In which the Queens go the theatre

"Ellery is merly indulging in his favorite game of ratiocination. He doesn't know where the papers are any more than you do. he's guessing.... in detective literature," he added with a sad smile, "they call it the 'art of deduction,'"

"The Roman Hat Mystery"

 
It's almost been two months and I'm still waiting for the boat to deliver the books I sent to myself from Japan, so to fill the time, I finally decided to reread Ellery Queen. Because it's been a while. I'm planning to do the first nine novels only, and seeing I already did The French Powder Mystery a year or two ago, I'll be skipping that one too, so eight to go. And yes, I know that there are two persons behind the EQ nome-de-plume and Barnaby Ross and all of that, but as I will be mostly writing about the novels based on their plot and structure, and not about the world outside that (writers and such), I'll be just talking about Queen, as 'one' writer for convenience's sake. And to make it clear from the start: I refer to the writer as Queen, and to the character as Ellery (which is also what I do for Norizuki Rintarou and Arisugawa Alice by the way).

Reviews of Ellery Queen's 'nationality' novels:
The Roman Hat Mystery
The French Powder Mystery
The Dutch Shoe Mystery
The Greek Coffin Mystery
The Egyptian Cross Mystery
The American Gun Mystery
The Siamese Twin Mystery
The Chinese Orange Mystery
The Spanish Cape Mystery

The Roman Hat Mystery is indeed about a hat, though there is nothing particular Roman to it. The titular hat belonged to a certain Monte Field, crooked laywer and his untimely demise is what forms the main mystery of this novel. His rather dead body was found in a seat of the Roman Theater, during a particularly popular play and two items that the police would have liked to have found near the body were sadly not present there. That is, Mr. Monte Field's top hat and of course his murderer (because that would make things a lot easier). Inspector Richard Queen of the New York police has little choice but to try to find hat and murderer somewhere in the theater. Which is rather full people who really want to go home, with the play cancelled and a dead body among their midst and all. But the inspector doesn't has to work alone! Besides a loyal and capable group of subordinates, he's also blessed with a son Ellery, who can be pretty darn smart when he isn't talking about first edition books and all.

The first Queen novel and has both elements the reader will find in following novels, as well as some 'strange' other artistic choices. The biggest surprise of The Roman Hat Mystery is perhaps the role of our master-detective Ellery Queen. Ellery Queen might be presented as the detective in this story, but this is actually more inspector Queen's story than his son's. The story mostly follows the inspector's efforts in locating the victim's murderer and his hat and the reader is introduced to a large group of policemen, the District Attorney and shown the ways the inspector interacts with everybody. His son, billed the protagonist, on the other hand stays largely in the background and in fact, does not even appear in person in the last section of the book, nor at the crucial moment of unmasking the murderer. Yes, it was Ellery who solves the case, but he has nothing to do with the practicals of bringing the case to an end. In fact, Ellery might as well have been a ghost or some figment of the inspector's imagination, assisting him at the crucial moment with brilliant deductions. In following novels, Ellery luckily gains more personality and already in the second Queen novel, The French Powder Mystery, we see a more active Ellery in the form of a detective, rather than an oracle figure misplaced in a police story.

But the problem of the missing top hat is something we'll see a lot in Queen novels. I can't remember where this was, but I once read a text that described Ellery Queen as having a fetish for objects; that is, a lot of (the deductions in) his stories are focused on objects, whether they are missing or present or in a certain state or condition, and these objects are almost even more central to the story than for example the victim himself. In The Roman Hat Mystery, the fact the victim's hat is missing is what sets the Queens on the right trail, but one can for example also think of the beginning part of The Greek Coffin Mystery, where drinkware becomes a central point, or the cards in The Siamese Twin Mystery.

And if we're dealing with specifically a missing object, like in this novel, you can bet on a Grand Search. The Queens, they love searching for objects. And the people in the world of the Queens, they love hiding things. In all kind of places. If it's not in here, then it's beneath that or behind this or on top of that. These searches have a tendency to be set in a large area, forcing the Queens (+ accompanying police) to work very thoroughly, making it all the more surprising when we discover where the desired object was all the time.

The Queens also love rather strange crime scenes. A murder inside a packed theater? What about a body on display in a department store?  One might call it objectification of the dead body, together with the crime scene, as the murder itself is not half as interesting as the picture of how the dead body is found. In general, the bodies aren't in places that are strange per se. It's just a small adjustment to the scene that makes you feel uneasy. A man neatly dressed in a theater? Normal, except for the fact he's dead and not wearing a hat. Somebody lying in a showcase bed of a department store? Normal, except for the fact she's dead (and was locked inside the wall). These are the 'normal' examples, but there are some stranger ones in the following novels.

