The Case of the Caretaker

 'T is strange,—but true; for truth is always strange;

Stranger than fiction; if it could be told 

"Don Juan"

The Mysteries! Newcomer Award is essentially the sister award to the better-known Ayukawa Tetsuya Award: both awards are organized by the same publisher and are meant for unpublished works of authors who haven't made their major debut yet as writers. The Mysteries! Newcomer Award is meant for short stories, while the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award accepts full-length novels/short story collections. Ayukawa Tetsuya Award winners are obviously published as standalone book releases, while in the case of the Mysteries! Newcomer Award, publication means being published on paper in the mystery magazine Mysteries! and as a seperate e-book release. Almost exactly one year ago, I reviewed two Mysteries! Newcomer Award winners together and I already noted that there at least seemed to be a wide range in the stories, as the situations/type of mystery in those stories were quite different, but both very satisfying stories. Still waiting for that second story of Yukashina by the way...

About 400-500 entries are accepted each year for the Mysteries! Newcomer Award, but even with those The two numbers, there's no guarantee a winner is declared: there have been years with no winning work, like 2011 and 2016. This year however, we have no less than two winners of the 17th edition of the Mysteries! Newcomer Award. Interestingly enough, the authors of the two works were both called Ooshima. However, one of them changed their name between the announcement of the winners, and the publication of the stories in the October 2020 issue of Mysteries!, so the fact that two Ooshimas won the same award in the same year, will be forgotten in the near future...

Anyway, so while Ooshima Kazuhiro won the award, it's now the name Yamato Hironori which accompanies the story Kamu Roujin ("The Biting Senior"). Konori Ken works at the Care & Social Welfare Section of City Hall and is one day visited by Kadota, who runs Yuimaru, a small day care services for the elderly. Each morning, they pick up their clients at their home to bring them to a central location where the seniors are taken care for during the day, and at the end of the day, they bring everyone back again. Yesterday however, an incident happened with Takizawa Ryoujirou, an elderly man in a wheelchair who's suffering from Alzheimer and can't speak anymore. The man is usually very peaceful and docile, but yesterday he suddenly bit the arm of the poor caretaker who was trying to put a bib on the man at lunchtime. While the woman was wearing a uniform, the man bit her so hard the bite marks were clearly visible on her arm and Kadota even had to bring her to the hospital. When Kadota later informed the daughter-in-law of what had happened however, she accused the caretaker of having messed up somehow, leading to the biting incident, and she said she'd bring her father-in-law to another daycare service. Kadota wants to know why Takizawa suddenly bit her employee, also because he fears the incident might be repeated even if Takizawa would go somewhere else, and asks Konori to investigate the incident.

This is certainly not a situation you're likely to see as the main mystery in a detective story! With a 'vague' problem like "why did the old man bite a young caretaker?" and the theme of the care for the elderly, you might be tempted to assume that this will be a mystery story that's more interested in exploring social problems, but it's actually surprising how Yamato does manages to write construct this premise into a proper puzzle plot story with clues and all. Granted, a lot of the clewing is a bit crude: one section in particular stands out like a sore thumb because you know that those few sentences are only there because they are to serve as a clue and once you see that, it's honestly not hard to figure out why old Takizawa bit the caretaker's arm. But still, Kamu Roujin is written as a proper mystery story, structured around the attempts of Konori to find a plausible explanation for Takizawa's sudden change in temperament and constantly stumbling upon facts that seem to deny his suggestions, until he finally manages to put everything together and even organize for a very satisfying denouement scene. Given that the story revolves around finding a motive for the "crime", it can definitely be difficult to present a convincing enough reason for the "culprit" to have done something and also present it in a way that allows the reader to figure it out beforehand based on clues, but it's done fairly well here. And I'd definitely want to see more of the premise of a municipal care service offical detective explored in a short story collection!

The other winner of the award was Ooshima Kiyoaki's Kagefumitei no Kaidan ("Ghost Tales of the Kagefumi Inn"), which is like the complete opposite of the motive-focused Kamu Roujin with its realist angle. Umeki Kyouko is an author of real horror stories, which she approaches from an investigative and folklore angle: she not only writes about these stories about ghostly appearances, but also interviews the people who actually experienced these supernatural phenomena and also attempts to pose her own interpretations of these odd occurances, analyzed from a folkloristic point of view. A few days before the new year starts, her younger brother is sent by their parents to check up on Kyouko in Tokyo and bring her some new year treats from her parental home. When there's no answer to the doorbell, he uses his own key to get inside the apartment, where a horrible sight awaits him. His sister is taped tight to her office chair and her eyes have been sewn tight with her own hair. While she remains unconscious in the hospital, she's fortunately going to survive the ordeal. But who did this to her and why? Her brother suspects it has to do with the new story she was working on, about the Kagefumi Inn in the Gozu Hot Spring region close to their parental home in the Tochigi Prefecture. A few weeks ago, Kyouko stayed there to investigate the ghost stories connected with the annex in the Japanese garden of this inn: while it's not in use anymore as a guest room, it appears that people staying the night (like staff members) there will receive an anonymous phone call on their mobile at 02:17 a.m. and if you take the call, some freakish misfortune will befall upon you in the near future. The brother decides to stay at Kagefumi Inn himself to see what his sister worked on exactly. The owners of the inn have heard of the incident with Kyouko too and are very willing to help out the brother, and there's even an exorcist staying in the annex at this very moment to see if there's really some ghost hanging around there. The brother is invited by the exorcist to come at night to the annex room to see if there's really a phone call at 02:17, but when the brother arrives at the annex, he finds it's locked and when he peeks inside through a gap in the window blinds, he finds the exorcist is lying dead in the room, with both his eyes scooped out of his skull! The owner and the brother break in through the window, but to their surprise they find all the doors and windows of the annex had been taped tight with demon-warding seals and that no person could've escaped from this room after taping every exit shut from the inside. So was it a ghost who killed the exorcist?

So this story is also a horror story, or perhaps I should say that Kagefumitei no Kaidan is mostly a horror story? Throughout the tale, the reader is presented with various supernatural and scary situations, some through the eyes of the narrator (the brother of Kyouko), some through the excerpts from the manuscript about the ghost stories happening at "K Inn" which Kyouko had been collecting. Stories about ghostly telephone calls, about children's voices coming out of nowhere, about monsters roaming the garden of the inn. But as this is a detective story, you'd expect most of these phenomena would be explained right and that there's perhaps one supernatural part that's left vague on purpose? Kagefumitei no Kaidan is the exact opposite: most of these phenomena will remain unexplained as supernatural horror stories, while only a small part of the tale will actually be explained in a rational manner. The result is a strange story where a locked room murder is solved in a classic manner by presenting a rational explanation supported by proper clewing, while at the same time we're also asked to accept the stories about ghostly children hiding between the dining tables at K Inn. The locked room murder where everything's been taped tight is a classic situation now and while the solution is okay and I like the clewing for it, it's pretty difficult for that part of the story to really leave a lasting impression considering we also have really nasty situations with the eyes sewn shut and eyeballs being pulled out of the head and stuff. The atmosphere is fantastic, with the jumping between the brother's narrative and the manuscript of Kyouko and overall, Kagefumitei no Kaidan is a good horror story, with a decent locked room murder plot included, but don't expect a straightforward mystery story where everything is explained at the end.  

