Cards on the Table

白露に風の吹きしく秋の野は 

つらぬきとめぬ玉ぞ散りける

文屋朝康

Through a gust of wind the white dew on the autumn grass

Scatters like a broken necklace

Funya no Asayasu

Things I do when I don't write about Japanese detective fiction: write detective fiction in Japanese.

The title of Takada Takafumi's QED Hyakunin Isshu no Shu ("Q.E.D. - The Curse of Hyakunin Isshu") refers to a famous anthology of Japanese poems (waka) compiled by Fujiwara no Teika. As the anthology's name suggets, the collection consists of 'one hundred persons, one poem each'. The poems of Hyakunin Isshu are also for the traditional uta-garuta (poem card) game, which consists of two sets of cards. The first set, the yomi-fuda, contains cards with the first line of a poem, which are read aloud. The second set of cards, tori-fuda, are placed in front of the players and have the second line of the poem written on them. Players thus try to obtain the correct tori-fuda to the yomi-fuda being read. And it was a yomi-fuda, with the first line of the poem quoted above, which was found in the dead hands of wealthy Hyakunin Isshu karuta fan Masakaki Dairoku, murdered in his own mansion almost a year ago. The case seemingly ended with the suicide of his daughter not long afterwards, but the police still think the murderer is out there. In need of information, reporter Komatsuzaki seeks the help of his old friend Kuwabara Takashi (whose name sounds like a traditional phrase to ward off evil), who besides being a pharmacist, also happens to be knowledgeable about Hyakunin Isshu.

I am not interested in history per se, but I've always had a weakness for ancient conspiracy plots/untold history/folklore etcetera. So Takada Takafumi's Q.E.D. had been on my reading list for a long time, as his books were precisely about linking history with detective plots. QED Hyakunin Isshu no Shu is the first novel in the series and while it has interesting points, I can't but be a bit disappointed by it. The main problem of the book is that it seems like Takada had a whole bunch of interesting ideas, but couldn't find a way to connect all these dots together in a convincing way. The reader is presented with a misty cloud of which the complete form is just vaguely clear.

For example, we are first introduced to the series detective Kuwabara, because he is an expert on Hyakunin Isshu and he might thus deduce the meaning behind the card the deceased had in his hand (spoilers: it was a dying message!). This is a semi-logical relation (I say semi, because I am not sure why Kuwabara was created as a pharmacist who happens to know literature, instead of, I don't know, an expert on literature). And yes, having Kuwabara explaining a bit on the origin of Hyakunin Isshu is also still relevant. But what Kuwabara (and thus writer Takada) does, is not just explain a bit. What Kuwabara does, is hold a complete lecture course on the subject, including presenting an admittedly interesting theory behind the selection process of the poems of the Hyakunin Isshu, but of which only ten percent is relevant to solving the dying message.

Don't get me wrong though, what Kuwabara in the end discovers about the Hyakunin Isshu is quite interesting and it shows the research writer Takada did for the book, but it has too little to do with the murder. Reading QED Hyakunin Isshu no Shu is like reading two barely related storylines. The individual storylines are fine on their own, but there is no reason to force them together in one story. Half of the book could have easily been scrapped (especially as the 'final hint that led Kuwabara to the truth' was something already said early in the grand lecture, the rest was just further exposition...) and you'd still have a coherent dying message story.

So let's look at the two storylines seperatedly, because that makes more sense to me. The secret behind Hyakunin Isshu definitely surprised me, but it requires quite a bit of knowledge on classical Japanese literature and history, which aren't exactly my fields of expertise (I am more of modern literature and history). Fun to read, but written a bit clumsily perhaps, with parts written too theoretically and other parts too repetitive (no, there is no need to give five of six examples, two or three are enough; yes, I see where you're going, you don't have to explain it for five pages...).

The actual murder was... better, but maybe not fair. There is also a kind of impossible situation present besides the dying message and the (weak) link with Hyakunen Isshu does provide a hint to the dying message, but only barely. The solution was sort of funny, in the sense that I was first afraid that it would require specialist knowledge on classical literature; I was spared this, but instead of that, you do require specialist knowledge of psychology and medicine. Which is something I don't have. You might know those stories where all kind of hints lead to a conclusion someone was colour blind, well, those I usually get quite quickly nowadays, but a similarly hinted story for some obscure psychological disorder? How is the average reader supposed to pick that up?! It's even disappointing, because the basic premise / concept behind the impossible situation is interesting, also in the way it links with the Hyakunen Isshu, but the execution...

