Who Framed Roger Rabbit

"Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!"

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a great film by the way.

On a not so normal day in Kyoto, the young burglars Masaya and Juri sneak into the apartment of Asami, a simple employee at a clothing store. The two chat as they steal some ice cream from Asami's refrigerator and go through her stuff, when the phone rings. Listening to the voice mails, the two burglars learn that Asami has not been to work today, which both troubles and worries her co-workers. It turns out that Asami has been abducted by an underground human trafficking organization and that their men were actually watching Asami's apartment while Masaya and Juri were there, as the organization's MO involves leaving fake traces to make it seem like Asami had gone off somewhere on her own. What the organization doesn't know is that the two young burglars can take care of themselves quite well, and they decide to think of a plan to save Asami and destroy the organization, with the help of Shinohara, a new member of the organization whose girlfriend had become a victim of the organization too. Meanwhile, the reader is also introduced to events that occured one year earlier in Shanghai. A prodigy gambler calling himself Robber Rabbit made off with a fortune stolen from the mafia, who in turn sought revenge by hiring a group of assassins to kill the Rabbit. What happened to the Robber Rabbit one year ago and what do his adventures have to do with the antics of Masaya and Yuri in the present? That is the story of Tachibana Yuma's Usagi Goutou ni wa Shinde Morau, which also has the English title of Robber Rabbit Gets Dead (2016).

I guess I'll have to start with disclosing that I know the author Tachibana Yuma, though he wasn't using this pen name then. He was in fact one of the active members of the Kyoto University Mystery Club when I was there too, and an active contributor to the various club publications. There's a tradition that the stories that are published in the annual club magazine sold at the university's November Festival are 'peer-reviewed' by fellow members in the weekly meetings, and I was actually the person who did Tachibana's story of that year. Anyway, he obviously kept on writing (in fact, I remember he was the one who did most of the heavy lifting for the jigsaw puzzle + story Kagami no Kuni no Juunintachi.)  In 2016, he started publishing stories on the website Kakuyomu, where members can upload their fiction and have other people read and rate them. Robber Rabbit Gets Dead was originally published on Kakuyomu, and eventually even won the first Kakuyomu Web Novel Contest in the Mystery category, which resulted in his professional debut as an author when his story was published in the Kadokawa Sneaker label, with some nice artwork by Yoneyama Mai. Obviously, I was interested to see how this book would turn out.

Though I guess I wasn't the main target audience here. Robber Rabbit Gets Dead is, put very simply, a light novel with themes that are quite familiar. The story is told from multiple perspectives, set both in the present and past, and the characters are all somewhat grander-than-life. Prodigy gamblers, young assassins who can have witty banter while fighting each other, seemingly normal household objects used as weapons, secret evil organizations, conversations scenes where every line sounds either like a one-liner or just sentences strewn together to sound cool: I perhaps sound very negative here, but I think the story, while not abnormally original, follows a familiar and popular formula, as seen by popular light novel series like Baccano! and Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens. Rule of cool is what is the most important here, with characters being able to have stylish fights and stylish banter, while killing, stealing or preparing for some kind of heist. The story follows a multitude of characters, from the enigmatic Robber Rabbit and the clingy Juri, to the is-he-really-out-for-revenge? Shinohara and the assassins who fought Robber Rabbit in Shanghai and have now appeared in Kyoto too. As an action-adventure story, Robber Rabbit Gets Dead is a familiar sight.

But Robber Rabbit Gets Dead won in the mystery category right? I mean, I wouldn't have purchased this novel if it had won in some other category. It's here where the novel stumbles. Given that there are two storylines that are told criss-cross (Kyoto in the present and Shanghai in the past) and that the characters in the Shanghai narrative all go by fanciful code names, most readers are likely to guess that there's some connection between the two narratives and that some characters from the past, are now appearing in the present storyline with a different name. Obviously, the mystery plot revolves around surprise reveals about who turns out to be who and how the past and present narratives intertwine. The problem here is that in his attempt to lure the reader in making wrong assumptions about who's who, Tachibana's writing is very likely to simply confuse the reader because a lot is described vaguely on purpose. Some characters share the same descriptions in the narration or it's kept unclear who's talking to who about whom in the narration, but the result is that especially in the first half of the story, it is far more difficult to keep track on who is who than it ever should be. In fact, in the opening scenes of the story, one character is killed, but it was really difficult to make out who actually died. Part of it may be intentional, but at a certain point, it's hard to have a satisfying 'Tadah! gotcha!' if the set-up was hard to follow and you don't even really know what happened in the first place. The confusing narration and the fact there's a lot of information for the reader to swallow in the first half because of the dual narrative makes the beginning of the novel a bottleneck which some might not make it through.

The stories does feature some minor reveals throughout between the fights, that are reasonably well set-up in terms of clewing or foreshadowing (for example when Masaya and Yuri first deduce something's wrong with Asami not appearing at her work and Shinohara's scheme in present day Kyoto), but purely seen as a mystery novel (even if it isn't), Robber Rabbit Gets Dead seems kinda undermine its own surprises by the confusing manner in which it tries to set them up.

Usagi Goutou ni wa Shinde Morau/Robber Rabbit Gets Dead is thus not exactly what I'm looking for in a mystery story. The main focus of the novel lies on the adventures of the charismatic characters with intertwining storylines where everybody looks and acts cool, but when it comes to the mystery elements of the tale, there's just too many parts where the readability suffers because of what Tachibana is trying to do. People who like the earlier mentioned series like Baccano! and Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens will probably get more mileage out of this.

Original Japanese title(s): 橘ユマ『うさぎ強盗には死んでもらう』

The Case of the Perfect Maid

運命のルーレット廻して

アレコレ深く考えるのは mystery 

「運命のルーレット廻して」（Zard）

Turn the roulette of fate

It's a mystery thinking deeply about this or that

"Turn the Roulette of Fate" (Zard)

When I reviewed Return of the Obra Dinn last year, I mentioned the hardware obstacle when playing mystery videogames: obviously, you need to have access to a piece of gaming hardware that can actually play the game, and depending on where the game was produced and when, it may be very difficult to play certain mystery videogames, whereas with books, it's usually only a question of getting the book in question, even if it's rare/expensive. But sometimes, it's not just about whether you have compatible hardware or not. Sometimes, you simply prefer to play a certain title on hardware X rather than on hardware Y, even if the game's not actually released on X.

