The Adventure of the Sinister Stranger

隠しておきたい秘密が君にあったとしても

僕にも疑われてしまう事があるように

愛し過ぎるからより深く知ろうとしてしまう

月の裏側に二人のココロを置いていこう 

「Mysterious」（Naifu）

Even if you have a secret you want to keep hidden

As if you're being suspected by me

I'm trying to learn more about you because I love you too much

Let's go and leave the hearts of us two on the other side of the moon

"Mysterious" (Naifu)

Another Dutch book this month? It's becoming scary now!

Henri Revers made his name not only as legal counsel, but also as a gifted amateur detective who occasionally solves cases for clients in matters they'd rather keep silent about (like thefts), but also bigger cases involving the police. But Revers' biggest case will always be the tragedy people called "the mystery of Rijswijk". Baron Albert Meyer-Rosing was found in his garden with a Japanese dagger sticking out from his chest on New Year's Eve and the prime suspect was his cousin Max Meyer-Rosing, who had given Albert the Japanese dagger (together with a wakizashi sword) and claimed to have been sleeping in the library overlooking the garden during the murder. The strange thing is that all those who inherited the title of Baron Meyer-Rosing died on the exact same spot in the garden for the last five generations. Max is acquitted because of insufficient evidence, but as the clouds of suspicion prevent him from marrying the love of his life, Max hopes Revers will find out who did kill his cousin and why. Revers' investigation however reveals a lot of secrets and schemes in A. Bertrand's De geheimzinnige Japanees ("The Mysterious Japanman", release year unknown).

Johan Versteeg was a Dutch writer born in 1873 who used a lot of pen names. Apparently, he only wrote three mystery novels in his otherwise prolific writing career, and his first mystery novel was De geheimzinnige Japanees under the name A. Bertrand (his other mystery books are written under the name J.T. van Leiden). The inside of De geheimzinnige Japanees mentions next-to-no details on the publication itself, so the exact publication year can't be traced, but most sources on the internet seem to set it between 1904-1910, making it a fairly early mystery novel. I was actually quite surprised I got my hands on the book for a relatively low price and it still looks great as a hardcover with neat illustrations.

To be honest, there is very little to be found on this book on the internet and I only became interested in the book because of the title and the cover art. The title features the archaic word "Japanees", which looks like the English "Japanese", but the word isn't used in modern Dutch anymore and looks pretty strange (which is why I rendered it as "Japanman", like "Chinaman"). The cover in turn features the titular "mysterious Japanman", who actually looks more like a "Chinaman" than a "Japanman", leading me to suspect this was some kind of Yellow Peril-esque novel. Obviously, as a Dutch person writing about Japanese mystery novels, I was quite curious as to the contents of the book and was quite pleased when I finally found a copy of it.

De geheimzinnige Japanees was also better than I had expected, though like I said, I was perhaps expecting little of it. The first two chapters do a good job at setting Henri Revers up as the protagonist, who is obviously inspired by Sherlock Holmes. With a keen eye for details, the legal man manages to solve two cases of theft and espionage in as many chapters and the espionage case is actually quite neatly done and practically an impossible crime! The story then moves on to the main course of the book and does a great job at introducing us to all the actors involved with "the mystery of Rijswijk" and the Meyer-Rosing family. Revers is given some hints as to where to start with his investigation in the death of Baron Meyer-Rosing, but more and more people with a motive to get rid of the baron pop up as the plot moves on. The murder mystery is spiced up with hints to an old family curse and the use of the Japanese dagger as the murder weapon and by now, the reader has all the things he could've wanted from a mystery novel.

And of course, there's the titular mysterious Japanese and it's here where you suddenly remember that you aren't reading a mystery novel from the 1920s~1940s, but one from the late 1900s. De geheimzinnige Japanees remains an entertaining mystery novel, but yes, given the title and the period, the mysterious Japanese is indeed rather a crucial part of the errr, the mystery, in an almost too predictable fashion. The story does its best at trying to divert suspicion to different characters at several points in the story, but it's always clear that in the background, there's the mysterious Japanese and here you can feel that it's just plot bias that leads Revers to the man, rather than the Holmes-esque thinking work he shows at other points in the story.

