zerozaki Hitoshiki) (NisiOisiN)

NisiOisiN is just an amazing writer. Personally, I feel like the protagonist is eerily similar to me, which also made reading this novel a mysterious experience, but setting that aside, NisiOisiN is just a wizard with words, with expressions, with putting done seemingly nonsenical thoughts that end in mind-blowing (ok, maybe not that impressive) statements. The novel is funny, it is sad, it is depressing, it is farcical, it is everything and a bit more. Oh and wait, as a detective novel it is pretty good too! This is one novel I had fun with reading on a both a technical level, as well ason an aesthetic level.

Misshitsu no Kagi Kashimasu(Lending the Key to the Locked Room) (Higashigawa Tokuya)

Higashigawa is probably a funny person with a slight cynical, sadistal tone. At least, that is what I gather from his works. As a detective novel, Misshitsu no Kagi Kashimasu is decent, but it is Higashigawa's humorous writing and snide commentary that really made this a very amusing read. His almost poisonous tongue is also seen in Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de, which also features original, decently plotted detectives that are spiced up with great humor. His stories are simply fun to read.

Most Satisfying Translation of 2011
Kirisakima (The Ripper) (Norizuki Rintarou)

While shoddingly written, Edogawa Rampo's Nanimono is to me interesting as my longest translation, but I had the most fun with Norizuki Rintarou's Kirisakima. It was a story I enjoyed very much the first time I read it a couple of years ago and re-reading showed that simply is a fun story. It's one of those rare stories that does everything good in my eyes, and in a way I enjoy the most too (Queen-ian style short story)! Publishers, maybe it's time for more English Norizuki Rintarou?

Note by the way, that I only did like four or five translations this year, and only two of them were actually detective stories. 

That Post I Want To Mention So I Make A Special Category For It
Kuitan (Terasawa Daisuke)

Few people here have probably read this blog from the beginning, but half of the blog was written in Japan and the other half in the Netherlands. And the pattern for this blog is that when I am in Japan, I tend to purchase a lot of novels, but have no time to read them. So I write about food (hence it is mentioned in the blog decription). I only have to time to read at the novels I bought in Japan at a steady schedule when I'm in the Netherlands.

But anyway, food is hardly mentioned (even though I love the topic) as I have been focusing on detective fiction lately, but I find it comforting to know I can always rely on Kuitan if I want to use the food tag again in combination with detective fiction. Seriously though, there should be more detectives that focus on food. It's a fun series, and in fact, I only wrote a post on non-professional detectives in August only because I wanted to namedrop Kuitan again.

And finally, The Just-Ten-In-No-Particular-Order-No-Comments List

• Jukkakukan no Satsujin (The Decagon House Murders) (Ayatsuji Yukito)
• Honjin Satsujin Jiken (The Daimyo's Inn Murder Case) (Yokomizo Seishi)
• Jinroujou no Kyoufu (The Terror of Werewolf Castle) (Nikaidou Reito)
• The French Powder Mystery (Ellery Queen)
• Watashi ga Kare wo Koroshita (I Killed Him) (Higashino Keigo)
• Alice Mirror Jou Satsujin Jiken (The Castle Alice Mirror Murder Case) (Kitayama Takekuni)
• Hanging Game (Ishimochi Asami)
• Kubishime Romanticist - Ningen Shikkaku Zerozaki Hitoshiki (Strangulation Romanticist - Human Failure - Zerozaki Hitoshiki) (NisiOisiN)
• Aru Kishi no Monogatari (A Story of a Knight) (Shimada Souji)
• Shinu hodo Umai Ramen (Deadly Delicious Ramen) (Aoyama Goushou)

I am actually not sure whether this is the last post of the year, nor whether this is the last book I'll read this year. So there is a chance I'll still read a book that is super-special-awesome. That book will just have the bad luck of me having written this post rather early.

Turnabout Beginnings

"IT'S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE. TAKE THIS"

"The Legend of Zelda"

Publishers bringing us old out-of-print mysteries in this age, you naturally deserve praise for your wonderful efforts, but you should really do something about the smell of those print-on-demand books. Seriously, they smell absolutely awful...

Anyway...

