Pirate Ship of Fools

I trust that you now find yourself aboard the Obra Dinn. I expected this day to come and my every intention was to tell the ship's strange tale within the pages of this book.

"Return of the Obra Dinn"

A comment often made by readers here is that even if a book sounds interesting, they often can't read it because it's Japanese. The linguistic barrier is of course an important one when it becomes to be being to enjoy a piece of fiction, but as someone who also discusses mystery fiction in other mediums, I have found the hardware barrier for videogames the greatest obstacle. For even if a game is available in a language you can read, it doesn't mean you actually have the hardware necessary to play the game. I have relatively many game consoles/handhelds from various generations, but still, I still am far from able to play all the mystery games that interest me. Today's game for example made waves (ha!) when it was released on PC/Mac last year and a few people brought it under my attention too, but I had too wait for the console releases earlier this week to finally play this lauded mystery game.

The Obra Dinn was a ship of the East India Company set to sail to Far East Asia via the Cape of Good Hope, but it had gone missing in 1803 before it made it to the Cape. Nobody knew what had happened to the ship and it was deemed lost, until it suddenly reappeared near its England port of origin in 1807. The Obra Dinn only brought back a mystery from its voyage: only a few decayed bodies remained spread across the various decks of the ship, but of most of the sixty persons on the crew and passenger list, not a single thread can be found aboard. The East India Company, responsible for the ship's insurance, sends an insurance adjuster to find out how and why each and every person on the ship died or disappeared from the Obra Dinn, and they are also supplied with a special log book and a mysterious pocket watch by an interested party. The book contains the ship layout, and a complete crew and passenger list, as well as sketches that depict everyone on the ship, though no names are attached to the persons drawn. The pocket watch, called the Memento Mortem, turns out to be a magical watch and when it interacts with a corpse, it allows the user to first listen to the last few seconds (not see) that person heard while alive, and then actually witness the moment that person died. Using this watch and the book, the insurance adjuster is now tasked with giving each skeleton a name and cause of death, and by doing so, figuring out what in heavens happened on this ship in the 2018 videogame Return of the Obra Dinn (PC, Switch, PS4, XBox One).

As mentioned, Return of the Obra Dinn was lauded at release last year as an excellent mystery game which really made you think and deduce yourself and after spending a long evening on the ghost ship myself in order solve its mysteries, I have to agree that, at the core, this is really well-thought off adventure game that challenges its players to be the detective themselves and show off their reasoning skills, even if the execution is, at rare moments, perhaps less impressive than the fundamental concept.

The core task of the game is to determine the identity of each corpse and also the cause of death, and if caused by a third party, to determine the identity of this culprit. When you start the game, you have almost nothing. You have an enormous list of names (coupled with their occupation and country of origin) and a few hand-drawn group illustrations with everyone on it, but no names accompany these illustrations, so you don't know what names belong to what faces. With the help of the magical watch Memento Mortem however, you can relive the exact moment of demise of each corpse you find. And with exact, I mean exact. The first body you encounter for example, is that of a man being shot in the chest. When you use the Memento Mortem, you're brought to a frozen moment in time, of the exact moment of the bullet impact on the victim's torso. You are also able to see the surroundings of the victim, and even walk around in this frozen moment and you can actually see who shot this victim! It's at this point that you realize that Return of the Obra Dinn is not a conventional murder mystery game, as the rules of the Memento Mortem mean you're almost always guaranteed to see the culprit around if death was caused by unnatural causes. The problem is of course: you have no idea who all these persons are! There's no context for this dying moment, and while the log book is used to record the location and appearance of each corpse, but you don't know what name belongs to what face, so at first everything is black, with unknown corpses who died due unknown causes. Even if you know how the murderer of a certain person looks like, at the start of the game you have no idea what name goes behind that face! The puzzle is thus focused completely on figuring out the identity of all these people are that appear in these dying memories and some victims might turn out to be murderers themselves in an earlier part of the voyage.

The power to see flashes from the past is what allows you to identify each person, even if at first, everything is very confusing as these death scenes are shown without any context about why and when. Yet, these scenes serve as very important clues, as you can cross-examine these dying moments with the files you have at hand. The first victim is apparently shot by a person they call the Captain, and as there's only one captain on the crew list, it becomes clear who the murderer of the first victim must be. People being addressed directly by name or rank in their dying moments are pretty rare though, and from there, the game really starts challenging your deductive skills. Often, persons will appear in various dying scenes (either as a major player or as a background character), and by chasing these persons across all these moments, you can gather all kinds of hints to determine what name belongs to what face. Some persons are swiftly identified, for example because there's only one or two persons with that specific task on the ship, and you see them performing said task during one of the scenes. For others, you must be very observant and cross-reference multiple sources: a certain type of uniform may denote a certain rank for example, or a certain accent in speech or even the place where people decide to hide may betray who they were in life. You thus may have to check multiple corpses, and their death scenes, to identify a different person, and some persons may only play a very minor role throughout the whole game.

In a way, Return of the Obra Dinn is like a gigantic sudoku puzzle: you know each face and each name, and now you have to determine what names and faces can or can not belong together by crossing off all the possibilities. If for example you know this person is either the carpenter or the carpenter's assistant, but you also heard somewhere that the assistant dies before the carpenter, than you can identify both once you know in what order the two nameless faces died. There's no narrative trickery going on, thankfully, so the female-sounding names do belong to females here and persons with Russian accents don't turn out to be Irish. Return of the Obra Dinn's use of the closed circle trope to create a puzzle is great: the enclosed stage (the Obra Dinn) and a limited cast of characters (the sixty names) ensure that all the relevant information is found on the ghost ship. As a videogame, Return of the Obra Dinn also helps the player out luckily, as each time you correctly identify three persons complete with cause of death, their identity will be confirmed by the game itself, locking their names to those faces, meaning you can't accidentally identify two different people with the same name. That said, some of the characters play such minor roles and seem so nondescript, it's like they were only added to fill out the list of sixty names, which can be a bit frustrating.

As you progress and find more corpses and view their respective dying moments, you're also given the opportunity to dive even further Inception-style if you find a corpse during another corpse's dying moments (because the other corpse happened to be close by). This often happens when several people die in one chain of events. Several people die because of an incident with a cannon for example, and while you first find the last corpse to die there, diving in that corpse's memories allows you to see the people who died before him, allowing you reconstruct the whole sequence of chained deaths. This can be pretty confusing for non-gamers though, as it's at these moments the game basically forces you to dive deeper and deeper into each dying memory, without giving you time to consider the previous dying moment and figure out who that person was supposed to be. This coupled with the achronological storytelling (as you mostly experience things backwards as you dive further back in time each time) and having to figure out what person appeared in what dying memory, can make this game a very tricky experience for those not used to playing mystery videogames, where non-linear storytelling is much more common than in books.

