The Picture-Perfect Mystery

Natura Artis Magistra

Nature is the teacher of the arts

I think it was around this period last year I went to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, to visit the All The Rembrandts exhibition. It was certainly something that played in my mind when I picked today's book.

Takano Fumio's Yokuryuukan no Housekishounin (2018), which also carries the English title of The Jewelry Dealer of the Winged Lizard House, takes us to the summer of 1662 when a spooky rumor spread across the international metropolis Amsterdam. Many believed that the ghost of the one-eyed Claudius Civilis roamed the City Hall (currently the Royal Palace of Amsterdam) and all were convinced the ghost had stepped out of the Dutch master Rembrandt's painting The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis hanging in City Hall. These rumors about Rembrandt's work were especially a source of worry for Titus van Rijn, owner of an art shop and son of Rembrandt. One evening, Rembrandt is summoned to the house of the famous jewelry dealer Nicolaes Hoogeveen, who lives in the Winged Lizard House, named after the gables which were designed after a legendary winged lizard (dragon) protecting diamonds in the Far East. Titus has no intention of sending his father there, so he decides to visit Hoogeveen himself. The man seems to be in a highly neurotic and paranoid state, as he has sent almost all of his servants out of the house for the night. Titus' meeting with the man doesn't last long however, and he too is sent away, but on his way out, Titus meets and greets Dr. Calkoen and another doctor as they enter the home. The following day, new rumors reach Titus: in the earliest hours of the day, someone who died of the plague was apparently buried outside the city walls, and to his great surprise, word is that it was Hoogeveen who died. Apparently, Dr. Calkoen's companion had been a plague doctor, who was was not able to save Hoogeveen. Puzzled by last night's events, but also worried about whether he himself isn't infected, Titus decides to pay the widow of Hoogeveen a visit, with the help of a new friend Fernando Russo, a sailor who has lost his memory. During his visit to the Winged Lizard House Titus hears something strange coming from the safe room of the deceased jeweler. As the only key to the safe was buried together with Hoogeveen, it takes quite some time to break the secured room open, but no amount of time could've prepared them for what they found inside: a weakly Hoogeveen lying unconscious in the room. Besides Hoogeveen lies a painting, seemingly a Rembrandt, but while people remember it was supposed to be a portrait, no human is present on the painting now. Has Hoogeveen too come back alive through one of Rembrandt's painting like Claudius Civilis?

Sometimes the premise of a novel can sound both incredibly alluring, and puzzling. Mysteries about art are not particularly rare, especially if you approach it from a historical angle, and focus often on questions on how a piece of art was made, the meaning (folkloristic purpose) of a piece of art or the topic of a painting. The idea of a mystery novel that wasn't about the works of Rembrandt, but one that featured himself and Titus as characters in a seventeenth century Amsterdam, therefore sounded quite interesting. The idea of people coming back to life through the paintings of Rembrandt, that was a pretty unexpected angle (I don't believe it's a 'real' anecdote from Rembrandt's life), so that did raise some questions with me as these kind of novels usually focus on a more fact-based history of the person, but I was willing to roll with it. The decision to make Titus the protagonist of the story worked out pretty well, focusing on the famous topic of many of Rembrandt's sketches. The young boy is a somewhat nervous, but dedicated lover of art and it's interesting to see Rembrandt the father, Rembrandt the artist and Rembrandt the employee all through Titus' eyes.

As a mystery about Rembrandt, The Jewelry Dealer of the Winged Lizard House does a captivating job intertwining Rembrandt's personal and professional life with the narrative. Some characters are taken from Rembrandt's work, though usually, with quite a lot of imagination added. The Doctor Calkoen in this story is for example supposed to the Dr. Calkoen seen in The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Deijman, but also not really him as character-wise, it's obvious the author Takano went completely her own way with portraying this man. The novel features lots of references to Rembrandt's works, as well as to seventeenth century Amsterdam, which is pretty unique for a mystery novel.

And indeed, the core mystery plot is one that builds on the fact that this is in fact a historical mystery. The mystery of Hoogeveen's apparent resurrection is portrayed in a fairly chaotic way, mostly because of Titus' personality. His investigation is somewhat unfocused, and the reader is presented information in what is occasionally a pretty tiring manner, but at the core, the mystery is actually fairly simple. Most of Titus and Nando's investigation revolve around the question whether the person who died of the plague was Hoogeveen or not, and if not, whose corpse it was then (and how was it introduced into the house in the first place). Solving this mystery isn't that difficult, though the motive for the deed is fairly well-done: both the motive and the 'props' used to accomplish the mystery of the resurrection of Hoogeveen make perfect sense in the specific time period of this novel and make good use of the 'common sense' back then. None of the trickery would ever work in this time and age, but seventeenth century Amsterdam? Sure, I'll believe it and yep, I also thinks it works well, even if isn't epoch-making.

There is a secondary plotline about Nando trying to learn his past, and to be honest, I didn't like it that much. It does connect back to the main mystery of Hoogeveen's return to the living through the painting, but it's far, far too convenient for the plot. The Jewelry Dealer of the Winged Lizard House also has a minor, supernatural touch revealed at the end of the tale, which I am somewhat torn about. I think it does fit the mood of Rembrandt's work, but in this particular novel, allowing for that specific instance of the supernatural, does undermine the core mystery plot. If say, it had been a completely different type of the supernatural which does not infringe upon the integrity of the core mystery plot, I'd have been more open to its introduction.

Yokuryuukan no Housekishounin is perhaps no mystery masterpiece which will be remembered for centuries, but it is definitely an interesting story for those who have an interest in the famous Dutch painter. It tells a captivating tale set in a --for mystery novels-- highly original setting and the way the book plays with the 'real' life of Rembrandt to bring the mystery of the resurrected plague patient is also entertaining. If you like Rembrandt's paintings, this is a fun one to try out.

