Clue in the Ancient Disguise

If there is one word that you'll see used constantly on blogs on mystery fiction it's "GAD". These three letters are of course not an utterance of shock, but stand for Golden Age of Detection. Besides referring to an actual time of period which nobody seems to be able to agree upon exactly, GAD is often used to denote mystery novels of the type that flourished in the same-titled time period, that is to say, puzzle-plot oriented mystery plots that thrived on fair play and a game-like element between the author and the reader.

It is also a term I don't really like, which is why I seldom use it here.

To me, the use of "GAD" seems to strengthen a sense of nostalgia, a longing for times long lost, even though we're usually talking about a certain form, a certain mode in fiction, with its own sets of "rules", logic and tropes. And yes, this type of novel might've developed strongly in a particular period in time, but the puzzle plot mystery was also alive after that period (even if it had its ups and downs) and still going strongly in various spheres. "GAD" seems to me always to suggest a form that is of the past, that doesn't belong in the present anymore, even though there are plenty of fantastic mystery novels of the puzzle plot type written even now, many of them that can easily challenge the best of the Golden Age of Detection. When people say they're reading a GAD novel, I always wonder whether they read a certain mystery novel because it's a puzzle plot mystery (which would be my own main reason), or because it's from a certain period. It is a feeling I can never shake off, because the term "Golden Age of Detection" specifically refers to a period of time, and not to a form. So even when I discuss a novel from the Golden Age of Detection, I am far more likely to say it's a puzzle plot mystery or something in that spirit.

The Japanese terms honkaku, which means "orthodox" or "authentic" has its own sets of pros and cons of course, the major ones being that it doesn't tie the puzzle plot mystery to a period (pro), but inherently places a certain quality ("authentic") to this specific form of the mystery genre (con).

Anyway, everyone will use whatever word they want, but this did get me thinking: how hard would it be to do a mystery blog about specifically puzzle plot mysteries, without going back to the Golden Age of Detection, without discussing novels or stories published in that period? Or to go one step further, is it hard to mainly write reviews about puzzle plot mystery fiction that is published recently (let's say, the last twenty years)?  And then I remember that is kinda what I'm doing. So I went and checked the reviews I posted this year (2018) to see how much of what I discuss can be considered recent, and in what degree I have to rely on older material.

I only counted reviews of fiction for this (so no reviews of guidebooks or overview posts), and I gave "dated" mystery fiction an extreme advantage, because I decided that everything first published before the year 2000 would be "old". So that is not only real GAD novels, but also stuff released after that until as recently as the 90s! I also realized that I review a lot of detective fiction in the form "modern" media, from TV and films to especially comics and video games (which will skew things towards the new) so I decided to make sure to keep "novels" and "the rest" apart. The results were both expected, and surprising.

As of now, it seems like I reviewed 23 novels/short story collections published before 2000, and 21 novels/short story collections after 2000, which is really close and a deviation that is basically insignificant (I had two pre-2000 books the last two weeks; I have two post-2000 books scheduled for the coming weeks, so it's just normal deviation for this blog). Long-time readers will know that most of what I review are pretty orthodox puzzle plot mysteries, so at the very least, there's plenty of that coming out even after 2000 (Had I moved the cut-off line to 1990 or 80, things would've been skewed extremely towards "modern" by the way, making GAD just a minor blip on the radar here). But if we count in mystery fiction in other forms too, I end up with reviews for 27 works first published before 2000, and a whopping 52 works from after 2000. And at the moment, my list of best-reads of this year is also heavily skewed towards post-2000. Conclusion: yes, it'd be pretty easy to do a puzzle plot mystery-oriented blog even if you only review stuff from after 2000, especially if you don't stick with only novels.

I have the advantage of course as most of what I review comes from Japan, where pure puzzle plot mysteries specifically are doing better than in a lot of other countries, but still, it seems strange at times seeing so many focus on the term "GAD" and the period, while the form itself is still developing as we speak in fantastic ways, and in my eyes, it'd make more sense to focus on the broader form of the genre, rather than the history behind it.

A Question of Proof

「なんで捕まえられないのよ」

「iffです」

『Q.E.D. iff -証明終了-』 

"Why can't Dad arrest him?"

"Because of iff."

"Q.E.D. Iff Quod Erat Demonstrandum"

When I reviewed Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar a while back, I noted how the informative historical research into the development of mystery manga gave much deserved credit to the trio of Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, Detective Conan and Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou, which formed the water-shed moment for the genre. These three series released soon after another in the early~mid nineties paved the way for puzzle-plot oriented mystery stories and also proved their economic worth as multi-media franchises. Of these three titles, I regularly review Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo and Detective Conan, but you might've noticed I pay next to no attention to Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou here (also: do not confuse this Q.E.D. series with that other mystery series titled Q.E.D....). That is not to say it's a bad series: it really isn't. But long, loooong ago, I tried the first few volumes, and while it was an okay mystery series, I just didn't feel the urge to go out and get the remaining 20+ volumes that were available at that moment (when it was still in 20+ volumes length range). The live-action TV drama didn't manage to change my mind about continuing, and neither did the first volume of the spin-off C.M.B. And from a certain point on, I just didn't feel really like starting with a series fifty volumes long...

