The Geek Interpreter

"Among these unfinished tales is that of Mr. James Phillimore, who, stepping back into his own house to get his umbrella, was never more seen in this world"

"The Problem of Thor Bridge"

I have been quite busy the last few weeks with perfecting my techniques for postponing writing reports until the last day (?), which will probably continue until the end of January, so I haven't been able to read  / write as much as I actually want. Hope to post at least one book review by next week though...

We all know that Sherlock Holmes is hip again since the Guy Ritchie movies and the BBC series. When I visited South-Korea in September, I was surprised by the amount of Sherlock Holmes books they had in the bookstores (seriously: I can't actually read Korean, but I saw multiple versions from I assume different publishers, so were they all different translations!?). Heck, I already reviewed a manga about Sherlock reincarnated as a dog! Anyway, so I wasn't that surprised when I came across a manga called Sherlockian!. I was surprised when I read the back though, because this wasn't a manga about Sherlock Holmes, it was a manga about Sherlockians! (or Holmesians as civil people should be using) and the canon problems they analyze! It was a ridiculous concept for a series, which was why I bought it at once.

The university student Harada Airi likes to read the Holmes stories and one day discovers that her professor Kuruma is actually a Holmesian. Kuruma invites Airi to a local Holmesian meeting (thus making her a member) and... that is it. The series unfolds as Airi starts to learn more about the little problems Holmesian like to study, like the disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore, or the first name of Watson, or the precise location of that darn war wound of his, which for some reason or another are usually also related to a current problem Airi is facing in her daily life.

There is not much to say about the series, actually. I liked the first volume, because I like Sherlock Holmes and because I am familiar with Holmesian problems. Which is both the strength and weakness of this series: I don't know how big a Holmesian writer Ikeda is, but he has done enough research / read enough secondary literature to create amusing, sometimes touching short stories. They feature daily life mysteries (or sometimes not even a mystery at all), with Holmesian problems as their theme: one great story is about how a dying man enjoyed reading the Holmes stories, until he came across the point where Watson's wife calls him James instead of John, arriving at the assumption that his wife might have been cheating on him. Another story on the other hand reenacts the disappearance of Mr. Phillimore, when a colleague of Airi at the local bookshop disappears after she went back into her apartment to get an umbrella for her father. It's not a big mystery and the story serves mostly as a vehicle to present the Holmesian problem, but it works.

But what I consider a weakness of this series, or at least what I think is unclear, who should be reading Sherlockian! ? First of all, I can't imagine that people who haven't read Holmes will find any enjoyment here. Secondly, the reader needs to be interested in Holmesian problems. Thirdly, said reader shouldn't be a big Holmesian him/herself, because then Sherlockian! doesn't has much to offer. I enjoyed Sherlockian!, even if I already knew about the problems posed in this volume (except for the Jack the Ripper story...), but this is really a series that is aiming at a niche, inside a niche, inside a niche.

Though I would totally recommend it to Japanese Holmes fans who want to learn about the canon...

Original Japanese title(s): 　池田邦彦　『シャーロッキアン！』第１巻

Destination Unknown

果てしない地平線の向こうまで

無くしかけ答え探しに行こう

大きな詩を　カバンにつけこんで

約束の場所めざして　let's keep on running

「アコギな二人旅だぜ！」　(景山ひろのぶ、遠藤正明)

Let's go look for the answer you started to lose

Across the neverending horizon

Stuff a big song in your suitcase

And head for the promised place, let's keep on running

"A Duo's Acoustic Guitar Trip!" (Kageyama Hironobu, Masaaki Endou)

I really shouldn't be writing this review, considering I have a paper due tomorrow which I haven't even started with yet...

