Overlooked Tick Tock

I'm late! I'm late! I'm late! 

And, when I wave I lose the time I save

"I'm Late" (Alice in Wonderland)

Which reminds me, I still have to finish reading that short story collection where all the stories feature unreliable narrators. And yep, they still manage to fool you despite the warning...

Earlier this year, I reviewed two short stories that are set to appear in the second volume of Ooyama Seiichirou's Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu ("Alibi Cracking, At Your Service"). I loved the first volume about the visits of the unnamed narrator (a rookie police detective) to Mitani Tokino of Mitani Clockmakers, a young woman in her twenties who not only sells and repairs clocks, but also offers a special alibi cracking service. The focus of one single series on cracking alibis was not only fairly unique, but the quality of the stories was also rather high and the television drama broadcast earlier this year was an entertaining adaptation of the source material. Ooyama started working on the "second season" of this series last year, and you can read the review for the first two stories of the second volume here.

At the end of that review, I said I wasn't sure whether I'd do more seperate reviews of these stories, as I suspect the standalone book release will feature an originally written story exclusive to the volume, so I'll be purchasing it anyway, but when the third story was released three weeks ago, I just had to read it and I figured I might as well write the review. While the whole series is built around cracking perfect alibis, Tokeiya Tantei to Ichizoku no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and a Family's Alibi") manages to feel fresh due to its original story structure. It's almost like the previous story, Tokeiya Tantei to Oosugiru Shounin no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi with Too Many Witnesses"), was an experiment or trial, as that too featured a two-act structure, though it's worked out in more detail this time. The narrator has an interesting problem for Tokino. Usually they have a good idea who the murderer is, but can't prove it because of a perfect alibi, but this time, the police investigation has led to three suspects with perfect alibis and they don't know which of these three did it. The elderly Fuzai Kenichi was found stabbed to death in his living room after the weekend when the housekeeper came for work. The victim had retired early and accumulated a nice fortune through daytrading. As he had no family of his own and his siblings had already passed away, suspicion soon falls on his next of kin: his niece and two nephews. The famous actress Ukawa Makie, Asakura Shouhei (a former French cook) and Ida Yasuaki (basketball coach) were all summoned to the police station and asked about their alibis for the time of the murder, but all three of them could account for their movements. Ukawa Makie had been in her second home with her manager and while she had gone on a stroll on her own, she couldn't have made it  from her second home to her uncle's home and back in the time she was gone. Asakura Shouhei had received a parcel and signed for it during the estimated period, and he too lived too far to have made it to and back either before or after signing for the parcel. The same holds for Ida Yasuaki, who had been videochatting with a friend-colleague to talk about basketball teaching methods.

This first part already proves to be an original take on the formula, as this time, Tokino and the reader don't even know who the murderer is likely to be, making this an alibi-based whodunnit. Tokino has to determine which of the three offered alibis could've been fabricated, and more importantly, how. Ooyama makes this an interesting problem by not just pointing at one alibi and claiming that this was the only one that could've been faked, but also considering the other alibis in detail: he offers plausible hypotheses about the other alibis first, but also shows how they couldn't have worked in this situation. The tricks here used are basic, but well-implemented and the way they are discarded works convincingly enough. This helps set up Tokino's line where she says she knows which alibi she could crack, meaning that's the only alibi that could've been fabricated in her eyes. The trick used here is, as often in this series, very simple in concept, but always worked out in a very practical manner. It doesn't feel farfetched and the attentive reader can definitely guess what happened once Tokino's given the first few clues to the narrator/reader.

The story however takes a completely different turn when in the second act, the person accused by Tokino manages to prove they could not have committed the murder and soon after, this person ends up dead themselves too. Suicide is suspected at first, but then the police starts to suspect the real murderer committed this act too, and interestingly enough, the two remaining suspects have no alibi this time (as the death occurred in the middle of the night). The narrator doesn't feel much for visiting Mitani Clockmakers again to ask Tokino to solve the same case again, but Tokino is determined to finger the correct person this time after her earlier mistake. The second half is a tad unbelievable as the murderer's plot only makes sense by assuming the police will make a certain discovery and in reality, the police only made that discovery only because of Tokino, so what would've happened if there was no Mitani Clockmakers? I do like the two-act plot though, as it's pretty devious and the trap of the murderer is well-thought off, only it does require the presence of a person like Tokino to point the police in a certain direction, and that makes this story a bit too meta.

Overall though, I think Tokeiya Tantei to Ichizoku no Alibi is another entertaining and well-plotted addition to the second season of The Clockmaker Detective series and it's interesting to see how Ooyama's also experimenting with the story structure formula to bring a bit more diversity in a series which is ultimately just about one single thing. Reminds me though, I really hope he returns to The Locked Room Collector one day....

Original Japanese title(s): 大山誠一郎「時計屋探偵と一族のアリバイ」

Dangerous Relations

"This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace!"

"Dead Parrot"  (Monty Python sketch)

This is probably the most 'recent' English-language novel I've ever read for the blog, as in closest to the original year of release...

Anthony Horowitz is the writer of the succesful YA novel series Alex Rider and screenwriter for television dramas like Foyle's War and Agatha Christie's Poirot, but this time, Anthony is working on something new. He has a contract to write three books based on the real cases of Daniel Hawthorne, a private investigator who is also occasionally hired by the authorities when the case seems too difficult for the 'normal' detectives. The idea is that Anthony sticks with Hawthorne as he investigates a case and then writes a novel based on what happened. But Anthony's already having regrets after their first case together. Hawthorne is indeed a very talented investigator, but he also happens to be absolutely insuffurable, rude and manipulative. But Anthony's already signed for three cases, so he could hardly say no when Hawthorne told Anthony he was now working on a new case and that he should come along. This time Hawthorne and Anthony are after the murderer of Richard Pryce, a famed divorce lawyer who was found dead in his home, his head bashed in with a wine bottle and his neck stabbed with the shards of said wine bottle. And to finish it off, the number 182 was painted on the wall besides the body. The main suspect is the poet/writer Akira Anno, who was the counter-party in Pryce's most recent divorce case: making death threats with a wine bottle in a restaurant a week before the man is actually killed by a wine bottle is of course a valid reason to be suspected. But as Hawthorne and Anthony poke around, they find that more people may have wanted Richard Pryce out of the way in Anthony Horowitz' The Sentence is Death (2018).