As it would be very easy to start a review of a Philo Vance novel with a reference to Ogden Nash's simple yet striking description of the detective, I'll refrain from that. Or wait, did I just reference it? At any rate, S.S. Van Dine's Philo Vance series is so well-known (in the right circles), that I doubt I'll need to introduce them. So I'll be lazy and refer to Wiki. And yes, I do seem am more lazy when I review English-language material. The fact that I am doing a review of both The Greene Murder Case and The Bishop Murder Case in one post though, is not because I am lazy. And in fact, it was also very alluring to make two seperate posts about them (because that would make bump up the post-count). But these two books actually work quite well together for a double review. Why? Well, while I am certainly not an expert on the complete Philo Vance canon, I am quite sure that The Greene Murder Case and The Bishop Murder Case were the most influential books of the canon, having inspired countless of other writers all over the world with their amazing plots. Or, I can at least say with certainty, The Greene Murder Case and The Bishop Murder Case have been a tremendous force of influence to Japanese writers. And as I like to pretend like I have knowledge of Japanese detective fiction, I should at least have read these two novels, right? Not having read these novels is like going questing without a sword! It's dangerous!

The Greene Murder Case, third in the Philo Vance series, is 'a complete and unedited history of the Greene holocaust'. The Greene family was never a happy one, with every member of the family hating the others. What made it worse was that they had to live in the same mansion for 25 years (due the conditions of old man Greene's will). The Greene mansion was a place of evil, of built-up hate, hate which ended in murder. Starting with the murder on the eldest Greene daughter (and a attack on the youngest Greene daughter) one night, members of the Greene family are being killed one after another, leaving district attorney Markham, the police and amateur detective Philo Vance with a rather bloody mess.

The Greene Murder Case is, despite some clear flaws, a very powerful novel. The story of the 'Greene holocaust' has a good pace, it is well structured and mostly fairly hinted. The story developments are quite well done: I read it in one go, which is a rare thing. Flaws however include the fact that it is pretty easy to deduce whodunnit as pretty much everybody is dead near the end of the novel and one particular trick behind a murder seemed rather farfetched. Yet, the atmosphere in the novel is really good, which is also the reason why I like this novel the best of all the Van Dine's I've read until now. It's clearly a step up from the previous two novels (which were to me so nondescript that I hardly remember anything about them).

While The Greene Murder Case is probably best known for its solution/murderer, which has inspired quite some other writers, I won't touch upon that here. No, for this blog it is far more interesting to look at The Greene Murder Case as the ur-example of a good old yakata-mono (mansion-story). While this Japanese term might suggest relations to a term like 'country house murders', a yakata-mono is distinctly more dark than the more neutral 'country house murder' moniker. The mansion in question should almost act like a character itself in the story; this might be at an actual physical level (for example, strange architecture like in Jukkakukan no Satsujin and Murder among the Angells) or at a more spiritual level, for example by acting as a place with a distictly evil vibe. Which is certainly the case with The Greene Murder Case, though another example would be the Hatter mansion in Queen's The Tragedy of Y. It is a subgenre quite popular among Japanese orthodox writers, with Ayatsuji Yukito and Nikaidou Reito being the usual suspects. I've read more Nikaidou than Ayatsuji, but for example most of the Nikaidou Ranko novels I've discussed are clearly yakata-mono, with almost monstreous architectial structures looming in the background of the story. In fact, Nikaidou's novels take more cues from The Greene Murder Case: his novels often feature families forced to live together in a place of evil mansion which ends up in a lot of murders.

The Greene Murder Case (and Van Dine in general) also had a profound influence on Yokomizo Seishi and it is not hard to see the many similarities between Greene and Yokomizo's Inugamike no Ichizoku. A family forced to live together through a horrible will of a deceased family patriarch, the absolute hate that exist between the family members, who will work together and betray each other whenever it suits them, the changing shares of the inheritance when one dies.... while Yokomizo's puzzle-plot is completely different from The Greene Murder Case (and superior, I might add), one can feel Greene's influence everywhere.

But I think it is pretty safe to say that The Bishop Murder Case was the most influential of the Philo Vance novels. As it is revealed in the first chapter already and this is really really well known, I consider it not a spoiler to say that The Bishop Murder Case is a nursery rhyme mystery. The first actually (at least, that is the consensus, which I is perfectly fine with me). The Bishop Murder Case is about a series of murders resembling Mother Goose nursery rhymes (i.e. a man called Cochrane Robin found dead with an arrow in his chest), all commited by someone calling himself Bishop.

