Springtime Crime

春には春の生き方があり

夏には夏の風が吹きます

「籟・来・也」（Garnet Crow）

Spring has spring's way to live

Summer has summer's wind blowing

"Rai Rai Ya" (Garnet Crow)

Now I think about it, this is the first time I read a book in the long-running Hayakawa Pocket Mystery Book line of publisher Hayakawa. It's a line for translated (non-Japanese) novels, so in a way, it's no wonder it took a while for me to finally try one of these books (because for many of their books, I can read the original language), but these PokeMys books always caught my attention when I was Japan, as they utilize a very different size format from most other Japanese fiction publications.

'Tis the first year of the Tianhan Era (100BC) of China's Former Han Dynasty. Yuling Ku, daughter of an aristocratic family in Chang'an, is travelling through China for her studies in literature and religious rituals and finds herself becoming a house guest of the Guan clan, so she can witness their Rite of Spring which is to be held in a few days. The Guan clan used to be a prominent family with religious tasks in the State of Chu (of the Zhou dynasty, over 100 years earlier) and while even in this new age, they can still proudly boast about their distinguished lineage, the Guans now live a retreated life in the mountains. Ku becomes friends with Guan Loushen, youngest daughter of the Guans, even if Loushen can't always keep up with or forgive Ku's arrogant and mocking attitude, derived from all the knowledge Ku obtained through her studies. Ku learns about a family tragedy that happened exactly four years ago: Loushen's uncle was the head of the whole clan, but his whole family was killed by an unknown assailant, save for daughter Ruoying, who was at Loushen's place at the time. What made the incident so horrifying was that there were no footprints of the assailant found in the snow surrounding the house. Ku, who has a reputation for solving cases, promptly comes up with several theories to this mystery, which Loushen doesn't accept, but soon the two girls are forced to face not a case of the past, but one of the present too. One morning, after the two return from washing their hair in the river, the girls discover the dead body of Loushen's (other) aunt in a storage house. But it soon occurs to Ku that this murder has some similiarities to the family massacre four years ago, as here too it seems impossible for the murderer to have escaped, with people standing at all the possible escape routes leading away the storage. Ku is asked by Loushen's father to investigate the case, but time is not on Ku's side, as more and more people die one by one in the mountains in Lu Qiucha's Yuan Nian Chun Zhi Ji ("Rite of Spring of the First Year", 2016), which was released in Japan last year as Gannen Haru no Matsuri.

Lu Qiucha is a Chinese mystery author who debuted with Yuan Nian Chun Zhi Ji in 2016. He is one of the generation that has been influenced by Japanese shin honkaku writers, naming writers like Mitsuda Shinzou as large influences on his own work. When the novel was translated and released in Japan as Gannen Haru no Matsuri last year, the book garnered quite some critical praise, and even Mitsuda Shinzou himself wrote a comment especially for the book's obi, praising the work. The concept of an impossible mystery set in ancient China with two girl detectives sounded quite interesting to me and a copy was soon purchased.

If I say "a mystery novel set in ancient China", you're likely to first think of Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee series. If you start with this book expecting something like the Judge Dee series however, you might be surprised in either a pleasant or unpleasant way, as Yuan Nian Chun Zhi Ji is quite, quite different. Of course, one major difference is the time period. The Judge Dee series takes place in the Tang Dynasty (with some Ming anachronisms), which is almost 800 years after the time period of Yuan Nian Chun Zhi Ji. In the same sense that a novel set in the 1200s is not likely to be very similar to a novel set in the 2000s, you shouldn't expect too many common points in the culture, even if it's the same geographic location.

If you have read the Judge Dee series, you might know that series is very readable, despite the setting of ancient China, which to most people will be quite foreign. There are of course historical references and the cultural differences might feel large at times, but Van Gulik wrote these novels in an accessible manner. Yuan Nian Chun Zhi Ji is both a novel of contemporary times, as one that really feels like a story of ancient China. To start with the modern: Yuan Nian Chun Zhi Ji is easily interpreted as a YA coming-of-age and budding-friendship story starring the two girls Ku and Loushen. Sure, the banter and fights they have might be about topics somewhat foreign to most readers, like about abusing personal servants or about the tasks and duties expected from devoted girls as daughters of families of certain social standing, but the way they banter feels like a modern YA novel. Heck, I'd say this novel is also the most yuri mystery novel I've read, with both Ku and Loushen being bad at approaching the other in a normal manner and then growing very close. At the same time however Yuan Nian Chun Zhi Ji also reads as a classic Chinese novel. Half of the dialogues are about classic Chinese texts on religion and philosophy, and I'm talking here about texts that were considered classics in 100 BC! As an educated girl, Ku discusses several important philosophical texts from the Chu era with other characters, which is also the moment you realize what author Lu Qiucha's major was in college (yes, classic literature). Here you're reminded of second wavers like Mori Hiroshi and Kyougoku Natsuhiko, who in their mystery novels also like to dive deep into long, very, very long discussions about very specific topics in fields like philosophy and religion. In Yuan Nian Chun Zhi Ji, you'll be going through countless of pages where they talk in-depth about classic texts and where people quote-unquote other texts as they counter each other's arguments. It's very much like a classic Chinese story where like every other sentence is a reference or quote to someone in the past, but it's certainly not for everyone.

And yet you can't skip those segments, because they are of vital importance to the core mystery plot. Lu Qiucha was pretty ambitious in his debut novel: besides the impossible situation four years ago, he has more murders in the present, one of which also a semi-impossible situation where it doesn't seem possible for the murderer to have left the crime scene unseen, and we also have a dying message in another murder (and there's plenty of other deaths too...). Lu even has two Challenges to the Reader in this novel. Some of the individual parts are somewhat easy to guess: the family massacre four years ago for example is rather obvious, and the other impossible situation too is also rather limited in scope. The dying message on the other hand is really brilliantly done, and one of the false solutions proposed half-way through is also deviously complex and could've easily served as the true solution. However: these best parts of the book all require you to really comprehend all those literary and philosophical discussions about classic texts. I will first say that Lu is absolutely right in his Challenges to the Reader when he says no specialistic, prior knowledge is needed to solve the mystery, because he made sure that everything needed to connect the dots is mentioned within the story, but yeah, you do really go through those lengthy literary and philosophic discussions in detail and comprehend them well enough to infer their logical conclusion in order to make sense out of the dying message, or come up with that one interpretation needed for the false solution.