The other major Queenian trope, the Challenge to the Reader is also present and this is something I still enjoy thoroughly. I am not very familiar with contemporary English(-language) detective novels, so I am not sure how often this is used, but I still come across challenges in Japanese mystery novels and approach these novels with a slightly different mindset than 'normal' detective novels. Sure, I try to solve detective novels myself anyway, but give a challenge, and I am at least sure the writer tried to make it fair for me too.

I am not too familiar with the activities of other mystery clubs in Japan, but at least Kyoto University Mystery Club has a long tradition of Guess the Criminal stories, which are short stories, with a challenge to the reader (whether explicitly written or not): members have to read the first part of the story, up until the challenge and try to solve the case themselves, after which they are handed out the solution. This might explain why the trope is still relatively popular in Japan, as writers who originate from clubs with such a tradition are probably more trained in this device, and maybe also more willing to use it.

But how is The Roman Hat Mystery as a novel? At one hand, we have the logical deductions based on the elimination method that make the Queen novels such a joy to read and elements like an exciting search for a top hat and such. On the other hand, most of the characters besides the inspector are a bit bland and the deductions and hints that ultimately lead to the identity of the murderer are not as refined as in later novels: yes, the elimination method of deduction does point to the murderer (that is, we know the murderer has characteristics X, Y and Z, and only person A has all three characteristics, ergo he is the murderer), but not all hints are not laid down as visible to the reader as they should have been, making it feel less satisfying. Compare with the direct sequel The French Powder Mystery, where the murderer may seem to come out of nowhere, but the logic and the underlying hints in the text are fundamentally much stronger (and thus more convincing to the reader).

I would definitely read The Roman Hat Mystery though. Despite some minor points, it's still a fine mystery novel and has enough of the elements that grow out to be typical Queen tropes. Maybe not the best Queen novel, and maybe a bit 'different' from the other early Queen novels because of its focus on the formal police investigation, but enough of a royal entry.

The Moving Finger

「では、本題に入る前に予備知識として、推理小説における首切り殺人の歴史についてー」

「それは省略だ」警視が意義を唱えた。「後でおまえが本を書く時に、適当に挿入しろ。俺はそんなものに興味はない。すぐ本題に入るんだ」

『誰彼』

"Well, before we move on to the main topic, let's review the history of decapitation murders in detective novels..."

"Let's skip that," the commisioner said. "Just insert one when you write a novel about this case, 'cause I'm not interested. Let's start"

"Twilight"

So there's a new detective drama running in Japan, Otenki Oneesan ("Weather Girl"). The series itself seems to be a scientific detective series in the spirit of Higashino Keigo's Galileo (of which the second season also started recently!), but I was initially drawn to the somewhat vague marketing copy "I've seen through your weather trick" What is a weather trick? My first thought: "And then you lured the victim into a grassy field full flowers and trees, knowing it would become dry and sunny in the afternoon, which would effectively kill the victim because of his hay fever!" (this would definitely work with me as a victim).

It's been just over two years since my review of Yokomizo Seishi's Kindaichi Kousuke no Shinbouken, an underwhelming collection of stories which were all expanded upon / rewritten to novelletes / novels later. At the end of the review I also mentioned I already had the sequel, Kindaichi Kousuke no Kikan ("The Return of Kindaichi Kousuke"), in my possession. So a very late review (and to be honest: I only reached out to the book because I have nothing else to read at the moment). The set-up is the same: all stories feature the famous private detective Kindaichi Kousuke, with his trademark messy hair and knack for never really preventing people from dying around him (something he shares with his grandson). Different from Yokomizo's more famous works however, almost all of these stories are set in the city, rather than in secluded communities (there are also no legends / curses / etc.). Also, all stories in this volume have been rewritten at one stage or another in Yokomizo's career, either using exactly the same title, or a slightly revised title.

A letter delivered at the wrong address is the cue for Kindaichi Kousuke to step in on a poison pen letter case in Doku no Ya ("The Poison Arrow"). The letters, signed by someone called the Golden Arrow, aren't just slander though; whether true or not (mostly not), the Golden Arrow wants money for his silence. One of the victims is Matoba Natsuko, who came back from the United States with her disabled daughter recently. But the investigation of Kindaichi couldn't prevent from Natsuko being murdered, being stabbed in her back, right through the tattoo of playing cards she had on her back. Is it related to the poison pen letter case? Of course, because this is a short story and we can't have too much subplots here. A rather hasty story, and its greatest weakness is that it a) 'borrows' a famous trick from a Christie novel, b) without hiding that properly, so anyone familiar with that particular Christie novel (and there is a big chance you'll have read it), will know what happened.

