Memory of Butterfly

"Ah, this is kinda relaxed. So hard to turn of my brain. I have to stop thinking. Starting.....now! ........ Hey, it worked! Oh, no, that's thinking..."

"Make Room for Lisa" (The Simpsons)

Doesn't the word "cocoon" actually kinda resemble one? With the round forms and all...

Writer Alice series
46 Banme no Misshitsu ("The 46th Locked Room") (1992)
Dali no Mayu ("Dalí's Cocoon") (1993)
Russia Koucha no Nazo ("The Russian Tea Mystery") (1994)
Sweden Kan no Nazo ("The Swedish Mansion Mystery") (1995)
Brazil Chou no Nazo ("The Brazilian Butterfly Mystery") (1996)
Eikoku Teien no Nazo ("The English Garden Mystery") (1997)
Zekkyoujou Satsujin Jiken ("The -Castle of Screams- Murder Case") (2001)
Malay Tetsudou no Nazo ("The Malay Railroad Mystery") (2002)
Swiss Dokei no Nazo ("The Swiss Watch Mystery") (2003)
Nagai Rouka no Aru Ie ("The House with the Long Hallway") (2010)

Doujou Shuuichi was not only known as the owner-director of a jewelry store chain, but also as a great admirer of Salvador Dalí. He owned several of Dalí's art objects and he even sported the same distinctive mustache! But just enjoying art is sometimes not enough to relieve stress, so Doujou also owned his own floating tank, which he used for meditation and rest. Little did he know that he would be falling in eternal rest inside his 'cocoon'. After Doujou missed a meeting at the office, his brother and some employees go looking for him at his house and discover him murdered inside the floating tank. But the crime scene is full of oddities: a clothes basket was overturned, Doujou's clothes are nowhere to be found and most striking: his distinctive Dalí mustache was gone! Himura Hideo, assistant-professor in criminology, once again heads out to the crime scene for his 'fieldwork', together with good friend and mystery writer Arisugawa Alice to solve the mystery of the missing mustache in Arisugawa Alice's Dali no Mayu ("Dalí's Cocoon", 1993).

This was the second book featuring Himura and Alice, released just one year after their debut in the amusing locked room murder mystery 46 Banme no Misshitsu. While the fourth novel in the series also featured an impossible crime, Dali no Mayu is more like a classic Queen story, featuring a strange crime scene (as you can guess by the fact that the author and the narrator share the same name: Arisugawa is influenced by Queen). No clothes on the crime scene! A missing mustache! I quite liked this premise and was hoping for something baffling with long Queenian deduction chains like Arisugawa had written in other novels like Kotou Puzzle.

And I really shouldn't have that high expectations. Dali no Mayu is not a bad mystery novel, but very bland comparing to other novels in the series, or specifically the ones before and after it. The initial premise is good, but the plot feels like it had several loose ideas strung together in a rather uninspired way. A lot of the mystery is already resolved halfway through the book not through the power of the mind, but sheer luck of the police and the rest of the book feature red herrings that feel a bit too much like red herrings: as if they were just written to pad out the story, rather than to improve on the story. There were at least two distinct moments where I rolled my eyes in disbelief. Was that really believable?! Would anyone really have done that?!  There are some good ideas in Dali no Mayu for an excellent mystery novel (I especially like the idea behind the role of the murder weapon, though that again is burdened by something really unbelievable), but it feels like every idea is just executed at just half of what Arisugawa could have done with them.

Oh, and a quick trip to Japanese fan-culture: it's been a while since I read the first novel in the series, so I can't remember whether the Writer Alice was like this from the start, but man, this second novel already feels strongly aimed at fujoshi with Himura and Alice's interactions. I had always thought that the shift towards catering to the fujoshi public came later, but putting Himura and Alice in situations that causes the fandom to squeal in pleasure was apparently already present this early in the series. Heck, nowadays I have the feeling that Arisugawa Alice only writes really good mystery novels for his Student Alice series, while he leaves the less complex plots for the Writer Alice series, which simply sells because of its fujoshi public. There's a reason why those audio dramas of this series (reviews here, here, here, here and here) are produced by Momogre. Not that I'm not trying to be antagonistic or dismissive of a rather big group of fans or something, I just wished the mystery plots wouldn't seem to play second fiddle to fandom pandering... True, there are some good and even great novels in the Writer Alice series, but in general, the level seems much lower than the Student Alice series.

