Foul Play

「これなら五手で詰める」

『名探偵コナン　緋色の弾丸』

 

"With this it'll be a checkmate in five turns."

"Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet"

Last year I wrote about Dash Shaw's comic adaptation of the board game Clue (Cluedo) and I mentioned there that while I play a lot of (mystery) videogames in general, I basically never touch analogue board games. Even my experience with Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, likely one of the best known mystery-themed board games, is solely though the videogame adaptation of said board game. It's just a genre I never had much interest in, much more enjoying digital games in general (not just mystery), but the last few months, I started to become more interested in these physical games, so I tried a few mystery board games out myself.

First up is Decktective: The Gaze of the Ghost (2020), a cooperative card-based game designed by Martino Chiacchiera and Silvano Sorrentino, and I believe first released in Italy. This game is one entry in a longer series and is one of those games you can only play once, as you'll have unraveled all the mysteries when you're done with the session, but it's actually quite fun and because you don't need to cut things up or fold things over, you can easily just hand the deck of cards to a friend when you're done. In The Gaze of the Ghost, you and your fellow players take up the role of an investigator, who's been called to a museum which is said to be haunted. It's after closing hours, and the guard has notified the police because the cleaning lady had vanished from the museum, even though the doors were locked and the guard has the key. The story starts with the investigators arriving at the museum, ready to search the place.

As said, this game is cooperative and card-based and the most eye-catching feature of The Gaze of the Ghost is of course how it actually utilizes the cards and the box that holds those cards to create a 3D reconstruction of the scene. It's really clever, as while the game is very compact and consists only of cards, it manages to really sell the visual design of this game. The players are encouraged to really examine the crime scene from all angles in search of clues, and you'll definitely be rewarded for looking carefully at everything. The cards are also what dictate the gameplay loop and the story developments. The deck of cards is numbered, and each turn players are to take a card. Some cards are for everyone to read and detail the early story set-up and/or significant story developments, but most cards are initially only intended for the player who draws the card. A card could contain an interview with the guard for example about the missing woman, or the card could be detailing some observations about the museum gallery or some strange object found lying around. A player whoever may not divulge the information on the cards they hold to the other players. If they think a certain card contains significant information, they have to play the card and put it in the shared pool, allowing everyone to read it and discuss its contents. However, every card has a certain value written on it, and you can only share a card with the others, if the value on the card is equal or lower to the number of discarded cards. Players can also choose to discard cards if they think the information is not relevant to the case, but that means they can't share that information with the others anymore and also that they themselves can't keep it in their hand. So a player has to decide which cards in their hand are worth sharing with the others, and which cards they can "sacrifice" in order to play certain cards, but there is always the risk that a card they discarded turns out to have relevant information after all. 

This makes for a game that's more than meets the eye, as you'll draw cards in a set order, meaning the game can sometimes play tricks on you by feeding you a seemingly irrelevant card first only to make you draw a card near the end of the game that shines a different light on the earlier card. The idea of the necessary clues being divided among the players, that there's a "shared pool of information"  but also imperfect information because cards have to be discarded, and that the players have to work together to puzzle the truth together is quite interesting. I played this game on my own, which the game says is possible, though I think this game is best played with two or three players. If you play on your own, you'll have to draw all cards yourself, so while you will have to discard cards, you will have at least taken a look at all cards in the game, meaning the idea of "imperfect information" that makes this game interesting is less strongly present. What also makes this a fun game is the fact that because the cards are drawn in a set order, the game also allows for story developments to occur. What starts out as a search for a missing woman, soon turns in a much bigger case once a few cards have been drawn, and that keeps the players on their toes. You really have to examine each card carefully to decide whether you're going to put it in the shared pool so everyone can take a look, or discard it all together. Once all cards are drawn, the story is "over" and you're asked a few questions to prove whether you figured the case out or not. It's a fairly doable mystery and while it's not an Ellery Queen-esque mystery that requires you to do 20 steps of deductions, I'd say Decktective: The Gaze of the Ghost provides for a fun hour of entertainment, and it's certainly also very accessible for those who seldom play board games (like me).

Decktective is a very compact game you could play with a friend on a bench: MicroMacro: Crime City (2020) most certainly is not. If you're into board games, you probably heard of MicroMacro: Crime City ages go, as this game designeed by Johannes Sich is quite popular, and truth be told: it deserves that reputation because it's really an incredibly fun mystery game. But you really need space to play this game. Because when you open the box, you'll find a gigantic map inside (75 x 100 cm), and you'll have to fold the thing out completely and place it somewhere where all participating players can have a good look at it. The map provides an isometric view of the titular Crime City and all of its inhabitants. It is seemingly a nice town with the usual shops, museums, a harbor, restaurants etc., but if you take a careful look at the map, you'll see all kinds of crimes occuring in the city, from robbery and stalking to outright murder. With the little magnifying glass included in the box, the players are tasked to work together on the investigation of 16 different cases that occur in Crime City.

Having to look at a gigantic illustration to look for clues of course reminds of the Where's Wally/Waldo books and Pierre the Maze Detective illustration books, but the most important thing to understand about the super charming map of Crime City is that is not actually a "snapshot" of a singular moment in Crime City. Imagine each event occurring in Crime City as a comic strip, with several panels detailing each event. These panels are basically all plotted simultaneously on the map of MicroMacro: Crime City, meaning you'll find the different stages surrounding a certain happening all across the map. For example, the box of the game actually already has a puzzle for the players: you see a dead man lying in a park and you're asked to solve the murder. If you then look a street up, you'll see the victim walking on his way to his murder scene. And a few streets away, you see him with a bag of money, etc. You can follow him all the way back across the map of MicroMacro: Crime City and eventually, you'll notice that there's a suspicious fellow following him around the map, and you can even find out where they came from and where they went after the murder. So all "comic panels" of a single event are drawn in the map, allowing you to trace everything happening before, but also after a crime. And now imagine 16 different cases being draw like this on this map, and on top of that a lot of other happenings occuring at the same time, and you can see why the map is so big.

Each case is represented by a number of cards, and the first card always points you towards a crime, usually a murder. For example, it will ask you to locate the corpse lying on the corner of the hardware shop and the supermarket. From there, it's up to the players to figure out what and why this happened. This is relatively simple in the earliest cases: you can trace the movements of the victim just by looking around to find where they were a few moments ago, and thus find out where they came from. As you do that, you might see the victim having a row with someone, so then you decide to follow that suspect across the map, and perhaps you'll see them go buy a weapon. But the difficulty soon ramps up, and the game will ask a lot more of your observative and deductive powers. A person you were following might take public transport, forcing you figure out where they got off or on, or perhaps you find a corpse that seems to have appeared out of nowhere: perhaps then you need to find clues on the victim that indicate where they worked or what places they often visited, find that place on the map and see if you can find the victim there. The later cases have you going across the map in multiple stages, following not only the victim, but also checking out what persons they met during the day, pick up on clues that may indicate a motive, find the means of murder or perhaps where the murderer has gone off too. 