The two winners of this year's edition of the Mysteries! Newcomer Award probably couldn't have been anymore different, but I guess that shows how diverse the mystery genre could be. Kamu Roujin was a story I wasn't sure I would like when I first heard about the premise, but I have to admit I liked it a lot more than I had expected. Kagefumitei no Kaidan too was different from what I had expected, with a more distinct focus on the horror angle, but I did enjoy it as a nasty-feeling scary story with a locked room murder hidden in there somewhere too. It'll be interesting to see if these two authors will release more in the future, as both of them have found fairly unique angles with their stories.

Original Japanese title(s): 大和浩則「噛む老人」 

大島清昭「影踏亭の怪談」

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

The vision of your own dreams

You might see it through

It's in your voice... 

"Your Voice" (Nadia Gifford)

It's almost like eight out of ten books discussed here will feature supernatural or science-fiction elements, whether it's "just" the suggestion of, or actual supernatural powers. And in general, the latter category actually seems to have an even better track record...

Kuramochi Yuika, a receptionist at a department store, approaches her friend and mystery writer Kougetsu Shirou to accompany her on her visit to a spirit medium. Yuika's been seeing weird visions of a weeping woman and a fortune teller has advised her to go see the spirit medium Jouzuka Hisui, as she's supposed to be the real deal. Kougetsu is not only a mystery writer, but also occasionally assists the police in their investigations as a criminal profiler, so he's a bit sceptical at first, but the way in which Hisui manages to sense both Yuika and Kougetsu's professions from their aura is astounding, giving his first moments of doubt. The beautiful spirit medium senses some lurking danger from Yuika's aura, and wants to take a look at Yuika's apartment. They agree to meet a few days later, but Yuika doesn't appear at the station as promised and when Jisui and Kougetsu make their way to Yuika's address on their own, they find Yuika lying dead in her apartment. The crime scene suggests someone pushed Yuika, causing her to hit her head on the table, killing her. The initial police investigation focuses on two scenarios, the murder being either the work of a notorious neighborhood burglar or one of Yuika's personal acquaintances with stalker tendencies, but Hisui reveals she can in fact channel Yuika's spirit in her dying moments. Hisui's vision is vague, but it does reveal the culprit was a woman, who was apparently looking for something as Yuika's consciousness faded away forever. Kougetsu is now however facing a problem: the police isn't likely to believe Hisui's vision, so now he has to figure out who killed his friend based on Hisui's vision and also find supporting proof, as the vision alone won't have any value when talking to the police. After the duo manages to solve Yuika's murder, Kougetsu and Hisui run into more mysterious cases that require Hisui's unique powers, but Hisui's also foreseen her own imminent and only Kougetsu can prevent her death in Aizawa Sako's Medium - Kourei Tantei Jouzuka Hisui ("Medium - The Medium Detective Jouzuka Hisui" 2019).

Medium - Kourei Tantei Jouzuka Hisui has been one of the more prominent releases of 2019: it managed to rank in several of the annual top ten mystery rankings organized by Japanese publishers and in the period between me purchasing this book and actually reading it, it also won the 2020 Honkaku Mystery Award, which usually means fans of puzzle plot mysteries will enjoy the work. Personally, it was the premise that really manage to hook me in. As you may have noticed, some of the best, fair-play mystery fiction I've read these last few years feature supernatural elements, like the murder-fable short story collection Mukashi Mukashi Aru Tokoro ni, Shitai ga Arimashita, the mega-hit Shijinsou no Satsujin and its sequels/adaptations, Kobayashi's wonderful mysteries based on Alice in Wonderland and E.T.A. Hoffman's works, the time-travelling mystery Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei and the yokai mystery Invented Inference. Medium - Kourei Tantei Jouzuka Hisui obviously features a spirit medium and while often mysteries featuring spirit mediums feature frauds, you also have examples of great mystery fiction featuring real spirit mediums and where their powers serve as a source for original mystery plots like in the 3DS game Gyakuten Saiban 6/Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice.

Medium - Kourei Tantei Jouzuka Hisui follows an interlinked short story collection format and the first story, The Weeping Woman Murder, serves as a good introduction to show how Hisui's visions can still work in a fair-play mystery plot. It's established right away that Hisui's powers definitely have their limitations. For example, Hisui can sense emotions and feelings like guilt from people's aura, and also sense whether one's aura is being under attack by someone else, but obviously, she can't just go to the police and say that this or that person 'feels' suspicious. But her powers do allow Kougetsu to deduce who isn't the murderer, allowing him to focus on the real culprit and finding tangible evidence. Basically, the stories revolve around Kougetsu being put on the correct rail right from the start thanks to Hisui's powers, but it's Kougetsu who has to reverse-engineer her visions and find real proof and come up with a supporting line of reasoning. It reminds of Morikawa Tomoki's Snow White, in which a magic mirror would show the answer to a mystery, but where the detective still had to think of a convincing deduction herself, because people would not believe her if she'd just say the answer. Invented Inference falls in the same family too, where Kotoko invents inferences to lead to the conclusion she already knows beforehand because ghosts and other supernatural beings help her. In The Weeping Woman Murder, fragments of Hisui's vision and what she senses from auras help Kougetsu on the right path straight away. Hisui even reveals she knows the murderer's a woman the moment they discover the body, but ultimately, it's Kougetsu who has to figure out the meaning of the actions of the woman seen in the vision, its implications and who the murderer is. And on top of that, he has to come up with a line of reasoning that supports his theory, a line of reasoning that doesn't rely on Hisui's powers, because obviously, the police wouldn't believe any of that. The result is a truly interesting story that shows what makes a mystery story so fun, as it plays with the notion of what a mystery is and also with the idea that a logical deduction doesn't need to be true, only convincing and entertaining.

In the second story, The Murder in the Water Mirror Manor, Kougetsu and Hisui are invited to a small barbecue party at the Water Mirror Manor, the lakeside second home of the celebrated mystery writer Kurogoshi Atsushi. Having heard about Hisui from Kougetsu, Kurogoshi hopes Hisui can find out whether his home is really haunted like his family thinks and if so, he hopes she can do something about it. But this is kept hush-hush, and Kougetsu introduces Hisui as his Plus One to other mystery authors and editors invited to the party. Kougetsu and Hisui are to stay at the Water Mirror Manor that night, as do three other guests. The detective duo stay up most of the night in the living room that connects the manor's two wings to see if there's any spectral activity and it's during this period that the three other guests all pass by the living room at one time or another, as the bathroom in the wing with the guest rooms is curently broken. The following morning, Kurogoshi is found to have been bludgeoned to death in his study in the other wing. Kougetsu and Hisui were in the living room during the estimated time of death, so the murderer must be one of the three persons who passed by the living room, but... Hisui can tell right away who the murderer is based on their auras. The problem remains the same however: how is Kougetsu going to prove that? A strange vision seen by Hisui serves as a clue to what happened, but can Kougetsu also find supporting evidence for that?