That was the case for me with Gothic Murder - Unmei wo Kaeru Adventure ("Gothic Murder - A Fate-Changing Adventure"), a game which was originally released in 2019 for iOS and Android. The title caught my attention because it was developed by Orange, a small developer specializing in adventure games and strongly involved with my beloved Tantei Jinguuji Saburou series: Orange had been responsible for the more recent entries like Ghost of the Dusk, Prism of Eyes and New Order: Giwaku no Ace (on a sidenote: Orange's also the developer behind the Detective Conan match 3 game Detective Conan: Banjou no Crosschain). Given that Gothic Murder was an original IP of Orange itself (not the case with the Jinguuji games), I was really interested to see what kind of mystery adventure game it would be, but I am also not a very big fan of playing story-based videogames on my phone, so I had been wavering about whether I should get it or not for some while now. And then last week they announced they'd release the game on Switch in March 2020, and everything was solved for me. I love it when a plan comes together.

Gothic Murder is set in Great Britain in the year of 1920. Elly, who lost her father in the war and soon after her mother too, has been hired as the new maid to serve in Count Lokiford's household. The previous head of the family has recently passed away, and now his son Irwing, the new count, is set to inherit the estate and the family fortune. Oddly enough, Irwing's father didn't leave a will, but had arranged for a spirit medium to come. Other family members and guests have been invited too to the seance, where the spirit medium is to ask the spirit of Irwing's father directly about who will inherit how much. It's a busy first day for Elly, but when Elly first meets her new master, she's shocked to learn that Irwing looks exactly like the dead man she saw in her dreams last night. Elly had similar dreams before her parents died, so now she fears that Irwing is going to die very soon too. And the problem is that Irwing didn't die a natural death in her dreams. Being on her guard, she indeed manages to foil one attempt on her master's life, but the following day she has another dream of Irwing being killed. Who is the lurking murderer who keeps making attempts on Elly's master?

Huh. I'm still not exactly sure how I feel about this game, even as I'm writing this. In a way, it's exactly what I had expected from Orange based on their other games. Gothic Murder is very small in scale, rather easy and practically never truly surprising. Yet, I have to admit I had fun playing the game, even if it was very short. Gameplay-wise, Gothic Murder is hardly epoch-making, being a mix of traditional adventure games (with segments where you solve inventory puzzles and have to confront people with evidence) and novel videogames (with story-changing choices that either proceed the story or lead to a Bad Ending). The whole experience is very streamlined and never difficult, but I did enjoy playing Elly while solving minor puzzles here and unmasking murderers there. But in terms of gameplay, expect a very sober experience with few challenges. By the time you have gathered all the information and evidence needed, you should know exactly what was planned and how to prove it. So challenging, this game is not. I guess this is what would be called a funiki gee (lit: "atmospheric game"), which I described in another videogame review as:

In Japan, the term funiki gee (lit: "atmospheric game") is used to describe games that may not be impressive from a gameplay point of view per se, but which present the player with a unique, enjoyable atmosphere that manages to pull in the player. Usually, it's a mixture of the art, the music and the underlying world that helps create this ambiance, providing a whole package that is at least enjoyable due to how the game feels despite minor or more major flaws regarding how the game actually plays.

 
The game is divided in several chapters, and each chapter starts with Elly dreaming of Irwing's death. From there she starts poking around, gathering evidence and talking with the guests and other servants in the house, until she manages to prevent Irwing's death that day, and then you proceed to the next day. Obviously, the repeated attempts on Irwing's life do raise suspicions even with him and as the story progresses, so you not only 'solve' the daily murder, but also learn more about the background of the Lokiford family as the story progresses, slowly building to the finale. And yes, I think there's a pretty interesting story to be found here with fun characters. I was actually surprised the cast was so large for a game that seemed so limited in scale and with a story revolving around old family secrets, spirit mediums, people plotting to steal the inheritance and more, you know there's potential for a good mystery story. The "daily murder attempts" on Irving are pretty easy to solve, but it's interesting to see how the scenario writer Kaneko Mitsue did manage to write a story that is cleverly set in the specific time period and place, with murder plots that fit in the setting of a British manor in the 1920s. It's not mind-blowing original or anything like that, but all the props she uses for the mystery plots feel completely natural given the setting, using very normal objects and customs to create simple, but convincing murder plots.

I do have to admit the whole experience did feel a bit... shallow? I guess this is because Gothic Murder was developed as a game for smartphones, so scenes and dialogues are kept relatively short. I think it still reads well as it is now, but I do think fleshing out the story and the characters just a little bit more, say with more flavor dialogues and just more set-up for the story and plot developments would've made Gothic Murder even better.

I liked the music by the way, especially the fantastic investigation theme. So I looked the composer up, and I have to admit I was really surprised it was Hamada Seiichi (AKA Haseda "ACE" Daichi), the composer of the Tantei Jinguuji Saburou series. I only knew of him of his brilliant jazz and blues tracks he did for that series, so I was surprised to hear a very different kind of soundtrack for Gothic Murder, but this one has some nice tracks too.

Gothic Murder - Unmei wo Kaeru Adventure is on the whole not a game that is particularly remarkable. It's both short and very simple, but I enjoyed both the story it told, as well as the whole atmosphere of the game. I think the core mystery story is entertaining with even a few surprising twists, even if it could've been fleshed out a bit more. And you know, not everything has to be a epoch-making epic that turns the whole discourse around. Ultimately, I will gladly admit I had fun with Gothic Murder as a short, but entertaining piece of mystery fiction. Another adventure game by Orange will release soon on Switch too, so expect more games here in the near future.

At least, that's assuming Animal Crossing: New Horizons next week won't consume my whole life. Which is also a very likely probability.

