The Secret of the Forgotten Cave

"The bug is to make my fortune."

"The Gold Bug"

Four years ago, I read my first novel written by Kim Nae-seong (1909-1957), who is commonly seen as the father of the Korean detective story. Kim was born one year before the Great Korean Empire was annexed by Japan, and thus he grew up during the period Korea was a colony of Japan. He moved to Japan, where he studied at the famous Waseda University in Tokyo. It was there that he made his debut as a mystery author in 1935 with the short story Daenkei no Kagami, published in the magazine Purofiru (Profile). The story was, of course, written in Japanese, and he'd publish a few more short stories in Japan (reviews/details here) and even meet with some of the major Japanese mystery authors of the period, like Edogawa Rampo, before he returned to Korea where he'd continue his work in the genre (with stories written in Korean this time). Like Rampo, his stories often have a pulp detective adventure feel to them. His detective character Yu Bu-ran in fact is supposed to be named after (Maurice) Leblanc, whose Lupin novels are of course famous examples of pulpy detective adventure stories. For those interested, I also have an English translation of Muma, a non-series short horror-esque story by Kim.

Oh, and a small note, I am not completely sure about the romanization of the names in this review. Most of them will be correct, but from the little I studied of the language, I know sometimes consonants will aspirate or change in other ways in certain combinations and with a name like Baekhui (白姫) for example, I have no idea whether that is the correct romanization, or whether it'd change to Baekkhui or Baekgui or something like that.

Earlier this month, a new translation of two of Kim's better known works was released in Japan. Shirokamen collects two juvenile mysteries written for the Korean audience by Kim in 1937-1938, which are in spirit quite like Edogawa Rampo's Boys Detective Club series. The first of these two stories is the titular Shirokamen, or in Korean Baekgamyeon ("The White Mask"), which is also considered the juvenile mystery title of 30s Korea. The White Mask from the title is a mysterious international thief who wears a white skull mask, who has been succesfully stealing all kinds of artifacts all over the world. Like any decent thief, he (or she!) is always kind enough to send a letter to his potential victims about what he will steal and when, and of course, the White Mask always succeeds despite all the precautions taken. London, New York and Paris have all become victim to the thief, and now the crook has gone to Korea. His latest victim is Professor Gang, the leading scientist of the country who has been working on a very secret project, which should never fall in the wrong hands. After a day at the circus with his son Sugil and his friend Daejun however, Professor Gang is kidnapped by the White Mask despite efforts of Sugil and Daejun. They quickly decide they need to help of the famous mystery author and detective Yu Bu-ran, but after learning he is out for a few days, they decide they themselves have to capture the White Mask. Professor Gang managed to drop his secret notebook with all the plans for his project during the kidnapping, which the children find, but the White Mask is quick to send them a letter to say he will be stealing the notebook from them that day.

You can really tell this is an innocent children's adventure novel the moment you learn that Professor Gang actually wrote SECRET NOTEBOOK on the cover of his notebook.

As a mystery novel Baekgamyeon is mainly about the adventure the boys have and less about the mystery solving. There are the usual Scooby-Doo! shenanigans like wild chases and disguises and an overdramatic narrator who addresses the reader every three or four sentences about how mysterious or baffling events are. The few "mysterious" events (including the disappearance of the secret notebook from the custody of Daejun) are unlikely truly to surprise the (adult) reader, but the adventures Sugil and Daejun have as assistants of Yu Bu-ran are entertaining enough for the juvenile reader. Though I am not quite sure about Yu Bu-ran's qualities as a detective in charge of his own Baker Street Irregulars. At more than a few times it seems like Yu Bu-ran's really bad at taking care of children. During a chase scene with the White Mask for example, he decides to delegate the remainder of the chase to the two children (this happens literally mid-chase), while he himself goes off to do some research within the comforts of his own home. I'm pretty sure that normally, you should not leave two kids to chase after a dangerous thief so you can go home. Yu Bu-ran and the kids have a few skirmishes with the White Mask across the length of the fairly short novel and while eventually, we'll learn the true goal of the phantom thief which is a bit more than meets the eye, there's just too little depth to the novel to truly impress. It's fairly fun as a children's mystery adventure novel, but it doesn't ever leave Scooby-Doo! territory.

The second story in this volume is titled Hwanggeumgul ("The Golden Cave") and starts at an orphanage. Baekhui is a young girl who has been put in the orphanage after the death of her father, and there she becomes friends with the boy Hakjun. She tells Hakjun about the Buddha statue she got from her father before he died. According to her father, he used to travel the world when he was young and one day, he was near the Himalayas when he came across a wounded woman riding a horse on the run for some pursuers. He quickly disguised himself as the woman and hid her, and rode off on the horse to lure the pursuers away. When he came back, he found the woman had died of her injuries, but not without leaving a letter for Baekhui's father, expressing her gratitude for his kind act. She also explained she was of the Kshatriyas caste in India, and that her pursuers were after a family treasure. The hint to the location was hidden within the Buddha statue she left Baekhui's father. After telling this story to Hakjun, the two dream of finding the treasure themselves to help out all orphans, but to Baekhui's great shock, she learns some suspicious Indians have been hanging out near the orphanage. Hakjun goes out to investigate, but never comes back, so Baekhui tells everything to the director of the orphanage, who immediately seeks help with Yu Bu-ran in order to find Hakjun and find Baekhui's treasure.

Yep, this is a treasure hunt story, and as such, has even fewer mystery elements than the first story. This is an all-out adventure and while the hint to the location of the treasure is in code and needs the mind of Yu Bu-ran to be solved, it's not a fair code as it alludes to completely fictional locations and therefore not solvable to the reader. What remains is a rather kooky treasure hunt story where Yu Bu-ran once again proves he should never be in charge of children. Over the course of the story, we learn a group of Indians is after the treasure (and because there are absolutely no other Indians in Korea, every Indian our heroes come across belongs to the criminal group). But what does Yu Bu-ran do? He has Baekhui and Hakjun and even more children from the orphanage tag along as he chases a group of adult Indian criminals across the sea who have already proven earlier in the story they aren't afraid to kill. And then there's a part where there's a shoot-out on an island, and where Yu Bu-ran first tells Baekhui to watch how he'll shoot down one of the Indians, then boasts to the little girl how much fun that was, and when the girl says she's scared (as they are in a friggin' shoot-out), Yu Bu-ran tells her to watch closely again as he'll shoot another Indian.