It's a highly enjoyable game that also does a great job at easing you into the higher difficulties. Like I mentioned, each case is represented by a few cards. Personally, I enjoyed playing this game in the "expert mode": you only look at the first card of each case, the one that points you towards the crime you need to examine, and then try to figure out the who, how and why on your own without looking at the other cards in the set. The other cards do point you in the right direction as to how to progress next if you don't know what to do. They might tell you that you need to look for a clue that'll tell you where the victim was working, or point you to that curious object lying at the crime scene and ask you figure out where it came from. So even if you don't realize right away a character can ride public transport and appear all the way on the other side of the map, the hint cards will help and they help prepare the player for the trickier cases later in the game, which really demand a lot of your ability to observe the smallest details on the map and infer the meaning of what you see. This game is really enjoyable playing alone too by the way, and I think two or three players would be ideal too as everyone will be able to take a good look at the map and come up with suggestions where to look next, but I can imagine it becoming a bit too crowded around the map with four and more.

I know there are quite a few gamers among the readers of this blog, but I was wondering whether there are also people here who regularly play mystery board games and who could perhaps give some recommendations? I myself just tried these two, because both Decktective and MicroMacro: Crime City were easily available and seemed interesting, and MicroMacro: Crime City in particular is one I really want to recommend, because it's such a charming game that can become deceptively difficult. With the holidays coming up, perhaps these games would make for good gifts for others, or yourself!

Blood Will Tell

 "It's in my blood. I can't help it."

"Mrs. McGinty's Dead"

Which such long times between my reviews for both Detective Conan and the Kindaichi Shounen franchise, perhaps I should find a third manga to do regular reviews of...

Hajime's cousin Fumi was a focus character in The Kindaichi Fumi Kidnapping Murder Case, the final case in Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo R ("The Young Kindaichi Case Files", 2013-2017), for the moment the last series in this long-running franchise still set in Hajime's teenage years. Part of the fun of the currently running series Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Kindaichi, Age 37"), set many years later, is of course not only seeing how Hajime has changed (or not) in two decades, but also to see what happened to the other main characters, so there were probably quite a few fans who were interested to see what had become of that young, bratty girl who at times would show that she too was one of the talented grandchildren of the legendary detective Kindaichi Kousuke. Fumi finally returned in volume 9 of the series, first released in April 2021. I already wrote a little about the story that started in that volume, but The Ayase Serial Murder Case wouldn't be concluded until volume 11, which was released in October 2021, so it took a while for me to finally be able to write about this rather lengthy story. 

Blood will tell, so should it surprise anyone that the twenty-nine year old Fumi now works at a detective agency? In her spare time though, she's also dabbling with mystery writing, and she's finally making her professional debut by winning in one of the categories of the Osokawa Mystery Awards with her novel The Hinokawa Legend Murder Case, written under the pen name Kaneda Hifumi. Hajime is of course happy for his cousin, but perhaps even happier he managed to secure the organization of the award ceremony for his company. At the venue, Hajime and his assistant Marin meet Osokawa editors, fellow debuting winner Fuyuki Agatha and Fumi's boyfriend Yuuto, an accomplished mystery writer himself. The grand winner of the main award is Setokura Ryou and his The ABC Murders-inspired The Ayase Serial Murder Case, but Setokura disappears during the ceremony, and instead a creepy video is shown on the projector, showing a man being murdered inside an abandoned building in a city block named Ayase. Hajime quickly realizes that this murder is exactly the same as the first murder in The Ayase Serial Murder Case, that's about a series of murders in city blocks called Ayase. Because there's no proof of an actual crime, Fumi and Yuuto decide to go look for the building shown in the video themselves while Hajime tries to convince Inspector Makabe to do something. Fumi and Yuuto, as well as some other interested parties manage to locate the building and find a corpse there. But when a new murder video set in a different Ayase is mailed to Setokura's editor, everyone fears the copy-cat killer will continue with these Ayase murders and it's up to the two grandchildren of Kindaichi Kousuke to catch the murderer.

While Detective Conan has a very irregular publishing schedule nowadays, Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo has been rather consistent in its releases, so you don't get gaps of a year between volumes. Still, the stories in this series seem to take up more chapters than they used to be, so this is not the first time a story has been spread across three volumes. It takes about half a year to release three volumes normally if there's no delay, so still better than the year wait between Detective Conan volumes 98 and 99, but still, three volumes is pretty long for a serialized story and I can't say that I'm a big fan of that. I know a lot of the fans of this series prefer the longer format, one of the defining differences between this series and Detective Conan, but as I'm reading this volumes as they release, it's just so frustrating to see a story cut up in so many volumes...

But that's more a matter about the publication format than the story itself, let's get back to that. After The Poltergeist Manor Murder Case and The New Murders At The Foreigners Hotel, two not very impressive stories, I have to admit I liked The Ayase Serial Murder Case a lot more, even if as a detective story, it's not going to be very surprising or hard to figure out the major mysteries. I still enjoyed it a lot, partially I think because we actually get to see a lot of Fumi doing her own detecting now. The story is not solely focused on Hajime as the only detective, and Fumi, as a detective's assistant, mystery novelist and granddaughter of a rather well-known detective, gets to do a lot too. She's not as smart as Hajime, but that brings a different dynamic to the story we don't usually see in this series: while we'll see rival detective figures at times in the form of people like Superintendent Akechi, Fumi is unique in this series as an ally character, and this allows The Ayase Serial Murder Case to develop as a story from multiple angles and it feels rather fresh. I would love to see this Fumi more in the series: in the original series you'd catch glimpses of her talent in certain stories, but she was really by far the youngest character in the cast, which made usage of her sometimes a bit difficult in stories. Here she's really grown into a fuller character who could support her cousin in more interesting ways than we had seen before in this series.

The story starts in a real-time thriller mode, with Hajime, Fumi and the others realizing someone is copying the murders from the novel The Ayase Serial Murder Case, meaning first someone whose name begins with "A" will be killed in a place called Ayase, and then someone whose name starts with (the Japanese kana) "YA" in a different Ayase, etc. and a lot of the story focusing on them actually locating the crime scenes and trying to stop the killer in advance. As the story develops however, Hajime starts to notice little things that seem to not follow the book, and his attention is also drawn to the victims themselves, and it doesn't take long for him to deduce what of course most readers would have guessed: these are not random murders that are "just" copying a novel. By the time Hajime starts looking back at all that has happened and tries to figure out what is hidden beneath the surface of the case however, the story is severely handicapped by the series itself. For most people will be reading this series, because the franchise has always focused on impossible crimes. It's extremely rare for this series to have a story not focusing on an impossible crime, so when you know there's no locked room murder here or some murder without footprints, 99% of the readers will guess that this is one of those stories that focus on the murderer having a perfect alibi. And that means that everyone will at least have an idea who the killer is going to be, because there's basically only one character whose alibi is strong enough to be considered "perfect". And from that point on, all you're going to do is to pay attention to everything they do in each panel and you'll soon get a good idea of how the whole thing was pulled off.