Funny is how the book has some segments that show that the writer had knowledge on Japanese culture to some extent, but also parts that show he was fairly bad at making detailed notes or something, because some Japanese words would be spelled right in one chapter only to become something horribly different in another chapter. Some chapters also showed rudimentary knowledge of the Japanese language, while others were just made-up. The author probably looked some things up in a book, but didn't with others, but it is kinda funny to see how sometimes the book features information nobody uninformed should ever know, while at other times it's obvious there's also been a lack of research.

That said though, I had a good time with De geheimzinnige Japanees. I'm tempted to say its set-up is classic (as in 'classic puzzle detective fiction starting around 1920'), but this book actually predates that period. There are actually quite some false trails, plot twists and moving around of the accusatory finger over the course of the book to keep the reader entertained and it reads quite well for a 1900s Dutch novel (I've read 1930s novels with more annoying spelling conventions than in this novel). A real puzzler, it is not, but definitely much, much better than I had expected based on just the title and the cover.

The book features eight illustrations which also look incredible. Though like the cover, the "Japanman" is mostly dressed like a "Chinaman" in the illustrations with long robes and a hat...

Anyway, I'm quite happy I got my hands on this rather obscure Dutch detective novel with a Japanese touch to it. It was quite fun to read and much better than I expected at first. Also, I think this is actually the oldest book I own at the moment and it still looks quite good, so from a bibliophilic point of view, I'm a content reader.

Original Dutch title(s): A. Bertrand "De geheimzinnige Japanees"

The Cat Who Sang for the Birds

さよならさえ伝えられなくて

それでも僕は今日此処を出てゆくよ

また素敵な誰かに会えるかな

気まぐれで自由な暮らし僕は野良猫

「Nora」（Garnet Crow)

I can't even tell you farewell,

But even so, I'll leave here today

Will I ever meet a wonderful person again?

Whimsical and free, I'm a stray cat

"Nora" (Garnet Crow)

I've been postponing writing this review for weeks. Which isn't that bad a thing, save for the fact that by finally writing this review, I'm postponing a different review for even longer. At this point, I'm not even sure whether I'm going a review on that book anymore, because it's slowly sinking deeper and deeper away in my memories...

Professor Niccolo Benedetti is usually called in with particularly nasty situations that ask for his expertise on human evil, for example with the horrible serial killings chronicled in The HOG Murders. So Ron Gentry, Benedetti's disciple, was a bit surprised to hear the Maestro accepted the request to help mediate between the two Pembroke twins. The feud between Claude (birdwatcher) and Henry (manx cat breeder) has been going on for decades, but their quabble becomes government business when Claude puts out his veto on manufacturing an air-cleaning device the brothers invented: Claude thinks his brother is responsible for an aviaric disappearance from their grounds. Benedetti thinks evil is behind the flight of the birds and his suspicions soon prove to be right when the mediation session becomes a kidnapping case with a deadly result in William L. DeAndrea's The Manx Murders (1994).

Running a blog on fiction does not mean I can actually read and think: that's why I jumped from The HOG Murders to the third novel in the series, The Manx Murders, even though I already have the second book and I'm pretty sure the correct reading order is mentioned somewhere in the books themselves...

Anyway, The Manx Murders is the third time the public is told about the adventures of Professor Niccolo Benedetti, his disciple Ron Gentry and Gentry's wife in their fight against evil. Evil's Benedetti's lifework mind you, and not detecting, he is sure to tell you, which is why he accepted the job even if it's not as big a case as The HOG Murders. In fact, The Manx Murders feels a bit underwhelming most of the time. Disappearing birds? Dead cats? Even when the stakes get higher when one of the twins is kidnapped and bodies (of the not-so-living anymore kind) start to pop up, it's still nothing compared to the terror we experienced with the unknown serial killer in The HOG Murders. Benedetti still does his paintings thing (he starts off painting realistic paintings when he investigates a case, which turn more surrealistic as the investigation continues, turning into subconcious hints), Ron and his wife still have their banter and stuff, but it's like they're stuck in the wrong story, because The Manx Murders is just not a story that would need these characters.