Unlike the first story, this story straightout reveals who the murderer is by name, which might make you think it'll be easy, but oh-no! This is a very tricky story: the deduction chain that revolves around Hisui's vision is something you'd expect to see in Queen's work, revolving around the actions taken by several characters and the implications of those actions. The story makes good use of the backstory of the manor, but what really seals the deal is that even if you figure out what Hisui's vague visions actually mean, you still have a lot to do, as Kougetsu's ultimate goal is always to come up with a line of reasoning supported by the physical evidence! So even if you've "done" Hisui's part of the mystery (identifying what the vision was about and its implications), you still have to figure out a seperate line of deduction that will lead to the same conclusion, a line of deduction that will convince the police to act. The clewing for that is pretty clever too: it's not super surprising, but I have to admit I don't think I've come across this particular version of the idea before, though older variations are fairly common.

In The Serial Murder Case of the Female High School Student Strangulations, Kougetsu is having a signing event, when he's approached by a fan. In the last year or so, several of Natsuki's schoolmates have been strangled to death. The police investigation has led to no results at all, so Natsuki hopes that Kougetsu can help find the killer. Because of his track record, the police allow him and his "assistant" Hisui to join the investigation and start snooping around the high school. Hisui soon senses the police is on the right track, but before they can act, another victim falls... Fearing the culprit may be feeling cornered, they try to act before more victims follow. This story is a bit simpler in set-up compared to the previous stories: Hisui's powers don't really lend them well for this type of case, so while she's able to point the police investigation to the correct direction early on, it's actually Kougetsu who has to do a lot of the heavy lifting himself this time, using the few hints Hisui manages to convey to him to figure out who's the serial strangler. The focus lies a bit more on the interpretation of physical evidence this time, but the climax of the story really works well a supernatural-themed mystery.

The final story VS Eliminator Kougetsu and Hisui are asked to find another serial killer: several women have fallen victim to this murderer for the last few years, who has been mentioned a few times in previous stories as well as in the story intermezzo parts. It's hard to explain this story without giving too much away, but this story is excellent and works wonderful as the conclusion to the whole book, and it elevates the work to a genuine must-read of the genre. Early on in this story, we find out that Hisui's powers actually don't really mesh well with this type of case: the previous stories established that Hisui usually needs to be physically at the murder scene to be able to have her visions, or she must come in close contact with suspects to feel their aura. It's because of this that Kougetsu doesn't feel much for involving Hisui in this case, as her powers may attract the attention of the killer and in any case, her powers don't really apply here, but Hisui's still determined to find the serial murderer. What follows is a fantastic tour-de-force in deduction that show off Hisui's real powers in full might: whereas the previous stories seemed to prove the limits of Hisui's gift, VS Eliminator actually turns everything around: in a mesmerizing super-flashback scene we see how all those moments that only seemed to prove the limitations of Hisui's supernatural powers and all the other events actually all line up in a single arrow, proving in fact how utterly overpowered Hisui's skills really are. This story really invites you to read the book all over again from the start, as many scenes suddenly take on a different meaning, and you see how carefully author Aizawa has been planning this climax, with Hisui's power being proven to be much more than the reader is first led to believe. Each previous story turns out to be foreshadowing this conclusion with proper clewing, while also telling a good mystery tale on its own, so it's like each story was telling two stories at the same time: one "front" story, and a "back" story that is only revealed in this final tale. But while Hisui's newly revealed powers ultimately allow them to catch the serial killer,  the book still holds on firmly to the fact that this is a fair-play mystery novel, built on brilliant deductions and actual physical proof.

Medium - Kourei Tantei Jouzuka Hisui is definitely a masterpiece of the genre, one that really shows off how supernatural elements do not hinder a mystery plot, but can actually greatly open up possibilities when used well. The individual short stories are entertaining on their own, showing off several ways in which pure logic and supernatural elements can work together, but it's really the final chapter that makes this novel more than 'just' a memorable mystery. This is an absolute must-read, and I wish most mystery novels would spend at least half the amount of planning effort Aizawa poured into this novel: the chains of deductions displayed in this novel are fantastic and the pay-off at both the micro and a macro level of this novel is something indeed very few novels manage to accomplish.

Original Japanese title(s): 相沢沙呼 『Medium 霊媒探偵城塚翡翠』

A Taste of Danger

Something old, something new, 

something borrowed, something blue

You know, I really should use my short shorts tag more often. Originally, I intended to use it as a corner to collect short, usually unrelated reviews and other observations that can't fill a complete post on their own. But nowadays, I usually just end up not writing about smaller things, or at least wait until I've got enough material for a full, standalone post. But the last one I did was back in 2016...

Anyway, so just a few random short pieces this time. And let's start with a short look at the eighth volume of  Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Kindaichi, Age 37"), which was released in October. It collects a large part of The Poltergeist Manor Murder Case, which started in volume 7, but the volume ends with Hajime having started on his summation of the case (the identity of the murderer hasn't been revealed yet), so I'll wait until the release of the next volume in March to go in detail. Hajime and Marin are this time sent to a Scottish manor which had been moved brick for brick to Japan thirty years ago. The large company Denpoudou now has plans to change the manor into a pension and has started a pilot panel. Hajime's company is a subcontractor of Denpoudou, and Hajime and Marin are there just for the menial work under the supervision of Denpoudou's Shiratori Reo, a young, but very capable manager. The Scottish manor breathes atmosphere, but apparently, some poltergeists were brought to Japan too when they moved the building.The guests have only just arrived when they are greeted by candles in the corridor suddenly lighting up on their own and falling wineglasses and it doesn't take long for ghostly murders to occur, like a poisoned arrow which decided to fly straight into a victim's neck or a woman being attacked by a suit of armor in her locked bedroom. 

Like I said, the story is still on-going, so I'll save my detailed thoughts for later, but I do wanted to note how I didn't really like the chapter before Hajime started his explanation of the case. Basically, up until that point everyone's just in a panic because of the ghostly pranks and the murders, and eventually, Hajime finds the time to investigate on his own with Marin, but this part is so... boring. It's literally Hajime and Marin visiting each crime scene, and Hajime immediately noticing some clue which tells him exactly how the impossible murder was committed. So they move on to the next room, and again, Hajime solves it immediately. It's incredibly boring with Hajime just walking from room to room and instantly solving the murders This is hardly a chapter about an investigation, this was writer Amagi just wanting to serve the readers the necessary clues without actually wanting to pour any effort in the presentation, as this is more-or-less just a grocery list. There is of course an inherent problem with serialized series like Kindaichi Shounen and Detective Conan that have to cut the narrative in distinct chapters that are released weekly/biweekly, but for some time now, the 'clue-gathering-parts' of Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo have felt dry and business-like. Anyway, more on this rather Carr-like story somewhere in March or April!