Original Japanese title(s): 高野史緒『翼竜館の宝石商人』

Blueprint for Murder

Like many of us now, I'm having a blast with the new Animal Crossing. While the game has always been about simulating life in a way, and given you a lot of furniture, clothes and other customization options to build whatever you want, it wasn't until Happy Home Designer (3DS), with its more robust interior options and the fact you could use whatever furniture you want, that I really got into recreating scenes in the game. With the new options to terraform in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, I've got loads of plans to turn my island into a wonderful place, but I also still like to recreate well-known small locations or scenes within the game, like from the original film adaptation of Yokomizo Seishi's Inugamike no Ichizoku (The Inugami Clan).

Recreating these settings from well-known mystery stories do force you to really think about the layout of a certain location. With mystery stories in visual media, like films or comics, this is of course not really a problem, but unless your novel has some nifty diagrams or floorplans, you probably will have to read the descriptions in the text very carefully to get a good idea of the place, and even then you have to hope that the descriptions are detailed enough. Two years ago, I wrote a short article on some of the diagrams/floorplans in mystery novels I like, but stories featuring such diagrams are definitely the exception. There's a limit to how much a text can really convey the vision an author has of the setting, and sometimes the description only touches upon the minimum needed for the story. And sometimes, it can simply by a bit confusing. To stick with Yokomizo: Honjin Satsujin Jiken was recently released in English as The Honjin Murders. The story goes that  it was only when the first visual adaptations appeared, like the 1975 film adaption, that people truly understood how the locked room murder there had been done, because it's pretty complex, and it was only in the film people got a real sense of space, and where everything and everyone was located. It's a reason why Arisugawa Alice's An Illustrated Guide to the Locked Room 1891-1998 was so cool: it featured beautifully drawn diagrams for all the locked room mysteries discussed in this guide, even those originally don't have any floorplans/diagrams. It really helped convey how these rooms and other locations must look like, showing the relative locations of every significant object/person.

But going back to videogames, recreating that scene from Inugamike no Ichizoku made me think of two things. One: wouldn't it be great to have some sort of videogame where you could walk around yourself in recreations of locked room murder crime scenes and other iconic locations from famous mystery stories in a videogame? Like being to roam around on the island of the Decagon House? Or get lost in the corridors of the Labyrinth House? Witness the awe-inspiring Werewolf Castle yourself? See how the hotel in Shijinsou no Satsujin changes by the hour as they come closer and closer? Or just imagine being able to move the camera into that object in the Crooked Mansion and see the house from a completely different point of view! I had actually expected more reaction to my review of Yuureitachi no Fuzai Shoumei ("The Alibis of the Ghosts") earlier this week, but wouldn't it be fun to go through that haunted classroom yourself? Of course, there are games like Minecraft where you can could do that yourself, and even in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, I think something like The Honjin Murders should be doable, but it would be great to have an official game built around this, for example with an overarching plot of new murders being committed there or something like that. By the way, yes, I know there's a RPG based on Ayatsuji's House series. Has some fancy music too.

The other realization was that I had never really considered how mystery videogames have been so great at presenting floorplans and diagrams, and convey a sense of how every location relates to each other. Of course, this isn't some universal truth for all mystery videogames out there, but when it's utilized well, videogames can definitely go a bit further than novels in terms of making use of space in their mystery plots. In many games, you control the character directly yourself, or you at least choose the locations to go to via a map, which automatically means the developers have to think of how each room, or each location is connected to each other and this really gives the player a great awareness of space. A map is often used to navigate between the locations, so a player usually remembers the exact floorplan of a location much better than in a novel, which can just jump between scenes instantly, whereas in the game, you are usually doing some specific action to move between locations. And with that, you often get a better understanding of how each room in a mansion is connected for example, or how it lies in relation to another room on another floor. Or for example height differences! One of the fan-favorite cutscenes in Gyakuten Saiban 5 (Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies) is sometimes discussed because of its comedic value, but what it really did was convey exactly where one location was relative to another location, including angle and height.

Of course, novels can also utilize ingenious murder tricks that use a three-dimensional space, but they are seldom as clear as in videogames. Mystery videogames can convey such spaces much more directly, and clearer to the player and by extension, also present more complex variants that make use of a three-dimensional space in a more natural manner. The Danganronpa videogames for example have several episodes that feature interesting murders that utilize space and location three-dimensionally, and these concepts work better because the player has been controlling the protagonist character themselves, walking between the various locations and learning how everything is connected. I won't spoil the exact episodes, but one episode in Super Danganronpa 2 for example does something fantastic with the player's sense of three-dimensional space, while New Danganronpa V3 has several episodes with murder plots that are good at showing how various locations are interlinked, and another episode that makes use of two-dimensional space in a way no novel can do. The recently reviewed PlayStation 2 game of Tantei Gakuen Q ("Detective Academy Q") too features one chapter that makes more sense if you can visualize everything three-dimensionally. Videogames can convey space in a perfectly natural manner to a player, so it's really satisfying when a plot makes use of that.

Anyway, that was enough rambling from me for today. Any mystery novels you know where you think a three-dimensional presentation of the crime scene/location would've done wonders? Stories that made an impresssion because of they utilized space? Or is there one particular location you'd love to explore yourself in a videogame?

Stop the Clock

"Do you believe in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP , clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis?"

"Ghostbusters"

One recurring motif I mostly know from anime and manga is the school festival. If I am to believe all the fiction I read, many high schools and universities have an annual festival where classes and clubs organize all kind of activities for both fellow students, and visitors from outside. Popular activities are running food stalls and cafeterias in classrooms, while clubs often organize events to show off their own activities, like music clubs performing on stage. I myself have only been to university festivals both as visitor and participant, but my experiences there were similar to how high school festivals are often depicted in fiction. I participated with Kyoto University's November Festival as a member of the Kyoto University Mystery Club for example, so we all worked on the annual booklet that is sold at the festival, and had to man a booth for several shifts etc., but you also have time to wander around yourself to see what the other clubs have done.