The main problem of Trumpdaijou no Kubi ("The Head on the Card Table") is deftly described in its title at. A cut off head. On a table. Oh, and the body is gone. The victim is a stripper called Akemi, who had been playing bridge the previous night and the guests all swear she still had her head on her body when they left her in her room. As a problem, it is interesting what Yokomizo tries here, as we all know what to expect when we find a body without a head, but we don't encounter heads without a body that often, but the short story format binds Yokomizo to a more compact, focused set-up of his tale (which doesn't work out for him well usually, in my opinion), the reader won't have that much trouble figuring out what happened, though I have to admit that this was an okay story, definitely among the better of this collection.

Kashi Boat 13 Gou ("Rental Boat 13") has the titular boat floating, with two dead bodies in it. For some reason, a woman has first been strangled, then stabbed in her heart, after which her head was cut off mostly from her neck. Next to her, a man has been stabbed in his heart, then strangled and his head cutt off slightly from her neck. It doesn't take long to identify the victims, but why did the murderer act in such a strange way? What starts out as a problem which seems fit for an excellent Queenian deduction chain, is solved rather easily because one of the victims overheard something which explains everything in an instant. And I don't mean that it was something vague that suddenly set off the thinking machine in Kindaichi's head, what was overheard explained the murders, practically as is. Which is a shame, because the premise is fun and while actually most of  the mystery inYokomizo's short stories can be explained by reexamining the human relations / the relations between characters, this has been one where the trope worked really well.

If Doku no Ya breathed Christie, then Shina Ougi no Onna ("The Woman with the Chinese Fan") can only be described as Carr. The titular 'woman with a Chinese fan' refers to a painting of a woman who famously poisoned her husband in the Meiji period. Fastforward many years ahead, where Minako, a relative of the infamous poisoner, wakes up from sleepwalking, only to find her mother-in-law and maid in a quite dead and murdered situation. Believing she has the same evil blood in her veins as her famous aunt and killed them during her sleep, she tries to commit suicide, but is luckily saved by the police. Kindaichi suspects there is more to it though, and while the solution works, it's very simple (but does require knowledge of a certain historical event).

By now it shouldn't be a surprise, but Tsubo no Naka no Onna ("The Woman in the Urn") indeed features a woman in an urn. When a collector of urns is murdered, his assistent witness the murderer, a woman, trying to escape by getting inside an urn. Noticing the assistent outside the window, the murderer decides to flee on foot, but what kind of murderer was she? This is definitely my favorite story in the collection, as it features a great hidden hint and the use of very commonly used trope in detective fiction, but one which I hadn't foreseen at all, so executed very well. It does ask for a bit of suspension of disbelief though.

More poison pen letters in Uzu no Naka no Onna ("The Woman In the Whirlpool") and once again it led to the murder of a woman. Because in Yokomizo Seishi's stories, women are always beautiful, but they also have a tendency to get murdered. The story feels like a mish-mash of all kind of tropes we have seen in the previous stories in this collection already, which makes it hard to judge. Heck, even names are reused in this story (for different people), making it a very confusing story to read, because memories get mixed. A whirlpool, indeed.

Tobira no Naka no Onna ("The Woman in the Door") is just... underwhelming. With cut-off heads, nearly cut-off heads, women in urns and women with tattoos, a story with a dead body discovered by a girl who happened to have reason to kill the victim and a note with a mysterious message is just not that impressive. Yokomizo's trick once again lies in his less-than-pretty human relations and resulting actions, but it's just too little, too late in this collection.

Meirosou no Kaijin ("The Monster of the Maze Mansion") is the most famous of this collection, as this short story was rewritten as a proper novel under the name Meirosou no Sangeki ("The Tragedy of the Maze Mansion"). Which was probably better, because Yokomizo comes with a great history for the titular mansion, which was built with countless of hidden passageways and trap doors, but practically nobody knows where they are anymore. A murder happens in the mansion, but the hidden passageways and such are... almost of no consequence to the actual mystery. Which is a missed opportunity, because this was the one story in the collection where the creepy atmosphere of Yokomizo really started to come alive, only for it to retreat almos immediately. It's a decent mystery, but the disappointment is larger than the satisfaction you'll derive from reading it.

Overall not as disappointing as Kindaichi Kousuke no Shinbouken, but still not a collection I would recommend to the reader. I am not a big fan of Yokomizo's short stories anyway, but if you really want to read them, the rewritten versions are probably better than these original versions. But this volume is really something you should read if you have nothing else to read: it may be /the original version/, but that doesn't always means better.

