The Stolen Turnabout

「いや、奴はとんでもないものを盗んでいきました。あなたの心です」

『ルパン三世　カリオストロの城』

"No, he did manage to steal something very precious. Your heart."

"Lupin III - The Castle of Cagliostro"

It's been a while since I did a review of a short story collection, let alone one where I actually discuss all of the stories!

Resort towns across Japan have been hit by a nasty series of jewel thefts lately and all of the incidents all have one thing in common: the capers, some of them committed in what seems to be impossible circumstances, were all done with both genius and audacity, which has led to the police's conclusion the thefts were all committed by one and the same person. This thief is indicated with the codename S79 in the police files and a special task unit was formed to investigate, and capture S79. Just like how Lupin had his Ganimard, S79 has to watch out for inspector Tougou and his subordinate Ninomiya, who see S79 as their arch-enemy and will stop at nothing to capture the brilliant thief. Awasaka Tsumao's Youtou S79-Gou ("Phantom Thief S79", 1987) collects all twelve of the S79 short stories with impossible capers and more.

Awasaka Tsumao (1933-2009) should be a familiar name on this blog now. The mystery author and stage magician has written some of Japan's finest mystery stories, from the wonderful A Aiichirou  short stories (many of the A Aiichirou stories rank among the best impossible shorts from Japan), while I have also been enjoying his novels as of late, with 11 Mai no Trump being a true gem in the genre. Youtou S79-Gou marks a return to his short stories for me, though I have to remark that Youtou S79-Gou is a linked short story collection, like Yamada Fuutarou used to write them: while the short stories (originally published between 1979-1987) can be read apart, the best experience is gained by reading them in order, as they are actually interlinked and there are often references made to events from earlier stories or characters reappearing.

Youtou S79-Gou is also a remarkably varied short story collection. In essence, the S79 stories are 'phantom thief' stories in the spirit of the Arsène Lupin stories, with the focus lying on the mystery of how S79 manages to pull off some of these fantastic thefts, though there are also some interesting differences with what you'd usually expect from such a collection. For example, there is no one single detective character in this series. S79 always manages to escape with the loot, but the character who eventually figures out how the theft was committed is not limited to only police detectives Tougou or Ninomiya: a character who only appears in that one particular story is just as likely to solve the impossible crime. The stories aren't all (impossible) capers either: many of them are 'traditional' howdunnits, but there are some screwballs there too, and some of the impossible capers become really impossible to solve if you focus only on the impossible aspect.

The collection starts with three fairly traditional howdunnit capers. In Ruby wa Hi ("Ruby is Fire"), we first learn about the thief S79 when a ruby is stolen at a small beach at a resort, with only a few people on the beach. Inspector Tougou and Ninomiya had been watching the place all the time, so while they don't know who S79 is, they know that one of the people present on the beach must be the thief. They figure that a simple body search should solve the problem of S79, but to their surprise, nobody is possession of the ruby, so how did S79 get rid of it? While the solution is simple, it's also very cleverly clued, and there's even a good fake solution! Ikiteita Kaseki ("The Living Fossil") is the direct sequel to the previous story, as Inspector Tougou is still convinced one of the people on the beach was S79. He has invited all of them to a exhibition featuring an extremely rare seashell, hoping that he'll tempt S79 into trying to steal the shell. The seashell is kept inside a glass display, watched by guards and with an alarm that'll go off the instant somebody touches the glass. And yet, the seashell disappears from the watching eyes of the guards, the policemen and other visitors! The solution is highly original, but also highly unlikely to be succesful in real life.  Sapphire no Sora ("Sapphire Sky") has S79 help a young girl stage a fake kidnapping, as the girl doesn't like her stepmother. She only wants to see her stepmother suffer, so she asks for her sapphire as the ransom money and wants to see it fly away into the sky tied to a balloon. S79 can keep the sapphire if the thief can figure out how to retrieve the balloon. But even with policemen tracking the balloon the moment it is released from the top of a temple, S79 manages to do the impossible: the container tied to the balloon holding the sapphire only has a thank you letter from S79! This is an ingeniously plotted impossible situation, which had a great piece of misdirection, but also some minor points which make the whole trick a bit less practical than you'd think. Still a surprising good story.

The following four stories are not all howdunnits, and are perhaps more surprising in seeing how more obsessed Tougou is becoming with S79, imagining the thief behind everything. In Koushinmaru Ibun ("The Curious Tale of the Koushinmaru"), Tougou and Ninomiya received tickets for a New Year's performance of a "hyper-realistic" performance of the kabuki play Sannnin Kichisa. The performance is hyper-realistic, so the actors not only speak normal dialogue instead of 'theater dialogue', they also all speak "realistically" (i.e. not loud so the audience can actually hear them), and other elements like their hairstyles and even the fights are done 'hyper-realistically'. Near the end of the play though, Tougou suddenly announces to the whole audience S79 is in the theater! The mystery lies in how Tougou figured out that S79 was connected in any way to this play, and the solution is brilliant. This story is similar to many of the A Aiichirou stories, where you'd never even suspect you're reading a mystery story until it's suddenly set loose upon you and you see how much foreshadowing there was. Kiiroi Yaguramasou ("Yellow Cornflowers") has Tougou and Ninomiya set a trap for S79 during an elementary school's sports competition, as they know a necklace the thief stole is hidden in the school garden. The way S79 manages to get away with the necklace is brilliant, and incredibly funny. In Moebius Bijutsukan ("The Moebius Museum"), two museums receive letters from S79 that some paintings will be stolen, and despite Tougou and Ninomiya making their rounds in the museum, S79 does manages to get away with the paintings. This is a very tricky story, as there are several plot-lines running simultaneously, but the way in which the thief manages to fool Tougou and Ninomiya in order to steal the painting is brilliant, yet very, very impractical, as it's unlikely nobody would've noticed (as there were other visitors in the museum). By Mizunotototori Kumi 129537 ("Water Rooster -  129537"), Tougou is really seeing S79 everywhere, as he suspects with no real reason that the thief will try to cash in on a lottery using a proxy representative. A suspicious figure does appear who wants all the money cash, but no matter how hard they look, the lottery ticket Water Rooster -  129537 seems genuine, and the man leaves with the money. The policemen tail him, but a simple, but smart trick shakes the men off. The way how S79 managed to get the lottery money is devilishly simple, yet effective, though in no way could it ever work in the modern day and age. There's a nice piece of misdirection too.