In the end, QED Hyakunin Isshu no Shu just left me with a great pile of questions. Why force these two storylines together? Why are the parts on the Hyakunen Isshu and the murder part so different in tone? Why does the interpretation of the dying message feel weak/ not conclusive enough? Why a pharmacist if you need a character with knowledge on literature? Why the need for an extra assistent/sidekick role in the story in the form of the fellow-pharmacist Nana, if you already have one in the form of the reporter? Deep in its core, QED Hyakunin Isshu no Shu has some promising elements, but it just doesn't work in the way it is now.

Original Japanese title(s): 高田崇史　『QED　百人一首の呪』

「DL6号事件を忘れるな」

"One can sometimes do good by being the right person in the wrong place”

"The Sins of Prince Saradine"

Of course, even though I have all my books now, the problem just shifted from 'no books to write about' to 'I read books, but for one reason or another I never actually write the reviews'. I've only just started reading and I already have a backlog of reviews to write...

A Aiichirou series
A Aiichirou no Roubai ("The Discombobulation of A Aiichirou" AKA A For Annoyance)
A Aiichirou no Tentou ("The Fall of A Aiichirou" AKA A Is For Accident)
A Aiichirou no Toubou ("The Flight of A Aiichirou" AKA A For Abandon") 

Awasaka Tsumao's A Aiichirou no Roubai ("The Discombobulation of A Aiichirou"; alternate English title by publisher Tokyo Sogen: A For Annoyance) is a short story collection I had been planning to read for a long time now. It is the first short story collection to rank in the Tozai Mystery Best 100 list, and several stories collected have been named as serious candidates for the title of best Japanese impossible crime story, so that partly explains why I wanted to read the book. Partly I say, because another reason was because Takumi Shuu, of the Gyakuten Saiban game series, named Awasaka Tsumao and the A Aiichirou series as a major influence on his works, which was something I couldn't just ignore.

I have reviewed Awasaka's short story collection Kijutsu Tantei Soga Kajou Zenshuu- Hi no Maki in the past already; longtime readers might remember me mentioning that Awasaka was a stage magician: stage magician + detective fiction is usually enough to gather the attention of readers of the genre. I was mildly positive about the collection, so I started with a modest amount of expectations in A Aiichirou no Roubai. What I got, was a classic! No wonder so many people stated this as one of the best collections in Japan. A Aiichirou no Roubai is sometimes compared to the Father Brown stories; this is naturally partly because of the titles of the books (mirroring titles like The Innocence of Father Brown etcetera) and the intuitive mode of reasoning of Aiichirou, but the sheer ingenuity found in the relatively short stories is also reminiscent of the Chesterton's classic. 

A Aiichirou is young, handsome photogrpaher who has the habit of arriving at the wrong place at the wrong time. Or being the right man at the wrong place at the wrong time. He seems to come across murder quite often (and because of his somewhat strange nature, the police usually suspects him from at least a little bit of foul play), but he always manages to clear his own name by pointing out the real murderer, usually by making enigmatic statements in the spirit of Father Brown. Oh, and because any post on A Aiichirou should mention this: the series detective was given the even in Japanese quite rare name of A Aiichirou by Awasaka, because this name would end up to be the first entry if a lexicon on (fictional) detectives would be published.

The stories in the collection can be divided in roughly three kind of stories. Awasaka's debut short story, DL2 Gouki Jiken ("The Flight DL2 Incident"), is a good example of the first kind, which mainly serves to showcase A Aiichirou's intuitive reasoning. Here Aiichirou is witness to a man who seems to stumble on a staircase on purpose, which might seem strange, but nothing more than that, right? So imagine the surprise bystanders, as well as the reader, experience when Aiichirou correctly foretells an attack on the man's driver based on the fact his master faked a fall! The solution might be a bit hard to deduce a priori to the solution, but the hinting and plotting is really solid actually. The same holds for Magatta Heya ("The Crooked Room") and Kuroi Kiri ("The Black Fog"), which both feature enigmatic, yet not criminal situations per se, but Aiichirou shows that there is much more than meets the eye. Because of the intuitive reasoning, it might be hard to deduce the solutions completely beforehand (especially Kuroi Kiri goes a bit far), but the stories work and the reader won't be disappointed.

