Question!

I am a fan of the Challenge to the Reader (Viewer/Listener/Player/etc.) in mystery fiction. Yes, it's awfully artificial and meta to suddenly stop the story to directly address the reader to say that at that point in the story  all the clues have now been presented and that if they're an attentive thinker, they're now perfectly able to solve the mystery themselves now, but if one considers detective fiction to be an intellectual game, breaking the fourth wall at such a time is perfectly fine in my opinion. Whether it's Queen suddenly interrupting Ellery's investigation in the novels or Ellery himself addressing the viewer in the excellent television show, whether it's Furuhata Ninzaburou beneath the spotlight, or perhaps even the author Arisugawa Alice himself who declares Egami now knows whodunnit, I love the declaration that now all the pieces are in set in place and that I should be able to figure the mystery out. Series like Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo and Tantei Gakuen Q have similar moments, when the protagonists cry out they have now solved the mystery, implicitly suggesting that the reader should also have done so by now.

On one hand, it's of course the thrill of being addressed directly with a challenge to solve the mystery, but lately, I have grown more appreciative of a different angle to the Challenge to the Reader, namely how it works as an aid in constructing a good mystery plot. Let's say that the average mystery story is divided in 1) The discovery of the mystery, 2) The investigation and 3) The mystery is explained. I want to focus on the phase between 2) and 3): the moment that the mystery is solved by the detective. Mind you, I am not talking about the scene where the detective has gathered all the suspects in the parlor to accuse someone. That is after the detective solved the mystery, they only haven't explained it yet. I am talking about the exact moment when all the puzzle pieces fall in place, when all the hints and clues have been gathered and been identified for their role in the mystery. It's at this moment when all the random clues, hints and witnesses come together to form a Rube Goldberg machine or The Incredible Machine where everything interlocks in a meaningful manner to lead to one undeniable conclusion.

What is important for a good mystery story is that there should be a reason why the detective couldn't figure it out until that specific moment. Ideally, a mystery story should be plotted so each hint and clue presented in the story will bring the detective and reader closer to the truth, but there should also be one final, conclusive clue that allows them to make that last leap. Without that last clue, both the detective and reader should be stuck, unable to declare with full conviction that they solved it. Some years ago, I wrote a piece on clues in mystery fiction, especially as seen in Queen school mystery fiction, and it's especially in these type of stories where this is done well. Usually, the reader is able to identify multiple attributes of the murderer that allows them to strike off most names on the suspect list, but they need one final hint that allows them to eliminate one of the final remaining two names. When the story then reveals a clue that shows the murderer was right-handed and you know one of the remaining names was left-handed, you understand not only the importance of the clue, but also why the detective was not able to solve the mystery until that specific moment. It's like having already built most of The Incredible Machine, but still missing that bowling ball to drop on the cat to get the thing going.

A good Challenge to the Reader should of course included right after this liberating moment. It's a bit of self-promotion, but I find the Challenge to the Reader in Arisugawa's The Moai Island Puzzle an excellent example of how to do a Challenge. It's placed right after the scene where Egami learns of a certain fact that finally allows him identify the murderer, even though a lot of the facts surrounding the mystery could already be solved by them. It was really that last little bit that he needed to be truly able to figure out who the murderer was, and that is why it's immediately followed by the Challenge. Both the Ellery Queen and Furuhata Ninzaburou television shows usually do an excellent job here too, with the respective Challenge to the Viewers following right after (and actually within the same scene of) finding out the final, decisive clue. A good mystery story, with or without a Challenge, should really have this moment that justifies a mystery not being solved until that moment.

Stories with multiple (false) solutions also often perform well on this aspect (see also my article on false solutions and the foil detective). Usually, a false solution is presented because it's based on incomplete information, because there are still vital clues missing in the process. Mitsuda Shinzou's Toujou Genya series in particular uses this to great effect: Genya's method of deduction actually involves him simply coming up with fanciful deductions based on the facts he has at that moment. Often, they are shot down by new facts and clues presented by the people listening to him and dismissing his theories. But then Genya uses those new facts to build a new theory, etc. until he gets the final, conclusive clue that truly allows him to reveal the truth.

What I sometimes see in mystery fiction however is that a detective doesn't manage to figure the mystery out yet at a certan point of the story, even though seen from a story-structure point of view, all the relevant clues have already been presented to them. Usually, they brood on the clues for a while, and then they suddenly see it because the story wants it to be so, or they're given an extra, but not vital hint to push them towards the solution. Christie's Three Act Tragedy for example has Poirot only realizing what is going on due to a chance remark of one of the characters, but that remark is not a vital clue on its own. From a pure logical point of view, Poirot could've solved the mystery earlier without ever having heard that remark, because it was not a clue pertaining to the logical process of solving the mystery. To go back to The Incredible Machine analogy: Poirot was not missing a vital piece of the machine, he already had everything. He just needed someone to say "Hey, what if you put that thing here?' And as much as I adore the Detective Conan special Noroi no Kamen wa Tsumetaku Warau ("The Cursed Masks Laugh Coldly"), that too has Conan only realizing what was going on after seeing something that nudged him in the right direction, even though he already had possession of all the relevant clues before that moment. And I usually don't find this really satisfying in a mystery novel, because when you look at the story in an abstract way, like plotting every clue and hint in a flowchart, you'll see that the essential clues were already presented, and that the thing that finally helps the detective (if such a hint is given at all), is usually minor and not directly related to the mystery, meaning they could've solved it earlier and there's no direct reason to stall the "I figured it out!" moment until later.

So to come back to why I like Challenges to the Reader: I have the feeling they help mystery authors think more about plotting their story, how the logical process of solving their mystery should be structured and what the implications of each and every clue should be. Of course, most stories work perfectly fine without a Challenge to the Reader and the Challenge is not directly responsible for making a good "I figured it out!" moment. But I do feel more writers should really think about legitimizing why a mystery is solved at a certain point in a story from a logical point of view and a Challenge can be a helpful tool.

The Vanishing Game

 「死体の入れ物といえば、これに勝るものはない」

『ここに死体を捨てないでください！」

"There was nothing better than that to put a dead body in."

"Don't Dump Your Bodies Here Please!"

Oh, wow, it's been this long since I last read a book in Higashigawa Tokuya's Ikagawashi series? Man, at one time I was reading at least one of these books a year....

Koko ni Shitai wo Sutenaide Kudasai! ("Don't Dump Your Bodies Here Please!" 2009) opens with a a phone call from Kaori's younger sister Haruka, which turned Kaori's day complete upside down. It was still early in the day when an unknown woman suddenly barged into Haruka's apartment, and in her sheer surprise and fear, Haruka accidently stabbed the woman with her fruit knife. Unwisely, Haruka fled her room, leaving the body behind. By the time she had come to her senses, she found herself in another prefecture and called to her sister for help. Figuring that the police isn't likely to believe her younger sister's story, especially as she fled the scene of the crime, Kaori declares she'll take care of everything for her younger sister. Kaori learns her sister did really tell her the truth, as the dead body is still lying in Haruka's kitchen. Going through the victim's wallet, she learns the victim was called Yamada Keiko, a woman who had no connections whatsover to Haruka. Kaori decides she needs to move the body away from Haruka's room, and dupes the young man Tetsuo into helping her. Tetsuo drives a truck collecting large recyclable trash, and they decide to use the old contrabass case he collected to hide Keiko's body in. They drive off in Keiko's car, and after wandering around the edges of town to find a place to dump the body, they decide to drive the car, with Keiko inside, into the allegedly bottomless Moon Crescent Lake on Bonkura Mountain outside Ikagawashi City. It's only after they've sunk the car the two realize they're now stuck on the mountain without a car and after a long, long time of being lost, they find refuge in an inn with hot springs on the mountain. What should've been the end of a long night however is just the beginning, as it just so happens a certain private detective, his asssistant and their landlord have also arrived at the same inn, as they are looking for a client who never showed up for her appointment: a certain Yamada Keiko.