The Manx Murders has a very limited setting, both in terms of cast and location and while that is not a bad thing per se, I wouldn't say these elements were done exceptionally well in The Manx Murders. The length of the book does not allow much room for exciting plot developments or interesting confrontations between characters. Personally, I think the mystery plot would've worked better as a shorter story (with a few trimmings), as the current length of The Manx Murders just isn't optimal: either a longer, or shorter length would've resulted in a better-flowing story, in my opinion.

I lean towards the shorter version because the puzzle plot is a bit simple this time. The murderer is incredibly obvious (especially after the second thing) and while the clue leading to the identity of the murderer is fair and good enough, it's not nearly enough to sustain a whole novel-length story. It'd worked much better in a different type of story I think (I especially think this idea would've fitted perfectly in a Columbo episode, for example).

The Manx Murders is not a bad mystery story. But I do think it'd be a lot better in a different form and maybe even if moved outside the Professor Benedetti series. Ah well, I still have to read The Werewolf Murders, which apparently is a lot closer to The HOG Murders in terms of set-up, so that should be fun.

Hungry House Blues

風とRainbow

追いかけて　溢れ返る人の中で

閉ざされたその心の向こう

夢中でさがしてたね 

「風とRAINBOW」（Garnet Crow）

The wind and rainbow

Keep on following them among that mass of people

And beyond those closed hearts

You kept on searching, right?

"Wind and Rainbow" (Garnet Crow)

It's been a strange month where I found not one, but two old Dutch book gift certificates at home. Which really come in handy considering the relatively high Dutch book prices.

Having secured his house with window and door shutters, spotlights and cameras with motion sensors and telling next to nobody where he lived, Fred Duijster, big shot in the Dutch criminal underworld, probably was not expecting someone to just walk inside his house and slice him up. On the security footage, the police recognize Rafaël "Raaf" du Mez, a (self-proclaimed) reformed criminal with a history with the victim. While the police is working on sealing the deal by finding the last pieces of evidence to get Raaf in convicted, laywer Sjoerd Guikema is hired by Raaf's sister Elvira to save her brother. While Sjoerd tries his best at weakening the police's cases, and manages to find some weak spots, he realizes his only chance to get his client out of jail is to prove someone else could have pulled off the seemingly impossible feat of entering the victim's home without being captured on camera. And so police and defense try to outsmart each other in M.P.O. Books' Een afgesloten huis ("A Sealed House", 2013).

Een afgesloten huis is the eight book in Dutch mystery writer M.P.O. Books' District Heuvelrug series, set around several police divisions in the central Netherlands area. For the non-Dutchies, sorry, but the books are not available in English (yet?). Previously, I already reviewed De laatste kans and Cruise control. And as you might have noticed, I read the books in a rather random order, but both of them were quite entertaining. And given that Een afgesloten huis had a locked room murder premise (of sorts), I was quite curious as to how this would work out.

Like Carr's The Judas Window, Een afgesloten huis revolves about a murder in a sealed space that seemingly could only have been commited by one man, making it a locked room mystery, if you accept that the suspect is not the murderer. The plot of Een afgesloten huis keeps the investigation into the truth behind the murder interesting by moving the spotlight back and forth between the police (who are convinced Raaf is the murderer) and Sjoerd & Elvira (who try to find evidence of Raaf's innocence). The result is a story where both parts compete against each other and as both sides have their shares of (little) victories and losses, the reader is invited to keep on reading until the very end.