The second set of stories focuses on impossible crimes. A man seemingly commits suicide in a hot air balloon in Migiudeyama Kuujou ("Above the Skies of Mount Migiude"), but A Aiichirou shows it was murder, even though the victim was alone up there in the sky. Definitely the highlight of the collection. A very good second is Shoujou no Ougon Kamen ("The Golden Mask on Top of her Hands"), where a man dressed in a cape and golden mask is standing on top of the hands of a giant statue, throwing pamphlets to the people below on the streets. Unlike Edogawa Rampo's Golden Mask however, this Golden Mask is less of a superman, as he is shot down quite easily, with his body falling on the streets below. The only person who could have shot him is a man in a hotelroom right across the statue, but the only weapon in his possession is so crooked, it was impossible for him to have hit the target across the distance. Really good story, once again made more impressive because of the brevity of the tale. G-Senjou no Itachi ("Weasle on the G-Line") features a taxi-driver who claims to have been attacked by a robber, but when the police find the cab, they discover the dead robber in the car, and only the taxi driver's footsteps in the snow. A simple story, mostly a variant of a famous trope and the intuition needed to pick up the main hint is something I for one don't have. And finally Horobo no Kami ("The God of Horobo"), which is often seen as one of the better impossible crime stories in Japan. On a trip to recover the dead bodies of his fellow soldiers who had died when they had stranded on the island of Horobo during World War II, an old veteran tells (the unnamed) Aiichirou the strange experience he had seen there: the head of the local tribe had been seen entering a small shrine holding the effigy of the local god, the God of Horobo, to mourn the death of his wife, whose body was placed there. The tribesmen had all stood watch over the shrine, but the next day, after hearing a cry, they discover the head shot to death, by a gun held in the dead wife's hands, with everybody swearing nobody had entered or left the shrine! The solution is admittedly quite ingenious, but it is close, though definitely not across, the border between a fair and unfair mystery. One should really read it though, if only just to remind you that such a trick also exists.

The third pattern found in A Aiichirou no Roubai is Horidasareta Douwa ("A Dug Up Fairy Tale"), which features a coded message. I was the least impressed by this story: the code itself is really ingenious and one of the best I've seen in Japanese stories thus far, but the story surrounding it is unneccesary long (the longest in the collection) and not very interesting to begin with. It feels a bit out of place and I can't help myself but asking the question whether Awasaka couldn't have done something else with the solid code.

All in all a solid collection. The standard is quite high, and there are some real classics to be found too. Despite my love for the short story format, I haven't been able to find that many Japanese collections I would call a must read, but A Aiichirou no Roubai (as well as the early Norizuki Rintarou ones) are definitely the ones you'd want to read.

Original Japanese title(s):　泡坂妻夫 『亜愛一郎の狼狽』 「ＤＬ２号機事件」 / 「右腕山上空」 / 「曲がった部屋」 / 「掌上の黄金仮面」 / 「Ｇ線上の鼬」 / 「掘出された童話」 / 「ホロボの神」 / 「黒い霧」

運命の交差点

「怪人が飛べて、探偵に飛べんわけあるか！」

『名探偵コナン　マリオネット 交響曲（シンフォニー）』

"If monsters can fly, there's no reason why detectives can't fly!"

"Detective Conan: Marionette Symphony"

Oh, I finally got my gigantic stack of books! And with gigantic, I mean that if I were to read one detective novel a week, I'd still have enough for more than a year. And that is ignoring the non detective materials. Anyway, it's finally back to reviews of mostly (but not exclusively) Japanese detective novels again! But first, a videogame.