Like I said, I read a lot of the Ikagawashi series in the earlier days of this blog, but my last review related to this series dates from 2014, when I reviewed the TV drama Watashi no Kirai na Tantei ("The Detective I Don't Like"), based on the books of this series. Like most of Higashigawa Tokuya's series, the Ikagawashi series is a humorous detective series, which combines snappy dialogues and slapstick comedy with proper puzzle mystery plots. This series is particularly unique in that it basically has no fixed main detective character, and the series is therefore titled after the city where these cases take place. The overly self-confident private detective Ukai Morio, his slow-witted assistant Ryuuhei and their landlord Akemi (who doesn't like poking around as a detective, but simply needs to make sure Ukai pays his rent) are often at the center of things, but usually Inspectors Sunagawa and Shiki also end up as focus characters, and any of these characters is able to solve (part of) the mystery at hand.

Koko ni Shitai wo Sutenaide Kudasai! too has three perspectives for the reader. First we have Kaori and Tetsuo, who dumped the body and are then treated to several surprises at the inn. First they find that a weird middle-aged man (Ukai Morio) is asking around about Yamada Keiko, and with time, Kaori and Tetsuo even start to suspect Ukai, Ryuuhei and Akemi killed the woman in Haruka's room, not knowing that at the exact same time Ukai and Akemi arrive at the conclusion that Kaori and Tetsuo must've done killed their client who never showed up! And then there's the police, who have their own suspicions too. A lot of the comedy is derived from seeing the same situation from various perspectives, but that's of course also the way the reader will eventually solve the puzzle. Several other incidents occur in this novel besides the mysterous death of Yamada Keiko: the following day, the owner of the inn they're all staying is found dead, ostenstibly drowned after he fell into the river during a midnight fishing session. There are also suspicions of foul play, but it seems that most of the viable suspects have a perfect alibi, as they were watching a live soccer game of the national team together, making it impossible for most of them to go all the way to the man's fishing spot and back in time. Kaori and Tetsuo are also confronted with another surprise: they happen to come to Moon Crescent Lake the following day again, but not only learn it isn't even remotely 'bottomless', they are unable to find the car they dumped despite the super clean and clear water of the lake! But why did somebody remove the car with Keiko's body from the lake and how?

Koko ni Shitai wo Sutenaide Kudasai! keeps the reader from start to finish entertained by juggling between these various characters and showing everything from various perspectives, and this structure definitely helps out the underlying mystery plot, as it'd be a bit simple if left on its own. Some of the elements are somewhat easy to guess, for example the matter what Yamada Keiko was doing in Haruka's apartment anyway, though the death of the owner of the inn, and the disappearance of the dumped car are linked in an interesting manner with a somewhat original solution, though I do have trouble imagining how practical this trick would actually be. There are some neat, but obvious clues left here and there and overall, this is a very fair mystery novel that isn't too hard and can be quite satisyfying to read.

Oh, and a small note, but don't you just hate it when they suddenly change the style of covers suddenly? The earlier pocket releases of this series featured a very different style, but at some point they changed it to have these comic characters, and republished the older novels too with the new covers. The thing is: I think these new covers are really fun. So now I have the four older pockets in the old style, and only this novel in the new but better style...

Koko ni Shitai wo Sutenaide Kudasai! is also the last novel in the series for the moment by the way. It is followed by three short story collections, but I am not sure when I'm going to read those books. Parts of them were already used for the drama adaptation, so I am already familiar with almost half of them. Koko ni Shitai wo Sutenaide Kudasai! for me however was a safe, familiar return to a place I know well. It's perhaps not the best novel in this series (it isn't), but it's a consistent and funny mystery novel that does everything you'd expect from a novel in this series.

Original Japanese title(s): 東川篤哉 『ここに死体を捨てないでください！』

The Clocks

Last year, I wrote an article on glasses in mystery fiction, looking at the various ways in which spectacles could be used in a mystery plot. I ended the article with a note that "I doubt this post will turn into a series about all kinds of objects (...)" but now one year later, I think it's about time to write about another object often seen in mystery fiction: clocks, watches and other timepieces.

To first quote myself from the glasses article:

Objects are often important to a mystery story. If a murder is committed, the culprit is likely to utilize an object, that is, a murder weapon, to accomplish their goal. A button left at the crime scene could prove as evidence to the identity of the murderer. Or perhaps the disappearance of an object that should be there will become the focus of an investigation, leading the question of why a certain object was so important it had to be removed. An object is thus usually a clue, something that links it to the solution of the mystery (which could be a murder, but it could be any enigmatic happening).  An object might tell you who committed a certain crime, or how it was done, or perhaps why it was done.

Objects and items are usually created with a certain purpose in mind: sometimes it's for decorative purposes, more often it's for more practical needs, and sometimes it's a bit of both. The primary purpose of clocks, wristwatches and similar objects is of course to tell, or measure time. And time is oh-so-important in mystery fiction. When the investigator is looking for the person whodunnit, they always look at means, motive and opportunity, and opportunity is related to time: who was physically capable of committing the crime, being at a certain spot at a certain time? The alibi in mystery fiction is a concept of time: the proof of being present at certain location at a certain time. But also think of locked room mysteries: it's no coincidence that many of the locked room lectures include categorizations/possible solutions that say that the real time the murder occured is either earlier or later than assumed. Time is an integral part of mystery fiction, and you need clocks to tell time.

The first thing you think of when I say clocks in mystery fiction, is probably the image of a damaged wrist or pocket watch, the time stopped at the exact time the time-keeper was broken. The watch of the victim has stopped at 22:00, so he must have been struggling with his murderer then, and broke his watch when he fell on the floor, meaning the murder happened at ten! Of course, no reader of mystery fiction is going to believe this as is. Nowadays, in-universe characters and readers alike are savvy enough to know that the "broken watch" can be easily faked by the murderer to make it seem like the crime was commited at a different time. The notion that clocks indicate the time, but don't actually measure time as independent element is of course the crux of the dilemma. You can measure the outside temperature, and then convert it to different measurement units. Time itself isn't measured by a watch, it does not measure "time" first to convert it to a second/minute/hour scale. A clock just runs at a certain rhythm, allowing us to create a time unit for us to use. So clocks are often used to fake alibis, and often the mystery of course shifts away from "clocks" to "how was the trickery with time" done. That said, clocks can still be an important part of such a mystery story. Let's say a witness saw a certain act happening at a certain time, having checked on their own watch. A trick could be that the murderer managed to changed the time on that watch, making the witness think they saw the act happening then. An excellent example of this idea is Ayukawa Tetsuya's short story Itsutsu no Tokei (The Five Clocks, 1957) where the alibi of a suspect seems iron-clad, as a witness spent the whole evening with the suspect and having checked the time on five different clocks over the course of that evening.

