X Y Z

“I admit," I said, "that a second murder in a book often cheers things up."

"The ABC Murders"

 I enjoy mystery fiction as a genre, not any particular medium, so while the focus on this blog lies mostly on books, I stilltend to discuss a lot of mystery fiction in various media, from television shows and comics to videogames and theatrical releases and whatever. When it comes to the subject of mystery videogames however, I'm probably not the only person who has noticed that a lot of the other blogs that discuss mystery fiction barely acknowledge videogames, even if they do for example talk about films or television shows. It's a shame, because each medium brings something completely different to the mystery genre and some concepts work brilliantly as a videogame, while they wouldn't work as well as for example an ordinary novel or even a show.

Of course, that's also the other way around, and there are plenty of good mystery novels that simply wouldn't translate well to the interactive medium and that's why there are in general very few straight videogame adaptations of mystery novels, and even fewer that are actually good. Agatha Christie's famous The ABC Murders (1936) is fairly unique in the sense that it has two seperate videogame adaptations: an adventure game in 2009 for the Nintendo DS, and a multi-platform point-and-click adventure release in 2016 (note that the two games aren't related save for the fact they're based on th same novel). The more recent game is titled Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders and if you are familiar with the original story, you might guess why in theory, Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders (2016, Steam, Xbox One, PS4, Switch and more) could make for an engaging videogame. Like in the original novel, the game starts with the famous French Belgian private detective Poirot and his friend Hastings receiving a letter signed ABC, which points them to things to happen in Andover soon. When Poirot is informed by Chief-Inspector Japp that a woman called Alice Ascher was killed in her shop in Andover on the announced day and that an ABC railway guide was behind at the crime scene, they realize the letter was not just a prank: a second letter announcing a death in Bexhill means both Poirot and the police have to work hard to catch the alphabet-minded murderer before they'll arrive at the Z.

There have been several videogame adaptations of the Poirot novels by Agatha Christie in the past, and many years ago, I reviewed the game based on Evil Under the Sun, but as a story, The ABC Murders is definitely one of the Poirot stories that is best suited for a videogame adaptation. The story is set across the country, with murders occuring in diverse locations and this also brings Poirot and Hastings in contact with a diverse cast of suspects, as each victim dwelled in very different social circles: the murder in Andover is set in a small tobacco shop and the people in the victim's immediate circle are all in the working class, while later in the story, Poirot and Hastings will have to visit the stately country manor of a wealthy doctor. This means that the game too presents the player with a diverse cast of suspects and locations to visit: with so many Poirot novels focusing on one or maybe two murders in a fairly confined location, The ABC Murders is quite unique for its 'scale' and that at least makes Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders a pleasant game to look at: while your mileage might vary regarding the comic book art visual style, the game certainly isn't confined to only one or two boring locations and gives you a nice variety of locations to explore, as well as the 'home base' that is Poirot's office (which seems very much inspired by the office we see in later seasons of Agatha Christie's Poirot starring David Suchet, with the Japanese prints on the wall as well as the neat, curved cabinet beneath the windows). 

The story of the game follows that of the novel fairly faithfully: there are a few changes here and there to open up the suspect pool (often cleverly done by building upon minor points mentioned in the original story). You won't be confronted with drastic changes like a whole new murderer or anything like that (the game adaptation of And Then There Were None had its own twist to the conclusion, as well as the original ending as an extra), so there are few surprises here if you already know the story, but it works as a functional adaptation of the novel, which remains a fine tale of mystery regarding a serial killer with a seemingly crazy fixation on the alphabet.

Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders is on the whole a pretty simple point-and-click adventure, where you control Poirot as you gather clues at each crime scene by exploring the location and talking with the people involved. Once you have gathered all the necessary clues at a specific location, the game will prompt you with questions that you need to answer with the clues/statements gathered earlier, to arrive at conclusions regarding the identity and modus operandi of the killer ABC. At the very end of the game, you use the conclusions you made and corrected throughout the game to figure out who the murderer is: it's not an original or surprising set-up, but it works for this story. There are some nice little ideas that make this feel like a Poirot game though. For example, each time you meet a new person, you don't start talking to them right away, but observe them for a moment, which allows you make deductions about their character and current state of mind. While it's a very simple gameplay mechanic, where you just find a few hotspots as you zoom in on a character, it's a mechanic that fits Poirot so well, as he's a detective who's always been more interested in the psychology of the crime, and of the persons involved. It's a simple gameplay element that fits wonderful with the story of The ABC Murders. A more advanced variation on this mechanic is found in 2014's Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments by the way, for those interested in seeing a different (and more engaging) take on the concept. There are also touches like being able to look in the mirror as Poirot to make sure you look tidy, or having Poirot lament the fate of his shoes and trousers each time you walk through a puddle.

As mentioned above, Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders is a pretty simple game to play, and most likely, its primary target audience doesn't consist of people who often play mystery-themed adventure games, but people who like Agatha Christie's works as books or television shows and who might try a game based on the brand name, or mystery bloggers who never discuss mystery games. The game not only always tells you how many clues you have to find at a certain location or what your next objective is, but there's also a baked-in hint system that will automatically perform the next neccessary step to advance in the game (like picking up a clue you missed). Which is of course perfectly fine as not every game needs to be a stress-fest, but it's strange that at the same time, Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders also uses frustrating adventure game conventions to stretch the experience, and the puzzles you often have to solve to advance in the game are incredibly contrived. At each new location, you gather clues not just by questioning the people related to the case, but also by searching each location, like the bedroom of the second victim. As per bad adventure gaming convention, often important objects are found not just lying on a table or in a drawer, but inside elaborate puzzle boxes that need to be opened: usually it's a box that needs to be turned around in 360 degrees, and sliding a panel at one side will open a mechanism somewhere else, which again will open another door etc. It's one of the things I really didn't like about the Sherlock Holmes games developed by Frogwares like Crimes & Punishments and The Testament of Sherlock Holmes and it certainly isn't different here. I don't know why so many detective adventure games seem to think that a detective characters needs to open puzzle boxes,, and why the people in these worlds tend to keep all their important stuff in puzzle boxes that can be opened by anyone as long as they figure out the mechanism instead of, like, keep it in a safe with a key. The most ridiculous example of this happens late in the game, when you need to open a trolley-size travel case which consists of perhaps five or six mechanisms which need to be opened in order, and when you're finally done, it turns out that perhaps 80% of that case consists just out of those puzzle mechanisms, leaving one small drawer as the actual usuable space of the travel case! It's such a 'game-like' thing to fill the narrative with these filler puzzles (and even then, it's a bad gaming convention), so while Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders feels like it's made to appeal to non-gamers with an interest in Agatha Christie's work, it's at the same time using boring adventure design conventions that are most likely to first scare off or bore non-gamers. It's just a weird dichotomy in game design. Well, at least the hint system allows you to skip these puzzles if you really don't like them.