M.P.O. Books obviously likes this narrative technique of jumping between various parties, as he used it in all the stories I've read by him, and I have to admit that by now, it's feeling a bit forced, or too predictable at the least. Granted, as Een afgesloten huis follows a dual structure, jumping between narratives is necessary, but the biggest problem I have with this is that Books jumps way too often. Sometimes you read one page about character X, then it jumps to character Y for another page, only to jump back to character X again. The strange thing is; often there is little need for having to interrupt character X's narrative for one page of character Y. Sometimes, the next section starring character X starts at practically the same time & space as where the previous section with X ended, so why cut it up in two sections with an interruption? Because of that, the pacing of this book feels a bit strange, as you are forced to take speed bumps every other page. And while it's a problem some serialized novels have too (I look at you Rampo, sir), Een afgesloten huis is a paperback original, so it hasn't the excuse of different publication origins.

The parts with Sjoerd & Elvira are the most entertaining, as we follow the duo in their attempts to get Raaf out of detainment and solve the locked room murder mystery. The series is a police procedural, but personally, I prefer amateur detectives, so that explains that. The idea behind the locked room murder is okay, I think. It's a very simple solution that I doubt would have really worked in a story starring a Great Detective solving crimes like doing the newspaper puzzles, but it works well in the context of the series and the specific situation created here.

The trail leading to the identity of the murderer I thought less refined though. Like Cruise control, this novel features psychological clues among others, but they are so open for interpretation you might as well wave them away. Then again, by the end, after the main puzzle solving, Een afgesloten huis suddenly took a rather hardboiled way out, so maybe it was to be expected. Also, Cruise control will spoil a very significant part of Een afgesloten huis and you probably should read them in order, unlike me.

The mix of detecting couples, police procedural and locked room mystery works quite well in Een afgesloten huis and I think the book should appeal to Dutch readers wanting to read a classically inclined detective novel. I do have to admit that stylistically, I hope that other books will feature less narrative jumpiness, as at times it feels like it's only there to drag things out. But overall, a good read.

Original Dutch title(s): M.P.O. Books "Een afgesloten huis"

Over Drive

抱きしめた心の小宇宙(コスモ) 

熱く燃やせ　奇跡を起こせ

傷ついたままじゃないと

誓いあった　遥かな銀河 

「ペガサス幻想（ファンタジー）」（Make-Up)

Embracing the Cosmos of your heart

Burn it high and make a miracle happen

We won't just stay wounded

This we swear to each other in this faraway galaxy

"Pegasus Fantasy" (Make-Up)

 
I do have to say though, the cover art for the pockets of the G series look very nice. I have no idea what is going on, but I really love the style.

G series
1) φ wa Kowareta ne - Path Connected φ Broke
2) θ wa Asonde Kureta yo - Another Playmate θ
3) τ ni Naru Made Matte - Please Stay Until τ
4) ε Ni Chikatte - Swearing on Solemn ε

To the outside world, the fact that Yamabuki Satsuki and Kabeya Megumi travel back together from Tokyo to Nagoya in the same night-bus might seem a bit suspicious. Especially as Megumi already told her friends she went to Disneyland. But both of them being in Tokyo was really just a coincidence, and there's nothing strange about two friends taking the same bus back home, right? But the two of them regret having stepped on the bus when a man hijacks the bus, threatening the passengers (in an awfully polite manner actually) with a pistol and bombs. The police is also aware of the hijack and an investigation into the passenger list of the bus leads to the discovery that most of the passengers were all members of a religious sect called Swearing on Solemn ε, which is also the English subtitle to Mori Hiroshi's ε Ni Chikatte (2006).

ε Ni Chikatte is the fourth volume in Mori Hiroshi's G series, which is starting to become my go-to series whenever I want something short and easy to read (the G series itself being a spin-off of the S&M series) Sometimes it's just good to have a back-up series like this. That said though, the G series is far from a perfect series, though luckily, this fourth volume manages to bring something fresh.