Yep, Yu Bu-ran is the bad guy here.

I wouldn't say the two novellettes collected in this volume are required reading. They're obviously juvenile mysteries (for the younger part of this group) and they work work enough as such, even if nothing outstanding per se. But I definitely had more fun with the other works by Kim Nae-seong I read earlier, and a novel like Main for example also invokes the adventure novel spirit, but is a bit more engaging than these shorter tales. Considering their similarities with Edogawa Rampo's Boys Detective Club novels however and their position as both works of the father of the Korean mystery story, and as important juvenile mysteries from 30s Korea, it might be interesting to read these books if you want to learn more about those topics.

Original Korean title(s):김내성 （金來成）《백가면과 황금굴(白仮面&黄金窟》

Turnabout Big Top

"Off with their heads!"

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" 

I got the e-book version of this book, but I hate clowns, so I'm not going to use that cover here.

It was on a hot, nay, a very hot day when stage magician The Great Merlini and writer Ross Harte were melting inside Merlini's magic shop, when a woman stormed inside, determined to buy Merlini's Headless Lady act right at once. The fact she doesn't accept no for an answer rouses Merlini's interests who is willing to part with the one show model left if she can explain what this is all about, but she refuses. The woman is obviously being tailed by someone, and Merlini and Harte try their hand at finding out who is stalking the prospective client, but when the two return to the shop, they find the Headless Lady act has been stolen (even if money was left behind). Some words spoken by the woman however give The Great Merlini enough of a hint to guess where she and the Headless Lady might be, so the two head out to the Mighty Hannum Combined Shows circus, owned by Major Hannum. Or to be precise: the late Major Hannum, as he has died in a curious car accident the day before. Making use of his old friendships with many of the performers at the circus, Merlini not only learns where his Headless Lady is and who the woman was who stole it from him, but he also starts to suspect that Major Hannum's accident wasn't an accident and that more deaths may follow. His hunch proves to be correct, as more curious events happen like a horrible accident during an act and even the disappearence of the performer of the Headless Lady in Clayton Rawson's The Headless Lady (1940).

I never read books in order, so this is the first time I read a full novel starring Rawson's stage magician detective The Great Merlini (named after Rawson's own stage name as a magician), even though this is the third novel. I have read the short story collection The Great Merlini: The Complete Stories of the Magician Detective by the way, which featured some very impressive impossible crimes, though do note that The Headless Lady isn't an impossible crime mystery.

Was The Headless Lady a good mystery novel though? I have to say I was a bit disappointed when I finished the novel. Not that it is bad: the 'problem' is that The Headless Lady is rather average. The first few chapters are perhaps the most fun: The Great Merlini and Harte find themselves in the crazy world of circus performers, and making use of his own experience as a stage magician, Rawson goes all out with the circus lingo. The parts where Merlini speaks with his fellow performers in impossible-to-decipher slang are quite entertaining, with Harte desperate for an interpreter of this nightmare of the English language. The circus world is given life in these pages, providing an interesting setting for the mystery. One funny thing to note is that there's a suspicious mystery author character in this novel, who goes by the very familiar name of Stuart Towne...

But the mystery is rather... bland. There are a few seperate threads of plot that Merlini and Harte chase after: the curious car accident of the Major, an nasty accident during a performance because the lights suddenly went out, the disappearance of the Headless Lady. Yet none of them are really interesting as mysteries taken on their own. One incident happens, Merlini and Harte ask some questions here and there, and then the next incident happens, and the previous one is hardly given any attention anymore.  That happens several times, so none of the incidents are really given enough consideration, and after a while, you start losing interest, because apparently, the plot too doesn't deem them interesting enough. I'm not asking for an impossible crime though. I'd just like the plot to not constantly replace one minor mystery with another one, without really fleshing out the previous one. In the end, none of these mysteries really manage to impress, as most of it is awfully familiar. The answers to some questions are basically nothing more than "yeah, anything could've done it, but they were the ones", but the conundrum revolving around the Headless Lady utilizes the setting well as a nice piece of misdirection, even if it's rather simple. So again, The Headless Lady isn't a bad mystery novel per se, but it does lack something that really makes it stand on its own besides the circus setting.

Speaking of that, this photograph of Clayton Rawson with the Headless Girl is pretty famous. "Olga the Headless Girl" was a sideshow act by a "Doctor" Heineman who also performed at the New York World's Fair in 1939. The picture of Rawson and Olga was taken then, and The Headless Lady would be published one year later.

Japanese mystery author Awasaka Tsumao was also a stage magician, similar to Clayton Rawson, and has used similar settings. His Soga Kajou short stories also feature a stage magician as a detective, while stage magic and/or circus performances also played an important role in his novels 11 Mai no Trump (a masterpiece!) and Kigeki Hikigeki. Game designer Takumi Shuu, who is not only an amateur magician himself, but also an open fan of Awasaka, would also utilize the circus setting in an episode in the second entry in his Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney series. Others that come to mind are some of the Hoshikage Ryuuzou short stories by Ayukawa Tetsuya and that excellent impossible crime short by Abiko Takemaru. None of these stories go all-out with circus lingo like The Headless Lady does though.

So The Headless Lady isn't a bad mystery. However, it also has little to truly set it apart, aside from the circus setting that does truly come to life thanks to Rawson's writing. As a mystery however, The Headless Lady lacks true inspiration and surprises, making especially the mid-part of the novel rather slow and dull, with little to keep the reader entertained in an intellectual manner.

The House of Dreams

Some there be that shadows kiss; 

Such have but a shadow's bliss.