But a few weeks ago, the first couple volumes of the series Q.E.D. iff Shoumei Shuuryou ("Q.E.D. iff Quod Erat Demonstrandum") were offered for free as e-books and as I can definitely be lured with free stuff, I decided to return to this series. Q.E.D. iff is the sequel series to the original Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou, which officially ended in 2014 when Monthly Shonen Magazine+, where the series was serialized, was cancelled. In 2015, the new series Q.E.D. iff started in Shonen Magazine R, which is set just a few months after the original series. The protagonists are still the brilliant Touma Sou and his athletic classmate Kana. Touma graduated from M.I.T. at the mere age of fourteen, but moved back to Japan to experience a normal high school life there. One of the few friends he made at school was Mizuhara Kana, an energetic (and sometimes nosy) girl who also happens to be the daugher of Inspector Mizuhara. Kana's busybody personality often leads to her and Touma getting involved with mysterious cases (not always murder), but Touma's highly analytical mind always eventually manages to prove what happened. In Q.E.D. iff (if and only if) Touma and Kana are now in their final year at high school (as opposed to first and eventually second years in the original series) and Touma has moved into a new home, but the adventures they have are still the same. As always, each volume consists out of two semi-long stories (due to the fact Q.E.D. is traditionally serialized in a monthly with long installments). Q.E.D. iff contains the stories iff and In The Year of Quantum Energy.

The opening story iff starts with a short introduction to the characters of Touma and Kana for newcomers, but it doesn't take long for Kana to conjure up a murder for Touma to solve. The plans to renovate the school's kendo dojo have to been cancelled as the sponsor for this project, Misago Taimei, was killed. The famous sculptor was an alumnus of the kendo club and had promised to pay for the renovation, but his sudden death put a stop to those plans. Hoping to still pry some money out of this, Kana visits the art studio of Misago, only to find her father investigating the murder. It appears the man was killed in rather mysterious circumstances. During the day, four people were present at the art studio: two of Misago's disciples, his manager and a model. Misago was found dead in his own atelier at the end of the day with his latest work vandalized, but as his manager had been working at the desk overlooking the door to the atelier, it doesn't seem possible for anyone to have gone inside to kill the man. Kana quickly realizes that the disciple who discovered the body could've commited the murder before telling the others, but Touma points out that while that person could've committed the murder, it does not mean that all the requirements of the murderer apply to them (if and only if), and therefore Touma himself decides to solve the case.

A rather weak opening story. It's not really a locked room murder of course, but it's painfully obvious who'll turn out to be the murderer because of the way the story tries to avoid putting too much attention to one person, and once you're there, it's easy to focus on the parts where that person appears and figure out how the murder on the sculptor was done. Even as an introduction of the title iff, I think it doesn't really succeed well.

In The Year of Quantum Energy is much stronger in comparison, and an interesting story of a type you don't see in either Detective Conan or Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo. A kooky inventor who hopes to fabricate a machine that can transform vacuum energy into electricity is looking in the mountains for a place for a lab together with his real estate agent, when the two find a little deserted cottage. The cottage used to be the possession of the Tategami Sect, a new religion which was active in Kyoto a century ago, but which suddenly vanished completely. Inside the cottage, the two discover a mummified body beneath a heap of rubble, and the corpse is identified as Tategami Kaijirou, the head of the sect who had disappeared at the same time as the demise of his sect. Touma becomes interested in the mystery of how the Tategami Sect went down a century ago, when he manages to buy a few of the 1920s science magazines found in the cottage (sold by the inventor for some quick cash), and discovers among those magazines a diary by a reporter who lived in the community of the Tategami Sect. Touma and Kana visit the inventor at the cottage, where they also meet with the great-granddaughter of Tategami Kaijirou, who too wants to learn what happened to her great-grandfather. Combining the diary in Touma's possession and the documents in possession of Tategami An, the four slowly learn about the curious sect that lived in the outskirts of Kyoto and it doesn't take long for Touma to pick up on some clues that help solve the mystery of why the people in the sect were slaughtered in a massacre a century ago and why Tategami Kaijirou was discovered a mummy in this cottage.

A really neat type of story that you don't see in the other big mystery series, as it revolves solely around delving into historical documents. The historical account of the happenings in the Tategami Sect a century ago take up most of the narrative, so you don't see much of Touma and the others. but the story-within-a-story is fairly entertaining on its own, portraying a somewhat suspicious new religion, but that does do good for the people that believe in it. There is a sort of mystery presented in this historical account about a semi-miracle performed by Tategami Kaijirou (where he can instantly put a doubting Thomas to sleep), but the solution is rather far-fetched and hardly clewed and almost comes down to something as ridiculous "they happened to have a secret machine there to do that and you totally should have guessed even though there were no real clues."