Originally, the short shorts tag was used for a post which was partially about mystery storylines/homages/parodies in series that weren't strictly works of mystery. About a year ago, I also wrote about how broad the definition of the mystery genre could be, and how for example a film like Iron Man uses proper mystery grammar to tell part of its story. Recently, I've been enjoying some works of fiction that aren't really mystery, but can be studied as such, and I think it's worth mentioning them to give people an idea of what I meant when I said that the definition of mystery can be very broad.

Herakles no Eikou ("Glory of Herakles") is a series of role-playing game that originally started in 1987 on the Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System) and has seen a few sequels since, with the latest entry being 2008's Glory of Heracles (the only one released in the west). It's a very classic JRPG like Dragon Quest, but as the title suggests, this series is set in a mythological Greek world and with stories partially based on actual Greek myths. Last week, I played Herakles no Eikou III - Kamigami no Chinmoku ("Glory of Herakles III - Silence of the Gods, 2008), a feature phone remake based on the 1992 original created for the Super Famicom (Super Nintendo Entertainment System). While you might not immediately associate "Greek mythology" with the mystery genre, it's surprising how well the story of this game works as a proper mystery ! The story starts in a rather familiar manner for RPGs: the protagonist wakes up with amnesia, having no recollection of himself. But he does learn he has been made immortal for some reason: he can fall off cliffs and land dozens of meters below without dying. Meanwhile, strange events have been happening all over the world: monsters start appearing everywhere because of holes to the underworld being opened, while at the same time, the sun decides to not set anymore. The protagonist decides to find out what's happening, because he suspects his immortal state has something to do with all of this too, and during his quest, he finds new companions who like him have gained an immortal body in exchange for their memories, and they all join our hero to find out the truth about why the gods of Olympus stay silent during this crisis.

The story was written by Nojima Kazushige, a game scenario writer best known for his work on all-time classics like Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X, but he has also written for mystery games like some of the earliest Tantei Jinguuji Saburou ("Detective Jinguuji Saburou") videogames, and it's his writing which changes a story about a quest of a band of immortals in a mythological Greek world into something that's actually a pretty darn interesting mystery! Throughout the game, our party comes across many mysterious events that occur in the world, and each time you think you've found an answer to the question of why everything's happening, another mystery is added to confuse the characters (and the player). Why are they suffering all from amnesia? Why have they been made immortal? What are the gods planning? Near the end of the game, there's a really neat section where everything is explained and suddenly every pieces falls into place, with even a few very early events taking on a very different meaning now you know what really happened. Yet this reveal doesn't come out of nowhere, as Nojima's been making use of foreshadowing and very carefully articulated dialogue to prepare the player for what was coming, utlizing the techniques of a mystery writer. So I'd say this game is pretty interesting for those who want to see how techniques of the genre can be used for very different types of media. The original Super Famicom version of the game is supposed to be a bit outdated when it comes to gameplay by the way, while the feature phone remake recently ported to the Nintendo Switch makes it a very easy game to play (but ideal if you just want to know the story).

I've also been enjoying the anime version of Oishinbo recently, which is a long-running classic manga about food. Everything food. The story is about the newspaper writers Yamaoka Shirou and Kurita Yuuko, who are tasked to compile "the Ultimate Menu" as a special project for the 100th anniversary of their newspaper the Touzai Shimbun. Their search allows them to try out a lot of very delicious dishes, but also puts Yamaoka in the path of his estranged father Kaibara Yuuzan, a famous and influential gourmand who puts cuisine above his own family. The series is perhaps remarkable for its realism: there's obviously a lot of research done on all the ingredients and recipes that are discussed, and the series even looks at "food" as a very broad theme, also focusing a lot on food production/distribution/culture and more.

The interesting thing is that a lot of the stories are also written like they could've featured in a mystery series. Many episodes revolves around Yamaoka getting involved in some kind of argument with a professional cook/critic about food and how a dish should best be prepared, and Yamaoka managing to prove that he was right, even though the opponent appears to have all the advantages. This is basically the same set-up as Liar Game, where characters manage to win games even though that seems impossible at first. In one early episode for example, Yamaoka claims he can prepare a better sashimi dish with a dead fish, than someone who'll use a fresh, living fish, which sounds utterly impossible of course due the matter of freshness, but this mystery can actually be solved by the viewer with some very basic knowledge of food (nothing specialistic, nor does it even require the reader to be able to cook). To make it clear: most of the stories are less likely to be solved beforehand by the viewer because they do require knowledge of lesser-known facts, but you'd be surprised how many of the Oishinbo stories do actually work as proper mystery stories.

And now I want to go eat sushi...

Anyway, that was it for this short short post! Any good recommendations you have for works-that-aren't-really-mystery-but-actually-do-feature-mystery-plots? And your favorite sushi?

 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8巻;『ヘラクレスの栄光III　神々の沈黙』; 雁屋哲（原作）、花咲アキラ（画）『美味しんぼ』

Virtual Villainy

"The third one is always the worst."

"X-Men: Apocalypse"

Okay, in reality, of the mystery series I read, it's seldom the third one that's actually the worst. Also: when I ordered this book, I was totally expecting it to end up somewhere on my end-of-year best list due to the previous two volumes... Pretty frustrating when errr, that doesn't happens.

There are a lot of fans of mystery fiction on the internet, but few are as fanatic as "aXe," "Zangya-kun," "The Mad Header,"  "Professor Ban Douzen" and "044APD". These colorful five members of a private video chat group know nothing of each other's private lives, and always use masks and voice-scramblers too hide their faces/voices whenever they appear on the webcam, but they regularly gather in their chat room to play a certain game. A deadly game of intellect. Each time, one of these five acts as the 'quizmaster', providing the others with a locked room murder mystery to solve. The catch? These locked room murders have really been committed by the respective quizmaster! The quizmaster will provide the others with some basic information about the case, and the others are also free to gather information on their own through the news or by investigating the crime scene themselves if possible, but the question will always remain the same: how did the host of the problem actually commit the impossible murder? However, things have also changed since our previous encounters with "aXe," "Zangya-kun," "The Mad Header,"  "Professor Ban Douzen" and "044APD." In Utano Shougo's Misshitsu Satsujin Game - Maniacs (2011), a mysterious figure called "MadHeadaXeDouzen044-kun" has been uploading captured footage of these chat sessions to video streaming sites, making the locked room murder game public to not only the police, but countless of mystery fans who too want to be able to win at this game.

Misshitsu Satsujin Game - Maniacs is the third volume in Utano's Misshitsu Satsujin Game series and you may remember that I've enjoyed the previous two volumes a lot. The various locked room murder mysteries that appeared in the linked short stories were usually very well constructed and a delight to read, but Utano also made brilliant use of the overarching storyline of the chat room. There were all kinds of little surprises that really made the chat room and its users feel alive and were used as meaningful concepts for the plot, like when one of the murderers had a perfect alibi for their "turn" because the murder occured during a video chat session where they were discussing a different murder. Manics however is a bit different from the previous volumes. It's definitely not considered the "3.0" of the series, more like a side story. That's obvious immediately when you see the actual physical book, because it's barely half the size of the previous volumes and the contents too are considerably weaker than the full-sized volumes: usually all five characters get a chance to act as quizmaster, but in this volume, we only have like two-and-a-half case to solve.