In case you're confused: Anthony Horowitz is indeed using himself as the narrator/Watson in the Daniel Hawthorne series, and it is filled with semi-autobiographical elements. This book for example opens with Horowitz on a location shooting for Foyle's War and talking about all the things that could go wrong (and do go wrong) when writing scenes to shoot and how hard it is to get anything filmed in London. I guess your mileage may vary on this plot device. I myself don't know Horowitz' work very well (just from his screenplays for Agatha Christie's Poirot), but I guess that for fans it's interesting to see the autobiographical elements weaven into the story, while others might be bothered by this writer who keeps going on about himself and all the books he has written and all the success he has garnered. Thinking about it, I don't think I have read many mystery stories that involve the actual writer. Writers like Ellery Queen, Arisugawa Alice and Norizuki Rintarou do use characters with the same name, but they are not really the same people as the actual authors. I remember Ayatsuji Yukito's short story collection Dondonbashi ga Ochita had segments connecting the various stories about Ayatsuji being visited and challenged by a younger self (including references to Ayatsuji's career until then), but those segments were just there to act as a bridge.

The Sentence is Death is the second novel in the Daniel Hawthorne series, after The Word is Murder. And for some reason, I started with The Sentence is Death first, even though I actually have The Word is Murder lying around. I always seem to be reading series out of order. Anyway, I found The Sentence is Death to be a mystery novel that is pleasant to read, even if the core mystery plot is a tad simpler than I personally had wanted to see. In that sense, I think it does feel like a story that'd work better for a television drama episode, which has a more limited runtime and where it's usually harder to involve a really complex plot. The build-up of the story is basically The Standard Mystery Formula: everyone Hawthorne and Anthony meet will have some suspicious points to them, and when they dig around a bit the two find out everyone had a motive for wanting the victim out of the way and ultimately the least suspicious person (but not really) turns out to be the surprising murderer. I may sound quite negative here, but what I want to say is that The Sentence is Death will certainly not surprise you in general with what happens, but that the writing style (the narration of Anthony) is definitely pleasant enough to never make it feel like a chore. Scenes follow each other in rapid succession, and while you can tell ahead that you'll be going through everyone's secrets which ultimately will have absolutely nothing to do with the case, it's at least pleasant to read through. It could've been a much more tedious-feeling novel very easily.

Once you cut through the smokescreen, the core mystery plot of The Sentence is Death is fairly lean, even if it has a few fun surprises. There are a couple of false solutions that may surprise the uninitated reader, though I think more experienced readers will quickly realize how weak the foundations for those false solutions are. The clewing that points to the true murderer is okay-ish, I guess? I have never been a fan of the type of clue that shows you something, and then at the conclusion say ''well, it was obvious that X was actually Y and that of course points to character Z." In this case, the sighting of a person with a torch near the crime site functions as such a clue among aothers, and the story then basically tells you "well, anyone would've guessed that the person with a torch was actually OOO", but no, that's not what truly good clewing is, even if OOO is mentioned. There are some other clues I liked a lot better, like something mentioned in a stream-of-thought piece of dialogue that turns out to widen the number of suspects who could've committed the murder. Also the true meaning of the number 182 on the wall for example is ridiculous, and not even in a good way. It feels like nothing but a decorative plot point, which ultimately has no good in-universe reason to exist, just a clue that sounds and looks good because it's a murder case and everything, but it doesn't really add to the core plot and doesn't feel natural at all.

Over the course of the novel, Anthony will also try to learn more about Hawthorne and his private life. I guess this is the overall storyline of the series and that more will be revealed in the third/probably final book of the series, but it wasn't really a plotpoint that really interested me. Perhaps if I had read things in order first, but Hawthorne himself isn't really a character interesting enough to make me want to know more about him, and this hinting at 'there's more to him than meets the eye' still doesn't do much for me.

In general, I found The Sentence is Death to be harmless, if I had to choose a word. It is a pleasant read, but the general going-ons will feel very familiar in and despite some neat clues here and there, I found the core mystery plot to be competent, but nothing particularly outstanding or memorable. Mind you, I don't think The Sentence is Death to be a bad mystery novel by any means. I have seen a lot of very positive review of the book that make it a point that this is a classic puzzle plot mystery. It is, and it's a competently written one, but as you may have noticed, puzzle plot mysteries are basically all I read here, and within that context, The Sentence is Death is simply not a novel that manages to stand out in terms of the core plot. I do have The Word is Murder still lying around here, so I'll read that one too at some time.

Said with Flowers

"Dahlias?"

"What do they signify?"

"Insecurity."

 "Hmm. I dont' want to give her the wrong idea about me..."

"Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars"

With newer series, I still manage to read things in the correct order, simply because I'm genuinely following each new release as they come out, but with older series, I often just try whatever crosses my path. For example, I have read a few of Yamamura Misa's Catherine series in the past (only reviewed one novel before, it seems) and even taken a glance at the surprisingly numerous videogames based on this series, but all these entries were completely random pulls from the long-running series. Yamamura herself is of course an institution in Japan, often strongly associated with television drama adaptations of her creations. When you think Yamamura Misa, you think the two-hour suspense television drama set in Kyoto or perhaps some other touristic destination and of a dramatic finale with the detective confronting the murderer at a cliffside looking down at the sea. My own experience with Yamamura's work has been... nondescript? None of her stories really made any lasting impression on me, some of the short stories I tried seemed to have okay-ish ideas, but never anything that really excited me.