To give another example of clocks fulfilling a role as indicators of time in mystery fiction: the fifth novel in Ayatsuji Yukito's series on Houses is about the Clock House, which includes a wing with a collection of 108 watches. A group of people is locked inside this wing and of course murders happen. Considering the setting of the Clock House, you can safely guess that time has something to do with how the murders were committed, but the trick done here is brilliant, in your sight but oh-so-easy to miss. And it makes great use of the notion of clocks as indicators of time. Norizuki Rintarou's short story Shiramitsubushi no Tokei (Leave No Clock Unturned) goes even further: the protagonist of the story finds themselves in a windowless room with 1440 different running clocks, each indicating a different time down to the minute (12:00, 12:01, 12:02 etc.).  Their task: to find the one single clock in the room that is indicating the current time (as they are running!) It seems an impossible task, but Norizuki shows how this puzzle can be solved by pure logic and dedication.

In the above examples, I'm talking about mostly analog clocks, but man, if I were to go into the topic of digital clocks (especially those on security camera footage), I could be here writing all day. I guess that if I were to mention one single example, it'd be Ooyama Seiichirou's Tokeiya Tantei to Download no Alibi, a short story about an alibi of the main suspect being built around the fact he downloaded a certain song that was only available for download for one day, with digital time-stamps and a receipt proving his alibi.

Talking this much about time almost makes you forget that a clock or timepiece is on its own a physical object too. And yep, that also means that you can use a clock in other ways than just read time. A clock can of course be used as a murder weapon for example, though people who have played the videogame Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo - Hoshimitou - Kanashimi no Fukushuuki (The Case Files of Young Kindaichi - Stargazing Isle - The Sad Monsters of Revenge, 1998) will know to be careful with this. In this game, you play the murderer and have to avoid making mistakes or Hajime is instantly on your trail and if you choose to kill that one victim by bashing his head in, it's wiser to use the ornamental duck than the clock which will break and indicate the time of death... Grandfather clocks might be easier to crush a victim under. But there are other uses for clocks as physical objects in mystery fiction. In Yokomizo Seishi's Inugamike no Ichizoku (The Inugami Clan, 1951), some people doubt whether the war-injured Sukekiyo is really Sukekiyo, as his face is covered completely in bandages. One of the characters cleverly has Sukekiyo pick up her pocket watch: his fingerprints are preserved nicely on the glass inside the pocket watch. More 'general' uses for watches in mystery fiction are for example watches as personal items: the scene where Sherlock Holmes deduces about the owner of a certain pocket watch is quite famous. But a culprit for example might have dropped their own watch on the crime scene, or broken it there, leaving pieces of glasses on the floor which they must hide (similar to what I mentioned in the glasses article).

More unique uses of a clock as something else but a time indicator are to be found in for example Detective Conan (where Conan's wearing a stun-gun wristwatch which allows him to shoot a small needle with a strong sedative to knock someone out) or in Death Note, where a watch is revealed to be hiding a certain other object in one of the better known scenes of the series. In these instances, the watch is a disguise for something else. Clocks featured in some Christie novels like, obviously, The Clocks and The Seven Dials Mystery, but I thought they were more props there than actually related to the core plot.

One of the more memorable uses of a clock in mystery fiction is probably the clock as a location. Edogawa Rampo's Yuureitou (The Phantom Tower, 1937) was based on Kuroiwa Ruikou's same-titled Yuureitou (1899-1900), in turn based on A Woman in Grey, a 1898 novel by Alice Muriel Williamson. Part of Rampo's story is set in a creepy clock tower with secret passages etc. This would later inspire a young Miyazaki Hayao (of Studio Ghibli fame) to have the climax of his first animated theatrical feature, Lupin III: The Castle of Caglistro (1979) also set at a clock tower. His climax scene also formed an inspiration for the final scene in Disney's 1989 animated feature The Great Mouse Detective (and in turn also the climax in the Batman: The Animated Series episode The Clock King). While a location might not always be directly connected with the core mystery plot, the clock tower as a setting for a treasure hunt-type story works quite well in my mind.

Anyway, I have written more than enough about clocks in mystery fiction today. I didn't really think too much about the topic, so it's not really going in-depth on all the ways clocks could be used in mystery fiction, but the article should work as an introduction to the topic. My glasses article was more interesting, I personally think, so take a look at that time if you hadn't yet. Anyway, always happy to hear about the examples you might think of regarding the theme of clocks in mystery fiction.

Gates of Gloom

Deep into that darkness peering, 

long I stood there, wondering, fearing

"The Raven" (Edgar Allan Poe)

 
You know, I think I'll even manage to sneak in a fourth Toujou Genya review before the end of the year.

Toujou Genya series
1) Majimono no Gotoki Tsuku Mono ("Those Who Bewitch Like The Evil Spirits", 2006)
2) Magatori no Gotoki Imu Mono (2006)
3) Kubinashi no Gotoki Tataru Mono ("Those Who Cast A Curse Like The Headless", 2007) 
4) Yamanma no Gotoki Warau Mono ("Those Who Sneer Like The Mountain Fiend", 2008)
5) Himemuro no Gotoki Komoru Mono ("Those Who Stay Inside Like A Sealed Room", 2009)
6) Mizuchi no Gotoki Shizumu Mono ("Those Who Submerge Like The Water Spirit" 2009). 
7) Ikidama no Gotoki Daburu Mono ("Those Who Turn Double Like The Eidola", 2011)
8) Yuujo no Gotoki Uramu Mono (2012)
9) Haedama no Gotoki Matsuru Mono (2018)

Earlier this year, I reviewed Ikidama no Gotoki Daburu Mono, which was the second short story collection in Mitsuda Shinzou's excellent Toujou Genya series. I apparently never read things in order, so this time, I'll be reviewing the first short story collection featuring the horror author/amateur detective Genya: Himemuro no Gotoki Komoru Mono ("Those Who Stay Inside Like A Sealed Room", 2009). Chronologically though, I'm completely vindicated with this choice: whereas Ikidama no Gotoki Daburu Mono (seventh entry in the series) was set in Genya's younger student days, the four stories collected in Himemuro no Gotoki Komoru Mono (fifth entry) are set after Genya became a professional writer and run parallel with the longer novels in this series (the second story in this collection for example is set just before the second novel). The style of the stories in this book is also slightly different from the second short story collection. In these stories, Genya usually arrives at the scene after everything has already happened and is asked to solve the case by the people involved, as opposed to being on the scene by coincidence, which is what usually happens in both the novels and the stories in the second short story collection. The stories usually therefore start a bit slow, focusing more on exposition and the horror elements of the plot, with Genya usually only appearing very late in the story. That said though, this is definitely a Toujou Genya book, so expect impossible crimes, deep insights into yokai and other supernatural folklore, many false solutions, and a nice touch of horror.