What makes Yuan Nian Chun Zhi Ji a very memorable novel however, is the insanely unique motive. I can't write too much about it, but it is a motive that only could've worked in this culture, in this time. It would have been hard for any random reader to just think of this motive, but again, I had to say that Lu makes tremendous efforts at properly hinting at this motive through his textual references and discussions, and while it's a concept that seems so foreign at one hand, the whole story of Yuan Nian Chun Zhi Ji works to properly set-up this reveal. It's a completely unthinkable motive in this age, in most cultures, I'd suspect, but Lu provides the necessary context to make it work, and it definitely works like a charm, shocking as it may be, in Yuan Nian Chun Zhi Ji. The motive is definitely the highlight of the novel and one of the most unique ones in the genre, anywhere on the world.

And in a small note, I would've liked a map! It's not necessary for the story, I admit, but some parts would've come out better I think, especially regarding the testimony of a certain witness. As the story is set around the Guan property, which consists only of several living quarters in a valley between some mountains, it would not only have made for a cool diagram, it would've helped with visualizing some of the movements of characters (as some grasp on where everybody was when exactly does help solve the mystery).

I still find it hard to really summarize what I think of Yuan Nian Chun Zhi Ji. While you can read large parts of this novel as a YA novel about a troubled friendship between two teenage girls, on te whole, it's not a very accessible mystery novel with all its indepth discussions about topics that are likely not familiar to most readers. The cultural gap is quite large, especially in the first half of the story when things move rather slowly. But what makes Yuan Nian Chun Zhi Ji an interesting read are exactly the ideas that originate from that cultural gap. Lu has written a mystery novel that works only because it's set in the first year of the Tianhan Era, because it's set in that specific culture with these specific characters. The result is a mystery novel that is not only "dressed" as ancient China, but truly a puzzle plot mystery that is firmly set in ancient China. The motive in particular is a very memorable one, but it would only work in this setting. So I can definitely recommend Yuan Nian Chun Zhi Ji as a unique reading experience.

Original Chinese title(s): 陸秋槎 "元年春之祭"

Running to Horizon

走る走る俺たち　流れる汗もそのままに 　

いつかたどり着いたら　君にうちあけられるだろ 

「Runner」 （爆風スランプ）

We run, we run, with sweat pouring down

But when I finally make it there, I will be able to confess to you

"Runner" (Bakufu Slump)

Every year, I try to read at least one mystery set in the city of Fukuoka, so why not start this new year with one?

The Fukuoka International Open Marathon is one of the oldest annual marathons held in Japan and its position in the world of athletics is therefore quite important. The sixty-first edition of this race however has an extra bit of glamour to it: the Fukuoka Marathon is the first of three marathons held in 2007 in Japan which will determine which athletes will be sent as the national representatives in the Beijing Olympics the following year. Victory at one of these marathons, or at least the best result among the Japanese participants, more or less guarantees you'll be picked as a member of the Olympic team. But while there are certainly participants who are competing for that ticket, it's also true that every single partipant in this race has their own goals. Some of the professionals are not only aiming for a ticket, but perhaps for a personal or even a national record time. The foreign guest runners too are eager to finish in first place in this prestigious race. But there are also amateur runners who simply want to experience what it is run a full marathon, while others participate to prove a point to someone. Everyone has their own goals and designs as they make their way to the goal, but some runners have far more complex and sinister plans in mind as they speed through the streets of Fukuoka and with all these dreams and schemes bunched together, it was only a matter of time before one star runner would become the victim of a sinister plot and die. The questions of what the truth behind this runner's death is and what is everything hoping to accomplish is what drives Torikai Hiu's Gekisou Fukuoka Kokusai Marathon - 42.195 Kilo no Nazo ("The Fierce Race - The Fukuoka International Marathon: The 42.195 km-long Mystery", 2005). The book was later retitled to the shorter Gekisou when it was released in pocket format.

I'm the first to admit I'm not a sports viewer at all in real life, but the Fukuoka International Open Marathon is one of the few big sports events I saw with my own eyes: I was living in the neighborhood Kashii in Fukuoka at the time, and the Miyuki Bus Stop near the two Kashii stations is the turning point of the marathon somewhere beyond the 30 kilometer point, after which the runners run back to the Heiwadai Stadium near Ohori Park. My dorm was only a 5-10 minute walk away from the Miyuki Bus Stop, so I caught a bit of the race back then. My knowledge that this book would likely refer (even if very short) to the neighborhood I knew was a reason I really wanted to read this novel. Of course, as the marathon route goes through the whole of Fukuoka, most of the locations mentioned were somewhat familiar to me.

I've seen Gekisou Fukuoka Kokusai Marathon referred to as both a sports novel with a mystery element, and a mystery novel with a sports element, and both descriptions could work, depending on where the reader puts emphasis on. There is a properly clewed mystery plot here, but one has to admit that if you didn't know this was a mystery novel, you probably wouldn't notice it until extremely late in the novel and the novel's first impression is certainly that of a sports novel. The whole story is set during the Fukuoka Marathon, from the start until the finish, with each section counting off the number of kilometers left until the goal. The plot follows an ensemble cast of people partipicating in the race, but also a few outside the race. We get a glimpse in the minds of the three star runners Ogasawara, Nikaidou and Taniguchi for example, who all compete for a ticket to the Olympics, but also other runners in the race like one of three pacemakers in the race, as well as a runner who is competing for a ticket to the Beijing Paralympics. Outside the runners we also follow people like the police officer on the motorcycle leading the pack. All of these people have different things on their mind as the race continues, and the further we get, the more we learn about their pasts, their dreams and what they hope to accomplish in this race. It's also here where you slowly realize that some of these people are trying more than just win the race. Overall though, I'd say this novel is an entertaining read as a sports novel, diving into the heads of the diverse lot as they make their way through Fukuoka.

It takes a long time before something happens that one would associate with the mystery genre. It's only around the halfway point when one of the runners suddenly keels over while getting his drink and dies in the ambulance. Death during a marathon isn't unheard of, of course, considering the physical strain it places on the body of the participants, but the motorcycle police officer leading the pack still thinks something fishy is going on. The truth behind this part of the mystery isn't super original and this part is a bit short (as the sections with the officer's thoughts are constantly cut off by the narratives of the other cast members), but it is definitely cleverly clewed, with the hints nicely hidden within the various narratives. Had this been the only mystery element, Gekisou Fukuoka Kokusai Marathon would have been a somewhat weak novel, but Torikai manages to much more with this novel. The problem: I can't write about it, as that would really give the game away. Let's say that once you reach the finish, some events and narratives that occured during the last two hours of the race take on a completely different meaning. Something big is going on and it happens under the nose of the reader. In hindsight, this is also properly hinted at and realizing how much of the various events that occured over the last 42 kilometres were in fact clues and foreshadowing is quite satisfying. So as a mystery novel, the set-up takes a long time, but I am quite pleased with the pay-off, even if you won't even realize that something is going on.