With the reconstruction of the deaths of each person and figure out who they were, you'll also slowly piece together the context of each scene and thus also what happened on the long voyage of the Obra Dinn. The sixty persons on the passenger lists all died or disappeared, but not all at the same time: there are obvious 'chapters' to the tragedy of the Obra Dinn, with some deaths actually quite innocent (illness), while other deaths have more fleshed-out drama building up to them. Eventually, you'll reconstruct the whole truth behind the mystery of the Obra Dinn, and it's here I have the game disappointed slightly, considering the extremely promising premise. For the entire story itself is not a mystery story an sich: there are no mysterious murders to uncover or carefully clewed set-up reveals. The story Return of Obra Dinn tells is achronological, but there are almost no moments where you feel that a (later) dying moment is put in a different context due to clever clues shown in other dying moments (the clues you do find, are to identify people, not to identify the plot). There's no real hinting or foreshadowing to the happenings: you're just being told a story in a fragmentary, and achronological manner (because you can only experience the dying moments of each person) and while you have to fill in some gaps yourself, the overall story is not a mystery story. This gap between what you do (search memories for clues to help you identify each person and their fate) and what you learn eventually (a non-mystery tale of how the voyage went wrong) disappointed me a bit, even if the core tasks you're doing is fun and as detectivey as you can get.

Oh, and I guess I should mention something about the graphics. The 1-bit black/white graphics (emulating old Macintosh games) really give this game a unique atmosphere, though I have to admit that the first person perspective and the black/white graphics did me a bit nauseous after a while (yes, I know you can also change the color type of the graphics,  but first person perspective games don't go really well with me in general). I did have the feeling the monochrome colors made the game more difficult than it would needed to be, in theory, as the (purposely) grainy visuals makes it harder to identify the persons. The music is really nice though! When you're just wandering around, you only hear the enviromental sounds, but once you're viewing a dying moment, you're treated to some grand tunes, some of them really eerie and ominous.

As a mystery game, Return of the Obra Dinn is definitely worth playing. The main task presented really challenges the player's deductive skills. Each time you positively identify a corpse and their fate feels like a major victory by your brains, as you definitely need to be patient, observant and thoughtful to be able to progress in this game. By focusing on the question of who every corpse is, the game is able to offer a very complete and focused experience to the player, testing their abilities to find information across various sources (different dying scenes) and make inferences based on them. But I do have to admit that I was kinda disappointed that the overall story Return of the Obra Dinn tells is not a mystery story on its own, but that is a minor disappointment. Anyway, Return of the Obra Dinn is definitely recommend material for those who want a mental mystery challenge.

Watch Out! The Willawaw!

“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” 

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

Considering Toujou Genya is always getting involved with murder cases that are related to religious ceremonies, it's only fitting I too have found my own ritual when reading this series. Not that it's a positive ritual though. I have mentioned it earlier in my reviews of the Toujou Genya novels, but maaaaaaaan, the set-up takes ages in these stories. The novels are usually around 500-600 pages long and I think in every one of them, the main mystery won't happen until the halfway point. Usually, some mystery that happened in the past will also be discussed in the set-up, but mostly, it's reserved for in-depth research by Genya where he learns about the local religions and shrines and the history of the ritual he'll be attending, and his folkloristic interpretations of said ritual. It's interesting stuff and always relevant to the plot as a whole, but things move at a snail's pace these first 200-300 pages. So my ritual for this series is I always take AGES to get through the set-up. I'm talking me reading one or two pages a day and then trying something else because nothing happens in the story and I want to read something else. Once I finally get to the main murder, I can finish the book in a few days, but sometimes it takes me a month or more to even get that murder. Today's book for example, I think it took me two months since I first started reading it to get past the halfway point, after which it took me just two days to finish it.

Toujou Genya series
1) Majimono no Gotoki Tsuku Mono ("Those Who Bewitch Like The Evil Spirits", 2006)
2) Magatori no Gotoki Imu Mono ("Those Who Are A Taboo Like The Malicious Bird", 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)

Magatori no Gotoki Imu Mono ("Those Who Are A Taboo Like The Malicious Bird", 2006) is the second novel in Mitsuda Shinzou's series about Toujou Genya, a writer of horror stories, amateur anthropologist (folklore) and collector of scary folklore stories. Genya travels all the way to the small fishing settlement of Tori no Ura in the Seto Inland Sea as he has the rare opportunity to witness "the Ceremony of the Birdman" of the Nuejiki Shrine. Nuejiki Shrine is dedicated to Torinoiwakusubu-no-Kami, or the Great Bird (an eagle deity) and is located on the small island of Torijikishima. The Nuejiki family of shrine maidens that own the shrine usually resides in Tori no Ura however, as the main Nuejiki Shrine is mainly used for rare occassions. This year is such a special case: the Ceremony of the Birdman is a secret ritual with esotoric roots that may only be used when either Tori no Ura or the Nuejiki Shrine is in imminent danger. With dangerously few fish being caught this year, it's decided the Ceremony of the Birdman will be conducted by the shrine maiden Akane. While the actual ceremony must be conducted by her alone, her younger brother Masana, the shrine help Akaguro and three promiment young men from the community also accompany her to the island to oversee the ritual. Accompanying the locals are Genya, and the folklore student Tamako, who both have academic interest in the ritual. While doing his 'homework' on the ritual, Genya learns the ritual was also conducted eighteen years ago by Akane's mother Akana. She was accompanied by a six-year old Akane as well as a professor from a university and his team, who wanted to witness the ritual themselves too. However, Akana disappeared from the shrine during the ritual, even though all exits were watched by the college students and that same night, all the other people too disappeared mysteriously from the island, leaving only the six-year old Akane locked up in a closet. Apparently, the men had been in a panic because of an attack by a Torime, a monstrous bird believed to roam this area, and Akane had been hidden by one of them in the closet, making her the only survivor.