In the following three stories, S79's targets are rare pieces of art and while they are technically impossible capers, you aren't likely to solve them by focusing on the impossibilities, as the solutions require some very out-of-the-box thinking. Kurosagi no Chawan ("The Black Heron Tea Cup"), Nanpo no Yuurei ("The Ghost of Nanpo") and Himouji no Kannnonzou ("The Kannon Statue of Himou Temple") are similar in the sense that a piece of antique art manages to disappear from a place under observation. Kurosagi no Chawan is interesting as this caper happens within Ninomiya's home. The theft is a bit simple, but there's an interesting subplot running too that makes the thing more complex and entertaining. The other two stories hinge upon a similar idea actually, but you'll never recognize that in time, and the way these pieces of art managed to disappear is absolutely stunning. 

The collection ends with S79-Gou no Taiho ("The Arrest of S79") and Tougou Keishi no Hanamichi ("The Crowning Achievement of Superintendent Tougou"). In S79-Gou no Taiho, Tougou and Ninomiya travel to France, as it appears S79 has been active in Paris for some months now. S79's latest target was an art piece in the possession of the Sernine (ha!) family. While Ninomiya recognizes the Japanese woman visiting the Sernine family as their main S79 suspect, she still manages to walk off with a priceless piece of art due to a brilliant piece of misdirection. A very surprising story, as besides the theft, there's another very clever trick pulled by a different person. The S79 series ends with Tougou Keishi no Hanamichi, which isn't a mystery story per se, but it has Tougou finally figuring out who S79 really is and gives a happy ending to the story (complete with everyone from previous stories appearing again).
  
Youtou S79-Gou is a very good, at times absolutely excellent short story collection that manages to mix brilliant originality with very humorous characters. While some of the tricks are arguably repeated within this collection, Awasaka is very good at redressing these tricks into completely different ideas, with different results and new surprises. There's also a lot of variety within these stories, from normal capers to kidnappings to stories that only reveal themselves to be proper mystery stories at the very end. While I'd say the A Aiichirou shorts are still the best I've read from Awasaka, Youtou S79-Gou is certainly worth the read.

Original Japanese title(s): 泡坂妻夫 『妖盗S79号』：「ルビーは火」/「生きていた化石」/「サファイアの空」/「庚申丸異聞」/「黄色いヤグルマソウ」/「メビウス美術館」/「癸酉組一二九五三七番」/「黒鷺の茶碗」/ 「南畝の幽霊」/「桧毛寺の観音像」/「S79号の逮捕」/ 「東郷警視の花道」

Borrowed Place

“I will now lecture on the general mechanics and development of the situation which is known in detective fiction as the ‘hermetically sealed chamber.’ Harrumph. All those opposing can skip this chapter."

"The Hollow Man"

Ever since Dr. Fell made the utterly shocking confession that he's in fact a fictional character in a mystery novel, we have seen more people, fictional or otherwise, thread in the good doctor's footsteps and take a look at the mystery genre in general, rather than a specific problem in a specific novel. Dr. Fell's locked room lecture provided a now infamous classification of how locked room murders could be achieved in tales of mystery and imagination, for example by making it seem like the crime happened earlier or later than thought, etc. The notion of attempting a taxonomy of a certain trope in the genre (that is, the locked room murder or impossible crime) is actually quite interesting, as it freely admits that there is no such thing as pure originality, and it is a clear confession that most of the time, every single idea in mystery fiction is just a variation of something else, some admittedly more inspired than others.

On the other hand, the possibility of a taxonomy also emphasizes the game-like element of the genre, I think. I have mused over "winning the game of a mystery novel" before, but I think that efforts like the Locked Room Lecture really show this element very well for this particular form of game.  A well-designed videogame for example, will present obstacles and problems for the player to conquer and more importantly, build on that as the game continues. To take the famous level 1-1 from Super Mario Bros.: the very first section of the level, the game first teaches you can 'jump', it will show you can 'jump on an enemy' to defeat it, and that you can 'jump higher if you hold the button longer'. What follows afterwards are increasingly difficult variations on these notions: you might be asked to jumped consecutively, or beat multiple enemies, or do tricky jump combinations of various heights. The further you progress in a game, the harder it gets. But the thing here is: the game is designed knowing that you have cleared the previous obstacles. A good stage design knows you are in the possession of certain skills and the knowledge of how the game world works ('jumping on an enemy kills it') and how objects and enemies move in a game. In short: it teaches you to recognize patterns, and in a way, that is what mystery fiction also does. As the Locked Room Lecture shows: most examples of this particular sub-genre can easily be identified as a varation of a certain pattern. If you, as the reader, want to "win" this intellectual game, you need to be able to recognize the pattern being used despite all the misdirection and apply your knowledge to this particular version of the pattern.

The plot device of having a character in a novel suddenly hold a lecture about a certain trope in the genre can feel a bit pretentious, but I think it works if you take mystery fiction to be a game of wits. Going back to Super Mario Bros.: say you make it to stage 8-3. I can, assuming you didn't use the special warp pipes or had someone else help you, perhaps assume you have played the previous levels and overcome the obstacles and problems presented there. I can therefore estimate how good you are at the game (at least good enough to do X). That is a different story with a novel: Carr is not likely to know how much you know about the mystery genre, or locked room murder sub genre, if you pick up The Hollow Man. It could be the very first novel you ever read, or just the last in a decennia-long diet of only impossible crimes. The in-novel lecture can thus function as a gauge: by presenting the patterns, the author openly shows the difficulty level they are working at, allowing the reader/player to estimate their own position. Is this author operating at a difficulty level much higher than what I used to, or is it just right? So I am quite fond of these kinds of lectures.

There have been many writers after Carr who have played with the Locked Room Lecture (Amagi made a typology and example stories for each category), or more specific examples of the impossible crime like Nikaidou Reito's Footprints-in-the-Snow lecture. I happened to have translationed one on locked room murders myself even, with Shinji, one of the characters in Abiko's The 8 Mansion Murders, agonizing the suspects and the police as he babbled on about his own locked room lecture, heavily inspired by Carr's. Shinji also refers to a famous essay by Edogawa Rampo by the way, where Rampo doesn't just attempt to categorize the tricks behind locked room murders: Rampo decided to categorize every single trick from mystery fiction. I don't have a full translation of the essay, though I do have a short translation of the various categories Rampo identified. As mentioned in that post, Rampo also has an interesting taxonomy of unique motives featured in mystery novels.

But I have to say, I am infinitely more partial to in-novel lectures on genre tropes, rather than standalone essays. And I also think it's not a secret that I'm actually not so singularly focused on locked room murders and other impossibilities as some of the other mystery bloggers around. Therefore, I'm usually very fond of lectures on mystery tropes other than locked room murders, even if you don't see them a lot. Granted, not every type of mystery works really well in a taxonomy. The 'list-up-all-the-characteristics-of-the-culprit'-type of whodunnit as championed by authors like Queen, Arisugawa and Aosaki for example doesn't really lend it well for it, though I have made a feeble attempt in the past by sketching an idea for a typology for clues used in these type of stories.