Kubikiri no Gotoki Saku Mono ("Those Who Cut Like The Cut-Throat") is set in Kubikoujichou, a little town in the outskirts of Tokyo where many former Kazoku (aristocracy) live. One year earlier, the peace in town was disturbed by a series of murders on women, who all had their throats slit by some mysterious figure. The murders all happened in a cul-de-sac alley between the manors of the Kote and Azumime families, with a small shrine at the end of the alley. Considering the social position of the people here, there was little gossiping among the people living there after the first murder and thus people underestimated the danger, leading to a second, third and even a fourth victim. Some witnesses even stated that there was nobody else in the alley when the murders were committed, as if a ghost had done it. By the time of the third victim already, the police was of course desperate to find the murderer and they had their eyes set on Kote Akitada, the grandson of Kote Akimitsu, who had fought in World War II and returned a broken man, wearing a mask to hide his hideous injuries. When the police confronted him, he fled and committed suicide in the same alley, slitting his own throat. Many months later, and Akitada's former fiancee Takako has two new admirers, even though she is still mourning for the loss of her life. Kurimori Atsushi is the son of an acquaintance of Takako's father,  who is staying as a house guest for the moment, while Kote Akiyoshi is the ne'ver-do-well younger brother of Akitada, who has fallen in love with Takako too. Takako however has not moved on, and is still bringing flowers and mourning the death of Akitada and the other four women in the alley each week. At first Akiyoshi tried to accost Takako during her visits there, but after some commotion involving the triangle of Takako - Akiyoshi and Atsushi, they agreed Takako would be left alone when in the alley. However, this didn't last too long. One day, Takako goes inside the alley, soon followed by Akiyoshi. Suddenly, both Atsushi and Miyo, a young girl living opposite the alley see a mask fly out of the alley, indicating all's not well. When they arrive in the alley, they find Takako dead -- her throat slit. The only other person in the alley is Akiyoshi, who however has no weapon on his body and a police investigation in the neighborhood show he couldn't have thrown into the gardens on the sides of the alley. The only explanation possible seems to be that a ghostly apparition must've done it, the same ghostly apparition Miyo saw several times earlier perhaps, of a white human spirit taking off into the sky from within the alley.

Miyo looks for advice from the famed writer-cum-amateur detective Toujou Genya (well, he's being duped into solving the case by his editor), who of course comes up with a solution to the case. At least, eventually, he does that, because as per series custom, he'll go through a lot of theories and hypotheses, which he rejects himself, before he arrives at the true solution.  The explanation of the impossible murder (there was only one other person in the alley, who couldn't have hidden his weapon while someone outside the alley couldn't murder Takako by slitting her throat) is... original and perhaps fair if you'd happen to know about a very specific tradition, but otherwise it's pretty hard to guess, even if Mitsuda tried to leave some other hints behind for the reader. It's an interesting trick to visualize, that's for sure, and it's indeed interesting to know it actually has a real-life basis, but very few readers will be able to make those connections and figure out how it was done in advance. Mitsuda does a great job at proposing plausible solutions, and immediately shooting them down again with again plausible explanations as always. Some readers might find it tiring to keep going through Genya's theories only for him to reject them immediately the following page (as do some characters in the stories), but Genya's method is always used in a way to properly eliminate the other possibilities before arriving at the proper solution, and elements from the fake solutions are always incorporated in the final solution, making these stories excellent study material to show how to properly write a reasoning-based puzzle plot mystery.

Maiyoga no Gotoki Ugoku Mono ("Those Who Move Like the Mayoiga") first introduces the friends Mie and Tomiko, two teenage girls who travel across the region peddling medicine and other wares. As per custom, these young medicine peddlers travel together for their own safety and for example to split the bill when they have to rent a room at an inn, but mind their own business when they're in a village. Two days ago, both the girls found a home each who'd put them up for the night, but Mie's benefactor kept her longer in the home than she had wished (the husband was out to take care of his parents, therefore the wife was happy with Mie's presence in the home). Eventually, the girls agreed that Tomiko would go on ahead early to the next village, Shimomatsu Village, as Mie didn't expect to make it until later that day and that they'd meet the day after in the temple grounds of  Oosugi Shrine in Shimomatsu Village. When they finally meet up and talk about the day they spent alone, they realize something very odd. To make your way from Uematsu Village to Shimomatsu Village, one has to pass by a peak characterized by two trees. One of them is called the "Tengu's Seat" by the people in the region. When Tomiko went across the peak in the morning yesterday, she saw nothing on the mountains beyond Tengu's Seat. Mie however said she distinctly saw a decrepit house on the mountains beyond Tengu's Seat. A third traveller then joins the girls' conversation, saying when he crossed the peak in the afternoon (after Mie had passed it), he saw no house there. This reminds the three of the folklore stories of the Mayoiga, a half-decrepit house that can appear out of nowhere and can either bring fortune or misfortune to its visitors.

Eventually a fourth traveller also joins, and the four discuss the various legends of the Mayoiga, as well try to find an explanation to why some of them did see a house beyond Tengu's Seat yesterday, and some didn't. This story is truly unlike any other story in the series, focused mostly on discussing various legends and the disappearance of the house being a fairly 'vague' problem compared to women being killed in locked rooms or crime scenes without footsteps left in the snow, but this is a pretty ingeniously plotted story, with the clews sprinkled across the various elements of the story. The 'disappearing house' trope in mystery fiction often has either a psychological, or a technical solution to it ("they didn't see it" or "it was literally moved/destroyed"), but this is a nice example of a solution that combines both types and especially the psychological aspect of the solution is brilliant, as well as really well hinted at through the bantering of the girls.

Sukima no Gotoki Nozoku Mono ("Those Who Peek Like The Gap Fiend") introduces the reader to Kanou Takako, who has recently started as a teacher at the Goji-Chou Municipal Goji Elementary School. We learn that Takako is the latest in a family line where the women have a tendency to be haunted by the "Gap Fiend", a yokai which manifests itself whenever the Kanou women stare into the gaps/crevices when a door isn't properly shut. Through this opening, the women tend to see things they shouldn't or want to see, and little good has ever come from their powers (in her teens for example, Takako saw how her crush, and her best friend got hooked up in secret). As strictly taught by her grandmother, Takako has learned to always properly close the doors around her, but one night, when Takako's doing the late evening round at school, she inadvertently stares into the darkness of an door ajar again, and sees... the school head being chased by a figure dressed like a demon, both running around. When she snaps out of it, she tries to bring it up to the head guard of the school, and when he makes a call to the school head's home, they learn the man has been killed. As the school is somewhat close to the victim's home, the teachers who were at the school that night are also considered suspects, as everyone besides Takako seems to have a grudge against the now dead school head: the school head had actually beaten one of his pupils to death during the war (a friend of some of Takako's colleagues) and was of course part of the completely crooked, hypernationalistic school system during the war and recently, it appears the victim had actually been sexually abusing his pupils at this new school. Reasons enough for wanting him dead, but it just so happens that Takako can vouch for the alibis of each of her three colleagues and the guard, as she saw them that night at set times as she made her rounds. It should be no surprise that the true murderer is indeed among those with a perfect alibi, but the solution Genya proposes is so silly, it can't be taken seriously. In some contexts, this solution might work, but it seems very questionable in this particular situation.