Torijikishima is a small island that is not only surrounded by dangerous underwater streams, but also features an impressive rise at the northern half that ends in a rock cliff. The way the cliff extends both left and right, and partially in the middle makes it seem like a giant bird in flight when viewed above, and is also why the Nuejiki Shrine is built on top of this cliff, with the main shrine in the 'head' of the bird, flanked by two storage quarters in the 'wings'. One needs to walk up a slanted gallery walkway (from the "tail end") to get near the shrine. A set of doors at the end of the gallery give access to another steep staircase, which end at the doors that lead inside the shrine (head). Because of what happened to their mother, Masana is quite worried about his sister doing the same ritual, and he and Genya are stationed at the set of doors at the end of the gallery. A mechanism of bells and strings is set-up between the inner sanctum of the shrine and the watch post and Akane is to ring every few minutes or so to let Masana know she's okay. When the bells are suddenly rung violently, Genya and Masana decide to go inside the shrine. They break open the doors with an ax and find... nobody inside the shrine. While part of the shrine is in a state of chaos, Akane herself is nowhere to be found. Given that Masana and Genya were standing guard at the only exit, and that they can also find no trace of her having jumped off the cliff ends of the shrine (she wouldn't have been able to reach the sea), it seems the only way she could have left the shrine is by flying into the sky. Discussing the matter with the whole group leads to the realization this event is similar to what happened eighteen years ago, and to their great shock, more men of their party disappear one by one.

Magatori no Gotoki Imu Mono is the seventh Toujou Genya book I've read in these two years, which should tell you how much I love this series. I seldomly manage to read three books of the same series within a year, and never in consecutive years, so seven books in two years is a personal record, I think. But I also have to say, I think this second novel in the series was also the least amusing of the bunch, though it's still of a high quality: the 'problem' that the other books (especially the novels that follow) are even better, reaching legendary status, while this one is a book I usually would love, but which now even slightly disappoints, considering I know the heights the series will reach. Perhaps I should've read them in order.

For the most part, Magatori no Gotoki Imu Mono follows a familiar pattern, with an impossible happening occuring during a religious ceremony, which isn't completely visible to the reader (Genya) and which has a certain historical meaning, which in turn is interconnected with the motive and means of the how the trick was done. This novel is unique in the sense we're not talking about a clear crime here, as all that has happened is that Akane, and later some other people, disappear from the island. There are no traces of any crime having happened and that muddles the investigation, as one has to consider whether there has been foul play or not. In fact, soon after Akane's disappearance, Genya starts with a "Disappearance Lecture", in the spirit of Dr. Fell's Locked Room Lecture. The Disappearance Lecture is somewhat small in scale, as it focuses specifically on the ways Akane could've disappeared from the shrine while for example the third novel, Kubinashi no Gotoki Tataru Mono features a Decapitation Lecture that has more general use (Yamanma no Gotoki Warau Mono has a short Nursery Rhyme Lecture). As we don't know whether we're talking about a crime or not, Genya also explores the possibilities Akane escaped on her own, that she had an accomplice, or that she was spirited away by someone else against her will, all set against the available time in which she disappeared. The Disappearance Lecture helps the reader visualize the several possibilities (and of course the true solution is one that manages to fall outside the categories in a smart way), but I can't help feel the scale of the mystery is somewhat small. Yes, Akane disappeared in a completely impossible manner, but does that warrant that many pages of discussion? The other disappearances in return are very straightforward and are not really treated as a mystery.

I don't know if it's bad luck or not, but earlier in the year I read a book that also utilized a certain very rare story element that forms the core solution to Akane's disappearance, so the reveal was perhaps less surprising than it should've been. I am kinda torn on the solution: it doesn't seem really practical and doable in that amount of time, but it's also adequately hinted at through the usual psychological and physical clues, but also historical, folklorististic and even linguistic clues. That's one thing Mitsuda always does well, point in the direction of the solution through a very wide selection of clues at several levels. It's a reason why these novels often need the long set-up, as the historical background to the rituals is usually of the utmost importance if you want to really understand how and why the mystery came to be. The moment you realize that not only the one object mentioned is of importance, but even a bit of talk about the etymological roots of a word or something like that, that sensation is always fantastic in these novels. Also, Mitsuda once again does a great job at creating countless of false solutions, which he disregards as swiftly as he presents them. The way Genya works is he always tries to think out a possibility, but is always ready to throw the theory away once he realizes it's the wrong one. This means he usually suggests quite a few theories which sound absolutely convincing and which could've easily made for a real solution in a different story, but in these stories, they are misdirection, false solutions to bring you off the trail (though usually elements of each false solution will come back for the real solution).

What made this novel less entertaining than the other novels (even if it's still a good one)? Hard to tell. Partly, I think it's because the long set-up is less captivating: like most of the other novels, the first half discusses a past mystery (The disappearance of Akana and the others eighteen years ago) and we're shown that through the disposition of the then six-year old Akane as she's being questioned by both the police and her doctor. Ultimately, she sees very little about what has happened, so it's kinda hard to get into the mystery, while for example Yamanma no Gotoki Warau Mono and Kubinashi no Gotoki Tataru Mono also talked about mysterious events that happened in the past, but told in a more engaging manner. This made their set-ups, which were also very long, a bit easier to get through. I think ultimately, the final solution of Magatori no Gotoki Imu Mono is less grand in scale: you can easily summarize it in one short sentence, and you can then easily guess how it relates to the other elements of the book, while in the subsequent novels, the plots are more based on a common theme, which is utilized in various and diverse manners, rather than just one idea. The first novel, Majimono no Gotoki Tsuku Mono, also revolved around mostly one idea, so it seems Mitsuda really got the synergy theme going on from the third novel on (Kubinashi no Gotoki Tataru Mono).

That said, Magatori no Gotoki Imu Mono is still a well-plotted mystery story, that features an interesting problem, a memorable solution and most importantly: the way the path to the solution is plotted is excellent, with diverse and subtle clues that give you more than enough a chance to get at least close to the truth. I am not sure when I'll be returning to this series by the way: at the moment of writing, there are still two novels and one short story collection I haven't read yet, of which only one novel is available in the pocket format I prefer. So perhaps I'll wait a few years until more of them are re-released as pockets.

Original Japanese title(s): 三津田信三　『凶鳥の如き忌むもの』

The Adventure of the Lion's Mane

「握った拳の中にまるで何があるように思わせるのがマジシャンで、

その拳を開く前に中身を言い当てるのが探偵だろ？」

『名探偵コナン　紺青の拳（フィスト）』

"A magician can make you believe he's holding something in his fist, but it's a detective who can guess what's inside the fist before it's even opened."

"Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire"

Many reviews of mystery fiction in a visual format lately!