But to mention a few other interesting typologies: Arisugawa's The Moai Island Puzzle (disclosure: I translated the English version) features a very short Dying Message Lecture by Maria, which I quite like because the dying message itself is a trope that is often used as just a minor touch to a mystery story, seldom taking the spotlight. Mitsuda's Kubinashi no Gotoki Tataru Mono has a very unique and specialized one, as it is about the topic of decapitated bodies. I mean, once you start thinking about, you'll quickly realize that a taxonomy of this trope is quite possible (the question being why a body is decapitated) as there are a few variations, but it's still a surprisingly original lecture topic.

I didn't really have a point to make in this post, but "hey, I like lectures" but to finish with some more thought-provoking, I thought I'd add in a translation of Arisugawa's categorization of alibi tricks. The alibi is of course a very important notion in mystery novels, and is often also a crucial element of "true" impossible crimes, as well as semi-impossible crimes ("He couldn't have done it because he was seen elsewhere at the time of the murder") and variants. Arisugawa's lecture is featured in his 1990 novel Magic Mirror, and unlike his usual Queenian efforts, this novel is actually more inspired by the work of Crofts, explaining the lecture. And I haven't read it yet, though I will eventually, of course.

Anyway, if you have something to say about lectures on any trope of the mystery genre, or perhaps the alibi lecture specifically, leave a comment.

ARISUGAWA ALICE'S ALIBI LECTURE

(from: Magic Mirror (1990))

1. THE WITNESS HAS ILL INTENTIONS.
- The witness is intentionally lying.

2. THE WITNESS IS MISTAKEN.
a. Mistaken time.
- The watch of the witness has been tampered with; mistaken day of the week or date; etc.

b. Mistaken location.
- The witness is mistaken about the location they were with the culprit (the exact apartment, train, mountain, river, etc.)

c. Mistaken identity.
- The culprit had someone impersonate them.

3. THE CRIME SCENE IS MISTAKEN.
- For example the crime is committed in the mountains of town A, but the body is moved to the mountains of town B to make it seem like the murder was committed there.

4. PHYSICAL EVIDENCE IS TAMPERED WITH.
- For example the faked photograph.

5. THE TIME OF THE CRIME IS MISTAKEN.
a. Made to look like it happened earlier than actually happened.
- For example the victim is made to appear like they were killed at 2 o'clock, even though it happened at 3 o'clock, and an alibi is obtained for 2 o'clock.

b. Made to look like it happened later than actually happened.
- For example the victim is made to look they still lived at 4 o'clock even though they died at 3 o'clock, and an alibi is obtained for 4 o'clock.

A. Medical trickery.
- The time of the crime is faked through tricks like heating or cooling the corpse, tampering with the contents of the stomach, etc.

B. Non-medical trickery.
Using non-medical tricks to accomplish 5a and 5b.

* Both 5A and 5B feature an a and b variant.

6. AN OVERLOOKED ROUTE.
- For example it takes one hour between points A and B, but an overlooked route between those points is only thirty minutes. This category is especially often seen in mystery stories about train timetables, but one can also think of shortening an one-hour hike from the mountains to mere minutes by jumping off a cliff with a parachute.

7. REMOTE MURDER
a. Mechanical trickery.
- A pistol that is fired through a clock mechanism etc.

b. Psychological trickery.
- Having a person under hypnosis or suffering from conditions like sleepwalking commit dangerous acts on their own.

8. GUIDED SUICIDE.
- Giving the victim such a tremendous psychological shock they commit suicide.

9. NO ALIBI.
- That what the culprit claims is an alibi isn't a real alibi at all, but only said to make other people think they have one.

Original Japanese source:  有栖川有栖　『マジックミラー』

The Mistletoe Mystery

「世界は一つ　東京オリンピック」

東京オリンピックのスローガン

"One world - The Tokyo Olympics"

Slogan of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics

Came across a lot of familiar sights in this novel! Not only the main setting (more details below), but a fair amount of the story is also set in Takaragaike, which was right behind my dorm when I was studying in Kyoto, and I went there at least once a week as they had a nice and large used book store there!

Mitarai Kiyoshi series
Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken ("The Astrology Murder Case") [1981]
Naname Yashiki no Hanzai ("The Crime at the Slanted Mansion") [1982]
Mitarai Kiyoshi no Aisatsu ("Mitarai Kiyoshi's Greetings") [1987]
Ihou no Kishi ("A Knight in Strange Lands") [1988]
Mitarai Kiyoshi no Dance ("Mitarai Kiyoshi's Dance") [1990]
Suishou no Pyramid ("The Crystal Pyramid") [1991]
Atopos [1993]
Russia Yuurei Gunkan Jiken ("The Case of The Russian Phantom Warship") [2001]
Nejishiki Zazetsuki  ("Screw-Type Zazetsuki") [2003]
Okujou no Douketachi ("Clowns on the Roof") [2016]  
Tori'i no Misshitsu - Sekai ni Tada Hitori no Santa Claus ("The Locked Room of the Tori'i - The One Santa Claus In This World") [2018] 

If you have ever visited the city of Kyoto, it's likely you also wandered around the streets between Sanjo-Kawaramachi and Shijo-Kawaramachi, as that's the main shopping area of the city, with plenty of shopping arcades, department stores and even markets to be found here. It's almost always quite busy here, especially near Nishiki Market, where you can find many of the local food and goods. If you walk down Nishiki Market towards the river-side of the shopping area, you'll eventually stumble upon a weird sight: in the covered shopping area stands a tori'i shrine gate, wedged between a hamburger chain restaurant and a boutique selling used clothes and accessories. This tori'i gate indicates the entrance to the Nishiki Tenmangu Shrine, located right in the middle of the shopping area. The shrine was obviously here long before the shops and restaurants came and in their attempt to maximize the use of the ground, something unique happened. The Nishiki Tenmangu Shrine tori'i gate is not just wedged tightly between two buildings: it actually penatrates them. If you go to the second floor of either building, you'll find a piece of the tori'i gate sticking out of the wall into the room.