Detective Conan: Marionette Symphony (Nintendo 3DS) is set at Clover Hill, a huge building complex designed after a four clover leaf. The whole of Clover Hill is in a festive mood because of its first anniversary. A foreign prince has come to display a regal heirloom in one of the towers of Clover Hill, the television studios located in another tower report on the event too, etcetera. But not all is well, it appears, as the owner of the buildings wants advice from famous detective Mouri Kogorou on some hush-hush issue. It just happens that at the same time Kogorou, his daughter Ran and their 'parasite' Conan are visiting Clover Hill, high school detective Hattori Heiji is present at the television studios of Clover Hill for an interview, a gang of meddling kids (the Detective Boys) are hoping to discover the truth behind a rumor of a flying man at the same building and phantom thief KID is planning to steal the regal heirloom on display. Considering Conan and the rest of the crew have been attracting murder and other crimes for almost twenty years non-stop now, one can guess that something bad is about to happen. The terrorist group Flowers of Liberation bomb the only bridge to the mainland and take over Clover Hill, with everyone inside as its hostage. The whole Conan gang, though seperated, has to work together to overcome the terrorist attack and solve some murders on the way too.

I wasn't too much a fan of last year's Detective Conan: Prelude from the Past, so I was not particularly enthusiastic when Marionette Symphony was first announced, but then the trailer mentioned Spike-Chunsoft and the inclusion of the Zapping System and I was on board. Chunsoft (who merged with Spike last year) is the developer behind videogames like Kamaitachi no Yoru, Danganronpa and 428, which rank among the best adventure games ever. The Zapping System is one that has features in several Chunsoft games, and has the player zapping between several protagonists on the spot, with actions performed by one protagonist, having influence on the world of another protagonist (i.e. protagonist A steals protagonist B's car; protagonist A is able to proceed, but protagonist B is left without a car, resulting in a game over for that particular character). Chunsoft had already used the Zapping System for the fairly orthodox detective game Kamaitachi no Yoru X3, but it was the first time such a system would be used for a Detective Conan game (for a more detailed explanation, see the 428 review).

The system is a bit different in Marionette Symphony though. This time, Conan, Ran, the Detective Boys, Haibara, Hattori and KID (and several other characters) all make use of the so-called Truth Card system, which is basically an application which allows the characters to share information. Characters have to use this shared information to overcome their own problems. For example, early in the game the Detective Boys want to listen in on a group of terrorists in the room next door, but they can't just walk in the room. However, another character happens to receive information about the airducts being wide enough for children to get into and shares that through a Truth Card, allowing the Detective Boys to crawl through the airducts to reach their goal. The player has to manage the information flow between all the characters and sometimes you'll be unable to proceed with a certain character, because you haven't acquired the necessary information with another character.

Another new system is the so-called Detective Time, where you'll find yourself in a pinch. You're given limited time to decide on the right action to undertake (while accidently choosing wrong actions will result in a time loss). A slightly cheap way to invoke thrills, but nevertheless effective. The moment the music starts, you will feel tension and it does match the slightly more action-based, movie-like setting of the story to have such moments. Other changes are the exclusion of the minigames and quizes found in the previous two games and the inclusion of an AR mode, where you take pictures of a Conan come alive through a augmented reality card (which also functions as a hint mode for when you're stuck in the game).

As a game, it is at times a hit and miss. The system forces you to zap way too often, sometimes from one character to another in the same location at the same time, which has no practical use at all! I couldn't care less whether I am seeing the same situation from Kogorou's or Ran's point of view, especially if neither of these characters are able to interact in meaningful way with said situation! Watching the same scene from a different angle can be interesting at times, but only if something new is offered. Not the case here. Story progression is also very linear, despite the possibility to jump between perspectives.

The story too at first feels a bit generic, but it becomes really good as it nears the end. The previous two Conan games (Rondo of the Blue Jewel and Prelude from the Past) both featured several seperate cases, which were only loosely tied by a main storyline. In Marionette Symphony, the terrorist attack is the most important aspect of the story, with the murders you have to solve in between (yes, the detectives find time to solve murders even during a terrorist attack) almost feeling like a sidequest (though still very relevant to the main story). It takes a while for the story to get momentum, but when it's on a roll, everything works. And Marionette Symphony has one of the greatest endings of detective fiction I've seen in the last few years: I don't mean that in the sense of most surprising ending, a suddenly revealed narrative trick, or a complex logical chain or anything like that: but the moment the person responsible for everything is revealed, the intention of the creators, everything they wanted to accomplish with this particular game becomes clear. Points I thought strange suddenly made sense and I can only admire what Spike-Chunsoft tried to do with this game and the way in which they accomplished that. Their own Super Danganronpa 2 had something similiar, but as a whole, I'd say that Marionette Symphony did it better.