I have to admit I haven't read many sports mystery titles, but I do think this one stands out. Detective Conan has several sports-themed stories, but most of them are about bombs for some reason, and they happen outside the match themselves, with Conan having to trace bombs placed around a stadium or something like that, with the actual athletes having little direct connection to that (they usually have to do *something* to help Conan, but even then the focus doesn't lie on them). Examples would be the London story in volumes 71-72 for example, or the film The Eleventh Striker. Detective Conan: The Crimson Love Letter takes the form of a traditional sports film too, complete with training scenes, and is perhaps one of the best sports stories in Conan, even if it features a minor sport like competitive karuta. Queen has a few short stories too in The New Adventures of Ellery Queen I remember. What makes Gekisou Fukuoka Kokusai Marathon so remarkable however is the plot truly revolves around the marathon and the various interested parties, and that the whole plot takes place over the course of the race itself, and we don't see anything before or after the race itself.

So Gekisou Fukuoka Kokusai Marathon - 42.195 Kilo no Nazo was an entertaining novel that does a good job at bringing both a sports and mystery story. If you're looking for a mystery plot however, you do need to have patience, as it takes a while to get there and it's more one of those mystery novels that you only realize is actually a properly clewed mystery novel in hindsight. If you do manage to keep up with the pace however, you're in for a short, but engaging read.

Original Japanese title(s): 鳥飼否宇『激走　福岡国際マラソン　42.195キロの謎』

Turnabout Memories - Part 8

"I have to go over everything that's happened. I have to remember"

Another Code R: Journey into Lost Memories

Like always, I am wrapping up this year with a short overview of the posts of 2018 that stood out most in my mind. At least, as far as I can still remember them. And yeah, because of the way I schedule my posts way ahead in time, that means some of these titles mentioned I already read in 2017, and that the reviews of some of the better reads I have read in 2018, won't be posted here until in 2019. Timey-wimey stuff. And as I don't really like to make lists, there's actually not that much thought going into this post, as I just make up categories as I go along and write down the titles that sorta stuck in my head. Unlike previous years, there's no new Detective Conan volume released at the end of the year, so this will really be the last of the year! That said, I already have my reviews for the coming months all lined up, so next week, same Bat-Day-of-the-week, same Bat-Channel, there'll be the usual review. Hope to see you too in the new year!

Most Impressive Cover! Seen in 2018!
Detective Conan: The Crimson Love Letter

Wasn't a big fan of Unno Juuza's Hae Otoko ("The Human Fly"), but man, that cover was awesome!  I also have a weakness for the cover of Kubinashi no Gotoki Tataru Mono ("Those Who Cast A Curse Like The Headless") (there's something uncanny about the art) and I absolutely adore the vivid use of colors of the covers of Toshokan no Satsujin ("The Library Murder") and the two Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de ("Mystery Solving Is After Dinner") volumes I reviewed this year. But I think the cover of Detective Conan: The Crimson Love Letter, the novel version of the 2017 Detective Conan film based on Ookura's original version of the screenplay, stuck with me the most. What I like about this cover is that it's of course super adorable, but also because it features art that's not like the usual Detective Conan art. Everyone knows how Detective Conan looks like in terms of artstyle, so it's cool to see a completely different take on the characters, in a style you seldom see on covers of mystery novels anyway.

Best Project Outside The Blog!
The 8 Mansion Murders

Okay, like last year, it's not like there's much competition here, but I'm personally also quite pleased that I was able to translate Abiko's debut novel for Locked Room International. In 2015, I was able to work on Ayatsuji Yukito's The Decagon House Murders, followed in 2016 LRI's release of Arisugawa Alice's The Moai Island Puzzle. 2017 was a step back in time with Osaka's short story collection The Ginza Ghost, but 2018 was another example of early shin honkaku mystery. What I especially like about this novel that it's easily the funniest novel I've worked on until now, and it's also a work that is so clearly a work by Abiko: if you've read other works by him, you'll immediately recognize his style of comedy. Publishers Weekly not only deemed it "one of the funniest and cleverest novels of its type to hit the English-language market in years," but even elected it as one of the best mysteries released in 2018 in their Best Books 2018, which is of course something I hadn't expected at all.

Best Mystery Movie/TV series/other linear audiovisual media! Of 2018!
Koureikai W Misshitsu Jiken ("The Case of the Séance's Double Locked Room") (Detective Conan episodes 603-605)

Some heavy competition here.  I also saw some minor Agatha Christie adaptations which were not that special, but also an insanely fun adaptation of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, as Mitani Kouki's TV special Kuroido Goroshi ("The Murder of Kuroido") went far beyond my expectations as an adaptation of a notoriously difficult-to-adapt novel. The annual Detective Conan movie, Zero the Enforcer, is not really a contender as its rather light on the mystery element, but I have reviewed several episodes of the animated TV series written by screenplay writer/storyboarder/director Ochi Hirohito which were excellent. Both Noroi no Kamen wa Tsumetaku Warau ("The Cursed Masks Laugh Coldly") and Koureikai W Misshitsu Jiken ("The Case of the Séance's Double Locked Room") were both absolutely stunning as locked room mysteries, with the former was better suited for the visual format, I think. In the end, I have to say the latter was the best however, as it made use of its longer runtime to present a larger story, that not only built on the themes explored in Noroi no Kamen wa Tsumetaku Warau, but went even further.

Best Premise! Of 2018!
Shijinsou no Satsujin ("The Murders in the Villa of the Dead")

With premise, I mean the basic setting/idea on which the whole plot is built. And I came across a few interesting concepts this year. I really liked Yonezawa Honobu's Gusha no End Roll ("End Credits of Fools") for example, which came up with a good idea that allowed normal school students to work on a locked room murder (they had to come up with the solution for an unfinished mystery movie). Ashibe Taku's novel Double Mystery made brilliant use of the format of the novel, with a book that you could start reading at either end, and with a set of sealed pages in the middle. Chan Ho-Kei's The Borrowed (org. title: 13.67) was an interesting trip back in time, as you went back in time in Hong Kong's history with each following story, and the temporal changes were always clearly present in the story. But in the end, I have to go with Shijinsou no Satsujin, because it's a premise that is simple, but also so alluring and you immediately start wondering about all that could be possible the moment the idea is mentioned. Because who wouldn't like a fair play puzzle plot locked room mystery that is set during a zombie outbreak?