In the year of 1975, Mitarai Kiyoshi was still a student of Kyoto University and in an earlier novel, he became friends with Satoru, a graduated high school student who was still studying for the entrance exams of Kyoto University. Satoru tells Mitarai about Kaede, a girl he knows from his cram school, who had both a horrible and wonderful experience eleven years ago, when she was still an eight-year old girl who lived in one of the buildings flanking the Nishiki Tenmangu Shrine tori'i gate. It was on Christmas morning 1964, that she received her very first Christmas present from Santa, who even left a letter telling her sorry he had not come earlier. Jumping out of her room with her present in her arms, she found her aunt waiting for her and after a short talk, they both left for her aunt's home. What eight-year old Kaede didn't know at the time was that her mother was lying dead on the first floor, and that her father had committed suicide that morning jumping in front of the first train. Before her father died, he had called his sister to take care of Kaede and make sure she wouldn't see her mother's body. However, the police soon realizes there's something strange going on with this murder: all the doors and windows on both floors were locked tightly from the inside, and the only keys to the home were in the possession of Kaede's mother. Not even Kaede's father could've come inside, as her mother had kicked her husband out in preparation of divorce. Yet Kaede's mother was  strangled (ruling out suicide) by someone who must've come inside the house. And there's proof that at there was at least one intruder in the house on Christmas Eve, as Kaede's present most definitely did not come from her parents, so Santa Claus must've gotten inside the house some way to leave her a present. A suspect for the murder of Kaede's mother has been held in custody for eleven years now, even though Kaede does not believe that man did it, and having heard the story, Mitarai too decides to put his mind to the mystery of Santa Claus and a murderer intruding her house in Shimada Souji's Tori'i no Misshitsu - Sekai ni Tada Hitori no Santa Claus ("The Locked Room of the Tori'i - The One Santa Claus in This World", 2018).

Shimada Souji has been writing for a long time about his detective character Mitarai Kiyoshi. The character first appeared in 1981's Senseijutsu Satsujin Jiken (known in English as The Tokyo Zodiac Murders) and since then, we have seen him appear in many novels and short stories. 2016's Okujou no Douketachi (later retitled as Okujou) for example was the fiftieth story featuring Mitarai. We have seen Mitarai in various phases of his life across these stories: he has solved mysteries when he was a just a wee li'l lad, but his resume also includes astrologist, private detective and university professor in neurology. Shimada's latest novel with Mitarai is set in his student days, long before he met his usual Watson/chronicler Ishioka, so the narration is this time reserved for his younger friend Satoru, whom he first met in Mitarai Kiyoshi to Shinshindou Coffee ("Mitarai Kiyoshi and the Coffee of Shinshindo").

I remember I found Okujou no Douketachi to feature an interesting idea, but that it didn't really work as a full-length novel: it had to twist and turn itself to accomodate for everything it wanted to do to approach novel-length, while in my opinion, it would've worked better in a simpler, but more focused approach. Tori'i no Misshitsu - Sekai ni Tada Hitori no Santa Claus is somewhat interesting in that regard, as Shimada wrote both a novel-length version, but also a short story version of the same story. Originally, Shimada wrote the short story Sekai ni Tada Hitori no Santa Claus ("The One Santa Claus In This World") especially for the 2018 anthology Kagi no Kakatta Heya ("The Locked Rooms"). Eventually, he decided to also extend this story into a full novel. Both versions were basically published at the same time: the anthology Kagi no Kakatta Heya was released on August 29, 2018, followed by Tori'i no Misshitsu the very next day!

As you read Tori'i no Misshitsu, it's pretty obvious to notice how this originally started as a short story, as in the end, all the mysteries presented in this book revolve around one concept, but unlike Okujou no Douketachi, I'd say Shimada really succeeded in making this one cohesive novel with everything tying nicely together, rather than just a series of very unlikely coincidences. Throughout the book, you are presented with various mysteries set in the ancient capital Kyoto: from a girl who says she saw monkeys moving the pendulum of an old grandfather clock and a series of nightmares haunting the inhabitants of a building, to the murder on Kaede's mother, as well as the mystery of how Santa Claus entered the house that fateful Christmas Eve. What makes this work is that these mysteries are all connectedly through one base idea, and it's by solving one of these mysteries that Mitarai instantly realizes the truth behind every other puzzling incident. I'd say that the basic idea might not be extremely original, but Shimada does show his experience as a novelist here by spinning a more than amusing yarn by incorporating all these variations on the underlying concept. The main mystery of the locked room murder in particular makes wonderful use of its unique setting in Kyoto. I myself have seen that tori'i of the Nishiki Tenmangu Shrine countless of times while shopping there, and I have even eaten once at the hamburger chain that is now inhabiting the building on one side of the gate, but I never really gave the shrine entrance that much thought besides "oh, that looks neat", so it's pretty funny to see that particular part of Kyoto used as the setting of a locked room mystery.

Picture (C) Hidehiro Komatsu

I have not read the short story version of this tale so I can't comment on the exact differences between the two versions, but I assume that much of the background story is exclusive to the novel version: a substantial part of the novel is not told from Mitarai and Satoru's point of view, but as a flashback to 1964 from the point of view of one of the other characters, which also delves a lot into character backgrounds etcetera, and my guess would be that most of this was added to the novel, with the short story focusing more on the core puzzle plot of the locked room murder and how Santa Claus entered the house.

By the way, I thought it funny how this novel feels 'kinda' timely. I mean, the last day of August isn't really the day before Christmas, but assuming you don't buy this book day one, it's certainly close by, and the Tokyo Olymics are also often referred too in this novel. The first Tokyo Olympics, mind you, not the upcoming.

Even though I prefer the short story form in general, and I could also definitely tell this story would've worked as well in that form, I found Tori'i no Misshitsu - Sekai ni Tada Hitori no Santa Claus to be quite amusing as a well-structured and plotted locked room mystery. No, this is not one of those grand impossible crime stories like the earlier Mitarai stories with some mind-blowing trick behind them, but as a cute Christmas story set in a rather unique corner of Kyoto, this book gets my thumbs up.

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司　『鳥居の密室　世界にただひとりのサンタクロース』

Murder Is My Business

「兄は兄。僕は僕ですから」 

『浅見光彦～最終章～』

 

"My brother is my brother. And I am myself." 

 "Asami Mitsuhiko ~ The Final Chapter~"

Yes, it's time for my annual review of a mystery novel set in Fukuoka.

Uchida Yasuo (1934-2018) was a very prolific and well-known mystery author who passed away earlier this year. Uchida, Nishimura Kyoutarou and Yamamura Misa are often grouped together as hyper-prolific authors, who specialize in so-called travel mysteries: mystery stories often set in touristic destinations, with plots that involve local specifics, like local trains in the case of Nishimura, and local legends in the case of Uchida. The work of this trio is also often adapted for television. Uchida's most famous creation is Asami Mitsuhiko, a 33-year old freelance writer who travels across Japan for his work for the magazine Travel and History and who also has a born gift for stumbling across murder cases, and his inate curiosity and intellect won't allow him to ignore these crimes. Which often gets him into trouble with the local police, who usually end up taking Mitsuhiko to the police station. The subsequent scene is a staple of the Asami Mitsuhiko series, as it's only then when the higher-ups at the local police station learn that Mitsuhiko is in fact the younger brother of the Director-General of the Criminal Affairs Bureau of the National Police Agency, which usually leads to Mitsuhiko's hurried release and a lot of apologies, even though Mitsuhiko himself doesn't really like to rely on his brother's function to get bailed out.