Other series might have gotten way with this, but I'd argue that Kindaichi Shounen is the one mystery manga where it becomes too apparent immediately. While this franchise is never about the whodunnit only, once you know who to watch, a lot of the relevant panels will stand out a lot and because the underlying mystery plot ultimately uses fairly simple tricks (though woven into each other to make the overall picture more complex) to create the seemingly iron-clad alibi, it's rather easy to guess most of what's happening. That said, I have to admit the last act of The Ayase Serial Murder Case did manage to turn my initially somewhat lukewarm views on the story into something more positive. There's a great part in the story where Hajime decides to confront the suspect despite not having found any evidence yet, resulting in a very amusing game of shadows, where Hajime tries to lure the culprit into traps, while they carefully weigh each of their answers and tries to turn things around. The scene is tense and exactly because the reader will also have noticed a lot of the little questions Hajime asks, it's pretty interesting to see the suspect addressing them directly and trying to divert suspicion from themselves in a rather convincing manner. When Hajime finally manages to seal the deal with the support of both Makabe and Fumi, you'll realize the murderer was definitely one of the more trickier ones Hajime has encountered, which makes the moment Hajime reveals they were suspecting them right from the start even more satisfying: this moment is actually quite clever and I had completely missed the clue that set Hajime on the right trail at the start of the story. The story also ties back to the overall storyline of this series about Hajime slowly being drawn back into the life of an amateur detective again and about the incident that had made him stop in the first place, planting seeds for later story developments.

Volume 11 ends with the opening chapter of The Killer with Twenty Faces, about an Edogawa Rampo exhibition and a rather familiar-sounding name, but I'm going to guess that that story will also be spread across three volumes, so I'm guessing I won't be discussing it until the early summer of the northern hemisphere...

So The Ayase Serial Murder Case might not be an exceptional high-point in terms of mystery plotting in Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo, and the execution of the story in fact suffers a bit because it's this specific series, but on the other hand, I think fans of the franchise will enjoy this story exactly because it also feels a bit different in the way it presents the story, with fan-favorites like Fumi returning as an adult, as well as a rather determined murderer who is able to keep up a good fight with two grandchildren of Kindaichi Kousuke. After a story set specifically at the location of an older story, and a story that followed the familiar closed circle trope, the pacing of this story felt refreshing despite the core plot being fairly predictable. And I'm kinda looking forward to seeing The Killer with Twenty Faces unfold: it's been a while since we had a killer who dresssed up in a costume in this series!

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9, 10, 11巻

The Case of the Silver Bullet

この真相、最高機密（トップシークレット）

「永遠の不在証明」（東京事変）

 

This truth is top secret

"The Eternal Alibi" (Tokyo Jihen)

Two weeks ago I discussed a book on the earliest trains in Japan, today a film focusing on a very modern train.

Detective Conan manga & movies:
Part 1: Volumes 1 ~ 10
Part 2: Volumes 11~20; The Timebombed Skyscraper (1) / The Fourteenth Target (2)
Part 3: Volumes 21~30; The Last Wizard of the Century (3) / Captured in Her Eyes (4)
Part 4: Volumes 31~40; Countdown to Heaven (5) / The Phantom of Baker Street (6)
Part 5: Volumes 41~50; Crossroad in the Ancient Capital (7) / Magician of the Silver Sky (8) / Strategy Above the Depths (9)
Part 6:  Volumes 51~60; Private Eyes' Requiem (10) / Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure (11)
Part 7: Volumes 61~70; Full Score of Fear (12) / The Raven Chaser (13) / Lost Ship in the Sky (14)
Part 8: Volumes 71~80; Quarter of Silence (15) / The Eleventh Striker (16) / Private Eye in the Distant Sea (17)
(You will find the links to the reviews of volumes 70, 72~76, 78, 82~100 and the films Quarter of Silence (15), The Eleventh Striker (16), Private Eye in the Distant Sea (17), Dimensional Sniper (18), Sunflowers of Inferno (19), The Darkest Nightmare (20), The Crimson Love Letter (21), Zero the Enforcer (22), The Fist of Blue Sapphire (23) in the library)

The biggest international sports event, the World Sports Games, are held every four years and this year, Japan's capital Tokyo will host the prestigious games. The opening ceremony will be viewed across the world, so it's also decided that the Hyperlinear bullet train, the pinnacle of Japanese technology, will commence operation on the same day. The Hyperlinear runs between Nagoya and the new Shibahama Station in Tokyo, connnected to the stadium where the WSG opening ceremony will be held, and the Maglev train can reach speeds up to 1000 km/h, meaning the trip between Nagoya and Tokyo won't even take thirty minutes! VIPs for the opening ceremony of the WSG will arrive by Hyperlinear from Nagoya to Tokyo. The Suzuki Zaibatsu is one of the sponsors of WSG Tokyo, allowing Sonoko to bring her friend Ran, and of course Conan and the other kids to an early reception for sponsors and other related parties to the upcoming festivities. During the party however, Sonoko's father (the president of the conglomerate) is abducted, but thanks to the Detective Boys, he's quickly found in relatively good health. It turns out that a similar incident occured 15 years ago too, in the run-up to the WSG in Boston. The directors of three major companies sponsoring WSG Boston had been kidnapped one after another. One of three was even killed by the kidnapper when the industralist was trying to run away. It appears that the same serial sponsor kidnapping case is repeating itself now in Japan with WSG Tokyo, but why? Conan of course has an interest in the case, as does the Sleeping Detective Kogorou, who is hired by automobile industrialist John Voit, fearing he may be the next victim. But there are more interested parties: high school student detective Sera Masumi and her "extraterritorial sister" seem to be involved too, much to Conan's surprise, but more dangerous are the FBI agents active in Japan right now under command of James Black, because they consider this a continuation of "their" case 15 years ago and they're determined to "clean up" themselves. When all of these interested parties learn that the likely targets will be riding the Hyperlinear on its maiden voyage from Nagoya to Tokyo to attend to the opening ceremony of the WSG, they realize that the kidnapper will likely try to strike on the "Japanese Bullet" but can they prevent a repetition of the tragedy of 15 years ago in the 2021 theatrical release Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet?

When I described Detective Conan as one of the biggest detective franchises ever, I honestly wasn't exaggerating. As a multimedia franchise, few mystery-related franchises can even come close to how absolutely massive the machine has become in over twenty-five years and one of the most obvious markers are of course the annual animated theatrical releases. Since 1997's The Time-Bombed Skyscraper, a new film has been released each year in April, and it's become a tradition of Japanese popular culture in general. Everyone just knows there'll be a new Conan movie out in April and over two decades later, they're still drawing massive audience numbers, with the movies usually ending up high on the list of best-grossing Japanese-produced movies each year. But even traditions and set plans can't stop a pandemic, so 2020 was the first year since 1997 that did not see a new Detective Conan movie released. The marketing campaign was already working full power, but due to the state of emergency declared in Japan just two before Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet was supposed to premiere, the twenty-fourth film in the franchise was first postponed, and later that summer it was officially announced the movie would be pushed back to April 2021, leaving 2020 Conan-less. I bought the home video release of The Scarlet Bullet by the way, which was released last week, and you can find traces of the "pandemic delay" in various ways by the way, with artwork, trailer and promotion material for both 2020 and 2021. So for fans, the wait for The Scarlet Bullet was certainly not short, though the push back to 2021 did make sense, because as you can guess from the summary above, the film was also created to coincide with the Summer Olympics of Tokyo, which were of course also delayed to 2021. The World Sports Games are the Olympics in all but name, though I guess it'd be hard to get official branding for a detective story about sponsors being kidnapped and killed and the FBI involved and operating in Japan and all of that! 