Anyway, so I was already familiar with the Catherine series, but for some reason, I decided it was time to try out the first novel in this series, which also happened to be an impossible murder mystery. I also believe it's been translated in the past in French? Anyway, Hana no Hitsugi ("A Casket of Flowers", 1975) begins with the arrival of the vice-president of the United States arriving in Japan, but it's actually his daughter who attracts more attention from the press. The beautiful Catherine has an interest in Asian culture and plans to remain in Japan for a longer time to study Japanese culture, especially flower arrangement (ikebana), an art she fell in love with after viewing an exhibition in New York. Given Catherine's VIP status, the Minister of Foreign Affairs decides to appoints his nephew Hamaguchi Ichirou to be her guide and interpreter during her stay in Japan, figuring that it'd be better to have some close in age to be her guide (though he warns Ichirou that romance is out of the question). Immediately after her arrival in Japan, the masters of the three major flower arrangement styles try to win Catherine over to their own style: Tougou Ryuufuu of the Higashi School, Nishikawa Hou of the Kyou School and Yamano Hanako of the Shin School all figure that having the daughter of the vice-president of the US (and possible future president) as one of their members will bring a significant prestige boost to their own style. Catherine however says she wants to learn flower arrangement from Ogawa Maiko, who held the exhibition in New York. While Maiko is a high-ranking disciple in the Higashi School, she has openly criticized the outdated system of membership and promotion of 'her' school, making her not a popular figure within the establishment of the Higashi School But even though the news reported on Catherine looking for Maiko, it seems she's avoiding Catherine and the next time they find Maiko, she has died of poison near a temple in Kyoto. While at first it seems her death may be a suicide, more incidents happen in Kyoto following her death. Some are relatively harmless, but the murder on Nishikawa Hou of the Kyou School is definitely a heinous deed, especially as he was murdered in a double locked room: he was found inside the tea house annex in the garden, but the annex was locked from the inside and there were no footprints in the snow-covered garden leading from the main building to the annex. And his death is still not the end of the case...

Huh. For the first novel starring Catherine, it's interesting to see how she's not the focal point of the narrative. The novel kinda jumps between the main police detective investigating the case and Ichirou as the main protagonists, with Catherine almost a member of the secondary cast. Later novels focus much more on her as the protagonist. Uchida Yasuo and his Asami Mitsuhiko series are also strongly associated with touristic-oriented mystery fiction for television and I remember the first novel starring Mitsuhiko (Gotoba Densetsu Satsujin Jiken) was also very light on Mitsuhiko himself: he hardly makes any appearances early on, but then reveals himself as the great detective at the end of the novel. It's somewhat similar here: one part of the mystery is actually solved by Ichirou and the police detective is fairly competent himself too. Catherine only solves part of the mystery.

However, Catherine is presented as the best thing since sliced bread, which is really weird. I mean, we have the three heads of influential flower arrangement styles (with considerable political power!) who are fighting over Catherine, only because she's the daughter of the vice-president of the US. I mean, sure, things might be different if we were talking about the vice-president themselves, but she's just his daughter, who doesn't even have any political ambitions! The official schedule of her father in Japan is even changed at one point, because Catherine wants to visit someone. The oddest part is when Ichirou asks Maiko why she didn't immediately contact Catherine when the newspapers reported on Catherine looking for Maiko, as if the whole world revolves around Catherine. Catherine as a character is not annoying on her own by the way, but the writing seems to put her on a pedestal for...no reason at all. Which can be really taxing.

Anyway, if I had to describe this novel with one word, it'd be Kyoto. While the story starts in Tokyo, most of the action occurs in the ancient capital, with all the crime scenes set in or near famous places in Kyoto, and the story itself of course revolves around a traditional Japanese art (flower arrangement) that is often associated with the refined image of Kyoto. The double locked room murder in the tea house annex is another example of this. The set-up reminds a bit of Honjin Satsujin Jiken, given we have a locked room murder in 1) a traditional Japanese annex house made with wood and fusuma doors and a 2) no footprints in the snow situation outside the annex. The second part of this mystery is nothing worth mentioning and kinda cheap: characters just happen to forget about something that explains the whole footprints thing immediately, so the moment it's brought up, that part of the mystery is solved for you. The locked tea house itself is a bit more interesting. Like in Edogawa Rampo's D-Zaka no Satsujin Jiken, much ado is made about how this is a locked room murder, even though the room itself is just made of 'soft' material like wood and paper. I do think the solution is clever, making good use of a blind spot of the witnesses as well as fitting perfectly with the setting, but it's dragged out a bit for this novel. It would've been better in a short story on its own, I think.

There's another impossible-esque situation later in the novel, concerning the murder of an abducted person. The man was found inside a trailer parked near a temple in Kyoto, but it's determined that trailer was sill parked in a camping car parking park last evening and that it had disappeared from that park at one point. But nobody knows how it could've left the park, because every trailer is registered when they leave the park (to determine the parking fee), and nobody at the three exits of the park actually saw the trailer leave. Traces of the victim's blood is found in the park, so the murderer must've brought the victim here, killed him in the trailer and then gotten the trailer out of the park unseen, but how? The solution for this conundrum is a bit easy to guess when the actions of a certain character are revealed, while the set-up for the trick is rather convoluted. I think the basic idea of using the trailer park as an impossible situation mystery is pretty interesting and the solution is workable, but ultimately, the reason why the murderer went through all this trouble is not really convincing.  I mean, sure, they have a point, but was there really nothing easier they could do to accomplish that? This trick should have been low on the priority list.

Was Hana no Hitsugi significantly different from what I have come to expect of this series? Nah. Mind you, I do think this novel is more tightly plotted, and more puzzle-focused than any other adventure of Catherine I've read and for those seeking a very "Japanese" experience in terms of atmosphere, I think Hana no Hitsugi can be very entertaining. And some people really like the book, as Arisugawa Alice even put a spotlight on this novel in his An Illustrated Guide to the Locked Room 1891-1998. But some parts feel undeveloped, while other parts dragged out, and taken as a whole, I do think Hana no Hitsugi is definitely by far the best Catherine novel I've read until now, but it's not like I feel impelled to read more of this series as swiftly as possible. Though I wouldn't say no to other Yamamura novels of this calibre. It is a very long series though, so it'll take some time figuring what entries are worth it. Perhaps I should try one of the videogames...

Original Japanese title(s): 山村美紗『花の棺』

Diamonds Are a Ghoul's Best Friend

"Curious, how everyone who touches those diamonds seems to... die."