The biggest problem as of now with the series is that is conceived as a series. While each novel features a mystery to be solved, the motives for each of the murders is left in obscurity. Over the course of the first three novels, you slowly find out that some sort of religious sect is active on the internet, that the sect is using Greek letters (hence the name G series) and that somehow, this sect is connected to all the cases that happen in this series. But that means that each novel you're left with a lot of questions (as they work as hooks for the next volume), and while I can appreciate minimalistic detective stories, the G series isn't one; it is a 'normal' mystery storyline stretched out over a series of novels, resulting in a very slow pace of uncovering the main mystery. It also means that each individual volume feels incomplete, as if you're missing a crucial part of the story (because you do!).

ε Ni Chikatte does little to really further the main storyline, but at least it acknowledges the fact that something is going on and this volume also brings a completely type of mystery to the series. Up until now, the series was rather 'old-fashioned', featuring locked room murders and serial murders, but this time, we have a hijacking case. Even more, there is no obvious 'mystery' to solve in this story: while the reader is obviously aware that this is a detective novel and that something needs to be detected, the puzzle is not made immediately clear to the reader and part of the fun is finding out what is going on. The idea of a terrorist hostage situation reminds of the many, many hostage situations in Detective Conan and I must say that I thought the situation of ε Ni Chikatte was much more exciting than the closed circle serial murder case of the previous book.

When ε Ni Chikatte finally does show its cards, you're left with a mystery novel that actually manages to give the reader a surprise, despite the somewhat straightforward start. It is certainly a book that deserves a reread, as you'll see that it is actually an ingeniously plotted story. It does have some issues: by the time the whole business around the hijack case is unveiled, you will very probably think: why go through all that trouble? It sorta works in the context of the series, as previous novels have already set a precedent for doing things the hard way, but still, the question will cross your mind. And of course, questions surrounding the motive are left unanswered once again, leaving you with another unfinished story. The main, core set-up of the novel is good though and perhaps the most amusing in the series up until now.

I was a bit tired of the series after the last volume, but I have to admit that ε Ni Chikatte has made me a bit more enthusiastic. Sure, like all the volumes up until now it still refuses to answer some questions raised by the plot, but there are hints of finally moving forward with the main storyline. And the hijack case itself is surprisingly fun, even if it takes a while before the reader realizes what is going on. And that is what makes it so entertaining.

Original Japanese title(s): 森博嗣　『ε（イプシロン）に誓って SWEARING ON SOLEMN ε』

The Judges of Hades

"You're alone."

"I don't care whether I'm alone or not! It's my right."

"12 Angry Men" 

I know of mystery games that place you in the role of a defense attorney, a prosecutor and lay judges, but I can't remember whether there's one where you play a professional judge presiding the court. Or one where you're the stenographer.

The lay judge system was implemented in Japan on May 21, 2009. In trials on certain severe crimes, six lay judges join three professional judges to decide about the fate of the defendant, and in the case of a guilty verdict, the judges need also decide the weight of the sentence. Ashibe Taku's Saibanin Houtei ("Lay Judge Trials", 2008) is a short story collection starring the attorney Morie Shunsaku, Ashibe's long-time series detective. Or wait, that is not true. The true protagonist is perhaps you. In the three stories collected in this volume, you (the reader) take on the role of a lay judge present at a trial ("you" are a different person every story, naturally) and watch over the court proceedings. While Japan is known for its incredibly high conviction rate (because prosecutors don't prosecute unless they're sure they'll get a guilty verdict), the young, but experienced Morie Shunsaku shows he too is desperate to save his clients and that he is even capable in performing some amazing courtroom magic.

A while back I read Sekishibyou no Yakata no Shi, another short story collection by Ashibe Taku starring Morie Shunsaku, but that was a rather 'conventional' impossible crime story collection. This time however we see him actually doing his work (a defense attorney) and Saibainin Houtei is definitely structured like a proper courtroom drama. The stories are all titled after, and set in the different phases of a trial (Shinri ("Examination"), Hyougi ("Discussion") and Jihaku ("Confession")). In fact, there is a certain educational factor to this novel though, as the book was originally released just before the implementation of the lay judge system and it does appear to be written with that in mind: over the course of the book, it will explain why the system was implemented, the role of the lay judges will have to fulfill and how the proceedings go in a trial overseen by lay judges. This is strengthened by casting the reader ("you") in the role of one of the lay judges in each of the story.