"The Merchant of Venice"

Sometimes I don't read Dutch mystery novels for years, sometimes I read them one after another... (Yes, the reviews are posted more than a month apart, but I read today's book right after I read De gast van kamer 13)

Books by Jan Apon
Raoul Bertin series
Paniek op de Miss Brooklyn ("Panic on the Miss Brooklyn", 1934)
De man in de schaduw ("The Man in the Shadows", 1936) 
De gast van kamer 13 ("The Guest in Room 13", 1938)
Een tip van Brissac ("A tip from Brissac", 1940)

Rudolf Temesvary series
Het gorilla-mysterie ("The Gorilla Mystery", 1937)
 
Non-series
Een zekere Manuel ("A certain Manuel", 1935)

The narrator of Jan Apon's De man in de schaduw ("The Man in the Shadows", 1936) Dr. Capelli, and his friend and accomlished writer Paul Posseck make their way to the home of Count Armanov, who is entertaining several guests there, including the film-maker Leslie Huntington and his new star actress Bella Berry. Leslie will be making a new film based on a book by Paul, starring Bella, so the two head over there to have some discussions with him. At least, that is the pre-text, because Paul confesses to Dr. Capelli that many, many years ago, he and Bella used to be lovers. They eventually seperated, but he never really got over her, and this is the perfect time to meet her again, even though he knows about the rumors that Leslie is having an affair with Bella. On their way to the count's home, the two also discover that Leslie's wife Joan is having her share of affairs too, so when they arrive at the home, they already sense that not all's as joyful as seems. Capelli and Paul too are offered a stay at the Count's and the first night ends well with some social mingling and a visit to the casino until the early hours, but soon after their return, a gunshot rings from the room of Leslie. When Dr. Capelli barges in the room, he finds both Bella and Paul standing in shock near the body of Leslie. Someone shot Leslie from the entrance of the room, but who? It's Inspector Raoul Bertin of the Sûreté who has to untangle the complex relations of the people in the Armanov home and figure out who's the murderer before more victims fall.

A few weeks ago, I reviewed another novel by Dutch writer/translator/radio script writer/actor Jan Apon, and noted that that novel was probably the second or third novel starring his series detective Raoul Bertin. I wasn't sure at the time, because while Apon's output in mystery novels isn't large by any means, the books are difficult to get a hold off, and the little information about on them available on the internet was already proven wrong when I actually read a few of them. Anyway, I'm glad I can make this part of Dutch mystery history a bit clearer now: De man in de schaduw is the second novel starring Raoul Bertin, and also a prequel: whereas the other three Raoul Bertin novels are about his exploits after he quit his job at the Sûreté, this novel has him as an active member of the police force (meeting with Dr. Capelli, the narrator, for the first time). None of the other books spoil this one as far as I remember by the way, so then can be read in any order.

The set-up of the novel is as classic as you can get: a group of people who are friends on the surface, all gathered in one house when a murder happens, and of course there's been a recent bargain sale on murder motives and everyone acts enigmatically or suspiciously. I have to admit I liked the premise of some of the other novels better, like the mystery of the cursed record of Paniek op de Ms. Brooklyn or the hotel room with the constant deaths of De gast in kamer 13. These novels also followed a classic set-up eventually, but managed to have a hook with just a bit of extra allure, while De man in de schaduw has little to set itself apart in terms of premise.

Everytime I review an Apon novel, I mention how his novels are always entertaining enough as a mystery stories, but that for some reason, he always plays a bit unfair with the clues, as most of the most damning clues are always withheld from the reader, until Bertin unveils that he found what were basically signed confessions of the murderer lying around. It's not that bad this time, though elements like the motive could've been telegraphed better in advance. Guessing who did it won't be difficult this time, which is actually true for most Apon novels: while Apon might not be always playing fair with clues, there are usually enough clues, or other forms of foreshadowing that are easy to pick up. The plots are usually entertaining though, and De man in de schaduw works most of the time. The identity of the culprit becomes painfully clear after a certain event in the novel, but the whole thing is plotted in a reasonable way with all kinds of small mysteries for the reader to solve (even if again, not everything is fairly telegraphed in advance).

I did find it a shame that the floorplans provided weren't really needed for this novel. I remember De gast van kamer 13 had a simple floorplan of the hotel too. While both floorplans did make the layout of the respective buildings a bit clearer, they weren't necessary to solve the main mysteries, and the narration alone would've been enough. Of course, I do get more excited when we get floorplans, but it's the most fun when you actually need to stare at them to solve the murder, right?

Anyway, I am fairly sure that De man in de schaduw was the last Raoul Bertin novel I needed to read, and this might be the last time I review Apon here. Apon has written a few other novels too, but I believe they are more like thrillers than detective novels, so I'm not particularly tempted to go after these books, especially as these books aren't easy to find. De man in de schaduw is at any rate a classically set-up mystery novel, that does suffer from the usual Apon faults, but it's overall a fairly entertaining mystery novel.

Original Dutch title(s): Jan Apon "De man in de schaduw"

The Adventure of the Wary Witness

「スタート！その時だった。僕の頭に新しいスタートという言葉が思い浮かんだ。」

『語り＠学校』（爆笑レッドシアターコント）

"Start! Then it came to me. The words Fresh Start popped up in my head."

"Narration @ School" (Bakushou Red Theater sketch)

There exists a very lively market for self-published material (doujin) in Japan, ranging from doujin fanzines, comics, music, games to anything you can think off. I myself have dabbled very little with doujin material here though. Most recently I did review the three volumes of the excellent mystery manga Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura, which were originally published as doujin comics (they are now available digitally through a major publisher). In terms of games, I only tried a few, being two installments of Flower Bridge Infinity's Akito Date series and Rengoku - Kamaitachi no Yoru 2 Another, a fan-sequel to the original Kamaitachi no Yoru videogame. Today, I try another doujin game.