Oh! By the way, I did like the inclusion of The Dark Shadow in the crime reconstruction scenes! The Dark Shadow is such an iconic part of Japanese visual mystery fiction, I just thought it was so funny to see that familiar face in a Poirot adaptation of all things!

Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders on the whole is a capable game adaptation of a novel that actually lends it well to a more interactive medium: the core plot translates well to the medium to show how Poirot solves the case on a mental level by allowing the player to go through each deductive step themselves. Little touches make the game feel like a Poirot game too. It's just those puzzle boxes that feel horribly out of place, and sadly enough, a lot of objects are kept for some reason in these puzzle boxes that for some reason are the newest fad in the UK, making everyone put things on boxes that can be opened by anyone with a mind for puzzles. In general though, Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders does feature a lot of design choices that make it an easy experience for non-gamers, so it's one I can recommend if you aren't into mystery games yet, but want to try one out to ease in the medium.

Strange Memories

 「春はあけぼの」

『枕草子』

 

"In summers, nights are best.

"The Pillow Book"

I always try to read at least one mystery book set in the city of Fukuoka (Hakata) every year. Last year's attempt wasn't quite what I had expected from it, but this year's entry is very, very recognizable as being set in Fukuoka.

Almost five years ago, I reviewed the short story collection Houkago Spring Train ("After-School Spring Train"), the debut work of Yoshino Izumi. The book caught my attention because it was set in the city of Fukuoka, and almost miraculously, it was set exactly in the area where I lived and studied while I was living there, making it a must-read as I try to read at least one mystery novel set in Fukuoka every year. Yoshino did not publish any more books after this debut work, so imagine my surprise when I noticed a new book by Yoshino in the fall of 2020 on the release lists, and it was a sequel to her first book too. Tenohira Astral (2020) once again focuses on the minor mysteries which puzzle the high school student Izumi, as she struggles with the problems every teenager faces. As she's in her second year in high school, it's about time to think about what she'll do after she's graduated. Many of her friends will go to college and her bestie Asana seems to have made up her mind she wants to become a teacher, like her older boyfriend Uehara, but Izumi still doesn't know what major she wants to do, and even if she really wants to go to college. It's during these busy days that she stumbles upon little mysteries of everyday life, like a classmate who for some reason is carrying the student ID of someone in the third year or a trail of blood leading out of a classroom, but no student in the class admits to having injured themselves. While insignificant problems, they do bug Izumi, but luckily Uehara's friend Tobiki, a student of Q University, seems to have an answer for everything.

Coming up with mysteries that seem mundane enough that anyone could encounter them in normal, everyday life, but yet interesting enough to actually drive a tale of fiction is quite difficult and often, such mysteries feel a bit underwhelming because the problem is just too mundane, or the solution is just not convincing enough. Tenohira Astral is a short story collection that does not really manage to avoid these familiar traps, and perhaps it's not really trying to anyway, because perhaps more than the first book, Tenohira Astral is perhaps best read as a YA novel, with a mystery plot running beneath the surface. Because the focus lies far more on the development of Izumi as a character now and about what she wants to do after high school. Each story is more about her encounters with her friends and how they talk about what they really want to do, and each mystery she encounters ultimately also ties in to her struggle about her post-school life, showing her that everyone makes their own choice.

The first story, Kanojotachi no Yukue ("The Way They Go") is perhaps the best story in the volume. Izumi picks up a student ID her classmate Yune drops, but notices it belongs to a male student in the year above them. Later that Izumi and Asana spot Yune seemingly all dressed up for a date in the city and they decide to tail her. They make sure Yune doesn't notice them in the subway, and eventually see her arriving in the city, but when Yune's boyfriend arrives, they're surprised to see it's not the person on the student ID Izumi picked up. They realize that if Yune was dating the boy from the ID, they'd leave their school together, but why was Yune carrying the ID of someone else? The answer to that question is very simple, but oh-so-real and convincing, and it works in the context of a naturalistic mystery of everyday life. It also ties up great to the overall theme of Izumi wondering about her future life.

Kanitsukai no Revenge Match ("Revenge Match of the Crab Master") on the other hand focus too much on this overall theme, and barely manages to present a mystery plot. The story has Izumi and some classmates visiting the open campus of Q University and her classmate Sudou is even competing in the robot competition on the campus, hoping to do better than his efforts last year. Tobiki also swings by, but he leaves an enigmatic message when he spots Sudou's robot crab and goes back to his work. The story revolves more around a really bad word pun than a real mystery, and it's barely better than the third story, Natsuyasumi Akemae ("Before the End of The Summer Holday"), where Izumi swings by school during the holiday but notices a classmate doing a test, even though it's long after the examination period. Izumi wonders about what exam it could be, but here the answer is too straighforward and not remotely attractive as a puzzle to the reader. It's strongly connected with the overall theme of Izumi deciding on what to do after school, but unlike the first story in the book, it's just not interesting at all as a mystery.

Tenohira Astral starts off with an interesting premise: Izumi and the other students who are on afterschool cleaning duty this week notice a trail of blood in the corridor. They follow it, but strangely enough it doesn't go the school nurse, but just the bathroom. They trace it back, but none of the students in the nearby classrooms seems to admit to having bled, though Izumi notices multiple people in her class with bandaids. Ultimately, the story is more about guessing the reason why someone would get hurt, and while it's kinda okay in the YA-context of this book, it's not really a satisfying mystery that manages to make best of the premise. 

The final story is a bit more interesting. Kiiroi Eki he ("To the Yellow Station") starts off on the Kaizuka Line. Before she gets on the train, she sees a mother talking with her young son who's about to take the train all by himself. The mother reminds her son to get off at "the yellow station" because his grandparents will be there waiting for him. The boy is probably too young to remember the station name, which is why his mother said it's the yellow station, but Izumi does wonder what the yellow station means, because the stations on the Kaizuka line don't have assigned colors and it's not like any of the stations on the line is particularly yellow in design. The boy however drifts off in the train, and when they arrive at the terminal Kaizuka, the boy realizes he's at the wrong station. Izumi wants to bring him to the stationmaster, but the boy refuses as he's a big boy and this is his first time taking the train alone. Based on the price of the ticket of the boy, Izumi deduces that "the yellow station" is one of three stations, but which of them is the yellow one? An interesting attempt is made to tie this mystery to a larger storyline developing throughout the five stories in the book, though it's hard to really call this a fair mystery. It's dependent on whether the reader is aware, or at least capable of thinking of a certain fact: if you happen to know about it, this mystery is a lot easier to solve, but the set-up to the reveal in this book itself is probably not strong enough even if it does tie to the overall storyline. It's easily the best mystery story after the opening story, but that's not saying much.

