Hidden Pictures

"Why should I blame anyone but myself if I cannot understand what I know nothing about?" 

"Picasso Speaks"

The books you want to have read, but don't want to read: I don't remember who first mentioned this to me, but the often-used phrase has stuck with me ever since. The moment I heard it, I knew what it meant. I could immediately think of a few titles that would fit the description, and in the many years that have passed since this first contact, I have of course read quite a few books that I'm glad to have read because they help create context for reading other works, or because they address interesting issues or themes, but of which I also did not enjoy the actual reading process, for example because of frustrating writing styles. Reading is for me mainly a source of entertainment, so my tolerance for deeper reading experiences may not be very high in the first place, so it's very much a "your mileage may vary" thing, but I do think some books are better read with some context, with the foreknowledge of "this might be a book that will be challenging to get through, but it's worth it once you're able to turn over that final page." For someone like me is likely to give up early and just move on to another book if I don't enjoy a certain book and am not told it might be important for context for other books. By the way, I am also the kind of person who will easily drop an anime series halfway through the first episode if I haven't seen anything appealing by that time.

At this point, it should not come as a surprise that the book in today's review falls into this category, or at least, it doesn't for me. Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata ("A Sonata for Summer and Winter" 1993) , which also has the alternative English title Parzival on the cover, was the second novel by Maya Yutaka, released two years after his debut work Tsubasa Aru Yami, a powerful novel that embraced, but also fully deconstructed the tropes of the puzzle mystery genre, Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata goes even a step further, almost feeling like a fantasy novel that at times takes on the shape of a mystery novel, but if you pay very, very much attention, you'll notice the story is definitely built on the cornerstones of the mystery genre. I am not by any means a very experienced Maya reader, but in the works I have read of him, I have always noticed the urge to deconstruct the genre, to tackle The Classic Mystery Novel from a post-modern angle and asks Big Questions about what a detective is, what a clue is, what a mystery is. Of the works I have read so far however, none of them go even remotely as far as Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata, and it's in that context that it is definitely an interesting work to read. The book had been out of print for many years now, but I had heard a lot about how controversial this book was. In the years since I first heard about it, I had seen it described as an anti-mystery, a book that explored the theme of catastrophy in a detective novel, a novel without ending, and more. It was not the type of mystery novel I am usually interested in, but I was aware of its importance, not only as a pivotal work in Maya's oeuvre, but also as part of the 'bigger' picture: Maya Yutaka was the shin honkaku novelist who really dived deep into the post-modern themes of detective genre in the early nineties, and is therefore a must-read if one wants to read more about post-modern themes in modern Japanese puzzle mystery fiction, The book had been out of print for many years, but  got a revised re-release a few months back, which seemed like me the perfect time to read: usually I read Maya Yutaka's work like once every two, three years, but I had just finished the great Sekigan no Shoujo, so I was still in the mood when I started reading Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata.

Magazine writer Uyuu is given a special assignment by his editor to visit Kazune Island, together with high school student Touri, a friend of his who will act as his photographer (though she seems more interested in just enjoying he trip). Mamiya Kazune was a budding actress who starred in an indie film twenty years ago. While she had not become a big star yet, six young men and women became completely entranced by Kazune and with the financial powers of the oldest (richest) of them, an island was bought where they'd all live together. Kazune Island was where the seven of them would live for a year. Kazune was their idol, and the others worshipped her on the island, convinced that one day, Kazune's brilliance would shine not only on the island, but across the country, no, the world. But one day, Kazune fell into the sea and was never found again. That was the beginning of a swift end: one of the remaining people soon followed in her steps in despair, and save for the owner of the island, the others eventually left the island, going their own paths. But it's beeen twenty years since the death of Kazune, and now the remaining people will gather at Kazune Island once again to mourn the death of their idol. Uyuu is to write about this curious gathering, and the members' island life twenty years ago with Mamiya Kazune. Arriving on the island, Uyuu is confronted with surprise after surprise. The house being built in a Cubist style is perhaps a relatively tame surprise, but as Uyuu tries to strike up conversations with everybody, he slowly realizes everyone is very evasive about their lives on the island twenty years ago, and the accounts he gets to hear about Kazune seem slightly disturbing. This being a rush assignment, Uyuu had no time to do prior research, so everyone being evasive isn't really handy, but the big surprise comes at dinner, when a dressed-up Touri manages to shock everyone at the table: no wonder, for she looks exactly like the portrait of Mamiya Kazune hanging at the top floor of the house! Uyuu gets a bad feeling about this, not sure how these people who once worshipped Kazune will react to his protoge Touri. The following morning, the group wakes up to another surprise: it's snowing, in August, on what is basically a tropical island! But this surprise is soon turned into horror, when they find the corpse of their host in the garden. However, the whole garden is covered in snow, and there are no footprints to be found anywhere on the snow in the garden! A quick search also tells them that the two servants are gone and that the one motor boat on the island is gone When they eventually find out the phone isn't working either, they realize they'll have to wait for help to come, which will be after the day Kazune died, but will they be safe until that time? And what has all of this to do with the events that occured on this island twenty years ago?