"Diamonds are Forever"

Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura ("Sharaku Homura: Detective of the Uncanny") was easily one of my most surprising reads two years ago. This doujin comic (self-published comic) by professional comic artist Nemoto Shou (who uses the doujin circle name Sapporo no Rokujou Hitoma) was an excellent mystery comic focusing on impossible crimes and a great example of how to do fair-play visual mystery fiction in general. Heck, the stories even feature formal Challenges to the Reader! Nemoto has been doing annual releases for about a decade now, but like most doujin comics, they can be tricky to find if you're not located in Japan because self-published materials are usually sold at events like conventions or through mail order. The last few years, we have also seen doujin circles selling their products digitally themselves, but Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura went a completely different direction: major publisher Bungeishunju decided to put this fantastic comic on digital storefronts in Japan, compiling the first fourteen issues into three volumes (reviews of the first, second and third volume here). Last year, I also reviewed the wonderful sixteenth issue: Hagoromo no Kijo ("The Ogress With the Robe of Feathers") was another great entry in the series about an impossible stabbing in a snow-covered field without any footprints of the murderer, and the solution was highly original yet very well set-up.

Our detective duo from Shimoyama Middle School returns in the eighteenth issue of Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura titled Kourei Yashiki ("The House of Necromancy" 2020), a story submitted to the Hokkaido Mystery Cross Match Award competition and which can be read here. The clever girl detective Sharaku Homura and her assistant Yamazaki "Karate Kid" Yousuke are out in the mountains looking for materials to use in science experiments when they are surprised by the rain. Looking for shelter, they stumble upon a old, decrepit old inn which is now the property of the spirit medium Maruyama Kamazu. They meet the high school student Akagawa Hasuko there, who explains to the duo that she and her father are here for a seance, because her father wants to speak with her mother again, who died recently. She also confides to them that she suspects her father is more interested in learning where her mother left her secret savings. Hasuko arranges so Homura and Karate Kid can stay in the house until the rain stops and inside they meet the creepy spirit medium Kamazu, Hasuko's father and two acquaintances of the family: the surgeon who owns the hospital where Hasuko's mother was treated and a jewelry dealer with whom Hasuko's mother often did business. Hasuko explains she also brought her mother's beloved taaffeite with her, as the valuable gem will be used as a medium to channel her mother's spirit.

Late at night, everyone in the house is summoned to the annex for the seance session. The annex is a small building with only one entrance and one barred window, while the upper attic floor can't be reached because the ladder has been removed.  The gem is set in the middle of the table, with everyone seated around it. To make sure there are no shenigans going on, everybody is chained to the legs of their chairs and they have to put on handcuffs too. Even the medium Kamazu undergoes the same treatment, placing the key in front of him on the table. At first, the seance seems to be going well, but then the lights in the building suddenly go out for a second, and the next moment, they discover the gem has disappeared from the table! Any one of them may have reached out to the middle of the table to grab the gem, but because they are all still tied to their chairs, Homura orders everyone to stay put as she calls the police, figuring the thief must still be carrying the gem. But when the police arrive, they learn that nobody is hiding the gem on their person, and a search of the empty annex doesn't lead to any results either, meaning the gem has somehow disappeared completely. Given that no person could've stolen the gem, does that mean the ghost of the dead wife took the gem with her to the other side?

Stories that don't focus on an impossible murder are in the minority in this series, but we still have an impossible disappearance here. The problem is fairly simple: where did the gem disappear to? Given that the annex is very small, with the only entrance locked from the inside, a barred window preventing the thief to throw the gem far away outside and everyone having been tied up to their chairs during the seance, it doesn't seem the thief could've done much with the gem, and yet the police can't find it. Homura of course does figure out where the gem is, and I think it's here where Nemoto really shows off his gift for plotting a mystery story. Just taken on its own, the hiding place of the gem is quite clever, if somewhat simple. But it's what Nemoto does on top of this idea that makes Kourei Yashiki a better story than it could have been. For the story doesn't only revolve around the disappearance of the gem, the author also made sure it's actually possible for the reader to deduce on their own what happend to the gem, and who did it, based on clever visual clues. Many authors would've just called it a day with only the disappearance trick, but Nemoto also prepared two distinct lines of reasoning for the reader to pick up: one that gives a valuable hint as to the whereabouts of the gem, and one line that points to the identity of the thief. It's because of these clues that the Challenge to the Reader actually feels fair: Nemoto made sure you didn't have to *miraculously* think of the hiding spot, but expects the reader to deduce where the gem is hidden and by whom based on the clues he left.

The clues that point to the hiding spot of the gem are really good too. It makes brilliant use of the visual medium of Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura: the clue is set-up across several scenes throughout the story, but it's very easy to miss, yet one can't even claim it was too obscure, as the story does really place a lot of attention to this part at one point, but it is likely the reader will overlook the importance of that scene, which is exactly what you want from mystery fiction. It's a clue that could also work in normal prose fiction, but I think I would find it not as fair there, as the visual medium really adds a lot, without making it too obvious. The other line of reasoning that points to the identity of the thief is also in essence simple, but it too feels really fair, yet subtle thanks to the visual medium: it sorta feels like it makes use of comic grammar and the shortcuts used there to fool the reader, but the attentive reader should feel something's up here. The story ends with some other minor mysteries that Homura manages to solve too, though part of that is already revealed beforehand to the reader and only kept hidden from the characters in the story, so the reader has the advantage over her there (though one could argue that that knowledge could function as a red herring for the impossible disappearance).

By the way, there are of course more stories about crimes/mysteries that occur during a seance like Lovesey's A Case of Spirits but personally, one of the early cases from Tantei Gakuen Q is always the first one I think of when it comes to seance mysteries. They do make for interesting impossible crime situations, as people are often required to hold hands etc. during a seance, making it seemingly impossible for one single person to act without others noticing.

Kourei Yashiki, the eighteenth issue of Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura, may not revolve around murder this time, but it's still a very enjoyable entry in the series. It might lack the surprise factor of Hagoromo no Kijo ("The Ogress With the Robe of Feathers"), but this is definitely a very well-written mystery story, that shows that even with ostensibly simple elements, you can come up with a satisfying mystery story through good plotting. And with four uncollected issues out now, I do think it's about time for that fourth volume...

Original Japanese title(s): 根本尚（札幌の六畳一間）「怪奇探偵　降霊屋敷」

The Case of the Rising Stars

唄え　踊れ　無数のライトが闇を照らす

世界は一つの舞台

「世界はひとつの舞台」（marina）

Sing! Dance! Numerous lights shall illuminate the darkness

All the world's a stage

"All the World's a Stage" (marina)

Huh, the previous Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Kindaichi, Age 37") was released not that long ago. I wish Detective Conan would return to this release schedule... And in case you missed it: seventeen-year old Hajime recently made a return in a special webdrama...