Overall, I think it's fairly clear I didn't like Tenohira Astral that much as a mystery novel on its own, though I do think it's entertaining enough as a YA-novel, especially as I absolutely love the familar setting of Fukuoka in this book: personally any book that's set between Kashiihama and Hakozaki, Fukuoka will win bonus with me. The way in which the mysteries tie to Izumi's coming-of-age story isn't always perfect, but when it does work, it's surprisingly convincing and satisfying, giving a lot of synergy to the themes. And like the first novel, the chatter between the high school girls is fun to follow. I'd describe this as 65% YA novel, 35% mystery, and personally, I'd have preferred the reverse, but I really don't mind reading these kind of books once in a while.

Original Japanese title(s): 吉野泉『手のひらアストラル』:「彼女たちの行方」/「蟹使いのリベンジマッチ」/「夏休み明け前」/「手のひらアストラル」/「黄色い駅へ」

How Watson Learned the Trick

"I'm lost without my Boswell."

"A Scandal in Bohemia"

Not sure if anyone reads the page, but I added Turn of the Golden Witch to the Umineko no Naku koro ni playthrough memo.

I love short story collections, but it always takes so much time to write the review...

Ooyama Seiichirou has been churning out incredibly well-written puzzle plot short stories since his debut, so obviously, any news of a new short story collection immediately attracts my attention, even without me knowing what it's about. Though in this case, the premise also sounded so much fun I knew I had to read it. Wato Souji is a rookie police detective assigned to the top investigation unit of the Metropolitan Police Department, which sports an unbelievable rate of solved cases. Unlike his colleagues however, Wato himself is not exceptionally good at his job. Yet, it is absolutely thanks to Wato that his unit does so well, even if his team members don't realize that. Ever since Wato was a little, he has had a weird gift: people in his physical vicinity become better thinkers when faced with a mental problem. When Wato's around, it's as if the mist suddenly disperses and any person becomes capable of infering the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other, from just a drop of water. Wato has dubbed his unique talent the "Watson Force" as everyone around him unconsciously turns into Sherlock Holmes. Nobody knows that Wato is making people around him smarter, but his colleagues do notice things go more smoothly whenever Wato's around, so they like having him on the team. While Wato himself is not affected by his power and thus can not become a Holmes himself, he does have a trait only series detectives have: he tends to get involved in random murder cases even outside work. Luckily, the cases are always solved for him by everyone around him. But what if Wato finds himself in trouble without anyone around? Ooyama Seiichirou's  2020 short story collection Watson-ryoku  ("The Watson Force") explores Wato's ability in seven (+one) diverse stories.

In game-lingo: Wato's Watson Force is a passive ability that greatly buffs the intelligence stats of all friendly and enemy units around him.

The first time I heard of the premise of these stories, I just knew I had to read them, because the concept was just so funny. An ability that makes everyone else brilliant detectives, while the series protagonist is destined to play the Watson in each and every story? What's so interesting about these stories that you never know who in the end will end up as the detective. Everyone in the vicinity of Wato receives the temporary mental boost, but that doesn't mean that all the characters arrive at the same conclusion at the same time. Everyone is just getting a mental boost, so they all start forming theories about the murder cases they find themselves involved with, and as these characters present their theories to each other in fierce deduction battles, they slowly work together towards the true solution. All the characters always have something to add in terms of interesting theories (okay, some theories are less likely to be true than others), and the fun in these stories is seeing everyone bouncing off theories until one of them finally figures the whole thing out. But as there's no established series detective, you simply never know who will get it right. I once wrote an article about false solutions and the foil detective, but Watson-ryoku presents a brilliant method to prevent the reader from knowing a solution is fake simply because it wasn't the series detective who proposed it: by not having a series detective in the first place, and creating the possibility that every character besides Wato can be the Sherlock Holmes, you just never know what might come, which keeps the battle of wits and the whole plot exciting until the very end.

Take the opening story Akai Juujika ("The Red Crosses") for example. Wato is enjoying his Christmas holiday at a small ski pension, which has three other guests. On Christmas morning, the guests find that the owner of the pension hasn't prepared breakfast yet, nor is there any sign of the owner's sister, who also works here. The guests check the private rooms of the owner, only to find that brother and sister have been shot to death in their respective rooms. The owner however managed to leave a dying message while he was bleeding to death on the floor: five red crosses are drawn in blood in front of him. Wato reveals to the other guests that he's a police detective and notifies the local authorities, but they aren't able to come due to a blocked road and when Wato also discovers that there are no footprints in the snow whatsoever leading away from the lodge, he determines the murderer must be one of the other guests. At this point, his Watson Force kicks in, and lo, the other guests start their own investigation into the murder, arriving at a surprising answer to the question as to the meaning of the red crosses and the identity of the murderer. The story keeps both the characters and the reader on their toes by having the three guests all become brilliant detectives in their own right, allowing each of them to propose rather interesting theories about the double murder. Some of these deductions are sometimes a bit forceful: they usually turn out to be wrong, but do serve as a point for other deductions to build upon as elements turn out to be true. Having some of these "Holmeses" propose slightly farfetched theories that ultimately do help introduce the final solution works in the context of this series, as all the characters are capable of coming up with fairly original insights into the case. I like the final solution too: it's in the spirit of the Van Dine/Queen school, with a chain of reasoning based on the physical state of the crime scene ("why is this here in this form?"), giving a plausible reason why five crosses were drawn on the carpet and showing you step by step how to arrive at the identity of the murderer from there.

In Ankokushitsu no Satsujin ("The Murder in the Dark Room"), Wato has been given a ticket to the exposition of a famous sculptor. The exposition is held in one of the underground floors of a multi-tenant building. It's still early, so besides Wato, the sculptor himself and the receptionist, there are only two other visitors, but suddenly they all feel a rumble and all the lights in the room go out. It turns out a sink hole has appeared just outside and that broke the sewage pipes. Not only is the elevator disabled, water has also flooded the emergency staircase, preventing the party from opening the escape door to escape through there. Fortunately, rescue is on its way. It's still completely dark in the room as the people introduce each other using their cell phones as light source, but suddenly, they hear another thud, and they find that the sculptor himself lying dead on the floor, having been hit on the head. But why would someone decide to kill the man here and now, while they're all trapped in an unlit room and with no means of escape? Some of the theories proposed do feel like they come out of nowhere, and it's still weird when they turn out to be partially true, as a build-up for the actual solution despite being such daring deductions (guesses), but I do like the idea behind the reason for why the sculptor died: the motive relates to a very specific set of circumstances that happen to be true here and gives plausible reason for why the culprit acted so suddenly.

