The Mystery at the Crystal Palace

「おい、どこに行くつもりだよ」

「中村青司を殺しに行くんです」

『硝子の塔の殺人』

 

"Hey, where do you think you're going?"

"I'm off to kill Nakamura Seiji."

"The Glass Tower Murder"

I loooove the cover art of this book! Apparently, the book had an exclusive early partial release on digital storefronts, with the first half of the book being offered completely free, and those digital releases had exclusive cover art too with characters (one of them featured below in the review).

Kouzushima Tarou became a hero in the medical world with his invention of a revolutionary drug delivery system called Trident, and the patent also made him wealthy enough to indulge in his true passion: mystery fiction. Mostly retired now, Kouzushima lives with his servants in the mountains of Nagano Prefecture, in a curious building that seems to come straight out of one of those detective novels Kouzushima loves so much. The high cone-shaped tower stands high on the mountain and has glass exterior walls, with each floor above the ground floor having only one single room and a big spiral staircase at the centre of the building. This is where Kouzushima also keeps his valuable mystery collection, which includes rare editions and props from series like Columbo, but also more recent productions like Sherlock and Knives Out. Having something important to announce, the eccentric recluse has invited a few guests to stay in the glass tower. While the precise contents of his announcements are not known, the fact the list of guests include people like the Nagano police detective Kagami, veteran mystery writer Kuruma Koushin, Sakyou Kousuke, editor at one of the most prominent mystery publishers, the spirit medium Yumeyomi Suishou and the great detective Aoi Tsukiyo ("great" is part of her title) is enough to tip off everyone that Kouzushima's announcement is related to his beloved fictional genre. Another name on the list is Ichijou Yuuma, Kouzushima's young physician, who however has a different reason to be here: he's here to kill his boss. In order to save a loved one, Ichijou has no other option left anymore but to kill Kouzushima, but of course in a way that will arouse no suspicion. This little party is the perfect occassion: the plan is to make Kouzushima take some poison and then create a locked room of the study. When Kouzushima doesn't appear for his announcement, they'll go up to Kouzushima's floor, break into the locked study and then Ichijou will declare the man died of a heart attack, and he'll live happily ever after.

Of course, things don't go as planned in the first chapter of Chinen Mikito's Garasu no Tou no Satsujin (2021), which also carries the English title The Glass Tower Murder on the cover, or this would be a very short book. It takes longer for the poison to kill off Kouzushima than Ichijou had expected and the dying victim manages to call downstairs to the staff for help with his dying breath, so Ichijou has to leave the study immediately, leaving him no time to tidy up the scene as he had hoped. Like planned, the rest of the people present in the tower break into the locked study and find Kouzushima's dead body, but Kouzushima had lived long enough to leave what appears to be a dying message, and the great detective Aoi Tsukiyo quickly deduces that there may be foul play at hand. While she wants to investigate the scene more closely, police detective Kagami shoes her away, saying this is a job for the police. A call to the police however tells them a snowslide has blocked the roads off, so it might take them three days to get to the tower. Forced to stay in the tower, everyone retreats for the night, but the following morning, a fire alarm brings everyone downstairs to the dining room, which they find locked from the inside and when they break inside, they find the butler murdered and the table on fire. Everyone is horrified by this second murder in their current closed circle situation, but none are as surprised as Ichijou, who knows he committed the first murder, but is also sure he didn't kill the butler! There's another murderer roaming the tower, and Ichijou realizes this is his chance: if he can find out who the other murderer is, he'll be able to use them as a scapegoat for the Kouzushima murder too. However, it's very likely the other murderer is thinking the exact same opposite, trying to frame Kouzushima's murderer for the second murder, so it's a race for Ichijou to find the real murderer, and the best way to do that is to become the great detective Tsukiyo's Watson.

A cone-shaped tower with glass walls, a closed circle in the snowy mountains, an eccentric collector of mystery-related objects, a curious party consisting of detective writers, mediums, editors and a great detective: Garasu no Tou no Satsujin is written in honor of classic puzzler-type mystery novels and in particular the novels in the shin honkaku (new orthodox) movement and it doesn't even try to hide it. In the earliest pages we are already treated to a song of praise to authors like Ayatsuji Yukito, Arisugawa Alice and Norizuki Rintarou (*disclosure: I have translated work by all three of them) through the mouths of the characters and of course, many comparisons are made between the glass tower they reside in currently and the many curious buildings that function as unique murder locations featured in shin honkaku mystery novels. Kouzushima is presented as a big shin honkaku fan, a man who had great successes in the medical world, but whose dream was to succeed in the mystery world (his own attempts to make a name for himself in the world of mystery fiction were... not really succesful). But other characters are also very genre-savvy, and this is what drives this whole novel.

While Kagami acts like the Stereotypical Police Detective in Mystery Fiction by wanting to keep Tsukiyo and everyone else out and insists on waiting for the proper authorities to arrive, Tsukiyo and Ichijou work together and try to figure out who committed the murders. Well, to be exact, Ichijou is helping Tsukiyo to find out who the other murderer is, while also trying to conceal his own involvement in the first murder. This of course easier said than done, especially as the second murderer keeps on killing people and always in locked rooms. Even measures like keeping the master key in a safe and having two different people keeping the two keys necessary to open it doesn't seem to faze the other murderer. What Tsukiyo, Ichijou and the others can do however, is theorize about the murders and they do this in the context of shin honkaku mystery novels. No work is outright spoiled of course, but they do discuss common tropes, concepts and themes seen in shin honkaku novels and see how they could apply to their current situation. Chinen obviously designed all the murders in this novel to invoke common ideas seen in shin honkaku mystery fiction, especially early shin honkaku novels with grand, over-the-top tricks that are utterly fantastical but oh-so entertaining, and thus the book provides a great vehicle to look back at how themes developed early on in the shin honkaku movement and challenge the reader to guess how these ideas apply to the murders in this book.

The (intended) result is that at times, Garasu no Tou no Satsujin will feel a bit familiar: while it doesn't 'steal' solutions from other novels, the concepts and twists will often remind of other books, but that is an inevitable result of the focus of this book, as it wants to use this to fanboy over the classic shin honkaku novels. Personally, I think people who are fairly familiar with the history of shin honkaku will find a lot more to enjoy about this novel, as a lot of the key points of this novel are written especially to appeal to those people. As a "conventional" mystery novel, there are just too many references to real-life history of shin honkaku and meta-discussions about it, and you'll probably feel like you're missing a lot of the story without that context (which is true). That said, the various locked room murders are, in concept, quite enjoyable, with ideas that make good use of the unique setting.