I had been wanting to read more Ayukawa Tetsuya ever since Akai Misshitsu - Meitantei Hoshikage Ryuuzou Zenshuu 1, so I picked up his Kuroi Trunk ("The Black Trunk"), the novel that could be considered Ayukawa's debut novel. I say considered, because Ayukawa, whose real name is Nakagawa Tooru, had initially won a contest with his Petrov Case in 1950, but due to problems with the publisher the book wasn't properly released then. It wasn't until 1956 that his first original novel, Kuroi Trunk, was published by Kodansha, under his new nom-de-plume Ayakawa Tetsuya. The story starts at Tokyo's Shiodome station, where a very suspicious smell from a black trunk sent there to be picked up, prompts the station attendant to call the police and open the suitcase. And lo, they indeed find a dead body stuffed inside the trunk. Tracing where the trunk was sent from, the police stumble upon the name of one Chikamatsu Chizuo, who sent the trunk to Tokyo under his own name from Fukuoka's Fudajima station. The hunt for Chikamatsu starts, which results in the discovery of his dead body, as he seemingly commited suicide. Seemingly, as inspector Onitsura, who used to be a classmate of Chikamatsu, suspects there is something more sinister going on with the problem of the black trunk.

Kuroi Trunk is seen as one of the best novels of 'alibi-breaking' Ayukawa and considered one of the classics of Japanese detective fiction in general. It's highly Crofts-inspired (especially The Cask) (and a bit of Yokomizo), as Ayukawa himself admits, which might also explain why it is certainly not one of the most pleasant books to read in terms of readability. But it is definitely a recommended read, because Ayukawa weaves a highly complex web of alibi tricks and deductions surrounding the origins and whereabouts of the titular black trunk.

As an alibi deconstruction story, the story settles on its main suspects about half-way through the story, but the complexities start there. Not only does the main suspect seem to have an unbreakable alibi, there is also another, fundamental problem governing the developments in this novel, that of who put the dead body in the black trunk and more importantly how. This forms both the novel strong and weak points. At one hand, we have a really well-constructed maze of actions, time-tables and other considerations, with a story that never feels boring. Every section of the story seems to have its own function, to complement something to the final solution.

On the other hand, Kuroi Trunk is definitely too complex for its own good at times. The story is hard to solve if you don't take notes regarding the time-tables: the murder and subsequent sending of the trunk to Tokyo takes place over a period of several days and Ayukawa sometimes discusses character movements in units of minutes. There are a lot of minutes in several days. Including the time-tables for the trains is a welcome point (and Ayukawa based his story on actual train time-tables at the time), but they are definitely also kinda scary. In my pocket version, the commentary includes a time-table that reconstructs the actual events surrounding the murder and just looking at it makes my head hurt. Note that I am saying this even after reading the novel.

I had seen this eye for minutely constructed alibi-breaking stories already in Doukeshi no Ori, which I loved, but it worked better there because it was a short story. The scale of the story is totally different and with Kuroi Trunk, it feels just... too hard. I don't think I will ever make this comment again on this blog, but Kuroi Trunk feels much more like a puzzle, than a novel (note that I am someone who likes early Queen, his short short stories and overall someone who looks more at puzzle plotting and placements of hints, than at actual characterization).

Kuroi Trunk is a classic post-war alibi-breaking mystery featuring trains and set in both Fukuoka (the northern part of the Kyushu island) and Tokyo, which is strangely something you can say also about Matsumoto Seichou's Ten to Sen ("Points and Lines"). They were released around the same time and feature similar ideas (though the execution and focal point is definitely different). As someone who lived in Fukuoka, I always love seeing Fukuoka and the usage of the local dialect in novels, which is featured in both these novels, though I am wondering why I see so much of Kyushu in Ayukawa Tetsuya's writings: unlike Matsumoto Seichou, he doesn't even originate from there. To bring back the point of Kuroi Trunk being a puzzle: Ten to Sen may feel alike, but it is definitely a novel and a fine one at it too.

I do like Kuroi Trunk though, but I doubt I would recommend it to people as their first Ayukawa, as it is a bit too complex for its own good at times. If you like alibi deconstructing stories though, it's definitely a recommended read.

Original Japanese title(s): 鮎川哲也　『黒いトランク』

『きえないこころ』

Take my revolution　生きて行こう

現実はがむしゃらに来るし

自分の居場所存在価値を見つけたい

今日までの自分を  

『輪舞-Revolution- 』

Take my revolution, let's live on

Reality is closing in frantically

I want to find my place to be, my worth

The person I've been up until now

"Rondo - Revolution"

Maybe it is a bit ambitious to write my very first mystery short story in a language in that is not my mother tongue. Maybe. Not sure why I said I would write something. Ah well, at least I have an idea of what to write now after days of torturing my mind...