Detective Conan manga & movies:
Part 1: Volumes 1 ~ 10
Part 2: Volumes 11~20; The Timebombed Skyscraper (1) / The Fourteenth Target (2)
Part 3: Volumes 21~30; The Last Wizard of the Century (3) / Captured in Her Eyes (4)
Part 4: Volumes 31~40; Countdown to Heaven (5) / The Phantom of Baker Street (6)
Part 5: Volumes 41~50; Crossroad in the Ancient Capital (7) / Magician of the Silver Sky (8) / Strategy Above the Depths (9)
Part 6:  Volumes 51~60; Private Eyes' Requiem (10) / Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure (11)
Part 7: Volumes 61~70; Full Score of Fear (12) / The Raven Chaser (13) / Lost Ship in the Sky (14)
Part 8: Volumes 71~80; Quarter of Silence (15) / The Eleventh Striker (16) / Private Eye in the Distant Sea (17)
(You will find the links to the reviews of volumes 70, 72~76, 78, 82~96 and the films Quarter of Silence (15), The Eleventh Striker (16), Private Eye in the Distant Sea (17), Dimensional Sniper (18), Sunflowers of Inferno (19), The Darkest Nightmare (20), The Crimson Love Letter (21) and Zero the Enforcer (22) in the library)

The Fist of Blue Sapphire is an enormous jewel that once was the symbol of the King of Pirates, but the fist-sized treasure had been sleeping in a wreck on the bottom of the ocean for centuries until it was finally located and salvaged by the Singaporean entepreneur Zhonhan Chen. Because Chen's a lover of martial arts, he has decided to organize a karate tournament, and the winner awaits a champion's belt with the coveted Fist of Blue Sapphire imbedded inside. One of the participants in the tournament is Kyougoku Makoto, the unrivaled high school student martial arts prodigy who also happens to be the boyfriend of Sonoko. Sonoko has invited Ran, her father Sleeping Detective Mouri Kogorou and Shinichi to come to Singapore to see the tournament. As Shinichi's body got shrunken and is now living under the assumed name of Conan (who has no passport), Conan can't travel abroad. At least, not legally. The phantom thief KID decides to tag along with Sonoko's party disguised as Shinichi, and he even kidnaps Conan to come along to Singapore. The gentleman thief's goal is of course to steal the Fist of Blue Sapphire, but he also needs Conan's help here in the Lion City because he's been framed in a murder case in Singapore. At the center of all events is the enigmatic Leon Lowe, an expert on criminal psychology who is known as the Great Detective of Singapore. Leon's is not only responsible for the security surrounding the Fist of the Blue Sapphire, but he seems to have a personal link with the murder victim. Conan needs KID's help to be able to return to Japan, so Conan pretends to be a local kid called Arthur Hirai (ha!) and takes up the job of investigating the murder KID's accused of, as well as the protection of the Fist of Blue Sapphire in the 2019 theatrical release Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire.

The twenty-third theatrical film of Detective Conan was released in April 2019 (the home video release came out last week) and marked the seventh year in row in which it broke franchise revenue records. To put in context: the twenty-first movie The Crimson Love Letter was the highest grossing domestic (Japanese) film of the entire year. So this parallel movie franchise based on the original comics by Aoyama Goushou has been doing really well the last few years, pulling a lot of visitors. In fact, The Fist of Blue Sapphire even managed to steal back the number one ranking in Japan from Avengers: Endgame in the latter's fourth week, making Japan the only place where Endgame wasn't the top-rated movie in the world that period, because that little detective outplayed all those superheroes.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. The blue MacGuffin in this story is of course the fist-sized Blue Sapphire, but to start with the old in this movie: The Fist of Blue Sapphire sees Ookura Takahiro return as the writer of this movie's story. The author of the Columbo-inspired Lt. Fukuie novels came up with the very impressive The Crimson Love Letter (arguably the best Conan movie in a decade), so I was really looking forward to the film, though the trailer seemed to suggest this one was more action-oriented (more on that later). And there's also a lot of new stuff to digest in this twenty-third feature. This is the first time Kyougoku Makoto got a prominent role in the movie franchise and this is the very first Detective Conan movie that is not set in Japan, but abroad (Singapore). We also have a new director, after last year's Tachikawa Yuzuru. Nagaoka Tomoka is the first female head director of the Detective Conan film franchise, though she's been a part of the franchise for a long time as senior artist and director. Tachikawa definitely had a very unique take on the franchise, so I was also interested to see how Nagaoka would present her Conan.

I have to start with saying that as a mystery film, The Fist of the Blue Sapphire is nowhere near the heights of The Crimson Love Letter. Whereas the latter presented a great mystery that cleverly mixed the romance-comedy, sports and mystery elements of the story in one delightful flick, The Fist of the Blue Sapphire is less synergetic. Most of the film it's actually not even clear to KID and Conan (Arthur Hirai) what's happening around them. Why was KID framed for the murder? Why was the victim murdered anyway? Why is Leon Lowe trying to rig the karate tournament? Who is trying to frame KID even further? These questions drive the first half of the story, but with no clear answers found, the viewer is just along with the ride as new developments follow after another, without clear connecting tissue. Mind you, the first half is actually quite enjoyable as an action-comedy with romantic elements. The way KID blackmails Conan/Arthur into helping him in Singapore, Ran getting all lovey-dovey with Shinichi not knowing he's actually KID, KID's antics as he plans to steal the Fist of Blue Sapphire and even a deeper look at the relationship between Sonoko and her stoic boyfriend Makoto: it's genuinely fun to watch for the Detective Conan fans and if anything, Nagaoka has a penchant for a good presentation of the story to tell.

But the core mystery plot is not quite at the same level as the presentation. It's for example kinda hard to believe that the first murder (yes, there are multiple) could've been committed like that without anyone noticing (and the clewing wasn't really done well either) and there are more scenes that seem more like they were just thought off because they looked cool on screen, and given a rather lame 'explanation' later. The gruesome image of the Merlion Fountain spewing blood (red water) in the prologue for example was awesome: the explanation for that utterly ridiculous. The motive for the major culprit is also rather difficult to believe, which is really a shame as both The Crimson Love Letter and Zero the Enforcer did really good things with a well-themed murderer. Here you're left wondering what the hell the culprit really wanted to accomplish and whether this was really the smartest way to do that. What doesn't help either is that the film tries to juggle a lot of balls at the same time. The slogan for this movie was Trinity Battle Mystery, but in practice, it means the film wants to show you KID and his impossible heist attempts, Conan uncovering a grand conspiracy plot, Kyougoku's action and his relation with Sonoko and more, but often, the connection between these various plotlines feels quite flimsy.