The secondary whodunnit plot also adds a lot of great tension: we know that the narrator Ichijou's the murderer of Kouzushima, but there's also the presence of the second murderer, who manages to pull off impossible murders in the glass tower despite the presence of the great detective Tsukiyo, and you have the added suspense of Ichijou actually being Tsukiyo's Watson, hoping to find the second murderer first so he can frame them for the first murder too. This plot-thread of Ichijou being both the murderer and detective('s assistant) adds a lot of twist and turns making Garasu no Tou no Satsujin a much more tricky and complex reading experience than the first chapter might make you think it will be. The book kinda spoils itself by the way in that regard, as at one point, the story kinda works towards a conclusion....  but you'll still have about twenty percent of the book left unread, so you know even more twists and turns are coming up. That's one advantage mystery games have over books!

Garasu no Tou no Satsujin is a very densily packed novel, featuring a lot of familiar tropes and concepts of the genre, but that's intentional and it's actually used in a very meaningful manner to present what is basically a love letter to the shin honkaku sub-genre. It presents a romantic view back at the familiar tropes from shin honkaku novels, while also telling a capable mystery itself too, though still firmly set in the context of those novels. This means that you'll be able to get a lot more out of this novel if you're familiar with the novels and authors in question and that the book is probably less fun if you lack that context, because some of the trickery utilized and the character motivations might seem a bit weird in that case, but personally, I found this to be a very entertaining puzzler that presented a surprising deep look at the genre.

Original Japanese title(s): 知念実希人『硝子の塔の殺人』

The Mystery of the Evil Eye

ひとつの目で明日をみて

ひとつの目で昨日を見つめてる

「The Real Folk Blues」（山根麻衣）

 

With one eye I look at tomorrow 

With one eye I keep staring at yesterday 

"The Real Folk Blues" (Yamane Mai)

Last one of the year!

Following the death of his parents, partially due to his fault, the student Taneda Shizuma travels to the secluded mountain village of Sugaru. While the village's hot springs do see the occassional tourist, Shizuma is not here to relax, but he has chosen this place to step out of life and enter the eternal sleep, having lost his will to move on. He hopes to end things on the day the first snow will fall, but fate has something else waiting for him. On the morning of the first snow, the decapitated body of a girl is discovered on the Dragon's Head, a rock formation where Shizuma had been spending these last fey days looking up at the sky. His ID is also found near the corpse, so both the police and the girl's family are quick to accuse the travelling stranger of the horrible crime, but just as Shizuma is beng dragged away by the authorities, a strange 17-year old girl with one glass eye dressed in suikan (clothes once used in the Heian period) appears together with her father. She introduces herself as Misasagi Mikage, a detective-in-training, which seems to ring some bells with one of the older police detectives present. Mikage's mother, also called Misasagi Mikage, was a gifted detective who had helped the police with solving many cases. She died young however, but now her daughter is determined to step in her mother's footsteps, with some help of her father. Mikage has been training all her life to become a detective and had been travelling across the country, and she and her father happened to be staying in the same inn as Shizuma. She quickly points out a few contradictions at the crime scene, which indicate that Shizuma was probably framed for the decapitation murder, and Mikage's chain of deduction eventually leads the arrow of suspicion back to the manor where the victim herself lived, meaning it's very likely one of her family members killed her. The leading police detective decides to officially ask Mikage to help with the investiagation, and while Mikage and Shizuma bicker a lot despite this being their first meeting and Mikage having saved Shizuma, they seem to get along pretty well in reality and Mikage decides to bring Shizuma along as her assistant.

It is said that more than a thousand years ago, a mysterious girl was born out of one of the hot springs. She grew up and became a beautiful woman, when a dragon started tormentng the region with floods. But with her mysterious powers, she managed to seal the dragon. However, she did not manage to vanquish the monster completely, meaning there were still floods once in four years. After the woman married a human, she gave birth to a daughter Sugaru, who was able to decapitate and defeat the dragon forever with the combined powers she inherited from her heavenly mother and human father. In turn Sugaru's own daughter inherited her mother's name and powers and that tradition has continued until this very moment: Sugaru Village has always been under the control of the Kotosaki clan, and Sugaru is still being worshipped by the villagers as the guardian of the region. This is why the murder case is taken so seriously: the victim Kotosaki Haruna was the oldest daughter of the current Sugaru, and was supposed to take over as the next Sugaru in the future. Mikage's suspicion that the murderer must be someone of the Kotosaki clan is therefore a very serious one, and even with the police's blessing, Mikage's investigation into the murder must be conducted delicately. Initally, Mikage's investigation focuses on the last movements of Haruna, but all the outsiders are shocked to learn that Haruna's father has appointed their second daughter Natsuna (Haruna, Natsuna and Akina being triplets) as the next Sugaru and that she's to start her spiritual training immediately. This worries Mikage, as the motive behind Haruna's murder hasn't been established yet, and as she fears, new murders occur despite precautions. But while she's doing her best to show off that she is really ready to become a detective herself, things spiral out of control in Maya Yutaka's Sekigan no Shoujo ("The Girl With One Eye" 2010).

While I generally do find the books I read by Maya Yutaka entertaining, I don't read them that often for some reason. I think I read his works once every three, four years. This one had been on my to-read list for a long time though, probably since the release? Both the cover and the title had always had a strange appeal to me, being just mysterious enough to really pique my interest. The book also ranked very high (first places) in several of the big annual mystery fiction rankings of the year, so I always wanted to eventually read this book and I guess that over ten years since its initial release, still counts as eventually.

Initial impressions are likely to invoke Yokomizo Seishi's work: a secluded village, a complex family tree with convoluted character relations, and grotesque murders that seem to involve local legends. You wouldn't be wrong, as a lot of these elements do play a very important role in the mystery plot: a lot of Mikage's theories revolve around the motives that could come from the role of Sugaru in the village tradition and how they basically rule Sugaru Village and the whole "small community in the mountains built around one powerful family" screams Yokomizo of course. But in practice however, you're more likely to think of Ellery Queen's work when reading this book. Like the initial scene where Mikage proves Shizuma's (presumed) innocence, this novel features a lot of scenes where Mikage will present chains of deduction based on the physical evidence found at relevant scenes, showing what the murderer must have done and how, and build on those ideas to show which of the family members could possibly answer to the murderer's profile. The book has a lot of these scenes, though they are not always "fair" in the sense that the reader isn't given time to consider the evidence themselves to try to build such a chain of reasoning themselves. Usually, you will hear about the relevant data only for the first time when Mikage's already busy explaining her hypotheses. This isn't bad per se: the hypotheses Mikage builds throughout the novel are entertaining and really clever, but coming up with them yourself can be pretty difficult, and luckily, Maya manages to use the outcomes of Mikage's deductions/her hypotheses for a more interesting thought experiment.