Armchair Detective is a mystery videogame in development for PC, iOS/Android by the doujin circle ADVangelist. An interview about this game dating from 2016 states that ADVangelists' Zeroaya was actually just a senior in high school at the time, so the developer/writer behind this game is quite young, but it sure doesn't mean you should underestimate this game! The full game is slated to be a 5-episode long game but the first episode was released in November 2018 as freeware with the title Armchair Detective Case.1 (subsequent cases are not scheduled to be freeware). You take up the role of Makina Mirai, a college student who has a part-time job as a secretary/assistant/help at the Kusanagi Detective Agency. Kusanagi Shiina took the agency over from his father and is a somewhat messy, but ultimately extremely sharp private detective, who even enjoys the patronage of the police. In this first episode, Mirai is lamenting the fact no clients have been coming to the agency (meaning no pay for her), when Gousawa Kenji, a befriended police detective appears with a job for Kusanagi, but it happens to be one that utterly shocks Mirai, as she learns that her landlord, Nishijima Hiroaki, was killed last night. The elderly Nishijima ran the little Nishijima Home Appliances, while also renting two rooms out in the back of the building (one to Mirai). Last night, Mirai stayed at the agency for a big clean-up, but Gousawa himself happened to be visiting Nishijima Home Appliances for a purchase, but a loud scream followed by a power failure brought him to the second floor, leading to the discovery of the body of Nishijima, who had been beaten to death by one of the urns from his collection. Gousawa has now gathered all the people who were on the premise around the time of the murder at the agency, as Kusanagi specializes in "group interrogations". Mirai however says she wants to solve this case to avenge her landlord's death.

Armchair Detective Case.1 is a good example of a game that does not try to reinvent the wheel for the nth time, but cleverly makes use of tried-and-true game mechanics for mystery adventure games, combining them to create a somewhat familiar, yet satisfying experience. The game revolves around two major mechanics that make up the mechanic of "crowd interrogation": zapping between multiple testimonies at the same time, and following up on certain statements by pointing out contradictions. Both these concepts should sound familiar to mystery adventure gamers. "Zapping" between various bodies of text is what made games like 428 and Machi so unique, as you had to "zap" between 5-8 narratives starring different characters, and guide each of these narratives to their ending, while keeping an eye on how one event in narrative A could also impact the developments of narrative B, C or more. Zapping between the various perspectives also allowed you to learn clues from various angles (some characters could learn about X, some about Y), and carefully puzzling all the various narratives together could be a very satisfying mechanic. Meanwhile, pointing out contradictions in testimony through evidence in order to push the narrative forward as a game mechanic has been the invention of the Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney series and has since been a very popular game mechanic in detective games, and is utilized in for example the Danganronpa series.

After a short introduction to the characters and the initial set-up in the prologue of Armchair Detective Case.1, you'll be allowed to read trough the testimonies of all the witnesses/suspects. These testimonies are presented not in the form of dialogue, of the witness telling Mirai directly what happened, but are shown in the style of a novel video game, with third person prose projected on a background, with music/sound effects accompanying the text (no character art is shown in these parts). Each of these testimonies is divided in chapters, and you can zap (switch) between the testimonies of all four witnesses. These novel parts are written in the third person, but one has to be really careful here: each of these novel parts are solely based on the testimonies of the respective witness, so it is quite possible that they are misremembering or confusing things, or even intentionally lying. Each of these testimonies must thus be treated as individual texts by unreliable narrators. This is also shown very ingeniously through the presentation in the game, for whenever you "leave" the current testimony, the screen will zoom out to show the characters discussing the testimony, which itself is also projected on a seperate television. This emphasizes that what you are reading is nothing more but an interpretation of what happened, as told by that particular witness.

As you progress in each testimony, you'll pick up certain key phrases that are saved seperately in a record. You can click on these words to learn more about them (the banter by the characters about these words can be funny, but also contain hints of how to proceed). As said, testimonies can contain mistakes, sometimes by accident, sometimes by intent. At times, the memories of the witness can just be too unreliable, and they can't proceed without something to jog their mind. The key phrases are used at these points to move the story forward. For example, the first witness Gousawa states early on he was asleep, but was suddenly awakened by a loud noise. In the testimony of another person, you learn that at that same time, they were having a fight with their girlfriend. You can these use the key phrase about the fight they had on Gousawa's testimony, who then remembers it was the noise from their fight that awakened him, and then he continues his testimony. This is similiar to the story blocks in games like 428 and Machi, where one narrative can only proceed if you do something else first in a different narrative. But the key phrases are also used to point out contradictions in the testimonies. Person A might be lying for example, but a key phrase gained from Person B's testimony can prove the lie. Once you have correctly pointed out a lie, the witness will usually change their testimony (sometimes whole chapters are completely altered), which of course eventually leads to new key phrases that allows you to uncover other lies. Like in Ace Attorney, you'll eventually figure out who of the four committed the murder by eliminating all the contradictions you come across.

What makes this in a way more complex than Ace Attorney is that you're juggling multiple contradiction-filled testimonies at the same time. In Ace Attorney, you're always faced with one single loop of 5-6 parts long, with which you can interact with a list of evidence to point out a contradiction. In Armchair Detective Case.1, you're juggling four seperate loops of 10-15 chapters long simultaneously. You can mostly choose the order in which you tackle them yourself, but in order to proceed with all testimonies, you'll have to switch narratives a few times, as you'll need to gather the correct key phrases that allow you point out contradictions/force someone to continue with their testimony from other testimonies. So there's a lot more you have think about. That coupled with the fact the testimonies themselves are not only longer, but also more likely to contain big lies, and you're left with plenty to consider as you try to figure out this puzzle (though this first case does help you out a lot).

As for the mystery plot itself, it's a fairly small scale story and as a tutorial case, it does hold your hand quite a bit, but there's some nice moments where you realize some persons have been telling big lies for a few chapters, and trying to fit the contradicting parts of the four testimonies together can be fun. The identity of the culprit is a bit easy to guess, but the game does a good job at really using all the discoveries you made during the whole case to prove how they did it. This first chapter also contains multiple hints and references to a greater story, which will no doubt be the driving force for the whole game.