The opening story Q1: Rokuninme no Tanteishi ("Q1: The Sixth Detective") is by far the strongest story of the whole volume. Over the course of nine uploaded videos to a major video streaming site, we see the usual five participants in the chat room: The Mad Header wearing their Darth Vader mask, aXe with a hockey mask, Zangya-kun and their turtle, Professor Ban Douzen with sunglasses and an afro and the silhouetted torso of 044APD. It's aXe's turn and he reveals he has killed a tech writer called Idei Kenichi in his studio apartment in Tokyo. On the night of Idei's murder, his neighbors and downstairs neigbor heard a loud noise from the apartment. The downstairs neighbor thought it a bit strange and when Idei didn't answer the door both at night and the following morning, the neigbor decided to notify the owner of the apartment building and when they entered the locked apartment, they found both a toppled bookcase and Idei lying on the floor. He had been hit fatally on the back of his head, but the door and all the windows had been locked from inside and the police is inclined to rule it an accident. However, this was a genuine murder committed by aXe, but the locked room isn't the only problem the others have to solve. For on the night of the evening, aXe had also been videochatting with Zangya-kun and 044APD and those two saw live how aXe had been driving around all the way in Nagoya and that he had been stopped by the police and fined there for using his phone to videochat while driving. So how could aXe have committed the locked room murder in Tokyo at the same time he was being presented his one-of-a-kind fine in Nagoya?

The new plot about these chat sessions being uploaded on a video streaming site adds a weird new dynamic to this series, as we are introduced to a new character: Sagashima Yukio is an ordinary fan of mystery fiction who is absolutely fascinated by these videos a friend sent him, and like any true mystery fan, Sagashima too tries to figure out aXe's murder scheme (not realizing that countless of other people on the web have seen these videos already and that the web's drowning in theories written by everyone). The concept of a third party trying to solve the case serves as the overall storyline for this volume (previous volumes, while short story collections, also worked towards a climax in a way). The case itself is... perhaps a bit simple, but a lot of it does make good use of the unique story setting, justifying the shakier parts of the plot. The way the locked room itself is made is a very modern variant on an otherwise very, very old way to create a locked room, and that also holds for the actual murder method (the murder weapon is also part of the mystery). The underlying concepts are pretty corny, but the variations are undoubtedly very, very modern and yet realistic, making use of normal objects we consumers can buy. aXe's trick with which he got hold of their alibi for the murder is basically an extension of the ideas seen in the actual murder and as a whole, one can definitely say aXe's 'quiz' has a clearly defined theme, even if the actions he actually took were surprisingly simple.What I did really like however was when the weaker points to the plot were shown: Utano makes clear that what is usually considered to be a weak point in an attempt to create a locked room murder, doesn't hold for this particular setting and he makes a convincing argument. The result is that Utano is able to create locked room murder situations that a reader might usually dismiss as unrealistic or unreliable, but which do make sense in the context of this series, allowing for pretty unique murders.

Q2: Hontou ni Mienai Otoko ("Q2: The True Invisible Man") also consists of two problems, but unlike aXe's problem, this story revolves around two unrelated murders, though tied by the theme of "the invisible man." The first murder victim of The Mad Header was Honnouji Haruka, a stage actress who had a solo act in a small theatre for three days. She was murdered between the afternoon and night act of her last day, but nobody saw the killer walk in or out of her dressing room. When one of the receptionists came to deliver some flowers sent to Haruka, they found her lying dead in her dressing room. But for the last three quarters of an hour, while Haruka was still alive and overheard rehearsing in her dressing room, both sides of the little hallway in front of her dressing room was watched by the props man backstage on one side, and the receptionists on the other side. The second problem is set at a tech lab in a university, where one of the students was sitting at one of the desk in the back of the lab. Other students were sitting at the front side of the lab, but couldn't directly see the victim because of bookcases blocking the view. But while the hallway door was always in view of the other students in the lab, The Mad Header still managed to kill the victim sitting in the back of the room, without anyone noticing them. Both problems feature really lame solutions. And that's done intentionally. In previous volumes, there were always shorter intermezzo stories with joke solutions that were just silly or really outdated wedged in between the masterpieces of the volume. This story falls in that same tradition, but the problem is that this volume is really, really short and almost half of the volume is therefore used to present two locked room mysteries that were never intended to be memorable or impressive. The one in the theatre is basically a slightly updated version of a very old trick to create a locked room mystery (and Sagashima too notes this solution is pretty boring), while the university murder borders on science-fiction, being reliant on a very specific type of technology that may or may not exist. In the previous volumes, these kind of problems were usually posed by Professor Ban Douzen as fictional time-wasters while waiting for the actual problem, but it's just disappointing to see almost half of the volume dedicated to this.

Q3: Soshite Dare Mo Inakatta ("Q3: And There Were None") and the follow-up story don't even really have a locked room murder mystery to solve, but tie up the overall story of the person who's been uploading the chat sessions on video streaming sites. Professor Ban Douzen wants to switch things up a bit and not tell the other participants about the murder afterwards, but have them participate in real-time. He has started a live video stream of their chat room, showing the familiar chat windows of the five in one window. In the stream, we can also see Professor Ban Douzen has posted the other four others at specific locations surrounding a certain building. A sixth chat window is also visible on the screen, which shows a man in a bathrobe. X is to be the victim and he is present in a room in the surrounded building. Professor Ban Douzen claims he'll be able to kill X even with aXe, Zangya-kun, The Mad Header and 044APD standing near all the exits/vital points and he dares them to stop him either going in or out. I won't go on, because that would definitely spoil the surprise, but let's just say this isn't really a locked room murder mystery anymore. The story is used to spring a surprise on the reader regarding the uploaded videos of the chat sessions and how these three cases relate to each other in secret, and there's some admittedly interesting meta-musings going on, but it feels like a concept that should have had a full volume to build up to. Now the build-up to the 'punchline' feels lacking, and you're left with a story that might have been more, but which feels imcomplete and rushed.

Misshitsu Satsujin Game - Maniacs is not touted as a full-fledged third volume in this series, but even as a side-story, it feels lacking. There's basically only one single serious locked room murder story here and while I think it could've served perfectly as an opening story for any of the volumes, I don't think it's impressive enough to be basically carrying this whole volume, which is, sadly enough, what it has to do, as the remaining stories lack the depth and originality we have learned to expect after the previous two volumes. There are some interesting ideas here that the book tries to explore by making these video chats public and having a third party attempt solving them, but as this book is really short, there's simply no room to work out any of these ideas into something substantial. I hope that we'll see a full-fledged 3.0 volume in the future, because I wouldn't want this to be the end of a series after the previous two high points.