The title story Himemuro no Gotoki Komoru Mono ("Those Who Stay Inside Like A Sealed Room") starts with the arrival of the mysterious woman Yoshiko at the Imari home. The women suffering from amnesia suddenly appeared in the back garden of the Imaris, bringing back the young Tsukishiro who had gotten lost there. Imari Iwao obviously felt a bond with Yoshiko, as his previous two wives too were called Yoshiko. The first Yoshiko gave birth to his first son Iwao, the second Yoshiko was the mother of Tsukishiro. At first father Iwao was only entertaining Yoshiko as a guest, who seemed to have a talent for kokkuri-san, a type of table-turning. Iwao's two brother-in-laws (brothers of the first and second Yoshiko) immediately suspected this third Yoshiko was nothing more than a charlatan, but despite their precautions during the seance (tying Yoshiko to her seat; the two brother-in-laws holding the writing utensil where kokkuri-san would manifest), the seance turns into a success, with an unknown force moving the writing utensil and writing short, but cohesive answers on paper to the questions asked from the spirits. Eventually, Iwao married the third Yoshiko as his third wife, who started a whole kokkuri-san business inside the two-storied storage of the house. One day, Toujou Genya appears at the house, hoping to learn about the mysterious red box of the Imaris, which is said to kill the women in the family. In fact, it is even believed Iwao's first two wives died because they opened the cursed box. Genya obviously is also interessed in kokkuri-san, but just as they are preparing for the seance, an expression of surprise takes over Yoshiko's face and she quickly shuts the door of the storage and locks herself up inside. While everybody is surprised to learn Yoshiko has thus locked everyone outside, they figure she might have some reason to do so, but the hours pass by and eventually a locksmith is called to open the old, but sturdy door of the storage (all the windows were also locked from the inside). Inside, Genya and husband Iwao find Yoshiko lying dead on the second floor; stabbed in the stomach by a knife which was kept here. As all the windows and door were locked from the inside, it seems no third party could've snuck inside to kill Yoshiko, but there are other clues that indicate this wasn't a suicide, with for example a second knife missing from the crime scene. Genya has to figure out how this death occured in this sealed storage, and why Yoshiko looked so surprised moments before she locked herself in.

By far the longest story of the whole collection: I think it's almost as long as the previous three stories together (it takes up about half of the book). Genya is confronted with two problems: how was the original kokkuri-san seance done, and how and more importantly, why did Yoshiko die in a locked storage? The seance itself is fairly easily debunked, though it has to be said that Genya never states Yoshiko was a fraud: he only points out to the possibility it could have been done in a certain way. Supernatural elements are not explicitly denied in this series and we often get hints that there are truly yokai, ghosts and fiends active in this world: they just aren't related to the murders at hand. The death of Yoshiko is probably not exactly what most readers would expect from it. Genya actually goes through the trouble of doing a locked room lecture (ha!) to examine all the ways in which their current situation can apply to the known variants and he at the end realizes it's none of the above, but his explanation is not really different from one of the formerly named variants. The how of the locked room mystery is infinitely less interesting than the why though. The explanation of why Yoshiko suddenly looked surprised coupled with how the rest of the story unfolded is not only emotionally impressive, it's really well-hinted at through the psychology and actions of the other characters. There might be few direct clues to the solution of this case, and it's really long, but the core is definitely impressive. Genya also throws around with false solutions like they're nothing, but again, they are necessary steps to arrive at the true solution.

Himemuro no Gotoki Komoru Mono is far from a dud, but perhaps the least interesting in the Toujou Genya series I've read until now. That says more about the exceptionally high quality of the series in general than something about this particular book though. The stories here are fairly good, and some really well-plotted with multiple (false) solutions, really sly clewing and even some surprising motives, but the other short story collection is definitely better. Had this been my first step into the series, I'd probably have been far more enthusiastic due to its tone and the depth of how the mystery plots are structured, but having read a lot more of this series I'd say it's an entertaining, if perhaps somewhat unbalanced book (with one very long story accompanied by three shorter stories, one of which somewhat silly).

Original Japanese title(s):  三津田信三『密室の如き籠るもの』:「首切の如き裂くもの」/「迷家の如き動くもの」/「隙魔の如き覗くもの」/「密室の如き籠るもの」

Seeing is Believing

When I was writing my article on closed circle situations last time, I made special mention of the two novels by Imamura Masahiro: Shijinsou no Satsujin ("The Murders in the Villa of the Dead" 2017) and Magan no Hako no Satsujin ("The Murders In the Box of The Devil Eye", 2019). Both these novels were excellent mystery novels that were perfectly fair as whodunnits, but which were also embracing fantasy and supernatural elements, using them to create unique closed circle situations. Zombies and prophecies which are destined to become true might not exist in our reality, but in Imamura's novels these elements were used to create mystery plots that were highly original, but still at least as fair as anything Carr or Christie ever wrote (in fact, I think Imamura isn't alone in being a writer who is actually capable of playing an even fairer game than those two authors in terms of presenting the clues directly and clearly to the reader). This got me thinking though, as I also often hear people say that supernatural elements or even modern technology cheapens the experience of a mystery story as supposedly, it's not fair to the reader. Followers of this blog will know that is an opinion I completely disagree with, as the supernatural does not, by default, make a mystery story unfair, in the same way realism does not make a mystery story fairer by default.

One of the foundations of fair play in mystery fiction is consistency in the rules that govern the fictional world of a specific story. If a story is set around a highly realistically portrayed Rome during Cicero's time, but the killer used a scoped sniper rifle, that's not fair. I don't expect a knight in medieval times to use a knife that fly on its own into a victim and back. If the story is set in our world, in contemporary times, the murderer shouldn't use a TARDIS to escape a locked room. None of the above would be considered fair. But if a story is set in a fantasy world where people can use magic, the use of magic to kill someone is of course fair game. The point of course is that a) we as the reader must be aware of the existence and properties of the magic used and b) it must be consistent with the world presented. So if we're told there is such a thing as magic in this world, and that there is magic spell which can allow one to conjure a door out of a locked room, then using that magic is fair. Then it's up to the author of the story to properly hint at how the deed was done, and how to make the mystery alluring. The Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney games have some terrific examples here. Professor Layton vs Gyakuten Saiban (2012) for example is set in Labyrinthia, a walled city where magic exists, for example magic that can conjure magic out of nowhere or magic that can create portals between walls. But these spells are properly introduced to player in the form of a grimoire, and the spells also have distinct and well-defined properties that tell you how they can be used, in the same sense that you need to pull a trigger to fire a gun, and it's handy to have it loaded too if you want to it to be lethal. Each spell in Professor Layton vs Gyakuten Saiban must be cast in a certain way, and the mysteries in this game revolve around how these spells were cast and used for the murders. In Gyakuten Saiban 6 / Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice (2016), certain characters are spirit mediums, who can physically channel dead spirits in their body, and this too is used in a perfectly fair manner to create original mystery plots. Not only do clearly defined rules make these elements fair, these type of stories usually play the game a lot fairer than "realistic" mystery plots that either rely in obscure trivia (that might be real) or even mysteries that rely more on misdirection, as these type of mysteries usually place all cards on the table exactly because they are more prone to be accused of being unfair.