Original Japanese title(s):『ゴシックマーダー-運命を変えるアドベンチャー』

The Ringmaster's Secret

「驚異の部屋（ヴァンダー・カンマー）をご案内します」

 『C.M.B. 森羅博物館の事件目録』

"Welcome to the Wunderkammer" 

"C.M.B. The Case Catalog of the Shinra Museum"

With Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou Katou Motohiro created a mystery series that was perhaps never as big a commercial success as Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo or Detective Conan, but it was, and still is, a fairly consistent mystery series that can boast of having a loyal fanbase that has kept the series running for over twenty years now, which is an impressive feat no matter what way you look at it. In 2005, Katou started a spin-off series titled C.M.B. Shinra Hakubutsukan no Jiken Mokuroku ("C.M.B. The Case Catalog of the Shinra Museum"), which is also still a running series. The titular C.M.B. stands for Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, the three Magi who brought gifts to baby Jesus. In the hopes of safeguarding the neverending search for knowledge for all generations, Queen Consort Charlotte in the eighteen century decided to appoint Three Magi through the British Museum, who were given the task of protecting knowledge. Each of these persons were given a ring, with the initial C, M. or B. With these rings, the Three Magi were given extreme authority to conduct research in all and every fields of science and to pursue knowledge, and the wearers of the rings are highly regarded throughout the academic world. The protagonist of this series is Sakaki Shinra, a fourteen year old boy who is the younger cousin of Q.E.D.'s Touma Sou (on Shinra's mother's side). Shinra has inherited all three C M B rings, and has thus become the sole protector of knowledge. Shinra has an own cabinet of curiosities he manages in Tokyo, where he also goes to school, but he also travels across the world to conduct research or to help people out who need his knowledge. Usually accompanying him is his schoolmate Tatsuki, who like Q.E.D.'s Kana is an athletic girl who is a lot better to handle at brawn and action than Shinra.

A few years ago I read the first one or two volumes of the series, but like with my early encounters with Q.E.D. Shoumei Shuuryou, I found the stories not bad, but also not interesting enough to keep on reading. But I've been reading more of Q.E.D. lately by picking out my stories, which works a lot better, and I figured I might as well try that method with C.M.B. too. And right around the time I was considering how to best start with this series, two special anthologies were released. Both volumes were edited by current members of university mystery fiction clubs, and while the one by Tokyo University's New Moon Tea Party (the Mystery Club there) sounded interesting too, I was of course first drawn to C.M.B. Shinra Hakubutsukan no Jiken Mokuroku The Best Kyouto Daigaku Suiri Shousetsu Kenkyuukai Selection ("C.M.B. The Case Catalog of the Shinra Museum The Best - Kyoto University Mystery Club Selection", 2019), as it was edited by the Kyoto University Mystery Club. Given that I was a member too, I figured this was the best place to start. Each of the stories is also accompanied by a short introduction written by different club members in which they explain why they picked that particular story for this anthology.

Lacework was originally collected in volume 24 and starts with a request by Hilda Beauford, together with her younger sister Alba the last in a British family line of nobles. Their father Oswell died one year ago, due to a heart attack while alone at sea near the coast of the Greek island of Santorini. However, before he died, Oswell tried to burn his yacht down, presumably to destroy a piece of antique lacework. Ironically, the lacework survived the fire after it fell in the sea and was retrieved. A drop of blood has stained the lacework: the blood of Oswell's younger Pat, who was killed one night when he had snuck into Oswell's Santorini home and the guard shot him, thinking Pat was a dangerous robber. Hilda however thinks her father had her uncle shot on purpose, knowing very well it was Pat and believes the lacework can prove that. She asks Shinra to investigate the case, as she wants to know the truth before she gets married. Not a story that stands out much, but a fairly focused plot that gives a pretty good twist to the mystery of why the piece of lacework was so important to Oswell. A lot of these C.M.B. stories seem to revolve around the backstory/history of the characters involved in general, I noticed after reading this volume. In this story, I'd say the jump from the clues to the motive is a bit too large to feel natural, but the road from there to the significance of the lacework is done well, and as a standalone, short story, Lacework is a solid entry, even if rather tame.

World's End (volume 14) is two chapters long and starts with the discovery of a photograph of a Colias ponteni, a legendary butterfly species thought not to exists anymore, and of which it is unknown where the butterfly originated from. The only specimens are kept at the British Museum, but after comparing those specimens with the photographs, Shinra is convinced it's the real deal, so he decides to track the original photographer, together with Sho Bentley, chief researcher at the British Museum. They travel to Argentina and visit the woman who put the photograph on the market, who says it was an old photograph made by her husband. He died thirty years ago, but she only knows the photograph was taken "at the World's End." When the group starts poking around asking about the picture and the photographer however, they learn there are people both friendly and not so friendly who watch their movements closely. This story involves larger, real-world history (specifically the period of military dictatorship in Argentina) to sketch a mystery plot that follows a thriller mode mostly (as we see people who help out Shinra being abducted by a mysterious group), but there's a fairly neat whodunnit plot hidden within the excitement: the misdirection aimed at both the reader and the group works pretty well, and blends in well with the historical background of the story.

One Hundred and Thirty Million Victims (volume 8) is a deliciously ironic story that really shouldn't be spoiled. It's very irregular as a mystery story, but heck, the motive for this crime is really original. The story starts with Chief Inspector Kujirazaki being sent a mysterious photograph of flying antlions and a threatening letter that says that on the sixth of November, at 18:00, one hundred and thirty million persons in Japan will fall victim. Soon after, the inspector is visited by Takaaki, who suspects his father might be planning something: his father was accused and sentenced for a robbery in which a baby-cart was kicked over, throwing the baby on the street. Naturally, the media were all over the heinous crime and condemned the man at every opportunity, but five years later, it was discovered that he had in fact been innocent. He wa released from prison, but this time, the media remained silent about the false sentencing and their own role in the public shaming of him. Lately however, Takaaki's father's been behaving strangely, and it seems he was the one who sent that threatening note to the police. The conclusion is something you'd hardly suspect and the kind of story you seldom see in a mystery series, and that alone makes it a memorable read.

The Bag Story (volume 25) is a very strange story to be selected, and that's actually also mentioned in the introduction. It's not really a mystery story anyway. Shinra is in Florence, where he hopes a master craftsman will finally sell him a particular splendidly crafted handbag. The man has been refusing Shinra's offer for a long time now and is still not willing to part with it. A Japanese salesman who's desperate to find the perfect imported goods to sell overhears Shinra crying about the bag, and decides to make an offer to the craftsman too. The craftsman then decides that to pose a little riddle to the two potential buyers, saying he'll give the bag to whoever can answer the question: "What is the Thinker thinking of?" The story is mostly a historical introduction to Rodin and his life in Florence, and challenges the reader to imagine what must've been on Rodin's mind when working on the Thinker, but it's not a truly fair mystery story.