Original Japanese title(s): 歌野晶午『密室殺人ゲーム・マニアックス』   

Don't Fool with a Phantom

目に映るものなど

壊れゆく運命です 

NO!x4 信じていくことは

自由だけど

「みえないストーリー」（岸本早未）

It's the destiny 

of all that reflects in your eyes to break down 

NO!x4 You're free

To believe that

"Invisible Story" (Kishimoto Hayami)

Clubs for mystery of aficionados are far from a rare sight in Japanese mystery novels post 1980s. Mystery clubs for example play an important role in two of the novels I have translated (The Decagon House Murders and The Moai Island Puzzle), but you see them in plenty of other novels and there are also series that revolve around them. What makes most of these clubs different from the mystery clubs we see in a lot of English-language fiction is demographics: most clubs we see in Japanese mystery fiction are school or college clubs, making both the average member fairly young, but also giving the club and its members a different kind of background setting. There are of course exceptions, with the Art of Murder Club in the Nikaidou Ranko stories being more similar to the ones we see in English-language fiction with people with various ages and professions

The Seven Unravellers in John Sladek's Invisible Green (1977) were a rather diverse bunch too, ranging from a lawyer interested in the legal side of mystery fiction to a low-ranking policeman who seemed a bit too interested in the morbid side of murder. The most colorful person was perhaps Major Stokes, a complete anticommunist nutcase who suspected a conspiracy behind everyone and everything, even among his fellow Unravellers. The members of the club saw each other one last time before World War II heated up to take one group photograph, but then drifted apart. Some of them kept in touch with others, or at least an eye on them, like Dorothea Pharaoh. It was also she who twenty years later decided the Seven Unravellers should meet again. After sending her invitations for the reunion, she is surprised by a phone call by Major Stokes. The War only worsened his paranoid mind and while he's fairly sure Dorothea is one of the good'uns, he can't be sure she isn't watched. He does confide to her that he's close to uncovering a cunning Communist plot to infiltrate British society and that he hopes that Dorothea can pass on a letter with his findings to the right authorities, as he's convinced he's being targeted by a certain "Mr. Green", citing his dead cat and stolen milk bottles as evidence. Dorothea isn't quite sure what to make of Major Stokes, so she decides to hire American sleuth Thackery Phin to keep an eye on Major Stokes to see if he's really in danger, but after a night of surveillance, Phin is highly surprised to find the Major dead in his lavatory. At first sight, it doesn't seem the Major's death could have been caused by anything but an unfortunate heart attack, as there were no signs anyone had entered the house that evening. The paranoid Major had changed his flat in a little fortress with every door and window bolted, and had even left trails of white powder on the floor so nobody could walk around without leaving footprints. The only opening in the house was a little window in the bathroom, but that was hardly large enough for anyone to crawl through. But the timing does seem a bit too good after the Major's warning about Mr. Green and soon after, other Unravellers also find them confronted with color-coded messages, which ultimately culminate in more murders committed by a Mr. Green who can seemingly get in and out any place without ever being seen.

Invisible Green is one of those classics in the impossible crime subgenre that I sorta knew partially already before ever reading it due to references et cetera, so it was perhaps not a completely surprising reading experience. In that sense I think Invisible Green had the misfortune that I had already seen variations on the first locked room murder in other media already that had been worked in more detail. The setting is definitely an alluring one: a miser living in a mini-fortress, a man so paranoid he leaves powder on the floor so he check whether someone is in his house. So how could a murderer even get into such a house and kill the Major in the toilet? I like the trick as a concept: as I mentioned, I have seen this same idea used in more modern mystery fiction too, so it's obvious that Invisible Green was the original source for the trick. The problem is that while the fundamental concept is good in Invisible Green, the details of the story don't really work with the trick: it's not really likely going to kill someone the way it's presented in Invisible Green, not with the house described as it was and how the body was discovered by Phin. In the more contemporary variations I've seen of this concept (which I have read before Invisible Green), the details and clewing were worked out better than in Invibible Green, providing a far more convicing mystery story. Those stories perhaps had the advantage of being written with the power of hindsight, allowing them to alter the trick/setting enough so it is more practically workable, but for me, reading this novel really made me see how those other stories improved on the idea of Invisible Green to make it a more satisfying locked room murder, even if the basic idea is definitely good. It's the small details that make it less convincing in this novel.

After the death of Major Stokes, the remaining Unravellers (and Thackery Phin) decide reunite again to find out who Mr. Green is and whether they are involved with the Unravellers, but more murders follow. I'm not that big a fan of the second murder, which is barely an impossible one and basically only worked because the murderer was extremely lucky. It does feature a nice clue that will ultimately point to the identity of the murderer (though I'd argue that clue could've benefited from more supporting clues). A third murder has an interesting concept, being that that the impossibility mostly revolves around all the remaining suspects being gathered in one house during a party, with the victim being elsewhere. But here you also notice little details that make this plot not really workable the way it is described here: not only would the murderer have made themselves very vunerable for an extended period, the murderer's actions 'post-murder' would also be harder to perform than the story pretends them to be. I don't need naturalistic realism in my mystery fiction, but the moment I try to just imagine the scene as it's explained in the novel, I seem to think of several problems that aren't addressed and which would, at the very least, made the thing a bit harder to pull off.

I might sound like a nagging critic here, but on the whole, I do think Invisible Green is an amusing read. The writing is funny with all kinds of references to other mystery writers (duh, it's about a mystery club) and there's a lot of variety in the plot too. And I am definitely going to read the other novel Black Aura. In the future.

But on the whole, I felt that Invisible Green had a few interesting basic ideas, that could've been worked out better to bring a more convincing product. It stumbles when it comes down to details, details that make the core mystery plots far less plausible than the plot pretends them to be and depending on the reader, that can really kill the experience. It's not completely fair to compare this novel with later stories that reappropiate, and improve on ideas we see here, but I couldn't have planned for the order in which I happened to read these stories and I simply have seen more comprehensive variations on the ideas seen in Invisible Green, which makes the little faults stand out on me.

Danger on Parade

There's far too much to take in here 

More to find than can ever be found 

"The Circle of Life" (Carmen Twillie, Lebo M.)

Anyone try that new mystery manga in Jump+, Kamonohashi Ron no Kindan Suiri ("The Forbidden Deductions of Kamonohashi Ron")? Still early days and it's a bit predictable, but for now, I'm still interested to see how it will develop.

Disclosure: I am a member of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. I didn't vote for the stories this year though. Or any year since I became a member.... I read far too few new releases each year to put in an informed vote...

Each year, the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan awards the Honkaku Mystery Award to the best mystery novel published in the year, as selected by the Club's members. Meanwhile, the Club has also been publishing annual anthologies with a selection of the best short stories published that year. Up until 2018,  the annual anthology was titled Best Honkaku Mystery [Year], with up to ten different stories, as well as one essay on mystery fiction. The format was changed last year however as it moved to a smaller pocket size with a slightly smaller selection, and the title too of the series underwent a transformation. After last year's Honkaku Ou 2019, we now have Honkaku Ou 2020 ("The King of Honkaku 2020"). The purpose of the second volume in this series is of course still the same: to offer a look at what recent Japanese short mystery stories have to offer.