The mystery about what eventually brought the downfall of the sect is much more entertaining though. The whole tragedy is based around a certain realization, which is excellently plotted and integrated in the story. While the jump from this realization to the conclusion that this must've caused the tragedy is a bit big, it's certainly possible to arrive at the realization itself, and if you get to this point, you should at least have an idea that it played a key role in what would happen later. The type of plottin utilized here is actually seldomly used in Conan and Kindaichi Shounen, but it really works well in Q.E.D. iff, as the fundamentals of this concept ultimately lie in the scientific field of logic. As a historical mystery story-within-a-story, In The Year of Quantum Energy is surprisingly fun and a good example of Q.E.D. doing not seen in other series.

In the end, I wouldn't say that Q.E.D. iff Shoumei Shuuryou 1 really managed to convince me to read the rest immediately, but it's certainly nice to see a kind of mystery story not done in either Conan and Kindaichi Shounen. I have a few other volumes of iff I got in the offer, so I'll probably be reviewing those in the future too.

Original Japanese title(s): 加藤元浩 『Q.E.D. iff -証明終了-』第1巻

This Won't Kill You

"We're sorry to bother you at such a time like this, Mrs. Twice. We would have come earlier, but your husband wasn't dead then."

"Police Squad"

It's not like I write a review on every piece of mystery fiction I consume, but still, sometimes I really don't want to write about a book, or just wish I had read something else instead. Usually, that's not even for bad books, but simply books I feel indifferent about. It's usually also reflected in the quality of the review, so err.. yeah, sorry in advance.

Sakaguchi Ango (1906-1955) was a prominent novelist and essayist in early post-war Japan, who also wrote several mystery stories. His first, and also most famous mystery novel is Furenzoku Satsujin Jiken (1948), though many people might know his name through the 2011 anime mystery series Un-Go, which was also based on his writings (though in a completely different setting than the original work). I haven't seen Un-Go myself, and my own experience with Furenzoku Satsujin Jiken was that it was a rather tiring novel, as it featured like thirty characters with everyone having some motive to kill someone else and more shenanigans like that. So he kinda fell of my radar, but now it's time read a few of his short stories. Noumen no Himitsu ("The Secret of the Noh Mask", 1976) collects eight mystery short stories by Sakaguchi, originally published between 1950 ~ 1955. These stories were most famously written by Sakaguchi as an intellectual game for his own entertainment, as he had read everything that was available to him at the time.

To be honest, I found this collection to okay-ish, at best. Most of these stories are very short, but the mystery plots and tricks are seldom really surprising, and are often far too obvious, as the ideas behind them are too simple. Take for example Shougo no Satsujin Jiken ("The Noon Murder Case"), where a writer is shot to death in his home at noon (duh), with only possible suspect in the house, who of course denies having killed the man. The solution to this conundrum is almost ridiculously simple, and very likely the first answer to pop up in the reader's mind as they read the story. Some others included in this collection, like Yama no Kami Satsujin Jiken ("The Mountain Deity Murder Case") and Kage no Nai Hannin ("The Undetectable Culprit") are far too simplistic too, or barely a mystery story (a story with a proper mystery, and a logical conclusion/solution to that mystery). These stories are all written around one core idea,but this core idea is never what you'd really want from a proper mystery short story, but something far, far simpler. The title story Noumen no Himitsu ("The Secret of the Noh Mask") is about a man who died in a fire in a manor, with a blind masseuse as a vital witness, but again the most uninspired way is taken to deal with this familiar trope of mystery fiction.

Nankinmushi Satsujin Jiken ("The Nanjing Bug Murder Case") is a story I want to highlight not because it's such a good mystery story (it's not really), but as an oddity in Japanese language. The story starts with an elderly policeman and his daughter (who is also a police officer) chasing after two men who had left the home of a beautiful pianist in a rather suspicious manner, but not only do the father and daughter lose the two men, they also find out the pianist was killed in her home and that it was determined she was "Miss Nanjing", a notorious dealer in drugs and smuggler of "Nanjing bugs". I had never heard of the "Nanjing Bug", and looking it up tells you that Nanjing Bugs are the Japanese name for bed bugs. Which made no sense, as why would someone deal in bed bugs? It took me a while for me to learn that long, long ago, small wristwatches for ladies were called Nanjing Bugs. And that was a more sensible object to smuggle. Anyway, sometimes you come across really weird slang in these post-war stories. As a mystery story, Nankinmushi Satsujin Jiken is sadly enough not as interesting.