Is The Fist of Blue Sapphire a complete dud then, like Sunflowers of Inferno? No, that it really isn't. Like I said, the first half of the movie does a really good job at capturing the romantic comedy elements of Detective Conan, which has been one of the main pillars of the series since it runs in Shonen Sunday. The banter between the characters while they interact with a murder mystery really feels like you're used to from the original comics, especially from the larger stories of the last few years like The Scarlet School Trip storyline. The way this film picks up the rivalry between master thief KID and Kyougoku Makoto, who was once hired as the "best security system on Earth" (volume 82), works surprisingly well too. KID as a person framed for a crime he didn't commit is also a lot easier to swallow than the "has KID gone rogue?"  angle of Sunflowers of Inferno, which really didn't work there because it was unbelievable as a driving force for a story. Having KID kidnap Conan to have him solve that mystery, while he himself tries to steal a jewel? Yep, that's what fans want to see. Leon Lowe as the Singaporean Great Detective was pretty interesting, especially as he's quite different from other "Great Detective" characters in this series, focusing more on profiling and psychological manipulation. As per custom, the movie becomes more action-oriented as the ending nears, with this year's climax being really grand. Talking about something borrowed, I'd say that this year's movie seems to borrow from the old James Bond movies with its climax, and it was pretty interesting to see, as I really doubt we'll see anything similar any time soon in this film series.

There are some really nice scenes in the film that really work well as scenes on their own with good composition or cute shots of the characters, and the scene where Conan/Arthur and KID go over the facts of the murders is absolutely phenomenal to see in a mystery movie. But like I said, the film sometimes has trouble presenting itself as a consistent whole, with some scenes not being necessary plotwise. Zero the Enforcer was in many ways not really a Detective Conan movie, but a deep police procedural that happened in the Conan universe, but it was really good at presenting a mystery plot with a consistent theme which it explored throughout its scenes. The Fist of Blue Sapphire is a film I enjoyed as a piece of entertainment, with funny and exciting scenes that look great, but which as a mystery or crime film feels lacking due to poor clewing (though the short theft scenes are good!) and poor character motivation.

When the credits rolled, I asked myself the question: did I like Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire? Ultimately, I think my answer is yes. As a standalone mystery film, it's definitely not a standout in this series (at times even sloppy), but as a Detective Conan movie, as a once-in-a-year event which puts the familiar characters in otherwise unbelievable situations, I really did like watching the movie. It's highly enjoyable as a mainstream comedy-action movie, but I wouldn't recommend The Fist of Blue Sapphire as a mystery movie to someone who had never seen anything of Detective Conan, while I could with for example The Crimson Love Letter. On the other hand, I'd say The Fist of the Blue Sapphire does a great job at being an enormously entertaining flick. Anyway, another custom of these movies is that the film ends with a teaser for next year's feature, and while it's not completely clear what the theme'll be, I have to say I'm at least intrigued! Next year, same time, same Bat-Channel!

Original Japanese title(s): 『名探偵コナン　紺青の拳（フィスト）』

Snow Place Like Home

秋に秋の実りがあり

冬には冬の厳しさがる

「籟・来・也」（Garnet Crow)

Fall brings the harvest of fall

And winter brings the harshness of winter

"Rai Rai Ya" (Garnet Crow)

One of my favorite discoveries of last year was Nemoto Shou's manga Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura ("Sharaku Homura: Detective of the Uncanny"). These were originally doujin comics which Nemoto was self-publishing under the doujin circle name Sapporo no Rokujou Hitoma for sale at events etc. In the current age, a lot of doujin material like fanzines, indie videogames etc. is also sold in digital format, but there are still many, many doujin circles that publish their work in physical format. Half of the fun of making a doujin comic is indeed putting the finishing touches on the file you send off to the  professional printer and binder and some time later, you bring your box of freshly created booklets to a convention or some other event to sell the fruits of your labor all by your own hand, meeting and speaking with each and every of the people who swing by your stand. Nemoto had been working on the Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura series for about ten years, and readers praised it as an excellent mystery comics, but due to its doujin status, it was also relatively difficult to get your hands on an actual copy until last year, major publisher Bungeishunju helped getting these fantastic stories on digital storefronts in Japan. Fourteen issues were compiled into three volumes, and I loved each and every one of them (reviews of the first, second and third volume here).

At the end of the third review, I mentioned that the series was still on-going as a doujin comic and that it was unclear whether further issues would be made available as ebooks too. Even if this would happen, it was likely this would take several years, as the other volumes collected 4-5 issues each. But luckily, I didn't have to wait too long to have my reunion with our favorite students of of Shimoyama Middle School: the clever girl detective Sharaku Homura and her assistant Yamazaki "Karate Kid" Yousuke. This summer, Nemoto won the first Hokkaido Mystery Cross Match Award with Hagoromo no Kijo ("The Ogress With the Robe of Feathers"), the sixteenth issue in the Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura series. The Hokkaido Mystery Cross Match Award is presented to the best unpublished mystery story (unpublished as in not by a professional publisher, for short~novelette-size stories) and while this first time, the authors were all living in or around Sapporo (capital city of Hokkaido), residence in Hokkaido is not a requirement to compete. To celebrate this joyous occassion, Nemoto has made this award-winning comic temporarily available for free download (see this tweet for the link) and having read it, I can definitely recommend people to check it out too.

Homura and Karate Kid are out mushroom hunting in the mountains, but after being chased away by a rival mushroom hunter with a rifle and a rather wild dog, the kids are shocked to find a dead man lying in the middle of a snow-covered clearing in the forest. The man appears to have a stab wound in the temple of his head, but strangely enough, the only footprints left in the surrounding snow are those of the victim himself, besides those of Homura and Karate Kid. Police investigation reveals two interesting facts. One is that the victim was indeed stabbed by a sharp instrument in his head (there was even some metal left in his head). The weapon however was not found near the body, ruling out any possibilities of suicide. The other fact is that the victim used to be a monk at the Buddhist temple further up the same mountain, but that he had been thrown out one year earlier for repeatedly stealing money. The victim was unemployed, but he was carrying a bag of mochi (rice cakes) with him, suggesting he was going to visit someone. The other monks at the temple seemed shocked to learn about the death of the victim. The temple is home to various interesting legends and objects of interest, like a Buddhist mummy, but also a stone seal that is supposed to keep an ogress trapped: like in the west, legends that follow the archetype of the story of the Swan Maiden exist all across Japan (see also my review of the opening story of Professor Munakata), but in this version, the Heavenly Maiden who got her robe of feathers stolen, killed the thief herself and turned into a blood-craving ogress, until she was defeated by the founder of the temple some centuries ago. Her feathered robe, a relic kept hidden in the temple, was stolen the night before the victim was killed by what appeared to be the Ogress herself. Did the Ogress use her magical robe to fly to the victim to stab him in the head, leaving no footprints behind in the snow?