Marionette Symphony is also great as a Detective Conan game, because the characters act like you would expect to them to do. The Detective Boys are very different characters from Ran, and the way they cope with the terrorists are naturally also not similar at all. The way everybody has a bit to contribute invokes a movie-esque atmosphere, which is absolutely fine for such a game. In fact, the story feels quite suitable for a movie and you wouldn't see me complaining if it was remade/rewritten for a special or movie...

Short story: definitely a must play for Detective Conan fans and those who have played Chunsoft's adventures. The game is naturally more fun if you know a bit of the Conan-lore, but it is a decent adventure on its own and shouldn't be ignored just because it is based on a license.

Original title(s): 『名探偵コナン　マリオネット交響曲（シンフォニー）』

Nudaque Veritas

"In the mountains of tuth," quoth Nietszche, "you never climb in vain."

No one outside the realm of fairy tales ever scaled a mountain by standing at its foot and wishing himself over its crest. This is a hard world, and in it achievement requires effort. It has always been my feeling that to garner the fullest enjoyment from detective fiction the reader must to some degree endeavor to retrace the detective's steps. Thee more painstakingly the trail back is scrutinized, the closer the reader comes to the ultimate truth, and the deeper his enjoyment is apt to be."

"The Spanish Cape Mystery"

Note to self: writing a review every day is more taxing than would seem at first. But this is final post in this short series of Ellery Queen reviews!

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 title of the last novel in Ellery Queen's famous nationality novels, The Spanish Cape Mystery, actually refers to the location of the mystery. The Spanish Cape sticks out in the North Atlantic and on it is a house, inhabitated by the Godfreys and their guests. One night, a ruffian, who can only be described as pirate-like, threatens Rosa Godfrey and her uncle David Kummer and kidnaps the latter, mistaking him for John Marco, one of the guests of the Godfreys. Rosa is later found by Ellery and his friend judge Macklin, who are in the neighbourhood on vacation. No sign of uncle David though and it seems like Marco's 'luck' didn't last for long either, because he was found with his head bashed in on a terrace near the beach. There is just one strange thing about the murder: Marco was found completely naked.

I will always remember The Spanish Cape Mystery as the one with the way too obvious murderer. Because I am quite sure a majority of the readers will, even without a perfect deduction, be able to guess who the criminal is. This of course doesn't have to be a bad thing per se, as inverted detective stories prove, but the identity of the murderer has so much implications that you will almost necessary arrive somewhere very near the truth.

Which is a bit of a shame, because the mystery behind the naked man is, fundamentally, quite interesting. Whereas early Queens had fairly innocent looking, yet significant, material clues (objects) that formed the start of Ellery's long deductions, Siamese Twin, Chinese Orange and The Spanish Cape Mystery all feature rather obvious clues: a playing card in the dead man's hand, a victim dressed backwards and this time a victim who is not dressed at all. And here you have the conundrum of making detective fiction more fun through interaction or surprise: more obvious clues make it easier for the reader to start on the right track with his deductions, which results in a positive feeling when he actually manages to solve it himself. But as a result, the surprise element of detetive fiction becomes weaker, which is undoubtedly also an important factor when reading detective fiction. In a sense, these last few novels in Queen's nationality series are quite different from the first few Queens.

I have to admit though, using an obvious clue (even if strange or grotesque), has its merits. I have only once tried my hand at writing detective fiction, specifically a guess-the-crimimal script for the Kyoto University Mystery Club, which was actually based on the same principle, mostly. If, like Queen, you want people to solve your story (and I would consider a guess-the-criminal script no one can guess, not really succesful), than an obvious clue is definitely the way to go.