People in a closed circle situation on an island? A strangely designed house? A "no footprints in the snow" scenario (in the middle of summer!)? Mysterious deaths in the past, and people being evasive about said past in the present? At first glance, Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata takes on a familiar form. Even people not particularly familiar with the genre will recognize these tropes, but looks definitely deceive here, for nothing is as it seems in this novel. The fact the first (yes, first) murder happens so late is perhaps already a hint this is not a conventional mystery novel. Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata is a very long novel, but the first actual mystery (the impossible murder) doesn't occur until the halfway point, which is really, really late: I've read completely fleshed out mystery novels with the same page length! The first half of Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata is filled with slow dialogue between Uyuu and the people who returning to the island, trying to find out about the lives they had twenty years ago, and the banter between Uyuu and Touri. Touri is a rather unique high school student (who always skips school) with an interesting view on life, who does offer a lot of fun dialogue to read, but you really have to be patient this first half of the book, for little happens. The second half of the book moves faster, but even there you will find a lot of pedantry in this novel: it might not be as excessive as in that other famous Japanese anti-mystery Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken, but let's say it'll feel like you just got through a whole semester course on Cubism by the time you're done with this book.

Even after the first murder occurs, the book doesn't really feel like a detective novel. While Uyuu realizes they are trapped on the island, he feels reluctant to play detective, feeling it will only stir up trouble: his single and one concern is to protect Touri and get her off the island alive, back to her parents. There are other minor mysteries that bother him and Touri, like Uyuu seeing a Kazune-like figure roaming the building and some minor comments dropped by various people about the death of Kazune twenty years ago, but most of the time, Uyuu doesn't want to actively detect, and most of the time, he's just there to prevent the inquisitive Touri from being too rash and to find out just enough to be able to protect her. This again strengthens the concept of this book of taking on a detective novel's form, but not being quite like the novel you'd expect it to be initially. One of the biggest examples of this is how the impossible crime is handled. After some initial investigation soon after the murder is discovered, it's more or less put away in a drawer until the very end of the novel, where it's basically explained in three sentences and then forgotten again. The solution, on its own, is both ridiculous and memorable. And nobody is going to guess it based on the hints in the book, because there are no clues or hints and the solution suddenly comes out of nowhere, with the probabability of it ever happening infinitely small, but it's certainly one you'll never forget. But the whole thing is barely touched upon in the end, with the solution just mentioned very briefly in the final few pages of the book. Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata is a detective novel, but it's not really a detective novel.

While that part of the mystery is explained and it is also revealed who is the actual killer on the island, Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata actually leaves a lot of the events that occur in this book completely unexplained. After a feverish, catastrophic finale that even takes on fantasy elements, you're left with a sense of utter disbelief and confusion, that is only strengthened by a curious, two-page appearance by series detective Mercator Ayu, who asks Uyuu, and the reader, one simple question  It's here where the book ends, but where the reader is challenged to go on. For Uyuu's answer turns everything around, and that combined with the countless of unanswered events of the novel, leaves you with nothing but more questions as you turn over the last page. As you think back, you will notice a lot of questions the book drew attention to where never addressed again, from actual physical evidence seen and examined by Uyuu, to suggestive remarks made by the various characters or the almost fantasy-like finale that Uryuu experienced. Where did that character appear from, what was the meaning of that small object they kept finding, what about the painting, where did they go, why was this put in motion anyway and A LOT more: a genuine mystery novel would never leave all of this unanswered, but Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata does. It leaves the reader with a heap of unanswered question and challenges them: can you figure how all of this is connected, and how Mercator's question relates to all of this? This might sound interesting, a detective novel that doesn't actually tell you the whole answer, but leaves you with the clues necessary to solve it. Last year, I played Umineko: When They Cry which takes on a similar form. Only.... Umineko: When They Cry is Sesame Street in comparison to what Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata does. For the latter, doesn't really provide the reader with clear clues and evidence for them to build theories upon. I finished reading this book just before I wanted to go asleep, which was a big mistake, because it left me with all kinds of questions. The following morning, I decided I'd just look around online to see what the conclusions were: it's 2022, so almost 30 years after the book's initial release, so surely there was consensus now, right?