Note: I think the hardboiled tag on this blog doesn't differ much in meaning from the Tantei Jinguuji Saburou tag.

Twenty-twelve was the year many game series celebrated their 25th anniversary. Megaman, Final Fantasy, Street Figher and... Tantei Jinguuji Saburou. OK, so the detective adventure games starring hardboiled private detective Jinguuji Saburou and his assistant Youko are hardly known outside Japan (despite, or also thanks to a somewhat failed localisation trip on the DS), but heck, it means something if you manage to still be an active game-series after twenty-five years, especially considering it is an detective adventure, which is certainly not one of the best selling genres in the gaming world. I for one am a big fan of the series and it was just a matter of time (and me getting a 3DS) before I would get to Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Fukushuu no Rondo ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou: Rondo of Revenge"), the game released in celebration of its 25th anniversary.

The story starts with Jinguuji waking up, only to find himself bound and being used as a punching bag by some gangsters. They seem to want information about a certain something from Jinguuji (and they also seem to have a personal grudge against him), though he honestly has no idea what they're talking about. Jinguuji manages to escape, only to discover that the police found the dead body of an ex-client of him in the trunk of his car, making him the prime suspect in the murder case. Chased by both the gangsters and the police now, the Shinjuku detective has to clear his name and find out what happened.

Maybe I should have figured out something was wrong with this game when after my escape from the gangster, I discovered that Jinguuji lost his cigarettes and couldn't smoke. A Jinguuji who can't smoke (and he stays like that until late in the story!). Heck, the Jinguuji games are probably the only games featuring a dedicated smoke button!

I had heard some complaints before I started with the game, but this is probably the worst Jinguuji I ever played. Definitely not how you celebrate a great history of 25 years of hardboiled detective stories set in Shinjuku, Kabukichou with a jazzy soundtrack. First of all, the game is short. I mean, around 6 hours of gameplay is not what you'd expect from something promoted as an anniversary product. The main scenarios in other DS entries in the series were also relatively short, but those also featured ports of the mobile phone entries in the series and other extras!

Another problem is the story itself. The story doesn't seem to know what it should do: it tries to invoke the anniversary spirit by loosely tying it up to previous games and characters, but for some reason the writer(s?) decided to tie it up to plot points and characters nobody cares about. The new characters on the other hand aren't interesting at all, and the scale of the story feels no different from the stories we usually see in the mobile phone entries in the game. And you'd expect a 25th anniversary game developed for the 3DS to be at least a bit more compelling than a mobile phone game. There is not a lot of detecting going on here and most plot developments happen whenever you finally manage to find a gangster alone to beat information out of him.The plot being about Jinguuji on the run, also means that Jinguuji can't go about his business in his usual manner, resulting in a very different kind of story-telling compared to the previous games.

And it's not like they didn't try new things at all, but none of that really works. There is no need for 3D models instead of sprites if they hardly move and don't blend in with the background. Creating the investigation segments in 3D is a great idea (reminiscent of the 'escape the room' genre), but why connect it to a very strict penalty system for every 'useless' action? How am I going to figure things out if I get penalties for every action I try?! The idea of escape sequences, where you have to run away from your assailants in Shinjuku by selecting the correct choices (mingle with crowd / pretend to buy cigarettes / etc) is interesting, but there has to be some logic between the choices and outcome: how am I going to guess that hiding between the trees will result in me getting discovered, but hiding behind a car not?! (And it was done better and with better music in Ashes and Diamonds anyway...)

The good thing of this game? The music is absolutely fantastic, but most of it is reused from older games. And with most, I mean that I can remember only one or two genuine new tracks.