In the article celebrating the release of volume 100 of the Detective Conan comic, I also talked about the movies, and how the tone and atmosphere has changed in these two decades, partially because different directors with their own styles would take over. The earlier movies were basically like the original comic, with some added spectacle in the form of action scenes (explosions!). Then we got a few movies that seemed to focus more on the action, taking inspiration from panic action films and recently we had a few Detective Conan movies that seemed more inspired by political thrillers. Things come in waves though, and for example 2017's The Crimson Love Letter felt in my view a lot more like the earliest films, focusing more on a robust puzzler plot despite also featuring the bombastic action scenes of the movies we had become used to by then. In that sense, I think The Scarlet Bullet can also be described as a throwback to earlier Conan films, with the latter half of the story focusing on the Hyperlinear bullet train, the latest Conan movie reminds of the tone of the entries over a decade ago, like Magician of the Silver Sky (2004), Strategy Above the Depths (2005) and Lost Ship in the Sky (2010), but with current director Nagaoka's own touch.

Sadly enough, The Silver Bullet also seems inspired by those movies in terms of mystery plot, because it's rather light this time. The movie has a few minor mystery moments that are solved in a swift way with pretty good presentation too, preserving good pacing throughout these scenes: we already saw this technique in storytelling in the previous movie The Fist of Blue Sapphire, which had some fantastic scenes planned out to quickly show how KID would prepare a theft and then act, while also being clear to the viewer. The Scarlet Bullet has a few of these well-paced moments too, like the Detective Boys locating Sonoko's kidnapped father in the prologue and a few other moments, but the big storyline, regarding the series of kidnappings of the sponsors and the identity of the culprit, isn't really interesting at all. There are barely any suspects, so the moment when Conan and Sera figure out who did it doesn't even feel clever. It's basically a shrug moment, and at the same time, I can't say I was really surprised by this disappointing climax of the mystery, because throughout the film, the "overall" mystery plot just felt underwhelming, even if at specific, select moments, the film does have nice and even memorable scenes that involve some kind of mystery for the viewer to solve, like a certain chase scene at the end of the film and of course the part that actually involves the bullet. The action and explosions in this movie seem toned down compared to previous entries by the way, so for some it might might feel a bit disappointing, but after a pirate war fought out in Singapore previously and explosions and more that could wipe out whole city blocks or valleys a few movies back, I'm okay with them dialling back the chaos a bit. 

But while The Scarlet Bullet feels a bit like an "old" Conan film because it returns to the "panic on a moving vehicle" pattern, it also feels very like a modern Detective Conan film due to its character focus. Ever since The Darkest Nightmare, the spotlight of these films have been aimed at different specific persons or groups from the original comic besides protagonist Conan, allowing select members of the secondary cast a chance to shine or to show a different side to them we usually don't see in the main series. This is also the case with The Scarlet Bullet, which naturally kinda expects you to be somewhat aware of, and up to date with the storyline of the main series. But that also means that this film will casually spoil some plot elements of the main story if you're still at like volume 70, as this film basically assumes you're up to date with the latest release at the time of the (original planned) premiere (so around 98). If you don't know who Sera and her "extraterritorial sister" are, you'll understand next to nothing about their actions in this film and the appearance of shogi player Haneda Shuukichi will also be a complete enigma if you haven't read or watched Detective Conan the last few years, but for fans, The Scarlet Bullet is a pretty awesome showcase showing these fan-favorite characters interacting in ways you don't really see in the main series. It's such a shame that the actual mystery plot they are inserted into isn't anything special, because the manner in which they are featured in The Scarlet Bullet is actually done really well. I loved Shuukichi's scene in particular: he doesn't really appear very often in the comic and seldom does anything memorable there, so this was genuinely the first time I think he was really shown off as the shogi genius he's supposed to be. The film also plants a few minor seeds that tie in with the storyline of the comic, as has been the case the last few years.

By the way, the pandamic delay did lead to an interesting new project: a second film. The Scarlet Alibi is a compilation film that saw a limited release in theatres in February 2021, serving as a kind of 'refresher' regarding the story arcs of the four focus characters of The Scarlet Bullet. It uses material from the television animated series to bring the viewer up to date on the various characters and what storylines they're involved this last... decade, but interestingly, The Scarlet Alibi hadn't been originally planned for the original 2020 release of The Scarlet Bullet: they only made it because of the year delay of the main film. The Scarlet Alibi is included in the deluxe edition of the Japanese home video release of The Scarlet Bullet by the way!

Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet is by no means the best Conan movie of the last few years: the mystery plot is simply too light and due to its focus on a specific set of characters, it's also a bit difficult to recommend to casual fans because there are just so many character interactions going on that rely on context. Fans of these characters will have a blast though: I'm a fan of Sera myself, but she hadn't been featured in the films since Dimensional Sniper, and Shuukichi had never appeared before. I also think The Scarlet Bullet is worth a watch if you like the other panic action Detective Conan films, because this one feels very much like those older films, but with a modern feel to them. The teaser at the end of The Scarlet Bullet and a recently released Halloween-themed illustration has already shown us what the theme of next year's film will be, which probably won't surprise fans who have been keeping up with the spin-off series too, but we'll have to wait for the proper trailers to see what the next film will be about!

Original Japanese title(s): 『名探偵コナン 緋色の弾丸』

番外編：Death of the Living Dead

2020 saw the release of two new Japanese mysteries translated by me, being Ayukawa's story collection The Red Locked Room and Higashigawa's locked room mystery Lending the Key to the Locked Room both from Locked Room International, as well as a new release of The Decagon House Murders by Pushkin Press. Three releases is definitely not the norm for me though, so I guess most people would assume that Imamura's Death Among the Undead some months ago would be my only contribution to the world of translated Japanese mysteries this year. To be honest, I wasn't sure myself!

I have to admit that even I was caught off-guard by the official announcement that Ammo will be publishing my English translation of Masaya YAMAGUCHI's Death of the Living Dead in December 2021, with the preorders on Amazon for the e-book having started yesterday on Halloween. Originally published in 1989, Yamaguchi's original debut novel was a smash hit by being one of the earliest and definitely one of the best Japanese mystery stories that utilized a supernatural setting to present a fair play puzzle plot detective. Set in the eighties in New England, US, the story follows Grin, a rock punk who after a short period where his life had gone off rails, returns to his family home: the famous Smile Cemetery. Grin is welcomed by his grandfather Smiley Barleycorn, the person who brought the Barleycorn funeral directing family business from the UK to the States and built the empire that is the Smile Cemetery. However, Smiley doesn't have long to live anymore and his sons all have different ideas what to do with the business once Smiley is gone. Meanwhile, a strange phenomenom has been plaguing the world, as the dead have started to rise. For some reason, there have been several cases across the world where people just "wake up" from their death and are still able to act basically as if they were alive, save for the rotting of their corpses. It's amidst these circumstances that mysterious deaths occur among the Barleycorns at the Smile Cemetery, and it's up to young Grin to solve these deaths, but what's a detective going to do in a world where death isn't as decisive as it used to be?