Hakata Satsujin Jiken ("The Hakata Murder Case", 1991) is the 47th entry in the series and starts with Mitsuhiko helping out at a historical dig in the city of Fukuoka, which is also known by its old name Hakata. The body Mitsuhiko digs up however isn't a few centuries old, but just one or two years and only half-decayed. This is of course a job not for archaeologists, but for the police and they quickly realize the body is that of Katada, the head of the Kyushu Division of the Eikou Group who had been missing for a year. The department stores and supermarkets of the Eikou Group had been expanding aggressively across Japan with their affordable, mass-produced products and the successes it had already booked on its path to become the number one department store and supermarket chain in the southern island of Kyushu had all been the product of the brilliant marketing mind of Katada, until he suddenly disappeared. Now his disappearance has become a murder, suspicion falls on the Amanoya Department Store, as they benefited the most from Katada's literal elimination from the department store war. Sengoku of Amanoya's Information Office is the prime suspect, as he knew Katada personally and was seen arguing with Katada on the day of his disappearance, but Mitsuhiko receives a strange request from his brother: usually the Director-General of the Criminal Affairs Bureau of the National Police Agency would tell his younger brother to stay out of trouble, but this time he tells Mitsuhiko to find out who killed Katada and why, and most importantly: save Sengoku.

Yes, this is an ugly cover. I usually praise covers I really like, so let's do the same for ones I really don't like. I don't even understand the composition. I mean, yeah, sure, there are women in this novel... but is that the only connection between the cover and the actual contents of this book? Even now I've read the book I don't understand the reason for this design. 

Like I mentioned, I picked this book out because I wanted to read a mystery tale set in Fukuoka. To be honest, Hakata Satsujin Jiken was a bit disappointing in that regard, as we don't see much of the geographical setting that is Fukuoka. Ten to Sen featured the neighborhood of Kashii and Kashiihama for example, while Houkago Spring Train featured several landmarks from Higashi-ku and downtown prominently. The Fukuoka in Hakata Satsujin Jiken in comparison felt less pronounced. That said though, the department store war that is the main theme of the book is based on something that had happened in reality in Fukuoka: the Eikou Group and the local Amanoya Department Store from the novel are easily recognized as a thinly disguised Daiei Group (a chain that operates throughout Japan) and Iwataya Department Store (the oldest department store in Fukuoka). I hadn't at first even realized that Iwataya was based solely in Kyushu, with the Fukuoka store as its main store: I often visited Iwataya during my time in Fukuoka (the bread store!), but never realized that Iwataya wasn't to be found elsewhere in Japan. So that's typically Fukuoka, I'd guess, but I think on the whole you don't really get a 'local feeling' from reading this book, especially not if you're not familiar with Fukuoka, as you don't get a good sense of local landmarks.

I have only read a couple of the Asami Mitsuhiko novels (and seen a few of the drama adaptations), and they're usually whodunnit stories. Hakata Satsujin Jiken isn't one really. To be honest, I have trouble categorizing the novel in terms of mystery plot, as it's definitely not really giving you a fair chance to guess whodunnit, but it's not about an "obvious" problem like a locked room murder or a perfect alibi. In essence, you're given a lot of suggestive and cryptic puzzle pieces, like Christie-esque "she had that look on her face" recallings of previous meetings or hearing parts of conversations etc,  all elements that eventually help you figure out why Katada was murdered, as well as other enigmatic events that occur over the course of the novel, like the disappearance of an Amanoya floor receptionist and rumors of company spies within Amanoya. Eventually, Asami reveals how all the puzzle pieces fit together, but even then the story's a bit chaotic. I think that the central, binding theme behind the various events and murders is a good one, one that has parallels with the 3DS game Detective Conan: Marionette Symphony and which remains fairly neatly hidden until the end, but the unfocused storytelling doesn't really help, as the moment Asami explains the whole case, you don't have that catharsis feeling of seeing all the pieces fall in their proper place, but rather one of 'okay, that is one way to connect the pieces but that's more-or-less guesswork rather than actual detecting, right?'. Granted, guessing is also something that Christie utilized in her work, but her plots work better with the intuitive mode, as they are usually based on something simple, but flipped around or something like that. The plot of Hakata Satsujin Jiken isn't simple in form however, so you don't get that 'aha' feeling that the intuitive mode can bring.

Hakata Satsujin Jiken is on the whole, an unremarkable mystery story. There's an original theme for the background story (the department store war), there's a good idea for a mystery there somewhere, and for fans of Mitsuhiko as a character, this novel has some funny and interesting moments to offer too (the unusual request from his brother, and Mitsuhiko's usual warm welcome from women), but the structure is just too unfocused, with too many puzzle pieces that don't even look like they're from the same puzzle, and where the final picture is not that one of a neat form with straight lines, but one with little curves and bumps.

Original Japanese title(s): 内田康夫 『博多殺人事件』

The Temple of Lost Souls

nobody knows, only I know it 

(you're already know, already over) 

everybody loves despair 

さあ　Recall from THE END

「Recall THE END」（TRUSTRICK）

nobody knows, only I know it 

(you're already know, already over)

everybody loves despair 

Come, recall from THE END

 "Recall THE END" (TRUSTRICK)

It's been a while since I last read a volume in this series!

Samidare Yui and Kirigiri Kyouko are not only both students at the same Girls Missionary Academy, they are also the only students there to be officially registered detectives. At the start of the Danganronpa Kirigiri series, Yui and Kirigiri learned about the Crime Victim Salvation Committee, a sinister group which organizes the Duel Noir, the ultimate battle of the wits between criminals and detectives. The Committee sells perfect crimes to those who want to take revenge, and supplies murder schemes, the objects and location needed and even a completely new identity for after they're done. However, the Committee at the same time will also invite a detective on the scene, who has either prevent the murders, or identify the murderer within a week. Yui and Kirigiri are determined to stop the Committee, which of course has noticed the presence of these two. In Kitayama Takekuni's Danganronpa Kirigiri 5 (2017), Yui and Kirigiri are still caught up in the trial of the Twelve Locked Room Temples: if they manage to solve all twelve locked room murder mysteries within a week, the second-in-command of the Committee agrees to step down. Yui, Kirigiri and some new allies managed to solve nine of them in the previous two volumes, leaving the final three for this volume. Can they conquer the trial of the Twelve Locked Room Temples?