No, Fukushuu no Rondo was very different from Tantei Jinguuji Saburou - Yume no Owari ni ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou - At The End of the Dream"), an older game released for both Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation in 1998. Yume no Owari ni is commonly seen as one of the best, if not the best entry in the long-running series. I beat the game somewhere in September and was not sure whether I was going to write a review, but when you get confronted with a bad game... Like in any good Jinguuji game, the story starts with a new job for the private detective: this time from Nagata Yuka, a high-school friend of Jinguuji's assistent Youko, who is a master student at Fuminaga university. She thinks someone has been stalking her and wants Jinguuji to find out who it is. Jinguuji quickly solves this stalker case apparently, but Yuka disappears the day after that, leaving her teenage sister Mika alone. Jinguuji, Youko and Mika all start their investigation surrounding the disappearance of Yuka.

And I definitely get why it's seen as one of the better Jinguuji games. The story is fun, with the stalker case being the perfect build-up to Yuka's kidnapping, but that isn't all. This isn't the first Jinguuji game to to feature multiple protagonists and parallel story-telling, but it's done quite well here with four characters (Jinguuji, Youko, Mika and police detective Kumano). There is some obsolete overlapping, but most of time it's genuinely adding something to the story, filling in the gaps that pop up if you stick with one character all the time. The story is also a lot darker than you'd expect at first and for fans of the series, it's also interesting that this game actually tells of how Jinguuji and Youko actually met. Sure, it's not an orthodox detective story, but that is not what I expect of Jinguuji games: I want a slightly hardboiled story set at the borders of the 'normal' world and the underworld of Shinjuku featuring great characters with great music.

Yes, great music. Jazz is what makes Jinguuji tick (Jazz and cigarettes. Copious amounts of nicotine) and Yume no Owari ni has some great tracks. At times, you just let go of the controller to listen to classic tunes like Emotion or Silent Shadow II. I understand why the series isn't that known outside Japan (and even there, it's far from mainsteam), but I wish at least the music was better known! And from the audio to the visuals: Yume no Owari ni is also the game with an art direction closest to the designs made by Terada Katsuya and definitely my personal favorite.

In the end, what makes Tantei Jinguuji Saburou work as a series, and it is very similar to series like City Hunter and Angel Heart in that aspect, is that we have a detective protagonist who can move freely in both the 'light and dark' world of Shinjuku who isn't the main focus of the story: instead the clients he meets and the cases he uncovers are what make his adventures memorable (or not). In these 25 years, the Jinguuji series has hardly changed, but that is because it is definitely an example of a game whose focus lies in its story. Jinguuji is a medium through which you present a heartwarming story. Putting Jinguuji in the center of things, or trying to get him away from his normal working conditions / environment results in a shift in story-focus that just doesn't work. If Jinguuji had an overall story like City Hunter or Angel Heart, you could get away with such changes ocassionally, but it's not likely they are going to introduce something like that 25 years in the series...

Short story: don't play Fukushuu no Rondo. Play Yume no Owari ni. Listen to jazz. Smoke.

Original Japanese title(s): 『探偵神宮時三郎　夢の終わりに』 / 『探偵神宮寺三郎　復讐の輪舞（ロンド）』

Fragments of Memories

このままずっと笑顔を見つめていたいだけさ

記憶という両腕に君を抱いて

『Just Before The Sunrise』

I just want to keep looking at your smile

Holding you in these arms called memories

"Just Before the Sunrise"

I really should reconsider my writing style: delaying reviews because I can't come up with introductions (which usually have nothing to do with the actual review) is a bit inefficient...

It had been a while since I last read something by Shimada Souji and because it was recommended by a couple of people, I decided to read Nejishiki Zazetsuki ("Screw-Type Zazetsuki"). The novel stars Shimada's series detective Mitarai Kiyoshi, who debuted in 1981 as an astrologist, but became a full-time private detective in 1987. I hadn't read any Mitarai novels after that, so I was kinda surprised to see that between 1987 and Nejishiki Zatsuki (originally published in 2003), Mitarai Kiyoshi had become a professor specializing in brain science at Sweden's Uppsala University. A man called Egon Markut is brought to him, who seems to have severe problems with his memory: his short-time memory seem to be disfunctional and he even forgets he met Mitarai when the professor leaves his office for a second to get some coffee. Egon seems to have perfect memory up util one specific point in his life, but he has no idea what happened then. The only clue Mitarai has, is a novel Egon Markut wrote: Return to the Tangerine Tree Republic, a fantasy story starring 'Eggy', who visits a fantasy world inhabited by elves who live on top of trees, men with no noses and people with detachable, screw-type heads.