Original Japanese title(s):  横溝正史 『金田一耕助の帰還』　「毒の矢」「トランプ台上の首」「貸しボート１３号」「支那扇の女」「壺の中の女」「渦の中の女」「扉の中の女」「迷路荘の怪人」

『死者からの伝言をどうぞ』

"Slechts even flitste het door hem heen, dat het geen wijkmoord leek te worden: en dan nog wel in de wijk, waar hij zoveel jaren van zijn jeugd had doorgebracht en na zijn trouwen opnieuw was gaan wonen: Overschie. Dat de moord op de rijksweg was gepleegd, scheen die mogelijkheid al uit te sluiten. Want de weg liep wel dwars door Overschie, maar bleef er tegelijkertijd... buiten. Wat op de weg gebeurde hoorde bij het doorgaande verkeer en maakte van het bestaan in de wijk geen deel uit" 

"Puur geheim op rijksweg 13"

"For a second, it flashed through his mind that this probably wouldn't become a neighbourhood murder. And this was the neighbourhood he had spent many years of youth in and had come to live in after his marriage: Overschie. The fact the murder had been commited on the highway seemed to eliminate that possibility. The road did run through Overschie, but was also... outside it. What happened on the road, was part of the ongoing traffic and not part of the neighbourhood"

"Pure Secret on Highway 13"

 
Still waiting for Japanese books. Still waiting.

Oh, and a happy Reichenbach Falls day! 

We were presented with a classic whodunnit and a locked room murder problem in Cor Docter's first two mystery novels and the final entry in his topographical mystery series, Rein geheim op rijksweg 13 ("Pure Secret on Highway 13"), brings us a dying message, written in red paint and written on the inside of a van parked on the emergency lane of highway 13. The accompanying dead body (that's what makes it a dying message) was found by two thieves who wanted to steal parts from the van, but that plan kinda blew up, with a murder and all. But there are plenty of clues to follow for the police, and with events like a woman falling from a building, a suspicious old man popping up here and there and the escape of a high-profile convict from prison seemingly related to the dead guy in the van, commisioner Vissering has lots to do, and he isn't even sure whether he'll be free for Christmas in a few days!

Rein geheim op rijksweg 13 has similar the same problems to Koude vrouw in Kralingen, but it's a bit more balanced, making it the better of the two. Both novels are a bit disorienting halfway through their stories, because Docter keeps on moving the plot, feeding the reader (and the police) more events and revelations that might or might not be related to the main murder. Sure, an occasional red herring is welcome, but with these two novels the development of the plots felt a bit too arbitrary. Like I said in the Koude vrouw review, at times it feels like Docter is just padding out the plot to fill pages. It's entertaining padding, that I will admit, but if you think about it too much, you'll see that sometimes the way one part of the story connects to another is a bit uneven.

Overall though, Rein geheim op rijksweg 13 is a very entertaining story. The opening pages are captivating, being a narration of how the two thieves stumble upon the body. Already in this part Vissering comes up with some great logical deductions that just ooze Queen-spirit (and the book is about a dying message!). The conclusion is no less impressive, as one might have expected considering the previous two novels.

One of my favourite parts of the series on a whole are the way commisioner Vissering and his subordinate Grijphand work: every now and then one tells the other his theory, with the other acting as the Devil's Advocate. Deductions thus develop through discussion, not unlike the way it's done in the Gyakuten game series or the Revoir series. I personally enjoy this a lot, as ever-changing deductions in the realm of the imagination are at least as fun to read as actual developments in real investigations, in the real world. I felt this element at his best in this last part of the series.

Cor Docter's little series on Rotterdam has been fun though and it's a pity the books aren't available in any other language. But then again, that can be said of most of the books I discuss here... Oh, and yes, this review is a bit shorter than usual, but that's because I mentioned the most interesting points about the series on a whole and such in the earlier reviewy already (leaving next to nothing for this review!).

Original Dutch title(s): Cor Docter, Rein geheim op Rijksweg 13

『赤い部屋』

"Ik geloof niet aan een inspiratie, die zomaar komt. Niet veel mensen hebben Edison goed begrepen, toen hij zei, dat uitvinden 99 procent transpiratie en een procent inspiratie was. Hij bedoelde er mee te zeggen dat je dat ene onmisbare procentje alleen maar kon krijgen, als je voortdurend met een zaak bezig was en je er in verdiepte. Nooit kwam dat ene procentje eerst. Maar de mensen willen graag aan dat soort dingen geloven. Daardoor kreeg je zo'n verhaal als van Archimedes, die in het bad zat, eureuka riep, en ineens alles wist. Of van Newton, die een appel op z'n hoofd kreeg en meteen de wetten van de zwaartekracht noteerde"

"Koude Vrouw in Kralingen"

"I don't believe in inspiration coming from nowhere. A lot of people misunderstood Edison when he said that inventions come from 99 percent of transpiration and 1 percent of inspiration. What he meant, was that you could only get hold of that necessary one percent if you had been working on the case all the time and had studied it deeply. That one percent won't just fall into your lap. But people just want to believe that. That's why you have that story of Archimedes in bath, shouting out Eureka and suddenly knowing everything. Or that one of Newton, who got an apple on his head and jotted down the laws of gravity instantly"

"A Cold Woman in Kralingen".