Though this time, it seems like Ellery's deductions are less perfect than usual, or at least, the deduction makes sense, but the construction of the puzzle, that is to say, the way Queen imagined the actions of the murderer seem to be a bit enigmatic. The main problem revolves around a certain action the murderer took (or to be precise, did not take), but it makes no logical sense for the murderer to have done that. Ellery deduced the actions of the murderer, but even he must have thought it weird for the murderer to have done that. Considering the care with which Queen usually constructs his puzzles and deduction, as seen in his previous novels, The Spanish Cape Mystery feels sloppy at times.

The character of Ellery has changed over the course of the books: he was hardly present in The Roman Hat Mystery, and even then he mostly complained about not being able to buy rare books because of the case,  but he slowly, but surely become more and more a human as the series progresses. The Spanish Cape Mystery has him in his most human form up until now, especially at the end when Ellery voices his thoughts about the murder. The Greek Coffin Mystery already showed a human side to the character by having him making mistakes, but this novels shows a human side by having him thinking about other people, which is quite surprising.

Were I to rank the nationality novels by Queen, then The Spanish Cape Mystery would end up somewhere near the end of the list to be honest. The main puzzle is alluring, but the execution is a bit disappointing and the things the novel does do well, has been done even better in earlier novels.

The Topsy-Turvy Murder

"At any rate, this thing needs the application of thought... China, China, China! I’m beginning to wish I had a Charlie Chan on the scene to clarify these esoteric mysteries of Orientalism. I’m completely bewildered. Nothing makes sense, nothing at all. This is the world’s most mystifying crime.”

"The Chinese Orange Mystery"

Almost there, almost there...

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 eight novel in the Ellery Queen series, The Chinese Orange Mystery (Dutch title: Moord Achterstevoren / Backwards Murder) starts with an unknown man visiting the office of Donald Kirk, publisher and philatelist, which occupies on the 22nd floor of the Hotel Chancellor. Ushered into the waiting room, the man is left alone for an hour or so, when Kirk and his friend Ellery Queen finally arrive at the office and Kirk takes a look inside the waiting room. What they find is total chaos. Or is it? Bookcases put backwards to the wall. The carpet upside down. And a man, dead, with his clothes on backwards, and a pair of decorative spears being slipped inside his trouser legs, running up behind his back and popping out near his head like a pair of devil's horns! Who was the poor man and why is he dressed backwards?

Often remembered as a certain kind of mystery which in effect spoils half the game, so do yourself a favor and don't read too much about The Chinese Orange Mystery before actually reading the book yourself. Ignoring the type of mystery, the problem of the man dressed backwards in a completely backwards room is definitely an alluring one. Most of the Queen novels have someone killed in an unlikely spot, but like The Egyptian Cross Mystery, this time we have a genuine 'strange' body. For why would the murderer go through the trouble of redressing his victim? Why, that is as strange as finding a totally naked dead body (foreshadowing!).

I have to admit though, while I like the idea of the reversed clothes and all, I never really liked The Chinese Orange Mystery. Most deductions are sound, but not nearly as impressive as those found in the earlier books. The theme of the backwardness is interesting, but it feels forced at times like the whole Egyptian cross thing in the same-titled novel. For some reason, the whole book feels, in my opinion, padded and it might have worked better as one or two separate short stories.

The world of philately is interesting though. Queen also used the Violent and Wild background of stamp collecting in his short stories and it is a specialist world that echoes Ellery's own bibliophilia (which on its own is a Queenian trope). Such high culture past-times naturally invoke a certain Philo Vance vibe, which isn't too strange considering the influence of those novels on the early Queens. Another interesting point is the character of a female writer who used to live in China; she seems like an early, but less fanatic Karen Leith of Queen's later The Door Between.

There really is not much I have to say about The Chinese Orange Mystery. The problem which shall not be named seems more suitable for a short story, and it is a bit too technical for my taste. It has, in a way, influenced writers like NisiOisiN, so it is not without its merits though. The problem of the backwards man is interesting, but too much padding in the middle seems to weaken the effect of the bizarre idea.

The Queen's Tale

"Whoever used this exercised the usal care and wiped the gun clean of prints. Sometimes I think there should be a law against detective stories. Gives potentional criminals too many pointers"

"The Siamese Twin Mystery"

And now I'm nearing the end of this post series, I realize I should have allowed for a bit of more time between each post. I can only hope I'll have my Japanese books by the time I'll be finished with these reviews...