Best Non-Mystery! Of 2018!
Honkaku Mystery Manga Zemi ("Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar")

Not a really fair one perhaps, as I only reviewed two non-primary sources on mystery this year. 21 Seiki Honkaku Mystery Eizou Taizen ("The Encyclopedia of 21st Century Honkaku Mystery Video") was an informative guide on (mostly) Japanese mystery productions for TV and film (both live-action and anmated). It was a comprehensive guide, but the quality of the seperate entries could differ widely. Fukui's Honkaku Mystery Manga Zemi however is the seminal work on the topic of mystery manga, offering a staggering overview of the many, many, many mystery manga that have been published since World War II in Japan, all placed within the proper historical and publication context. Anyone interested in mystery manga as a genre must read this.

Best Non-Review Post! Of 2018!
Glasses in mystery fiction

Did anyone notice I wrote a lot more editorials this year? Of course, usually I only write like one or two of them a year, so it's not that difficult to write a lot more than usual, but still... Most of them were about minor topics of course, like physical books versus e-books, or novels versus short stories (why am I only looking for confrontations?). I was also happy with the one about floorplans/diagrams, as usually I don't really have visual-oriented posts and I think the one about mystery-related merchandise was fairly unique too. But the one I actually thought about before writing, was the one about the various ways in which a pair of glasses can feature in a mystery story. Considering nobody commented on it, I assume it's also a very self-indulging topic, but still, as someone who loves his stories about physical clues, I really enjoyed looking at a specific item in mystery fiction that isn't even a murder weapon!

Best Plotted Mystery! in 2018!
Kubinashi no Gotoki Tataru Mono ("Those Who Cast A Curse Like The Headless")

The buzzword on this blog this year was synergy. I first used the word consciously in my review for Mitsuda Shinzou's Kubinashi no Gotoki Tataru Mono ("Those Who Cast A Curse Like The Headless") to describe the incredible feat Mitsuda had done in this novel: while every problem in the novel, from the mysterious decapitations to the impossible disappearance, could be related back to one single underlying theme that explained all, Mitsuda had not only created several diverse applications of that theme, he had also managed to make sure that each iteration and element in the book was there not just to make the story longer, but most importantly, they were there to help strengthen the other parts. Each element in the book had several reasons why it was included, and each of those reasons basically came down to making this a better mystery novel by strengthening all the other elements. Later in the year I also read Mitsuda's Yamanma no Gotoki Warau Mono ("Those Who Sneer Like The Mountain Fiend"), which did a similar thing, and Ochi's screenplay for Detective Conan Koureikai W Misshitsu Jiken ("The Case of the Séance's Double Locked Room") is also an excellent example of having various elements that aren't just there to have a longer story, but there to help strengthen and improve the overall mystery plot. In the end, I still think that the first novel that got me thinking about synergy in mystery fiction, is still the best example of how to really plot an interconnected mystery plot where you really can understand why each element is there and how it relates to the rest of the story.

Most Interesting Mystery Game Played In 2018! But Probably Older!
Detective Pikachu

Okay, to be honest, I didn't play that many outstanding mystery games this year. I played some minor releases, like Buddy Collection and Kiss of Murder, which were okay, but no more than that. Of the major releases, Tantei Jinguuji Saburou - Prism of Eyes ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou - Prism of Eyes") was overall disappointing as 75% of that game was just a rerelease of older material with a new coat of paint, while the prequel spin-off Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz could've used a bit more of brushing up in regards of storytelling. WorldEnd Syndrome was an interesting, and amusing mystery game, but it wasn't the type of story that really had you as the player actively investigating a case yourself. I didn't review L.A. Noire on the blog, which I did play this year, and while it has some interesting segments and ideas as a mystery game, it's also fault-ridden as it doesn't really knows what it wants to be in terms of both story and game. Detective Pikachu however was so much fun. Yes, it's a fairly simple adventure game, but the way it utilizes Pokémon and their unique abilities to create new types of mystery problems was both original and inspired and I had a blast start to finish. The new live-action film based on Detective Pikachu however.... that's going into Uncanny Valley material.

To name a few other non-mystery games that were great this year: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has to be named of course, and I also had fun with the miniature garden puzzler Captain Toad. I also enjoyed the sound novel Okuri'inu, which was created by the writer of one of the greatest horror novel games ever, Gakkou de Atta Kowai Hanashi. And Ryuu ga Gotoku Kenzan! was absolutely fun as a Yakuza game starring Musashi Miyamoto!

The Just-Ten-In-No-Particular-Order-No-Comments List 
- Shijinsou no Satsujin ("The Murders in the Villa of the Dead") (Imamura Masahiro)
- Kubinashi no Gotoki Tataru Mono ("Those Who Cast A Curse Like The Headless") (Mitsuda Shinzou)
- 13-Ninme no Tanteishi ("The 13th Detective") (Yamaguchi Masaya)
- Meitantei Pikachu (Detective Pikachu)
- Toshokan no Satsujin ("The Library Murder") (Aosaki Yuugo)
- The Borrowed (org. title: 13.67) (Chan Ho-Kei)
- Yamanma no Gotoki Warau Mono ("Those Who Sneer Like The Mountain Fiend") (Mitsuda Shinzou)
- Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura 3 - Routarou ("Sharaku Homura: Detective of the Uncanny - Mr. Wax") (Nemoto Shou)
- Youtou S79-Gou ("Phantom Thief S79") (Awasaka Tsumao)
- Noroi no Kamen wa Tsumetaku Warau ("The Cursed Masks Laugh Coldly") (Detective Conan episode 187)

The Raven Chaser

「三郎、思考の樹を育てろ」

『ダイダロス：ジ・アウェイクニング・オブ・ゴールデンジャズ』 

"Saburou, nurture the Tree of Knowledge"

"Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz"

Last review of the year (not the last post)!