I don't mind reading Dutch novels (I really don't!), but I really hope my stacks of Japanese novels will arrive soon here. It's been over a month now, so they should arrive one of these weeks. Then it's back to reviews of mostly Japanese fiction and a translation of a short story once in a while!

Cor Docter's Koude vrouw in Kralingen ("A Cold Woman in Kralingen") is the sequel to Droeve Poedel in Delfshaven and is once again a 'topographical mystery', a detective novel set in a particular region, where the local characteristics, history and culture are to be an integral part of the plot. This time Docter brings the reader to Kralingen and we're not the only ones interested in this part of Rotterdam. The society Precious Kralingen is a club where members gather to talk about the past of Kralingen. At least, that is what they claim to do, because all the lectures they give are nothing but a smokescreen for their real objective, which is... precisely what? The reader doesn't know and the members of Precious Kralingen sure aren't going to tell him. So when a locked room murder happens after one of Precious Kralingen's fake lectures, the members are afraid the police will investigate the exact activities of the club. They decide to blame the victim's son for the murder, but the son makes a run for it and falls out of the window. Convinced they can now present a easy case, complete with victim and murderer, they inform the police, but commisioner Vissering isn't fooled that easy. Especially as this case appears to be connected to another case he has been investigating.

The first half of this novel is great. The members of Precious Kralingen fabricating their solution and trying to force it on the police is similar to the events of Natsuki Shizuko's W no Higeki, or an episode of Columbo. Indeed, the way Vissering in turns slowly manages to find out what really happened at the meeting, by pouncing on the weak points of the members' stories and the psychological weak links of the group, is exactly what our favourite lieutenant liked to do. Here, Koude vrouw in Kralingen is very exciting and the pages fly by as you see the fake solution slowly crumbling.

But the latter half of the novel is weird. And I don't mean the pleasant kind of weird. For example, one part of the puzzle is solved mainly because a guilty party presented himself/herself to the police for no real reason. Well, the book was probably nearing its page limit and Docter had to wrap that subplot up some way, so he summoned a Deux Ex Machina to solve that part of his novel. It really comes out of nowhere and sorta cheats the reader. I am not a big fan of the decalogue and the twenty rules, but heck, when I read an orthodox detective novel, I do want a resolution to the puzzle that is logical and rational. It has to be hinted at in a fair way. You can't have write 150 pages about a problem and basically have someone appear just before the ending saying 'it was me' and have it over with!

The same holds for the locked room mystery, but to a lesser extent. The problem of the locked room isn't even relevant to most part of the story, because the members of Precious Kralingen tried to hide that fact for the police. The solution to the problem is... not implemented well in this novel. I have to admit though, the solution isn't the most elegant one I've seen, and is one of those solutions Edogawa Rampo would have used as one of many, many tricks for his more pulpish novels which only work if you don't think too long about it, but it works and isn't unfair. But, on the other hand, while the solution is thus fair in the sense that it can be done, I am not sure about how fair the presentation was. Here we have a locked room problem which is only discussed briefly at the beginning and the ending of the story and the inspirational 'hint' that led Vissering to the solution works in hindsight, but I really don't think that that is enough to be really fair to the reader. This solution, in my mind, needs one extra hint, one extra stage in the deduction to be fair to the reader. Now we have a solution which is realistic and somewhat original, but presented in a way which won't leave the reader satisfied.

I didn't think Koude Vrouw in Kralingen was as enjoyable as Droeve Poedel in Delfshaven overall, but the great beginning  does make it a read worthwhile for those who can read Dutch. And a review of the final book in the series will be up soon. I already finished reading it, but as always, there's quite a lag between reading and writing.

Original Dutch title(s): Cor Docter, "Koude Vrouw in Kralingen"

「ご馳走さん」

「ラーメンには人間社会の縮図がある。物悲しさから、小さな幸せまで何もかも」

『ゆげ福　博多探偵事件ファイル』

"Ramen is like a minature map of human society. There is sadness, a bit of hapiness and every else"

 "Yugefuku - The Hakata Detective Case Files"

I recently bought Columbo on DVD and even though I have seen most of the series, there are still episodes I've never seen, so that has been a fun way of spending my time lately. And then it hit me. A Columbo game like that Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo game where you play as the villain would be awesome. Slowly figuring out the perfect crime, and trying to get away from that pesky inspector. And just as you think you have defeated the last boss, he returns with his superspecialawesome attack "just more thing" (unavoidable, instant death). Make it happen!