Even though I am not a very experienced Maya reader, even I know one of the more important themes in his works is the post-modern theme regarding detective fiction and truth as seen in later Ellery Queen novels: how can a detective in a detective story ever truly know whether the evidence they base their theories upon isn't fake, planted by the true murderer trying to lure the detective into making the wrong deduction? It's an important theme in Maya's debut novel Tsubasa Aru Yami, but I have also seen the notion of false solutions, and truths hiding behind truths in the few other works I have read by him. Sekigan no Shoujo isn't different, and this isn't even really spoiling the book, for both the book summary and the book's table of contents make this clear. The book has two-part structure, the first set in 1985, detailing Shizuma and Mikage's efforts to solve the murder case developing in Sugaru Village. Mikage barely manages to solve the case and only after many losses, but the second part is set in 2003, when Shizuma visits Sugaru Village again and to his great horror, another decapitation murder has occured at Dragon's Head, and once again it's the oldest daughter of the current Sugaru. Realizing that this can't be a coincidence, everyone involved in the 1985 case realizes that Mikage had probably arrived at the wrong, or at least incomplete truth back in 1985 and that it's likely the same murderer who is responsible for the new death, but how could Mikage have gotten the truth wrong and who is the real murderer?

So in the 2003 part, we get a new series of murders (yes, more murders follow) and we are forced to reconsider the deductions we saw in the first part, while at the same time the new murders must be investigated too. The emphasis now lies on the realization that the murderer must be someone who manipulated the evidence to create a false "truth" for the detectives to find, resulting in a trickier puzzler, as Mikage and the reader have now sift to the evidence/testimonies they obtain and consider whether they can just accept the data "as is" or whether the true culprit isn't trying to lead them astray. This leads to a few brilliant moments, where Mikage has to deduce which clues must be true: usually a chain of deduction is based on clues, but here we have Mikage building chains of deductions just to prove whether a clue is true or not, because only then she'll be able to build a chain of reasoning based on that clue! I guess this is your mileage may vary thing, because Sekigan no Shoujo is very technical puzzler, that really focuses on theories and hypotheses and while I love this kind of mystery novel, some might find it a bit too theoretical and too "if he thinks that I think that they think that..."

The book ultimately builds to a conclusion that links the 1985 murders and the 2003 murders together by basically turning everything you had assumed to be true around. While familiarity with Maya's work might make the ending seem a bit predictable, it's a wonderfully set-up ending, with reinterpretation of old clues and new deductions based on things you had assumed to be done and ready already. Theories that seemed to make complete sense the first time are easily reconstructed in something that seems even more logical, even though you had never doubted it the first time. While the build-up to the actual denouement scene is a bit clumsily written, coming out of nowhere seemingly (how could Mikage ever have guessed where a certain person would be?) , the truth that is revealed here is very satisfying, as you basically go over all the events of the whole book (both parts) again and realize so much misdirection had been going on right in front of your eyes. 

Oh, and a minor point, but I wish this book had diagrams/floor plans. While not necessary to solve the case, a lot of the deductions do revolve around how people moved or where things were lying in a room, so the complete absence of maps is more noticable than in other books. 

So I did enjoy Sekigan no Shoujo a lot. Some might not like the banter between Shizuma and Mikage: while the premise of the book sounds like Yokomizo, the 'friendly fire' banter between the weakly Shizuma and the overly confident Mikage certainly isn't written in the fifties of the previous century. I myself found it enjoyable though, and that combined with the logic-focused plot, I did find this a fun book to read, even if the emphasis is less about letting the reader solve the thing themselves, but more focused on showing the reader the fallability of characters in a detective novel and how people are easily fooled by the murderer, even the detective. Don't read this if you want a straightforward detective, but for those interested in cleverly written puzzlers that do address post-modern themes without giving in to the nihilistic nothingnesss of post-modernism, this is a great read. Maya has not written a sequel in the ten years since the original release, so I assume there won't be one, which is a shame, for I would've liked to see more adventures of Shizuma and Mikage.

Original Japanese title(s): 麻耶雄嵩『隻眼の少女』

Turnabout Memories - Part 11

"I have to go over everything that's happened. I have to remember" 

Another Code R: Journey into Lost Memories

It's that time of the year again, time for that tradition of making lists for the sake of making lists! Looking back at the reviews posted on this blog this year, I'd say 2021 was a pretty good year in terms of enjoyable mystery fiction. Especially in the first half of the year I seem to have read a lot of really good detectives, and not surprisingly, a lot of them also featured supernatural elements in the plot, though that is definitely not a set condition and the final list at the end of this post also features a few books that aren't about the supernatural. I didn't really write editorials this year though because... I don't really know why. Perhaps I should make up for that next year. Anyway, as always, the categories in this post aren't really serious and I'm just writing as I look at the past posting schedule, but in case you see a post mentioned here you missed the first time, take a look! Oh, the other tradition around this time of the year is that I mention how I'm already ahead with writing reviews and probably somewhere around the summer now... but I haven't really been keeping up with writing my reviews the last few months, so while I have a lot of books I've finished already, my backlog of "reviews done but not posted yet" isn't that large anymore, so I guess I should get started on that too... With a bit of luck I'll have enough reviews done by the end of January to last me well into the second half of the year!

Best Project Outside The Blog!

Death Among the Undead & Death of the Living Dead

Also known as the self-promotion category! Weirdly enough, two of my translations were also published last year, so I sure hope people aren't started to expect two books each year now! Anyway, Death Among the Undead has been a personal favorite ever since I read Shijinsou no Satsujin back in 2018 and after posting my review of the book, I was pleased to see that a lot of readers of the blog expressed their interest in the book. I can safely say that it has been the book that commentators on this blog wanted to see translated in English (or least: those people were the most vocal about it), so it was fun to be able to actually work on a book which so many readers of the blog had been looking forward to. If you haven't read it yet, be sure to do so, because it's a really wonderful puzzle plot mystery that shows realism isn't necessary to have fun and cleverly written detective novel. Supernatural elements have become more and more common in Japanese mystery fiction these last few years, and this book is a great example of the heights it can reach.