Kyuukonsha to Dokusatsusha ("Suitors and Poisoners") has Wato be summoned to a remote private island as a potential husband for Sasamori Tsukiko, the daughter of Sasamori Shunsuke, CEO of the renowned and influential Sasamori Electronics. Sasamori once spotted Wato being a kind person to the elderly and determined he was a good candidate as a son-in-law. Sasamori is also a personal friend of the Superintendent-General of the Metropolitan Police Department, who hopes his subordinate will be chosen by Tsukiko. Three other suitors are also summoned to the private island and the idea is that Tsukiko will spend some time with everyone there and make up her mind. The other three suitors are all in career fast tracks at various ministeries and they immediately realize that Wato isn't not a serious rival for any of them, which ironically means they can be friendly with him. The party has just arrived on the island and started on some drinking and dancing when one of the suitors falls dead on the floor: his drink had been poisoned. The trope of multiple suitors fighting for the same girl and one of them being murdered is a familiar one of course, but now the remaining suitors don't just fight it out, but actually use logic and theories to fight each other and figure out who the murderer is. It's a surprisingly complex story, with various theories that focus on questions on when the drink was poisoned and whether the victim was actually the intended target and not (and how to prove that logically). As always, you never quite know who's on the right track until the very end. This story makes very clever use of the concept of the Watson Force, showing how it can be used in a very original way to drive the plot and create a mystery that actually revolves around having all the characters come up with various solutions from different angles.

Yuki no Hi no Majutsu ("Snow Day Magic") is set during Wato's time as a patrol officer. One early morning, he notices a car parked near the construction site of a new house. He decides to check this out, and walks up to the house, when Miyagi, the owner of the halfway house, comes running out. Upon seeing Wato, Miyagi tells him he found a dead body inside. The victim was lying face down on the foundation of the semi-basement floor. The man's been shot to death just moments earlier. There are no footprints in the snow surrounding the site that could belong to the murderer, only those of the victim himself and those of Miyagi, but these footprints show that Miyagi had only just arrived at the house and as he wasn't carrying the pistol on his body when Wato ran into him, Wato determines Miyagi couldn't be the killer. What complicates matters however is the fact that the victim and Miyagi are both members of the same shooting club, and they were rivals in being picked for the Olympics. A deduction battle sparked by the Watson Force starts upon arrival of the victim's family, who are convinced that Miyagi did it. A story which reminds me of Ooyama's The Locked Room Collector, as this too is an impossible murder that is ultimately solved through Queen school logic. It's a story that could've worked as "just" an impossible murder story, without the various characters trying to outsmart each other with their theories, but it's just more entertaining this way, as you see how Ooyama slowly builds towards the final solution, which is a nice one: the method of the murder is interesting on its own, but what's most commendable is how Ooyama arrives at this method through a logical examination of the circumstances of the murder, making it not just a random guess, but a carefully built-up chain of logic leading to the realization of how the impossible murder was done.

Kumo no Ue no Shi ("Death Above the Clouds") is obviously set inside a plane, one that is going from Japan to Los Angeles. It's not a busy flight, so Wato has the three window-side seats for himself, as does the man in the row behind him. Soon after the 'lights out'' time however, the cabin assistant notices that all's not well with the man behind Wato and after calling for a doctor aboard, it's determined the man is dead and that he was likely poisoned on board. Wato reveals himself to the crew and sky marshal as a police detective and they start investigating the murder on the Japanese-American, focusing on the question why the man died on board: was it a suicide or a murder, and why during a flight? Some of the theories proposed are a bit too farfetched this time, but they are needed to set-up the final solution and I guess they work in this particular series because anyone can be as brilliant as Holmes, even if they're going in the wrong general direction. The explanations proposed by the various characters keep the reader engaged as they tackle the problem from different angles, and I like how the final solution builds clearly on an earlier idea that had been discarded first, but which becomes "valid" again due to the introduction of a new fact, changing the circumstances again.

Tantei Daihon ("Detective Script") is one have discussed in the past already, as it was included in the anthology Honkaku Ou 2019. It's written as a homage to Abiko Takemaru's Tantei Eiga and follows the same basic idea, about a playwright who barely survived a fire in his home. What also barely survived the fire is the script of his troupe's upcoming murder mystery play. The partially burned scenario only offers the start of a murder mystery that happens on a remote island, but not the solution. The actors start discussing the script and guessing who the playwright intended to be the murderer in the presence of Wato (who saved the playwright from the fire). As the discussion continues, each actor comes up with a solution that indicates their own character as the murderer. I'll just copy-paste my own words here from the previous review: "Tantei Daihon is still a surprisingly tightly-plotted story with several fake solutions. The final solution is clever: if you just follow the clues "straight", you're likely to run into a wall, but once you figure out the true meaning of a certain passage in the screenplay, everything is turned upside down, allowing you to arrive at the correct solution. I love this type of whodunnit setups, where you can cross out most of the suspects if you simply carefully follow each clue, but there's one final clue that asks for a bit more imagination in interpretation, which can turn everything around. Short, but satsifying."

The culprit isn't the only one who's unlucky in Fuun na Hannin ("The Unlucky Perpetrator"): Wato's on a late highway bus heading for Toba when the bus is suddenly hijacked by an armed man, who's just has had enough of everything and forces the driver to change destination. When one of the passengers doesn't seem to listen to the hijacker's orders, they discover that this man has been stabbed to death with a knife. Wato can't do much about controlling his Watson Force even in an emergency situation, so the passengers and the hijacker start thinking about how this man was killed on the bus while the bus is headed towards its new destination. Interesting situation! It's funny how everyone starts playing Holmes right in the middle of a hostage situation and that even the hijacker plays along. This story does a great job at foreshadowing, placing Chekhov's Guns at the right place and time and finally bringing it all together for the final solution. The base plot of this story does remind of the previous story (murder inside a moving closed circle situation), but the solution is completely different and I like this one better as the various events that occur throughout the story really come together to form a cohesive plot.

While these stories were originally published seperately, the volume Watson-ryoku also includes a overarching storyline presented through special connecting segments that act as intermezzos between the various stories. The book starts with Wato waking up in a locked room. He remembers he was abducted by an unknown figure, and Wato suspects his capture is related to his Wato Force, so he starts reflecting on the previous cases that were solved through the Watson Force, introducing the seven stories discussed above. In the conclusion, it's revealed who captured Wato and for what reason, and it's perfectly possible to deduce who the abductor is based the few theories Wato himself proposes and the details of the previous stories. Interesting to see how these originally unconnected stories manage to form one narrative in the end.

Watson-ryoku definitely didn't disappoint, and the volume turned out to be a very entertaining short story collection, that not only has an interesting premise with the Watson Force, but makes the best of that original idea too: we have battles of the wits with all kinds of theories (false solutions) in all the stories, the reader is kept on their toes as you never quite know who will propose the final solution and while the basic plots of a few of these stories do feel a bit similar, with closed circle situations and relatively 'simple' murders like poisoning or just someone bludgeoned or stabbed to death, the core mystery plots always revolve around very different concepts. Recommended material, and man, I can't wait to see a live-action drama: usually the detective is the greatest star in a series, but now you can have an all-star cast in each episode and have everyone (besides Wato) play the great detective!