I read the original book back in 2014, and I absolutely loved the work, as Death of the Living Dead used the supernatural setting to bring an absolutely original detective story, combined with both witty comedy as well a surprisingly deeply worked out look at the theme of death. The book has consistently ranked very high in Japanese mystery rankings and has been available in various (mostly Asian) regions already, where it apparently also garners a lot of praise, so it's widely considered to be one of the more important works of early shin honkaku mystery fiction. Yamaguchi had been trying to get the book out in English for a long time, so I was very honored when he asked me to work on the translation. This happened a few years ago by the way, but due to a revised Japanese edition releasing after I had worked on the translation, I was informed that translation advisors/editors worked on my translation afterwards to incorporate the revisions, so while the base is my work, I also have to say thanks for all the hard work to all the people who worked on my text! But that's also why I didn't have exact information on the release window, and me being surprised at the official announcement the book was coming!

It might seem very natural to draw parallels with this year's release of Death Among the Undead which I also translated, but ultimately the works are very different, with the former focusing more on the horror-side, while Death of the Living Dead focusing much more on the question of what death means for us humans, and there's a lot of discourse and discussion going on the theme of death across the centuries, and you'd be surprised how well-researched this book is on the theme of thanatology, without compromising the brilliant puzzler that is at the core of this novel. It's also quite bit longer than the other books I've translated until now, allowing it to go a bit deeper.

Anyway, I can wholeheartedly recommend this novel, not just as someone who worked on this specific release, but simply as a huge fan of Death of the Living Dead itself. It's a fantastic piece of detection that has earned a place in the history of modern Japanese mystery fiction and well worth the read. Be sure to visit the official website of Death of the Living Dead and I hope you'll enjoy the book when it's finally out!

A Study in Black

百年ぶりの世紀末　泣けといわれて僕は笑った

「胸がドキドキ」（The High-Lows）

 

It's the first end of a century after a hundred years; I was told to cry, yet I laughed 

"The Pounding In My Chest" (The High-Lows)

It's here! 

I already wrote a post to celebrate the joyous occassion, but volume 100 of Detective Conan was released last week. When the series started in 1994, nobody, not even the author himself, could've guessed it'd become the longest running single detective series that would become an even bigger multimedia franchise, but here we are now. The last few years, the serialization schedule has slowed down significantly though: where in the past Conan would be featured in almost every weekly issue of Shonen Sunday, the pacing is less consistent now (often a few weeks consecutively to serialize one single story, followed by a few issues of absence etc.), so the volumes that collect these chapters are also released much slower. What makes scheduling even more complex is that they usually try to release a new volume in April to coincide with the release of the new annual theatrical release, so they often move things back to ensure there's a new volume in April. Last year for example only one volume was released, because they pushed a volume originally planned for winter 2020 all the way to April 2021. So the last few years, all of us saw that volume 100 was coming closer, but it was also so far away because the releases became less frequent with the year. Sadly enough, there's no "special edition" release of this volume, but I am glad to say that this volume has to be one of the best volumes in terms of consistency in story quality in years, and it features one of the most memorable, and best stories in Conan history too.

Volume 100 opens with the remaining chapters of Kudou Yuusaku's Detection Show, which started in the previous volume. Shinichi's parents are back in Japan again, but as he's bored, Yuusaku, the world famous mystery novelist and amateur detective, has been helping the police solve some difficult cases again. When he's ambushed by the media on his way home from the Metropolitan Police Department, Yuusaku announces he has also solved a series of locked room murders that has occured in the city this last month. While no connection was found between the victims and where they were killed, meaning it wasn't even clear whether these murders are connected, Yuusaku quickly recognized how the locked room murders were committed based simply on the photographs. A live television show will be shot at the Kudou residence, where Yuusaku will explain how the murders are committed, but on the day of the broadcast, he's taken down by food poisoning and isn't even capable to explain to his wife Yukiko how the murders were committed. Yukiko (the world famous actress) decides she'll dress up as her husband again and have Conan do the deducing. Going over the files, Conan manages to solve most of the case too just like his father, but right before the television crew is to arrive, his mother is also taken down by food poisoning. With the live broadcast about to start and Conan knowing exactly who the murderer is, what's he going to do?

An interesting story that shows off Aoyama's story-telling qualities. For looking solely at the locked room murder trick, this story is not remarkable at all, as the trick is very simple. But it's presented in such a well-planned manner. For example, Yuusaku and Conan quickly realize the exact same trick is used in the three murders, despite the fact that at least on the surface, the three victms were killed under different circumstances and in different kind of locations. This leads to a clever, leading hint that is basically asking the reader: Can you recognize what the similarities are between the three crime scenes and figure out how it was done? Sounds like a simple idea, but this allowed Aoyama to make something bigger of what is essentially a simple trick. The hinting that ties the victims together and points towards the culprit is also very clever, making good use of the visual format in a way only Aoyama can. And on top of all this is the storyline of Conan having to figure out what to do with the television crew on their doorstep, and while this results in a very funny denouement scene where we do get the "Kudou Yuusaku Deduction Show" from the title despite the fact Yuusaku is lying sick in bed at the moment, there's actually more playing in the background that is far more serious, setting up the climatic following story.

The FBI Serial Murder Case is one of the most exciting stories to have been featured in this series and an excellent example to show how a mystery story doesn't need to be about solving a murder or anything, but that situations can be presented as a mystery to be solved too, and that with proper clewing and hinting, even an action-packed survival thriller can be a great mystery story. The last few days, unknown foreigners have been killed across town, two every day. The victims have no ID on them, and it appears they were illegals in the country. Conan happens to find the latest victim and spots members of the Black Organization at the scene. Searching the victim's body before Vodka can get to the body, Conan finds FBI identification, which makes him realize that all the foreigners killed lately must have been undercover FBI agents in Japan and that the members of the Black Organization are assasinating them. He hurries home to reach his own contacts at the FBI, but he finds all of them already hiding in the Kudou residence: they too realize that the Organization is somehow killing all of their agents. Revealing a clue he found on the victim, Conan deduces that the Black Organization has managed to decipher the code the FBI agents were using to set-up meetings, ambushing them at their meeting spots. The remaining FBI agents decide to use that knowledge to set-up a trap themselves using the code, but this plan fails horribly, as their own ambush is ambushed by the Black Organization. More casualties follow and soon after, FBI agent Camel finds himself desperately trying to shake off the pursuers of the Black Organization hot on his trail. Conan and the other FBI agents at the home base recall that Camel's path has crossed that of a few BO members in the past and it's imperative that nobody gets a good look at Camel's face, because it'll set them on a trail that might lead them back to them. All Conan and the others can do however is guide Camel on the phone while he's trying to hide from Gin and his gang of assassins, which culminates in a game of hide-and-seek and desperate survival on an island, where Gin, Vodka, Vermouth, Korn, Chianti and Kir under the command of Rum, the number 2 of the Organization, hunt for Camel.