Sansha Mendan ("A Terrible Parent-Tutor Meeting") by Yuuki Shinichirou introduces us to Katagiri, a college student who has a part-time job at a tutor agency. Usually, he acts as one of 'salesmen' who meets with prospective students and their parents, but depending on the wishes of the clients, he also tutors. This time he's sent to a new client, where he's to help a sixth grader with his grades. Katagiri makes his way to the Yano residence and meets with the kid and his mother for the first time. They start their first lesson right away, but as times passes by, Katagiri notices that something is wrong. The attentive reader can probably guess what's going on after a while, but the way Yuuki builds to the climax through the clewing is good, and there's even more to the story beyond the initial main problem, which makes this an amusing opening story. Kinda reminds me of some Detective Conan stories, where the Detective Boys get involved in some ongoing event without even realizing that.

Higashigawa Tokuya's Alibi no Aru Yougishatachi ("Suspects With Alibis") has an interesting backstory: it was originally written for the whodunnit contest that runs in the magazine Mysteries! The first part of the story was published in Mysteries! issue 93 (Feb. 2019), and ended with a Challenge to the Reader. Readers who had sent in the correct answer regarding the identity of  the culprit and the reasoning behind that conclusion could win a money prize. The solution was of course published in the following issue of Mysteries! The story is about a young man who after a long day at work returned home, only to get knocked out by someone and later wake up to find out that a valuable family heirloom was stolen. He realizes however that only four people could've opened the safe in his house: his estranged brother, the uncle who found him lying at home, his cousin and his girlfriend are the only suspects, so he decides to not call in the police, but to hire a private detective (with a rather sassy smart speaker as an assistant) to resolve the case privately. Initially, it seems like all four suspects have iron-clad alibis for the time of the theft, but despite that, the detective claims he knows who the thief is. This is a very well-constructed whodunnit story, that at one hand is very fair toward the reader and can be solved if you read everything in detail and think carefully what doesn't fit, but it still has some clever tricks up its sleeves to make sure that not all readers who would send in their answers would get it completely right. I love these kind of whodunnit stories which basically reward the reader for being an attentive reader, but which can still put out a rabbit from their top hat even though you were sure you had found everything already. A good example of how a whodunnit story should be written.

Last year, I reviewed the short story Kangokusha no Satsujin ("Murder in Prison" 2015) by Ibuki Amon, which was set in the early days of the Meiji period (1868-1912). Torawareru Moromitsu ("Moromitsu Imprisoned") is part of the same series and set on the third day of 1868, as the Meiji Restoration was approaching its climax. The struggle for power has now also reached Kyoto, and being at the wrong place at the wrong time, Shikano Moromitsu of the Owari Domain finds himself captured by men of the Satsuma Domain. Moromitsu might not have an extremely high status, but thankfully he's still not someone you can just kill without any consequences, so he's held captured in a cell in the Kyoto manor of the Satsuma Domain. Moromitsu learns that another man is kept in a neigbouring cell, but that man seems to have given up completely and laments that he isn't even allowed to die as a warrior. Moromitsu however has not given in to despair yet, and plans his escape from his cell, even though he has no resources. This story is obviously inspired by Jacques Futrelle's famous short story The Problem of Cell 13, only now this cell is located in 1868s Japan and the props used by Moromitsu are of course also unique to the time setting. Don't expect to be able to solve this conundrum yourself, but watching Moromitsu as he MacGyvers himself out of that cell is certainly very enjoyable material.

Fukuda Kazuyo's Kikime no Osoi Kusuri ("Slow-Working Potion") is a story I should probably not explain in detail, as it's really the type of story where you need to see things unfold for yourself. The case revolves around a man and a woman in their twenties, who were enjoying a meal in a fancy Italian restaurant, when suddenly the man keeled over after drinking his coffee and died in the hospital. What follows is a series of accounts from various characters which slowly unveil what actually happened in the restaurant. Each new account gives you more insight into the man and woman in the restaurant and the build-up to the man's death, but also seem to make things more confusing as you also realize that it doesn't really make sense why the man ended up dead. Good build-up to the climax where you finally realize why the build-up and the death didn't seem to mesh completely.

Nakajima Kyouko's Benjamin is the odd one out in this anthology, and on the "message from the author" page, Nakajima herself writes she was surprised her story was chosen and that she didn't even realize it was a puzzle plot mystery. Narrator Yuugo tells the reader about his father, a zoo director, his big sister Sachi and "Benjamin", a slightly odd animal that lives in their zoo and the odd discovery Yuugo made about Benjamin, but explaining more would be spoiling the plot. Personally not a big fan of this story as I think it's closer to science-fiction, with a twist that seems a bit telegraphed too well.

Yoru ni Ochiru ("Fall in the Night") by Kushiki Riu tells the story of a mysterious attack on a child in a nursery school: a man suddenly barged in the room during the break and threw a girl out of the window. Luckily, the little girl survived, but obviously, the horrible incident attracted the attention of everyone, raising questions about the attacker, but also about the security measures of the nursery school. Journalist Katou Katsuki is put on the story, because his family home is nearby, which means no extra travel expenses. The story works towards a sad denouement when Katsuki realizes what the motive behind the attack is, which has a parallel to the situation at his own parental home. I would definitely believe it if someone would tell me that this story was based on real events, as the topic matter addresses real social problems, but this story does that without sacrificing anything of the mystery. It's perhaps the most 'realistic' story of the whole volume, but it's still a satisfying read as a mystery story.

The final story... I am not going to discuss here, because I have already reviewed Ooyama Seiichirou's Tokeiya Tantei to Oosugiru Shounin no Alibi ("The Clockmaker Detective and the Alibi with Too Many Witnesses") earlier this year, in a seperate review! I liked the story a lot, so I'm not surprised it ended up in this volume. This story was also adapted as the final episode of the Alibi Kuzushi Uketamawarimasu television drama which aired earlier this year and according to the introduction by Ooyama, this story was actually written because the television production staff came up with this plot for the series finale.

On the whole, I liked this year's iteration of Honkaku Ou better than that of last year. Tokeiya Tantei to Oosugiru Shounin no Alibi I already knew, but it's definitely a strong puzzler, as is Higashigawa's whodunnit story (I wish I had read this in real-time, because I actually solved it correctly!). This year's volume is also surprisingly diverse, with stories set in the far away past (Ibuki Amon's story), but also stories that seem to tackle real social issues (Yoru ni Ochiru) or tales with a more dramatic angle (Kikime no Osoi Kusuri). As a reader who often tends to fall back on the works of authors I already know, reading an anthology like this one once in a while is a safe and enjoyable way to get to know a few new names without having to invest too much money/time.

Original Japanese title(s): 『本格王2020』:  結城真一郎「惨者面談」/ 東川篤哉「アリバイのある容疑者たち」/ 伊吹亜門「囚われ師光」/ 福田和代「効き目の遅い薬」/ 中島京子「ベンジャミン」/ 櫛木理宇「夜に落ちる」/ 大山誠一郎「時計屋探偵と多すぎる証人のアリバイ」

The Dragon's Teeth

Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin;

Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win

"The Fall of the House of Usher"

Man, some of these books that have been in my backlog for ages and I honestly don't remember when or where I got them. Sometimes I'm lucky, and there's a receipt inside or a store name on the price stickers, but often, I just don't know...