Original Japanese title(s): 大山誠一郎『ワトソン力』： 「赤い十字架 」/「 暗黒室の殺人」 / 「求婚者と毒殺者」/ 「雪の日の魔術」/「 雲の上の」 /「 探偵台本」 / 「不運な犯人」

The Eight of Swords

"He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword"

"The Doomdorf Mystery"

EDIT: Hey, the Famicom Detective Club remakes are also coming west! And with a May release, I really should speed up my Umineko playthrough...

Had to think of that art history professor I once had who had a real Japanese katana and actually walked around campus with the thing to show it off in the lecture room when the topic came up in class one day.

It's a misty afternoon when the clever detective Sharaku Homura and her Watson Yamazaki "Karate Kid" Yousuke make their way back home after school, when they are suddenly attacked by a masked figure with a Japanese sword. Or where they attacked by a Japanese sword, with a masked figure? According to the figure, the Demon Sword Shikabanemaru craves blood and the Demon Sword has now taken control of the mind of some poor man in order to have a wielder of its power. Karate Kid manages to fend off the assailant, who flees, but two men nearby overhear the two discussing Shikabanemaru: Masaki is a fan of Japanese sword who was on his way to the elderly Izawa, who actually owns the Demon Sword Shikabanemaru. Izawa invites Homura and Karate Kid along side Masaki inside his house and tells them the story of the Demon Sword Shikabanemaru, a sword forged decades ago by an insane swordsmith who used the blood of a hundred young boys and girls to create the blood-craving sword. The sword disappeared from police custody after the swordsmith was executed, and since then Shikabanemaru has gone from one owner to another in the underground circuit, but every time, the Demon Sword manages to seduce its owner to go on a killing spree with the sword. Izawa bought the Demon Sword recently, but since then has been tormented by dreams of killing boys and girls, and he fears the sword has possesssed him.

Inside the house, the four inspect the Demon Sword Shikabanemaru, which is kept safely in a glass case. They unsheathe the sword and are relieved to see that it's completely clean: not a sign of blood anywhere on the blade, nor does it look like it was wiped clean of blood moments ago. The sword is placed back in the case, and the four start to talk about Shikabanemaru's backstory, but suddenly, they notice blood leaking from the sheath. They quickly get the sword out of the glass case and unsheathe it, only to find the whole blade covered in blood! But how can the blade of Shikabanemaru's blade suddenly be covered in blood even though it had been put inside a glass case, unless it's really a Demon Blade? Even Homura doesn't know what to make of this grotesque mystery, until she later realizes what really happened in Nemoto Shou's Youtou Shikabanemaru ("The Demon Sword Shikabanemaru" 2020-2021), issue 19 of Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura, which can be read at Nemoto's Note site.

Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura ("Sharaku Homura: Detective of the Uncanny") is a doujin comic (self-published comic) by professional comic artist Nemoto Shou, which in recent years has also seen a digital three-volume release by a major publisher (reviews of the first, second and third volume here). The series is an excellent mystery comic focusing on impossible crimes and a great example of how to do fair-play visual mystery fiction in general, and they even have formal Challenges to the Reader! While Nemoto has released more issues beyond the material collected in the three collected volumes, there's been no talk yet about a fourth volume. I have however discussed a few of the non-collected issues already: Issue 16, Hagoromo no Kijo ("The Ogress With the Robe of Feathers"), was one of the best entries in the series about an impossible stabbing in a snow-covered field without any footprints of the murderer, while issue 18 Kourei Yashiki ("The House of Necromancy" 2020) presented an interesting impossible disappearance of a diamond. The latest issue too focuses on a non-murder mystery. Well, to be fair, a lot of people do die in the backstory of Shikabanemaru, but the main mystery of this tale is about how a clean, sheathed sword can suddenly become completely covered in blood.

Youtou Shikabanemaru is one of the shortest issues of the series and that is reflected in the mystery: for example, the list of characters is incredibly short, so most readers will probably have an idea who's most likely to be behind the magic of the bleeding blade, and from that point on, it's not that difficult to at least guess what they could've done to cause the blade to be covered in blood, even though it was clean when the sword was sheathed and put away in the glass case. The most obvious solution is luckily immediately discarded by Homura, as she shows that the easiest answer is definitely impossible, and this is properly supported by the artwork, which is always one of the things this series does best. But even so, the jump from there to the actual solution isn't that far, and it's basically a variation on the same idea. While I like the idea of the final hint Homura sees before she solves the case, I think the hinting could perhaps have been more focused on the specifics of what and how the culprit did it, rather than one step beyond: if for example the culprit did action A, for which they also needed to do action B, and for that they needed to do action C, the hinting in this story is focused on C, while it expects you to deduce A from that, which might be a bit too far, even most people will likely have a basic idea of what the solution will likely be. 

Speaking of stories about demon swords that possess people and tempt them to killing other people, I don't think I have read that many mystery stories about this theme, even if it sounds like an appealing concept. In fact, the first thing I had to think of was not a mystery story, but the action series Dororo, where one of the earlier stories is also about a demonic sword possessing a swordsman into becoming a ruthless killer (the PS2 game released in the West as Blood Will Tell is great and also features this story by the way!). I recall one of the short stories of Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo also having a demon sword/knife or something like that and I'm probably forgetting a few I have read/seen, but even so, it's surprising I can't name more of them instantly.

I liked Youtou Shikabanemaru, the nineteenth issue of Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura, probably better as a horror story (the epilogue!) than as a mystery story, even if it's honestly not bad. It's a short story, so there's only so much you can expect of it considering the page count, but it has an original impossible mystery and interesting backstory, and while the solution to the mystery of the bleeding blade might be not as surprising as you might hope, it's still a well-written story that most of all tries to be fair at all times to the reader. But I'll have to be honest and say that after two short murder-less stories, I'm definitely looking forward to a longer murder mystery for the next issue!

Original Japanese title(s): 根本尚（札幌の六畳一間）「怪奇探偵　妖刀屍丸」

Death in the Park

Nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it

 Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám  (FitzGerald tr.)

Some of you may have noticed it already, but I added an extra temporary page to the site (via the bar on the top of the page on a PC browser) while I'm playing the mystery novel game Umineko no Naku Koro ni Saku to write down random thoughts, because it will probably take me ages to get through all the episodes and I'm bound to forget things about each episode. I've only just finished the first episode and it seems like subsequent episodes will give out more important information, so perhaps it's not even possible to solve the mystery at this point, but it won't hurt to scribble down some random ideas. You could take a look if you've already played the games and obviously you shouldn't look if you don't want to see (ROT13-protected) spoilers. I have switched off comments because I honestly want to proceed in the game completely blind though, so please keep that in mind. I'll probably mention it in the usual posts on the front page if I happen to update the Umineko page/whenever I'm done with another episode and for now, I think I'll just keep the page up until I'm done with the episodes in the Question Arc.