There wasn't. 

I have read at least five or six different theories that build upon similar ideas, but ultimately all go different directions or explain the details differently. And they all sounded plausible, making good use of the few clues we do have and trying to contextualize their solutions within the framework of the whole book. And yet, they all differ. This made it clear to me: Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata is not a mystery to be solved. It is a story that takes on the form and tropes of the mystery novel, and it does tell a mystery story, but at the same time, it is also a distinctly post-modern take on the mystery story, where not everything is explained, where there's room for multiple explanations and where ultimately you're left with questions and unprovable theories. Concepts I know of Maya's other works, but never explored as extremely as in this work. This book is experimental and with the way it ends so open-ended, I can easily understand the arguments of both the sides who see this book as either a success, or a complete failure.

After reading Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata, I wrote a little bit about it elsewhere and how it was a book I didn't want to be reading, but wanted to have read, and a friend asked the rhetorical question whether this was the kind of book you'd wanted to have read "real-time", getting confused/frustrated with everyone together, or the kind of book you'd want to read later, with more context/sudies available. Personally, I am glad I read Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata now, thirty years later, knowing the context of this book, how it was received (a great 63rd place in the 2012 Tozai Mystery Best 100!) and what theories people came up with. Some people might have wanted to go in blind, some people will perhaps just give up right away after reading this or other reviews. I think I would have just given up halfway without the context, and having read the book, I do think there are a lot of neat ideas mystery-wise to be found in the book, though I would never recommend it to anyone as a mystery novel.

Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata is a book I'm glad I done with, and I'm also happy I finally wrote this review. It's a strange book, and it's the kind of book I needed to know was strange before opening it or else I would have thrown it on the floor at some point.  But having read the book, I do have to admit it has all kinds of neat, thought-provoking ideas that I'd like to see in other mystery stories too, and seen in the context of Maya's other works, I can see it being an important step. It is not a perfect experience, at least not for me, and I'll be the first to admit it took me some dedication to read, but I think that if you get to the point you're considering whether to read this book or not, there's definitely enough interesting concepts to be found here that may enrich the experience of reading mystery fiction, ranging from its post-modern take on mystery tropes to simply the types of trickery used in the core mystery plot that warrant a read.

Original Japanese title(s): 麻耶雄嵩『夏と冬の奏鳴曲』

Game, Set, Murder

"“It’s a great huge game of chess that’s being played—all over the world—if this is the world at all, you know. Oh, what fun it is! How I wish I was one of them! I wouldn’t mind being a Pawn, if only I might join—though of course I should like to be a Queen, best.”"

"Through the Looking Glass -- And What Alice Found There"

Back in November, I wrote a short post on trying some mystery board games: while I play a lot of mystery video games, I had never really played board (tabletop) games of the mystery variety, but luckily the two games I tried then (Decktective and MicroMacro: Crime City) were both amusing, and the latter even ended up on my list of favorite mystery fiction of last year. I think most reader could've guessed I'd try out more of these games, and it didn't take long for me to do some more exploration into this medium.

I have a feeling the best-known mystery board game besides Cluedo (Clue) might be Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, a game which was originally released in 1981 but has since seen several (revised) releases and is currently being sold as Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murders and Other Cases (and there are several sequels). I had known about this game long before I even started looking into mystery board games, and I had even already played a form of this game: there is a video game adaptation, based on the cases in this board game, and I had played it in the past. So I was already somewhat familiar with the Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murders and Other Cases before I actually started wtih the original board game last month. This game is perhaps best explained as a kind of gamebook (Choose Your Own Adventure), though it takes on a format that allows for both more, and less freedom than an usual Choose Your Own Adventure story. In the game, you take on the role of a Baker Street Irregular, and "compete" against Sherlock Holmes himself to see who will solve the case the most efficient (spoiler: you'll never, ever be able to beat Holmes in a fair way).