As a recurring event in everyone's school life, the school festival is also often featured in Japanese mystery fiction. For example, Detective Conan (volume 72: The Operation Room of Screams for example) and Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo (several short stories like about a stolen Holmes collection and another one about a murdered cross-dressing maid) have all featured stories that were set during a school or campus festival. I think I remember the Q.E.D. live action drama also featured an episode about a school festival mystery (presumably based on the original manga). Meanwhile, the school festival is also seen in prose stories: the first three novels of the Classic Literature Club actually feature a whole story arc where the adventures all revolve around preparing for the school festival, while the second volume of Houkago wa Mystery to Tomo ni also features a story arc with several of the short stories included revolving around Ryou encountering mysteries as the school prepares for their festival. Heck, even Jinguuji Saburou has been called to solve a crime at a school festival in a bonus episode of the 3DS game Tantei Jinguuji Saburou: Ghost of the Dusk.

Obviously, you can guess by now that today's book is also about a school festival, the one of Youmou High School to be exact. This school, which for some reason has significantly more female than male students, always schedules its festival in a weekend in late September and this year, the students of Class 2-2 decided to turn their classroom in a haunted house. Inside the pitch-dark classroom, a zig-zagging pathway is created through the use of black curtains, which leads from the back entrance of the classroom to the front entrance. The children have of course prepared all kinds of scares for the visitors along the way, like a decapitated head, disappearing ghosts, zombies who suddenly close in on you and a dead body hanging from the ceiling which suddenly attacks any passerby. The attraction is a great succes and people, both students from the school as well as people from outside the school, are still lining up by the dozens on the Sunday (the last day of the festival) to get a good scare. The success also means everyone in Class 2-2 has to do their part: most of the students have to help out both with their class activity as well as their club activity, and obviously you want some time for yourself too, so the cast of ghouls work in shifts of about two hours. It's near the end of the day, when one of the "zombies" notices that the last few visitors have not reacted to one of the greatest scares in the haunted house: the dead girl hanging from the ceiling who attacks the visitors. He decides to take a quick look between visitors to see what's wrong with Ashitaba, the girl playing the body. To his surprise, he discovers that Ashitaba has been turned into a real corpse, as the poor girl's been strangled.

Narrator Kantera Nao, and Koumori Riruko, the gloomy, negatively-thinking girl of the class, decide to work together to solve this case: Nao because he was in love with Ashitaba, while Riruko hopes she'll finally attract praise and attention from her fellow students if she solves this case. But that's easier said than done, because in a way, this murder was impossible! For how could anyone strangle Ashitaba while she was an active part of the attraction? There was a constant stream of visitors inside the haunted house, her fellow cast members were also inside the room (though all holding their own spots along the route) and nobody could've just simply gotten inside the classroom without either the people outside the classroom, or those inside, noticing. In order to solve this mystery, it will become necessary to examine not only whodunit, but more importantly, whendunit in Tomonaga Rito's Yuureitachi no Fuzai Shoumei ("The Alibis of the Ghosts", 2020).

Yuureitachi no Fuzai Shoumei is the winner of the Excellence Award of the 18th Kono Mystery ga Sugoi! Award (2019) and was published in March 2020, marking the official debut of Tomonaga Rito, who has been very close to winning one of the annual mystery fiction awards in Japan for some time now. He made it to the last stage of the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award in both 2016 and 2017 for example (with other novels). Those awards were ultimately won by respectively Ichikawa Yuuto's The Jellyfish Doesn't Freeze (reviewed last week) and Imamura Masahiro's Shijinsou no Satsujin, which are prime examples of the genre, so it's no shame to lose against them. Yet, Tomonaga perservered, and now he's finally here too. His debut novel may not be perfect, but it's one I really like nonetheless.

Readers will have to be patient with this novel though, as it's really slow at the start. After a prologue where the discovery of the body is described, we jump back a few hours in time as we follow Nao in the last few minutes of his shift at the frontside of the haunted house, and are gradually introduced to all the characters as we see everyone slip in and out of the classroom to take over for the final shift. You go through a lot of descriptive passages (with repeated writing!), including a lengthy one where Nao and his energetic classmate Zakuroko go through the haunted house themselves. Obviously, the inside layout of the haunted house and how all of the scares inside work will become important later on, but be prepared for a lot of exposition. That also includes exposition about Nao's classmates, who are mostly girls (and for some reason, the few boys that do appear in the novel are basically thrown onto one heap and treated as one homogeneous entity). Like with Arisugawa Alice's debut novel Gekkou Game though, you're confronted with just too many schoolgirls who are, well, they are differentiated through their various backgrounds (different clubs etc.), but there are simply too many to remember. Some of them barely say something over the course of the story and each time you come across a name, you wonder whether it's someone you had already encountered before or not. What doesn't help at all is that Tomonaga came up with all kinds of odd names for the characters (these are not normal Japanese names). If only one of them had a special name, they'd be easy to remember, but everyone has a weird name and after a while it just becomes one big mess in your head.

Things go a lot faster after the murder though, and I have to repeat that I do like this book despite the mentioned points. The idea of the murder inside a very small, home-made haunted house is really neat, as obviously, a normal classroom is in reality a 'cozy' place, but it still has enough dead angles to make it seem plausible. It works really well with the semi-impossible angle of the tale, as it seems really difficult to figure out who could've committed this murder. Ultimately, the book revolves around one simple question: when was this murder committed? By focusing on this question, Riruko manages to identify the one person who could've killed Ashitaba. It's a fairly unique approach to the mystery story, as it's not a whodunnit, howdunnit or anything like that, but the whendunnit is done fairly well here. We start off with a very wide-ranging period in which the murder could've been committed (based on the medical examination), but Riruko then slowly shortens that period little by little by logically combining both known and newly deduced facts. The type of reasoning here belongs the logic school like featured in Queen, Arisugawa and Imamura's work and with each step, the reader is brought closer to the exact time in which the murder was committed. The final chapter in which Riruko explains all is really lengthy, like ninety pages long (a fifth of the whole), which shows how meticulous the reasoning is in this novel. Some may not like this, but I love this kind of mystery stories, where each logical step is explained and strung together to a long journey of reasoning. Granted, some parts of the mystery are fairly obvious to the reader: the many important clues and hints within the events that Nao experiences before and after the murder are barely hidden and the attentive reader will certainly be able to guess parts of the truth. Especially at the start of Riruko's trip of logic, you'll probably think "Oh, I know where this is going, that thing meant that in reality, X was actually this or that..." Yet, I doubt anyone will be able to combine all the facts together. It's only by getting a clear view of the whole picture that you'll be able to solve the mystery. And even then it'll be hard for the reader to repeat Riruko's greatest feat in this story: while we start with a possible period of death spanning several hours, she manages to pinpoint the exact time of the murder down to the very minute simply by following the trail of logical bread crumbs. The exact minute. It's a feat I've never seen in a mystery story before, and I absolutely love this idea.