Kindaichi Hajime, age 37, has seen a lot of deaths in his lifetime, but he is likely to remember some of them better than others. One of the murders he has always regretted the most occured in the Foreigners Hotel in Hakodate, where as a teen, he solved a serial murder case involving the "Red-Bearded Santa." Hajime however was too late, as one of the victims had been a personal acquaintance and Hajime would literally be haunted by the victim's ghost in later stories. Obviously, Hajime never wanted to return to the place again, but sometimes, you don't really have a choice when you're employed by a promotion agency and your boss sends you back to that painful memory. In The New Murders At The Foreigners Hotel, collected in volumes 5, 6 and 7 of Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Kindaichi, Age 37"), Hajime and his subordinate Marin's new assignment is to supervise the premiere of the fantasy musical "Hakodate Wars", starring several popular male idol stars, two from the former group Skywalker and the three men in Desperado. "Hakodate Wars" will be performed in the special theater of the Foreigners Hotel. In Hakodate, Hajime runs into familiar faces like Saki (a professional photographer) and Itsuki (still the freelance writer), but he also finds a less friendly face on his path: Superintendent Yukimura of the Metropolitan Police Department has been investigating the death of an ex-member of Desperado and this subordinate of Akechi has gotten into his head that Hajime is probably some kind of serial killer who was active when he was seventeen, and who has now returned to his deadly games as a 37-old man. Yukimura suspects Hajime has something to do with the death of the former idol and that something will occur at the premiere, and indeed, the premiere is horribly interrupted when it turns out that one of the pistols used in the play was the real deal and that the actors shot by that pistol on stage were really shot fatally. The investigation first focuses on who could've swapped the prop pistol with a real one, but soon after the "murderer" commits suicide by suspending themselves high above the stage and cutting their own wrists. Hajime however isn't convinced that this was a suicide, but forensic investigation of the blood stains shows that the victim's wrists were definitely cut several meters above the stage, so how did the murderer manage to fly up there?

With references to the Red-Bearded Santa case and appearances of several familiar faces (including a surprise appearance of a special someone at the very end of the story!), The New Murders At The Foreigners Hotel was obviously written as a throw-back episode. If you're only familiar with the anime or the live-action drama by the way, you might not quite remember who the person is Hajime lost in the Red-Bearded Santa case, because those adaptations changed the details of the case and the "replacement" character for that deceased friend doesn't even exist in those media, even though he's been a part of the main cast since forever in the manga... Is it even a spoiler anymore to mention his name? It's almost like Aeris' position... We also have a new rival character, and I quite like him! Superintendent Yukimura reminds of the old Akechi, being in the same position in the police, but he's a bit funnier because we (the readers) know Hajime wasn't a serial killer in his teenage years, while on the other hand, it's not completely odd that Yukimura would find Hajime to be suspicious based on the police files which have Hajime's name appear in all those gruesome murder cases! Like Akechi, Yukimura is fairly intelligent, instantly figuring out how the locked room where the ex-member of Desperado was found was constructed and while obviously, he's destined to lose against Hajime forever, it'll be interesting to see if his character development will differ from Akechi's.

The case itself is fairly compact, and personally, I don't think there were moments that stood out as memorable, but it's an okay story that might be a tad too long: it's basically two full volumes long, but a fair amount of those pages aren't even specifically about the murder case, but just about Hajime and the reader reuniting with old friends. The plot revolves around two core mysteries: when was the prop pistol swapped for a real one, and how did the murderer manage to slit the "suicide" victim's wrists while the victim was suspended four meters above the ground and there were no ladders or other tools around? The latter one is fairly easy to solve considering the setting and indeed, Hajime basically solves the mystery immediately. The swap of the pistols is also a bit easy to guess: once Hajime accidentally stumbles upon a certain clue, it becomes clear what must have happened. More interesting are the clues that eventually point to the identity of the murderer. I can't say they are perfect: some actions are taken by the murderer in an attempt to evade suspicion, but these actions kinda stand out, which is what makes them look suspicious in the first place! I do like the more physical clues that point to the murderer: one element makes good use of the  visual medium (and the presence of Saki, of course) and the whole idea the story is about a fantasy musical. The other significant clue is perhaps less original, but I love clues in general that revolve around whether the murderer could or could not have known certain facts and how that knowledge (or absence of knowledge) influences their behavior.

The backstory that led to the crime was really dark by the way. It's still Revenge with a capital R (because why else?), but the details of this definitely wouldn't have flown in the magazines the older series were serialized in and you can definitely understand why the murderer would've been so set on killing their targets. It's basically going one step further than The Inspector Kenmochi Murder Case, which was already really pushing it. The novels do occasionally go that way, but I believe the adaptations of the novels in the anime series did tone down the darker side of the motives. This case also ties back to the very loose overall storyline of Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo, but it's done in such an off-hand manner, I have a feeling series writer Amagi doesn't really have anything concrete thought out yet and just winging it as he goes. There's some hinting again at the cause why Hajime stopped his amateur sleuthing, but I assume it'll take a while before we'll learn the details.

Volume 7 ends with the first two chapters of The Poltergeist Manor Murder Case, in which Hajime and Marin are to monitor a test panel: there are plans to renovate a Scottish manor which was moved to Japan brick by brick and recently turned into a pension, but there are also rumors it's haunted by poltergeists. You know, at this point of the story, I was genuinely thinking, hey, perhaps this case won't be about a murder, but simply about Hajime figuring out what the poltergeists really are, until I noticed the friggin' title of the case in the table of contents just now. Alas, poor guests, you're probably going to die horribly in a creepy manor.

Anyway, Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo's The New Murders At The Foreigners Hotel (volumes 5 - 7) storyline is probably a story many long-time fans have been waiting for, as we see a lot of the old gang come together again to solve a case, even if the 37-old Hajime's still claiming he doesn't want to solve any mysteries anymore. I didn't find the case itself very memorable: it's stretched a bit too thin, and the case misses the impact of something like the Japanese rock garden with no footprints setting in the previous story, or the always falling chandeliers in the (former) Opera House. It will be interesting to see how the story will move on from here though: with old faces returning as part of the gang, as well as a new rival and Marin finally learning about Hajime's history in more detail, future cases might give us a nice mix of the old and the new.