Which is basically the same thing I was about to write about Death of the Living Dead. This book is actually on the other end of the timeline, as it was one of the earliest, and certainly best-known mystery novels with a supernatural theme released in the earliest days of the shin honkaku writers. While the theme of the rising dead is shared between Death of the Living Dead and Death Among the Undead, they're ultimately very different books and having read either won't make the other feel less surprising. The focus in Death of the Living Dead is definitely deeper in the sense that it really examines the theme of "death" from a sociological angle, while also serving a very impressive mystery plot that seems overwhelming at first, but manages to tie everything nicely, and surprisingly together. Death of the Living Dead is personally also an interesting project because I already worked on the translation a long time ago, but due to circumstances it only got published now, so it's been a very long wait for me too. I hope readers will enjoy this one too!

One thing I can say for sure: you won't see two translations of me next year with both books having red covers and being about the theme of the living dead!

Most Interesting Non-Review Post! Of 2021!

Umineko: When They Cry Playthrough Memo

Okay, I didn't write many non-review posts this year. I guess the only other one was the write-up I did to celebrate the release of volume 100 of Detective Conan. Doing a "real-time" playthrough of a mystery story and writing down my thoughts/questions/suspicions down before reaching the end is new for this blog however. That said, I really needed to do that for Umineko: When They Cry because each episode is about twenty hours long, and I'm sure I'd have forgotten a lot of details if I hadn't written my initial impressions down immediately after finishing each episode. I'm not sure how many readers here actually bothered to look at the notes I kept, but I thought it was an interesting experiment to also show how people (in this case: me) can approach a mystery story and how they come up with theories. Oh, I was thinking about doing something with similar with Higurashi: When They Cry next year, but I'm not really sure whether that is possible. Could somebody who has played Higurashi tell me whether I could also keep notes and try to solve the mystery beforehand, or is it not really comparable to Umineko in that regard?    

Best Premise! Of 2021!

Rakuen to wa Tantei no Fuzai nari ("Paradise is the Absence of Detectives")

With premise, I mean just having the blurb on the back of the book or something similar being enough to really rope you in, regardless of the actual execution. Mysteries with a supernatural element tend to have an advantage here, but that's definitely not a sure way to rank high on the list here. I enjoyed both Kotou no Raihousha ("Visitors on the Remote Island") and Kyoujintei no Satsujin ("The Murders in the House of Maleficence") a lot for example, but those books actually are about a mysterious, undefined being which you learn more about as you read the book, so the premise of just "something supernatural is attacking the characters" is a bit too vague to *really* pique interest based on the blurb alone. Renkinjutsushi no Shoushitsu ("The Disappearance of the Alchemist") on the other hand is a great example of a premise that sounds simple, but sounds absolutely amazing and really makes you excited to read it, as who doesn't see the potential of a detective story set in a world where they can practise alchemy? But even Mystery Arena, which is set in a realistic world, has a memorable premise, because it's about participants in a game show who all want to solve an on-going mystery story the first, never knowing whether a clue that comes later will mess up their theories or not, even if they sound really convincing at that point in the story. Ultimately, I decided to go with Rakuen to wa Tantei no Fuzai nari because the premise is amazing yet "simple": angels exist and take evil people (murderers) to hell right away. At the same time, the whole idea raises so many questions the reader will learn more about as they read on, so the premise itself is still mysterious enough, even as a simple sentence, it sounds very straightforward. 

Most Interesting Mystery Game Played In 2021! But Probably Older!

Umineko: When They Cry

As I was looking back at the reviews I posted here, I remembered there were also a few mystery games I played this year I hadn't written anything about (yet). Like Jenny LeClue: Detectivú, a cute adventure game where you play the girl detective Jenny... and her writer Arthur Finklestein, who is forced by his editor to commit a murder in the fictional world of Arhurton where his protagonist Jenny has solved (mostly harmless) mysteries all her live. It starts to repeat puzzles in the second half and finishes with a sequel hook which I didn't really like, but it's a fun game overall. Earlier this year I also wrote about how the Switch ports for the Kibukawa Ryousuke games, which were originally released on feature phones in Japan and had been lost media for some years now. I only reviewed the first two entries, but publisher G-Mode has been pumping them out at quite the fast pace, and I've been playing all of them, and some of them are quite good. But they're so short, so I intend to discuss a couple of them in one post some time... in the future.

But back to the mystery games I played this year. Strangely enough, I played two games featuring Hercule Poirot, with one being an interesting mystery game, but without really feeling like Poirot, while the other game was not as inspired as an adventure game, but really succeeded in feeling like Poirot. Root Film was a surprising improvement over Root Letter, and I also enjoyed playing the remakes of the first two Famicom Detective Clubs. And while I usually only play video games, I have to say I was really impressed by the board game MicroMacro: Crime City too, which serves as a very interesting, visual manner to present a mystery. But the game that made the most impression on me was of course Umineko: When They Cry. You usually don't spend 70-80 hours on a mystery game, and while A LOT of that is really long-winded writing, the way Umineko retells a similar-looking story several times to make you find out connections between them is really interesting as a mystery story, and with very meta-inclusions like Red Truths, it certainly is a game worth looking at if you're at all interested in the game-like qualities of a mystery story.

Most Impressive Cover! Seen in 2021!

MicroMacro: Crime City

I usually pick book covers for this category, but I really like the box of this board game, because you can try out the mechanics of this wonderful board game just by picking this box up in the store! The box has a note that says you can already solve a case of the murdered hamburger seller, and if you look closely at the box art, you'll notice there's indeed a dead man on the cover, and by tracing him across the box art, you can find his murderer and see where they went off too, just like in the actual game itself. Technically, this cover art is just a segment taken from the bigger map of MicroMacro: Crime City, but it's a wonderful design that immediately shows you how the mystery solving works in this game even before the purchase.

The Just-Ten-In-No-Particular-Order-No-Comments List

- Kotou no Raihousha ("Visitors on the Remote Island") (Houjou Kie)

- Kyoujintei no Satsujin ("The Murders in the House of Maleficence") (Imamura Masahiro)

- Watson-ryoku ("The Watson Force") (Ooyama Seiichirou)

- Hoshifuri Sansou no Satsujin ("The Murders in the Mountain Lodges beneath the Shooting Stars") (Kurachi Jun)

- Umineko no Naku Koro ni (Umineko: When They Cry) (07th Expansion)

- FBI Renzoku Satsugai Jiken ("The FBI Serial Murder Case" in: Detective Conan 100) (Aoyama Goushou)

- Rakuen to wa Tantei no Fuzai nari ("Paradise is the Absence of Detectives") (Shasendou Yuuki)

- Yuujo no Gotoki Uramu Mono ("Those Who Resent Like The Ghostly Courtesan") (Mitsuda Shinzou)

- Mystery Arena (Fukami Reiichirou) 

- MicroMacro: Crime City (Johannes Sich)

The Devouring

"Foaf is a word I invented to stand for 'friend of a friend,' the person to whom so many of these dreadful things I am about to recount happens." 