No, I didn't choose a book with a man with amnesia and a narrative-within-a-narrative structure again on purpose.

In a sense, Nejishiki Zatsuki is sorta reminiscent of Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken, Shimada's debut novel. Both stories feature Mitarai Kiyoshi as an armchair detective, with a document functioning as his only clue. But this time, the document is clearly a fantasy story and this is where the novel starts to crumble, in my opinion. The document in Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken worked, because it was set in reality and narrated as such. Deducing from one single sentence in Harry Kemelman's The Nine Mile Walk worked, because it was set in a certain time and period. Heck, Watson's unpublished document in Queen's A Study in Terror worked, because it was a honest narrative. But Nejishiki Zatsuki's Return to the Tangerine Tree Republic doesn't work as a fair document. Sure, Mitarai manages to deduce a lot from it, by literary analysis and comparisons with reality, but it is a lot more shakey, a lot more vague than the utterances mentioned above. It never feels convincing and Shimada occasionally allows for Mitarai to check his deductions (which are of course confirmed), but it feels very forceful: the deductions don't become real because they are convincing enough and are the most logical conclusion drawn from the evidence, it' because the fictional creator arbitrarily just decides that it is the truth in this novel. Which is of course true for all works of fiction, but you need to have at least some level of plausibility to really work.

In the end, Mitarai manages to deduce the truth behind what made Egon's mind go boom, but the case itself is so simple, it's almost unbelievable the same author wrote novels like Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken and Naname Yashiki no Hanzai. In his early novels, a main characteristic of Shimada's work was an almost idiotic grand mechanical trick. As if he was working on a different scale of life. He would use hammers and drills instead of thread and needles to make a locked room, and still be subtle about it. In Nejishiki Zatsuki, you're left with a case that anyone could solve the moment the vagueries of Return to the Tangerine Tree Republic solved.

In the end, it feels like Shimada wanted to work with the premise of having to solve a real-life case working from a fantasy book, but the problem is that none of the elements really work here: at one hand, we have the too vague fantasy book that allows for very broad deductions, making Mitarai's deductions feel plausible, but not 100% convincing. The way Shimada makes these deductions truth feels forced. On the other hand, the real-life case to which the fantasy book refers to feels too bland and you're left with the feeling that you just worked yourself through a 600 page book without an equivalent pay-off.

And oh, had I already mentioned that a new English translation of a novellette by Shimada Souji is to appear in EQMM soon?

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司 『ネジ式ザゼツキー』

The Black Cat

"One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; - hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; - hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; - hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin - a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it - if such a thing wore possible - even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God"

"The Black Cat"

When a friend said earlier that this habit of mine was strange, I shrugged it away, but now that I think about it, playing a videogame while watching/listening to a video playthrough of another videogame is a bit strange maybe. Then again, a videogame where the universes of several game series collide isn't that different from a videogame where Sherlock Holmes has to take on Chtulhu, I guess.

Kuronekokan no Satsujin ("The Black Cat House Murders") is the sixth novel in Ayatsuji Yukito's Yakata series and revolves around an elderly man who has lost his memory after a traumatic escape from a fire. Almost all clues to his identity were lost in the fire, except for a notebook he had with him when he was saved. It appears to be a diary-like record of a caretaker of a cottage, who is, considering also fingerprint research, is the John Doe. The contents however are quite shocking, as they detail a murder case that happened when the son of the cottage's owner and his three friends visited last August and how everybody present there contrived to hide the body. Our John Doe wants it to be just a piece of fiction, but he sadly enough finds one piece of evidence in the record that tie it to reality: the cottage, refered to as the Black Cat House, is said to be designed by Nakamura Seiji, who really did exist. Wanting to find more about his own past, the man contacts the expert on Nakamura Seiji, writer Shimada Kiyoshi and his editor Kawaminami to help him.