Tantei Jinguuji Saburou series 
1: The Shinjuku Central Park Murder Case (1987) [Nintendo Famicom Disk System]
5: The Unfinished Reportage (1996) [Sony PlayStation / SEGA Saturn] 
6: At the End of the Dream (1998) [Sony PlayStation / SEGA Saturn] 
7: Before the Light Fades (1999) [Sony PlaySation] 
8: Innocent Black (2002) [Sony PlayStation 2]  
9: Kind of Blue (2004) [Sony PlayStation 2]  
10: The White Phantom Girl (2005) [Nintendo GameBoy Advance] 
14: Ashes and Diamonds (2009) [Sony PlayStation Portable] 
15: The Red Butterfly (2010) [Nintendo DS] 
16: Rondo of Revenge (2012) [Nintendo 3DS]
17: Ghost of the Dusk (2017) [Nintendo 3DS]
18: Prism of Eyes (2018) [Nintendo Switch/Sony PlayStation 4]

00: Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz (2018) [Nintendo Switch/Sony PlayStation 4]

Novels
The Ghost of Shinjuku (2006)
A Bright Future (2007)

It was only a full month after the death of Jinguuji Kyousuke that his grandson Saburou learned of the death of his beloved grandfather, and to his utter shock, he also found out Kyousuke had been murdered. Kyousuke had been considered the black sheep of the Jinguuji clan, head of the Jinguuji Konzern, as he had moved away from Japan to New York in his younger days to escape the power struggles within his family. In New York, Kyousuke had become a well-respected and much loved private detective. Saburou suspects his grandfather's murder may have to do with his job, so he decides to fly off to New York to find out why his grandfather was killed. In New York, he is reunited with old friends he met at summer camp when he was a kid, but also with new allies, like Kyousuke's assistant Dan and police detectives Joshua and Hal. As Saburou learns more about the life his grandfather had in New York, he also stumbles upon the last case his grandfather was working on, which may have led to his death. With the words "Daedalus" and "The Cursed Town" as his only clues, Saburou sets out to find the murderer of his grandfather in the 2018 Switch/PS4 videogame Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz.

The Tantei Jinguuji Saburou series (also known as the Jake Hunter series) is a long-running mystery adventure game series which started in 1987 with the Famicom Disk System videogame Shinjuku Chuuou Kouen Satsujin Jiken ("The Shinjuku Central Park Murder Case"). The series revolves around the titular Jinguuji Saburou, a private detective who operates from Shinjuku, Tokyo. With the support of his assistant Youko, Inspector Kumano of the Yodobashi Police Station and other friends, Jinguuji has managed to solve many, many cases over the course of thirty years of game history. The hardboiled crime stories often have a focus on human drama and lean towards the social school of mystery, but will also occasionally feature puzzle plot mysteries and other classic tropes, resulting in a very eclectic form that at least greatly entertains me. The most recent game in this series is Prism of Eyes, which I reviewed in August of this year.

But before the release of Prism of Eyes, it was already announced that we'd see another entry of this series soon, though in a completely different form. Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz is the first prequel/spin-off game the series has seen in its more than thirty years old history, and is set about 10 years before the main series, portraying a younger Jinguuji Saburou as a student, long before he became the ever-smoking private detective we know of the other games. From earlier games, we knew he had taken after his grandfather and that like his grandfather, he had also lived in the United States and that during his time in New York, he had first met his future assistant Misono Youko as both got involved in a certain case (as mentioned in the PSX entry Yume no Owari ni), but we never got any details about this past. Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz, which is written by the same scenario writer as of Yume no Owari ni, gives us the details of Saburou's time in New York.

Why Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz is touted as a spin-off title rather than as the newest numbered entry in the main series, becomes obvious the moment you look at the game. It looks nothing at all like the previous games. Sure, the character designs are always different each game, and I really like the character designs this time. But gone are the old-fashioned commands like "Look" or "Talk" which you use to interact with static screens featuring static characters, as now each location is depicted as a 360 degrees panorama picture. It's pretty to nice to actually be able to move the camera now and look all around you. Instead of choosing the "Look" command, followed by "Telephone" like in all the previous games, you can now directly move the camera towards the telephone and select it to interact with it. Functionally, it works actually precisely the same as in the old games, but it certainly looks flashier. (If you're thinking of Sherlock because of the floating text: Sherlock takes a lot of cues from game grammar). I guess the idea is that these changes allow the player to really experience the world through Saburou's eyes, interacting directly with everything and everyone, rather than using commands. I love the use of the panorama view based on real photographs by the way, which reminds of the real photographs used as backgrounds in previous games like Yume no Owari ni and Tomoshibi ga Kienu Ma Ni.

Gameplay-wise though, Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz is almost the same as the other games, providing a fairly linear experience. It's a mystery game, but most of the time you'll not be able to do any thinking yourself, as much of the story is streamlined: you can only continue in the story if you go to the right location to talk with the right person/find the right piece of evidence, and only then can you continue to the next location, etc. It's a fairly stress-free experience, but there's not freedom here. This game also introduces a so-called "Stance" mechanic (where you can react to a person with different attitudes), but in reality it's nothing but a multiple choice system, as there's usually only one correct stance to pick, and the game will eventually always force you to pick the correct stance.

New in Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz are the end-of-chapter confrontations, where Jinguuji confronts a person of interest with his findings. These confrontations are fairly simple, as you're basically asked a few questions, which you answer to with the discoveries you already made over the course of the chapter (basically, it's just checking whether you paid attention). Though these are one of the few moments where you can get a game over screen (besides a few select other points in the games), which is fairly surprising, because I don't think the series has featured a game over screen since the very first game!

So despite all the flashier looks, Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz doesn't really differ from the other games mechanically, focusing much on telling a mystery story, rather than really challenging the player with game mechanics that allow them to think for themselves, but how does it fare as a mystery story? Well, I really want to like it more than I do. I quite like the new chapter structure, with Saburou solving a major incident at the end of each chapter (previous games were more like one long story), but these incidents are usually incredibly straightforward. When you find the proverbial bloody glove with the fingerprints of a suspect, you can be sure that the clue means the murderer was indeed the owner of those fingerprints, and that it's not some kind of red herring. These far-too-simple chapter cases seldom make feel like you've uncovered something big like in the previous games, which usually started with a small incident (a missing woman or something like that) which eventually are discovered to be part of a bigger case (often involving organized crime etc). Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz does become a story with scale eventually, but the smaller chapter cases are far too short and simple, with very few shocking surprises awaiting the player. What doesn't help is it often feels like there are holes in the storytelling and direction, as if scenes or lines had been cut. Sometimes things are mentioned as if we had heard about them before (which I'm sure we didn't or at least vaguely) and sometimes, the direction of scenes is just too vague, making it unclear what actually happened until they discuss it afterwards ("Oh, so thaaat's what happened). It's especially the moments where they treat a fact as commonly known, even though it's only been vaguely alluded too earlier, where Daedalus feels off. The overall story of Daedalus has some really good emotional moments, but also some choppy moments because of this uneven storytelling. It does become a bit silly at certain points regarding the backstory, but overall, I did enjoy the story. Warning though: Deadalus starts incredibly slow and the first chapter, set in the past when Saburou was at summer camp with his friends Abby, Leo and Ben, is arguably the worst one too, so you have to make your way through that until it becomes more interesting.