What an amazing story! In a way, the tale's reminiscent of 2016's Detective Conan: The Darkest Nightmare, but "remade" in a way to fit the (less explosive/action-focused) atmosphere of the manga. In The Darkest Nighmare, a NOC list of undercover agents who have infiltrated the Black Organization is leaked, leading to a series of assinations, and all the related parties start to hunt for a certain key person who could turn the tide of this covert battle. The FBI Serial Murder Case follows the same idea, with the movements of undercover FBI agents being exposed to the Black Organization, them being killed and then a thrilling chase to capture and kill Camel, while Conan and the gang try to save him. While this story is one of the most suspenseful stories of this whole series however, it is also a good showcase that Detective Conan is at the core always a puzzler, and the whole story is filled with little mysteries for the reader to solve while they root for Camel to come out of this alive. For example, the first few chapters focus on Conan showing how the code the FBI agents use can be cracked, and when the FBI lays a trap for the Organization, but it explodes in their own face, we are shown exactly how the Black Organization was able to figure out a trap had been laid for them, all properly clewed and hinted at. Even when the story shifts to overdrive literally with Camel racing away in his car while being chased by the Black Organization, the story never forgets this is supposed to be a detective story. Little mistakes of Camel allow Gin to deduce where Camel is hiding, while meanwhile Camel is given instructions on what to do to survive, but usually the meaning of these instructions is only explained later, allowing the reader to deduce what Conan is trying to accomplish with the instructions he's giving Camel. The story has a brilliant climax that shows how even thrilling, suspenseful action scenes can be clewed to be presented as a proper detective story, with both parties starting to read and react to each other's actions. I honestly can't wait for this story to be animated, and I wish they'd actually give this the budget of the annual theatrical releases, because story-wise, it's honestly perhaps the story in this series that feels closest to the atmosphere of the movies, without losing the focus on the mystery plot. Oh, and at the end of the story, it's finally revealed who Rum actually is: we were told like six years ago that the number 2 of the Black Organization had infiltrated the secondary cast of the series under an assumed identity and the mystery revolving Rum's identity had been the main focus of the overarching storyline these last few years.

The Murder Case at the Match-Making Shrine is a rather tame story in comparison, being one of the usual "Which of the three" stories, but it's written competently and fairly amusing. Kazuha has invited Ran to visit the Haido Shrine to get an omamori that will help her get hooked up with her love interest. Which is of course Hattori, who's also secretly visiting the shrine at the same time, though Conan immediately recognizes him. The search for love turns into a search for a murder whenever when a man is found lying dead beneath a staircase, having been hit on the head and falling down the stairs. It turns out the victim was a police officer, specialized in finding people on the wanted lists. Ran and Kazuha had overheard him saying he had spotted three of them here, and the police indeed quickly find three wanted people on the shrine grounds, and it's suspected that one of them killed the officer when he tried to arrest them. The problem however is that the murder weapon, assumed to be a missing flag pole, can't be found and it's difficult to stick the murder to any specific person. While the story is simple, there's a nice chain of reasoning laid you where you must tackle the problem from two different angles if you want to solve this. Not a remarkable story perhaps, but it's presented in a very capable manner.

Volume 100 of Detective Conan was well worth the wait not only because of the milestone, but also because all the stories in this volume manage to reach a very consistent level of quality, with the outliers being the first story, and especially The FBI Serial Murder Case, which was one of the best Conan stories in years. It has the usual thrills of the big FBI vs Black Organization stories, but the manner in which it constantly throws new minor mysteries at you despite also being a real-time suspenseful chase story simultaneously is really good, showing that a) a puzzler doesn't need to be about the usual impossible crime to still be darn good as an intellectual challenge to the reader and that b) Conan's fictional world and stories simply have the range to pull this off in a satisfying and convincing manner, as this story is bookended by two "normal" detective stories and yet The FBI Serial Murder Case doesn't feel out of place. The FBI Serial Murder Case certainly feels like Aoyama wanted to have a big story to be featured in volume 100 and he definitely succeeded with that, and I can safely say that even after 100 volumes, I'm still eager to see what will happen next. Next volume is scheduled for a spring 2022 release, which I assume will be April 2022, but there'll be more Conan material soon as The Scarlet Bullet was finally released on home video...

Original Japanese title(s): 青山剛昌 『名探偵コナン』第100巻

The Veiled Lady

"Miss Debenham is not a woman! She is a lady."

"Murder on the Orient Express"

Last year, I was surprised by a sudden new release in Higashigawa Tokuya's Koigakubo Academy series, and today's book was the surprise this year. I wonder what next year will bring!?

Disclosure: I translated Higashigawa Tokuya's Lending the Key to the Locked Room. Different series, also a comedic puzzler!

Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de series
Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de
Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de 2

Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de 3

Shin Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de
Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de (first impressions TV drama)
Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de (theatrical release)
Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de (audio drama)

Higashigawa Tokuya's Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de series is one that has been discussed irregularly in various forms here ever since I started this blog, which should probably give you an idea of how much of a fan I am of this series. It was the excellent 2011 hit drama adaptation (+ theatrical release) which also carried the English title The After-Dinner Mysteries that informed me of this series' existence, but I have of course also enjoyed the original short story collections greatly. The series is about Houshou Reiko, a young female homicide detective. But none of her colleagues know that Reiko's actually the stupidly wealthy sole heiress of the Houshou Group, a pillar of the Japanese economy. Every evening she returns home after a long day of work to enjoy the luxurious banquet awaiting her, as she ponders out loud about the cases she's working on. Her butler Kageyama seems to have a knack for detecting too, as he is always able to solve the most mysterious cases just by listening to his mistress. Kageyama however also has the habit to be a bit sharp-tongued when it comes to commenting on his mistress' intellligence as he solves each case for her. While Reiko hates the insulting (and completely unnecessary) jabs Kageyama fires at her constantly, she has to admit that her butler is truly a brilliant 'armchair' detective who has helped her solve many cases. Over the course of three volumes, Reiko was submitted to a lot of shade by Kageyama, but they also solved many cases, but the series went silent after the third volume, originally released in 2012 (the pocket release added a neat crossover with Detective Conan by the way!).

Since the series had 'stopped' almost ten years ago, I doubt I was the only one who was pleasantly surprised when a new volume dropped in the spring of 2021. Shin Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de ("New Mystery Solving Is After Dinner" 2021) reunites us with Reiko and Kageyama in five new short stories, which also feature both familiar and new faces. At the end of the third volume, Reiko's bombastic and hapless superior Inspector Kazamatsuri (who usually took the credit for Reiko's work) was promoted to the Metropolitan Police Department, but after messing up, he's been returned to Kunidachi Police Station. Kazamatsuri is the womanizing son of a wealthy family in car manufacturing who likes to boast about how rich he is and how he moves in the upper circles of society, not realizing that his subordinate Reiko is actually of an even more prominent family. Having to team up again with Kazamatsuri is of course the source of a lot of stress, but during Kazamatsuri's absence, Reiko also got her own subordinate: Airi is a young female detective who is a bit gullible and has sometimes the habit of saying whatever is on her mind too directly (especially when faced with Kazamatsuri's shenanigans). But it shouldn't be a surprise that both Kazamatsuri and Airi ultimately don't manage to help Reiko very much with her cases and that it's her loyal butler Kageyama who solves her most baffling cases just by listening to her. But of course, he will only explain how it was done after his mistress is done with dinner.