Wow, maybe it wasn't that smart of me to read this right after Tokeikan no Satsujin. I wouldn't say that Kuronekokan is bad per se, but it is definitely very different from the large-scale Tokeikan. Well, of course the two-dimensional narrative is still present here (with the story alternating between the investigations of Shimada and snippets from the diary), but because I wrote quite enough about this characteristic of the series just a few days ago, I am just going to refer to that review. There is not much to add to that for this review, besides a comment that you won't find anything shocking here from Ayatsuji's side.

Well, except maybe for the fact that this time, the use of a story-within-a-story narrative brings forth an armchair detectivy vibe to the series. Sure, this type of narrative was also used in Meirokan, but there the story-within-a-story is actually presented as a narrative on its own, while here the old man's diary really just functions as a problem which the reader has to solve, not unlike a proper Challenge to the Reader type of story. The funny thing though, is that while the story-within-a-story narrative in Meirokan doesn't succeed as such from the beginning, because you are aware that not everything is solved within that inner narrative, while in Kuronekokan, you are never really sure what the main problem is and what you are exactly looking for.

The main problem is quite as easy to see through though, which might be a bit disappointing, but I did find it quite amusing to see that despite having arrived at the solution quite early on, I had still failed to pick up quite an amount of hints and foreshadowing lines Ayatsuji was kind enough to hide in the story. Not sure how that happened. Kuronekokan will not go into my memory bank as a remarkable detective story, but I have a feeling I will remember this novel as one where hints and foreshadowing were woven quite well in the narrative. Well, except for one thing that I don't think is as absolute as Ayatsuji tries to make you believe.

It is quite obvious that Ayatsuji was inspired by Queen on several levels with this novel, actually the most I've ever seen in his works. The length of the story and the set-up of the story actually made me think that this was originally a short story written for the Kyoto University Mystery Club (as they often tend to take a Queenian tone), but apparently not (of the Yakata series, only Ningyoukan seems to be a rewritten version of an older, published script, as well as the not-really-Yakata-series-but-close-enough Kirigoutei Satsujin Jiken).  

Kuronekokan is a fairly short novel (350 pages), probably somewhere around the size of Ningyoukan and that's not the only thing they have in common. These two novels also differ from Jukkakukan, Suishakan, Meirokan and Tokeikan because they aren't really closed circle serial murder mysteries, making them feel very light and relaxed compared to those four. The 'big four' feature 'bigger' stories, with the cast being occupied with some activity or some quest (i.e. researching an old murder, an annual gathering etc), but Kuronekokan and Ningyoukan are about murders that 'just' happen unexpectedly. Once again, not a bad thing per se, but I wouldn't say that I am really looking for that in the Yakata series. These 'main events' combined with Nakamura Seiji's buildings always made it feel like there was something like destiny working there, like all the stars aligned for murder or something like that, but here it feels more like... coincidence.

And to echo the previous post: another three to go in the series! (*I am pretty sure that the next review won't be a Yakata review though)

Original Japanese title(s): 綾辻行人　『黒猫館の殺人』

「Time to live, time to lie, time to cry, time to die」

「時の流れには逆らえず色褪せてゆく想いもあり

それでもさめざめ流れてく涙はちょっといいもんじゃない」

『As the Dew』 (Garnet Crow)

"Not able to go against the flow of time, these feelings slowly fade away

But despite that it is not bad to have these flowing tears"

"As the Dew" (Garnet Crow)

I am not sure why I even still wear a wristwatch. I mean, I also walk around with a cellphone and a music player, which all feature clocks, so why bother with an object that has no other function that displaying time? Heck, I usually take it off when I am in class. I would have a good reason to wear it if my watch had a stungun function or a secret compartment with a piece of paper to restore my sealed memory or something, but alas.