Though I have to mention this: the events of how Saburou and Youko first met in New York as depicted in Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz, don't exactly match the story alluded to in Yume no Owari ni, even though they're written by the same writer! Which is more than a bit strange considering the concept of this very game was to give the details about the incident that brought them together! Also: Youko is depicted very differently from how we know her in the other games. She's almost... tsundere! Funny is how Saburou is still a minor in this game, so he doesn't smoke nor drink, which are like the two things he always does in the main series (heck, the main series has a dedicated "Smoke" command, which usually functions as a "Hint" command).

The subtitle The Awakening of Golden Jazz refers not only to the awakening of Saburou as a detective, but also to the fantastic jazzy soundtracks that are a staple of the series. To be honest, at the start of the game, I thought the music was okay, but not really fitting to the series, but as you progress in the story, the music also changes and by the time you get to the end, the music does really sound like something you'd expect from the Tantei Jinguuji Saburou series, so the 'awakening' of jazz as you proceed in the game was a really nice touch! The music of the Tantei Jinguuji Saburou is my default 'writing' background music by the way.

To be honest, at first I wasn't really looking forward to Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz, as the idea of a prequel game simply sounded rather uninspired to me. Having now played the game, I think my hesitations have shifted focus. Overall, I did have fun with this game, more than I had initially expected, and I am most definitely a fan of the graphical and music style they chose for this spin-off, but this game could also have been much more enjoyable if the storytelling had a brush-up, as many moments don't come across as intended because of clunky direction at times. I think the overall story works quite fine as a mystery story that doesn't quite feel like it would work in the main series, but perfectly as a spin-off prequel, but had the developers had more time to flesh out the seperate chapters too with more depth, I think this could've been a much, much better game.

Original Japanese title(s): 『ダイダロス：ジ・アウェイクニング・オブ・ゴールデンジャズ』

The Mystery at Lilac Inn

「Aの予感」

『名探偵コナン　14番目の標的』

 

"A sign of 'A'"

"Detective Conan: The Fourteenth Target"

Like the two Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de volumes and Kagi no Kakatta Heya last month, we have a novel today I had been postponing for several years now because I already knew the contents in some way.

The Villa Lilac was once the home of a wealthy merchant, but after his suicide, the house in the mountains of Chichibu fell in the hands of the Japan Art Academy, which offered the facility to its students. One day, the caretaker and his wife welcome a group of seven students who are to stay a few days in the Villa Lilac. The Japan Art Academy is the result of a recent fusion between a music academy and an art (as in paintings) academy, and the background difference between these schools is also reflected in members of the colorful group, who don't really all get along with each other. Part of that is because of professional rivalry, but human emotions also play a role: the first night Tachibana and Salome announce their engagement to the others, which shocks at least three people heavily. The change in atmosphere is clear, and small, but strange happening occur afterwards, like a raincoat being stolen and all the spades being taken from a deck of cards. The following day, a local charcoal burner is found dead near the villa, with the stolen raincoat. At first, the police thought it was murder, but the fact the Ace of Spades was found near the body raised some questions. But they could never have expected that more deaths would follow in the Villa Lilac, and besides every body a Spade is found, counting up as the number of murders increase in Ayukawa Tetsuya's Lila Sou Jiken ("The Villa Lilac Case", 1959).

Ayukawa Tetsuya (1919-2002) was an influential post-war mystery writer and editor who specialized in classic puzzle plot mysteries. Lila Sou Jiken is one of his best known novels (Kuroi Trunk is probably the best known) and actually one I already sorta knew before I even read this book! For long, long ago, I read the short story Jubaku Saigen, which served as the prototype for Lila Sou Jiken. While a lot was changed, with complete sections omitted or changed (the setting for example was from Kumamoto to Chichibu) and the overall backstory quite different, one can still recognize the core plot of Jubaku Saigen in Lila Sou Jiken, although one of the more remarkable elements is missed, as Jubaku Saigen was also a crossover between Ayukawa's two best-known detectives Inspector Onitsura and the private detective Hoshikage Ryuuzou, while in Lila Sou Jiken, it's only Hoshikage who appears at the end of the novel to explain everything.

Given the premise, it shouldn't surprise the reader Lila Sou Jiken is breathing classic puzzle plot mystery from every single page. Seven students (and two caretakers) staying at a mountain villa who are killed one by one is as classic a set-up as you can get, and with a prop like the playing cards being placed beside every body, you know somethings fishy is going on. People who have read The Decagon House Murders will certainly notice the influence Lila Sou Jiken had on Ayatsuji, with the students gathering at a remote location, the cracks of the friendship between the students showing and even a scene where they play cards together. A lot of people die over the course of this story, which is even a bit unbelievable considering the fact that after the first couple of murders, the police is at the scene to keep an eye out on the situation, and even then people die, and even then the police doesn't allow the students to move to a safer place for the time being. Anyway, many murders happen, but interestingly enough, they all get killed in different manners, and that is also a driving mystery of the plot: why is the murderer being so varied?

As you read this novel though, you might notice that Ayukawa's writing is a bit... dry. One can feel that he was focusing everything on constructing a tightly plotted whodunnit, but the result is that a lot of the events feel rather abrupt and sudden, brought to the reader just as a matter of fact. Like I mentioned, you'd expect the students, and certainly the police to react a bit more, either emotionally or with action, to the fact a serial murder is in the house and committing murders while the police's there, but the narrative brings each subsequent murder just as 'oh yeah, that happened.' The novel's not short, and the string of events that happen, but don't really happen to the characters can feel rather long because of that. Usually, when a new murder or some new mystery occurs in a novel, you're given all kinds of new information to process, or new clues that either bring new light to prior events or manage to muddle things even more, but in Lila Sou Jiken, most of it feels like discrete events happening one after another, with each subsequent event not having much effect on previous events, so by the end of the novel, you might feel a bit tired. There's variation in the murder methods, but besides that, it's just reading on as you're given new murders every few pages.