Like I said, this is a great story. It's very densely plotted tale at ninety pages, allowing Nemoto to not only come up with several (fake) solutions to the no-footprints-in-the-snow situation, but also flesh out the whole Buddhist temple background and its backstory. Obviously this is of importance to the core mystery plot, but the storytelling does a great job at actually being a story, and not just dumping info on the reader. And there's really a lot to process here: I could easily imagine this plot being worked out into a full novel. As the story unfolds, we learn the victim had his darker side too, and part of the mystery shifts to the question who he was going to visit with his mochi (rice cakes). This part of the mystery is quite original, and the clewing is really clever. It's almost blatantly telling you what's going on, but hidden so well you are likely to miss what Nemoto is trying to tell you.

Speaking of which, this story features a genuine Challenge to the Reader, and it even gives four major hints that really push you in the right direction, without giving the whole game away. As per custom, this comic is very generous in reminding you about things that had been said or shown earlier in the story: you always find proper page references when for example late in the story someone refers to an earlier testimony or about having seen something. Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura is always fair, but especially kind in the way it really shows you where every clue was and when it was mentioned.

The solution to the main problem of the no-footprints-in-the-snow is really original though and this alone makes this issue worth a read. While I know of variants with other impossible crime situations that use a similar idea, it's the way it's contextualized and set-up in this particular story that makes it a memorable story. The means are singularly unique to this particular story and its background story, yet properly clewed and foreshadowed. It is admitted in the comic itself that the probability of success is quite slim and practically, one could argue whether it was even possible for the murderer to actually pull that move off physically, but the sheer originality and also horrifying implications of this particular murder method make this one to remember.

Hagoromo no Kijo, the sixteenth issue of Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura, is in short another great entry in the series. I really hope that eventually, all the new issues of this series will also be collected into a standalone volume for sale on digital storefronts. As you may have noticed already, this was issue 16, while the earlier volumes I reviewed collected fourteen issues, meaning I already missed one story in this great series. Self-publishing a series of course has its merits too, but man, it does make it a lot harder reading this series!

Original Japanese title(s): 根本尚（札幌の六畳一間）「怪奇探偵　羽衣の鬼女」

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

空を自由に飛びたいな

「はい、タケコプター」

「ドラえもんのうた」（大山のぶ代）

I'd love to fly freely in the sky

- Here, a Bamboo Copter!

(The Song of Doraemon) (Ooyama Nobuyo)

Huh, I never had expected to be writing about Doraemon here. And I'm even now really weirded out by the notion I even have to explain him. For in essence, it's like having to explain Mickey Mouse. Doraemon is a long-running children's comic and cartoon that has not only found succes in Japan, but in the whole of South-East Asia. It's immensely popular there and several generations have grown up together with the blue robot cat. So it feels weird to have to explain such a cultural icon, a figure everyone knows by sight. I mean, Doraemon is so intertwined with Japanese culture he was appointed a special ambassador for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics (Remember seeing him in the closing ceremony for the 2016 Olympics?). Anyway, for the people who don't know Doraemon: Doraemon is a blue robot cat from the future, who has been sent to the young boy Nobita. Nobita's a failure at everything he tries, who always gives up and cries the moment things go wrong and that's a habit that sticks. His great-great-grandson Sewashi therefore decides to send his robot cat Doraemon to his great-great-grandfather in the hope Doraemon can help Nobita shape up and change his and his family's future. Doraemon has all kinds of fantastic secret gadgets from the future hidden in his pouch, like the Anywhere Door which can open doors between any location. Many episodes are about Nobita (or his friends Shizuka, Gian and Suneo) coming to Doraemon asking for some gadget to help them out (for example, because they forgot to make their homework) and the kids eventually abusing the gadget until it backfires. While the television series is a comedy series, the long-running theatrical releases take on more epic forms with long adventures. One of my favorites is Doraemon: Nobita no Parallel Saiyuuki (Doraemon: Nobita's Parallel Journey to the West, 1988), where monsters from the Chinese classic Journey to the West take over modern-day Japan, and Nobita, Doraemon and their friends must fight the monsters as the Monkey King and his allies.

It would take until the thirty-third movie until Doraemon would try its round hands at a mystery-themed story in the theaters though. 2013's Doraemon: Nobita no Himitsu Dougu Museum, which also has the English title of Doraemon: Nobita's Secret Gadget Museum, starts with the theft of Doraemon's cat bell by Phantom Thief DX. Desperate to find the bell (actually a secret gadget), Doraemon has Nobita wear the Sherlock Holmes Set, a set of detective-related secret gadgets. With the help of the Clue Lens (which can show clues for any mystery you want to solve), the duo learns the bell is somewhere in the Secret Gadget Museum in the twenty-second century, an institution that exhibits all kinds of secret gadgets and their history. Doraemon receives an invitation for the museum from his sister Dorami, and Nobita, Shizuka, Gaian and Suneo all join to help Doraemon find his bell. Arriving at the museum, the gang are given a tour by Kuruto, a young boy and aspiring gadget inventor who works at the museum. They learn that Phantom Thief DX has struck here too earlier, stealing a secret gadget from the museum. When the following day Phantom Thief DX announces they will steal more gadgets from the museum, the gang prepares to catch the thief and retrieve all the stolen gadgets.

A somewhat odd Doraemon movie as it's set in 'just' the Japan of the future and mostly inside a museum too, instead of some parallel or magical/fantasy world like in most of the other (older) movies. While I am reviewing this movie here on the blog, I wouldn't want to disappoint people, so let me emphasize first that this is mostly a comedy-action movie like you'd expect from Doraemon, and not some kind of hidden mystery gem that will go into the annals of modern mystery fiction. That said, the mystery plot is really not that bad considering this is at the core a children's/family comedy film  and overall, I did enjoy the Sherlock Holmes Set-wearing Nobita vs. Phantom Thief DX story, as it's a genuinely fairly played mystery plot.