Of course, I have read many mystery novels about perfect alibis or things like that do focus on time schedules a lot, and often a few minutes here or there do make a difference there. My to-go titles when mentioning very precise time schedules would be Ayukawa Tetsuya's Kuroi Trunk, Aosaki Yuugo's Suizokukan no Satsujin and C. Daly King's Obelists Fly High, which are all mystery novels where the fixation on the exact time any action is made can be a bit overbearing even if the novels are fun, but I felt it was less... tiring? in Yuureitachi no Fuzai Shoumei. Though I would've appreciated it if the book would've featured a time schedule for the characters going in and out the classroom (there are no time schedules whatsoever in this book, so if you want one you have to make one yourself). With all the confusing characters and all, something like that would've been very helpful, without given the game away, as you need a lot more to work out the trick of when it was done (and by extension, who).

The motive for the murder is very much 'afterthought' material though and it's a bit of a shame, as it does tie in with one important factor of how the murder was committed, so that's again probably that will turn off some readers. Ultimately though, I think that Tomonaga's book works despite these obvious flaws.

As I am writing this, I have a feeling that at the end of the year, I will remember Yuureitachi no Fuzai Shoumei as one of my best reads of this year. And that's despite some obvious flaws which some will even find fatal. Yep, I can easily imagine that contrary to myself, some readers will dislike this book because of those flaws. But if you ask me yes or no about this book, it's a very definite yes. The logical reasoning shown in the conclusion (and the Challenge to the Reader!), the setting of the haunted house inside a classroom, the chatter between the students: this is the kind of mystery fiction I love to read and Yuureitachi no Fuzai Shoumei works for me. I hope more adventures of Riruko will follow!

Original Japanese title(s): 朝永理人『幽霊たちの不在証明』

Remote

"It is what it is."

"Sherlock"

The start of the academic year in Japan is in April, which is also when new students are likely to be ambushed here and there on campus by... all kinds of clubs and circles hoping to entice you into becoming their newest member. I still remember that first Friday afternoon in Kyoto University: I had just arrived as an international student in Kyoto and had already made up my mind of joining the Kyoto University Mystery Club as their activities pertained to my academic studies too. As the all-preparing student I was, I had already checked their website of course, and learned they'd have introduction meetings for people considering to become a member, where they'd explain the club activities and give a glimpse of what they do. So that first Friday, I went back to my room after finishing my business at campus in the morning and returned in the afternoon for the Mystery Club's introduction meeting. I hadn't expected that the campus would be crawling with countless of clubs trying to lure you to them. The moment people sensed you were new on campus, they'd try handing you their flyers and invite you to come along to the numerous introduction parties (where the existing members pay for your food and drinks!) scheduled for held that night. The next few weekends were the same, with all clubs hoping to get a new dose of fresh blood at the academic year to make sure the club would live on.

One of the main activities of the Mystery Club is writing short whodunnit stories for other members to read during meetings. These stories consist of a "Problem" and "Answer" part, and people usually get about thirty minutes to read the story and figure out who the murderer is. If you think you got it, you can go check with the writer by telling who the murderer is and more importantly, what the clues are, or if you don't get it, the answer is handed it at the end of the session, and then the members discuss what was good or not about the tale. In the introduction meetings at the start of the academic year, prospective members are usually handed gems from the previous years. I myself vividly remember the one I got back then, and it was really good, exactly the type of mystery story I like in terms of how the clewing worked. These stories are part of the DNA of the club, and have helped shaped writers like Ayatsuji Yukito, Abiko Takemaru, Norizuki Rintarou, Maya Yutaka, Van Madoy and more during their time at the club. I think there have been around 500 whodunnit sessions since the club started, and each of them (title/writer) have been written on the wall of the club room. I'm actually somewhere on that wall too...

With the current health situation around the world however, it's obviously not advised to find new members by surrounding them in a crowd and taking them to restaurants etc. But still, as a club you still want to make sure you have enough new members this year to at least offset the number of graduating students. So this year, the Kyoto University Mystery Club tried something new: they have published a whodunnit story temporarily online for everyone to read, to give you an idea of the activities of the club. It's been years since I last read one of these stories, so I jumped on the occassion to get back to good old puzzle solving. For those interested, you can find the links via the Twitter account of the Kyoto University Mystery Club, and the story'll be available until the first week of May 2020.

Ansatsu Genei Nanaban Shoubu ("The Seven-Game Match of the "Mirage" Assassins") was written by Kamiya Takayuki (I'm not at all sure about the reading of that name by the way) and originally unveiled at the May 17th 2019 meeting of the Mystery Club. We are introduced to Shino, a young woman travelling with the young man Yuunosuke. It turns out that Shino is in fact an assassin who once belonged to the Mirage Assassins, an organization consisting of... assassins. We learn that the Mirage Assassins are now after the traitor "Phantom", but with a twist: if Phantom is able to defeat all seven assassins this time, the Mirage Assassins will give up. Crimson, Enforcer, Fear, Inferno, Depths, Darkest and Silence all have different specialities, which make them very difficult enemies to handle. Shino and Yuunosuke find themselves ambushed, and after getting seperated, Shino ends up chased into an abandoned lab facing a cliff together with Hitomi, a lost ruins explorer caught up in the battle. The building is one giant trap, with the assassins waiting for Shino, but after Shino manages to either shake off or defeat a number of them, Shino, Hitomi and a Fear who has given up on the mission come across the dead body of Darkest in one of the hallways of the building. But with the lab facing a cliff and all the other the Mirage Assassins stuck on the other side of the cliff or gone, who could've killed Darkest?