Phra Kurang (volume 29) is a story of the type I like to call 'whatthehell". Whereas whodunnit, whydunnits and howdunnits have clearly defined mysteries, the 'whatthehell' often does not feature an obvious mystery plot, and it's only at the end when things suddenly come together, revealing it had been setting up something all the time. In this story, Shinra is hired by Priscilla, granddaughter of the "Oil King" Cybil Rubin, who recently died. Among his art collection, they found a Buddhist pendant, but it was obviously cheaply made and even misses a part. They hope Shinra can shine more light on the question of what it is and why Cybil would have such a thing in his collection. Shinra recognizes it as an object made in Thailand and travels there and eventually manages to trace it to a little village to a man called Shida, who as a boy was given the broken pendant. Shinra, Priscilla and Tatsuki find Shida's home, but he too has recently died. When the party has learned all they can about Shida, Shinra reveals a shocking truth behind the relation between Shida and Cybil. The set-up could've been more extensive, but man, the truth is really creepy and terrifying, making this one of the better stories in this volume even if you wouldn't recognize it as a mystery plot right away.

Shinra and his classmates are fooling around when they find themselves wandering into a little piece of nature in the city in The Grass in Summer (volume 13). The little piece of vacant land is surrounded by high-rise buildings on all sides, save for a little passage, so it's not visible from the street. They find various flowers blooming here, which is quite surprising. When they visit the place once again, they find a woman crying there. Her father recently died and left her this piece of ground, but she does not understand what this vacant lot is: after her mother died, her father simply disappeared, until she was notified of his death and learned she had inherited this piece of ground. She had hoped to find answers as to why he left all of a sudden, but the shock of learning there was nothing here caused her to cry. Shinra however is able to tell her what her father must've been doing here until his death based on the few clues left on the vacant ground. This is actually one of the more 'conventional' mystery stories in this volume, as it features proper hinting and physical clues, which allow the reader and Shinra to deduce the existence of a certain object. I think it's fairly impossible to deduce the exact reasons for the father to have done that simply based on what we're told in the story, but it works good enough for a human drama based mystery story.

The Natural History of G. Plinius Secundus (volume 17) deals with the Berlin Wall: sometime in the 1980s the Mandel family tried to cross the border to West-Germany, using their anitiquarian copy of The Natural History to pay the smuggler. The two parents hid in a special compartment beneath the truck, while the son pretended to be the little brother of the smuggler Jan Backer, who could cross the border as an engineer. At the border however, things went wrong: just as they thought they were allowed to pass, they were halted again. From inside the compartment, the parents heard how the driver suddenly cried "Everything I told you was a lie!", the boy Erik running away from the truck and a rifle shot. Both parents were knocked out when they hit their heads against the compartment walls as the truck sped off, and when they came too, they found themselves in West Germany, but the driver had disappeared and their son Erik was nowhere to be found. Later, they were sent a newspaper article about the discovery of a boy in the river near the border who had been shot. And now Shinra is presented with the copy of The Natural History and asked to find out what happened that day at the border. The mystery revolves around what the parents heard the driver cry: why had he betrayed Erik by telling the guards he had been lying to them? The solution requires the reader to simply imagine things, as it's not a problem of putting the clues together, but more one of 'how could one also interpret this line' but I do like the true meaning of the line, even if it's a bit hard to imagine that Erik would really have acted like that.

I have read next to nothing of this series, so it's hard to tell to what extent C.M.B. Shinra Hakubutsukan no Jiken Mokuroku The Best Kyouto Daigaku Suiri Shousetsu Kenkyuukai Selection can be considered a representative selection, but I thought on average, I did enjoy this volume better than the single volumes I've read of C.M.B. In form, C.M.B. does resemble Q.E.D., though it has a focus on liberal arts (history, literature, art etc.) rather than the hard sciences of Q.E.D., but I do like Q.E.D.'s better focus on a clearer mystery plot better, I think. I might still pick up the other volume edited by Tokyo University's New Moon Tea Party at some later date.

Original Japanese title(s): 加藤元浩（原）、京都大学推理小説研究会（編）『C.M.B. 森羅博物館の事件目録 The Best 京都大学 Selection』

Portrait in Crime

It's been quite some many years since I wrote a short post on covers of mystery novels I liked. While I seldom let cover art dictate what books I buy, I can sure tell you that I'm definitely more inclined to buy a book (especially physically) if it also has some great art on the cover. Of course, everyone's preferences will differ, but overall, I can say that I'm a sucker for original drawn illustrations, so art that is made especially for that release. I can say that personally, I am not that big a fan of covers with photographs, nor 'generic' art (by which I don't mean the art style, but whether a piece of art can be clearly seen as having been drawn for that specific book). Many publishers and authors in Japan still have their book covers illustrated with specifically ordered art, so I usually still come across some really nice covers that leave an impression. And so, to pick a few covers that have left an impression on me:

Yuureitou ("The Phantom Tower") by Edogawa Rampo.
Art by: Miyazaki Hayao.

This 2015 edition of Rampo's 1937 novel featured gorgeous artwork by Miyazaki Hayao, the legendary Academy Award-winning animator and manga artist of Studio Ghibli fame. Miyazaki himself was a fan of this novel, and he had organized his own exhibition on the book in the Ghibli Museum in 2015, featuring a scale model of the titular tower designed by him, storyboards for if he would ever animate the book and original essay comics. The 2015 edition of the book included this material, and this specially drawn cover in Miyazaki's distinct 'scribbling' style.

Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu ("Alibi Cracking, At Your Service") by Ooyama Seiichirou.
Art by: Yuuko.

Considering this excellent series is about a clockmaker who specializes in cracking perfect alibis, I have to admit the concept behind this cover isn't particularly original, but I do like the warm, almost children's illustration book-esque art style, with the warped clocks and the warm colors. It really fits the atmosphere of the stories, being quite relaxed and laid-back.

Toujou Genya series by Mitsuda Shinzou.
Art by: Murata Osamu.