Dali no Mayu is a slightly disappointing entry in the series. It might have become like this because it was released so soon after the first novel, but both the first and third novel are so much better than this one. Not that Dali no Mayu is bad, but I do have the feeling this could have been much more, as it does feature some good ideas. Maybe good as a light snack.

Original Japanese title(s): 有栖川有栖 『ダリの繭』

Papillon Rouge

夕暮れの風と紅く染まる街並 

何かを思い出させる切ない景色

「tell me something」 （Garnet Crow）

The wind at dusk, the city bathing in crimson

A sad scenery that reminds me of something

"Tell Me Something" (Garnet Crow)

I'm not really sure what to think about these covers for old Dutch Judge Dee books: they're so bad they're almost good. Almost.

Bad weather forces Judge Dee and subordinate Ma Joong to change their route back to their own district and make a detour through Paradise Island, a place built on man's cravings for drinking, gambling and prostitution and the govenment's cravings for tax money. The judge has a chance meeting with his esteemed collegue from the district, who asks the judge to help clean up a case of suicide here as he himself has other urgent business to attend to elsewhere. The victim died inside the Red Pavilion, which was locked from the inside, so it seems like an obvious case of suicice, but strangely enough, a similar suicide happened thirty years ago at the same place. And Paradise Island has more secrets in store for the judge: the number one courtesan Autumn Moon seems to have some connection to the suicide and seems rather keen on getting to know the judge really well, while Ma Joong discovers that the suicide of thirty years ago wasn't all what it seems either. And so the judge stays put in Paradise Island until he has solved all the mysteries in Robert van Gulik's The Red Pavilion (Dutch title: Het rode paviljoen, 1961)

The Red Pavilion is the seventh original Judge Dee novel by Dutch Sinologist Robert van Gulik and the second book to feature a more free style: the first five books (among which The Chinese Maze Murders and The Chinese Gold Murders) were heavily styled after the original gong'an detective stories, with a large cast and the formula of three intertwining mysteries for the judge to solve each story. From The Haunted Monastery on, van Gulik greatly reduced the cast (often by sending the judge away traveling with just one or two subordinates) and did not follow the formula set in the original stories so rigidly anymore. The books were still as enjoyable as ever, brimming with atmosphere like only van Gulik could conjure up and as it became less formulaistic, the stories also felt more fun to read as it was harder to guess what would come.

This time, a locked room mystery lays at the core of the story, multiple even, all happening inside the titular Red Pavilion (which also functions as Judge Dee's lodgings on Paradise Island). I have to say, I was very disappointed with the locked room mysteries: the solutions are basically Locked Room Mysteries 101 and while I wasn't expecting something too fancy, I was still hoping for something more complex than what was presented here. There is one part of the locked room mystery that is actually very neat though, which makes very good use of the setting and that what saves this part of the mystery for me. 

The Red Pavilion reminded me very much of Yokomizo Seishi's Jooubachi (1952) by the way, which also featured a mysterious death commited inside a Chinese-style room locked from the inside. Even the solutions have some similarities. I actually wonder if van Gulik actually read the book: they are not really similar, so I'm definitely not suggesting foul play or anything, but I could imagine van Gulik having read Jooubachi and then using very vague, broad elements of that story for The Red Pavilion.

Like with many of the Judge's stories, the bulk of the mystery is made out of intertwining storylines, where a discovery in one storyline, leads to another in a different storyline etc. The books are best enjoyed for seeing these plotlines slowly unraveling, rather than for the challenge of solving the mystery yourself. In general, I quite liked the setting of Paradise Island, but I thought the plot a bit disappointing. Judge Dee stories have a tendency to resemble each other and with a lot of plot twists I had the feeling I had seen them already in earlier books and certain tropes are repeated much too often to be surprising anymore (the Old Mysterious Man for example).