Speaking of the Sherlock Holmes Set, you'd think it's a total cheat right? It consists of some nifty gadgets that come in handy when working on a case, like the Radar Stick (falls in the direction of the culprit), Clue Lens (shows clues of the mystery you're trying to solve) and the Detective Hat (gives the wearer a spark of inspiration that solves the case by flipping the rim of the hat). It's not nearly as much as a cheat as you'd think though, as like many of Doraemon's gadgets, they are err... somewhat behind on maintenance, so it's not like Nobita would be able to solve the case within the first five minutes of the movie (in fact, the set was featured in the manga in the past, where Doraemon explicitly said the gadgets were all broken). The whole movie is full of wonderful gadgets which don't exist in the real world though. The Anywhere Door, Big Lights (a flashlight that enlarges the thing it enlightens), Gulliver's Tunnel (shrinks the person who walks through the tunnel), they are of course all items don't exist in the real world.

Yet, the mystery plot of Nobita's Secret Gadget Museum is fair: like any good supernatural/fantasy/science-fiction mystery story, it might have an unrealistic setting with items and tools that don't exist (yet), they are properly introduced to the viewer and all explained, so they are used fairly in the mystery plot. In fact, that was the thing that surprised me the most about the movie: it does a great job at introducing all kinds of Chekhov's Guns and other hints in a completely natural manner in the first half of the movie, which all come back in regards to the mystery plot in the denouement. Nobita uses the Detective Hat to solve the case and guess who Phantom Thief DX really is, but the viewer is capable of doing that too without Nobita's handy gadget, as all the essential clues were shown on the screen to the viewer (who only has to remember how the fantastical secret gadgets can be used). So I'd say Nobita's Secret Gadget Museum is an entertaining example of how to do a proper science-fiction mystery story, even if it's clearly meant for children. There's even room to do some misdirection, and the first half does a good job at keeping things just mysterious enough to make sure the viewer won't be able to solve everything too soon.

The movie also has quite a number of Sherlock Holmes references by the way, and even opens with a sequence of Nobita dreaming about the Sherlock Holmes vs. Lupin movie he saw the night before. As a 'possibly-first-movie-for-kids-that-talks-about-Sherlock-Holmes', it's pretty decent, and there are some funny references here and there hidden that only fans will pick up, so you can tell the screenplay was written by someone who likes Holmes. As a Doraemon movie too, this is fun to watch. It focuses more on the friendship between Nobita and Doraemon compared to other movies in the series and even has a flashback scene to when Doraemon was first brought to Nobita by his great-great-grandson Sewashi.

Doraemon: Nobita's Secret Gadget Museum is on the whole an amusing Doraemon movie that features a simple, but properly presented mystery plot and is likely to amuse fans of Doraemon that also like mystery fiction. It's unlikely I'll be discussing Doraemon here on the blog any time soon again, but this one side trip with the robot cat was certainly no disappointment.

Original Japanese title(s): 『ドラえもん　のび太のひみつ道具博物館（ミュージアム）』 

The Adventure of The Silent Partner

I wanna be the very best 

Like no one ever was 

To catch them is my real test

To train them is my cause

Pokémon Theme (Jason Paige)

Sooo, was the biggest detective-themed Hollywood movie of this year for the west?

Tim Goodman is a young insurance agent who one day is informed his father, private detective Harry Goodman, passed away in a traffic incident. Tim had an estranged relationship with his father, but he travels to Ryme City to take care of the necessary formalities. Even in a world where Pokémon live, Ryme City can be called a unique metropolis. There are about 700 different species of Pokémon (Pocket Monsters), each with their own special powers and characteristics. People use them for a variety of activities, from pets to using them for Pokémon fights and having them help with work. In Ryme City however, humans and Pokémon live peacefully side-by-side and Pokémon trainer battles are even forbidden. An enormous surprise awaits Tim in Harry's apartment in Ryme City however: not only does he find his father's partner Pikachu (who was first presumed to have also died in the same accident) roaming around in the room, Tim can actually understand what this Pikachu is saying! The electric yellow mouse-type Pokémon is suffering from amnesia and can't remember much, but he tells Tim that he believes Harry is still alive out there, given that he survived the accident too. He is convinced the incident had to do with a case Harry was investigating, involving a mysterious gas container still left in Harry's office. Tim is the only human who can understand Pikachu, which makes Pikachu believe this is destiny and that they have to work together to find Harry. Tim is at first very reluctant to help Pikachu, but then they start uncovering a large conspiracy involving Pokémon experiments in the 2019 live-action movie Pokémon Detective Pikachu.

Given that Nintendo's famous Pokémon franchise is not 'just' a videogame series, but a worldwide cultural phenomenom that has lasted for some decades, I doubt I have to explain that much about Pokémon, and long-time readers of this blog will also be familiar with the title Detective Pikachu: it was a spin-off mystery adventure game released in 2018 for the Nintendo 3DS which I enjoyed a lot. The game may have been geared towards a younger audience, but it was fun, and actually did interesting things with combining the concept of Pokémon (creatures with unique powers) with puzzles and a mystery plot. The movie Pokémon Detective Pikachu, incidentally also the very first live-action movie based on the franchise, is based on this specific videogame, though you have to note that is not a 1:1 adaptation. The basic story of Tim and a wise-cracking Pikachu teaming up to uncover Harry's fate while investigating his last case is of course the same and there are scenes in the movie that will remind you of specific events/places of the game, but the game is quite a bit longer with far more locales/sub-storylines and in fact, the story of the videogame will continue in an upcoming sequel, while the movie is a standalone story that wraps up everything at the end.

For the mystery fans, I'd definitely recommend the game over the movie though. Pokémon Detective Pikachu is obviously aimed at a younger audience and it's fairly enjoyable as an adventure movie (though I still think photo-realistic CG Pokémon are creepy). Ryan Reynolds seems to have a blast voicing the supercute Pikachu and if anything, the interrogation scene with Mr. Mime (a mime Pokémon) is hilarious and a must-see. But as a mystery movie, it is quite lacking, especially considering the source material had plenty of great moments to offer. There' is barely any problem solving in this movie, no carefully thought-out clewing or meaningful foreshadowing. It's a buddy movie with a very straight path: Tim and Pikachu first find a clue in Harry's office, which leads them to location A, there they get a clue to location B, etc. And there's some really lazy fill-in-the-gaps moments where characters start to explain everything out of nowhere or the heroes stumble upon conveniently significant clues or locations, so the core mystery plot never feels rewarding, as there's never any proper build-up and clewing. One could just say, 'it's a kids movie', but so are the Detective Conan movies and most of them are proper mystery movies. And as I said, the source material (the Detective Pikachu videogame) does work as a mystery adventure game, despite being designed for kids too.