The Toujou Genya novels are brilliantly complex mystery novels that mix horror, folklore, legend with astonishing tightly-written plots and these covers do a great job at conveying the creepy part of the series. There's something distinctly unsettling about these covers, with these pale women who seem so otherworldly. Are they even alive? Are they ghosts? These covers are not jump scare frightening, but they do manage to feel really unnerving even though the composition is fairly 'normal'. To me, the style has an Edgar Allan Poe-esque touch to it and it really fits the atmosphere of these novels.

Kyoto Nazotoki Shikihou ("The Kyoto Mystery Solving Seasonal Report") series by Van Madoy.
Art by: TOBI

Besides the fact that the art itself is gorgeous here both in style and composition, with warm colors that fit oh-so-well with the bitter-sweet atmosphere of the college romance also depicted in these stories, I also love that you can clearly see that these covers were designed especially for this book, as the artwork incorporates elements from the various short stories in each book. The first volume features the taxi from the first story there for example, while the second one has the titular "Galaxy Railway" in the upper left corner. I love these kind of covers for short story collections, when they draw little elements from each individual story in the cover art (Higashigawa's Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de covers do the same).

Isekai no Meitantei series by Katazato Kamome.
Art by: Munashichi.

Isekai no Meitantei is about a big fan of mystery fiction who is reincarnated into a fantasy world and becomes a detective there, and the art really invokes the fantasy feeling of the series. The Dungeons and Dragons kind of fantasy, with dangerous forests, hidden dungeons and never-ending mazes. It's the type of cover you seldom see with detective novels, which make these books stand out and I think the artwork itself is also quite alluring, invoking that old fantasy vibe.

The Murder of Alice series by Kobayashi Yasumi.
Art by: Youko Tanji.

The Murder of Alice series reimagines famous children's literature featuring girl protagonists as creepy and maddening mystery novels. At the moment, we have Alice in Wonderland, Klara from Heidi and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz (the latter isn't in pocket form yet), but I love the artwork for this series. The subject matter may not be very original (obviously, the covers feature the titular characters), but these covers make these famous characters both recognizable, and yet somewhat disquieting, as if there's something wrong (of course there's something wrong). Like the Toujou Genya covers mentioned above, there's just something unsettling about them, which is strenghened by the fact that they do feature characters you know, only you instinctively know there's something not right about them.

Urazome Tenma series by Aosaki Yuugo.
Art by: Tanaka Hirotaka.

Color! I love the bold colorwork in the covers Tanaka made for the Urazome Tenma series. Obviously, these covers are pretty predictable in terms of subject, as they all feature one of the protagonists in the titular location (gymnasium, aquarium and library), but it's the use of colors which really stands out here. Yellow is a theme obviously, which is really eye-catching, but I love how they books all have a different primary color theme (yellow, blue and red) and how the various parts of the illustration flow into each other (like the gymnasium in the umbrellas).

Anyway, these were just the first covers that came to mind. Any covers that you particularly like that deserve a mention?

The Cat Who Wasn't There

"With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase."

"The Black Cat"

Cats? Or dogs?

Marriage is one of the prime reasons why Japanese women quit their job, and that's also the reason why Kaori is offered her friend's job, as she's leaving as the sole employee of the Tanuma Law Office. Tanuma Seikichi is an elderly veteran lawyer who is more-or-less retired: most of his clients have been referred to other lawyers already, and the remaining few on the list are only the people who have employed his services since his earliest days. Kaori's daily activity at the office therefore has nothing to do with regular office work. The main reason Kaori's employed is to take care of a cat. Hyouta is the cat of Tanuma's wife, who died a few years ago. While Tanuma doesn't want to take care of the cat himself, he does want to keep his wife's cat, so the cat has been living in the office since. Kaori and her predecessor's job is thus to look after the cat at the office, including in the weekends. But when Kaori first met Hyouta, she could feel that Hyouta couldn't be the real name of such a beautiful Scottish Fold. When Kaori inadvertently guessed the name "Scottie" correctly, the cat decided to reveal her secret to Kaori: Scottie can speak! Since then, the two have been best friends, chatting about their common hobby: mystery fiction. Scottie is a great lover of detective fiction, and comes up with ideas like "a locked room by cats, about cats, for cats." When Kaori manages to solve this locked room mystery, Scottie wants to get even with an even more fanciful story: a murder mystery based on the people they know. The story about the horrible of her master Tanuma in the office features Tanuma's colorful clients as the main suspects. But while Kaori and Scottie enjoy this fiction-based-on-fact, a real crime is committed in the Tanuma Law Office in Miki Akiko's Neko ni wa Suiri ga yoku Niau ("Deductions Suit Cats Well", 2016).

What a pleasant surprise! I basically bought this novel on a whim. I was checking the discounted books, when this book caught my attention: the cover was cute, and the description of a talking cat acting as a detective sounded interesting. I hadn't expected that this novel would prove to be quite a tricky mystery novel, one that is definitely more than just a book with a gimmick. The plot device of Scottie is used quite well to create unique plots, and while the whole stoy is set within the confines of the law office, Miki manages to create quite a complex plot with interesting characters and deceivingly deep chains of deductions.

The novel is divided in two distinct halves, and the first half is definitely the most entertaining one. In this part, we follow Scottie and Kaori's funny banter while we are also introduced to the various clients of Tanuma who visit him in his office, who all have their own problems and quirks. A cheating wife who wants to divorce from Tanuma's client, the plotting family of an elderly man who is planning to leave the family fortune not to his next of kin, a family with a bad'un as son: Scottie and Kaori see all kinds of people walk in and out the office. After Kaori manages to solve Scottie's creation "a locked room by cats, about cats, for cats", Scottie decides to think of a new mystery story about the law office. In Scottie's latest creation, Tanuma is killed in the office on Saturday, and the suspects are the suspicious people Kaori and Scottie saw this week at the office: was it the bad'un who snuck into the office to steal something from the office safe and accidently killed Tanuma? Was it the cheating wife who was looking for the evidence of her infidelity? It's quite amazing how deeply plotted this section is. At first, Kaori comes up with pretty simple, but plausible solutions to the Tanuma Murder, but it's at this point Scottie (and author Miki) reveal how much of the fun banter between Scottie and Kaori was actually careful hinting. Minor comments and funny dialogues turn out to be cleverly hidden clues, clues that mercilessly deny all the possibilities Kaori can think off to explain the murder. The plot here reminds of mystery stories with false solutions like The Poisoned Chocolate Case and Kyoumu he no Kumotsu, which is quite good company. Neko ni wa Suiri ga yoku Niau is not a meta-mystery like those novels, but the way the same basic setting gives way too many interpretations is definitely similar.