Kazamatsuri Keibu no Kikan ("The Return of Inspector Kazamatsuri") brings Kazamatsuri back to Kunidachi Police Station to Reiko's great surprise/disappointment, and Reiko and Airi have to work with the returning inspector immediately on the apparent suicide of Kunieda Masafumi, the oldest son of Kunieda Yoshio, the founder of the famous Kunieda Manufacturing company. Masafumi was found hanging from the ceiling in his own room, which at first suggest suicide, but there are still some minor doubts about his death, especially as Yoshio is expected to die soon and his second son Keisuke isn't actually blood-related to his older brother, meaning there's a motive for murder somewhere. Keisuke and the other people who were at the Kunieda residence at the time of the death however all have alibis: Masafumi had been working in his room the whole day, while Keisuke was visited by a friend. Keisuke showed his friend the whole, and also tried to introduce him to his brother, who was not in his room at the moment. After that time, everyone was together at the dining table save for Masafumi, who was later found hanging in his room, which happened after Keisuke and his friend swung by his room. But as there was nobody else in the house, Masafumi must've committed suicide, right? The trick of how Masafumi was hanged in his room while everybody in the house had an alibi is rather esay to guess, especially once a certain object is mentioned. I doubt anyone will be seriously surprised by the trick and in that respect, I found the story a bit disappointing as I thought it was waaaaay to obvious what was done. That said, there's a clue in this story that's absolutely brilliantly hidden, and that really made up for my initial disappointment. While it is easy to guess how it was done, this clue actually proves the trick had been used and arriving at this clue is definitely a lot harder than just imagining 'the murderer probably did this and this to commit the murder.' So you could see this as a double-layered story, where the first layer is very obvious, but the second layer cleverly hidden.

Reiko and Airi are investigating the murder on the elderly Shimoirisa Masaru in Chimoji wa Misshitsu no Naka ("The Bloody Writing Is Inside The Locked Room"). The victim was discovered inside the locked storage room in the garden, broken open by the victim's second daughter and his son-in-law (husband of the oldest daughter) who both happened to be visiting the old man that morning and couldn't find him inside the house. When they noticed some blood beneath the door of the storage room, they broke the door open to find the man dead. But there were also clues inside: the victim collected art and a valuable pot made of Satsuma kiriko glass was missing from the storage and most damning of all, the victim had written the name Nakata in blood on the floor. The case seems clear-cut, as the police start looking for someone named Nakata among the victim's acquaintances. As the police investigation continues, they find more clues that seem to indicate this Nakata, but still things don't seem to add up quite perfectly, and it's Kageyama who manages to put a completely different light on the manner. This is a story that focuses more on the why of the locked room than the how, and it's perfectly fine concept on its own, but it's a bit simple. The story is rather economical in set-up, so nothing really surprises: when you hear why the victim was found in a locked room, you'll find it a clever idea, but the story is so short little is done to really show the effects and implications that arise from the creation of the locked room, somewhat undermining its whole concept. The idea is executed perhaps a bit too minimalistically to really make an impression.

Tsuiraku Shitai wa Doko Kara ("Where Did the Falling Corpse Come From?") revolves around the investigation of a dead body which was found lying in a small parking lot surrounded by tenant buildings/apartment buildins on three sides. While it seems a suicide jump at first, a wound on the victim's head sustained before death suggests it's murder instead. Because the building beneath the victims lies has no windows at all on the parking lot side, the police suspects someone must've pushed him off the rooftop, but they come across a witness who swears he was alone on the rooftop all the time around the time the murder must've happened. Meanwhile, the police find a bloody knife among the victim's possessions, and when they investigate in the vicinity, they find an old man has been killed in one of the apartment buildings that surround the parking lot. How are these two deaths connected? This is the type of story which a reader can recognize immediately if they have read similar stories before. The trope in question isn't overly common in mystery fiction, but usually they make an impression, so it probably doesn't take long for a reader to realize what is going on here if they have read similar stories before. It's a competently written variation of the trick, and as often with Higashigawa's writing, the clewing is really good, but even Higashigawa himself has written stories with the exact same type of trick before, so it's easy to see through.

Itsutsu no Mezamashidokei ("The Five Alarm Clocks") is of course inspired by Ayukawa Tetsuya's The Five Clocks (disclosure: it's included in The Red Locked Room which I translated) and starts with Ryuuji and Mamoru chatting in the morning after ending their night shift. Ryuuji invites Mamoru to his place, a house near the train station he shares with a few other people. Lured by the fact that one of the other people living there is a genuine nurse, Mamoru follows Ryuuji to the house, but on their way to Ryuuji's home, they hear two alarm clocks going off in the nurse's room, but no sign of her switching the alarm off. Sensing something is wrong, they go inside and find her strangled, though miraculously still alive and she's swiftly brought to the hospital. When the police investigate the room of the victim, they stumble upon a surprising sight: the victim had five alarm clocks set in her room: two clocks near the head of her bed, two beneath her bed and one on the table in front of her television. The alarm clocks were all set around, but at different times, suggesting the woman probably had trouble getting up each morning, which is why she set five alarm clocks at five minute intervals to ensure she'd get up and not just switch the alarm off and go back to sleep again. Reiko and Airi question the other inhabitants of the house, learning that the nurse had to go out last night suddenly because of an emergency at the hospital which turned out to be a fluke, but that there didn't seem anything wrong when she returned. When she was found this morning, three of her alarm clocks had been switched off, but the last two went off and were still going when she was discovered, meaning she had switched those clocks off and was probably strangled just minutes before she was discovered. But none of the three people present inside the house that morning have a clear alibi, so can these clocks help point out who did it? An interesting take on The Five Clocks, because this time we don't have one single alibi vouched for by five clocks, but it's the time of the crime that is indicated due to the alarm setting of the clocks. It's an original way to indicate the time of the murder and the result is a story that's fun to read: it's very simple in set-up, set inside the shared residence and with only a few characters, but the deduction chain built upon the five different alarm clocks, the implication of the five minute intervals between them, and the way the reader is eventually brought to the culprit is very clever: at first you think the clocks can't mean much because ultimately, none of the three suspects have a clear alibi for the time of the attack, but the thing is twisted around surprisingly by showing the clocks do prove something else.

Tabako 2 Honbun no Alibi ("An Alibi Two Cigarettes Long") is a story that doesn't have any especially memorable or outstanding aspects to the core crime, but it's actually one of the better plotted stories in the volume, showing off Higashigawa's talent to control the actions of his characters to create (semi-)impossible crimes and perfect alibis. This time, Reiko and Airi are put on the case of a student killed in his own apartment room, soon after the victim returned home around eight in the evening. By sheer coincidence, someone had been smoking two cigarettes at the front gate of the victim's apartment building around that time, and this witness claims he always takes five minutes for one cigarette. During his break, he saw a fat man enter the building and ran way a few minutes later, who is suspected to be the murderer and the police soon find three suspects among the victim's acquaintances, who fit the profile, may have a motive and were in the neighborhood around the time of the crime. The suspects all have partially vouched alibis around the time of the crime, but because they were all within walking distance of the scene of the crime, and the witness' testimony relies solely on his estimation of how long he was smoking, it's difficult to pinpoint at what time the suspect fled the building, which in turn means they can't eliminate any of the suspects indefinitely. The puzzle piece that allows you to connect the various testimonies together and construct a precise timetable is devilishly clever, being an incredibly simple and common thing that people do, but which you probably won't think off until it's mentioned in the story. Once you're reminded of it, you'll be able to piece together what really happened on the night of the murder and which of the suspects could've committed the murder. There's no 'grand' situation like a locked room or a corpse which seems to come out of nowhere, but as a puzzler, it's really satisfying.