Danganronpa Kirigiri is a spin-off novel series of the videogame series Danganronpa, focusing on the past of the character Kirigiri Kyouko, but the connections to the main series are so light one can easily read this series on its own, without any knowledge of the games. The novels are written by Kitayama Takekuni, an author who specializes in mechanical locked room murder mysteries and err... not a very fast writer, it seems, as Danganronpa Kirigiri is released really slowly, with one, two year gaps between the books even though they're so short. Kitayama was also consultant on the mystery plots for 2017's New Danganronpa V3, but still.... Usually, a slow release schedule isn't really a problem, but Danganronpa Kirigiri is an exception, as from volume 3 on, the seperate volumes couldn't be read independently anymore. By which I don't mean that some story plot points carry over to the next volume: in Danganronpa Kirigiri, you'll stop right in the middle in a scene, which is only continued in the next volume. For example: Danganronpa Kirigiri volume 4 from late 2015 gave us the introducing scenes of a murder and an impossible disappearance in the Libra Girls Academy, but then the story cut away, and only continued in the subject of today's review, which was released in 2017! Volumes 1 and 2 can be read more-or-less independently, though you do want to read them in order, but volumes 3, 4 and 5 really need to be read together in one go.

Anyway, Danganronpa Kirigiri 5 is the end of the The Twelve Locked Room Temples story arc, and presents the reader with three impossible crimes. The murder in the Bar Goodbye is by far the least interesting. One of Yui and Kirigiri's allies is sent to check out the bar, which is situated in a dark back alley of a dilapidated and abandoned entertainment district. The detective has brought the real estate agent along to gain access to the closed bar, but the agent is suddenly called by someone who's obviously quite confused: the man on the phone says he just woke up in a place he doesn't know, that he's tied to a chair and that the only things he could reach was a cell phone, which was set to call the real estate agent. The only clue to his whereabouts is a matchbook, which says Bar Goodbye. The detective and the real estate agent realize the man must be inside the bar. They knock on the door and confirm over the phone they're at the right place, but when they enter the bar, they find the man stabbed in the back, even though he was still alive and talking to them just seconds before. While there's a door in the back, the murderer couldn't possibly have stabbed the man and gone out through the back door in the few seconds they were off the phone to open the door, so how was this crime committed? The solution is slightly better than a needle-and-thread trick, but only barely. It's very basic, especially compared to the far more complex impossible crimes we've seen in this series, though to be honest, this impossible crime was more like a bonus, as its main goal is to help the main plot develop in other ways.

Yet another of Kirigiri and Yui's allies was sent to a local university's Museum of European Middle-Age Torture Instruments, with the announcement that the murder would be committed with an Iron Maiden. But when the detective arrives at the scene, she learns that the only death that happened recently was that of a professor who had died in a fire in a small shack on the museum's grounds, a fire presumably caused by smoking in bed. The detective does find an Iron Maiden however, placed in the outer garden of the museum overlooking the shack, and for some reason it's decapitated.... This murder (yes, it turns out to be murder of course) is much better than the previous one. While a bit obvious once you see the floorplans of the whole story, the method of killing is quite original, but suitably clewed. The neat thing about the Danganronpa Kirigiri series is that the detectives always receive a 'grocery list' in advance of what the murderer will use: they'll for example know what the murder weapon is, and whether an alibi trick will be used, or an impossible disappearance etc. But writer Kitayama still manages to present the reader with surprises despite spoiling these elements in advance. This story is a good example of playing with expectations through the grocery lists to come up with a relatively small-scale, but still perfectly fine impossible crime.

The final locked room mystery in this novel is the murder in the Libra Girls Academy, which started in the previous volume. Yui wakes up to find herself trapped inside a chapel, next to a dead body. She also spots the murderer, who runs out of the room. Yui chases after the culprit, but the figure disappears behind a door. When Yui opens the door, she finds a small room with no other exits and two coffins in the middle. Inside the coffins, she finds two girl students who are tied up very tightly, so they can't be the murderer either. But where did the murderer then disappear to? This impossible disappearance is quite clever, though perhap a bit easy to guess if you know Kitayama's reputation for constructing technical, and mechanical locked room murders. That said, this is by far the best impossible situation of the book, which is also very neatly clewed through surprisingly diverse clues, from one that's been staring you in the eyes from the beginning, to small happenings that don't really catch your attention when they are mentioned, but that take on a very different meaning once you know how the trick was done. However, there was absolutely no reason why this story had to be split up across two volumes: at first I thought Kitayama was planning something neat with the split-up, but in the end, having the first few scenes in volume 4 was only to have people read on in volume 5.

What the three mysteries all have in common by the way is how very, very bare-bones they are in terms of plot. The focus lies completely on the howdunnit, and the culprit is almost always just an afterthought (and likely the one single new character to appear in the story). This can be explained because of the main story of course (where the emphasis lies on solving the impossible crimes), and that Kitayama needs to cram in a lot of mysteries in a limited amount of pages, but one can't deny that at times, these mysteries feel more like drafts or basic set-ups, which would usually be developed into full stories later on. So they can feel quite empty save for the core impossible situation. This volume tries to do a bit more with the whodunnit angle, and more-or-less succeeds with that, but still, don't expect a full-fledged novel experience from this.

The story arc of The Twelve Locked Room Temples ends in volume 5, but immediately sets up a completely kind of challenge for Kirigiri and Yui as they continue their fight with the Crime Victim Salvation Committee. In general, the trial of The Twelve Locked Room Temples that started in volume 3 is much better in concept than in execution, as it resulted in impossible situations that were, on the whole, okay to quite good, but also incredibly bare-boned, with little more but those locked room murders (which could've been dressed up more for more impact) and at times, you'd even forget about the characters. Danganronpa Kirigiri 5 is similar to the previous volume a minimalistic volume with some good ideas that, with a few pages more, could've been a more substantial experience. The review of the next volume will probably follow soon, and by the looks of it, volume 6 might be the penultimate volume of the series, so things might move forward there!

Original Japanese title(s): 北山猛邦　『ダンガンロンパ　霧切５』

Turnabout from Heaven

"Heaven or Hell!"

"Guilty Gear"

Back in April, I reviewed two multi-part episodes from the Detective Conan animated series, which were not based on the original comics by Aoyama Goushou, but written especially for the anime. An important reason why I decided to watch those older episodes in the first place was a lack of new material: volume 94 had been released in December 2017, but various circumstances led to a short hiatus in the serialization of the comics. Usually, a new volume is released in April (to coincide with the annual theatrical release), but with the delay, I decided to fill the April gap with those episode reviews. For the moment, my real return to Conan appears to be within reach, as both volume 95 and the home-video release of the 2018 theatrical feature, Detective Conan: Zero The Enforcer are scheduled for October.