The second half of the novel brings a totally different game. At the end of Scottie and Kaori's deduction battle, Kaori is attacked in the the office by a real assaillant. While she recovers, Tanuma decides to hire a criminal lawyer who started her career at his office in order to solve the attack on his employee. The tone of the tale changes drastically, as we don't follow Kaori and Scottie anymore (we don't even hear Scottie talk anymore), while we're now investigating a real crime instead of the fictional crimes of Scottie and Kaori's intellectual game. Yet Miki shows off that this is indeed a well-planned novel, and even the deduction battles between Scottie and Kaori turn out to be important clues to solving the real crime. With fantasy and reality crossing each other, Neko ni wa Suiri ga yoku Niau might sound like a tricky novel, but it's really readable and easy to follow, even if as a mystery novel, it's a great example of how even a very simple setting can turn into a great mystery story with good plotting and clewing.

Neko ni wa Suiri ga yoku Niau is a really pleasant novel to read. Don't be deceived by the minor fantasy angle of a talking cat: Scottie's love for mystery fiction is real, and the many, many false solutions, and their refuttals are based on cleverly hidden hints in the funny banter between Scottie and Kaori and will entertain anyone with a love for mystery fiction. Recommendation to the cat lovers among us!

Original Japanese title(s): 深木章子『猫には推理がよく似合う』

The Mystery of the Fire Dragon

Lady Partridge: But the 7:58 stopping train arrived at Swindon at 8:19 owing to annual point maintenance at Wisborough Junction. 

John: So how did you make the connection with the 8:13 which left six minutes earlier? 

Tony: Oh, er, simple! I caught the 7:16 Football Special arriving at Swindon at 8:09. 

Jasmina: But the 7:16 Football Special only stops at Swindon on alternate Saturdays. 

"Railway timetable sketch" (Monty Python)

Never been on a night express!

Disclosure: I translated Shimada's 1985 short story The Running Dead. Different series though!

Shimada Souji's Izumo Densetsu 7/8 no Satsujin ("The Izumo Legend 7/8 Murder", 1984) starts early on the morning of the twentieth of April at Ooshinotsu Station, where the conductor found a lost bag in the local train that had arrived from Yonago. As it appeared some kind of liquid was leaking through the package, the man opened the bag on the spot, only to find something wrapped in several plastic bags. When he finally unpacked the whole thing though, he was in for a surprise: inside he found the cut-off left arm of a woman! In the following hours, similar discoveries were made at local train stations in and around the region that was once the Izumo Province: some of the bags were found and opened inside a train like at Ooshinotsu, some parcels had already been brought to the Lost & Found at the respective stations. In the end, they retrieved seven body parts at seven different stations: two thighs, two legs, two arms and one torso, all seemingly belonging to the same woman. The missing head, and the fact her fingerprints were burned off with acid, make identifying the victim difficult though. Inspector Ishida is busy working the whole kooky things out when he's greeted by his old friend Inspector Yoshiki Takeshi of Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department. Yoshiki had a few days of holiday and had hoped to meet with his old friend, but those plans seem to be ruined due to the horrible murder in this region. As a fellow investigator, Yoshiki too becomes interested in the case and after studying the time table, he realizes that this might be the work of one single person: All the body parts were discovered on local train lines with stations on the route of the night express Izumo,, meaning that someone on the Izumo could've hidden the bags in the other trains as the Izumo stopped at each of those stations, and then the local trains would leave with the body parts. A few days later, the MPD receives an anonymous letter that indicates the victim might be Aoki Kyouko, a History scholar at Tokyo's K University who's been missing these last few days. Nomura Misao, a colleague at the faculty, had ample motive to want to kill Kyouko, as Misao lost battles with her for both academic prestige and romance these last few weeks. Thanks to the tip, it is confirmed that Kyouko was indeed seen riding the Izumo Express on the night of the nineteenth, but there's also a catch: main suspect Misao has an alibi for the night of the murder, as she was riding another night express, which left Tokyo Station fifteen minutes earlier than the Izumo Express the victim took.

Shimada Souji's best known series is about Mitarai Kiyoshi, the brilliant detective who had a weird career going from astrologist to private detective to neuro-scientist or something like that, but Shimada's second best known series is probably about the MPD Homicide detective Yoshiki Takeshi (which finally got a new volume last year I think, after a long hiatus). I myself hadn't read any of the Yoshiki stories before this one (which is the second in the series), but especially the first three novels are supposed to be Shimada's take on the "travel mystery", a subgenre usually associated with writers like Uchida Yasuo. The travel mystery is, obviously, often about travelling, especially by train. The genre has a distinct touristic angle, with the mystery set in popular tourist destinations/regions often outside the capital Tokyo and the stories also often include references to local habits, folklore and legends. The genre is often seen as a rather light subgenre within the broader mystery genre, often associated with two-hour television dramas that focus more on imagery and playing the tourist than providing a really interesting mystery plot, so it was kinda interesting to see what Shimada would do with this.

People familiar with Japanese mythology can probably make the connection themselves, especially considering the title references both Izumo and the number eight, but the legend of Yamata no Orochi plays a role in this story. Izumo has been always been 'the land of legends', with many myths of Japan originating, and taking place in Izumo. One of the most famous myths is about the mythological eight-headed dragon (snake) Yamata no Orochi. The celestial being Susaso'o no Mikoto was banned from heavens to Izumo, where he learned about the horrible monster Orochi, who each year demanded one of the daughters of two earthly deities. Susano'o prepared vats of liqour and had each of Orochi's heads drink until they became intoxicated and fell asleep: Susano'o then cut the dragon up in pieces, and from its eigh-forked tail he also retrieved the sword Kusanagi, which would become one of the regalia of the Japanese Imperial family. The legend of Orochi plays a two-folded role in Izumo Densetsu 7/8 no Satsujin: Misao and Kyouko's academic rivalry revolved around a theory Misao had about the roots and meaning of the Orochi legend, but of course, the fact the victim was cut up in eight pieces (of which the head's missing), and spread across stations in the Izumo region also invokes this myth, almost as if the murderer themselves considered them Susano'o cutting up an eight-headed dragon.