And now for something completely different. It shouldn't be a secret by now that I love ramen. Especially Hakata's porkbone tonkotsu ramen. And it is probably also known that I love the town of Fukuoka. So you can guess my excitement when I first heard about Nishimura Ken's Yugefuku - Hakata Tantei Jiken File ("Yugefuku - The Hakata Detective Case Files"), a connected short story collection set in Fukuoka with a ramen theme! Yuge Takumi is a private detective operating in Fukuoka with a great love for ramen. His father once made Fukuoka's best ramen, but disappeared one day. Yuge (who is still called Yugefuku by his close friends after his father's ramen stand) is still trying to figure out what happened to his father, while also doing his normal business. Which for some reason or another, is often connected to that wonderful noodle dish.

I guess that this is what Cor Docter would have called a topographical mystery. The local culture of Fukuoka definitely comes alive in this short story collection, with lively descriptions of downtown Fukuoka and descriptions of many (actually existing) ramen restaurants, as well as copious usage of the local dialect. In fact, in the many years I've blogged, I've often talked about how I love 1) food-themed detectives, 2) usage of dialects and other speech patterns in fiction, 3) Fukuoka, so you'd figure that I'd be all over Yugefuku. So what is the 'but'?

Well, major part of it is just the (lack) of true mystery. I should have been warned by the phrase 'hardboiled detective': initially, it just seemed like a nice pun on the habit of al-dente noodles in Hakata ramen. But Yugefuku is indeed not a Great Detective, and the cases he encounters miss the complexities and structuring I so love. Not seldom we are given a story where Yugefuku has one, admittedly, bright idea about a certain case, which ends up like 'that brought me on the trail of that one person who never actually appeared in the story and was never mentioned to, who quickly confessed to the crime'. These cases aren't that baffling and most of the time, I was left unsatisfied. The storyline about Yugefuku's father's disappearence is also not of any real importance.

The way the stories connect to ramen are Yugefuku at his best and worst. When author Nishimura manages to present something good, the concept works. Like a certain little lady who likes to compare everything tot the happenings in St. Mary Mead, Yugefuku has the habit of comparing everything with the macroworld of ramen, from the history of ramen-types to how cooks work and customs like second serving. These insights into the world of ramen are interesting on their own, but they also provide surprising new points of view on the case, which lead to the solution. The story Ten to En ("Points and Circles", as a reference to Matsumoto Seichou's Points and Lines) for example has Yugefuku talking about ramen delivery, which turns out to be the key to the case. The moment you see how the two seemingly unrelated notions are connected, is really fun. But most of the time, the connection is mediocre at best. One story for example starts with an anecdote on the custom of kaedama in Hakata ramen, a second portion of just the noodles. The story itself however is about another meaning of the word kaedama, namely substitute/stand-in. So no real connection with the case on hand.

When the anecdotes on ramen and other Fukuoka customs and the main plot don't connect well, the stories kinda fall apart: they feel like a collection of random plotlines and comments, without forming a whole. There were sadly several times I had to ask myself why a certain subplot or comment was inserted in the story, only for me to find out that they had absolutely nothing to do with the main story. It is padding, which is something I am not looking for in a short story.

The pages is filled with love for ramen though, and you'll guaranteed want to eat a bowl of hot noodles when you read this, but purely from a mystery-reader's point of view, this short story collection is lacking. However, as you can hardly define me as just a person who loves detective fiction, without the above mentioned affection for ramen / Fukuoka / dialects, I'd say that people interested in ramen should definitely try it. When the ramen-mystery mix works, it works and you'll learn a lot about ramen anyway.

Original Japanese title(s): 西村健　『ゆげ福　博多探偵事件ファイル』: 「暖簾わけ」 / 「途上」 / 「点と円」 / 「学習」 / 「風吹きぬ」 / 「裏窓」「悪意 箱」 / 「絆」

「都合のいい奇跡だって…やればなんとかなるっ！」

「希望を求めなければ・・・絶望に襲われる事もないんだし」  

『スーパーダンガンロンパ２　さよなら絶望学園』

"If you don't wish for hope, you won't be assaulted by despair either"

"Super Danganronpa 2 - Farewell Academy of Despair"

It's been more than a year since my last translation, and I really want to do a new one somewhere in the near future again. Not sure whether people actually read them though. And I'd have to look for appropiate material. As fun as it would be to translate an actual novel, as long as I don't get paid for it, it would take too much time/effort to do anything more than a short story (and even then I tend to do little more than the bare minimum...) 

The story of the PSP game Super Danganronpa 2 - Sayonara Zetsubou Gakuen ("Super Danganronpa 2 - Farewell Academy of Despair") once again starts at Hope's Peak Academy, a high school which only accepts students of super class. Whether you're a super class gamer, or a super class cook, or just have super class luck, you need to excel at a field to be accepted at Hope's Peak. This time, a group of 16 students, including protagonist Hinata Hajime, can definitely remember they arrived at the school, but for some reason they all wake up on a tropical island. They are told by the rabbit doll-like Usami being that they are on a school trip and that their only task is to bond and become friends with each other. Of course, nobody has any clue of what is going on at the beginning, but the 16 students slowly get used to the idea and really start to have fun on the island.