I also have to say, I was quite impressed with the presentation of this freeware game! Like the little thing with the testimonies projected on the television set I mentioned before, these little touches ADVangelist added to the game all quickly add up to give this first chapter a really polished feel. The division on pure novel part and parts where the character art is shown is also a rather inspired concept I think, as it really sets the testimonies apart as seperate texts which you can't trust.

So yeah, the two hours or so Armchair Detective Case.1 takes were spent very well, and with pleasure. This first chapter was released in November, but I have no idea what the projected release schedule is for the rest of the game. This beginning however really impressed me, and I am quite interested to see how the full story will unfold and how the zapping contradiction mechanic will be fleshed out in later chapters, so I hope the full game gets finished, and perhaps released on consoles (because I usually don't play games on my laptop). I already posted the link above, but just to make sure: Armchair Detective Case. 1 can be downloaded as freeware from Freem!.

Original Japanese title(s): 『Armchair Detective Case.1』

The Bicycle Thief

平坦であれ曲がりくねってようと

クルクルとまわる自転車のタイヤのもよう

「Over Blow」(Garnet Crow)

Stay level

Like the tire tracks of a bicycle turning round and round even as they make a curve

"Over Blow" (Garnet Crow)

Perhaps I should only read the best/recommended stories in this series and the regular Q.E.D. and skip the rest. At least the stories are never spread across multiple volumes like in Detective Conan and Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo! And huh, I actually expected more comments on my recent reviews of that one unique Chinese mystery novel, or the highly entertaining alibi-cracking devoted short story collection... I never seem to be able to guess beforehand which reviews attract more commentators >_>

Some months ago, I picked up the first three volumes of Katou Motohiro's manga Q.E.D. iff Shoumei Shuuryou ("Q.E.D. iff Quod Erat Demonstrandum"). I have already reviewed the first two volumes (here and here), and I have in general found this continuation of the Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou series to be more or less what I had expected from it, based on what I had already seen and read of the original series. In terms of story structure, it's definitely exactly the same: each volume of iff contains two stories,  both a "conventional" murder mystery story as well as a non-murder detective story starring the brilliant high school student Touma Sou and his classmate Kana. The third volume, originally released in 2016, too follows this pattern. The opening story is titled The Three Assassins and first introduces us to three different women who find themselves in probably the worst time in their lives. All three women have been swindled out of their money: one lost all the money she had saved to open her own shop to a marriage swindler, another woman lost her father's apple garden and the last woman saw the money she saved for her son's studies disappear in "investments". It won't surprise the reader much that all these women have been the victim of the same man: Yamaguchi Kenji. Fraud is how the president of Art Finance Yamaguchi makes a living, and in the case of the three women, he even made sure he's personally liable for the money they gave him, as he actually doesn't own a penny. His house and assets are all, on paper, property of his company, and a lawsuit targeting him wouldn't return their money anyway. Driven by their hate, all three women appear at an art auction party at Yamaguchi's house, and unbeknownst to each other, they all share one goal: to kill Yamaguchi.

It so happens that both Touma and Kana are present at the auction party too. An acquaintance of Kana was swindled out of their precious plate too, and Kana has dragged Touma along in order to retrieve the plate. At the same time, all the three women proceed their own plans to kill of Yamaguchi... and all three manage to succeed? This story is built solely around the premise that we follow the murder schemes of all three women in an inverted mystery story style, and that at the end, we see all three women succeed with their plans. Which of course can't be the case, because as much as they would like to do it over and over again, usually a man can only be killed once, and not thrice. What makes this case even stranger that eventually the body is found in the pool, rather than the study where the body was left after the murder was first discovered. At one hand, I think the idea behind this story is interesting, as the core mystery is fairly alluring, revolving around the question of how all three murder plans could've succeeded at the same time with just the one and same victim, but it's also awfully easy to guess what more or less must have happened, given the details we are given for all three plans, as none of them are really complex, and it isn't very hard to combine the scarce elements from all three plans to arrive at what actually happened.

The second story in this volume is titled Bicycle Thief and has Touma receiving a call from the past. He is asked to be the witness to the demolition of a certain house in a small, rural village where he spent a few weeks six years ago. Six years ago, Touma was still living in the United States, but as school ends early there, his parents took him back to Japan to experience a month of Japanese school, figuring it'd be good for him. During this time in the village, Touma became friends with Sawaihara Akiyuki and even got hired by Akiyuki's brother Takahiko for a part time job, doing menial jobs for the local elderly like cutting weed or watering the plants. Takahiko's place, where he also ran his little business, is now slated to be demolished. Takahiko himself has been traveling the world on a bicycle for years now, and he only returned to this house once in a while to leave souvenirs, but nobody has seen him in all those years.  For some reason, Touma's sign is needed for the demolition company to carry through with taking down the house. As he tells Kana and his other classmates about his time i this village six years ago, Touma also recounts a minor incident that happened during his stay. One day, he found a bicycle in the bushes while he was cutting weeds. The bicycle had been stolen from the bicycle shop earlier and as there had been a witness who claimed they saw a child taking the bicycle, Touma was accused by the police of having stolen the bicycle himself. The thief was never caught, which surprises Kana, but Touma reveals that while the police never managed to trace who the real thief was, he himself knew who stole the bicycle and more importantly, why.

Hmm, a somewhat weird story. It's mostly a recount of events as Touma experienced in the past, and then suddenly Touma reveals he already knew who the thief was and why. There are some interesting elements: there is not only a false solution which seems fairly convincing, but also a hidden crime within this story, which is quite deviously hidden within the narrative, though the clues pointing to that crime are a bit too meagre and the actual execution of that scheme seems a bit risky (I know it's a rural village, but would nobody have seen X do that?). But on the whole, the story is both straightforward and rather limited in scope, and is perhaps best enjoyed as a "story set in Touma's past" than as an engaging mystery story. Reminds me though that the stories in iff feature a lot of characters with big dreams that either don't work out well. In this story, we have Takahiko who first failed his college entrance exams and then resorted to the weed cutting until he left the village on his bicycle, but then there's the three women in the first story who all had big goals in life which were taken away from them. There were those artists who wanted to go solo and a wannabe scientist in the first volume, and the comedian who had to give up his dream in the industry in the second volume... I mean, it's not strange for persons to have dreams and goals, but it's like each other story you'll find a character in this series who will have some monologue about their goals and dreams in life and it almost never works out 100% as planned.