So how does Lila Sou Jiken fare as a whodunnit? I'd say this is a well plotted and complex mystery, that does suffer a bit from the aforementioned lack of real effect and consequence shown to the reader. Looking solely at the core plot, one can see Ayukawa's skill: a lot of ideas and tricks are utilized for the murders, and all of them are used very competently. One particular, physical clue I liked especially, as it's so obvious in hindsight once you think about it as it's part of everybody's daily life. Other parts of the mystery are well-done, but a bit dependent on trivia: the clue that explains how a certain poisoning was done is really impossible to get unless you just happen to know one certain, obscure fact. There's another gimmick that Ayukawa often likes to use I think (I have certainly seen it in another of his short stories), that was handled pretty well, with multiple, diverse clues that help the reader deduce a certain fact in a fair way (one clue wouldn't be fair perhaps: multiple yes). But the plot does feel a bit sterile: each event is given little time to really settle, and with so many things going on, nothing really gets a chance to stand out. A lot of these ideas would've worked very good in short story whodunnits, but now they're thrown into one novel (even if connected in a believable way), weakening the impact of each seperate element. I think you have material here for three excellent short stories, but with this novel, you know that each part is pretty smart, and that they are still connected in a meaningful way, but you still wonder, perhaps the sum of everything isn't equal or more than the parts.

That is not to say that Lila Sou Jiken is a badly plotted mystery novel, as it really isn't. Most authors would kill to come up with something as tightly plotted as this. But having read my share of Ayukawa novels and short stories, I feel that this book wasn't as "novel-like" as his other novels. That said though, Lila Sou Jiken is an impressively structured whodunnit mystery that is as classic as you can get. Lila Sou Jiken isn't considered as one of Ayukawa's best known novels for nothing, and for those who really enjoy a traditional puzzler, this is a no-brainer.

Original Japanese title(s): 鮎川哲也『りら荘事件』

Riverboat Ruse

「あま　もし　さいしょから　やりなおす　ことが　できれば　なんとか　なるのに・・・」 

『ミシシッピー殺人事件』

"Oh dear! If only we could redo this all from the beginning..."

"Murder on the Mississippi"

In general, I take a positive approach when writing a review here. Even when I don't really like a book, I at least try to identify or guess what aspects do hold potential, or what elements might others even if the work didn't resonate with me personally. As I don't have any obligation to write something about anything I consume, I don't really see the point of me writing something down if I truly can't find something interesting to note about a work. Of course, some people might enjoy the act tearing a work apart (and they may be completely right too), but I myself don't really go out of the way trying to uncover bad mystery fiction.

That said, I really wanted to write about one piece of mystery fiction that is notoriously bad. When you consume a lot of mystery fiction, you usually have the masterpieces stand out in your memory, alongside the other works that might have made a lasting impression on you for some reason or another, but usually "bad" mystery fiction just becomes part of the pool of mediocrity, that sea in your memory where all the 'meh' books melt into one messy goo. It'd take a really bad work to stand out even among that dark mess. There are quite a few works where there's some kind of consensus that that agree that the work in question is an exceptionally good mystery novel. But what are the negative standouts in mystery fiction?

In Japan, there's a certain mystery title that is widely considered a total wreck and the source of much ridicule and jokes: the videogame Murder on the Mississippi: The Adventures of Sir Charles Foxworth. The game was originally released in 1986 by Activision and is available for various systems like the Commodore 64, Commodore 128 and the Apple II, but it's the exclusive Japanese version available on the Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System) that is infamously bad, it's actually often also named as one of the worst, if not worst Famicom game. And there were quite a few Famicom games that weren't that good! Mississippi Satsujin Jiken, as Murder on the Mississippi is called in Japan, is set on the ship the Delta Princess, which is making its way from St. Louis to New Orleans. Aboard are also the famous detective Sir Charles and his assistant Watson (who is called Regis in the original English text). The two go out to meet the other people on the boat, but discover a dead body in one of the cabins, who is identified as Mr. Brown, who owns the boat. Sir Charles and Watson set out to find out who the murderer is.

At the heart of things, Murder on the Mississippi follows a familiar pattern, with a detective present on a boat where a murder occured. In theory, you'll be going around speaking with all the people on the boat, uncover hidden pasts and ties, find evidence and finally accuse the murderer. And to be honest, there are some interesting ideas in this game. Unlike games like the epoch-making Portopia Satsujin Jiken, you don't use preset menu commands like "Go" or "Investigate" to play the game, but you as the player control Sir Charles directly, like in a platforming game. It gives you a good sense of the Delta Princess, as you walk from room to room in search of evidence and questioning all the guests. The game also has an interesting mechanic where Watson can write down one (1) sentence per testimony made by a witness, which you can then present to the other witnesses (something you'd later also see in games like Danganronpa).

But the problem is, this game is really bad. I don't mean just that the graphics are bad (they're not, particularly), or that the characters are moving so slow, or even that the idea of Watson taking memos is hopelessly flawed as you only have one chance to write down the correct testimony even though you can not possibly know in advance what will be needed later and once you missed that window of opportunity, you're stuck until you reset the game and start all over again. No, what makes this a bad game, and a bad mystery story is that little of it makes sense. The most infamous part of this game is right as you walk inside the first room you see. For after just a few steps inside the (empty) room, Sir Charles will suddenly fall through a hole in the floor which wasn't there before, killing the player at once, leading to an instant game over. Watson notes it must be a trap and wishes he could re-do everything. The player obviously has to replay the game, but what makes this instant death trap absolutely nuts is that at this point the player hasn't even discovered the body yet. If you happen to walk into one of the two rooms with the invisible holes in the floor before you went to the room with the victim (which you are likely to do, one of the hole rooms is the room right next to yours!), you'll die before the case even started. I mean, why would the murderer even lay a trap door (which, practically speaking, can't even be done in a cabin room!) for Sir Charles when the body hasn't even been discovered and nobody's even aware of a murder!

Granted, the two rooms with the trap holes you can already enter before discovering the body are only present in the Japanese Famicom version (the original game is a bit nicer to the player), but there's another room where a knife comes flying straight at Sir Charles the moment he steps inside! Unless you know about the knife coming in advance and immediately move to avoid it, you are likely to get a knife right in your forehead. Again, this trap can be set off even before you ever find the body and learn a murder has happened on the boat (in fact, this makes Sir Charles the first victim...).