Senkyo Satsujin Jiken ("The Election Murder Case") and Shinrei Satsujin Jiken ("The Spirit Murder Case") are somewhat similar in the sense that they ultimately focus on the question of motive. The first story is about a factory owner who recently has decided to run for Diet member. His campaign is extremely strange though, and it seems he's not really trying to become a Diet member, but why is he holding a campaign then? A journalist suspects something dirty is behind this all and this results in a story that features a surprising, and original motive, but that lacks convincing power. Shinrei Satsujin Jiken features a murder during a seance: the Scrooge-like victim had never given his offspring much financial help, but lately, he's told his four remaining children that their oldest brother, who had died in the war, had come to him in a dream: he had actually survived the war and was living in Birma, and got married there and had children. Yet the dream also revealed his eldest son would really die soon, so now his father wanted to use a spirit medium to trace his son's whereabouts in Birma to find his grandchild. The other four children can't believe their old man would go all that trouble to chase after such an impossible story, yet a spirit medium is invited to find out the whereabouts of the Birman grandchild. It's during the seance, held in a pitch-dark room, that the victim is stabbed to death. The solution of how is not that important, though I have to say the motive is extremely original. It makes no sense why a certain character thought a certain action was best taken in this way, but still, I was really surprised by the motive behind the murder and it was a properly clewed one too. Certainly one of the best stories of this otherwise disappointing collection.

Pitcher Satsujin Jiken ("The Pitcher Murder Case") is the longest story in this collection I think, and also the most "traditional" as a puzzle plot mystery story: it has no less than two diagrams and even a Challenge to the Reader! The titular baseball pitcher is having an affair with an actrice, who has a rather stubborn husband: he will only divorce her for a very high stack of cash. The baseball pitcher is an upcoming star, so he decides to contact some scouts here and there in an attempt to sell himself to a new team to get the necessary sum of money. He eventually manages to secure a new contract, together with the sum of money he needed in cash, but he is murdered the same night, with all the money gone. As a whodunnit story, with a true Challenge to the Reader, Pitcher Satsujin Jiken is a bit simple, as there's basically only one base clue that points to the identity of the murderer, and from there it's a straight line to the finish. There's an alibi trick in this story too, which works pretty well in conjunction with the whodunnit part of the story, but again, it's all a bit too easy. As a pure puzzle plot mystery, Pitcher Satsujin Jiken is easily the best of the whole bunch, but even then, it leaves you wondering whether it couldn't have been just a bit more than what was actually served.

In the end, I didn't manage to say much about Noumen no Himitsu save that overall, the stories are just too simple and not particularly inspiring or original, and I guess that in a way, this rather sloppy review reflects that. There's just little to say about this collection, as you will have seen most of what appears here in other stories, only better and/or worked out in more impressive forms. As for Sakaguchi Ango's work, I think the only significant mystery story by him I haven't read are the ones that form the basis for the anime Un-Go, but I do not know whether I will ever read the original novel, or watch Un-Go, as up until now, my experience with him have not been bad per se, but not exceptionally entertaining either.

Original Japanese title(s): 坂口安吾　『能面の秘密』：「投手殺人事件」/「南京虫殺人事件」/「選挙殺人事件」/「山の神殺人事件」/「正午の殺人事件」/「影のない犯人」/「心霊殺人事件」/「能面の秘密 」

Captive Witness

"Wax on, wax off"

"The Karate Kid"

The problem with listening to audio dramas before sleeping is that I always fall asleep halfway through.

The murder on Josiah Perceval, assistant at a photograph studio, was quickly solved when Miriam Cromer, wife of the society photographer Howard Cromer, confessed fully to the crime. The woman was being blackmailed over some indecent photographs taken from her past, and eventually, she thought it would wiser to poison the decanter of wine with potassium cyanide than to keep on paying. Miriam is now on death row, with just a few weeks until her execution, when a photograph is sent to the Home Office, which cast doubt upon Miriam's story: the new facts revealed by this photograph suggest that Miriam couldn't have obtained the potassium cyanide to commit the murder. Sergeant Cribb of London's Criminal Investigation Department and his assistant Constable Thackery are ordered to figure out what the real deal is behind Miriam's confession in the radio drama Waxwork (1987), based on the same-titled 1978 novel.

A few months ago, I reviewed Peter Lovesey's A Case of Spirits, a novel in the Sergeant Cribb series. While I hadn't given the Victorian mystery series much attention or thought until then, it's been quite well received in general: the novel series has been adapted as a television series (Cribb), and six of the eight novels have also adapted for the radio by the BBC. I decided to try out the radio drama adaptation of Waxwork, because I really like audio dramas, and I had heard good things about this particular story. The original novel is at the moment the last of the Sergeant Cribb novels by the way, but no prior knowledge is necessary to enjoy this story.

I think that Waxwork is a good example of a good story, that manages to be quite entertaining general even if the core mystery plot is rather limited in range and originality. If you look solely at the mystery parts of Waxwork, you'll have to look really closely before you come across truly original elements, as so many bits and pieces of the story feel so familiar. The method by which the true murderer managed to snatch the potassium cyanide as explained by Cribb for example is an extremely common concept, and it's not like it's been repackaged into something more surprising. The true goal of Miriam's confession ultimately builds on a trope that is often seen in mystery fiction. So looking purely at the mystery plot, I'm afraid that Waxwork has little originality to offer. With a rather limited cast of characters and a fairly small problem (the poisoning), Waxwork is not a mystery story to really delve into for a mental challenge.