I myself love mysteries that use supernatural ideas. The zombies in Imamura's Shijinsou no Satsujin were not only an exciting element, they were also used very wisely. The murderer makes use of the zombies more than once, but never does the murderer's knowledge of the zombies come out of nowhere: zombies are a new sight for everyone (characters and reader), but the reader can, just like how the murderer did, deduce the relevant properties of a zombie (don't be bitten) as the story progresses, making it a perfectly fair mystery. Another mystery novel with zombie-like characters is Yamaguchi Masaya's Death of the Living Dead (1989), which takes place in New England in a world where as of late, dead people start rising from their graves again. While here too the exact reasons as to why the living dead exist aren't explained to the reader (nor to the in-universe characters), all the revelant properties that pertain to the core mystery plot are shown to the reader, and if you don't manage to solve the puzzle presented here, you certainly can't hide behind a "but zombies aren't real" excuse. Technically advanced mysteries are of course also fair game, I think. Asimov's Robot series can't be left unmentioned of course, and especially The Caves of Steel does a great job at presenting a consistent science-fiction world with robots and tube transport, while also being an excellently fair mystery novel that uses its self-defined rules for robots in a clever way.

But I have the idea that many mystery authors and readers alike still struggle with modern technology, let alone with supernatural or science-fiction elements, even if at the core, none of that has a direct link with a mystery being fair or not. I still hardly see mystery stories that do clever things with readily handy consumer technology, even though it's an integral part of our lives. Detective Conan is one of the exceptions and it's even more noticable as it's been running more-or-less non-stop since it started in 1994. More recent stories have seen technology like tablets and cell phones used in clever ways to create mysteries (some of them impossible) and you really can't call them unfair. Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo too has seen some clever use of modern consumer technology: the final story in Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo R, Kindaichi Fumi Kidnapping Murder Case (2017) has the police tracking the alibis and movements of several suspects through the GPS records of their smartphones, which allows Hajime to figure out how the trick was done, while 2011's The Game Mansion Murder Case was interesting in the sense that it used a certain piece of consumer technology I myself personally hadn't used before, so I wasn't really familiar with it when I first read the story, but by the time the live-action adaptation of this story came, this element was far more familiar to most readers, I think. Ooyama Seiichirou's Tokeiya Tantei to Download no Alibi too was an interesting example of the 'modern' mystery story, with the alibi of the main suspect being built around the fact he downloaded a certain song that was only available for download for one day.

Some also see security cameras as a hurdle for interesting impossible crimes, while a good mystery author can work perfectly with that to create a fair and interesting mystery. Mori Hiroshi's Subete ga F ni Naru  - The Perfect Insider (1996) (drama) is not completely fair in the sense that it does rely on something people not familiar with computers might feel is cheating, but most of the trick behind how the murderer managed to escape an underground room with surveillance cameras aimed at the door and the hallway to the elevator is still quite daring. Kishi Yuusuke's The Glass Hammer too has an interesting angle for an impossible crime involving cameras: the director of a company developing new solutions to nursing care had his head bashed in inside his offices, but the cameras installed in the top floor hallway show nobody entering or leaving the office, while the windows can't be opened either. The only one "capable" of committing the murder was a new nursing robot in his office, but safety protocols and the fact it can't perform very detailed tasks also rule the robot out as the murderer (picture above is from the scale model of the crime scene shown in the drama adaptation). Ooyama Seiichirou's Me no Kabe no Misshitsu in the game Trick X Logic was also a great example of the security camera helping out to create a good impossible crime: we follow all the suspects and the victim during the day and there's a camera that confirms the movements of everyone, but still the murderer managed to kill the victim, and have the victim moved from one room to another, even though none of that is shown on the camera.

Anyway, I'd like to hear some your favorite mystery stories that make good use of their science-fiction, occult, supernatural or fantasy setting that present a good puzzle plot mystery, or even "just" modern technology in a clever way.

The Great Hotel Murder

'My favorite is Detective Conan. Especially that girl. The sister of that darker-skinned boy.'

-- 'Sh-she's not his sister, she's his love interest!'

"Satako & Nada"

I suddenly recalled this game when I was writing my review on some Detective Conan episodes last time...

Most of the mystery games I review for this blog are, unsurprisingly, developed in Japan. Lately, many of them have also seen Western releases, or will soon see them: I wasn't that surprised when it was announced WorldEnd Syndrome would go west or a franchise like Danganronpa, but the original announcements of Western releases of for example 428, Rei-Jin-G-Lu-P and Daedalus: The Awakening of Golden Jazz, those I hadn't anticipated. One common point linking these games however is that these are game-original franchises. I have also reviewed games based on an existing manga or anime licenses, and while certain licensed titles (especially action games) tend to come to the west, that's often not the case for mystery adventure games. I doubt the games of Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo or Tantei Gakuen Q will ever be officially released outside Japan, nor the entertaining Detective Conan & Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo crossover game, but I know of at least one game based on an extremely popular mystery anime that made it to the West.

As far as I know, the Nintendo Wii title Meitantei Conan - Tsuioku no Mirage ("Detective Conan - Mirage of Remembrance", 2007) is the only Detective Conan game to have been released in Europe, where it was released in 2009 as Case Closed: The Mirapolis Investigation in English and other language market-specific titles like Detektiv Conan: Die Mirapolis-Ermittlung in German (it was never released in the North American region). Kogorou has been invited to attend a pre-opening event of the Mirapolis, an amusement park and adjoining hotel set on an island in the sea. Conan, Ran and the Detective Boys have come along too to attend the ceremony and at the hotel, they also run into Hattori and Kazuha. The Mirapolis is the dream project of the ambitious businessman Kai Tadaki, who is known as the modern-day Oda Nobunaga. During the opening ceremony speech, Conan notices a suspicious woman who is seemingly trying hiding her face with a pair of sunglasses, and later discovers the body of the same woman, killed in the hotel pool. Some suggestive newspaper articles among her belongings suggest she was up to no good. Kai wants to keep things quiet as his amusement park hasn't been opened yet, but when more murders occur and the hotel is cut off from the outside world, it's up to Conan and Hattori, and the player, to solve the murders and apprehend the murderer.

At least, that's if you choose to struggle through this game, as while it's the only Detective Conan game to have seen an official release in the West, it's probably also the worst of the mystery adventure games based on Conan, and obviously, most of the Conan games are mystery adventure games. When you first start the game, you might think it looks sorta okay: it uses music from the animated TV show and the original voice actors also do a good job of recreating the familiar atmosphere. The player controls Conan directly, and while the graphics weren't that good back in 2007 either, it was pretty funny to run around (or use Conan's skateboard to roam around) the gigantic Mirapolis hotel, a massive building with twelve floors, an annex building and garden. That is: it's fun until you realize most of the game is spent on wandering around said hotel. 90% of the game, you'll be walking around the hotel to find one of the suspects or one of your allies to talk to in order to collect information and clues. Each time a significant event happens, all these characters end up somewhere else in the hotel, so the character that might've been in the hotel lobby, might suddenly be wandering near the restaurant for no apparent reason. There's almost never a reason for a character to be at their specific location at that specific time, so you're basically playing hide-and-seek each time, trying to find all the relevant characters in a GIGANTIC hotel for that specific act of the story. It's boring, mind-numbing and the fact that the ONLY background music track used here is the Detective Conan Main Theme doesn't help: I love the theme and always look forward to the newest remix when a new movie is released, but it isn't really a track that should be put on repeat forever and ever and ever as you wander around the hotel.