But as those two releases are still a bit more than a month away, I figured I might as well look at a couple more of the anime original episodes of Detective Conan, and to keep it to a theme: today I'll be reviewing two stories with an impossible crime. First up: episodes 88-89 presented the viewer with a story with a very alluring title: Dracula-Sou Satsujin Jiken ("The Villa Dracula Murder Case"). The "Sleeping Detective" Kogorou, Ran and Conan are on their way to the villa of renowned horror author Torakura Daisuke, better known as "Mr Dracula". The nickname is not only based on Torakura's own name, but also on the fact the novelist mostly writes about vampires, and he even wears the stereotypical suit and cape as his usual get-up. At arrival at the Villa Dracula, Kogorou, Ran and Conan first meet with several of the other people staying there, like Torakura's assistant, his editor and a folklore researcher consulting Torakura's collection. Torakura meets in private with Kogorou, explaining he wants to hire the Sleeping Detective to investigate his wife's adultery, and invites him to stay in the villa for the night. Torakura himself retreats to his study for the night, as he has a deadline coming up. The study itself is almost completely seperated from the main house: it looks out over a cliff and the only way there is through a single, long corridor that leads right into the living room.

When Torakura doesn't answer the phone at midnight however, the people in the living room start to fear something might've happened to the man who doesn't sleep, so the gang makes their way through the corridor, to the locked door of the study. They go around through the outside balcony, but when they get inside the room, they find Mr. Dracula staked to the wall, like a vampire!  What baffles Kogorou and Conan however is that the study door was locked from the inside, and that the corridor to the study was being watched from the living room all the time. The murder weapon (a prop from a vampire movie) had been taken from the storage room in the main building, which means the murderer must've taken the weapon, passed through the living room to get to the corridor and the study, all unseen! Considering that's utterly impossible it seems the only other way in is through the balcony overlooking a cliff and the sea, but that means the culprit must've flown to the balcony, as if they were a vampire!

Dracula-Sou Satsujin Jiken was written by Ochi Hirohito, who's also the writer for Noroi no Kamen wa Tsumetaku Warau and Koureikai W Misshitsu Jiken. Those stories I praised for being fantastic stories that are excellent examples of synergy in mystery fiction, where various elements like backstory, motive, murder method and clues are all intricately connected, with each factor strengthening, but at the same time also depending on the other factors. Dracula-Sou Satsujin Jiken is a relatively older story, and while one can easily recognize Ochi's hand here, it's also clear that this episode is not as insanely tightly structured as those later genre masterpieces. In essence however, the main mystery plot of Dracula-Sou Satsujin Jiken is very similar, revolving around a clearly-defined impossible crime situation, with a special prop object featuring at the crime scene (in this case the stake prop from a vampire film) that serves as a second focal point of the plot. At one hand, Dracula-Sou Satsujin Jiken is certainly a well-plotted story. Sure, it's awfully easy to guess who the murderer is, but like with Ochi's other stories, it's the how that stars. It's here that Dracula-Sou Satsujin Jiken shows it's a very capable, but ultimately lesser attempt of what Ochi would perfect in later stories: the various elements of the story feel less strongly connected and dependent on each other and the result is oddly enough a very good impossible crime story that has some good visual clewing going on too, and any other writer would've been absolutely pumped to come up with something like this, but Ochi would go on write stories that I personally feel are some of the best thought-out mystery core plots ever, making these two episodes feel less impressive (luck has it I saw these two episodes last too). Note the attention to character movement (floorplans!) and the exact order of events in these two episodes by the way: these are also staples of Ochi's mystery plotting and also visible in his later masterpieces. Dracula-Sou Satsujin Jiken is an excellent impossible crime story on its own, with various good ideas strung together to create a really alluring crime, but it's definitely overshadowed by Ochi's later work for the series.

Ochi's episodes are often mentioned when talking about the best of the anime original episodes of Detective Conan, but another one that is often mentioned is episode 208 Meikyuu he no Iriguchi - Kyodai Shinzou no Ikari ("The Entrance to the Maze: The Anger of the Giant Statue of the Heavenly Maiden"), which was an one-hour special originally broadcast on October 19th, 2000. Kogorou, Ran and Conan are this time heading for Mt. Tenbu in the Shizuoka Prefecture. A giant statue of a Heavenly Maiden was erected in the mountains many, many moons ago, but as of late, Doumoto Tourism has been aggressively developing the Mt. Tenbu region as a tourist destination. The colossus is the main attraction of course, so there's a hiking promenade that leads up the mountain right to the statue, and despite the protests of the local people, Doumoto Tourism even built a ropeway to the top of Mt. Tenbu, which goes through a mountain tunnel dug right beneath the Heavenly Maiden statue. Kogorou is invited to attend the the opening ceremony of the ropeway, but also to keep an eye out on Doumoto Eizou, who fears the ceremony might also be the perfect time for someone to get even with him, as some local people say that the wrath of the Heavenly Maiden is sure to get him for making that ropeway. To celebrate the opening of the ropeway, Doumoto Eizou has several other people join the first ride up the mountain, including some local journalists as well as Kogorou, Ran and Conan. As the carriage goes through the mountain tunnel however, the lights suddenly go out, followed by a cry in the dark by Doumoto Eizou. When the ropeway carriage makes it out of the tunnel, right behind the back of the Heavenly Maiden statue, they find that Doumoto Eizou has disappeared from the carriage, and to their great shock, they see his dead body lying in the palm of the colossus!

An impossible disappearance from a locked carriage mid-air this time, and the almost immediate appearance of the body in the hand of a gigantic statue: one can certainly not accuse Meikyuu he no Iriguchi - Kyodai Shinzou no Ikari of having a boring premise! This one-hour special is of perfect length, with enough runtime to build up a proper mystery, though one could say it has very room for fluff or red herring side-plots. To be perfectly honest, I think it's rather easy to guess how most of the magic was done: one character in particular stands rather out with their actions in this story, and from there it's really not that difficult to make an educated guess about how the impossible teleportation was pulled off. In essence, I think this episode features ideas that shouldn't be too surprising to someone who has read some mystery, or even someone who only watches Conan: this episode however does manage to present a very unique setting to pull these ideas off, and the result is a story that might not be completely original in terms of core plot, but which does hit the right notes when it comes to execution.

Anyway, for those who want to try out more of the anime original episodes of Detective Conan, I think these two stories will be good picks. No, they are not as brilliant as Noroi no Kamen wa Tsumetaku Warau and Koureikai W Misshitsu Jiken, but those are exceptional episodes, not only just as Detective Conan episodes. Both Dracula-Sou Satsujin Jiken and Meikyuu he no Iriguchi - Kyodai Shinzou no Ikari however should entertain any fan of the genre as solid mystery stories. For the moment, I think I'll reserve my next Conan review for the two new October releases, but I might return to some other anime original episodes after that.

Original Japanese titles: 『名探偵コナン』88-89話「ドラキュラ荘殺人事件」, 208話「迷宮への入り口 巨大神像の怒り」

Ladies and Gentlemen

「いや、海外の推理小説のみならず、わたしじしんがそういう事件を扱ったことがありますよ。そのときはその地方に昔からつたわってる、手マリ唄のとおりに殺人が起こったんですがね」

「わっ、スゲエ！そいじゃ、先生、日本の殺人事件もオレが考えてるより案外進歩してんですね」

 『白と黒』

"Oh, that doesn't only happen in foreign mystery novels you know. I myself have handled a case exactly like that. Murders happening precisely according to the lyrics of a handball song that had been passed on for ages in that region."