That said though, Waxwork works as a yarn. As in A Case of Spirits, the Victorian background is always nothing but the background: unlike some stories that like to remind you you're reading a Victorian story every single sentence, Lovesey is far better at letting his background speak for itself. Concepts like society photographs, class society, Newgate Prison and the hangman do date the story and mix well with the mystery plot, but it's not like you're reading a Wikipedia entry about Victorian Britain which some historical novels sometimes tend to turn into. The result is a pleasant experience, that combined with the light comedy that especially derives from Constable Thackery's scenes is fun to listen to.

I have not read the original Waxwork by the way, so I can't comment on how faithful (or not) this radio adaptation is. I'm just going to guess/assume that the story here is mostly the same as the novel, and not that we have a completely different culprit or type of murderer.

Waxwork is on the whole an okay mystery story, with the emphasis on story. As a mystery, there's just too little that is truly original, and much of the core plot will feel familiar one way or another. Combined with the Victorian setting and the story though, Waxwork is enjoyable enough. I enjoyed A Case of Spirits much better as a mystery story, but I think I'll keep on trying this series in the future too, be it in novel, audio or television drama form.

Have You Got Everything You Want?

"The human and personal element can never be ignored."

"The ABC Murders"

You know, while I spent all full three days at the Kyoto University November Festival (campus festival), I mostly remember just sitting inside the Mystery Club's assigned classroom to sell our club anthology, instead of walking around.

Houtarou's plans for his three years at Kamiyama High School had been to get by, doing as little as possible, but his school life turned out quite differently after his older sister forced him to join the school's Classic Literature Club to save it from dying out. As all the older club members had now graduated, it was up to Houtarou and the other three first-years to continue the tradition of the club. After joining the club, Houtarou found himself involved with all kind of small adventures at school: at the wishes of the club president Eru, the four digged into the history of the club's magazine "Hyouka" and its link to the school festival, while they also helped out class 2-F with their short mystery movie they filmed for the school festival. In Kudryavka no Junban ("The Kudryavka Sequence", 2005), the school festival finally starts! The Kanya Festa is a three-day event where classes and school clubs can show off their activities. For the Classic Literature Club, that means selling the latest issue of their club anthology "Hyouka" at the festival, but there is a "small" problem: due to a mistake, they ordered not thirty copies at the printer's, but two-hundred. As a niche product of a virtually unknown club, two-hundred seems like an utterly impossible number, but as they need to earn back the costs, all members try to come with plans to sell more anthologies, from asking other clubs to help selling "Hyouka" to participating in the various competitions at Kanya Festa to raise the name value of the Classic Literature Club. As the festival continues however, a series of curious thefts occurs, where small objects are stolen from various clubs and at each 'crime scene', a message is left by the thief who calls themselves Juumonji.

Kudryavka no Junban (subtitle: Welcome To Kanya Festa!) is the third novel in Yonezawa Honobu's Classic Literature Club mystery novel series (also known as the Hyouka series, as the anime series is named after the first novel). The series falls within the everyday life mystery genre, that focuses on the solving of enigmatic events that might occur in the normal, daily life, as opposed to bloody murder. It's a sub-genre that naturally fits the high school setting of Classic Literature Club much better than let's say every day a bloody impossible murder after school, and when done well, the everyday life mystery genre can be very entertaining. One of my favorite examples of the genre is from another series by Yonezawa, where the whole mystery revolves around the "impossibility" of how someone could've poured two cups of hot cocoa despite some limitions in the kitchen. That said though, in the second novel of the Classic Literature Club, Yonezawa had the students work on a fictional murder (they had to deduce the ending of an unfinished mystery movie) and that was a really entertaining mystery novel too. But I have to admit that the everyday life mystery genre also often lets me down a bit. It is really hard to come up with a good, everyday life mystery that is both alluring, yet "normal" enough and holds for the solution.

The Classic Literature Club series had been building towards the Kanya Festa ever since the first novel, as all the events in the first two novels basically only occurred because people were preparing for the school's cultural festival. Whereas the first two novels in the series were exclusively narrated by Houtarou, Kudryavka no Junban has us jump between the four members of the Classic Literature Club during the three days of the school festival, as each of them are busy trying in their own way to sell all two-hundred anthologies. This gives the reader an interesting look in the school festival, with for example mood maker Satoshi having fun at the various events (in order to make a name for the Classic Literatue Club) or club president Eru working with the management and news clubs of the festival in the hopes of getting a better chance at selling their wares. Read as a novel about life at a high school, Kudryavka no Junban can be quite interesting, delving into themes like expectations, and due to the varied cast, it's unlikely to really bore.