Interesting and original story setting, an assassin being killed during a confrontation between all kinds of assassins! I have to admit I had no idea how to tackle this story, and most of it flew over my head. Usually, you have some idea about what is probably a clue and what isn't, and what segments probably warrant a second reading, but I had nothing but very vague suspicions. I thought the diagram of the lab was a bit confusing though and the circumstances of the room of the crime scene a bit unclear: usually you can go and ask the writer themselves questions about parts you think are written unclearly, though this time not, obviously. But ultimately, it's just part of the mystery of course. Like always, these stories revolve around the process of identifying the murderer, which you usually do by crossing off suspects. Character A was here when the murder was committed, so that's one of the list, etc. The process as seen in this story is pretty good, forcing you to first figure out when Darkest was killed and then trying to find out which of the names on the list have an alibi/was physically possible to murder Darkest in that room. The biggest leap expected from the reader was fun: the kind of writing you expect from people in this particular Mystery Club (I'm not talking about quality, but the type of idea often seen in the stories written in this club). Perhaps the culprit could've been obscured a bit more (I think a lot of people may guess who it is, even without the proper reasoning), but it's definitely a story that makes good use of its premise. Anyway, it would've been interesting to have done this story real-time and hear everyone's reactions to it.

Oh, and in case you're wondering about the names: I don't know the author personally, but it's obvious they got their inspiration from Detective Conan. The Phantom of Baker Street, The Crimson Love Letter,  Zero the Enforcer, Full Score of Fear, Sunflowers of Inferno, Strategy Above the Depths, The Darkest Nightmare and Quarter of Silence. Requiem would've been an awesome assassin name too by the way, Lost Ship not so.

Anyway, if you're in Kyoto (you don't need to be enrolled in Kyoto University) and thinking about joining, or if you're simply interested to see for yourself what kind of stories are written in the Kyoto University Mystery Club, be sure to check the Twitter account of the Kyoto University Mystery Club for the links to this story. Usually, these stories are meant only for members of the club, but there have been five "Whodunit Best" anthologies published by the Mystery Club for sale at the university festival, with a selection of the best stories written by the members (I discussed Houjou Kie's story included in Whodunit Best Vol. 5 earlier this year).

Original Japanese title(s): 神谷貴至『暗殺幻影七番勝負』

Into Thin Air

波の上漂う海月を見るのが好きで

「君という光」（Garnet Crow）

I love looking at the jellyfish floating on the waves

"The Light That Is You" (Garnet Crow)

Jellyfish as a dish (Asian cuisine) is actually quite nice!

The publication of Professor Philip Phifer's thesis on the "vacuum airsac" in 1973 changed the history of airships. The invention of Professor Phifer and his team led to their creation of the Jellyfish, a zeppelin-like airship that was not only much smaller and lighter than previous airships due to the vacuum airsac that provided for the machine's buoyancy, it was also much more silent and safer than for example zeppelins, helicopters or planes. The airship derived its name from its appearance, resembling a jellyfish floating in the sky and in the ten years since, (former) Professor Phifer and his students set-up a venture and were bought by UFA, the leading aircraft manufacturer in the country of U (totally not the United States). Early February 1983, Phifer and his five team members set out on the final test flight on their experimental version of a new and improved Jellyfish, a small vehicle with three bedrooms, a kitchen and bathroom. They were to fly for several days through several states and return to UFA, but something goes horribly wrong during the test flight. First Phifer dies in his room due to what appears to be poison in his drink, immediately followed by a renegade automatic pilot program which for cedthe team and their Jellyfish to land and strand on an enclosed part on a snowy mountain. Surrounding by steep rock walls and no mountain climbing equipment packed, it'd be suicidal to even attempt escape on their own, but as time passes by, it appears one of them might have killed Phifer and lured them to this isolated place on purpose. Some days later, the Jellyfish and the six passengers are found by the police, but it's too late: everyone is dead. But the curious thing is that they were all murdered. At first the strong-headed police detective Maria and her subordinate Ren think they might've killed each other off during some sort of hysteric attack and that the last one committed suicide, but forensic shows all of the victims were murdered. But how could this be possible, as no signs of a seventh person was found at the crash site in the mountain? Was it the work of spies from the country R (totally not Russia)? The two detectives start digging in the past of the Jellyfish and uncover a surprising conspiracy in Ichikawa Yuuto's debut novel Jellyfish wa Kooranai (2016), which also carries the English title of The Jellyfish Never Freezes.

Some novels are quite eager to show where their inspiration came from and yet few do it as obvious as The Jellyfish Never Freezes. With two simultaneously developing narratives in alternating chapters, telling a story about a closed circle murder mystery where eventually everyone is found dead, and an investigation that is conducted on the mainland, it's more than obvious that Ichikawa was inspired by Ayatsuji Yukito's The Decagon House Murders/Jukkakukan no Satsujin, and in extension, Christie's And Then There Were None (disclosure: I translated Ayatsuji's The Decagon House Murders). It is quite daring to model one's novel so strongly after another (well-known) story down to the story structure, though it has to be noted that in The Decagon House Murders, the narratives ran simultaneously (you followed the events on the island and the mainland of the same day), while in The Jellyfish Never Freezes, we alternate between the Jellyfish chapters which are set a few days before the police investigation chapters, and you jump back and forth in time. The effect is different of course: we learn in the first chapter of the police investigation that everyone aboard the Jellyfish died, while in the corresponding Jellyfish narrative, things haven't gotten nearly as desperate as that.