Setting the importance of the nursery rhyme mystery plot device aside for a second, I didn't like this book as well as The Greene Murder Case. Pacing, structuring, clueing, it all felt inferior to what Greene and let's be honest, a lot of the nursery rhymes murder scenes felt forced. Yes, they mention that it was coincidental, but still, a lot of coincidences make up a pattern, and this pattern was rather hard to believe. Oh, but the part where Vance investigates an alibi by getting the records of a chess game and re-playing the game himself? Genius!

And now to the topic of the nursery rhymes, but I don't think I have to go to deep into the importance of the nursery rhyme murder to the history of detective fiction, right? It's not just the nursery rhyme motif, it is the whole concept of a series of murders to stand symbol for something else that is important; it is the concept of structuring a series of murders that is important. Yes, we have nursery rhyme murders like Christie's And Then There Were None, but the structuring of The ABC Murders is just as much indebted to The Bishop Murder Case. Loads of Ellery Queen's novels are following a certain structure that allude to something else (which may or may not be clear from the start). While the connection to the nursery rhymes are made almost immediately in The Bishop Murder Case, a lot of 'nursery rhyme mysteries' usually turn this around: they come up with a series of seemingly unrelated murders, only to reveal at a later stage that all the crimes are connected through a (often symbolic) link.

Scholar Kawana builds on critic Kasai Kiyoshi' literary history of Japanese detective fiction when she argues that the nursery rhyme murder is a distinctly post-World War theme for mystery novels, as a nursery rhyme murder motif is basically a psychological plot-device to create structure in a series of seemingly unrelated, meaningless murders (= giving meaning to every single, individual death, as opposed to the mass deaths in total war). While absolutely not without its share of flaws, Kasai's attempt of presenting orthodox detectives as post-World War literature and the non-Western-centric approach to it is certainly laudable and Kawana's analysis of Yokomizo Seishi's Gokumontou as Japan's first original 'nursery rhyme mystery' is certainly worth a read (full of spoilers though!:  Kawana, Sari (2007) ‘With rhyme and reason: Yokomizo Seishi’s postwar murder mysteries’. Comparative Literature Studies, 44:1-2, 118-143.)

From a less-literary history-ish viewpoint, Yokomizo Seishi's Gokumontou, as well as Akuma no Temariuta are perfect examples of how the nursery rhyme mystery was adapted by Japanese writers. In Japan, the plot-device is usually refered to as a mitate satsujin (a 'resembling' murder), i.e. a murder that stands symbol for / resembles something else, with the term mitate originating from the poetic scene, as well, yeah, poems quite often refer to X by saying Y. The mitate satsujin is even now a very popular plot device in Japan (and very much associated with Yokomizo Seishi-esque stories). Seeing Queen's popularity in Japan and the extensive way in which Queen used this motif, I would say that most of the direct influence on Japanese writers came from Queen, but we all know who Queen was based on.

And finally, two general notes on the two novels. One: what is it with Van Dine coming up with ridiculous psycho-analytic explanations for the motives of the murderers? Seriously, both these books have Vance spout some weird mumbo-jumbo about how some people are more inclined to commit murder that just rubs me the wrong way. And two: is the literary device of "S.S. Van Dine" as the chronicler of the story even needed? Even though he is supposed to be at Vance's side the whole time, I don't think he has been ever acknowledged by any of the other characters in any of the two stories. The stories are so-called accounts of real cases told to us by Van Dine fom a first person point of view, but he has no presence at all in the stories. While Ellery Queen's "J.J. MC." had a similar function, he at least never pretended to have any presence in the stories. In fact, the only time Van Dine seems to react on Philo Vance's actions in the story is in the footnotes. Not in the main body of the text. In the footnotes.

Anyway, short story: interesting books, must-reads for anyone interested in detective fiction in general and Japanese detective fiction. And surely a lot more interesting than the first two Philo Vance novels.

Oh, look, this post didn't turn out to be as horribly awful as I thought it would be.

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』