Until the evil Monokuma, a bear-like doll, appears on the scene, violently usurping the control of the island from Usami. He reinstates the system we already from the first game: students are only allowed to leave the island if they succeed in committing murder and getting away with it. After a murder has happened (and Monokuma makes sure a murder happens by giving incentives and motives for the students), the students have to hold a classroom trial, in which they have to figure out who the murderer is. If they guess correctly, the murderer is executed by Monokuma and the murder games continue, if they guess wrong everyone but the murderer is executed.

The set-up is the same as in the first Danganronpa: a closed circle situation with 16 students, with them having to solve the murders they commit among themselves in a courtroom setting, whilst also trying to figure out why they are being held captured by Monokuma. But Super Danganronpa 2 is an improvement in practically all aspects compared to the first game. First of all, the cases you have to solve are much better. In the original Danganronpa, anyone of reasonable intelligence could solve the murders (including all the 'surprise twists') during the investigation parts of the game, that is, the sequences where you collect the clues you would use in the classroom trials. The clues were so obvious and the plots were so simple, you could figure out everything there already, making the actual classroom trials rather boring: every plot-twist had been telegraphed long in advance because of the clumsy clues.

In Super Danganronpa 2 however, the murder cases are structured much better, meaning you can't solve the cases completely before entering a classroom trial, because some essential hints are only made known during the trial. Sounds unfair, but that's part of the suspense: the students are forced to hold classroom trials by Monokuma, with their own lives at stake. They know one of them is the murderder, but not who. They have to be careful with sharing information, sometimes only bringing things up if it is essential for the current topic of discussion.

This is reflected in some new game mechanics. It's still an action-packed variation of the Gyakuten Saiban games and you can read the Danganronpa review for a more detailed explanation, but it is essentially reacting on statements made by other people. This is usually done by pointing out contradictions with the help of evidence, but one new mechanic is to agree with statements made by other people: sometimes a person makes a suggestion or a guess which actually warrants back up from you (and evidence). It seems like a simple improvement, but it adds a lot to the idea of all students working together through way of discussion to arrive at the truth. On the other hand, another new system introduces specific one-on-one discussions, once again strengthening the atmosphere of having a group of differently thinking students whose really have nothing else but words to get them out of these cases.

There are also some other improvements in the mechanics that make Super Danganronpa 2 a lot more easier and more fun to play, though they aren't related to the plot: there are some shortcuts that make it a lot easier to interact with your fellow students and there are some minigames included for some extra replay value, making the package indeed look like a Super version of the original Danganronpa.

But to get back at the game's story. as mentioned above, you can look at two parts of the story with Super Danganronpa 2. One is the overall story, which deals with the question of how the 16 students are going to escape from the island and finding out what Monokuma is planning to do. Two is the seperate murder cases that occur among the students. So, it's much like a connected short story collection. What makes Super Danganronpa 2's story so great is the high meta-conciousness it has of the genre and itself as a game sequel. For one, a lot of the characters and events that happen over the course of the game are actually references / subversions / inversions of the first game. You sometimes get the feeling you're looking at the original game through a laughing mirror when playing Super Danganronpa 2, but the writer makes great use of this trick, collecting seemingly familiar tropes and archetypes to play with your expectations, but letting them engage in completely different ways. This way the sequel interacts with the original game is really something special.

Where the game doesn't seem to take its cues from the original, it still manages to shine. One case for example is an excellent example of the mansion murder case as often seen in Ayatsuji Yukito's yakata series, which was strangely something not really present in the first game. Also, one student who appears as a twisted version of the protagonist of the first game because of his belief in his fellow students, creates some of the most interesting situations I've seen in detective fiction in years. There is no way you'd see such a character in conventional detective fiction, but I'd recommend him as a sort of character study for any fan of the genre, as an example of a great new type of character in detective fiction.

But Super Danganronpa 2 doesn't interact with the first game just on a meta-level, but also on an explicit level, meaning you'll probably won't understand most of the ending if you haven't played the original. The story of Super Danganronpa 2 can't be seen seperately from the first game and a lot of the game works because it is a subversion of the expectations created in the first game, so one should really see the two games as one set. The sequel is better in both story and game mechanics, but one should not skip the first game, as you'll miss out on a lot what makes it so good.

Oh, and like the first game, Super Danganronpa 2 is full of references to popular culture, from an ingame- horro game called Twilight Syndrome to Monokuma using special moves from various manga to beat up Usami.

In short, recommended material. But you'll need to play the original Danganronpa to get everything out of it. It takes some time, 20+ hours times two, but the reward is great and for fans of detective adventure games certainly, but also for detective fiction fans in general, I'd even say that it is required playing.