The titular Clock House in Ayatsuji Yukito's Tokeikan no Satsujin ("The Clock House Murders") is a mansion divided in two parts, with the 'old mansion' being the original Clock House, a place where Koga Michinori stored his immense collection of clocks from all over the world and related research material. It has been many years since his death, but the mansion is still being managed as it was at the time as according to his will. Rumors in the neighborhood tell about the ghost of a young girl who died ten years ago haunting the place and as a special project organized by occult magazine CHAOS, the medium Koumyouji Mikoto will attempt to get into contact with the ghost. Koumyouji, three staff members from CHAOS and a group of students from the occult research club from W-University are to spend three days inside the old mansion, locked away from the rest of the world. People start to get murdered however and with the keys to the exit lost and no way to contact the people in the 'new mansion', the survivors can only wait until the third day in the hope that help will come from the outside. Amateur detective / recently debuted writer Shimada Kiyoshi however is also investigating the Clock House unbeknownst to the people inside the old mansion, as it was designed by Nakamura Seiji, whose buildings have a history of stirring up murder.

The fifth novel in Ayatsuji's Yakata (mansion) series and after a somewhat strange day out in Ningyoukan no Satsujin, we're back at what can be considered the good old formula of this series. A suspenseful, dense story with loads of events that happen in a very short period of time, set in a closed circle situation within the titular Clock House. And it's good! I might have said that it was good for the series to have gone on that little field trip in Ningyoukan, but let's be honest, it was definitely the weakest of the Yakata novels up until then. Tokeikan brings us back to the basics, and I mean that in a more literal way than you'd think.

Because in a sense, this feels like a more refined, readable version of the first novel in the series, Jukkakukan no Satsujin. Which is also because Kawaminami, Shimada's sidekick in Jukkakukan, returns in this novel as the new editor of CHAOS, but we are also presented with another two-dimensional narrative that is a staple within the Yakata series. Suishakan had a past/present narrative and Meirokan a novel/outside world narrative, but both Jukkakukan and Tokeikan feature an inside/outside narrative, where you follow the closed circle horror-suspense narrative on one side, and an investigation narrative on the other side. This is naturally a bit dangerous, because it blurs the difference between the two novels, but the atmosphere in both novels is quite different.

I have to say again though, the main trick, while absolutely fantastic and greatly performed, with excellent foreshadowing and hint-placing, once again hinges on the same basic idea Ayatsuji has been playing around ever since the first novel in the series, which makes it fairly easy to spot. But suppose I would have been able to read each Yakata novel with no expectations / a priori knowledge of the series, then I think I would have been the most impressed by Tokeikan's main trick of all Yakata novels. This is also because of the structure of the story: Jukkakukan was obviously inspired by Christie's And Then There Were None, and ends with everyone dead on the island. The murders in Tokeikan seem to get solved right after the old mansion is opened again, but with another hundred pages left in the novel, any reader can guess that there is something more coming and it is in this section Ayatsuji reveals that the main trick in Tokeikan is something different than you would have thought in the first place and pleasantly so. Like I said, the main trick's performance hinges on a pattern Ayatsuji uses often, but the trick itself, the type and especially the execution, is really brilliant and marks a new way to look at that type of trick, in my opinion.

Tokeikan also feels more like a refined Jukkakukan in the sense that it is a lot more accessible. Jukkakukan was immensely meta, with discussions about, and references to classic detective fiction everywhere (heck, the characters were all known by nicknames as Agatha, Ellery and Car!). The setting featuring students belonging to a mystery circle was also strongly influenced by Ayatsuji's own participation in a mystery club. In short, Jukkakukan was very much written from Ayatsuji's viewpoint, for people like him. Which isn't a bad thing per se and I still like Jukkakukan the best of all I've read of Ayatsuji, but it is not the most accessible, I think. Tokeikan on the other hand loses practically all of the meta-atmosphere, making it work as a 'standalone' novel: it doesn't feel too strongly connected with other writers / books as was the case in Jukkakkan. Tokeikan is like a Jukkakukan written for a more general public, by an Ayatsuji has grown in the years as a writer.