After the introduction and Yoshiki's first inferences on the case, we're pretty much just coping with one central problem for the rest of the novel. Yoshiki's pretty much convinced that Misao's the murderer the moment she appears on his radar (though I have to say, it feels really forced to have Yoshiki so convinced so early on considering she has a good alibi), so the problem is: how could she have killed Kyouko, who was seen on the Izumo Express, even though Misao was riding in a different night express that evening (in the same general direction, to the west, but via a different route) that had left Tokyo Station earlier than the Izumo? Much of the novel is Yoshiki weighing possibilities only to learn they're wrong, and it indeed seems like an impossible task. There is a possible male accomplice in the Izumo, but multiple witnesses state he had no luggage with him, which means he wouldn't have tools with him to cut Kyouko up in a relatively clean manner (without leaving blood in the compartment) and have bags available to put the body parts in. Misao on the other hand was travelling for a few days and had bags with her which might have held the necessary tools, but she was in another train. Even supposing Kyouko did get on Misao's train, how then would Misao get Kyouko's body back to the Izumo to get all the body parts in the local trains connected to the Izumo route?

Like any good alibi deconstruction story, Shimada does a good job at constantly dangling possibilities in front of you of how the impossible alibi could've been achieved, only to disprove them again and making the whole deal seem even more impossible. Each time Yoshiki thinks he's on the right trail, his experiments or some small comment earlier he had forgotten come back to dismiss his theories. I like the trick of how Kyouko's body parts were eventually disposed off, though I do have to say the book is a bit dragged out in the middle part. The novel is mostly focused on Yoshiki and his investigation, and the other characters barely have any screen time. This means you're often confronted with page after page of Yoshiki reading time schedules and train routes, which can be a bit boring as all you see are times and location names. I figured out a small part of the trick behind the body parts disposal, but I quite like the idea: it's daring, but juuuuust within the realms of what is practically possible. The one mistake that allowed Yoshiki to really seal the deal however, that is something I doubt anyone save for a really savvy train anorak would be able to figure out. The story is apparently based on the actual 1984 time schedule of the train by the way, similar to how the infamous "4 minutes" of Matsumoto Seichou's Ten to Sen was also based on the actual time tables.

What is somewhat unsatsifying however is how many lucky breaks Yoshiki got over the course of his investigation. If not for the anonymous letter at the start of the story, the police might not have had any idea about who this victim was, and there were more coincidental incidents in his favor, like random witnesses who happened to pop up. Even the finale where the culprit is found with the decisive piece of evidence is completely dependent on the actions of a third party who took them on their own will, and not based on any actions or inferences by Yoshiki. You'd almost think this story would've been the same if Yoshiki hadn't been present at all.

Izumo Densetsu 7/8 no Satsujin was on the whole a fairly entertaining novel. The problem of how all the body parts found their way to a different local train is interesting and the imagery with the Yamata no Orochi legend is also okay, though it's also clear that Shimada wrote the novel focusing completely on the main trick and Yoshiki's investigation of the murder. In that regards the novel definitely invokes the utter dryness of a Crofts novel, which might deter some readers (and attract others). For one interested in Japanese trains though, this is probably heaven, as it's based on real time schedules and you can really see how the thing was done by following all the routes and trains.

Original Japanese title(s): 島田荘司『出雲伝説7/8の殺人』

Personal Call

Is this a series now? Last year, I wrote an article on the role and usage of clocks and timepieces in mystery fiction, which was basically a sequel to an earlier post on glasses. Mystery fiction is at the core a genre that thrives by reusing a lot of elements. Most of the reviews on this blog usually focus on plot-related tropes, like the types of locked room mysteries and their solutions, or how certain clues are developed to point to the identity of the murderer etc. However, the two posts I mentioned right now were focused on more tangible, concrete elements you often see in mystery fiction: objects and how they are used. To quote myself from the glasses posts:

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. 

Funny thing is that today's post started with me thinking about something in mystery fiction that has no actual physical presence, namely the chat box or instant messenger. While most of us here probably use our smartphones daily not to call anymore, but to communicate through chat apps, it's weird we still don't see them featured in modern mystery fiction as "the normal": if they do appear in mystery fiction (which is already rare), it's often in the form of "the extraordinary" (where the Internet is considered to be something Special with a capital S), rather than an accepted part of our everyday life. Some may be of the opinion that the fast development of consumer technology has made it difficult for mystery writers to come up with a plot, but after giving it some thought, I find it actually surprising how similar "old" telephones and modern smartphones and instant messenger services are, if we look at their function as a trope in mystery fiction.

When you think of the telephone as seen in mystery fiction, you are likely not to first think of it as an actual physical object, even though it'll probably hurt if an old-fashioned dial phone is swung at your head, or you're strangled with the cord. You might think of the trope of the closed circle situation though, where the group is trapped inside a creepy old mansion or an isolated island together with an unknown killer, and when they try to call for help, it turns out the phone line has been cut (or nowadays: the mobile phones have no connection). Here the telephone is mostly a symbol for suspense, but in essence, this specific role is connected to the underlying function of the telephone in mystery fiction. That is, the telephone serves as a communication line to a third party/third location that is often perceived as direct and synchronous. Calling the police is of course the "normal" manner to use a phone: calling for help from a different place, with the communcation occuring directly and at synchronously. This is different from a letter conversation, which is asynchronous as there's a significant time lap between the utterances in the communcation that isn't considered part of the conversation anymore (receive letter -> send letter back). Instant messanger services are an interesting step between, as while the form may resemble a letter more, the messages are usually delivered err, instantly to the receiver. As everyone will know, chats can be more-or-less as quick as oral communication, so in that way, they're really not that different from telephones in terms of function (of course, one can also choose to let time lapse between messages on purpose). But obviously, the phone is often used in mystery fiction to, well, phone somebody and obtain information for example. Oh, and I'm suddenly reminded of the manga Remote by Amagi Seimaru: the detective in that series couldn't leave his home, and therefore had the young policewoman Ayaki assigned to him as his assistant-in-the-field/woman-of-action, and they mostly communicated with their cell phones, so a phone-fed armchair detective.