Original Japanese title(s): 天樹征丸（原）、さとうふみや（画）『金田一37歳の事件簿』第5, 6, 7巻

Trouble in Warp Space

"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." 

"Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There"

I don't like doing reviews of the same author in a row, so I'm glad I got to sneak Death Come True in between...

Tanabata "Kick" Kikuno was one of the members of the local idol artist group Blue Sky G as a high school student, but after the trio disbanded, Kick enrolled in the police academy and after graduation she was assigned to the National Police Agency. An attractive former idol in the force was considered to be beneficial to the image of the police, but after the rookie detective managed to solve a murder case with the help of the good men and women of the Homicide division of the Metropolitan Police Department and the brilliant police data analyst Shinkai "Angler" Yasukimi, people higher up in the NPA started to get nervous, as they fear the highly popular and capable detective might climb the career ladder faster they can. Attempts are made to undo Kick's posting to the MPD Homicide division, as any successes made there by Kick are bound to boost her career and make things more difficult for others. But it's not only internal politics that trouble Kick, but also international relations. Kick and "Angler" are sent to Boston to protect the Japanese MIT exchange student Sanjouin Haruhiko: as the scion of the Sanjouin clan, who have served for generations as important diplomats, Haruhiko is expected to become one of Japan's most important diplomats in the future. Haruhiko is also friends with Norman Kirk, son of a US senator who is currently on the committee negotiating an important US-Japan trade treaty in the making, and figures in the upper echelons of Japanese politics are convinced that Haruhiko's connections are essential to the negotations.

However, both Haruhiko and Norman's names have been found on a hit list. Some days ago, the body of Norman's bodyguard was found in a car hidden in a state park. There were also clear signs two other people had been killed and buried somewhere in the park, though their bodies have not been discovered yet. In the victim's pocket, the FBI found a letter signed by the "Quantum Man," who swears to avenge "Fiona" by killing the seven people who caused her death. It turns out Haruhiko, Norman and five others formed a little group of friends who regularly used drugs and that their dealer Fiona had been killed during a turf war while she was trying to buy cocaine for them. The Quantum Man apparently blames these seven for Fiona's death. So three of the group are already dead, and the first murder was apparently committed under impossible circumstances: the first victim had entered a large storage unit to retrieve their stash of drugs while the others were waiting outside the only entrance. The others were alerted by a pistol shot and rushed inside the storage unit, but inside they could not find a sign of the murderer. But how could the Quantum Man have shot somebody inside without being seen enter or leave the building and with all exits watched? The investigation in Boston ultimately doesn't lead to new results, but a few weeks later, Kick is shocked to learn that Haruhiko, Norman and the two remaining persons on the list are coming to Japan because of intensified trade treaty negotiations. A succesful murder attempt on the son of a US senator would surely lead to an international scandal and weaken Japan's position in the negotiations, so it's in everyone's interest to prevent any further murders. The whole party stays at a fancy hotel in Tokyo owned by the Sanjouin family, which boasts advanced and effective security measures like a moat and motion sensors surrounding three sides of the hotel grounds, a special VIP building with elevators that can only be operated with a valid room key and an intelligent hotel layout which allows security cameras to cover every inch of the non-private sections of the hotel without any blind spots. And yet the Quantum Man succeeds again! Can this murderer really never be observed directly, but only by proxy through their actions? The higher-ups are willing to make Kick the scapegoat for the blunder, so her only way out is to solve these impossible murders before she's demoted in Katou Motohiro's Quantum Man Kara no Tegami - Tsukamaeta Mon Gachi! ("Letters from the Quantum Man - Those Who Make The Arrest Win!" 2017)

I've been reading Katou's mystery manga Q.E.D. and C.M.B. irregularly for a while now, but ever since I learned Katou has also been writing a novel series, I've been quite curious about them. The first entry in Katou's Tsukamaeta Mon Gachi! ("Those Who Make The Arrest Win!") series about former idol Tanabata "Kick" Kikuno was published in 2016, followed by sequels in 2017 and 2019. And now you might wonder: "Huh, I can't remember seeing a review of the first novel, but this post is about the second novel..." The answer is: I didn't pay attention and put the second novel in my shopping cart instead of the first by accident. All well. Everything I thought I needed to know was explained in the first few pages anyway, so you can definitely start with the second novel if you wish to do so. By the way, readers of Q.E.D. iff and C.M.B. might remember the character Kick, as she has also appeared in crossover stories there. There's one big Katou-verse going on, and it was actually surprising we didn't see any explicit Q.E.D. references in this novel, given that the first part of the novel is set in Boston and MIT, where Q.E.D.'s Touma lived and studied for some years.

Interestingly, I think of all I've read of Katou until now, I think this novel was the one I enjoyed the best overall, as one complete product. Theme-wise, there are a lot of similarities with Q.E.D. and C.M.B., but I think the balance between the various elements and their variations was the best here. The tone of the novel is a bit comedic of course like Katou's manga series, but there's more. For example, at first the athletic Kick seems to follow the model of the female sidekick figures Kana and Tatsuki from Q.E.D. and C.M.B., but she's given a lot more depth as the narrator of the story and while she's ultimately not the detective-character (that's "Angler") and occassionally out of her depths as a rookie detective, she's a pretty sharp character who is entertaining to follow. And while she also shows off her athletic skills, Kick's antics aren't just physical. Over the course of the story, several people in the NPA try to get Kick kicked out of Homicide and make her the scapegoat of any mistakes made during the operation, but Kick manages to slip away in rather clever ways. These segments make up for smaller, but interesting mysteries that invoke the spirit of the Q.E.D. stories that focus on logical contradiction and human psychology. The manner in which Kick manages to evade demotion after the hotel murder in particular is brilliant: properly set-up and clewed, the solution not only saves Kick, but manages to chase the conspirators into a corner in an amusing manner. It makes Kick a more interesting protagonist to follow than for example Touma and Shinra in Q.E.D. and C.M.B. respectively, as Kick is more of the underdog who still manages to hang on. The underlying storyline of the internal politics inside the MPD and NPA surrounding Kick's posting to the homicide division make Kick's own narrative interesting, especially as it also ties into the overall investigation in meaningful ways.