So if you somehow manage to avoid the death traps, select all the right testimonies needed to make all the suspects talk, find all the pieces of evidence even though one of them can not be seen and you just have to decide to examine a certain spot on the boat for no particular reason and you finally accuse the murderer and uncover how Brown was killed and why, the game also shows why it's not just a bad game, it's also a bad mystery story. Sure, the basic plot is already incredibly simple (if you know what you have to do, you can clear it within the hour), basically boiling down to finding a weapon and a document that proves motive, but even that bare-bones plot is riddled with plotholes. Confronted with Sir Charles' accusations, the murderer confesses they did it, but they say it was done in self-defense. The problem: this goes against all the things seen in the game seen so far. Why are there death traps laid out across the boat for Sir Charles if it was done in self-defense (and that's ignoring the fact the traps are active even before the player discovers a murder happened!). Why was the bullet hidden inside a desk, even though it had supposedly fallen through a hole!? Why had nobody heard the gunshot, unless it was timed exactly with the morning bird shooting of the other passenger? And what makes this the most ridiculous story is that eventually, every other passenger will immediately forgive the murderer and even offer to help hide the truth, as apparently everyone but Sir Charles and Watson basically hated the victim and they already knew enough about the murderer's past to want to protect them now they learned who's the murderer. It's almost like the game sets out to portray Sir Charles as the bad guy for uncovering the identity of the poor murderer!

As one of the earliest mystery adventure games on the home videogame console, Murder on the Mississippi has made a lasting impression on the generation that grew up with videogames, and not in a good manner. Of course, games like Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken and the early Tantei Jinguuji Saburou games had their quirks too (the two Famicom Tantei Club games were extremely well done in comparison), but Murder on the Mississippi is both a bad game, in the sense that is not designed to give the player a good time, and it's a bad mystery story, as the events that unfold don't match up with what's said had happened, resulting a thin plot, that's still somehow filled with more holes than there are trap doors in the Delta Princess. And this is why Murder on the Mississippi is a mystery story that a lot of people know and why it's also widely considered a horrible one too.

Original Japanese title(s): 『ミシシッピー殺人事件』

A Matter of Form

Be our guest
Put our service to the test
Tie your napkin 'round your neck, cherie
And we provide the rest

"Be Our Guest"

A few years back, I reviewed some novels written by Dutch writer/translator/radio script writer/actor Jan Apon. I had curiously enough first heard of this author through a Japanese source: the novel Een zekere Manuel (1935) had been mentioned in a 1958 essay on European mystery fiction in the for the mystery genre important literary magazine Houseki. Apon's books don't appear often in the used book market, so it isn't easy coming across them (heck, I had to read a German translation of Een zekere Manuel), which is why I don't get to review his books as often as I had hoped.

Anyway, today's another Jan Apon novel, De gast van kamer 13 ("The Guest in Room 13", 1938), and one starring his main detective Raoul Bertin no less! The narrator meets up in Paris with his old friend and consulting detective Raoul Bertin, who has just succesfully closed a case. The two travel to Nice for some leisure, and in Nice, the duo are entertained by Inspector Vitelli, an old collegue of Bertin when he was still with the Sûreté. During an excellent dinner, Vitelli tells his guests about a curious case he's working on. The Sestinatti is a hotel on the Quai with a good restaurant, and last Sunday, the guest residing in room 13 was found dead in his room. The merchant had apparently hanged himself by hanging a cord from a hook on the wall that was originally carrying a painting. A suicide letter was found that was determined to have been written by the man, so there don't seem to be any problems, yet Vitelli's gut feeling says something is wrong, as despite the letter, the man had no reason to suddenly take his life.  His instinct is proven correct when during the dinner, Vitelli is informed that another suicide has happened in room 13 of the Sestinatti, and once again, it appeared the victim, an English student who was travelling with his French girlfriend, hung himself despite having no reason to do so. Bertin decides to help his old friend out with the case of this murderous room.

I'm actually not sure how many books Apon wrote starring Bertin: the few sources I found on the internet are either wrong or contradictory to my own experiences (I have seen both Een zekere Manuel and Het gorilla-mysterie described as Bertin novels, which they most certainly aren't). So this might be the second novel starring the ex-police detective turned consulting detective, or perhaps even the third. It's surpisingly difficult to find information about these old Dutch mystery novels.

Anyway, De gast van kamer 13 certainly starts with an interesting premise: a room in a hotel where the guests keep on committing suicide. Or it is murder, in which case the question becomes why are the guests of room 13 killed one after another? In the first Bertin novel, Paniek op de Miss Brooklyn, there was clear suggestion of the supernatural, as that story revolved around a LP which had recorded a cursed incantation of the African M-bu-ti tribe. This time, Apon doesn't do much with what could be a great premise for a supernatural tone, as the many characters are looking at these deaths in very rational ways, weighing the evidence for and against suicide or murder carefully against each other and not really leaning towards the "it's a cursed room!" explanation.

This is noticable from the way Apon handled the deaths. Somewhat disappointing, we get situations that are just not locked room murders. For example the first death, of the merchant, occured while the door had been locked from the inside.... but the balcony door was open, meaning someone could've climbed to another balcony or to the roof. The second death (of which Vitelli is informed during dinner) too is a case of something that could've been dressed by the author as an impossible murder mystery, but wasn't. If anything, Apon remains pragmatic, though the questions that weigh on the detectives' minds still hold for us readers too: why are these events happening?

One vexing, and major point of Apon's writings have always been that while the core mystery plot is always entertaining, he for some reason always manages to conjure up new clues and evidence at the conclusion of which the reader had never ever heard of before. This is sadly enough also the case for De gast in kamer 13. While it is certainly fairly easy to guess who did it based on some of the hints, Bertin also refers to a whole heap of other clues that were certainly not ever mentioned before in the narrative. Some of the hints would've been very damning, basically spelling out the name of the culprit had they been mentioned, but other hints could've been incorporated quite nicely in the story in a natural way, showing them to the reader in a fair way, so I have no idea why Apon keeps on pulling out these clues out of nowhere at the end. It's pretty drastic too this time, as the whole motive for the curious deaths of room 13 can't be deduced beforehand based on actual clues, while Bertin apparently has a whole gigantic library full of evidence he collected here and there that he forgot to mention for half of the novel. A lot of the interim deductions are also based on information we don't get beforehand, but those I can forgive because they work to further the plot, but it's a whole different story when basically all vital clues are witheld from the reader.

The thing is: De gast van kamer 13 is pretty entertaining to read as a mystery novel. It's a real page turner, and the plot, while quite simple, manages to keep you entertained until the end. But for some reason Apon keeps on writing these otherwise fun mystery novels in a way that is not fair to the reader, as Bertin is basically always cheating, conjuring up a bloody knife with fingerprints and handwritten confessions by the murderer or other damning pieces of evidence out of nowhere, which he explains as having obtained between that one scene change. But it's also always so easy to see how this could've been rewritten in a true fair play whodunnit in a relatively simple manner, making the disappointment in an otherwise good novel the greater. In short: a fun novel, but with very obvious flaws.

Original Dutch title(s): Jan Apon "De gast in kamer 13"