What was interesting about this volume though was that the characters were all based on... real people! Apparently, they had a campaign where you could apply to have your name featured as a character name in one of these stories: each of these stories is followed by a page with the characters who were based on one of the participants, and all with a one-line comment coming from the actual persons. Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo has a similar campaign going on by the way, tied to the limited edition releases, while the movies of Detective Conan always feature two or three guest child voice actors (which I think are chosen through the magazine Shonen Sunday). These scenes always stand out notoriously by the way, as it's not difficult to recognize the amateur child guest actors among the professionals.

Of the three volumes I've read of Q.E.D. iff Shoumei Shuuryou, this one was definitely the least interesting one. Both stories are not bad per se, but are nothing particularly clever or memorable either, and of course, there are only two stories per volume, so on the whole, it leaves next to no impression. This was the last volume of iff I got and as things stand now, I don't think I'll be making it a priority to follow this series. While never actually bad, I just miss something about this series that really makes me excited to read on. I think I would have enjoyed this series much better if I were actually following the serialization: I really wouldn't mind reading stories like these once a month as they come in as they are definitely entertaining enough, but I don't think they work as well read one after another in a volume.

Original Japanese title(s): 加藤元浩 『Q.E.D. iff -証明終了-』第3巻

Stop the Clock

「時を戻すことができました」

『アリバイ崩し承ります』

"I have succeeded in restoring the time."

" ("Alibi Cracking, At Your Service")

So in the time between me reading this book and the review getting published, this book won the Honkaku Mystery Best 10 ranking of 2018!

In the Koikawa Shopping Arcade on the East exit of the Koikawa Station, there's a small watchmaker wedged between the butcher and the photo studio. Mitani Clockmakers is run by Mitani Tokino, a young woman in her twenties who learned the trade from her grandfather and has now inherited the shop from him. But Mitani Clockmakers isn't a normal clockmaker. Besides the normal services like selling and offering maintenance on clocks and other timepieces, Mitani Clockmakers also offers another, rather unique service. One day, a police detective walks into Mitani Clockmakers to have the battery in his watch replaced, but to his surprise, he spots a sign that says that the shop also offers an alibi cracking service. The detective inquires about the service, which according to Tokino was started by her grandfather, who was of the opinion that a clockmaker's work involved everything connected to a clock and time, and what is an alibi but a statement that someone was present or absent at a certain location at a certain time? As luck has it, the police detective is working on a case where the main suspect has a perfect alibi and intriqued by this unique service, he decides to consult Tokino on his case in Ooyama Seiichirou's short story collection Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu ("Alibi Cracking, At Your Service", 2018).

It was through the PSP game Trick X Logic that I first learned of the mystery writer Ooyama Seiichirou, as he was responsible for one of my favorite scenarios from the game. Some time later, I read Misshitsu Shuushuuka, an absolutely brilliant short story collection. What impressed me most about that collection was that Ooyama was a writer who was obviously writing in the Queen school, yet he was tackling the theme of locked room murders. These are two modes that you usually don't see together in mystery fiction, because it's prettty difficult coming up with locked room murders and other impossibilities, that are also solvable through the method of pure logical reasoning, which simply requires the reader to combine the known facts, make the logical conclusion from that combination, eliminate possibilities and identifying certain conditions which apply all to the murderer. Impossible crimes are usually focused on the how of an impossibility, while Ooyama focused much more on the logical processes required to solve the problems, resulting in one of my favorite reads of that year.

In a way, Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu feels quite similar to Misshitsu Shuushuuka in concept, as this too is a short story collection that focuses completely on one single theme from mystery fiction: in this case, the perfect alibi. An alibi can be a kind of an impossible crime, if you assume that the suspect is indeed the murderer, despite having a perfect alibi, but your mileage may vary on how impossible you think the impossibility really is. Anyway, I'm actually quite the fan of the perfect alibi story, and combined with Ooyama's plotting, I knew this book would be a must-read.

The opening story Tokeiya Tantei to Stalker no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi of the Stalker") introduces the reader and the narrator and unnamed police detective to Mitani Clockmakers and their unique service. Curious to whether Tokino can really help out, the police detective confides in her about the case he's working on. Hamazawa Kyouko, a professor of the local university, was found murdered in her own apartment room by her sister. Her time of death is estimated based on the pictures of her lunch/snack/dinner she posted on Twitter during the day, and also medically confirmed, and suspicion soon falls on her ex-husband, who had been stalking Kyouko for money. He however has an alibi for the time of death, as he had been drinking with friends. The detective has only just finished his story, when Tokino immediately solves the case and explains how this perfect alibi of the ex-husband was created. The solution is quite original, yet convincing and also somewhat "modern", as it's partly based on foodie photographs posted on Twitter, but while it can difficult to come up with the idea of how this alibi was created, I think Ooyama did a good job at clewing, as some of them really seem obvious in hindsight.

In Tokeiya Tantei to Kyouki no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi of the Murder Weapon"), the police detective decides to visit Mitani Clockmakers again, as this time, he has a problem that involves the alibi of a gun. A gun was found inside a mail box when the mail was collected at 15:00. It's suspected the gun has to do with the gang war going on between two gangs who have their headquarters near that mail box, but later an employee of a pharmaceutical company is found dead in his apartment, and while it seems he has no ties with organized crime, the bullets found on the scene and in his body matched those of the gun found in the mail box. Eventually, suspicion falls on the victim's superior, who does seem to have a connection with the local gangs, but he has an alibi for the time: he was having a family gathering with his cousins at the time the victim was killed and the gun was thrown in the mail box. The solution Tokino explains is quite brilliant for creating this seemingly impossible situation. The actual clewing is a bit on the weak side, so it kinda expects the reader to just guess what happened, but the solution is quite complex, and one I could even see expanded into a full novel.