By the way, is it just me, or is Kageyama a lot milder compared to the previous books? His verbal abuse of his mistress seems less... sharp than before. Guess he softened in these last years...

On the whole, Shin Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de is a nice return of the series. The banter is between pleasantly crazy characters is fun as always and while I don't think that any of the five stories found in this volume rank among the best mystery stories of the series, I think they all have something interesting to offer, from original settings to cleverly plotted roadmaps leading to the culprit or shrewdly hidden clues that are both brilliant and oh-so simple at the same time. If you're a fan of the series, this is a must-read, as it's basically 'more of the same', but that's not a bad thing at all.

Original Japanese title(s): 東川篤哉『新謎解きはディナーのあとで』:「風祭警部の帰還」/「血文字は密室の中」/「墜落したいはどこから」/「五つの目覚まし時計」/「煙草二本分のアリバイ」

The Secret of the Lost Tunnel

"The train had already begun to move as Holmes spoke. Glancing back, I saw a tall man pushing his way furiously through the crowd, and waving his hand as if he desired to have the train stopped. It was too late, however, for we were rapidly gathering momentum, and an instant later had shot clear of the station"

"The Final Problem"

I find traveling by train soooo relaxing, though I guess some countries don't really have a train culture.

It's the year 1879. After the Meiji restoration and the opening of Japan for foreign relations, the immediate focus of the new Japanese government was on modernization and industralization of the country, and one of its pillars to connect the whole country and consolidate the central government's power was of course a railway network. As the dirctor of the Railway Board, Inoue Masaharu is responsible for laying this network of lifelines, and the project that is currently on top of the priority list is the railway tunnel through the mountain Ousakayama: this tunnel will connect former capital Kyoto to Ootsu. The project is also a matter of honor. Up until now, all the major railway projects in Japan were led by foreign engineers from countries like Great Britain and the United States, but this tunnel will be the first major railway project completely planned and designed by Japanese engineers, which will prove that Japan is ready to stand on its own feet. However, several incidents have been happening at the tunneling site: rocks falling from the mountain, measurements to ensure they're tunneling at the correct angle being changed, faulty material popping up or materials missing and there's even an incident with a supplier who fell of a train on his way back from the tunneling site. Worried that these incidents are an attempt to sabotage the project, Inoue decides to hire Kusakabe, a former policeman back when Tokyo was still called Edo. Kusakabe is reluctant at first, because he suspects the only reason why Inoue doesn't call the actual police is because of old rivalries from before the Meiji Restoration still being kept alive through political games, but he gives in and travels to the site accompanied by his Watson, engineer-in-training Onodera. It appears there are a lot of people who would like this project to fail: from other government departments who want the Railway Board's budget to the local people who will lose their jobs due to the railway. Things are murkier than Kusakabe had initially expected, so he decides to give the matter a serious look in Yamamoto Kouji's 2017 novel Kaika Tetsudou Tantei, which also bears the English title The Detective of Meiji Period Railway on the cover.

If you travel to Japan now, you realize that trains are still an important part of Japan as a country, not just as a vital lifeline, but also as part of the culture. This is also reflected in Japanese mystery fiction, where trains are a very common sight, sometimes revolving around iron-clad alibis that make brilliant use of time schedules, sometimes focusing on other related elements ranging from ekiben (lunch boxes with local specialties), the layout of stations, the morning rush and much more than I can name. However, Yamamoto Kouji, who works at a railway company, however interestingly doesn't write about the modern day railway in Japan, but about its past with The Detective of Meiji Period Railway. Most of Yamamoto's novels are mystery stories in a historical setting (Edo period) that predate railways, but with this novel, he decided to look at the earliest days of the Japanese railway network, which is a highly original theme. 

If you're into history especially, this book is really interesting. It genuinely presents the Japanese railway network as the focal theme of the book, and looks at it from various angles. Inoue for example suspects there's a political motive behind the sabotaging of the project, putting the railway network in a 'big history' context about the various parties involved with the Meiji Restoration. At the same time, the book also looks at the railway as an element that juxtaposes Japan and the West, as something that Japan needs to master in order to become a player on the international scene, while foreign powers wish to use the railway to assert their superiority over Japan. And as the investigation continues, we also look at the railway at a smaller level, focusing on people who once earned a living by transporting people and goods across water and who are now losing their jobs, to people who are now able to travel across Japan more swiftly which can sometimes even save lives. The manner in which The Detective of Meiji Period Railway presents trains and a railway network as something new in society, all the changes it brings and how that can lead to crime is highly entertaining. It does help if you have rudimentary knowledge about political/sociological/economical circumstances around that time for the details, but I think that even without that, you can enjoy this as a historical mystery about trains.

The core mystery plot feels a bit like a Holmesian adventure, which is fitting considering the time period of course. Don't expect a Queen-like densely clewed puzzler, or mystifying impossible situations: it's more about Kusakabe and Onodera poking around, stumbling upon some fact that may or may not be relevant and other incidents occuring that push the story forward. A lot happens between the first and final pages of this book, but not everything is actually directly connected to the problem of the sabotage and like a lot of Holmes' adventures, the story feels a bit 'open', making it seem like anyone could've done it, and that you're just there for the ride to see what did actually happen. Ultimately, an interesting plot is revealed and we see some events connecting to others in unexpected ways, but I think the merits of this book as a mystery lie more on the historical setting and its focus on railways, than on specifically the manner in which this story has been plotted.

Strangely enough, the book does feel a bit... cramped? The story is about railways, but most of the story is set just around the tunneling site, and the town nearby, so there's not really a lot of travelling by train done here, and when it occurs, it's never actually shown in detail. This is really a railway mystery, not a train mystery. Most of the important events also play outside or around the half-finished tunnel, so in that regards, it feels more open than you'd expect from a railway mystery (not just inside a train), but at the same, it's less about the connection between various/multiple locations.

So if the topic of the history of the railway in Japan appeals to you, Kaika Tetsudou Tantei (The Detective of Meiji Period Railway) is a must-read, as it brings a rather fascinating story that really focuses on what the railway really means for a modernizing society and uses those changes to bring an interesting tale of mystery. In terms of writing, it's perhaps closer to the adventure-like stories of Sherlock Holmes, so don't expect minute-perfect alibi tricks that use twenty train lines to make the impossible possible or super complex plotting, but it keeps the reader entertained from the start with lots of incidents happening and also a surprisingly broad (economical/sociological/political) look at the Japanese railways.

Original Japanese title(s):  山本巧次『開化鉄道探偵』