"It's True, It Happened to a Friend" (Dale, R. 1984)

Not the last review of the year, but probably the last game review!

Following her involvement in the horrifying incident with the serial killer Blindman from urban myths, police detective Houjou Saki was transferred to the police headquarters of G Prefecture in return for her silence on the case. There she was joined by her new partner Sena, a former biker delinquent with a love for urban legend, and the two of them were put in a special unit under direct control of the station's chief. Their task: to investigate and solve murder cases that are related to the supernatural and urban legends. G Prefecture has become the center for the weird and it requires a dedicated unit, with people with an open mind to handle these cases. After the events in the previous game, Saki and Sena were joined by Koutetsu and Shintarou, two elite homicide detectives who are less prone to believe in the supernatural, but through their encounters with Saki and Sena have learned there's definitely *something* lurking in the shadows sometimes. Shin Hayarigami 3 (2021), released on Switch and PS4, picks up where the previous game left us: Saki, Sena, Koutetsu and Shintarou once again tackle five different, bloody cases of mysterious deaths related to urban legends occuring in G Prefecture, from women being strangled by what appears to be the hands of a baby, creepy French antique dolls appearing in spirit photographs, a woman starving to death, but with strands of hair in her stomach and even... people being turned into human stew after dying in bathtubs with reheaters. The question that Saki, and the player, has to ask themselves always is: should we approach this case from a scientific angle, or an occult angle?

Huh, has it been two years already since I reviewed the first two Shin Hayarigami games and the novel? Hayarigami was originally a horror mystery visual novel series released on PSP and PS2, but after a few years of hiatus, the series returned with the reboot Shin Hayarigami in 2014. While it was enjoyable enough as a horror game with an urban legend theme, it didn't feel at all like the original Hayarigami series though. What made the original three games so fun was each episode you could choose what to believe or what to focus on in your investigation, and based on those choices, you'd end up either finding a scientific answer to the happenings, or an occult one. Both routes were worth exploring, answering elements of the mystery not explored in the other route, and even the supernatural routes did have elements of proper mystery fiction, like figuring out supernatural rules etc. Shin Hayarigami however focused much more on the horror aspect of the story, and even the talk about urban legends wasn't as interesting as the earlier games. Shin Hayarigami 2 (2016) was an improvement, returning mostly to the old formula. The way it tried to ignore the events in the first game was almost comical, but the first half of the game was really good, presenting interesting cases based on well known scary urban legends. The second half however was very occult-focused (even in the "scientific" routes), making it feel like there was no split in the scientific and occult routes at all. So Shin Hayarigami 2 felt like it took two steps in the right direction, but at the same time it put one foot back again, as if it was about to retrace it steps. Shin Hayarigami 3 was released this summer, and for the longest time I was slightly hesitant: would it really be able to take the necessary step forward to make it feel like Hayarigami, and not just any horror mystery game?

Luckily, Shin Hayarigami 3 on the whole does feel like another step in the right direction, and it also has a very interesting story choices that tie the three Shin Hayarigami games together more tightly and at the same time, more closely to the original trilogy, but it's not always succesful. That said, if you liked the original Hayarigami games, or Shin Hayarigami 2, I think you'll find a lot to like in Shin Hayarigami 3. The game features an omnibus format, offering five unrelated episodes (+ one bonus episode) where Saki has to investigate very gruesome deaths that invoke certain famous urban legends. In the first episode for example, Saki and Sena are investigating the death of a woman who was found dead in her apartment, but for some reason every single gap in her apartment had been taped off. She was literally in a locked room, but there are definite signs she didn't die of her own will, and other little weird findings like long strands of hair inside the victim's stomach suggest this is exactly the kind of case for Saki and Sena. Other episodes feature murders apparently committed by killer French antique dolls, while the episode about men being found turned into human stew because they died in their bathtub with the reheat function on (meaning the bath will keep on reheating the water at a set temperature) is a deliciously inspired case based on urban legend! It's here where Shin Hayarigami 3 shines, as it not only takes motifs and themes from familiar urban legends to craft alluring cases, but the game also discusses these urban legends in detail. Sena for example is an urban legend geek, and he often retells the urban legends related to their cases, and the player will probably have heard about a few of them from a friend of a friend. Meanwhile, other characters like Kisaragi, head of the Forensic Research Institute, also analyzes these urban myths from a folklore perspective. If you're familiar with the works of Brunvand on urban legends, you have an idea what you can see in Shin Hayarigami 3: not just the retelling of urban legends, but also analyzing where these myths come from or how new variants are born. The way Shin Hayarigami 3 uses urban legends not just as a graphical skin, but really delves into the topic and shows you research is what makes this game so entertaining. Oh, and talking about graphical skins, the game is definitely gory horror at times. The human stew episode even starts with a warning not to play it right after a meal!

Shin Hayarigami 3 follows the same gameplay flow as we saw in Shin Hayarigami 2 and the old series: as you follow the story, you are occasionally presented with "Self-Question" segments, where you ponder about the direction of your investigation. Eventually, each episode will split in either the scientific route or the occult route. That usually means that Saki will focus on one specific aspect of the case in order to solve it. In the human stew case for example, Saki will focus more on the practical "how was it done" question in the scientific route, while in the occult route, Saki decides to focus on certain foreshadowing dreams all the victims had before they died. Both routes usually lead to different conclusions to the case, but you are always encouraged to play through both sides: both sides usually answer questions not answered/glossed over in the other route. That does mean that even in the "scientific" routes, the supernatural will play some role in the events, and vice-versa. Some might not be a fan of this, but I think it works in the context of this series: the supernatural does exist in this world, but it doesn't mean that Saki and Sena can't investigate these cases and for example figure out logically what the rules are behind a certain curse to prevent new victim to die, or some crimes do involve the supernatural, but still need an acting human to actually commit the murders. It is a shame however that the "scientific" route in Shin Hayarigami 3 is often better described as the "science-fiction" route, with pretty out-of-there events being the "logical" explanation for the events. Sometimes it feels like the difference between the scientific route and the occult route is like "it was a ghost, and the ghost used its supernatural powers to kill someone directly" and "it was a ghost, and the ghost used its supernatural powers in a semi-scifi manner to kill someone". But on the other hand, it does result in a few interesting locked room murder situations in this game that, granted, feature absolutely ridiculous solutions, but they do manage to get that sense of "it's definitely silly, but also slightly convincing" that make urban legends so fun to begin with in general, so it works in that context.