In that respect, Saibanin Houtei reminds me of the DS videogame Yuuzai X Muzai, which was also about the lay judge system and cast the player in the role of a lay judge in each of the four stories included. The big difference however is that in Yuuzai X Muzai, the player would unravel the truth behind each case himself (together with the other judges), while in Saibanin Houtei, Morie Shunsaku does most of the work. Oher fiction related to the lay judge system by the way, are the DS videogame Ace Attorney 4, as well as the Ace Attorney spin-off novel/guidebook Gyakuten Houtei.

Normally, I try to discuss each story in a story collection, but I gave up on that for this review. Each of these three stories work that much better if you indeed take on the role of a proper lay judge and step inside the courtroom with no preconceptions about the case. As mentioned above, each of the stories is set at a different stage of a trial, but in practice you'll be given a 'traditional' courtroom mystery every time. A courtroom mystery often follows the same basic pattern for obvious reasons: the prosecution always starts with accusing the defendant and then lays out the evidence. And just as a guilty verdict seems inescapable, defense starts its counterattack by slowly picking out faults in the prosecution's story (and in mystery stories, they usually find the real person behind it all too). In general, the three stories in Saibanin Houtei follow the same pattern, but the mystery plots are entertaining, so no problem there if you like courtroom mysteries. A little gripe I have is that the 'trick' behind each case (that turns the case around) is rather similar for all three cases. The best story is probably the last one. The plots of the first and second story suffer a bit from dependence on random knowledge nobody would usually be aware of.

Oh, and a random note, but I think this was one of the very few mystery novels I've read that actually use the second person, "you" in the narration. First person, third person and "all-seeing" narration are of course extremely common, but the only other example of a second person narration I can think of now from the top of my head is Norizuki Rintarou's 2 no Higeki.

Ashibe Taku's Saibainin Houtei is a fairly amusing courtroom mystery short story collection that manages to be both educational as well as entertaining as a mystery novel. The basic idea behind all three stories do resemble each other a bit though, but I think that anyone with at least some interest in courtroom mysteries and perhaps the Japanese lay judge system, can safely pick up this book.

Original Japanese title(s): 芦辺拓　『裁判員法廷』: 「審理」 / 「評議」 / 「自白」

番外編： The Moai Island Puzzle Released

I only just realized I too have fallen in the trap of making announcements of announcements. So err, yeah, the content of today's announcement doesn't really differ from that of the announcement of this announcement.
 

Last month, I announced that Locked Room International would be publishing the first English translation of a novel by Alice ARISUGAWA soon. And now that time has come, for The Moai Island Puzzle is now available (both paper and digital, I think). The Moai Island Puzzle was translated by me, and it is a brilliant puzzle plot mystery that has basically everything: a treasure hunt on an island , a locked room murder, a Challenge to the Reader and one of the most impressive deduction scenes in mystery fiction. Arisugawa is obviously a big fan of Ellery Queen, but I'd say that this is the novel where Arisugawa outdoes Ellery Queen at his own game. If you're in search for a detective novel that celebrates logical reasoning and fair play, The Moai Island Puzzle is what you're looking for. The English version features an introduction by Souji SHIMADA (of The Tokyo Zodiac Murders), penned especially for this release. The book was originally published in 1989 with the title Kotou Puzzle, soon after Yukito AYATSUJI's The Decagon House Murders, and it is widely considered one of the Big Ones of Japanese detective fiction.

The Moai Island Puzzle is part of the Student Alice series. For those interested in the other books: I have a retrospective on the series. Oh, some might think that The Decagon House Murders and The Moai Island Puzzle might be alike, because both are set on islands and are Japanese etc., but I assure you, they are not alike at all. If The Decagon House Murders was Christie, then The Moai Island Puzzle is Queen.