Kadono Kouhei's Satsuryuu Jiken - A Case of Dragonslayer ("The Case of The Dracocide - A Case of Dragonslayer", 2000) introduces the reader to Romiazalth, an independent city-state located strategically in a valley between the two warring states of Daiki and Melknorse. While the states on both sides would like to make Romiazalth their own, neither side would ever dare invade the grounds of Romiazalth. For the city-state is also the territory of one of the seven dragons that live in this world. Dragons are absolute beings of this world. Not only older than the human race, but also much wiser, and these beings also wield absolute magical and physical prowess far beyond the capabilities or even imagination of humans. The protection of 'their' dragon, who does not allow for a war being fought in the dragon's territory, has been the guarantee for the independence of the citizens of Romiazalth for generations. This is also the reason why peace negotiations between Daiki and Melknorse are held to be here at this neutral place, led by the Seven Seas Alliance, a global trade alliance. The masked Edworth Theseworks Markwhistle, nickname ED, is sent to Romiazalth as the Alliance's battlefield meditator, and he is accompanied by his friend Major Heathrow Kristoff, lauded and feared throughout the world as the Wind Knight. The two are also joined by Captain Riesse Riskassé from Katahta: her mission is to attend the negotiations as a third party, but she's also an old classmate of Heathrow. The three decide to see the dragon in its cave first to ask for permission to hold tbe peace negotations here, but they stumble upon a world-shattering sight inside the cave: the dragon is dead. The ultimate being in the chain of life, a being that has been on this world for longer than human history, a being that possesses unlimited magical power has been derived of its life. The grand metal nail sticking out of its neck, right beneath one of its scales, is proof the dragon has been murdered. But how, and why? How could someone kill a being that is in every manner superior to man? How could the most powerful creature on this world be murdered just like that by man? Given that the cave is usually protected from outsiders through a magic seal cast by the mages of Romiazalth (the dragon is far more powerful than any human mage, so the seal is not to keep the dragon inside, but people out) and that nobody can just walk inside the cave to attack the dragon, the citizens of Romiazalth first point at ED, Heathrow and Riskassé as the culprits, but they manage to buy themselves a month time, before the peace negotiations start. The trio decides to have a talk with the six other people who visited the dragon these last few months to see what they can learn from them and whether the real culprit is among them, but they have to hurry, for not only are the peace negotiations approaching, if ED does not return to Romiazalth before the end of the month, the Death Mark spell cast upon him will kill him.

How odd. I think I bought today's book just over ten years ago in Japan, and I remember that not long after buying it, it was announced by Del Rey they would be publishing the English translation with the slightly altered title The Case of the Dragonslayer. I kinda forgot about this book as it disappeared into the backlog list, but I was always under the impression the English version The Case of the Dragonslayer was available. But when I dug up this book from the graveyard a while ago and looked it up, I was quite surprised to learn that apparently, the English-language edition was never actually released? Or was it? It has an ISBN, there's cover art to be found, there's even an official summary and reviews of what seems to be the English version, but I don't believe the book was really released, or even if it did, only in very limited numbers, as you can find next to no accounts of people actually buying/reading the English version.

And yep, that's artwork by Kaneko Kazuma, probably best known for his work on the Shin Megami Tensei game series! And author Kadono Kouhei's name might sound familiar too, as he's also the writer of the popular horror light novel series Boogiepop, which has also been adapted as anime a few times.

Anyway, back to the book. I've been reading quite a few mystery novels this year with some fantasy element: Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei ("The Hourglass of the Time-Space Traveller") is obviously about time travel, the Isekai no Meitantei series is set in a parallel fantasy world, Neko ni wa Suiri ga yoku Niau ("Deductions Suit Cats Well") has a talking cat, Mukashi Mukashi Aru Tokoro ni, Shitai ga Arimashita ("Once Upon A Time, There Was A Body") is set in fairy tale land, you know the drill. All these books however are also very good detective stories, not despite, but thanks to their original takes on the puzzle plot mystery. In my mind, I have always seen them as mystery stories, with a fantasy element. Satsuryuu Jiken - A Case of Dragonslayer however I'm inclined to describe in the opposite manner, it's a fantasy novel, with a mystery element. Obviously, this novel is not set in our world, but in a medieval-esque fantasy world with dragons, knights and mages, but that was also the case with Isekai no Meitantei. What makes this novel feel more like fantasy is the story structure: after the first chapter in which our heroes discover the dracocide, they embark on a long journey across the world trying to trace the six other people who visited the dragon earlier that year. Each destination brings new adventures, from meeting new allies to having to fight assassins and you even get a world map, that allows you to trace the route our heroes take as they travel (small note: in my edition the map is at the end of the book, but it's not listed in the table of contents, so I read the whole book and only found out there's a map after I was done). Following the group's road trip with adventures around every corner is of course very fantasy-esque in terms of story, as especially ultimately, the heroes don't really do that much detecting and investigating during their long trip. They just find each suspect, have a talk and move on to the next and the fact they have to fight a bit along the way, that's fun to read perhaps but not at all connected to the dracocide. If you're just reading for the murder plot, you might be surprised that probably more than half of the book isn't that relevant.

I guess you can compare Satsuryuu Jiken - A Case of Dragonslayer to something like Pratchett's Feet of Clay of the Discworld series, in the sense that they are foremost fantasy novels, that happen to be dealing with a mystery plot. Ultimately, the problem of Satsuryuu Jiken - A Case of Dragonslayer revolves around the why and how. I think the book has some nice ideas, though not always worked out perfectly. The why is basically a mish-mash of several reasons for the culprit (a bit of this, a bit of that): some parts of the motive seem very superficial, while other parts seem to suggest a motive of a truly epic scale involving a very patient murderer, but taken all together it lacks convincing power. Had the story focused solely on the latter as the motive, it would've been much more impressive. I do like the how a bit better. The question of how a puny human could ever hope to defy a dragon, and actually win by killing it, is raised a few times over the course of the book (and when you see that even the Wind Knight stands no chance against the sheer pressure radiating from other dragons) and I think the book does provide a satisfying explanation to it. The misdirection regarding the murder weapon is pretty clever, and the build-up to how the actual murder was pulled off is nicely foreshadowed too (though it does require the reader to make a few bold guesses in order to arrive at the solution).

Compared to the other fantasy-inspired mystery stories I named earlier, Satsuryuu Jiken - A Case of Dragonslayer definitely feels a bit lacking, in the sense that that this is clearly written as a fantasy novel, where the heroes happen to be dealing with a seemingly impossible murder case, rather than mystery story that happens to involve fantasy elements. The main mystery of the murder on a dragon, a deed deemed utterly impossible, not even in the imagination, is quite alluring and the solution has some nice ideas, some even very good, but I can't deny other parts of the solution feel slightly contrived and/or underdeveloped, which do undermine my ultimate feelings on this book. I do like the world presented in this novel though and with many references to many things existing in this world we haven't actually seen ourselves yet in this first novel, I have to admit I'm curious to see what follows next. So perhaps I'll return to this series in the future.

Original Japanese title(s): 上遠野浩平『殺竜事件 - a case of dragonslayer』