Communcation with a phone may be perceived as direct, but it isn't of course: you aren't physically in the same space as the receiver, and more importantly, you don't even observe the conversation partner(s) in full. For example, you don't actually see each other and even the one element that connects you (voices) are actually transported over a phone line (so through a medium), and this all leads to one of the most classic uses of the telephone in mystery fiction: the caller disguising themselves. Sometimes, the culprit phones someone masking their voice so they are simply not recognized (does the handkerchief over the mouthpiece thing really work?), sometimes the culprit pretends to be someone else over the phone. The latter trick can be a bit tricky to pull off convincingly, but the "I have a cold" excuse or the fake static trick is apparently sometimes enough to convince the person on the other side that the culprit is actually a different person. In a way, a phone is a tool that really reduces a person's identity to almost nothing, and the people on the phone often just have to believe the person on the other side of the line is actually the person they claim to be.

This is also related to the other major use of the phone in mystery fiction, namely as an object to establish character alibis. Because communication over the phone is considered to be instant, a phone call is often used to establish that a certain character was at a certain time at a certain place (the other side of the line). This was of course easier in the past, when there were fewer phones in general and you could only call and receive calls from specific places or phone booths, which usually would establish someone's alibi (unless some ingenious trick was used). When people started getting phones for their own homes, things became a bit more complicated and nowadays, everyone has their own smartphones and they can call from practically any place, but generally, it's still often used to find out where characters are and when. If Professor Plum was calling to his secretary from his own home, he couldn't have murdered Mrs. Peacock in the other side of town at the same time. Familiar tricks of course include the "providing the real culprit an alibi by pretending you're on the phone with them while they're actually off committing the murder," the "pre-recorded call that simulates a real-time conversation," the "the culprit uses a trick to make a phone call secretly to the place they're at, making others believe there believe the culprit is elsewhere" and the very, very basic "Say you're in New York when you're actually in Tokyo and oh, look, I'm right in front of the Empire State Building". With no visual contact and the phone effectively acting as an identity mask as mentioned above (as you can claim and pretend to be anyone, theoretically), alibis established by phones can be very tricky. Of course, even in modern times smartphones can still be used to establish alibis, even better so at times. Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo R's final story The Kindaichi Fumi Kidnapping Murder Case had the police check out the GPS logs of the suspects to see whether they really moved around Tokyo as they claimed they had. This resulted in an interesting alibi story, while in other stories, alibis are established (or cracked) precisely because they are mobile: with the caller being spotted as they were calling and walking outside, or catching the type of background noises you wouldn't if it were just a house phone. The first story in the Gyakuten Saiban manga by the Kuroda/Maekawa duo for example was a good example of this.

But to get back to what got me started: chat boxes and instant messenger services. In essence, these "modern" (they're getting on in age actually...) technologies function exactly the same as the phone in mystery fiction. I doubt I have to explain the "mask" aspect of chat boxes and instant messenger services: pretending to be someone else has seldom been easier than just changing a display name. When you have a mystery story about a chat box, you can be sure you'll need to be very suspicious if everyone is who they claim they are behind their display name. Familiar tricks are people using other people's display names to assume their identity, or using multiple display names to pretend to be multiple people (faking conversations). This is the same with instant messenger services, where anyone can choose their own display name and claim to be someone. One of the more interesting Detective Conan stories of the last few years was The Kisaki Eri Kidnapping Case, where Ran's mother is kidnapped. She manages to escape from her kidnappers, though she's still stuck inside the building. She tries to ask to help via a chat app through a smartphone she stole from her kidnappers, but her kidnappers catch on, and use Eri's own phone to feed fake chat messages in the same chat room, making it difficult for Conan, Ran and Kogorou to figure out which messages are by the real Eri, and which aren't. The premise of this story is thus that you already know there's a fake using Eri's name in the chat room, while most of the older stories involving chat rooms try to use that as a surprise (or if they're written now, probably just very uninspired).

In its function as a tool to establish alibis, a chat box or instant messenger service too isn't too different from a phone call. In fact, the time stamps most instant messenger chat rooms have provide a more detailed and accessible form of Ye Olde Phone Record Received From the Phone Company only the police could get. Time stamps attached to every single utterance do change up the game, making it harder to fake than a fake phone conversation with an imaginary conversation partner. One of the more interesting short stories I read last year was therefore Yukashina Miho's Nimannin no Mokugekisha ("Twenty Thousand Witnesses", 2019), where a Youtuber had a perfect alibi not only because of his live videostream at the time of the murder, but also because he interacted with his followers in the chat box accompanying the livestream. Utano Shougo's Locked Room Murder Game series must be mentioned too: while the premise is slightly different because we're talking about video conference chatting here, the use here of the chat room is a great example of the familiar phone tropes. In this series, the masked members of an underground video chat room of locked room murder fanatics commit actual murders and challenge the other members to solve their crimes. Everyone is using fake names and uses actual masks to hide their identity in the chat room, but one of the more interesting moments in the second volume is when the member Mad Header reveals they have a perfect alibi for their murder a few days back, because they were video chatting with the other members in the chat room at the time of the murder (i.e. they were chatting in a previous story, which turns out to be their alibi in the next story). To go off an tangent, Twitter isn't a chat messenger service of course, but I loved how a Twitter timeline was used for a brilliant piece of misdirection in Hayasaka Yabusaka's Mailer Daemon no Senritsu ("The Terror of the Mailer Daemon", 2018) and in principle, the trick can also work in a normal chat room too.

Anyway, this post has gone on for far too long, and I don't even really have a point to make. I guess that I wanted to point out that "modern" technology is often really not that different from "old" technology when it comes to their uses in mystery fiction. Sure, they may make some older tricks harder to pull off, but they also provide a lot of possibilities for new ideas and tricks. If you look at phones in the past and now, they couldn't be any more different, but their core use in the genre is still very similar, so I always think it's a shame authors don't utilize modern consumer technology more, especially as the genre has always thrived by taking the familiar and transforming it slightly. A phone is a phone is a phone, even if it's smart now.