Publishers Weekly gave The Moai Island Puzzle a starred review, and I hope more reviews will follow. My own old review of the original Japanese version can be found at this link (obviously written years before I even knew I would translate the book), and my we-write-English-reviews-of-Japanese-mystery-novels collegues over at My Japanese Bookshelf and In The Threshold of Chaos also have reviews available for your perusal.

Edit: JJ's review of The Moai Island Puzzle can be found over at his blog The Invisible Event. 

Anyway, not only as the translator, but also (especially) as someone who considers the book one of the most impressive mystery novels ever, I really hope the readers will enjoy The Moai Island Puzzle. This is Arisugawa's first release in the English language, but hopefully, it won't be the last.

Spring of Memories

「春はあけぼの」 

『枕草子』

"In spring, the dawn is best."

The Pillow Book

As someone who suffers from hay fever, and can't stand heat, I have to say I always hate the first half of the year...

Yoshino Izumi recently debuted as a writer with Houkago Spring Train ("After-School Spring Train"), released in February this year. Set in the city of Fukuoka, the short story collection is about the adventures (?) of the high school student Izumi. She is a typical student: loves sweets, is a member of the school waterpolo club and every time the school newspaper is published, she tries to win the student poll to get a coupon for a free Special Yakisoba-pan. Once in a while, she comes across strange happenings. Nothing of a criminal kind, mind you. Just little mysteries of everyday life, like that lady who sat upon part of Izumi's skirt in the train, but who refused to stand up despite Izumi staring her in the eyes. Innocent, but not less dumbfounding mysteries. One day, Izumi is introduced to her best friend Asana's boyfriend Uehara, who has recently graduated university and is now an elementary school teacher, and Uehara's friend, the university sudent Tobiki. Tobiki has a knack for solving Izumi's questions and as the year passes on, Izumi learns to trust Tobiki with her questions about all kinds of mysteries that happen in the city of Fukuoka.

Okay, I admit, I only bought this short story collection because it said it was set in Fukuoka. Well, that and it was published by Tokyo Sogensha, which is responsible for quite a lot of very good mystery novels. Still, the main reason was Fukuoka. Having lived there for a year, I sometimes get overwhelmed by nostalgic feelings, which I then ease with mystery novels set in the city. Because strangely enough, there are quite some good novels set there. Anyway, Houkago Spring Train is Yoshino Izumi's debut novel, so it was a bit of a gamble, so how did that work out?

Well, to be honest, as a everyday life mystery short story collection, it's still a bit rough. The everyday life mystery's biggest hurdle is of course that the mystery lacks impact from the start. It's no murder, not some criminal event. It's by definition a mystery you and I could come across in our normal lives. So for it to have impact, an everyday life mystery needs to be 1) alluring, by presenting a believable, but utterly baffling mystery that you imagine you yourself could come across and 2) by giving a satisfying solution to the problem, again one that seems fitting to everyday life. The problem with Houkago Spring Train is that the mysteries presented in the four short stories aren't just not consistently alluring.

The book for example starts with the title story Houkago Spring Train ("After-School Spring Train"), where Izumi and Asana almost miss their connection, when a lady sitting on Izumi's skirt in the train refuses to get up, despite Izumi's calling out to her and staring the woman in the face. The mystery deepends when, after the girls manage to get out, the lady comes after them to apologize for what happened. In the core, this is a good everyday life mystery: it's a situation that is imaginable and yet strange enough to nag at you. But the solution is not satisfying at all, because it comes out of nowhere. The detective doesn't reason his way to the truth: he pulls out a random piece of trivia out of nowhere and it is expected from the reader to just believe this. The lack of convincing power is what breaks up the story and the magic of the otherwise good setting of the puzzle.