In Tokeiya Tantei to Shisha no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi of the Dead"), the narrator has a rather nasty experience: one night, he was just out on a stroll, when he was almost hit by a drunken driver. Another man was less fortunate, and hit by the car. But in his dying breath, he confessed to the narrator that he had just committed a murder on a certain Nakajima Kasumi. Having been told the address of the victim, the narrator quickly notified his collegues, who indeed discovered a body inside the appartment of the victim. With a confession of the murderer himself, the case seems all wrapped up, until the police realizes that the man, who was a mystery writer specializing in alibi tricks, couldn't be the murderer, as it was impossible for him to commit the murder, and then made it back in time near his own home get hit by the car and die. The concept of a deceased person who himself confessed to the murder still having a perfect alibi is fun on its own, but it's the decisive hint to the solution that impresses the most, as it is absolutely brilliant and incredibly cleverly hidden: it's this kind of hint I love being fooled by!  In hindsight, there's not just a "decisive" hint, but a lot of hints that point to the major realization you should make, but Ooyama's done an ace job at hiding the clews in plain sight, and this is definitely one of the hightlights of the collection.

Tokino is asked to find an alibi in Tokeiya Tantei to Ushinawareta Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Lost Alibi") rather than breaking one. Kawaya Toshiko was a private piano teacher, who was found beaten and strangled to death in her own apartment room. The main suspect is her younger sister, with whom she was having an argument about selling the parental home they had inherited together (where the younger sister is still living). She however reluctantly confesses to the police she has no alibi for the murder, saying she was probably not only asleep, but even sleepwalking during the time of the murder. The narrator does not believe the younger sister did it, so this time, Tokino has to come up with an alibi. While this is still about alibis, the search for an alibi, and in extension, the identity of the real murderer, is a welcome shift in style. This solution is a bit hard to swallow, though admittedly more than adequately hinted at (the question lies more in whether that really could've been pulled off). Once you make a guess who the murderer is based on the very limited cast though, it becomes very easy to guess what they did to create their alibi.

Tokeiya Tantei to Ojiisan no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi of Grandfather") is a cute story in which Tokino tells about her grandfather and how he trained her in alibi cracking when she was young. One day, he had a challenge for her. The shop's closed on Tuesday, so he would go out that day, but he would come and stop a certain clock in the shop at a certain time (while Tokino was upstairs doing her homework). However, he would also submit evidence he was elsewhere. And that Tuesday, the clock was indeed stopped, yet Tokino's grandfather also had some photographs developed that proved he was at the clock wall in the neighboring town around the same time. Tokino's guesses are quickly elimated one by one, as the roll of film was proven to be definitely of that day (because they celebrated her grandfather's birthday the day before and photographs had been taken on the same roll, and on the clock photograph, he was wearing the handkerchief he was given as a present by Tokino herself). The solution is very different from the kind of solutions in the earlier stories, which is pretty smart: usually it might be easy to think of this particular solution, but this one is almost so simply you're likely to overlook this one due to the complexity of earlier stories!

Tokeiya Tantei to Sansou no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi in the Mountain Lodge") has the narrator hurrying back from a holiday to Mitani Clockmakers, as he wants Tokino to save a boy. The police detective was forced to use up his free days, so he had gone to a ski hostel in the mountains. There he became friends with a fellow guest, a boy in junior high who wanted to become a police detective himself. On the first night, another guest was murdered in the annex clock tower of the hostel, with footprints left in the snow proving that the victim had first gone to the clock tower, later followed by the murderer who returned to the hostel. The police detective himself had been a witness, together with the boy who was visiting him in his room, of how the victim had gone out to the clock tower late at night, but subsequent police investigation show that nobody could've followed the victim at the estimate time of the murder, save for the boy after he had left the room of the detective. What follows is a story is that is the most like the Queen-like stories of Ooyama, as the solution is based on the interpreation of the physical clues (the footprints). There's a nice reversal at play too, where after a certain realization is made, the matter of the alibis is turned completely around.

Tokeiya Tantei to Download no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi of the Download") is perhaps the most "modern" of stories I've read in a long time. The narrator is working on the murder of Tomioka Shinji, a wealthy man, who himself turns out to be a murderer, as a few months after his murder, a skeleton was found buried in his garden. The skeleton is identified as the body of Wada Yuuichirou, an employee of Tomioka who disappeared some years ago. He was suspected to have fled because of embezzlement, but the discovery of his body on Tomioka's premises means he was likely killed to take the blame for Tomioka's crimes. The suspicion of the murder of Tomioka therefore falls on the son of Wada. The murder happened a few months ago on the sixth of December, but Wada remembers he had a friend come over to his room that night to play videogames. The friend is not sure about the exact date, though he knows he was there early December. Eventually, Wada manages to present an alibi: he downloaded a new song by a famous artist, which was only distributed on the sixth of December. It was a limited event and his friend saw both the download screen on Wada's smartphone, and even listened to the song, so that seems to prove Wada's alibi for the sixth of December, but of course, Tokino manages to poke a hole in his story. I think this is the first time I read a story where downloading something becomes an alibi, and I had a lot of fun with it! It's such a normal action in this time and age, and yet it's not something you often see in mystery fictoin, and the way it's used here is perfectly believable. The concept behind how this alibi was set-up is a bit tricky, as it depends heavily on a certain person not doing a certain thing, which is really something you can't control, but I do really like the way it was set-up.

Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu therefore ends up as an excellent short story collection that really delves into the theme of cracking the perfect alibi. There's quite some variety to be found within these seven stories and while the standard is quite high overall, there are some stories that really stand out due to their unique clewing or concepts. Misshitsu Shuushuuka didn't get a sequel, but I hope at least we'll see more of Tokino and Mitani Clockmakers in the future!