Overall, I found The Red Pavilion to be a slightly underwhelming mystery. The setting is enjoyable, but the mystery plot is a bit predictable and never impresses. The Haunted Monastery, released in the same year, is much more enjoyable overall in comparision, I think.

Sunny Girl

いつまでも信じていたい

最後まで思い続けたい

自分は生きる意味があるはずと

「Poison」（反町隆史）

I want to believe forever

And keep thinking until the end

That there's meaning to my life

"Poison" (Sorimachi Takashi)

I wonder whether there are English-language blogs out here discussing Korean mystery fiction?

Because she failed in getting into an international school, Ahn Chae-yool is forced to make a late transfer to Seonam Girls High, but her very first day at school starts out as a complete disaster. She has just made a couple of steps outside her home when she is assaulted by "the biting man", a creepy man who has been leaving his teethmarks in the wrists of students of Seonam Girls High. And as if that wasn't enough, Chae-yool is also targeted by a different kind of dangerous entity at school: the Seonam Girls High Detective Club led by spectacled Yoon Mi-do has set its eyes on Chae-yool as its newest and fifth member and won't stop at anything in order to coax Chae-yool into joining the club and help catch "the biting man" terrorizing their school (actions include lying, fabricating evidence and basically stalking Chae-yool). In the course of the series, the Detective Club builds a reputation of being a group of nosy busybodies who do actually sometimes help their classmates and solve cases, while Chae-yool slowly uncovers a secret revolving around her literature teacher who seems a bit too interested in her in the South Korean TV drama Seonamyeogo Tamjungdan ("The Seonam Girls High Detective Club", 2014-2015).

Yes, it's the series that most people will probably know as "the series that featured the first onscreen lesbian kiss on South Korean television".

Seonamyeogo Tamjungdan is a 14 episode series, based on the novel with the same title by Park Ha-ik. I haven't read it, so no idea how faithful an adaptation the series is though. The series is probably best described as a school drama mystery, as Seonamyeogo Tamjungdan has a lot in common with 'normal' school drama series, like Great Teacher Onizuka. Many of the stories deal with themes often seen in that genre, like bullying at school, the gap between children and their parents, the reputation of the school and simply the things that come up when you grow up. These themes often form the background for the cases handled in Seonamyeogo Tamjungdan, which gives this series a distinct social school flavor, as it addresses the problems of society (and in particular the relation between students, their school and 'outside' society). In general, Seonamyeogo Tamjungdan does a good job at doing the school drama genre, helped by a fairly strong cast of young actresses.

As a mystery show, however, Seonamyeogo Tamjungdan is a fairly weak show however. The plots are very easy to guess and don't invite the viewer to think along with the protagonists. Admittedly, only two of the seven cases really lend themselves for whodunit couch-sleuthing (one about a photographer being shot at a gallery show and a case where a special order of delicious bread for Seonam Girls High was spiked with laxatives), but these cases are not challenging at all. The other cases too are not particularly surprising in the mystery department, and should more be enjoyed as whydunits, because as said, the cases do relate strongly to the school drama themes mentioned above. But seriously, the mystery plots themselves are sometimes incredibly chaotic and ask for every one involved to act in the most roundabout ways for no valid reasons (Looking especially hard at you, "the biting man" case!).

That said though, I did really enjoy the members of the titular Seonam Girls High Detective Club. It's a diverse group of girls who have enough enthusiasm to make up for their lack in finesse and experience. Like similar groups in series like the Koigakubo Academy Club Detective Club and Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, the Seonam Girls High Detective Club is basically a group of misfits who want to play detectives (as opposed to Detective/Mystery Clubs that talk about detective fiction). It's fun seeing the members goofing around as they try to solve the case and are definitely what is most entertaining about the series. Also: I have no idea how life is at a all-girls' high school in South Korea, but man, I have the feeling that it's a scary place.

One thing though, Seonamyeogo Tamjungdan loves going all over the place in the comedy - human drama spectrum. The series will have cheap slapstick comedy in one scene, and in the next scene you're given tear-inducing speeches about bullying and suicide. Sure, a good balance between smiles and tears is always good, but Seonamyeogo Tamjungdan makes rather sudden and drastic jumps between cartoon-like comedy and "oh, mankind is so dark" drama, which can be a bit unsettling. Also, I don't know if this is the standard for South Korean TV dramas, but 70 minutes an episode is really long for the amount of story they had. A lot of scenes rather drag for a while.