What makes this an awful mystery game however is the fact that the mystery solving aspect of the game has some severe design problems. Like most of the Detective Conan games, you are faced with specific questions and mysteries as you progress through the story ("How was X done?"). The clues and testimonies you collect throughout the game can be used to answer those questions. While Detective Conan games are always also designed for children to play (so never insanely difficult), The Mirapolis Investigation goes even one step further. Or back. For some reason, the player seldom really needs to answer the questions. What trips up most players, is that when for example Conan asks "Why did that woman hide her identity with sunglasses?", the answers you have to pick aren't the clues and testimonies that actually answer the question, you have to pick the clues and testimonies that say basically the same thing as the question, like the remark of a character that "it appears that woman is hiding her face." This happens all the time, where you as the player aren't trying to solve the mysteries, but just reiterating the mysteries and questions asked by the game,  by picking the clues and testimonies that say exactly the same thing as the question posed. It's really difficult getting the right answers, exactly you're always one or two steps ahead of what the game wants you to pick, and that's even when you know this is happening. The result is a game that is frustrating to say the least, as first you have to spend most of your time lost in the hotel, hoping to come across the one person you need to provide you with the last clue that allows you to proceed to the next act, and then you're constantly asked to answer questions, where they don't want to hear the actual answer, but some factor of two or three logical steps backwards. The Mirapolis Investigation is always several steps behind and while sure, it's a game for children, all Detective Conan games are, and none of them go throug the logical steps in solving a mystery as slowly as this one.

The story itself isn't particularly interesting either. There's a part where someone is killed inside an ice maze (one of the attractions), which sounds amazing in theory, but err, yeah, it's not really that impressive here. It's the type of story you'd expect from a standard, anime original episode, but nothing that truly impresses. There are also a few minigames you can play in the arcade in the hotel, but they are even worse than the main game. I guess that one interesting thing about this game is that Kai is voiced by Koyama Rikiya: he would become the second voice actor of Mouri Kogorou in the anime, so both the first Kogorou (Kamiya Akira) and the second Kogorou (Koyama Rikiya) co-star in this game. There's also an important secondary character in Moe, a maid working at the hotel who's an aspiring detective. While she doesn't appear in any consequent Detective Conan games as far as I know, she does remind of the college student Gotou Akie, a game-original character who's an aspiring detective appearing in three of the later "music-themed" Detective Conan adventure games: Kako Kara no Prelude (DS/PSP, 2012) and returning in the two 3DS games Marionette Symphony (2013) and Phantom Rhapsody (2014).

If you choose to play the game in English by the way, it defaults to the English dub translation, so Case Closed, Jimmy instead of Shinichi etc. I remember I played the game in German to get the original Japanese dub and names.

Anyway even if you're wanting for a Detective Conan game, I really can't recommend Case Closed: The Mirapolis Investigation. I played it when it was first released in Europe, and again a few years back, but that second playthrough only confirmed my first experience with the game: it's simply a bad adventure game. You can easily skip this one and if you're really curious, I'd say just watch some playthrough on the internet (preferably by someone who knows how to properly edit a Let's Play video and has trimmed all the boring stuff). To close off with a somewhat more positive note: Anyone played a mystery game based on an anime/manga that you really liked and want to mention?

Original Japanese title(s): 『名探偵コナン　追憶の幻想（ミラージュ）』 

Update on Crime

Something old, something new,
something borrowed, something blue

(Bridal rhyme)

One reason I don't often do anthology reviews is because I'm never able to fit all the tags I want to use within the character limit. So if I do an anthology review, it's likely of a relatively short one.

Disclosure: I am a member of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. I didn't vote for the stories this year though (or for any year since I became a member.... I read far too few new releases each year...)
 

The Honkaku Mystery Award is awarded every year to the best mystery novel published in the year as chosen by the members of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. One of the qualifications to be eligible for the award is that the story must have been published as an individual, standalone release, which is of course seldom the case with short stories and essays, which are usually first published in magazines or other publications (short story collections are exceptions of course). That is why the top-rated short stories and essay of the year are usually collected in a special anthology edited by the the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. Until 2018, this annual anthology was titled Best Honkaku Mystery [Year], and contained up to ten different stories, as well as one essay on mystery fiction. However, the format was changed for 2019, and with that, the title too. Honkaku Ou 2019 ("The King of Honkaku 2019") is not only published in the muuuuuch handier, but smaller pocket format, it loses the essay and is also somewhat shorter than the previous releases, but its goal is still the same: to collect the best-rated mystery short stories of the year within one anthology.

Golgotha by Amemura Kou starts with the arrival of a letter by Akihiro's uncle Nakamitsu Eiichi, who says he'll be travelling for a while and he wants Akihiro to baby-sit his house for a while. Akihiro has only just arrived at this house out in a small village, when the phone rings. The man on the other side seems surprised by the fact Akihiro's answering the phone, and asks some questions about who he is and where his uncle is. The man also drops some names that don't ring a bell with Akihiro, but the man says he'll swing by right away. The man has a curious conversation with Akihiro, apparently hinting at something without really pushing the matter, and eventually leaves Akihiro with a present: a mystery novel titled Labyrinth By The Sea by Horinaga Saiun. A note was wedged between the pages, which says "Doorplate". Akihiro learns his uncle's house used to belong to the author Horinaga Saiun and starts digging in the life of the writer, slowly uncovering the trail the mysterious man has been laying out for Akihiro. Golgotha is more a thriller than a puzzle plot mystery: the mysterious visitor keeps feeding Akihiro small hints that seem to point towards something, but it's not like the reader is challenged to solve the puzzle themselves based on these hints. It's an okay thriller story, but perhaps not the story I had expected as the opening story of this anthology.

Gyakuen no Gogo ("Gyaku-en in the Afternoon") is part of Nagaoka Hiroki's 119, a series on firefighters (119 is the emergency number for fire and ambulance services). The "Gyaku-en" in the title refers to the sad happening when children die before their parents and the parents have to arrange for the funerals of their own kids. That is exactly what Yoshikuni Satoshi has to do, as his twenty-four year old son Yuuki died in the line of duty. Both men were firefighters and knew the risk of their profession, but Satoshi couldn't have imagined his son would fall off the fifth floor of a building while attempting to save a woman in her apartment. The story is set at Yuuki's funeral service, where Satoshi tells the people gathered (mostly collegues) about what kind of child Yuuki was and how proud he is of him. However, as Satoshi's speech continues, he starts focusing on the incident that took his son's life, and by the time he's showing pictures of the apartment of the woman who Yuuki failed to save, the reader is fully aware something's wrong with Yuuki's death. A very nicely clewed story, with clues that are hidden very naturally in the text, but which really take on a different meaning once you arrive at the conclusion. The main hint that sets things off is rather mundane if taken fully on its own, but it works surprisingly well as a 'jumpstarter'  for the rest of the reveals. I do find it kinda hard to believe that one character would do that in such an impulsive manner, but okay, I guess it was also kinda hinted at.