I think one of the more interesting episodes was the one about Ryoumen Sukuna. No, not the character from Jujutsu Kaisen. The mythological person mentioned in the Nihon Shoki, the man with two heads and four arms and legs. It's here where we have a story that isn't just about (modern) urban legend, but also about older mythology and the folklore discussed here is really fascinating, while the case itself is also great: Saki and Sena are asked to investigate a threatening note sent to an archeologist who has recently found he mummy of Ryoumen Sukuna with his team inside a series of abandoned mining tunnels. Saki and Sena, as well as other guests have only just arrived inside the tunnels when the entrance caves-in, trapping all of them inside the mining tunnels. Meanwhile, the mummy of Ryoumen Sukuna disappears, and then people start getting killed... The real-time, closed circle environment of this story is pretty new for this series, but the way this story ties back to the original PSP/PS2 games is also fun. The way it weaves old myths from centuries ago with more modern urban legends is also memorable, making for perhaps the highlight of the game, tied together with the human stew story.

The final episode is where the game trips up, as it tries too much in too little time. Whereas the previous game did its best to pretend the first Shin Hayarigami didn't happen, this episode suddenly tries to make meaningful references to it, while at the same time also telling a story about sightings of the dead rising from their graves and also even making links to the old trilogy, but it falls flat in both routes because everything feels rushed. As a mystery story, the final episode doesn't satisfy at all in both routes, and the things it tries to do hardly succeed. It works, at best, as a sequel hook as we are told a few things that are likely to come back in a potential Shin Hayarigami 4, but at lot of these ideas should've been explored in the direct sequel to the first Shin Hayarigami, not in the third installment! And talking about things I didn't like... the new artstyle doesn't work for me. It's a bit cleaner than the previous games, but it simply doesn't feel as unsettling as the previous style. In the previous two Shin Hayarigami games, the art style and character designs managed to convey a feeling of... oppressing dread, but it's a bit too clean now, and doesn't really support the dark, uncanny atmosphere of the game.

But despite my lukewarm reception of the ending, I still enjoyed playing Shin Hayarigami 3 overall, as up to the last episode, it manages to present entertaining cases. As a pure mystery story, the Hayarigami franchise has never been super impressive perhaps, but the way it delves so deep into the theme of urban legends, even from an academic viewpoint, and uses motifs from well-known stories to present alluring murder cases is quite unique and it serves a type of horror mystery you don't really see elsewhere. Shin Hayarigami 3 has a lot of blatant sequel hooks, so I sure hope Shin Hayarigami 4 will be developed in the future, and I hope they managed to keep up the trend of improving on the previous game. Perhaps the next time, I'll even be satisfied with the final episode!

Original (Japanese) title:『真流行り神3』

Trick and Magic

"You're a wizard, Harry."

"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone"

The cover art kinda reminds me of Vampire Hunter D even though the art style is completely different.

Most knowlege of magic was lost after the medieval witch hunts, and it was only about a century ago when Aleister Crowley and other magicians started conducting serious research on witchcraft in order to recover all the magic that was lost. Magic is a talent you're born with and very few of these natural magicians exist: all of them are members of, and observed by the international organization the Order of Zenith, and at this moment, only six magicians are known to live. But the fundamentals to the workings of magic, research methods regarding magic and many more topics can be studied by anyone, and in the century that has passed since the renewed interest in magic, witchcraft has developed into a proper academic field, with people across the world studying it, even if they can't conduct magic themselves, similar to how not all Literature students actually go on to write books. The existence of magic is undeniable, but not every culture and country has a proper history of magic due the relatively young age of the field and because magicians themselves are very rare. Japan in particular has very little affinity with magic.

Which is why it became big news when it was announced that Jousui University would be opening the very first Magic Faculty of Japan, and not only that, they even managed to rope in one of the six living magicians as a teacher! Narrator Amane is one of the students in the first class of the Magic Faculty, and is placed in a small seminar class with Ririko, Hio, Imina, Rie and Chisato, five girls and best of friends who have been in the same class ever since elementary, going from Jousui Elementary to Jousui Secondary and now all together in the Magic Faculty of Jousui University. The six students are especially lucky, as they are placed in the seminar class taught by Sakyou Shiina himself, one of the six magicians on this world. Shiina can be a bit of a trickster, but he takes things more seriously after a strange threatening message is broadcast during the opening ceremony of the academic year, where a voice calling themselves Aleister Crowley announces that someone here will be chosen as a sacrifice and they are challenged to deduce who the victim will be, and who the culprit is. At first, it sounds like a bad prank, but one day, Ririko fails to appear in class, and when Shiina uses the magic spell Search, they learn she's on the roof of the building. But when they find her there, she's lying unconsciously on the floor, her face horribly mutilated. Luckily, Ririko will survive the attack and Shiina even declares Ririko's face can be saved, but the police are facing a riddle: the staircase security camera shows that Ririko had been the only person to go up the rooftop that day until she was discovered by Shiina and the others, and there are no other ways to reach or leave the rooftop. For a second, suspicion falls on magic, but that is impossible too. Not only is Shiina the only magician around, current knowledge of magic is still nowhere the level of medieval magicians, and many magic spells are currently "Lost Tasks": spells we know once existed, but of which knowledge is gone. Spells that could make this attack on Ririko possible, like levitation or psycho-kinesis, simply don't exist now. So if it is not magic and not a human act, what made this impossible attack possible in Kuzumi Shiki's Tricksters (2005)?

Tricksters is a six-part light novel series from the mid 2000s and as you will have realized by now, it's one of those mystery novels that feature supernatural story elements and people who have been following this blog for a longer time now I absolutely love it when fair-play puzzlers make use of supernatural elements, as many of my favorite reads these last few years have done exactly that. The initial setting might remind you a bit of Harry Potter, because it's about a school setting and magic, but fortunately, you won't be thinking of Harry Potter all the time because ultimately, the concepts are very different here: not only are there only six magicians in this world (who are all being watched by the Order of Zenith), knowledge of magic too is still relatively shallow, with known spells being fairly limited in their range and power. This helps keep the mystery plot fair of course, as you can't get away just by saying a magician did it. The explanation that magic, as an academic field, is similar to Literature and that people can study the topic without actually practicing it themselves, is pretty easy to understand too.  