References to fields of science are of course the bread and butter of Q.E.D. and as Kick's hunting after the Quantum Man in this novel, we find naturally some references to quantum mechanics (Yes, the Cat's here too. Or not). In this tale, the circumstances of impossible murders committed by the Quantum Man serve as a way for Katou to write, in a simple and accessible manner, about some basic concepts of quantum physics. The murderer seems to defy normal physics in any case, as they can enter and leave places under observation without being detected at all, as if they can simply walk through walls. The most surprising ones are the double murder in the hotel, where the murderer manages to enter their victims' hotel rooms and leave without ever appearing on the security cameras and another murder where someone wearing a bulletproof vest is shot in the heart, even though there was nobody standing at the place where the shot was fired. The whole book is filled with impossible murders, though I have to admit I wasn't always as impressed by them. The first one for example is very simple and I don't think the misdirection works very well. In other cases, I can appreciate the basic ideas behind these murders, even if they rely on familiar ideas, but they don't always seem feasible in the context of the story: the murderer must've been one very busy and also very lucky person, as it's nearly impossible nobody noticed anything during all the preparation of the murderer. The Quantum Man is of course unmasked as a normal person who only appeared to have done the impossible, but the things they did do require so much luck, they might as well be someone defying the laws of nature. If it had only been a single instance of these murder plots, I wouldn't have thought too much of it, but when the murderer pulls off things like that one time after another without anyone ever asking questions, it's almost like they're really superhuman.  Reminds a bit of the murderer in The Tragedy of X. That said, I did like how Katou stringed these murders all together to create the illusion of the Quantum Man. And the murder situations themselves are alluring.

The detective-character of this series is the data analyst and former FBI agent Shinkai "Angler" Yasukimi. It's no surprise he reminds a bit of the protagonists of Q.E.D.. and C.M.B., though you see less of him because Kick's the one who's narrating and she has different tasks. I liked how near the end, the discovery of certain object allows Angler to set his trap to catch the murderer: the way he deduces the implications and true meaning of the object is truly clever. The stories I've read of Q.E.D. and C.M.B. don't often feature this kind of reasoning, with a focus on the interpretation of the physical evidence (as often seen in Ellery Queen-inspired mystery fiction), so that was a nice change. Though the rest of the impossible murders are more in the spirit of Katou's other series, with the focus more on looking at the known circumstances from a different angle and reinterpreting what we know already, rather than by finding physical clues or building a case through chains of deductions.  The plots in Katou's mystery manga also involve human drama, sometimes up to the extent that I think having a series detective kinda undermines the story, but here the human drama is mostly reserved to the end and I like the balance much better.

But seen as one complete story, I really enjoyed Quantum Man kara no Tegami - Tsukamaeta Mon Gachi!. It was fun to read, the various impossible murders are strung together in an interesting way through the Quantum Man even if the solutions aren't always as convincing, and while it's not a short novel, plenty of stuff happens here to keep the reader entertained from start to end. I'll definitely also pick up the rest of the series in the near future.

Original Japanese title(s): 加藤元浩『量子人間からの手紙 捕まえたもん勝ち!』

Accuracy of Death

これは、映画なのか？ゲームなのか？

『Death Come True』

"Is this a film? Or a game?"

"Death Come True" tagline

We usually expect to find the name of the author on a novel, and the same holds for the screenplay writer in film credits, but it took a while before we got proper crediting in videogames. Up until the mid or late nineties, it was still pretty common to find aliases in videogame credits, as many videogame companies didn't want individual employees to be credited by name. Crediting could also be vague: you usually had segments like "Music" and "Programming" in videogame credits, but finding out who wrote the story or the actual text in a videogame could be a lot trickier, as this work was usually done by planners, but planners don't exclusively work on story, so you could never know who the writers were on a videogame. It's pretty hard to find proper writing credits for the majority of the Detective Conan videogames for example, as they have been around since the original GameBoy era. Things are different nowadays thankfully, allowing you to finally identify videogame writers you like.

Kodaka Kazutaka is an interesting case for myself, as I had played a few videogames written by him long before I became aware there was such a person. Kodaka became famous with the Danganronpa videogame series, a high-paced, quirky courtroom mystery game with psychodelic presentation and a script filled with pop culture references. I started with the series in 2012 with the first game, which is when the name Kodaka was first registered in my head, but later I heard he had also written some other videogames I enjoyed. While Danganronpa was Kodaka's own creative invention, he had previously worked as a freelance scenario writer for videogames, and it was during this period he wrote a lot for the Tantei Jinguuji Saburou franchise, writing both original stories for mobile phone releases as well as a few Tantei Jinguuji Saburou novels (Shinjuku no Bourei and Kagayakashii Mirai). The Six Sheets of Crime had always been one of my favorite entries in the Tantei Jinguuji Saburou mobile phone series, so I was quite surprised to learn that that was one of Kodaka's contributions. What was even more surprising was that Kodaka was the writer on the Detective Conan and Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo crossover game Meitantei Conan & Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo: Meguriau Futari no Meitantei ("Detective Conan and The Young Kindaichi Files: The Chance Meeting of the Two Great Detectives"), a Nintendo DS game which was a lot better than I ever dared hoped for.

As I had somehow managed to play all of Kodaka's mystery-related videogame output without ever planning for it and had indeed enjoyed most of them, it was only natural I'd keep an eye on him to see what he'd put out next. Death Come True (2020) is Kodaka's latest mystery videogame and was released this week. As you may have noticed from the screenshots though, Death Come True looks completely different from the previous games Kodaka worked on, as it makes use of Full Motion Video (FMV) filmed with actors, including Kuriyama Chiaki (Gogo Yubari in Kill Bill) and popular voice actor Kaji Yuki. I believe Kodaka studied something film-related in college (which is how he eventually rolled into the game industry), so in a way, him working on a game like this makes a lot of sense. The story does start with a familiar trope you see in a lot of Kodaka's other videogames: the protagonist waking up and having no idea what happened. The noise of a ringing phone wakes a young man lying on a hotel bed. At first, he's dazed and has no idea what happened to him, but a look in the mirror makes him realize he has no memories of who he is and why he's in this hotel room. But the television soon gives him some answers: the photograph of the serial killer Karaki Makoto shown in the news is the same face that looked back at him in the mirror. Confused, "Makoto" looks around his hotel room, only to find an unconscious woman tied up in the bathroom. This is followed by a loud knocking on the door by a police man who wants to take a look inside, a start sign for the evening of fright awaiting Makoto, where he needs to solve the mystery of who he really is and what he's doing in this hotel.