Oh, and one little thing that really bothered me throughout the series: how many coats do these girls have?! Every case (every two episodes) they have a whole new wardrobe, it seems!

I did enjoy Seonamyeogo Tamjungdan, but mostly for its take on the school drama and the comedy. While I am fairly familiar with Japanese school dramas, this was the first time I saw a South Korean one, so that was an interesting experience (though they don't differ that much). As a mystery show however, Seonamyeogo Tamjungdan has rather weak plots. Even if you look at the show as a social school mystery, the plots sometimes make barely sense. I really did like the characters and I'd certainly watch a sequel series, but if I look at the show's 'merits' as a detective TV show (which is the idea behind this blog at the least), I can't say that this is a very captivating example of the Korean detective story. If you're interested in a school drama with a hint of mystery though, try it out.

Original Korean title(s): 박하익 (original novel) "선암여고 탐정단"

Five Little Pigs

This little piggy went to market, 

 This little piggy stayed home, 

This little piggy had roast beef, 

This little piggy had none, 

And this little piggy cried wee wee wee all the way home 

Seriously, today's book has a pretty bad cover. I know I shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I think that in day and age, publishers should put some effort in covers. A book isn't just the story inside, it's a physical product, and that includes the cover, so I'd appreciate it if they wouldn't treat cover art as an afterthought.

The winter of Sparta, New York feels even more ruthless this year, as the town is haunted by a mysterious serial killer calling him(her?)self HOG. The murders and the victims all vary: from a highway sign crashing on a car to what at first seemed like a trip of a staircase, from little children to the elderly, nobody is safe. And HOG derives pleasure from taunting the police with Dear Boss-esque letters that show how utterly helpless they are. Private investigator Ron Gentry also becomes part of the hunting troupe and he in turn is asked to contact his mentor, Professor Niccolo Benedetti, the world's most renowned detective. Whimsical (and freeloading) as Benedetti may be, even he feels that there's absolutely evil at work in Sparta and puts his own name at stake to find the serial killer in William L. DeAndrea's The HOG Murders (1979).

Oh, how often I heard people praise DeAndrea's The HOG Murders! I don't have a special interest in serial killer stories to be honest, but still, Queen's Cat of Many Tails is quite good, so there was always the little note in the back of my head, to read The HOG Murders. Of course, too much expectations could work in its disadvantage, so I kept those in reasonable check, and I went in the book with no more knowledge than that 1) this book was about a serial killer and 2) it was supposed to be good. How did it turn out?

Well, it certainly didn't disappoint! This was my first DeAndrea and I want to read more now! The serial murders that form the core mystery are gruesome, terrifying and seem only to shock and awe the reader into accepting The HOG Murders is just a crazy serial killer story, but this is actually a well-clued, absolutely fair orthodox mystery novel. And a good one too. Pick up the hints and turn your head the right way and you can spot HOG in time (I didn't pick up on the hint, but my Gut Instinct and Meta-Knowledge did give me the right person. But that's cheating). The one little problem I have with the solution is that a lot of orthodox mystery stories that feature serial killers kinda revolve around the same concept and The HOG Murders is no different: if you have read other puzzle plot mysteries with serial killers, there's a good chance you have a rough idea what to look for. I guess it's the same for most tropes in the genre, but I haven't seen that much variation in the concept with the serial killer trope, though that may be perfectly be the fault of my skewed reading diet.

There's more to The HOG Murders than just the serial murders though and I in particular liked two parts of the story that I thought feel quite Queenian: first is speculations around what HOG actually means and the wordplay reminds of Queen's dying message stories with many, many possible solutions that what seems a simple word (the 'solution' is presented in a rather arbritrary way though). Second, there's a very strange crime scene around three-quarters in the story, with someone who froze to death. The strangeness of the scene and the way the hints to the solution were laid out (as well as the 'sort' of hints) are classic Queenian stuff and I really loved it.