And it's also clear right from the start this isn't going to be a normal detective story, as the book basically opens with a Challenge to the Reader, albeit an unusual one. "A Challenge from a Magician" tells the reader that in the following six chapters, people will be deceived and tricked in seven different ways, and it's up to the reader to figure out all seven acts of deception. Interestingly, the challenge is about finding out that there's deception going on, and is not explicitly asking you to solve it. Some are pretty easy to identify, like the reader instantly realizes *some trickery* is going on regarding the impossible attack on Ririko even if you might not figure out how it was done immediately, but some of the other deceptions are well... very deviously hidden, and it did add a fun extra layer to the book. Obviously, this focus on trickery is what gave this book its title.

And it's the seven-fold trickery going on that makes this a surprisingly fun read. You'll be through this book fairly swiftly, as it's not particularly long and most of the text consist of dialogue, but the story offers more mystery than just the initial attack on Ririko. After her attack, some other mysterious events follow, but these events still bring the reader (and narrator Amane and Shiina) back to the same questions: why and how was Ririko attacked on the rooftop, and how did the assaillant get away, because it would have been impossible with or without the use of magic. Because this is a detective story that goes through all the effort to introduce a magic setting, I assume very few readers will be surprised that magic is involved in the trickery in some manner, but figuring out how magic is used won't be easy, especially as the book does a good job at setting limitations on the known types of magic and their effective range. The solution to the locked room situation is therefore quite satisfying, as the book never feels like it's actually cheating you, even though it is called Tricksters. That combined with the fact the mystery plot unfolds beyond the initial locked room situation makes this an amusing to read overall. You'll be thinking of the "seven deceptions" all the time and try to figure out where something is not quite right and whether someone is being deceived in some way and these deceptions do intertwine well.

Tricksters is a fun, short read that makes good use of its magic setting to present an original mystery story, and the book also does justice to its title by really trying to deceive the reader in more than one way, having a much deeper mystery plot than you'd initially expect. I initially became interested in this series because I had heard good things about the third entry of this series (Tricksters D), but it was mentioned it was best to read these books in order (or at least one of the first two books), so I started with this one. It certainly got me interested in the rest of the short series, so expect more Tricksters in the future here.

Original Japanese title(s): 久住四季『トリックスターズ』

The Crimson Love Letter

「このわたくしがあなたを推理の迷路から救い出すー」

『欺瞞の殺意』

 

"That I will save you from the maze of deductions..."

"Deceptive Malice"

Come to think about it, I don't have many books with covers that are this... red.

As an accomplished politician and the boss of the Nire Law and Accounting Firm, Nire Iichirou had been used to controlling every aspect of his life, and that includes his family. He had always intended for his son Hisao to become his successor, but when Hisao died young, leaving behind a wife Hanako and child Yoshio, Iichirou's plans had to be changed. Yoshio, the son of his own son, was still far too young to become his direct successor, so Iichrou arranged for his oldest daughter Sawako to marry the talented attorney Harushige and have him take on the Nire family name, making him Iichirou's de-facto successor. But Iichirou also forced Sawako and Harushige to adopt Yoshio, ensuring that after Harushige, Yoshio would become the head of the Nire clan. Iichirou also arranged for his youngest daughter Touko to marry the attorney Youhei, a man who would function well as Harushige's support. Even Hanako, the widow of Hisao, was used in Iichirou's plans to solidfy his legacy, by matching her with the head accountant of his firm. So was it really a wonder that everything fell apart in the summer of 1966, when Iichirou himself suddenly died and all his children and in-laws realized they had been released from Iicihirou's shackles? 

But what nobody could have guessed, was the form this freedom would take. After one of the memorial services, the whole Nire clan gathers in the manor to have a break and something to eat, when Sawako suddenly takes ill after a sip of her coffee. She is quickly brought to the hospital. But while she's in the hospital, young Yoshio too suddenly becomes seriously ill, and not long after, both pass away. The police soon finds out that both of them have been poisoned with cyanide. The murders apparently revolve around the Nire legacy and basically all family members have a potential motive, but the method of how Sawako's coffee was poisoned remains unclear, until there's a sudden confession of the murderer! While the murderer doesn't give details on their exact motives, the case is more or less done, and the murderer is sentenced for life-time. After the double murder and the convinction of another family member, the Nire clan quickly fell apart and after divorces and early deaths, youngest daughter Touko remains the last-living Nire. However, in 2008, more than 40 years after the murder, the elderly Touko receives a letter from the person who had been convicted of the murders. They had been released from prison due to good behavior and serious health problems and in the letter, they explain that they had actually not been the murderer of Sawako and Yoshio, but that they had confessed to the murder because they realized the police was suspecting them and that the circumstances weren't good, and that if they hadn't made a voluntary confession to leave a good impression on the judges, they may had been convicted to a death sentence due to the very gruesome murders. But in the forty years they had been in prison, they had a long time to think about the murders, and in the letter, they carefully lay out a possible solution to the murders, pointing out who the real murderer probably was. Touko however notices a mistake in this theory, which allows her to propose a theory of her own and so the two start exchanging letters in an attempt to find the real murderer of the past in Miki Akiko's Giman no Satsui ("Deceptive Malice") 2020).

One of my favorite reads and biggest surprises of last year was Miki's Neko ni wa Suiri ga yoku Niau ("Deductions Suit Cats Well"), a book about Kaori, a secretary in a law office who'd chat and have deduction battles with... Scottie, the talking Scottish Fold cat kept at the office. Kaori and Scottie would secretly make up detective stories featuring the clients visiting the office and try to outsmart each other. It was a very cute premise, but the book was also surprisingly cunningly plotted book, reminiscent of Anthony Berkeley or Christianna Brand due to the many, cleverly set-up false solutions with great foreshadowing hidden within the amusing banter between Kaori and Scottie. The book also had a two-part structure, with Kaori confronted with a real crime happening at the law office, and the way this second half incorporated the hypothetical deduction battles of the first part for its clewing was really memorable. Anyway, I had bought the book on a whim originally, but had no regrets at all and knew I'd want to read more by Miki, and I eventually settled on today's book.