The main problem is thus a familiar one: how do you explain a situation where everyone was murdered by another person, but in a closed circle situation which prevents any third person from either entering or exiting the place? This particular novel uses the Jellyfish, a new type of aircraft as a unique way to first create a floating closed circle situation in the sky, and after the forced landing another closed circle situation which no normal vehicles can reach (high up in the mountains, in a spot that is enclosed by high rock walls). Nobody could've escaped this place or even entered this place, so at one hand the conclusion is that the murderer must've been one of the persons in the Jellyfish, but on the other hand, no person could've left that place either (impossible to climb without proper equipment) and none of the victims had committed suicide. Jellyfish are still relatively new airships that have been becoming popular recently, but still with a relatively limited number of private owners, and it's also quickly determined that no other Jellyfish could've gone there on the day of the incident. The result is an interesting closed circle situation. The narrative that follow the crew members of the Jellyfish is of course the one most concerned with the stress that arises from these circumstances, and once the first two men are dead, it soon becomes a familiar story in which people start to distrust each other and ugly pasts start to pop up again. Meanwhile, the police investigation is busy trying to explain how the Jellyfish could've gotten off course and whether this was a 'private' murder, or some machination of the rival country R, which must've been interested in the new Jellyfish too.

Ultimately, the mystery revolves around two questions: who is the murderer, and how did they manage to make the crime scene look the way it did (did they physically escape from that site, or did they do something else, etc.)? The whodunnit part of the mystery is telegraphed a bit too early due to the multi-angle narrative, but also a bit unfair: one part very early in the book especially is basically lying directly to the reader (not even to the characters in-universe). Making the reader erronously assume some fact is a trick I find perfectly acceptable in a mystery novel, but blatantly telling falsehoods is another thing. It is addressed at the end, but the excuse is rather weak. The book adds in short interval chapters between the Jellyfish and police investigation chapters, which are told from the viewpoint of the unnamed murderer who tells about their motive, but I think a lot of readers are going to suspect a certain person already due to the facts addressed there and in a way, it gives too much information away regarding who you should suspect.

The howdunnit part of the story however is far more impressive. The way the murderer managed to create the crime scene the way it was is daring and basically an impossible situation (how to escape a locked "room"), and at first read you might even think it's unfair, but once you go over the clews and foreshadowing, it's clear this part is far better plotted than the whodunnit part. Like The Decagon House Murders and And Then There Were None, it's a solution that is soooo simple that you can literally summarize it in one sentence and someone who's reading the book will instantly understand what the trick is, but of course, you're not going to think of it yourself while you're reading the book yourself. Like I mentioned it before, a good mystery story doesn't tell blatant lies, but makes you assume something while there's another, perfectly fine alternative that you simply oversee. That's what happens here, and the solution is a memorable one because of that. Mind you, at times the plot still feels a bit forced: the murderer had a lot of luck that circumstances and the actions of the people around them worked out the way they did and it evens feels like the the culprit managed to manipulate the people around them a bit too easily.

But on the whole, I think The Jellyfish Never Freezes is a satisfying take on the And Then There Were None-motif, which uses it original idea of the Jellyfish aircrafts to create an interesting story setting which mixes the more conventional mystery thriller mode of And Then There Were None with a slight touch of the spy thriller and science-fiction stories. It's definitely not perfect, but I found this to be a more than capable debut novel and I'm sure I'll try more of Ichikawa's novels.

Original Japanese title(s): 市川憂人 『ジェリーフィッシュは凍らない』

The Treasure in the Royal Tower

自宅のソファーに腰掛けて、一冊の小説を開いた。表紙には『桜野美海子の最期』というタイトルが記されている。

"I sat down in my sofa at home and opened a book. The title on the cover said The End of Sakurano Mimiko.

"The End of the Great Detective Sakurano Mimiko"

Earlier this year, I reviewed two novels which were originally published on websites where (amateur) writers can post their stories for everyone to read, but which were later picked up by major publishers. Robber Rabbit Gets Dead was originally published on Kakuyomu, while Isekai no Meitantei 1 originated from Shousetsuka ni Narou. Rinno Mei's Meitantei Sakurano Mimiko no Saigo ("The End of the Great Detective Sakurano Mimiko", 2015) is also published on Shousetsuka ni Narou and can be read for free there (see the link), but has not been picked up by a major publisher yet.

While she's still fairly young, Sakurano Mimiko is already a well-known detective, not in the least thanks to the literary efforts of her childhood friend, occasional assistant and chronicler Tsukaba Souta, who has turned all of their adventures into best-selling novels. Mimiko is also a great fan of mystery fiction, so she was very happy when she received an invitation by the famous mystery writer Shishitani Keizou. Many knew about the curious tower Shishitani had built in the mountains, as it was like one of the odd buildings from his novels: a gigantic cylindrical tower stood in the middle of nowhere, and oddly enough, the building featured no windows whatsoever. An elevator and spiral staircase at the exact center of the tower connected all the floors, but there was no way to even take a look at the outside world except for the front entrance. Mimiko and Tsukaba weren't the only ones to be invited to this tower, as four other detectives (and their "plus one") were also invited. The detectives are quite a colorful lot, ranging from a girl who seems barely in her teens to a bombastic man who might or might not be a relative of Napoleon Bonaparte. Everyone expects Shishitani to have a surprise for them, and he doesn't disappoint his guests. He declares he has a mystery for them to solve, and soon after, Shishitani disappears from his locked study at the top floor, even though only he and one of the maids have the key to the room. At first, everybody thinks this is just a game by Shishitani, a challenge to see whether these real detectives can figure out how he disappeared from a locked room, but the following morning, one of the maids is found dead in the main hall, and strangely enough, she seems to have fallen from a great height, even though there's no such place to fall from in this tower. When one of the detectives is later found decapitated, the group starts to suspect that the serial killer Jack the Head Cutter has found his way to the tower, but with the single entrance locked from the outside, can the detectives survive long enough to solve the mystery?

Oh, and to be precise: I haven't actually read the story. For Meitantei Sakurano Mimiko no Saigo was adapted by the group Seien Bunko as an audio drama in 2018, which you can find on their Youtube channel. It's quite lengthy, clocking in at several hours, but it's quite nice to listen to, and a perfectly fine way to experience this story.