Tomoi Hitsuji's Biwa no Tane ("Loquat Seeds") stars Tsutabayashi, a young man with violent deaths hiding in his past, who still seeks redemption and hopes to find forgiveness from the people hurt. While Tsutabayashi tries to keep quiet about himself, his rare family name often often rings some bells with people, and he has been forced to quit his job more than a few times because his "colleagues" started to shun or harass him after finding out. That is also the reason Tsutabayashi at first didn't feel like informing the police when he discovered the body of a murdered high school student, a new victim of the serial killer who has been terrorizing the city. He does do his civic duty however, and to his surprise, he finds him invited by the division manager of his job. The man learned about Tsutabayashi's past due to an acquaintance at the police, but does not seem to be planning to ask him to quit his job. His son was a classmate of the victim found by Tsutabayashi, so they have a talk too, but while everything seems to end peacefully here, Tsutabayashi's past ends up exposed to his workplace, and he's forced to quit anyway. It's at this point Tsutabayashi decides he should try solve the murder on the student, as a way of redemption. The story was originally written for an anthology with "twist endings" as its theme, though I have to say the twist ending was kinda telegraphed too obvious. The rest of the story is also rather straightforward: some of the clues are literally "the killer dropped their personal belongings at the scene of the crime", so that's not really surprising. The underlying themes of the story are good though, and perhaps this story is best enjoyed for that.

Toda Yoshinaga's Negaisasa ("Wish Tree") is set at the end of the Edo period and stars a patrolman called Toda Souzaemon. His prey, a notorious swindler, leads Souzaemon to Maruya, one of the better known "establishments" in the entertainment district. The swindler had been using his earnings to spend several nights with Peony, the top girl of Maruya, but of course, he never should've stayed for so long at one place, as that's how Souzaemon managed to catch him. Souzaemon becomes interested in Peony himself, not as an object of lust, but as an adversary in the game of Igo, so he too starts visiting the girl. Maruya itself has been in financial problems lately due to the useless spendings of Tomizou, who married into the family of O-Sen to become master of Maruya. Tomizou became obsessed with Shiroinugami, a deified form of a white dog from England which died near Mt. Fuji and whose deaths Tomizou happened to witness. Since then, Tomizou has been using all his money on dog idols and import from the West like sofas, tables and coffee. O-Sen plans to kill her husband, but wants to make it seem like it was Shiroinugami's curse that did it and sends a fake threatening letter. On Tanabata (July 7), the day the dog was born, her husband conducts a strange dancing ritual to appease Shiroinugami. Souzaemon is asked to watch Tomizou. Tomizou is surrounded on three sides by four-part panels, while Souzaemon sits in front of the open side. Souzaemon doses off slightly due to the long ritual, but then Tomizou suddenly falls down, having been stabbed by a sharp instrument. But how could that have happened: Tomizou was surrounded by the three panels (which are undamaged), and Souzaemon was sitting in front of the open side, and while he was drowsy, he surely would've seen someone carrying a weapon appear right in front of him. The way this impossible murder was committed can be guessed quite easily, but it fits really well with the historical setting of the story, making it quite memorable. It's definitely a good example of how a good background story/setting can elevate a plot idea.

Chibiman to Jumbo ("Chibiman and Jumbo") by Shirai Tomoyuki is the nastiest story of the anthology. Susumu is the poor slave of the three fat speed-eater brothers Mogura, Moguri and Moguru, who in order to maintain their speed-eating empire Munch Land, are willing to torture and kill people on a whim (actually, they enjoy killing and eating them too just for fun). But what they don't need is exposure. Some days ago, Munch Land held a Sea Roach Speed-Eating Contest between Moguru (stage name Jumbo SP) and Chibiman, a female speed-eater. They had to eat a bucket full of sea roaches (with some "Throw-Up Pauses" planned in between). The contest seemed to be going in Chibiman's favor, but then she suddenly started to convulse, and dropped her head in the bucket of sea roaches. To the audience, they lied that Chibiman was just feeling bad, but in fact she had died. The three brothers first agreed to kill off Susumu and make it seem like he had cannabalistic tendencies by stuffing Chibiman's remains in his stomach, but Susumu pleads for his life, saying that Chibiman was clearly poisoned and that the poisoner might be after the brothers too. Susumu is given one day to find out who killed Chibiman, but he has quite a problem to solve: why was only Chibiman's bucket of roaches poisoned, was she really the intended victim and what was the motive for this murder? This is a really weird, distasteful story with gangster speed-eating brothers who are apparently in a habit of killing and eating people, and Susumu himself is hardly a hero, making filthy jokes and kicking women in the stomach so hard they have to throw up too. It makes it really hard to care about any of the characters in this story. The core mystery plot is fairly complex though: the motive for poisoning the sea roaches is really original and probably the best part of the story, but I thought the way Susumu suddenly realizes who the murderer was, was a bit too sudden without much build-up.

Tantei Daihon ("Detective Script") was written by Ooyama Seiichirou as a homage to Abiko Takemaru's Tantei Eiga and follows the same basic idea: Playwright Kasuga Sousuke barely survived a fire in his home, and while he's in the hospital, the members of his theater troupe are left with the little that remains of their upcoming murder play. The policeman who rescued Kasuga from the fire only found a partially burned scenario, so the actors have a start of a murder mystery that happens on a remote island, but not the solution. As they discuss the story, each of the actors comes up with a solution that indicates their own character as the murderer. Madoy's FGO Mystery: The Meihousou Murders I reviewed earlier this year was also clearly inspired by Abiko's novel by the way. It's by far the shortest story in the anthology, but Tantei Daihon is still a surprisingly tightly-plotted story with several fake solutions. The final solution is clever: if you just follow the clues "straight", you're likely to run into a wall, but once you figure out the true meaning of a certain passage in the screenplay, everything is turned upside down, allowing you to arrive at the correct solution. I love this type of whodunnit setups, where you can cross out most of the suspects if you simply carefully follow each clue, but there's one final clue that asks for a bit more imagination in interpretation, which can turn everything around. Short, but satsifying.

To be honest, I have the feeling previous Best Honkaku Mystery anthologies were not only beefier, but also more satisfying as puzzle plot anthologies. Honkaku Ou 2019 in comparison is not only shorter in page count, but fewer of the stories really fitted with my own personal interest: stories like Golgotha and Biwa no Tane are for example thematically strong examples, but seen purely as puzzle plot stories I find them on the whole somewhat disappointing. Nagaoka Hiroki's series on firefighters seems interesting though. As the short story form is still going strong in Japan, I think having these anthologies that collect stories from different magazines is really great and some of the previous Best Honkaku Mystery anthologies I read had some fantastic stories, but the selection for this year was not exactly what I had been expecting.

Original Japanese title(s):  本格ミステリ作家クラブ（編）『本格王2019』: 飴村行「ゴルゴダ」/ 長岡弘樹「逆縁の午後」/ 友井羊「枇杷の種」/ 戸田義長「願い笹」/白井智之「ちびまんとジャンボ」/ 大山誠一郎「探偵台本」