Original Japanese title(s) 『スーパーダンガンロンパ２　さよなら絶望学園』

『犬のみぞ知る DOG KNOWS』

"Je had van die typische wijkmoorden, met een merkwaardige beslotenheid als in the boeken van John Dickson Carr of bij een treinmoord van Agatha Christie. Dikwijls voelde je bij het begin van het onderzoek de sfeer al aan: die van een bekrompen moord in de enge ruimte van een wijk, en dan moest je daar ook de dader zoeken, of de moorden, waarbij meteen de namen van personen uit andere steden of geheel andere delen van de stad opdoken. Dit leek zo'n gesloten wijk-moord, gebonden aan de onzichtbare wanden van het rayon"

"Droeve Poedel in Delfshaven"

"There are those typical neigbourhood murder cases, with a weird sense of 'closedness' like in those books of John Dickson Carr or a train murder by Agatha Christie. Usually, you'd sense the atmosphere at the start of the investigation: that of a cramped murder in the narrow space of a neighbourhood, where you'd have to find the murderer, or that of those murders, where names of people from different cities or parts of town pop up immediately. This however was one of those closed neighbourhood murders, bound to the invisible walls of the rayon"

"Sad Poodle in Delfshaven"

Because this is a review on a Dutch mystery novel on a blog that is usually mostly on Japanese mystery novels, I predict that this post will have a horrible view count.

A crying poodle with traces of blood in his mouth attracts the attention of the local beat cop, which in turn leads to the discovery of its owner's home. Note that they only discovered the owner's home and not the owner himself, who seems to have disappeared. And probably not voluntary, because there are definite signs that a fight had happened and that blood had been shed. The dog's owner, Vledser, is/was a money lender, which is a fairly dangerous occupation within the world of fictional crime, so commisioner Vissering of the Rotterdam police fears the worse. The only clues? The testimony of the neighbor who overheard some kind of conversation last night and some pages with handdrawn maps left in the room.

'A topographical mystery', is what Cor Docter calls this novel, a detective novel set in a particular region, where the local characteristics, history and culture are to be an integral part of the plot. In Droeve Poedel in Delfshaven for example, this concept comes alive because the story introduces the reader to several places that are related to the local history. I myself know next to nothing of Delfshaven and Rotterdam, so this 'topographical mystery' has a function not unlike the Japanese genre of the travel mystery: mysteries that are set in a particular region with plots strongly related with local folklore/history. In fact, these travel mysteries are usually relatively light on actual, orthodox mystery, but they work a strange mixes between mystery, tourist guides and history books (see also reviews of novels by Nishimura Kyoutarou and Uchida Yasuo). Note that travel mysteries do imply travel, ergo, the detective is usually not at work on home ground. And in a less positive note, travel mysteries also imply fairly easy mysteries of dubious quality. Matsumoto Seichou's Ten to Sen for example features an inspector travelling all over Japan with the local infrastructure playing a big role in the plot and is strictly abstractly seen very close to a travel mystery, but both historically (as it predates the term) as well content-wise, you'd have difficulties finding anyone who would typify as a pure travel mystery.

And as for the contents of Droeve Poedel in Delfshaven, I like it! Readers might have noticed that I don't really read Dutch mysteries, and even then they're set in the Far East (see van Gulik and Aafjes), so it was kinda strange to follow a Dutch policeman investigating a disappearance (which, yes, does turn into murder), but I had fun reading this. Docter has a pleasant way of writing, by which I don't just mean his choice of words, but also in the way he structures the developments of his story: every chapter you're given some new hint, some new events that piques your interest, tempting you into that feeling of 'well, just one more chapter then', until you realize you're at the end of the book already.

The way Vissering works is also one of the more memorable points of the story: he and one of his men Grijphand discuss the case, basically one proposing a deduction while the other acts as the devil's advocate, thus using each other as sounding boards. It works, because different from the Great Detective (TM) a policeman has to work with his colleagues in principle, thus such discussions are what you'd expect. But what makes these discussions good is that Vissering and Grijphand work on an equal status here, with rank playing no role here. It is probably in the big picture just something very small, but it was definitely one of the factors that made this book good for me.

The ending features a nice twist on a familiar trope of the genre, but I especially like the hint Docter left pointing to the solution. So simple, staring you in the face at at least two places, but I had no idea. It was at that moment that I really started to love this book: at first it felt like a Dutch police procedural which was written great (on a linguistic-structural level), and then suddenly every suspect is gathered in one room and Vissering reveals a solution which show this book is definitely part of the Great Tradition.

There are two other books in this series it seems, so I am definitely going after those in the near future. 

Original Dutch title(s): Cor Docter "Droeve Poedel in Delfshaven"