Anyway, the story starts off in a very familiar, And Then There Were None-like manner with people who don't know each other gathered at an isolated location (the curious tower). Shishitani first speaks with his guests during dinner over a video connection, which again invokes the early chapters of Christie's masterpiece. Soon after the chaos starts, and man, a lot happens. A mysterious murder (the maid who fell from an impossible height), decapitated bodies, the people being locked up in the tower from the outside in a closed circle situation, a disappearance from a locked room, a dying message and the list goes on. All the popular tropes of mystery fiction can be found within this tale, and considering we have multiple detectives on scene, you can also expect a few deduction battles between the detectives, as each of them tries to solve the case before the others can. It's an incredibly dense story, perhaps to a fault, as you are barely given any time for consideration, with events following each other in a very rapid way.

It's therefore slightly disappointing that most of the murders in this tale don't leave any impression on their own. A fair number of the murders are 'oh, multiple suspects had the opportunity to commit them' and 'we don't have enough data to point at one single person for sure.' Elements like the locked room disappearance, the decapitations and the dying message feature very familiar tropes as their solutions, so it's difficult to feel truly impressed. A lot of the happenings also seem very dependent on luck, with people acting like they do in the novel more to make the mystery more complex, rather than because it makes any sense to do so at that moment. That said, I liked the one major idea of this novel. It's a neatly hidden, but also fairly audacious trick, and Rinno smartly used this idea not only once, but multiple times with very different results. It's by realizing that two seemingly seperate events are actually connected by the one and same underlying concept that you can arrive at the solution, and this part was quite smartly planned. This idea alone would've made for a really interesting mystery story, if it had focused solely on it.

I think most people will agree that Meitantei Sakurano Mimiko no Saigo is far more memorable as a mystery story about detecive fiction, as it actively addresses detective fiction as a genre from a post-modern point of view. Mimiko discusses her views on detective fiction and their limitations throughout the story, and these themes come back in a haunting way at the conclusion of the story. One literary-philosophical problem in mystery fiction in particular is of essence, one which I have mentioned a few times in other reviews but won't explicitly name here. If you're looking for a sincere/honest/pure mystery story, this one is not for you, as it really tries to show the meta-limitations of the literary detective and can leave a very nasty aftertaste. I think that the execution is not completely fair to the reader, and especially the epilogue tries to hard to throw one plot twist after another at the reader, but I think that Rinno did an interesting job writing a full mystery novel based on what is actually a philosophical approach to the detective story.

In the end, I don't think Meitantei Sakurano Mimiko no Saigo is a mystery story for everyone. If you expect a Christie or Carr homage, you're at the wrong place. Queen.... you're a bit closer. Most of the individual murders won't leave much of an impression, though it definitely has a memorable main trick. What Meitantei Sakurano Mimiko no Saigo makes an interesting experience, even if not perfect, is the way in which it addresses fundamental, philosophical approaches to the mystery fiction genre, and uses those ideas as the basis of a mystery plot itself. It's not completely convicing as a whole, but definitely a story that gives you food for thought.

Original Japanese title(s): 凛野冥（原）セイエン文庫『名探偵・桜野美海子の最期』

Law and Disorder

"A madman is not someone who has lost his reason but someone who has lost everything but his reason."

G.K. Chesterton

And still I can't help but imagine Kidd and Pink looking the way they were portrayed in the videogame Cat the Ripper (based on the novel The 13th Detective), even though the game's artstyle is err.... really "unique."

The mohawk-bearing punk Kidd Pistols and his assistant Pink Belladonna are back in Yamaguchi Masaya's short story collection Kidd Pistols no Mousou ("The Delusion of Kidd Pistols", 1993). While these two like lawless members of a punk rock band, they are in fact the two police detectives that make up Scotland Yard's National Unbelievable Troubles Section (NUTS). The exploits of famous detectives like Sherlock Holmes and Gideon Fell led to the creation of Edward's Law in the world of Parallel Britain: members of the Masters of Detectives Assocation have the authority to command any official investigation the very first 72 hours, which also means that Scotland Yard has been delegated to a small supporting role. NUTS is responsible for the really kooky cases that happen in Parallel Britain and in the past, Kidd and Pink have worked with famous MDs like Sherlock Holmes Jr. (one of many who claim to be the son of the great detective), Dr. Bull (disciple of Dr. Fell) and others. In this second short story collection, Kidd and Pink come across three Mother Goose-inspired cases which are totally nuts, and Kidd once again proves he's actually much more than just a punk with a unique hairdo.

I really love these type of covers for short story collections, incorporating the key elements from each story. So yep, this volume is about a tower, an ark and a garden. I say short stories by the way, but the first and last story are quite long, closer to short novels than a long short stories.

Kami naki Tou also carries the English title Tower without God and starts with Dr. Bull, accompanied by Kidd and Pink, visiting Lord Spedding. For some reason, someone has been causing all the apples in his apple garden to drop on the ground. Spedding suspects it's the work of his neighbor Dr. Dumpley, who bought part of Spedding's land for his research lab. Dr. Dumpley's dream is to create an anti-gravity device, but it seems things aren't going well and his lab might close soon. This afternoon, Dumpley is to be interviewed by the Albion Journal by the journalist Clark on the thirty years spent on Dumpley's research, joined by the science fiction writer Soars as one of the interviewers. Dr. Bull is also interested, so they too join Soars, with Clark running late. They find Dr. Dumpley at a high tower, which used to be part of the Spedding estate. Dr. Dumpley lectures the group on gravity, but when confronted by Soars about whether he has actually accomplished anything these thirty years, Dr. Dumpley replies he'll show them he has found the way to escape gravity. He tells them to wait outside the tower, while he prepares his experiment at the top of the tower. While "Ride of the Valkyries" plays loudly, Clark arrives and when they talk things over, they suddenly become scared that the doctor might commit suicide because of thirty years of failure, and run inside the tower. The group find the doctor fleeing inside a room at the top of the tower. They hear something horrible break, and when they break inside the room, they find it empty, with an open window. Below the open window they see the glass dome down there was broken. They quickly go back downstairs, fearing to find the doctor dead, but they see no body, only some blood. They look around to see if he could've crawled somewhere after that horrible fall, but then Clark falls off the tower right in front of Kidd. Once they go to the top of the tower, they find the dead Dr. Dumpley on the roof, his head broken like Humpty Dumpty. But how could the dead doctor have jumped out of the window on the top floor, broken the glass dome below, and then ended up on the roof of the tower?