Interestingly, this game starts with a video message by the actor of Makoto, Hongou Kanata, asking the player not to spoil the story to others, kinda like the warning you get in the stageplay of Christie's The Mousetrap. The screenshots used in this article are just from the trailers, so I assume that's all safe.

Death Come True's promotion tagline was "Is this a movie? Or a game?" and that is definitely a fitting line. The game plays like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure: most of the time, you'll be watching a live-action drama, but once in a while this video will stop and you'll be prompted to choose how to proceed with the story next. For example, in the earliest part of the game, you can choose to open the door for the policeman knocking on the door, or to hide. These choices influence how the story will develop: a wrong choice usually ends up killing you one way or another, while the correct choice will of course progress the story. There are also moments where you are forced to experience a game over first, but that allows you to make new choices that weren't available the first time. The game thus revolves around finding the correct route (the correct sequence of choices) that will allow Makoto to figure out what is happening and why he's here. The game is not very long, and the first playthrough will probably take you about the time of a movie, which again invokes the tagline "Is this a movie? Or a game?"

But I think that ultimately many players will ask themselves: "Was it really necessary for this story to be told in the format of a videogame?" The limited scope of the game, the short play-time and the presentation don't really benefit the story that much to be honest. There are actually very few branching points in the story, and you only get to choose between two options of which one is almost always blatantly going to lead to a game over screen, so the whole experience is quite linear. Comparing Death Come True to other games that follow a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure approach (novel games) like 428 and Kamaitachi no Yoru is almost like night and day. Sure, Death Come True may have fully acted video sequences from start to finish, but because the game's so short, it's very simple to figure out what choices you should make. Whereas games like 428, Machi and Kamaitachi no Yoru have a looooooot more branching story paths and choices, which makes it a lot trickier to figure out what the correct route is. In those games, you really have to track your choices in a flowchart to see how the story changed at all the branching points, while in Death Come True, there's no flowchart function in the first place and each time you make a wrong turn, you're just returned to the previous branching point, allowing you to correct your mistake immediately. Because of that, you often feel like Death Come True might as well have been "just" a movie, as the branching points don't really add that much to the narrative and most players will experience the story in the exact same order anyway.

A game like Kamaitachi no Yoru makes pretty interesting use of the branching story structure to convey its mystery plot: even if you end up on a story route that'll get you killed, you usually can find small clues here and there that help you solve the overall mystery, and it's by combining the information you find across all branching routes that allow you find the correct route. The player is encouraged to try everything out to gain more information, and it also challenges the player to remember those small clues when making subsequent story-changing choices. However, due to the smaller scale, Death Come True often fails in really incorporating the player into this decision making. Most of the time, the story will more or less tell you what to do next, instead of relying on the player to figure out what the correct choice is. This is definitely partially because there are so few branching points in the first place. But nine out of ten times, it's like the story just gives up on being a game, and has the full motion video explain everything, without testing the player whether they actually paid attention or not. And in the remaining instances, you'll notice some kind of clue and expect the story to test you on that at some point in a clever way, only for the story to suddenly put a spotlight on that clue and to telegraph very clearly you should remember this and that this will be coming back in two minutes and that you should make your choice based on this clue. It tends to make the player a very passive part of the game. Of course, I understand that having to film more branching storylines/introducing more branching parts to bring out its potential as a videogame would've made this game more expansive and expensive, but as Death Come True is now, I don't think having it as a normal movie would've hurt the story in any way.

Taken as just a mystery story, Death Come True will definitely feel familiar to those who have played more videogames by Kodaka, especially Danganronpa. Story beats like the protagonist with amnesia, the closed circle situation and attempts at providing meta-criticism on the videogame medium are his bread and butter. I don't think the story is bad per se, but I feel there's a lot of untapped potential here. Had this been a game with a larger scope, there would've been more time to flesh out the characters (some of them don't even add anything to the overall plot now), more room to flesh out the clues and perhaps even allow the player to be more involved with the mystery solving process. The story of Death Come True feels a bit rushed as it is now and especially near the end, when the game finally tries to give the player a bit more agency in solving the mystery, it feels lacking as a lot of story elements just didn't have any time to really settle. One moment in the climax where the player *should* be feeling triumphant for pointing out a contradiction for example, feels disappointingly shallow as the game couldn't have gone more out of its way to tell you what that contradiction was, instead of letting the player solve it themselves and it doesn't help that this happened just moments earlier, so the clue never had any time to bury itself and remain hidden. Clues usually feel more rewarding if you do register them initally, but forget about them and only recall them at the necessary moment, but in Death Come True, everything you need to know is always told like one minute earlier.

And as a side note: all the Danganronpa games start with the respective protagonist waking up with amnesia, and the story is always about figuring out why they and the other members of the cast are locked up in a closed circle situation. So having amnesia is a fundamental part of the plot there. But Kodaka also likes the amnesia trope, or the 'knocked out and I can't remember exactly what happened' trope in the stories he wrote in his freelance days. Kodaka wrote four Tantei Jinguuji Saburou mobile phone games in total, and two of them use the same trope. In Search for the Dying Smoke! the player takes on the role of Jiinguuji's assistant Youko and his friend in the police Kumano, as Jinguuji himself suffers from amnesia. The Square Trap starts with Jinguuji being asked to transport a suitcase with money, but he's knocked out and wakes up in a room with a dead man lying next to him. And in the Detective Conan & Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo game, Hajime is knocked out early in the game only to wake up on a very mysterious island. Kodaka really loves this trope.

Death Come True did not redefine FMV games the way Her Story did and while I like the basic concept of the game and the story, as it's done now, I don't feel like the videogame medium adds something significant to the mystery plot. In fact, we have seen many of the story elements of Death Come True in movies before and while videogames excel in presenting branching narratives in a clear way, Death Come True doesn't feature nearly enough branching points to actually make full use of the videogame format. It's not a bad game per se, but I would've been willing to pay for a larger-scale game if that meant we'd see a more fleshed-out world and a story that made better use of the videogame format.