Not a big fan of the detective Professor Niccolo Benedetti though, but that's more on a character level. The HOG Murders does suffer a bit from a few too many 'detective' figures in the story: I get why DeAndrea went for that and it allows him to keep the momentum by jumping to moments with story developments, but still, it's a bit crowded with a great detective, a private detective, a police inspector, a reporter and a criminal psychologist to follow. It would be bit different if they were rival detectives, but they actually work and quite often move together in little groups.

I have to admit though, I do prefer less open mysteries in general. There's just something more thrilling and enjoyable with murders commited in more intimate circles, rather than an 'everyone in this town can be a victim!' type of plot. Even with a fair play puzzle plot where you can detect the criminal in advance, I can't say that I'm a very big fan of these open mysteries. That said, I still think The HOG Murders is great, but I just don't read that much orthodox mysteries with serial killers.

Anyway, The HOG Murders is a great detective novel that combines the serial killer motif with a puzzle plot in a succesful manner. Recommended reading for everything and I'm definitely going to read of DeAndrea in the near future to see what more surprises he has in store.

Black Coffee Rag

「雪だ・・・」

『探偵神宮寺三郎 Innocent Black』

"It's snowing..."

"Detective Jinguuji Saburou: Innocent Black"

I listen to a lot of videogame music, but usually only from games I've actually played. I think that Innocent Black's soundtrack is one of the few I knew inside-out years before I even got to experience the game. It's that awesome.

Tantei Jinguuji Saburou series
The Shinjuku Central Park Murder Case (1987) [Nintendo Famicom Disk System]
The Unfinished Reportage (1996) [Sony PlayStation / SEGA Saturn]
At the End of the Dream (1998) [Sony PlayStation / SEGA Saturn]
Before the Light Fades (1999) [Sony PlaySation]
Innocent Black (2002) [Sony PlayStation 2]
The White Phantom Girl (2005) [Nintendo GameBoy Advance]
Ashes and Diamonds (2009) [Sony PlayStation Portable]
The Red Butterfly (2010) [Nintendo DS]
Rondo of Revenge (2012) [Nintendo 3DS]

Private detective Jinguuji Saburou is hired by Ninomiya Akio, a distressed father who wishes to find his daughter Hazuki who has run away from home. When Jinguuji finally manages to trace Hazuki, he finds out she ran away because she witnessed a very strange happening going on in her father's hospital, and she suspects the vice-president of the Ninomiya General Hospital might be stealing medicine as a side business. Jinguuji starts a new investigation at the hospital, where he finds another client: an elderly mother recently lost her son, who had gone missing two years ago. She never saw him alive anymore, because he recently died of breath failure in a park, and his body was brought to the Ninomiya General Hospital. The mother wants to know if her son really died of breath failure and what he had been up the last two years. Digging deeper, Jinguuji discovers that the son's death and the medicine theft are in fact connected and h starts to realize that some horrible secret ties together the Ninomiya General Hospital, a group of homeless people and a local crime syndicate in the 2002 PlayStation 2 videogame Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Innocent Black  ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou: Innocent Black").

I've been a big fan of the Detective Jinguuji Saburou videogame series for years. The series started on the Famicom Disk System (a peripheral of the Japanese NES) in 1987 and saw its most recent installment in 2012, making it actually one of the oldest game franchises still active. The basic setting has not changed since the first game: every installment the player is presented a hardboiled detective story starring private detective Jinguuji Saburou, his capable assistant Misono Youko and police detective Kumano, usually set at the edges of underworld of Shinjuku, Tokyo. Occasionally we see more of an extended cast, like the forensics expert Miyoshi Shiho or local crime syndicate captain Imaizumi, and sometimes the story moves to locations outside Shinjuku, but the player can always expect a very story-driven experience with a plot that deals with realistic social problems and the people who are stuck between 'normal' society and the underworld.

 
The Detective Jinguuji Saburou series got a big blow in 2000 however, after the release of the seventh installment of the series. Data East, the original developers of the series, went bankrupt and many thought that this meant the end of the series. Fortunately, the company WorkJam bought the rights to the series (and still owns them), and WorkJam's first own Detective Jinguuji Saburou game was 2002's Innocent Black. This game is thus seen as a turning point for the series.