Kidd always manages to solve the case before the real Masters of Detectives do, and that's, according to himself, because he's punk: he doesn't confirm to the assumed and presumed 'normal' and is willing to bend to see what lies behind the normal. And that's definitely what you must do here. Part of the mystery relies on the psychology of the characters, especially that of Dr. Dumpley, and it's pretty crazy to follow that. Like Chesterton said, "A madman is not someone who has lost his reason but someone who has lost everything but his reason" and some of the weird happenings to occur during this story can only be explained if you venture to understand the sane logic behind the insane behavior of Dr. Dumpley, and that can be difficult. Yamaguchi does set most of the idea up fairly well, but it still requires the reader to 'anticipate' how the madness works. That said, if you look at the core parts of the mystery of how Dr. Dumpley and Clark died, I have to say you can definitely just solve that by 'normal' logic. Parts of the impossible crime are somewhat standard and predictable, but I think there's one nice piece of misdirection regarding how the murderer managed to get inside the tower that works really well.

In Noah no Saigo no Koukai (Noah's Last Voyage), we have another mind with rather unique ideas. John "Noah" Claypole is a dying, but wealthy man who has become obsessed with the idea of the Great Flood and the Ark of Noah. He has built his own Ark in Scotland, and he wants his family (prodigal son Sidney, his soon-to-be wife Martha and eight cousins) to live on the ark. He even changed his will, demanding all of his eight cousins, no exceptions, to spend at least one month on the ark if they hope to inherit. His cousin Ronald, a scientist, is Noah's biggest opponent, saying the whole idea of the Great Flood is nuts. On the stormy night before Noah and Martha's wedding, some of the family have already gathered on the ark: Ronald and his twin brother James, Sidney (who has had a sex change), the family butler Bunter and also Dr. Bull, Kidd and Pink, who were invited by Ronald to see how he would persuade Noah. The ark is already loaded with countless pairs of animals, and because the house staff and food too has already moved to the ark, dinner is also to be held on board of the ship. But before dinner is served, a gun shot rings and when they barge into Noah's room all the way on top of the ark, they find Noah dead of a heart attack, and Ronald dead of a gunshot in his chest. No weapon can be found inside the room however and the window is locked. The door had been under observation, so no other person could've entered the room, so what did happen here?

Again, I'd say the mystery can be divided by two parts. It really helps if you can follow some of the insane, but sane logic of some of the characters, but it is not absolutely necessary if you want to solve the mystery. The main clue that points to the identity of the murderer is fairly straightforward and comes relatively late in the story, but it does involve a good piece of misdirection and can be missed quite easily. But like with other Kidd Pistols stories, part of the fun, and also the frustration, lies in comprehending the thought processes some of the characters entertain. The focal characters in these stories are always crazy in a certain way, though they do follow a kind of own logic due to their fanatical belief in something. In the first story, it was Dr. Dumpley's obsession with gravity, and in this story, it's Noah's obsession with surviving the Great Flood, versus Ronald's mission to prove Noah wrong. These characters often hold lectures on their pet peeve for several pages long, so unless you happen to be interested in the topic, these segments can become a bit boring, but these parts always come back to explain part of the mystery.  Here too, you'll not understand the actions some characters take unless you follow their logic, which are definitely clewed, but usually only make sense after the fact.

Eigou no Niwa also has the English title The Eternal Garden - The European Garden's Mystery, and has Kidd and Pink join the Belgian detective Mercule Boirot, who has been invited to the annual garden treasure hunt of Lord Radford. The gang however learns that Lord Radford has not been seen since yesterday and that the last time he was seen, he had apparently been shot in the garden ruin (a building in ruins as a garden piece). One of the gardeners heard a shot and saw him lying inside, but when he returned with help, there was nobody there and not a trace of any crime having taken place. Radford however is still missing today, even though his guests have arrived. Thinking it may be some prank that has to do with the treasure hunt, they decide to read the first clue and follow the trail Radford laid. After solving several riddles, the group arrives at a grotto with a tomb, and inside they do not find a treasure, but the decapitated body of Lord Radford.

The first half of the story consists of riddles for the treasure hunt, but don't expect to solve them yourselves: they all have to do with elements that exist in the garden, but you as the reader only learn of their existence after the characters have solved the riddles. It should be no surprise that once again, this story requires the reader to at least attempt to dive into Lord Radford's mind, but I'd say that this is by far the most difficult in this story: we never see Radford alive, so we don't really hear much from himself. Even based on his riddles, I'd say it's really difficult to guess what the plot wants the reader to guess. The identity of the murderer is plotted better: some of the clues are really nicely hidden and I like the reason given for the decapitated body. However, I'd say this story is faaar too difficult to solve unless you understand what was going in Lord Radford's mind compared to the previous two stories. In all three stories in the collection, it's the seemingly insane actions that make up a part of the mystery, but it's especially crucial in The Eternal Garden - The European Garden's Mystery, whereas in the other two stories, you can still figure out a good deal of the mystery without understanding the 'insane' part of the story.

Kidd Pistols no Mousou is definitely an interesting mystery story collection. The way the stories delve into 'insane' characters and the obsessions they have regarding certain topics is unique: it showcases an almost encyclopedic knowledge of seemingly random topics and makes great use of those topics to create larger-than-life characters who end up setting up murder mysteries which you're unlikely to find in any other series. What does make this collection a bit disappointing is that all three stories feature similar characters and one certain plot point which is repeated throughout all three stories: they definitely feel a bit similar at the core. Had they not been collected in the same volume, this might've been obscured a bit, but it's really noticable when read one after another.

Original Japanese title(s): 山口雅也『キッド・ピストルズの妄想』: 「神なき塔」/「ノアの最後の航海」/「永劫の庭」