One element which made the Detective Pikachu game satisfying as a mystery game, was that it really incorporated the various Pokémon and their powers in the plot. The game was divided in chapters, in which Tim and Pikachu had to solve smaller mysteries/happenings during their investigation, for example 'accidents' that occured in a television studio or how to escape a blocked cave. Solving these smaller puzzle plots always involved the various species of Pokémon and their specific powers: sometimes you had to deduce which Pokémon was the 'culprit' by observing the clues and figuring out what kind of Pokémon would be able to do such a thing, sometimes you had to pick the right Pokémon to help you with a certain task, considering their special powers and characteristics. The game was also really intent on presenting a fair play mystery too, as it was always sure to inform the player in various ways what the characteristics of these Pokémon were beforehand, so even people new to Pokémon could enjoy the game. It resulted in unique situations, where you had 'crimes' committed by invisible characters etc., but which where still absolutely fair because each Pokémon and their powers are documented and well-presented in the game.

This element isn't really present in the movie, sadly to say. While Tim and Pikachu have plenty of screentime together, there's barely any mystery-solving that is truly dependent on Pokémon and their powers. Most Pokémon that appear are either just background characters, or have fallen victim to the experiments and gone berserk, attacking our heroes. There's one minor moment in the finale that actually has some good foreshadowing that involves Pokémon powers, but that is all: you don't get those moments from the game where Tim and Pikachu really sit down, consider all that has happened and manage to deduce how it was done and which Pokémon were used to accomplish certain tasks. Because of that, most Pokémon don't really even feel involved in the story of Pokémon Detective Pikachu: they're just there as props and hardly interact with other characters or the plot. Which is a real shame, for if there's one thing the Detective Pikachu game really did well, is portray a world where Pokémon and humans live together, and build a mystery plot on that.

Pokémon Detective Pikachu has its moments as a live-action Pokémon movie, even if it's never outstanding or going beyond (reserved) expectations. The quips and banter of Pikachu are fun to watch, and the story is not as bad as you'd first fear when hearing the words live-action and Pokémon together. It's just a shame that as a mystery movie, it basically ignores all the potential the original source videogame offered. Had it gone the effort to really integrate the fantastical of the various Pokémon species up to with a mystery plot or even smaller puzzles/problems in the story, I might have been able to recommend Pokémon Detective Pikachu as a mystery movie (for kids), similar to how the Detective Pikachu does work as a standalone mystery game, but as it is now, I can only see Pokémon Detective Pikachu as a Pokémon movie. Disney's Zootopia (2016) is similar in concept, but was more entertaining as a mystery movie too.

The Girl Who Wasn't There

"Virtue has its own reward, but no box office"

- Mae West

When in doubt, read a Crofts.

Inspector French series
Inspector French and the Starvel Tragedy (1927)
Inspector French and the Box Office Murders (1929)
The 12:30 from Croydon (1934)
Mystery on Southampton Water (1934)
The Loss of the Jane Vosper (1936)
Fatal Venture (1939)

Miss Thurza Darke had been advised by a mutual acquaintance to confide her strange tale to the police, but at first, Inspector French had no expectations of whatever the box office girl could tell him. That is of course, until she actually told him why she feared for her life. The young woman had been duped into a debt through a devious con scheme, and by the time she realized that her friend, another box office girl who had died some months earlier in a supposed suicide, had been swindled too by this same person, it was already too late. Her creditors now want Thurza to perform a certain, but yet unspecified action at her film theatre to repay her debt, but she is terribly afraid she'll eventually be killed, just like her friend in a way so the police will think it's a suicide. Inspector French tells Thurza to pretend she'll go along with the scheme, and that the police will stake-out their meeting tomorrow to nab the gang, but Thurza disappears the same day, and her body is found later drowned in, as she had feared, an apparent suicide. Realizing that the gang is far more dangerous than he had first suspected, Inspector French vowes to find the people who kiled Thurza in Freeman Wills Crofts' Inspector French and the Box Office Murders (1929).

If I had to describe Crofts' mystery novels with one single word, it'd be schemes. The criminals in Crofts' work like to plan, schedule, ploy, strategize and arrange. They don't do things haphazardly, they carefully define their goals, make lists of what has to be done, prepare for every single stage in the process and then execute their scheme. These schemes can be (barely) legal or illegal: Fatal Venture was about an ingenious business plan involving a cruise ship turning into a casino whenever it was in international waters, while The Loss of the Jane Vosper was about an insurance swindling scheme, and the inverted mystery novels The 12:30 from Croydon and Mystery on Southampton Water are about murder schemes, told from the viewpoint of a would-be murderer who carefully plans how they're going to kill their target. What these schemes all share, is the sheer attention to detail: every aspect, every single step of the plan has a purpose, whether it is of practical use for the scheme itself, or for protection, for example to delude the eyes of the public and the police. Crofts' novels are about first identifying the weak links in those schemes, which allows French to trace the individual steps in the plan, eventually revealing the complete image of the otherwise obscure plan. 

Inspector French and the Box Office Murders is a novel that does not stray from this focal point in Crofts' writing. Right from the start, this novel is basically only looking at the murky scheme involving the box office girls, with the actual murders of the box office girls playing second fiddle (at best), despite featuring in the title of the book! French's investigation is methodical, and the novel shows every single step in the police investigation. Order and method reigns here, as each action of French is a logical answer to whatever discovery or event preceeded it, which in turn is followed by a rational action. French's method is a mirror of the detailed crime scheme: he takes the time to consider each part of the flowchart, and then follows it to the next (or previous) process, taking care to understand why each action is taken by the schemers.

With the members of the gang already identified in the first chapter by Thurza's story, and the deaths of the box office girls basically confirmed as murder, the whole mystery of the book revolves around how the gang's plans involve the theatre box offices. To be honest, this part was rather easy to guess. Perhaps it was harder to guess back when this book was first published, but as soon as you hear the gang tries to involve box office girls, I'd guess that this would be one of the options to first cross your mind. Sure, Inspector French's investigation itself is fairly entertaining to follow, and the gang has laid a few traps here and there to trip French up, but ultimately, the scheme is far less... impressive than you'd hope it'd be. The road to the truth (French's investigation) is alright, but it's not something we haven't seen before in Crofts' work. Indeed, that's what makes this novel a bit underwhelming: Inspector French and the Box Office Murders does little that other Inspector French novels don't do, and what it does, is not bad per se, but certainly not remarakable compared to the other novels.

Inspector French and the Box Office Murders is thus a very typical Inspector French novel. It does everything you'd expect from such a novel, but does little beyond that and if you've read a few other Crofts before, you're sure to feel déjà vu. It does nothing really wrong, but Inspector French and the Box Office Murders is certainly not a work that stands out if compared to other novels in the series.