Overall, Innocent Black is a well-made entry in the series and a great hardboiled detective game. Gameplay-wise, it's the same old command-style adventure it's been for over 20 years. As expected from the Detective Jinguuji Saburou series, Innocent Black features great character designs and most importantly, fantastic music. All installments of the series have been praised for their catchy jazzy tunes and Innocent Black definitely upholds that tradition and brought some of the best songs of the whole franchise. Illustrator Terada Katsuya's designs look great too and in the visual and auditory departments, this game is really remarkable. Story-wise too, Innocent Black manages to do most things very good: as always the story starts with a small case for Jinguuji (locating Hazuki who ran away), but manages to grow out to something much bigger, without feeling too farfetched. The plot of most Detective Jinguuji Saburou are often best described as social school stories, as they are often rich in social commentary, but it definitely works for the series and Innocent Black features one of the more devilish schemes I've seen in videogame plots. I think that I can wholeheartedly recommend this game to anyone who wants to play a detective game on the PS2 with a catchy story.

Is it all perfect? Well no. One thing I thought very disappointing was that compared to the three previous games (Mikan no Rupo, Yume no Owari ni and Tomoshibi ga Kienu Ma ni), Innocent Black was a much more linear experience. Note that the series has always been somewhat linear: you usually advance in the story just by talking to the right people or being at the right place at the right time. The mentioned titles however all experimented with more interactive presentation, like parallel narratives that allowed you to experience the story with multiple characters, or giving the player certain deadlines in which he needed to move the story forward. In comparison, Innocent Black is incredibly linear, as you simply move from hotspot to hotspot to advance forward. I don't find linear games bad per se (in fact, depending on the plot, it sometimes works out better), but the above mentioned titles were the Jinguuji Saburou games I played most recently, so the sudden change was very detectable. This linear direction has been maintained in practically all of the Jinguuji Saburou games WorkJam has developed, with two notable exceptions: Shiroi Kage no Shoujo (the player needs to make deductions every now or then that can potentially lead to a game over) and Ashes and Diamonds (branching storylines).

Innocent Black is also a rather controversial topic among longtime fans of the series, because it tried to do something surprising about the longstanding relation between protagonist Jinguuji Saburou and his beautiful and capable assistant Youko.Without going into spoilers, I can tell you that I too was not pleased at all with what WorkJam was going for and in fact, they had to fix that in the next game, Kind of Blue, probably not in the least because of the negative backlash. Kind of Blue is the only Jinguuji Saburou game I haven't played yet, but I hope to, because Innocent Black did leave a somewhat bad aftertaste because of this particular, but important plotpoint, that didn't even had proper development.

Innocent Black is a game that does a lot right and features a really captivating detective story. It is however also a very linear experience, even compared to earlier installments of the game, and I think that for longtime fans, Innocent Black also feels incomplete with its successor Kind of Blue, because a significant problem is not resolved within Innocent Black's narrative. In that respect, it is an unsatisfying experience, perhaps. But overall, I thought the plot to be interesting and the fantastic music definitely helps.

Original Japanese title(s): 『探偵神宮寺三郎　Innocent Black』

番外編： The Decagon House Murders

No quotes as an introduction? A post title that isn't a reference? Yes, this is one of those rare service announcements on the blog. Prior announcements included messages about me writing prefaces or having translated short stories, so this time...?

One of the most referenced novels on this blog has always been AYATSUJI Yukito's The Decagon House Murders ("Jukkakukan no Satsujin", 1987), a novel inspired by And Then There Were None, about a group of students with nicknames like "Ellery", "Carr" and "Agatha", who are targeted by a murderer during a stay on a small, deserted island with a strange ten-sided house. The Decagon House Murders showed that it was still possible to write good puzzle plot mysteries decades after the so-called "Golden Age" ended. In fact, the release of the book was like a traffic light turning to green, as many writers followed in Ayatsuji's footsteps, hailing in a renaissance of puzzle plot mystery novels in Japan (the shin honkaku, or "new orthodox" movement).