Gakusai Broadway ("School Festival Broadway") is better, though it actually features something that could almost be considered a crime. Izumi's class is performing two plays in English  as part of the school festival. Having finished Team A's performance of Sleeping Beauty, Izumi and Asana wander to the make-shift Dressing/Prop Room, where they discover that Cinderella's dress for Team B's play is gone. More students arrive and they all look for the dress, but nobody is able to produce results. In the end, they gave Cinderella Sleeping Beauty's dress, but the question of where Cinderella's dress went still roams in Izumi and Asana's heads. This story is a lot better than the title story, with better (but still vague) hinting, and a much more interesting build-up of the story. It's a slow buid-up though, making it feel like the pages/plot ratio is not optimal.

The third story, Oru Kami Tsunoru Kami ("Folding Papers, Raising Papers") is a bit chaotic. At first, it looks like it'll be a story about whether the process of assigning every student new seats in the class was done fairly or not, as the lots were all in different colors (and seats in the back of the classroom are a luxury). But then it turns into the strangely compelling story of raising funds for a good cause. Izumi is 'lent out' to the school volunteer club by her own club in exchange for services rendered by the voluteer club: she, as well as other students from other classes, are to help with collecting money to help a girl get an operation abroad. The whole weekend, the students are split up in teams in the Tenjin (downtown) area and the Hakata Station area, trying to collect money. Izumi's on the Tenjin team, while the Volunteer Club president is on the Hakata Station team, but on the last day, Izumi discovers that the president wasn't at Hakata Station at all this weekend, and the members of the Hakata Station team actually thought the president was at Tenjin the last few days. The answer to why the president lied is actually quite good: it fits the school theme perfectly (like the previous story actually). It is however once again not really well hinted at. Overall though, I think this was the best story of the collection, as it has a mystery that is puzzling, but not really serious (where was the president during the weekend while everybody else was collecting money), while it also has a satisfying, and believable answer. The previous story is good too, but there the puzzle (the missing dress) seems a bit more 'serious' than the mystery here.

The final story, Cantaloupe, has Tobiki helping out his friend Uehara. One of the pupils at his elementary school is for some reason lying about the plant he was raising for a school project. Uehara made notes about which pupil planted what, but this boy keeps saying he had another plant, and that it died yesterday. Uehara doesn't mind giving the boy a new plant, but he does want to know why the boy is lying. The solution to the problem is really disappointing, as it comes out of nowhere and it is kinda hard to believe as a reason for what happened. The story luckily adds one last surprise that has been building over the course of the book, which was actually quite brilliant. The best part of the book perhaps. But strangely enough, it was just 'the extra', not a main puzzle. I actually think Yoshino should've written a story with this last part as the main gimmick, as that would've resulted in a very surprising, yet satisfying everyday life mystery. Now I think: "You should've given me that sooner!".

I did enjoy the writing of this novel a lot. Both the narration and the dialogues of Izumi, Asana and the other high school students are really fun to read, the characters do come alive on the pages. Wordplay, random chatter about familar school topics, as a youth novel, Houkago Spring Train is quite enjoyable. And for me, it gets a lot of bonus points for being set in Fukuoka. And not just Fukuoka: the whole book is mostly set around my activity zone when I lived there: Tobiki is a student of Q-University (= Kyushu University), working at Hakozaki Campus, which is where I was situated too. Izumi's lives just across the road of the campus, while her high school is located in the area where my room was. So it was nice to see all kinds of familiar places mentioned. Of course, most readers won't have this emotional bond, but as it was a reason for me to purchase the book in the first place, I was more than happy to see how 'my' Fukuoka was portrayed in the book.

With the knowledge that this book is Yoshino Izumi's debut novel, I'd say that Houkago Spring Train is still a bit rough around the edges, but definitely in possession of potential. The middle part of the book is fairly good, but the start and end are less entertaining. The writing is good though, and I'd to see more of the characters and the setting. Let's hope more will follow and Yoshino will be able to develop as a mystery writer too.

Original Japanese title(s): 吉野泉　『放課後スピリング・トレイン』: 「放課後スピリング・トレイン」 / 「学際ブロードウェー」 / 「折る紙募る紙」 / 「カンタロープ」