Yamada Fuutarou is best known for basically inventing, and perfecting the genre of historical fantasy novels starring ninja, like the classic Kouga Ninpou Chou ("The Kouga Ninja Scrolls"), which has also been adapted as the anime and manga Basilisk. His epic historical tales where clans of ninja waged war against ecah other with fanciful powers with technique names had a huge influence on not only the popular image of the ninja, but also popular culture in general: series like Naruto and Bleach are basically direct descendants of Yamada's work and would simply not have existed without him creating the popular battle manga formula. Yamada however started out as a mystery writer and he was quite good at it too: Meiji Dantoudai ("The Meiji Guillotine") and Youi Kinpeibai ("The Bewitching Plum in the Vase") are fantastic works in the genre for example.

Tengu Misaki Satsujin Jiken ("The Tengu Cliff Murder Case") is a volume originally published in 2001, the year Yamada passed away, and collects a wide variety of Yamada's mystery-themed stories which had not been collected in other volumes before. The volume is divided in four distinct parts, with each part offering a different view on the kinds of mystery stories Yamada wrote. As there are eighteen stories collected here, I'm not going to discuss them all, also because not all of them are really worth discussing in detail. Not all stories, or even parts are as interesting as others, so while this volume will show a very diverse Yamada, I wouldn't immediately recommend this book as an introduction to his work: the selection is just too wide and some stories are likely not to leave any lasting impression. It's similar in spirit to Oosaka Keikichi's Shi no Kaisousen I reviewed a few weeks ago in that regard.

Part 1 of this book collects the conventional puzzle plot mystery stories, with the title story as its centerpiece.  Tengu Misaki Satsujin Jiken introduces the reader to Shimazaki Hachirou, a middle school student who strangely enough has the tendency to faint whenever he sees something swing around. One day, he's had another of his spells, and his teacher Kurobane decides to accompany him back to his home to make sure nothing's wrong. While Hachirou's sleeping in the next room, his father decides to tell the woman about how Hachirou's mother came to die when he was still a baby. Because he was a sailor, the father was often away from home, and it appears his younger wife was having a secret affair. The Shimazakis home is at the tip of one of the cliffs of a bay: the cliff on the other end of the bay is known as Tengu Cliff and there's a little park there. The wife would always meet secretly with her lover at that park. One day however, while her husband was lying ill at home, she was found stabbed in the back in the park on Tengu Cliff, and witnesses only saw her, and later her lover climb the peak, so the man was of course accused of murdering his lover. As the teacher is listening to this story though, she points out how someone else could've murdered Hachirou's mother without being spotted on Tengu Cliff. As a howdunnit, it reminds a bit of the stories in Meiji Dantoudai ("The Meiji Guillotine") or some of Oosaka Keikichi's stories, with a rather mechanical trick behind it all. I think it's juuust running along side the line of being a convincing idea, or just beyond the realms of possibility, so some readers may think this is a neat idea, and some might find it hardly believable it could've been pulled off in this way. I still don't know what side I'm on. Another story worth mentioning in Part 1 is Kono Wana ni Tsumi Ariya ("A Sinful Trap"), which is a story that invokes Edogawa Rampo's Shinri Shiken (The Psychological Test), where a student is questioned about the suicide by gas of a friend. Feels a bit like Columbo with all the detective slowly pointing out contradictions at the scene. Futatsu no Misshitsu ("Two Locked Rooms") also warrants a mention because it's a weird parody story: it consists of two seperate "locked room" mysteries, one with "Ellery Vance" and the other with Professor Van Dusen "The Thinking Machine", but the solutions to both mysteries are clearly meant to be utterly silly (and even a bit science-fiction). 

To be honest, the reason I didn't want to write something on each story was because Part 2 and 4 were not that interesting. Part 2 in particular is easily forgotten, with Panchuutou Jiken ("The Case of Retribution against Whores Gang") being the 'best' story, about a mysterious gang who have been 'stealing' the belly buttons of prostitutes by basically sealing them off with a piece of skin. Nobody knows who's been doing these mutilations and some of them are even done under impossible circumstances, but ultimately it's a weird story, while Edo ni Iru Watashi ("I'm in Edo") is just plain science-fiction. The stories in Part 4 are regular short crime stories, but they're so short that I feel that even a short summary would be giving away too much.

Part 3 is by far the most interesting of the book and consists of five stories which form collectively the mini-series Onna Tantei Torimonochou ("The Case Book of the Female Detective"). In the first story, we are introduced to a trio of wandering musicians, considering of an attractive female singer Mika and her two companions (an elderly man and a child). It turns out these three are out for revenge due to something that occurred to their home in Okinawa, and the "princess" and her retainers are looking for those who caused the tragedy. Each time, the three manage to trace one of the people they seek, but their targets always happen get to murdered under impossible circumstances, and it's up to the princess to swiftly solve things so they can move on and find the rest. The stories are all very short, but most of them have pretty neat ideas that could also have been used for longer stories. Sadly enough, this series kinda stops halfway in the tale, so there's not really much closure to the whole deal.

And yes, this review of Tengu Misaki Satsujin Jiken was rather brief. There are just too many stories of varying quality here to discuss, and that should also give you an idea about what kind of book this is: it's not an introduction to Yamada Fuutarou's mystery stories, and I'd definitely recommend starting somewhere else first, because this collection is best explored by people who already have some idea of Yamada's detective stories. You won't find his best work here, though I have to say I really liked the five stories with Mika and her entourage.

Original Japanese title(s): 山田風太郎『天狗岬殺人事件』: 「天狗岬殺人事件」/「この罠に罪ありや」/「夢幻の恋人」/「二つの密室」/「パンチュウ党事件」/「こりゃ変羅」/「江戸にいる私」/「贋金づくり」/「三人の辻音楽師」/「新宿殺人事件」/「赤い蜘蛛」/「怪奇玄々教」/「輪舞荘の水死人」/「あいつの眼」/「心中見物狂」/「白い夜」/「真夏の夜の夢」

Death of a Butterfly

 ゴキゲンな蝶になってきらめく風に乗って

今すぐ キミに会いに行こう

「Butter-Fly」（和田光司）

 

I'll become a happy butterfly, and glide on the glittering wind

To come see you right away

"Butter-Fly" (Wada Kouji)

Oh man, I have a backlog of more than ten unwritten review posts now. I really should get started on them and not play videogames...

Buddy Collection is an ongoing episodic otome-lite mystery videogame developed by Narutrick, which can be played for free on browsers and smartphones. The overarching story is about Nagisa, a student of a detective high school with the curriculum not only including theory classes on various topics of use for detectives, but also practice classes where the students get to work on real cases for study credits. The school also utilizes a 'buddy' system, with two students always working together. Nagisa and her buddy belonged in the top A Class of the school, but during one of their investigations, Nagisa's buddy went missing and she lost her memory. During her recovery, she's put in the lowest E Class, which consists of three students who have trouble finding a right buddy due to personal problems. Each episode in this series has Nagisa working with three possible E Class buddies on different cases, while she also slowly uncovers more about why she lost her memories and where her own buddy has gone to.