"Wow! That means that the murders here in Japan are far more progressive than I thought!"

"White or Black"

When you think of Yokomizo Seishi's detective Kindaichi Kousuke, you think of a man dressed in a traditional hakama who solves the most grotesque serial murders committed in small villages and other closed-off communities, often with a connection to old, local traditions or legends, or long-time feuds between clans. Kindaichi Kousuke's stories stand symbol for the old Japan trying to survive in post-war Japan, for the type of rural community that still holds on to the old beliefs and traditions that is quickly dying out in the face of the post-war Japanese economic miracle. The most famous of Kindaichi's adventures, like The Inugami Clan, Gokumontou and Akuma no Temariuta all deal with settings that feel outdated in the new Japan, but that are also undeniably brimming with what made the Japanese community what it was in the first place.

Yokomizo Seishi's Shiro to Kuro ("White or Black", 1974, but serialized in 1960-1961)) is therefore a very strange reading experience for long-time fans, as it has Kindaichi Kousuke tackle the new type of community of Japan, quite unlike the communities of old Japan: apartment complexes. The brand new Hinode Apartment Complex is a fine example of how it's nothing at all like the old villages in Japan: while you still have a large number of people living in close proximity, individualism reigns here: people haven't lived their whole life there, but have moved from all kinds of places from Japan to this apartment complex in Tokyo; everyone has their own apartment which is completely closed off from the other occupants of the building once locked; nobody really "lives" here, as most people don't work inside the complex, but elsewhere in Tokyo and only return to the Hinode Apartment Complex to sleep.

Junko is one of the occupants of Building No. 18 of this twenty-building large apartment complex, and also an old acquaintance of Kindaichi Kousuke, as she used to work in a bar which he and Inspector Todoroki frequented. It's the help of Kindaichi she needs, as of late, poison pen letters that start with "Ladies and Gentlemen" have been going around in the Hinode Apartment Complex, which has already led to an fortunately unsuccesful attempt at suicide. Junko wants Kindaichi to find out who's writing these vile letters, but their talk isn't even over when across the street, in an apartment building that is still under construction, a dead body is found, of which the face is completely covered by tar! Construction workers were busy finishing the roof of the building, when they noticed they were leaking hot tar right into the trash chute of the building, and to their surprise a body of a woman had been dumped at the trash site, who got all the tar over her face. Going off by her clothes, it seems the victim is Katagiri Tsuneko, the proprieter of a tailor's in a shopping arcade next to the apartment complex and actually the person whom Junko suspected to be the writer of the poison pen letters, but a scrap of paper with the mysterious words "White or Black" found in Tsuneko's home shows she too was a recipient of a poison pen letter, and it might actually be the reason she was murdered.

Shiro to Kuro is one of the last Kindaichi Kousuke novels (only followed by Kamen Butoukai, Akuryoutou and Byouinzaka no Kubikukuri no Ie) and as said, feels very much unlike other entries in this series due to its undeniably modern setting. We do see Kindaichi work often in Tokyo and other urban settings in the short stories, but the default location for the Kindaichi of the novels remains the somewhat outdated rural community, so having Kindaichi work on a murder inside an apartment complex inside Tokyo is fresh, to say the least. Even the way the body was found is surprisingly "modern"! For we've definitely had our share of mutilated bodies in the past stories, like decapitations, burnt faces, bodies thrown upside down into a lake, bodies crushed beneath a shrine bell and more, but to use the tar of a construction site to cover up a face? The "closed community" setting and the horrible state of the discovered body is undeniably Kindaichi Kousuke's territory, but Yokomizo really succeeds in making these familiar tropes feel eerily different by use of the new, modern urban setting instead of the old-fashioned, rural setting. In that sense, I'd say that Shiro to Kuro is an excellent example of "reimagining" or "modernizing" the series.

That said though, I have to admit that the start of this novel was perhaps the best part, with especially the middle part a bit dragging in my opinion. The narrative of the middle part is mostly made up by following several of the inhabitants of the Hinode Apartment Complex, who all suspect each other of being the poison pen writer and/or the murderer of Tsuneko, and while it can be somewhat entertaining reading up on all these characters, it's also a very slow part, with few worthwhile revelations and a lot of repetition. You'll be reading about character A for example, who bumps into B, and then we follow B, but the narrative repeats things about B even though we were already told about that in A's narrative, and then the same with C, etc. Personally, I'd have preferred reading more about Kindaichi's investigation, especially as several matters regarding the investigation are hardly addressed in this middle part, even though you know it's probably going to be important to the solution. For example: the identity of the victim. Not only Kindaichi and the police, but almost everybody involved is funnily enough aware than you should never take a faceless body for granted in a mystery story, so everyone raises the question where the victim is really Tsuneko or not. It's a very important question, as the unrecognizable victim is an often-used trope in Yokomizo's work, and he seems to be aware that the reader is aware of that too. But as the middle part does not focus on Kindaichi or the police, you find out little about their efforts into establishing the identity of the victim then, even though it's a question that keeps nagging you from the very beginning of the book.

The final solution offers an okay, even if not particularly awe-inspiring explanation for the tarred face. The explanation to the murder and the poison pen letters is basically something Yokomizo likes to use a lot in his novels, and it works... well, not incredibly convincing here to be honest. It works, yes, but a bit more tangible clues for the reader, instead of convenient late witnesses who just happen to remember something at arbitrary points would've made for a more satisfying mystery story as one can't deny it feels like a lot of coincidence. Which can work in a mystery novel, but it can be very easy to rely too much on coincidence to construct "mysterious circumstances" to baffle the reader, and Yokomizo is running the borderline here. The mysterious words "White or black" found on the scrap of the torn-up poison pen letter Tsuneko received turns out to be a vital clue to the identity of the murderer by the way, but no way someone from this generation is going to figure that out. It might've been a viable clue for readers back in 1960, but even then it wasn't widespread knowledge I think, and when the contemporary reader arrives at Kindaichi's interpretation of the phrase, they'll not even go "oh yeah, I heard about that", but "yeah, never heard about that".

Shiro to Kuro thus starts off as an interesting, more modern take on the classic Kindaichi Kousuke story structure, set in the new closed community of the post-war economic miracle Japan, but with a mystery plot that is recognizable for long-time Kindaichi fans. The main problem for this novel is that there are plenty of other Kindaichi Kousuke novels that pull off similar ideas much better, so there is little going for this novel besides the, admittedly, inspired setting.

Original Japanese title(s): 横溝正史『白と黒』