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 Siamese Twin Mystery starts with father and son Queen on their way back from a holiday. Driving through Arrow Mountain (note: Ellery was the one who chose the mountain route, the Inspector emphasizes), the two wind up in a huge forest fire and are forced to flee deeper into the mountain, eventually finding refuge at the residence of Dr. Xavier. The doctor welcomes the Queens in his home, but the detective duo sense a certain tension among the colorful inhabitants and other guests of the mountain villa. Are the people hiding something from the Queens? The fire surrounding the house is naturally a source of worry for the people trapped inside, but the fact that Dr. Xavier is murdered that same night is not reassuring either. The only clue? A six of spades torn in half in the hand of the victim.

The 'strange' one in the series, together with The Eygptian Cross Mystery. For even though almost all previous Queen novels did include closed environments where the murderer had to be (The Roman Theater, the Dutch Memorial Hospital etc.), this is the first time Ellery finds himself in a faux closed circle situation. Faux I say, because the closed circle trope does not work effectively with a series detective. The closed circle trope works best when you really have no idea who might be killed next. Everyone on Indian Island had an equal opportunity to die And Then There Were None, which made the trope work. Compare to Kindaichi Hajime, who finds himself together with a violent serial murderer in a closed circle situation every other week, but the reader knows that Hajime will not be killed, the reader knows that there is no real danger for our hero. Ellery and his father are too established for them to just die like that. Even if you consider that this time the danger comes from a natural phenomena, the forest fire, (instead of a Jason-like killer), you are quite sure they won't be found burned to death at the end of the story. The forest fire does, even if not a real threat, make the usually tame / boring middle part of the story interesting to read, as there is always something happening, be it with the fire or the case itself.

The dying message is also of interest here; The Tragedy of X features one too, but of the early Queen dying messages, I like The Siamese Twin Mystery's one better, even though, or rather because the meaning, and usage of the dying message trope is very different in this novel. I think it is quite difficult to have a long story to be mostly about a dying message (as opposed to just one smaller element in the big picture), but it works here; the plot structure is really built surrounding the torn card in the victim's hand and that is quite a feat.

In Queen critisicm, The Siamese Twin Mystery is often refered to as an important novel. Like Kasai Kiyoshi notes in Tantei Shousetsu to 20 Seiki Seishin, the novel is a prime example of how the so-called Later Period Queen problems work. To quote myself from The Greek Coffin Mystery review:

If you accept the probability of a false solution, that is, the possibility that the real murderer can plant false clues that lead to the wrong person, then you're dealing with an unsolvable problem. Suppose Solution 1 (featuring murderer 1) is false, because clue A was planted, by murderer 2 (thus, solution 2, substantiated by clue B). What guarantee can you have that clue B, and therefore solution 2, isn't a plant by murderer 3? And in turn a murderer 4? This is a meta problem, and the writer can 'forcefully' end this by just ending his novel, but 'in-universe', the detective can never be absolutely sure his final solution is actually the correct one.

This is also true for The Siamese Twin Mystery which features several solutions. And here is the problem with the novel: how can you be sure that the solution posed by Ellery at the end of the novel is actually the truth? In fact, Ellery and his father are manipulated to arrive at false deductions throughout the novel. They notice their mistakes because of evidence found later in the story, so how can you be confident that the final solution is indeed correct, and won't be proven false by evidence discovered later? This philosophical problem plays throughout Queen's novels, but it is most evident here. One might for example also consider the fact that this novel does not feature the traditional Challenge to the Reader, for Ellery does not present his final answer because he 'found everything', he is forced to tell his ideas because the forest fire is not leaving him much time!

And to bring the topic back to the blog's main topic, Japanese detective novels, it's pretty clear that many writers were influenced by Queen in general, but also this novel in particular. You will find plenty of closed circles, Queen tropes and Later Period Queen problems in Ayatsuji Yukito's novels for example (especially the Yakata series), while Arisugawa Alice's debut work Gekkou Game similarly features a dying message and naturally created closed circle situation through a vulcano eruption.