Unless you're reading the book for a mystery. It takes quite a while for the mystery plot of the thefts to really get going and even then, the core plot is a bit lean on the meat. The idea of a thief stealing seemingly insignifiant objects from various clubs can be fun, but the "surprising" relation between the various thefts is revealed very soon in the story, and afterwards little happens until the conclusion. The mystery doesn't have enough charm to its enigma, and the solution, well, you are not really going to logically deduce that in advance, with proper clewing as the basis of your reasoning. Of course, the everyday life mystery is often built on 'interpretation'  and seldom with mathematical reasoning, but for example, the first novel (Hyouka) was much more engaging as a mystery story, as it dealt with multiple hypotheses built upon each other, with new hints devalidating older hypotheses, but these still remained the basis of further theories. The scope of Kudryavka no Junban is far smaller, with a solution to the thefts that begs the question: "Why in heavens go through all that trouble to accomplish that?". Especially after the brilliance of the second novel, I have to say I felt a bit disappointed by this novel, as it's simply too lite as a mystery novel in comparison.

So yeah, of the three Classic Literature Club novels I've read until now, Kudryavka no Junban was the least interesting as a mystery novel. I have to admit that as a juvenile novel, this might the most interesting of the novels until now, giving us four different narrators and a varied view on the school festival, but read as a mystery novel, it's simply not as intricately plotted as the previous two novels, which had all those false solutions and playing around with Houtarou as a fallible detective and other things like that. I'm not sure whether I'll continue with the series. The anime series Hyouka covers the events of the first four books (three novels and one short story collection), so I might just try out the short story collection too. Or I might not. It won't happen soon anyway.

Original Japanese title(s): 　米澤穂信　『クドリャフカの順番』

Dimensional Sniper

おれの武器はコルトパイソン357マグナム

撃ち抜けないのは美女のハートだけさ

「Chance」（神谷明）

My weapon is a Colt Python 357 Magnum.

The only thing I can't shoot, is the heart of a beautiful woman.

"Chance" (Kamiya Akira)

The cover art of this volume is SOOOO going to form one complete illustration with the cover for the next volume.

In the previous volume in Kitayama Takekuni's Danganronpa Kirigiri series, the young detective Kirigiri Kyouko and Samidare Yui managed to give a painful blow to the Crime Victim Salvation Committee, an organization which sells perfect crime schemes to people who want to exact revenge on others, but which also invites private detectives on the scene to see if they can solve these perfect crimes. In Danganronpa Kirigiri 6 (2018) however, Kirigri and Yui aren't trying to solve these Duels Noir directly themselves anymore, as they have been challenged by Johnny Earp. Earp is not only one of the three best detectives alive, bearing the highly coveted "triple zero" qualification, he's also a secret agent of the Crime Victim Salvation Committee, specialized in 'cleaning up' people. He's also quite amused by Kirigiri and Yui, and challenges them to a series of sniper duels held during the Duel Noir. Kirigiri and Yui are given a sniper rifle, and some basic information regarding an upcoming Duel Noir, indicating the location, the kind of murder scheme ("a locked room murder", "mistaken identity" etc.) the client bought from the Committee and other information. Kirigiri and Yui not only have to deduce what the exact murder plan is based on this grocery list, they only have three bullets to stop this murder from happening, for example by shooting the culprit, or by sniping some of the tools they might need. Earp on the other hand is on the "defense" team, and will use his sniper rifle to prevent Kirigiri and Yui's attempt at stopping this Duel Noir in progress. As Earp is a master in all firearms who boasts an Olympic Games-level skill in sniping, Kirigiri and Yui have no chance of winning in a straight shoot-out, and they have to outwit the triple zero detective, obstructing the Duel Noir from a distance without being spotted by Earp.

Danganronpa Kirigiri 6 is still part of the same spin-off novel series of the videogame series Danganronpa as before (knowledge of the games is not necessary to read this series), but whereas the previous novels focused on author Kitayama Takekuni's specialty (mechanical locked room murder mysteries), this sixth volume brings something completely new to the table. The earlier novels had Kirigiri and Yui trying to solve locked room mysteries based on a grocery list of murder weapons, murder tricks and other items while investigating on scene, while this time, the duo can't even come close to the scene (due to Earp's sniping skills), and they have to deduce 1) how the murder is going to be committed and 2) somehow stop this murder scheme using the sniper rifle and 3) not getting spotted by Earp in the meantime. It's a very different dynamic, and it results in different types of locked room mysteries compared to those we've seen before. This time they are simpler, but they only serve as the background drop for the sniper duels, and the mystery lies in how Kirigiri and Yui are going to stop the murders with their shots. The mystery is thus two-fold: the underlying locked room mystery, and the 'meta' mystery of how Kirigiri and Yui are going to invade, and stop that plan.