Publisher Locked Room International will be publishing the first English-language version of The Decagon House Murders this July and I had the pleasure of being the translator of the book. It's a book I always wished more people would read, but of course I had never dreamt I'd have the chance to translate it. But sometimes, the stars align at just the right time. It's one of the most influential mystery novels of the last thirty years in Japan and SHIMADA Soji wrote a special introduction for the English release, so this is a release no fan of detective fiction shouldn't miss. Which is something I say not as the translator of the book (okay, partly, I do), but as someone who has been a fan of the book since many years ago and who went all the way to Kyoto and joined the Kyoto University Mystery Club mostly because of how much I enjoyed The Decagon House Murders.

Publishers Weekly gave The Decagon House Murders an early positive starred review and selected it as one of their Best Summer Books 2015 line-up, which is certainly not a bad start! My own review of the book can be read here. It dates from a few years back and long-time readers might have noticed that it was around that time that I started to blog more consistently/often about Japanese detective fiction and that's no coincidence.

Anyway, The Decagon House Murders will be out in a bit in less than two months, so True Believers, keep an eye out for it.

Loose Truth

"Oh, you mustn't ask me that yet. I shall have to chew it over a lot more before I can make a connected and logical story of it. Besides, the best detectives always hold up their brilliant solutions for the most effective moment (surely you know that)."

"Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery"

I might not know much about graphic design, but I'm pretty sure that a white font on a light-blue background for a cover isn't the best of ideas.

Mystery writer, amateur detective and Daily Courier correspondent Roger Sheringham and his cousin Anthony change their holiday plans when Roger is sent by his newspaper to Ludmouth Bay, Hampshire, to report on the investigation of Inspector Moresby. Moresby is investigating the death of Elise Vane, who was found beneath the cliffs in a less-than-living state. While most people think it was a mere suicide, Moresby's presence alone shows that there might be more behind the death of Mrs. Vane, but Moresby's very careful with what he says and tells Roger and Anthony nothing newsworthy, so the two have to investigate the mystery themselves. They soon find out that the victim (?) was not a very nice woman and there were not just a few persons who had reason to bump her off. Off the cliff. And so Roger and Anthony work together to solve the crime and outsmart Moresby in Anthony Berkeley's Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery (1927).

Okay, was I the only one who read the title and expected a mystery revolving around a weather vane?

Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery is the third novel in the Roger Sheringham series, of which I have reviewed the later The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1929) and Jumping Jenny (1933). Those two novels were fantastic novels that explored the limits of the Great Detective as the bringer of truth, revealer of all, with multiple solutions and other shenanigans confusing both reader and Roger. Depending on your point of view, you could even consider those books anti-mystery novels, as they undermine the idea of that a detective novel could bring the truth. Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery is in comparison quite tame, but is definitely written in the same spirit as The Poisoned Chocolate Case and  Jumping Jenny.

Unlike one false solution after a false solution after another set-up of the latter two books, Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery's plot is fairly straighforward, with Roger and Anthony arriving in Ludmouth's Bay and slowly uncovering more about Elise Vane's death, occasionally bouncing off theories with each other and Inspector Moresby. The latter is a rather plain policeman, who is simply doing his work in the best way he knows and his plainness works well opposite Roger Sheringham's "great detective. Those who have read more books in the series, can probably guess how this rivalry will end, but still, it's fun.

And while the plot does have its share of twists and turns as it nears the last page, including some false solutions, it is not nearly as anti-mystery-esque as other books and I think this book leaves a less cynical aftertaste (that is, it's  Roger Sheringham, so of course it's still quite cynical, just not so over-the-top as later books). Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery does not try to undermine its own premise too hard and is thus easier to enjoy than the later novels.

I do like that once again, the core mystery (the death of Elise Vane) is actually a very simple one. Trial and Error and The Poisoned Chocolates Case had at the core fairly simple deaths as the starting point, which only became more and more complex as new evidence showed up which allowed for new theories to be developed. Berkeley's critique of the infinite possibilities of evidence and theories feels more acceptable as the case itself becomes more and more simple: even the most featureless situation can be blown up to the most incredible story just by imagination deductions.

Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery is an enjoyable detective novel that might not be as memorable and ambitious as later books in the series, but certainly no less fun. Considering it's less crazy, it might even be a better entry point in the series.