In 2018, an enhanced version of the first episode was released on Switch with the title Buddy Collection if - Shukumei no Akai Ito- ("Buddy Collection If -The Red String of Fate-") and while it was a short and simple game, I did find it entertaining and was looking forward to more of this series be released. As I am writing this post, three episodes are already playable for free on PC/smartphone, but it seems developer Narutrick has some problems getting these regular episodes out on Switch. That's why they created a completely original Buddy Collection entry exclusively for the Switch, as a side-story occurring somewhere during the events of the main episodes. Buddy Collection Extra - Kochousou no Kimyou na Gonin ("Buddy Collection Extra - The Curious Five Persons at the Butterfly House") starts with Nagisa being sent off on a case with a buddy of her choice, but to the duo's surprise the case is solved almost immediately. They make their way back to the train station, but all trains have stopped running due to the storm, and it's impossible for the two to find a hotel. Luckily for them, their client contacts them: with the storm going on, it's too dangerous to ask them to come back to their place to stay for the night because it's too far, but she arranges for Nagisa and her buddy to stay at the place of someone she knows who lives near the station. The two high school detectives are picked up by Outarou, a somewhat shifty man who lives in the Butterfly House, indeed not far from the train station by car, but still located right in the middle of a lonely forest. He tells his two new guests that he has three other guests staying at his house that evening too: friends of his sister Ageha who died exactly one year ago. She committed suicide one year ago by setting fire to her room, but while her brother arrived before the fire really got going on, she had already passed away due to the smoke. During the evening, Nagisa and her buddy notice that there's some tension in the room and that there's more to this gathering of Outarou and Ageha's three friends, but the two detectives couldn't have known that the following morning, they'd find one of them would be murdered. Due to the storm and the very sturdy exterior lock, it's unlikely the murderer is an outsider, so who of the remaining people in the Butterfly House is the murderer and why?

The Buddy Collection games are a combination between novel games (digital Choose-Your-Own-Adventure games) and otome games (story-driven videogames targeted towards women that usually focus on a protagonist developing a romantic relationship with one of the eligible characters): in the first episode, picking a certain buddy meant you'd spend more time with them, learn more about their backstory and even slightly alter the mystery plot because each of the buddies had different talents. Buddy Collection Extra builds on this idea in an even more entertaining manner: at the start of the game, you get to pick who your buddy will be, and each buddy actually leads to a completely different murder mystery set at the Butterfly House: all the scenarios feature different murder victims, they're killed in very different circumstances and the clues leading up to the confrontation are also all different. So you're basically getting three different stories that happen to be using the same basic setting. I started the game with Haruka as my buddy for example, and the victim in that scenario was someone who lived in the two other scenarios. The different scenarios also make good use of the various talents/characteristics of the various buddies: Shingo for example has an instinct to just make correct guesses and while that puts him on the trail of the murderer of his scenario very soon, he has trouble finding actual evidence to support what his gut feeling is telling him, while Haruka has trouble getting things done because he can't physically stand seeing blood.

Also: you know something is going to happen in the Butterfly House because for some reason all the rooms lock automatically. Why would anyone have autolock in their own home?!

So basically, you're presented three different murder mysteries in this game. None of them are really long (an hour or so), and the plots and gameplay are therefore not that complex (a few story-changing choices that either lead to the next chapter or a game over, but you can redo them immediately), but they are fun enough and while the three stories do use the same basic setting and characters (the personalities/backstories of all the characters remain the same throughout the three different story variations), the mysteries are different enough to not make it feel like you're just playing through color variations of the same idea. The Butterfly House is named so because both Outarou and Ageha loved butterflies, and there are also butterflies and butterfly models kept throughout the house and the three scenarios all utilize this theme of butterflies in different ways. What's also interesting is that each scenario will reveal bits and pieces of the common back story regarding Ageha's death, but not everything. For example, my first playthrough with Haruka eventually revealed how certain members of the cast really though of each other, but that relationship is not explained in the other routes and left vague. It's only by playing all the scenarios that you'll truly get a good idea of what really played between Outarou, Ageha and her three friends. This is also seen in the manner in which the game collects clues for you: some clues are put in a route-specific menu, other information is put in commonly shared data pool, as those clues pertain to the backstory all routes share. 

When you have played all three seperate routes, you'll unlock one final route where you visit the Butterfly House not with one buddy, but all three of them! It's the grand finale to the game, finally revealing what really happened a year ago with Ageha, but I like how the game works on a meta-level too: a lot of information pertinent to the case is known to the player, because they have played the game with three seperate buddies and uncovered a lot of information through those routes. The final route expects of the player of course that they have that knowledge now, but that wouldn't make sense for the in-game characters who visit the Butterfly House for the first time. However, the story does a good job at changing the events just ever so slightly due to the presence of three buddies, explaining how the characters learn the information the player had already learned through previous playthroughs. The final story is a good ending that brings the three seperate routes together in a nice way.

So in all in all,  Buddy Collection Extra - Kochousou no Kimyou na Gonin was fun to play. It's not a long game by any means, but it tells a nice story by making clever use of the concept of having three distinct buddies/scenarios to tell three different murder mystery stories, and also rewarding the player for playing through all three scenarios, as you learn more about the underlying story as you go through them one after another. I certainly hope that the main episodes of Buddy Collection will also be released on Switch in the future, as a side-story, this one did not disappoint at all.

Original Japanese title(s): 『Buddy Collection Extra －胡蝶荘の奇妙な五人－』

The Clue in the Old Album

「フェルマーの名にかけて！」 

「TRICK」

 

 "In the name of Fermat!" 

 "Trick"

I honestly first heard of Fermat and his last theorem from watching Trick.

Special events were organized in both the United States and the United Kingdom in 2006 to celebrate the centenary of the meastro of locked room murder mysteries John Dickson Carr, but Japanese fans were of course also thrilled to learn the special occassion wouldn't go unnoticed in their country too. One of the highlights of the special exhibition scheduled for Japan is Carr's own personal copy of Introduction to Unsolved Mysteries, a book gifted to him by the Carr Society. This journalistic work discusses several cases which were, at the time, unsolved because they seem utterly impossible. As a writer of impossible crime mysteries, Carr enjoyed reading this book, and he also loved trying his own hand at solving these real impossible mysteries himself. Whenever he was sure he got the right answer, he'd scribble some vague hints in the margins of the book. While Carr kept his answers mostly to himself, some of the cases discussed in Introduction to Unsolved Mysteries were actually solved with the help of Carr, who sometimes realized the truth was too important to keep hidden for the sake of the survivors. Four cases are known to have been solved with the help of Carr's notes: two during his lifetime, two after his death. But one case with Carr's notes remains unsolved to this day: while Carr knew the answer, the truth was taken with him to the grave and nobody has been able to decypher his cryptic notes yet, leaving the so-called 1938 East End Spontaneous Combustion Case still a mystery. Why did a notorious arsonist suddenly burst into flames and why was the carpet he had been standing on left completely unscathed? The cryptic hints Carr left behind are now known as John Dickson Carr's Last Theorem.