In a way, Giman no Satsui is quite similar in concept to Neko ni wa Suiri ga yoku Niau, though there's no talking cat here. But we have once again a story involving lawyers (the author worked at law offices apparently), there's the focus on false solutions by having characters firing hypotheses each other, which are rejected again only to lead to new theories and realizations etc. and the two-part structure, the first part being the set-up, but also hiding a lot of clues which are only picked up much later. The first part of Giman no Satsui however is really just a set-up of the crime scene, and doesn't really involve many deduction battles. We're presented a fairly dry summary of the core facts of the Nire clan murders, showing where everybody was and what they were doing in the hours leading up to the poisonings of Sawako and Yoshio, and the resulting events, ending with the confessing murderer being sent to prison. The narrative is rather business-like here, as this part is really focused on presenting an objective summary of what transpired on that day, but it's not very long, and the second part set in 2008 does really build very cleverly on this first part.

The second part is when Giman no Satsui becomes really entertaining, as we're treated to a series of letters written by an elderly Nire Touko and the recently released convicted murderer who claims they were not actually the murderer (something Touko was actually convinced of in the first place). They reminisence on the past forty years, but ultimately they of course end up writing about the murders. The first letter reveals the person convicted of the murder had given the matter a lot of thought while they were in prison and that they had arrived at a solution that would explain who could've poisoned both Sawako and Yoshio and why. But then Touko explains she knows something that counters that theory, but thanks to the first letter, she too got new knowledge which allows her to propose another theory, and thus the story starts building theory upon theory based on the core facts we saw in the first part, occassionally corrected by some new pieces of information we get in the letters. It's a fun parade of false solutions which very brilliantly build on seemingly insignificant clues to arrive at surprisingly convincing theories, and yet it never feels futile: each letter brings something new that shines a different light on facts you thought you already knew, and even with the rejection of each theory, you do feel you're approaching the truth. Giman no Satsui is exactly the kind of book for fans of Ellery Queen's work and the focus on building theories on the known evidence/knowledge brick by brick and adapting theories whenever a new fact is introduced. This makes this book feel different from other stories with multiple false solutions like The Poisoned Chocolate Case and Kyoumu he no Kumotsu as it's not presented as an anti-mystery.

Giman no Satsui even adds another twist about 2/3 in the book, when the exchange in letters lead to a new incident occuring, which make you look at the original 1966 murders in a completely different manner once agan. This part is done really well, with some deliciously devilishly hidden clues that hint at what really happened this time and a great conclusion to a book that's been constantly about recalibrating your thoughts on what appears to be a fixed scene, while still building on actual physical clues that have been there waiting all that time for you to finally notice them. 

So I enjoyed Giman no Satsui a lot too, even if it loses cuteness points for not featuring a talking cat. Fans of Ellery Queen, Christianna Brand and Anthony Berkeley will probably like this one, due to its focus on building logical chains of deductions and the many false solutions, but it'd be a disservice to Miki if I'd only say that it's just those elements that made this book: it's the actual plotting of Giman no Satsui and the way the clues are laid out and then picked up to propose the theories that make this a fun book to read. Luckily, Miki has still many books I haven't read yet, so you'll definitely see more of her work on the blog in the future.

Original Japanese title(s): 深木章子『欺瞞の殺意』

番外編：Death of the Living Dead Released

Considering my other new translation released this year was Death Among the Undead, you'd almost think this was planned...

One month ago, on Halloween, publisher Ammo announced they'd be publishing my English translation of YAMAGUCHI Masaya's seminal mystery novel Death of the Living Dead soon.  And soon it was, as I can announce now that the book has been released now, both as an e-book as well as in physical form! I already wrote an announcement post last month, so I guess I'm just repeating myself here, but I was asked by Yamaguchi to work on a translation a few years ago, but a revised Japanese edition was released after I had worked on the translation. I was informed that translation advisors/editors worked on my initial translation afterwards to incorporate the revisions, so while the base is my work, I am very grateful to all the other people who worked on the text! I have to admit I haven't seen the final product myself yet, and due to the long timeline behind the project and the extra revisions that had to be made due to the newer Japanese version, I'm pretty excited to have a look at the book myself too finally. It's been quite some time since I last worked on Death of the Living Dead, so I reckon it'd feel fresh even to me!

For those who missed the original announcement post,Yamaguchi's debut novel originally released in 1989 and is one of earliest and definitely one of the best Japanese mystery stories that utilized a supernatural setting to present a fair play puzzle plot detective. It has won several awards for mystery fiction, both during its original release as well as many decades after the release, proving its relevance even now. Set in the United States, this lengthy tale follows Francis "Grin" Barleycorn, a rock punk who after a turbulent time in the old country, returns to his family home: the famous Smile Cemetery in New England. Grandfather Smiley Barleycorn, the person who brought the Barleycorn funeral directing family business to the States and built the empire that is the Smile Cemetery, doesn't have long to live anymore, giving Grin a reason to finally meet his grandfather and his uncles for the first time in his life. Smiley's been in bad health for some time, and his sons are running the company now in his place, but Grin's uncles all have different ideas what to do with the business once Smiley is really  gone. Meanwhile, a strange phenomenom has been plaguing the world: the dead have started to rise. The scientists haven't figure out why yet, there have been several cases across the world where people simply "wake up" from their death and are still able to think, speak and act basically as if they were alive. The only problem: their body is still decomposing. It's amidst these circumstances that mysterious deaths occur 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 book for the first time back in 2014, and I was sold immediately. Going through the book again for the translation only rekindled my love for the book. The way the novel makes use of the supernatural element is brilliant, especially considering that this was first released in 1989. Long-time readers of this blog will have noticed that I have developed a love for mystery novels with supernatural elements these last few years, and the concept itself has become very popular in Japanese mystery ficton, but Death of the Living Dead still ranks among the best of the genre. This is also due to the surprising deep way in which the book tackles the theme of death. Sure, mystery novels usually revolve around death, but Death of the Living Dead really delves into 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. You'd be surprised how well-researched this book is on the theme of thanatology, without burdening the brilliant puzzler that is at the core of this novel. The book is basically twice the length most books I've translated until now, and it makes good use of the extra page count to present a very tricky plot, but also to talk about everything death.

Anyway, I basically just repeated every single point I already made in my announcement a month ago, so I'll stop right here. Be sure to visit the official website of Death of the Living Dead as I can really recommend this book to any fan of the genre. Death of the Living Dead is funny, dramatic and poignant, but best of all a really clever mystery novel that has been a well-regarded classic in Japan for three decades, and hopefully it'll appeal to the English-reading audience too!