To be honest, the concept is much better than the execution. The prologue offers an interesting, but ultimately very simple example of how the sniper duel could go: while the locked room mystery presented there is very rudimentary, Kirigiri and Yui show their wit in stopping the murder from happening by destroying a vital element of the murder scheme, while keeping out of Earp's sniping range. This first part shows a lot of potential, especially if the following sections would be about more complex murder schemes, which would not only be more difficult to predict, but also with more occassions for Kirigiri and Yui to interfere with their rifle.

The rest of the book however is quickly filled with short, disappointing intermezzo and the final sniper duel which runs according to very different rules than the first sniper duel. There's an interesting impossible murder there, where Kirigiri and Yui, while under fire, have to solve the mystery of someone being shot right in the face inside the mirror house of an empty entertainment park, even though no other people besides the victim were inside the mirror house, and the shot doesn't seem like it could've come from anywhere. The solution is a bit hard to swallow though, as the murder method is rather impractical and it doesn't seem like it could be pulled off in one go, which in turn would've left much more evidence. But the true disappointment is that by this time, the sniper duel with Earp has more-or-less been abandoned, and the potential shown in the prologue isn't even touched upon. There's another subplot that is properly clued, but it's not as good as it could've been, considering what the prologue showed.

Danganronpa Kirigiri 6 manages to change gears significantly compared to the previous books, but it doesn't make any good use of the amazing potential it does offer. What could've been an amazing double-layered mystery with battle-of-wits-and-sniper-rifles being played against a backdrop of locked room mysteries, turns out in the end to be a collection of random moments and ideas that never really come together. The series does seem to be heading towards the ending though, which the cover also seems to suggests. I'll be reading this series to the end, but I have to admit that on the whole, Danganronpa Kirigiri seemed to have peaked way too early (volume 2 was fantastic) and since then, its potential has always been much more than the actual, final product.

Original Japanese title(s): 北山猛邦　『ダンガンロンパ　霧切り６』

Justice For All

真実はいつもひとつ
だけど正義はいつも
ひとつじゃない

「零 - ZERO」（福山雅治）

There is always only one truth

But there isn't only one justice 

"ZERO" (Fukuyama Masaharu)

The first new Detective Conan review of this year! Volume 95 will be released in a few weeks, so expect a review near the beginning of November!

Detective Conan manga & movies:
Part 1: Volumes 1 ~ 10
Part 2: Volumes 11~20; The Timebombed Skyscraper (1) / The Fourteenth Target (2)
Part 3: Volumes 21~30; The Last Wizard of the Century (3) / Captured in Her Eyes (4)
Part 4: Volumes 31~40; Countdown to Heaven (5) / The Phantom of Baker Street (6)
Part 5: Volumes 41~50; Crossroad in the Ancient Capital (7) / Magician of the Silver Sky (8) / Strategy Above the Depths (9)
Part 6:  Volumes 51~60; Private Eyes' Requiem (10) / Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure (11)
Part 7: Volumes 61~70; Full Score of Fear (12) / The Raven Chaser (13) / Lost Ship in the Sky (14)
Part 8: Volumes 71~80; Quarter of Silence (15) / The Eleventh Striker (16) / Private Eye in the Distant Sea (17)
(You will find the links to the reviews of volumes 70, 72~76, 78, 82~94 and the films Quarter of Silence (15), The Eleventh Striker (16), Private Eye in the Distant Sea (17), Dimensional Sniper (18), Sunflowers of Inferno (19), The Darkest Nightmare (20) and The Crimson Love Letter (21) in the library)

The Tokyo Summit is scheduled to be held in the Edge of Ocean, a newly built leisure spot in the bay of Tokyo, but one week before the prestigious international meeting takes place, the International Forum in the Edge of Ocean is blown up completely, killing several police officers who were preparing for the summit. While at first it seems the explosion might've been an accident, the Public Security Bureau manages to find a set of fingerprints on the cover of the cable that sparked the explosion, and to the surprise to all, they belong to former police officer Mouri Kogorou, now famous as the master detective the Sleeping Kogorou. Maps of the Forum and other schedules related to the Summit are found on his personal computer, and Kogorou is arrested on suspicion of terrorism by the Public Security Bureau, despite protests of Kogorou's loved ones and his allies in the Metropolis Police Department. While trying to save Kogorou, Conan finds out that he has one formidable opponent this time: the mysterious Amuro Tooru. Amuro, who is known to have no less than three different identities, is seemingly out to frame Kogorou for the explosion and with both the Public Security Bureau and Prosecutor's Office working surprisingly hastily to get Kogorou's trial started, Conan has little time left to find out who's really behind the explosion and what Amuro's true goals are.

Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer is the twenty-second theatrical feature of Detective Conan, first released in April 2018 (the home-video release was released last week). The first Conan film, The Time-Bombed Skyscraper was released back in 1997 as an extra project to accompany the animated television adaptation of Aoyama Goushou's mystery comic series. What was originally intended to be an one-off thing, turned into an annual event however, and so every April, a new Detective Conan film is released in Japanese theaters. While you'd think things would slow down a bit after twenty-two years, the opposite is actually true: the Detective Conan films have been breaking record after record the last few years. In fact, last year's fantastic The Crimson Love Letter was the highest grossing domestic (Japanese) film in 2017 overall, showing how good these films do in the theatres.

Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer is in several ways very different from the very accessible The Crimson Love Letter. First of all, we have a new director, Tachikawa Yuzuru, who replaces Shizuno Koubun who was responsible for the last seven films. Shizuno's films were more focused on action than on the mystery plot, though he peaked with The Crimson Love Letter as a really complete mystery film. And whereas The Crimson Love Letter was a rom-com mystery films with sports and action elements that didn't require much prior knowledge of the series, I'd say that Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer is far less easy to get into. I'd definitely recommend viewers to at least read the manga until volume 85 to get a better image of the character of Amuro, who is the focal point of this film.

The scenario for this film was written by Sakurai Takeharu, who in the past was also responsible for Private Eye in the Distant Sea (2013), Sunflowers of Inferno (2015) and The Darkest Nightmare (2016). Sakurai is known for writing scenarios for various police detective dramas, especially the social school-inclined police procedural Aibou, and in a way, Zero the Enforcer is very much like an Aibou story. The political thriller deals with the goals of the various organizations within the Japanese police and the Ministery of Justice. In a way, everyone involved tries to do what they think is good for "Japan", but the lengths they're willing to go to accomplish their goals are all different, leading to in-faction fighting and all kinds of hidden deals. I'd say that Zero the Enforcer is perhaps the most difficult Conan film up until now for children to follow, as the names of divisions within the police are thrown around constantly and in the end, a lot of the focus lies on the motivations of the characters. Zero the Enforcer is easily the Detective Conan with the strongest theme running across the whole work, but it's sure nothing at all like the far more easy, yet well-plotted entertainment that was The Crimson Love Letter. As a mystery story, Zero the Enforcer is a bit simple, as you basically have one major clue to the identity of the terrorist and almost no suspects, but it is wonderfully well integrated in the grander story of what drives each of the characters and their respective groups. That said though, the ultimate goal of the culprit was a bit drastic. I mean, had they completely succeeded in their plans, they might've been responsible for the most damage caused ever in a Detective Conan film and I assure you, the last few years the criminals have not gone easy on their explosions!

As for action, the last half hour or so has some nice action scenes. The idea behind the Detective Conan films is also to do things they can't do in the original comics, and this usually means grand explosions and a lot of action, and this one doesn't disappoint. Some feel a bit like alternative versions of action scenes seen in earlier movies, but the finale is really something that befits a film that is about a character called Amuro...

Speaking of Amuro: this film is truly all about Amuro. He is portrayed as a character with various faces, sometimes kind and funny, sometimes cold and calculating, and as he also juggles with various identities and loyalties in both the original series and this film, he comes off as a good character to juxtaposit against Conan, who is far more straightforward in his beliefs and actions. You never really know what's on Amuro's mind and whether you should view him as a friend or foe. I think Sakurai tried to do the same thing with KID in Sunflowers of Inferno, but that didn't work there at all, as "the attempts" to portray KID as a kind thief gone rogue were incredibly sloppy and not convincing at all: with Amuro in Zero the Enforcer, this idea of a character-focused drama based around a character who might or might not be an ally to Conan feels so, so much better.

Zero the Enforcer has been an enormous hit in Japan by the way, especially among the female viewers. The phrase "Amuro's woman" became a catchphrase for all the people who fell for the mysterous Amuro in this film (usage: "I became Amuro's woman!") and even talkshows had segments talking about this phenomenon. With many of the original viewers of Conan now grown up, it's not strange to see that these older fans are attracted to an adult character like Amuro. Personally, I do have the feeling that the last few years, characters like Amuro have been given a bit too much attention in the marketing etc and it appears that author Aoyama himself is also a big fan of the character, giving him all kinds of nice scenes and lines, but I think he worked really well in this movie.

But is Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer truly a Detective Conan film? That's a hard one! It's certainly not the "traditional" Conan film like The Crimson Love Letter was, and the political thriller mode Zero the Enforcer adopts is not a story-type you often see in Detective Conan. But it does work as an exciting thriller with a mystery plot that feels grounded within the Detective Conan universe. I'd never recommend this movie to someone who has never seen Detective Conan as it's not really representative of the series, but as this is the twenty-second film, I do think that it works as "something different once in a while". With its focus on character and the underlying theme, Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer manages to carve its own place within the long history of the Detective Conan films and it works very well as suspenseful action-triller that can stand on its own. As per tradition, the next Detective Conan film (which will be released in April 2019) has also been announced in a post-credits teaser, and I'm interested to see how the new director will continue these films.

Original Japanese title(s): 『名探偵コナン　ゼロの執行人』