Overall, The Siamese Twin Mystery feels a bit different. The range of the main problem, the dying message, is quite compact small and the story feels like a lengtened short story at times. The deductions are less complex and the final deduction even features something more intuitive rather than logical. But the novel reads more like an actual story. It's a slightly different Queen, but I think it's also one of the easier Queen to recommend to people, as the thrill of the closed circle and the more compact deductions are more accesible.

The Heel of Achilles

"I said I know everything."

"Oh." The Inspector relaxed. "Another one of your jokes. 'Course, you always know everything about everything. You're one of God's Four Hundred, you are. Isn't a subject on which you aren't an expert - like these book detectives - see all, know all... bah!"

"The American Gun Mystery"

One problem that I discovered while rereading Queen: I really need to replace some of the copies I have with better ones. I have no idea what mysterious force is keeping my The Siamese Twin Mystery in one piece, but it won't keep for long. And I know the books are available as ebooks now, but I am still old fashioned and consider e-readers bad just like rock & roll. I could get those nifty new Japanese releases too, but I'd rather have them in English.

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 American Gun Mystery brings us to the new sports stadium in the City, the Coliseum, where old Buck Horne, once a famous star in Hollywood's early Western films, is to perform in a rodeo exhibitition with rope tricks, riding and fancy shooting. The Coliseum is packed, among the guests are Inspector Queen, son Ellery and houseboy Djuna, and the eyes of all guests are fixated on Buck on his horse leading a pack of cowboys gallopping around the track, when the man is suddenly shot in his heart and overrun by the horses behind him. The Inspector immediately starts his investigation, sealing off the stadium, but no matter how much he and his men search the building and all the people inside it, they just can seem to find the murder weapon!

After a bit of traveling between states in The Egyptian Cross Mystery, we're back in New York in The American Gun Mystery. This novel feels a bit similar to The Roman Hat Mystery, because both novels have a murder during a show and a large-scale search for a certain item, which includes the need of detaining a very large number of people on the crime scene. Of course, this time it's a bit different from Roman Hat because the victim was at the center of the attention during the murder, which is something completely new in the Queen novels. For we actually see a bit of the victim before he's killed. I had said in my review of The Dutch Shoe Mystery that I liked that people died fast in these novels, which is still true, but it felt refreshing to have seen the victim alive and all (even if for just a very short time) for a change. It's also the first murder made from a distance, which is probably not that interesting, but maybe handy for some kind of Queen trivia quiz.

The literary device of J.J. McC., who pens the introductions to the Queen novels, is also used more prominently compared to the previous novels. In fact, J.J. McC. even appears in the last part to narrate the story, something I had completely forgotten about The American Gun Mystery. By now, J.J. McC. feels like an unneeded relic of the past though. His existence is as interesting as S.S. Van Dine in the Philo Vance novels, that is, not at all. The inclusion of J.J. as an active figure in the narrative is just distracting.

While not as complex and exciting as the previous two novels, The American Gun Mystery does has its moments. Like in The Dutch Shoe Mystery, it is actually possible to deduce a lot about the solution from information obtained in the early parts of the story, which shows how tricky Queen's plots can be, as it is not very likely that you will actually deduce that. Also, one of the major problems surrounding Buck Horne's death feels thematically close to a major puzzle in Arisugawa Alice's excellent Kotou Puzzle surrounding a treasure map, presenting a problem in a certain dimension, before revealing that you have to look at it from a totally different angle. It's not a logic puzzle per se, but I love these kind of riddles / puzzles that you solve by looking at things from a different angle. It is not difficult to figure out the problem, but it is interesting because it adds a possible dimension to Ellery's deductions that hadn't been explored in earlier novels.

Main criticism on the novel is probably aimed at the actual whereabouts of the murder weapon. After the searches in Roman Hat and Greek Coffin, the solution to The American Gun Mystery's problem can only be called disappointing. Of course, Golden Age novels are hardly nexi of realism, but still, this is one of those solutions you remember for reasons of the less-than-positive kind.

To make it short, not one of my favourite Queens. It's like an alternative The Roman Hat Mystery, but it is easier to forgive Roman Hat's faults considering it was Queen's debut work: The American Gun Mystery is disappointing compared to the much stronger previous novels.