Original Japanese title(s): 大山誠一郎 『アリバイ崩し承ります』:「時計屋探偵とストーカーのアリバイ」 / 「時計屋探偵と凶器のアリバイ」 / 「時計屋探偵と死者のアリバイ」 / 「時計屋探偵と失われたアリバイ」 / 「時計屋探偵とお祖父さんのアリバイ」 / 「時計屋探偵と山荘のアリバイ」 / 「時計屋探偵とダウンロードのアリバイ」

Writ in Stone

"Archaeology is the search for fact... not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall."

"Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"

I was always more a fan of the ancient or classic cultures in my History class, or at least the pre-modern periods. 

Three years ago, I reviewed the manga Professor Munakata's British Museum Adventure, published by the British Museum. It was the first time Hoshino Yukinobu's Professor Munakata series was released in English. The titular character is a professor in Anthropology at Tokyo's Toa Bunka University, whose research interests lies within the link between legends, myths and other folklore, and actual historical events. I absolutely loved the book: Hoshino is best known for his (hard) science fiction series, but in this volume, he really managed to beautifully mix real historical and anthropological research with his own original storyline, resulting in a suspenseful historical mystery tale about the British Museum and Stonehenge. At the end of my review, I concluded I wanted to read more of the series, as Professor Munakata's British Museum Adventure was actually one of the last stories published in Japan and part of the second Professor Munakata series: so there was still a lot to read. For some reason though, it took me until to actually get started on the series properly. And that of course means starting with the beginning, with the original series. Professor Munakata was first introduced to the world in 1990 in the two-part opening story The White Wings - The Iron Star in Munakata Kyouju Denkikou ("Professor Munakata's Adventures"). After a lecture at the university about the myth of the Swan Maiden and how variants of this very myth exists in various ancient cultures, from the Ancient Greeks all the way to Japan, the professor is visited by Ikago Mana, one of his students. She has brought her parents along, who want to show the professor a ceremonial sword which was discovered in the little shrine in their home village near Izumo. Professor Munakata is incredibly surprised by the object, and especially by the engraving of a certain constellation in the blade. Realizing that this sword is also related to the myth of the Swan Maiden, he returns with Mana and her parents to the village for some fieldwork, and the discovery he makes there will change the professor's life forever.

To make one thing clear from the start, not all of the Professor Munakata series can be considered a mystery story within the context of the blog. All the stories in this series do pertain to folklore and other historical mysteries which Munakata uncovers or delves deeper into, but few of the stories are told in the manner of a true puzzle plot mystery (mystery -> hints -> solution based on hints) and some of the stories even feature almost supernatural conclusions that seem to come out of nowhere. That said though, the series is absolutely fantastic, as Hoshino's gripping storytelling is top-notch, and the way he intertwines real folklore research with his own original adventures is absolutely a delight. Some of the earlier stories for example involve the legends of Chiyou, the Daidara and the legendary spider Ryomen Sukuna, which Hoshino (Munakata) explores through both actual anthropological research that is both fascinating and educational, as well as his own original plots. For fans of actual historical mysteries, this series is definitely a must-read.

Occasionally, though, the stories are told in a more traditional puzzle plot format. This is definitely the case with the series opening story. Even though it involves a topic you seldom see in "conventional" mystery fiction (the meaning behind the Swan Maiden) and there is no proper crime in this story either, I have to say that The White Wings - The Iron Star is truly a well-clewed historical mystery story that does a good job at allowing the reader to arrive at the hypothesis Professor Munakata himself arrives at at the end of the story. After the professor's arrival in the village, he is shown several sites that might have bearing to his research, like the shrine where the sword was found, as well as a dried-up lake of which the name also carries a reference to swans. After a fascinating explanation of how his research involves how this proto-myth is to be found across several cultures all across Eurasia, we are introduced to a rival TV anthropologist, who has drawn his own conclusions about the discoveries made in the village and is preparing for a new show. By this time, the mystery of "what needs to be solved" might still be somewhat vague to the reader, though they definitely have access to the clues and can even already connect some of them. It's only after a certain frightful event in the night that not only Munakata, but also the reader can suddenly see how everything that happened and was mentioned throughout the story is connected.

It is not difficult for a historical mystery to become too complex for a reader to solve themselves. Any mystery story needs to provide the proper context in order to be solvable, and in the case of a historical mystery, you need to balance providing enough of the necessary context without resorting to information overload, all without burdening, or underselling the core mystery story. Which is exactly why I thought The White Wings - The Iron Star was such an exceptional historical mystery story. While some readers might know a variant of the Swan Maiden myth, it's unlikely the reader is an expert on all the variants that exists in various cultures. That coupled with the (fictional) historical artifacts found in the village and even a rival "detective" who forms his own hypothesis, you'd think the reader is at a huge disadvantage, but they really aren't. In the end, professor Munakata proposes a daring hypothesis that ties all the discoveries made in the village to the lecture on the Swan Maiden he made earlier and not only is it a fair hypothesis (solely based on the clues proposed in the story), the reader has plenty of chance to arrive at this conclusion themselves, as everything shown and told in the story logically leads to this hypothesis. There's even proper visual clewing going around that helps professor Munakata and the reader in figuring out the function of some of the discoveries made in the village, and at the end, this story really makes the reader feel like they have solved a millenia-old mystery themselves.

So while not all of Professor Munakata's stories lend them well for discussion on this blog, I think the first story is definitely a fine example of how to do an excellent historical mystery story that not only attempts to reinterpret folklore, legends and myths from across the world as actual historical events, but also using a grammar that sets its firmly in the puzzle plot mystery genre, following a set-up of proper clewing that allows the reader to reach the intended conclusion themselves in a fair manner. As for now, I have immense fun with this series (still not finished), and if more stories follow that adher more closely to a traditional mystery story, I'll be sure to follow up with another story review.

Original Japanese title(s): 星野之宣『宗像教授伝奇考１　白き翼　黒鉄の星』