I do hesitate in recommending reading Tokeikan first though: the Yakata series is definitely a series that references the previous novels. What's more, Nakamura Seiji's existence is a very important factor in the novel and his character is explored the most in Jukkakukan. If you know nothing about Nakamura Seiji's 'strange' architecture and the things he likes to hide in his designs, you might get disappointed/mad about some events in the Yakata novels. In a sense, Nakamura Seiji does represent an unfair element in the otherwise fairplay novels (because practically anything is possible in his buildings), but this Nakamura-cheat code is never a vital hint to arrive at the truth, and if it is a vital part, then it will get revealed at an early enough stage allowing the reader some thinking time.

Tokeikan no Satsujin is like with most Yakata novels a recommended read however. And another four to go in the series!

 Original Japanese title(s): 綾辻行人　『時計館の殺人』

Off With His Head

「けれど堂戸は、山根のように人形を気に入ることはできなかった。むしろ不気味にすら感じられた。人間とそっくり同じ形なのに、生きていないもの。それは屍体と共通している」『『アリス・ミラー城』殺人事件』

"But Douto didn't like puppets like Yamane did. In fact, she thought they were creepy. Even though puppets look like humans, they aren't alive. A fact they share with dead bodies"
"'Alice Mirror Castle' Murder Case"

Yes, this month's rule: all post titles in English. Just for fun. I don't think it has any actual influence on the visitor count though...

Confession to make: I finished reading Kitayama Takekuni's 'Guillotine Jou' Satsujin Jiken ("'Guillotine Castle' Murder Case") at the end of October. No idea why I postponed writing this review for so long, since I did like it. After finding a photo of a girl standing in front of a guillotine with the message "help" on the back, great detective Makube Naco (note: self-proclaimed) and his assistent Yorinashi Yuuki (note: according to Naco) head to the Guillotine Castle. The place gained this cute nickname because its recently deceased owner collected all kinds of execution tools. Which of course guillotines. And talking about guillotines, the castle owner was found decapitated one year earlier in a locked room. Together with a Russian doll that is rumored to be an executioner automaton. But that was one year ago.  But luckily for our great detective (?), new murders (of the locked room kind) await him in the Guillotine Castle.

As always, Kitayama Takekuni utilizes a closed circle situation in what can only be considered its own closed circle: Kitayama's novels seem always to be set in a somewhat different world, a world that is very alike, but not quite like 'our' world. These worlds feel quite artificial actually, though I am not sure whether that is what Kitayama is aiming for. But at any rate, these worlds, and the closed circle situations set inside them work very effectively in conveying a feeling of uneasiness, of something just being wrong on the reader, which really heightens the tension in his novels. Though it is a hard thing to do, as you don't want to estrange too much fom the reader (I for example, found it distracting in 'Clock Tower Jou' Satsujin Jiken).

Guillotine Jou Satsujin Jiken features two grand tricks, both involving a lot of cutting up bodies in a locked room (the main one being that of four girls being cut up and spread across several rooms in a locked space). Both tricks are quite impressive, but I am not sure whether I would consider them fairly clued. Also, I am normally not that big a fan of this type of trick in locked room mysteries, even though it is a characteristic of Kitayama. Nevertheless, the solution behind the two murders do impress when the truth is revealed to the reader and the way the two tricks are intertwined with each other is really fantastic. It's almost undetectable, but you can only nod when the link becomes clear.

And Kitayama wouldn't be Kitayama if he wasn't awfully meta in his novels. This time character identities and names within novels become a main theme in the novel, but what is impressive is that this isn't something Kitayama does just to flaunt with how smart he is, it is a vital part of the story and the way this theme is connected to the rest of the novel is really few authors can imitate.

This is where Kitayama excels in, but it forms one of Kitayama's weaker points. He manages to mix themes, tricks and setting by creating a complete artificial world where he is god, where he can change everything to suit what he wants to accomplish. Which is what most writers strive for, I guess, but the artificialness of Kitayama's stories can also feel to overwhelming, making it hard for the reader to get into.

Guillotine Jou Satsujin Jiken however is an excellent example of it simply working and what you get is an awesome murder mystery that is worth the time and effort to read.

Original Japanese title(s): 北山猛邦 『『ギロチン城殺』殺人事件』