 

A group of seven has gathered in the holiday villa of the Tomosaka family, a major sponsor of the Carr exhibition in Japan. Son Yuuya himself is a great fan of John Dickson Carr and has persuaded the owners of Carr's Introduction to Unsolved Mysteries to lend them the book to study it for a day, before the exhibition starts. The study group is arranged as an officially college-sanctioned project, and Yuuya has invited a few of his study mates from the Science faculty, as well as Professor Taylor, an American who will help the students read the book and act as the supervisor. And of course, these people are all great John Dickson Carr fans. But tragedy strikes in the late afternoon, when everyone has a few hours for themselves: Yuuya is found dead in the Japanese garden in the inner court of the villa, and he's been shot to death with a harpoon. The harpoon was brought here by one of the students for when they would go diving. It appears Yuuya was shot by the murderer with the harpoon in the pool room, and because death had not been instant, Yuuya had tried to escape through the French windows into the garden, where he died. As the harpoon was found lying in the pool room, and no other footprints are seen in the pebble stone covering the garden, it's assumed the murderer just let Yuuya die in the court, but they soon learn this is impossible: workers had been busy in the hallway that afternoon due to a leak, and the two men swear nobody went in or out the corridor that led to the pool room while they were working there, meaning the murderer couldn't have escaped the pool room after killing Yuuya! John Dickson Carr may have solved several real-life crimes in Introduction to Unsolved Mysteries, but will his notes, and his Last Theorem also come in handy in solving their new crime in Tsukatou Hajime's 2020 novel John Dickson Carr no Saishuu Teiri, which also has the English title John Dickson Carr's Last Theorem?

 

Last year, I reviewed a short story collection by Tsukatou Hajime that was inspired by Ellery Queen: this time it's a novel inspired by John Dickson Carr. Though you may also have heard of the short story of the same name. Back in 2006, a special anthology was released in Japan to celebrate the centenery of John Dickson Carr, and Tsukatou Hajime wrote John Dickson Carr's Last Theorem for that book. Tsukatou extended that story into a full-fledged novel last year. I haven't read the original, but I assume the core ideas are the same.

 

Though I assume that a lot has been added, because this mystery novel is really packed, with no less than three impossible murders. Two of these are from Introduction to Unsolved Mysteries and were originally solved by Carr himself. The first involves a pistol which is said to slay only the wicked and that the bullet will always finds its target. One afternoon, the elderly owner of the pistol shot at her window, saying she couldn't resist the pistol's call anymore and that evil had to be killed. At the same time, the confidence trickster who tormented her husband and caused the familys financial ruin is found to have been shot to death while lying in the hospital. It is determined that the bullet did indeed come from the magic pistol, but the victim couldn't have be shot by this pistol: the hospital lies in the complete opposite direction from the window from which the widow shot, and you even have to cross the bridge across a river to get to the hospital. And the only window in the victim's hospital room wasn't even looking at in the direction of the widow's home. So how could she have shot him? The situation is alluringly complex, so it shouldn't surprise you that the solution also involves more than a few steps and I have to admit that personally, it felt a bit too contrived because of that, with too many 'moving parts' (which add more risk) all just to engineer the scene of a magic bullet for the reader. It's a clever, practical solution to the initial problem, but it can feel rather forced. I can also easily imagine lots of people loving this story though. Just don't count on using Carr's hints to solve this crime. They are far too vague, and even after reading this book and knowing what the hints are about, I still think it's impossible to infer the truth based on what Carr scribbled in the margins.

 

The scribbles that make up John Dickson Carr's Last Theorem are also not really handy if you want to solve the East End case yourself, as they are far too vague, but I do like the basic idea of this case. How come the victim was found lying on an intact carpet, even though some moments before, people saw him standing on that carpet while literally being in flames. The solution to this is surprisingly simple, but what makes this an interesting story is that a notion that features in the solution of this case, also applies to the current-day murder on Tomosaka Yuuya. So by solving John Dickson Carr's Last Theorem, you also gain an important clue to the real-time case. I'm personally a big fan of such ideas, with parallels between cases but not just simply 'hey, this murder was committed the same way as that other murder", but with more abstract mirroring of dynamics/concepts/etc. The same also holds in a way for the magic pistol tale, though not as strongly (I suspect the "first'" case was not part of the short story version of this novel).

 

The current-day murder is the most fleshed-out case in the novel of course, and it's a very nice conundrum! You have the impossibility of how the murderer escaped even though the hallway was under observation and there were no footprints of the murderer in the pebble garden in the courtyard (and there's only one other exit from the courtyard anyway). There's also the powered-up harpoon as a unique murder weapon, results in the grotesque scene of the harpoon being plunged in the victim's body, but that it's still connected through a line to the shooting apparatus lying in the pool room. The mystery is set-up in a fairly large manner, which allows for a few characters to try and come up with their own theories about how the murder was committed. It results in some interesting discussions where theories are proposed and discarded and ultimately even fairly elaborate (false) solutions are presented. I'm a bit torn on the one "major" false solution: the starting point for this theory is good, and it's great how this contradiction actually does lead to the correct solution if taken into a different direction, but the false solution features a lot of elements that are rather shoddy ("and then he somehow managed to arrange for that to happen, and then..."), so it's hard to take it really serious. The final solution is fun though! Like I mentioned, it has some parallels with the unsolved cases from the past, but applied in very different manners and while imagining it makes it look a bit silly, it's actually very well thought-out, with especially the major contradiction that at first seemed to lead to the false solution being brilliantly turned around to explain what really happened in the garden. Definitely the highlight of the novel.

 

I have to say the motive for the current-day murder, and the way the book ends doesn't really work for me. A lot is left rather vague, which may have worked in the short story version, but now it feels underwhelming and almost cheap in the sense that it avoids giving you any clear answer about what next. Perhaps more fanatic Carr-readers might like the ambiguity of this ending, but I'd have preferred more closure to the tale.

 

But any John Dickson Carr fan will probably have a blast with John Dickson Carr no Saishuu Teiri. It's brimming with (actual accurate) references to the writer, as well as an interesting fictional backstory with the Last Theorem and other cases he supposedly solved and the main murder also serves as an interesting impossible locked room mystery. I have a feeling I might've preferred the short story version perhaps, but I think most will absolutely love the parade of impossible mysteries put on display here.

 

Original Japanese title(s): 柄刀一『ジョン・ディクスン・カーの最終定理』