When you unpack the (fairly large!) box, you'll find it holds a map of London, the London Directory, a set of newspapers and ten case books, one for each of the cases ("campaigns") you can play alone or with up to about 8 people (though I think 1~4 players is probably the best). Each case is dated (allowing you access to the newspaper of that day, as well as any older back numbers that may be available) and opens with a short introduction to the case (written in the style of a Holmesian story), which briefly explains what the mystery is, the major characters involved and after that, you're on your own! In a "normal" Choose your Own Adventure, you'd usually now be presented with choices like "If you want to visit A, go to page 110" or "if you want to visit Lestrade at Scotland Yard, go to page 220". None of that here. Instead, the game offers you the London Directory, which is a booklet which lists the addresses of all characters, facilities, shops and much more. Every person or place you can visit has a specific address, and by looking up the address you want to visit in the case book, you'll find another story entry which will tell you what happens there. For example, the introduction tells you Mr. A. Victim was killed, so you look up A. Victim's addresss in the London Directory, find out it's 1EC (East Central), so then you look up "1EC" in the case book to read what happens at this address and what clues you might learn there. So unlike a conventional gamebook, which presents you a number of choices, Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murders and Other Cases challenges you to figure out yourself which places you should, or perhaps more importantly could visit to find the clues necessary to solve the mystery, making it much more challenging. Some addresses are easily found, some not at all, and often, you'll just come up empty-handed at an address you were sure was going to be important. Once you think you have gathered enough clues, you go to the back of the book to find a few questions you have to answer, and finally compare notes with Sherlock Holmes himself, to see who needed fewer leads to solve the case (It's ALWAYS Holmes, so don't even bother to compete with him, he's a psychic).

The game can be played with one player or more, and while this game is reminscent of a gamebook, it definitely also works as a multiplayer game, because it can be pretty hard to figure out where to go next on your own and it helps to have more people thinking along. The cases start out easily enough, asking you to look up the address of a name mentioned in the introduction in the Directory and then looking up the addresses of any characters or locations that happen to be talked about at that location, but it quickly becomes much more challenging. That's where the map of London, the newspapers and the list of informants come in: sometimes you have to actually look at the map to figure out a certain address to visit (for example, something is mentioned about a neighbor and if you look at the map, you'll notice there's only one other house on that street) and the map is also important to determine whether people's alibis actually hold, by noting the times of their alibis and their distance to the crime scene. Newspapers are a treasure cove of information too: at first glance they just look like pieces of paper with "flavor" news articles and advertisements, but you'll soon realize they too are a valuable resource. Sometimes a person you are looking for happens to be mentioned in an advertisement, or you notice an article with some familiar names who happen to be member of some club or something like that. What's fun is that you not only have access to the newspaper of the day of the case, but also of back numbers, and sometimes you come across an article in an older newspaper (used in a previous case), which suddenly turns out to be relevant to a more recent case. The game thus offers a lot of ways to hint at which addresses you can visit, but the more vital ones are hidden in rather clever ways, making this a surprisingly challenging game, which can be great fun if you play it with multiple people as you can all check different sources and discuss what to do next ("Hey, didn't that guy over at B. Witness say something about a restaurant? What if we visit that restaurant...?"). Other times, you'll get to the list of questions at the end of the book, only to find out you missed a lot of the story because you didn't think of visiting location X or Y, or never managed to find the address. 

A major difference with a conventional gamebook however is that each case is presented in a completely non-linear format. You, as the player, can choose what places to visit in what order, which means "story developments" are not really possible, as the game never forces you visit one specific location before another.  Therefore, there are never moments where your actions as a player have direct influence on the story or where "something" happens to change the story. This is quite different from a normal gamebook, because that will always be able to present a story in a certain, chronological manner and thus introduce story developments. To those who do play video games, I think Her Story makes for a good comparison: in Her Story too you have the freedom to choose how to proceed in the story (finding clips) in a non-linear fashion, and it's up to you to piece all the clues in the clips together, but depending on the order chosen and whether you managed to think of specific keywords (addresses in Consulting Detective), you can figure out the mystery much sooner or later.

I have only played about three of the ten cases in Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murders and Other Cases at this moment, but I can definitely recommend it! It's a game that really challenges you to write down every clue and carefully consider where you should go next, and the writing is pretty good too, invoking a Holmesian atmosphere (which is also aided by the newspapers and maps!). While each story entry tied to the addresses is pretty short, the characterization is surprisingly okay, especially for the recurring characters like informants whom you can visit in each case. In the end, I think it took me well 60-90 minutes for each of the cases I have completed already  The official site has a whole case you can try out for yourself (or with others) by the way, as well as the material necessary for remote play, so have a look if you're interested!

In the previous post about board games, I also asked for mystery board game recommendations, and a commentator mentioned having played, and enjoyed Suspects recently. At that time, Suspects wasn't released locally here yet, but to my surprise I saw it was released here last week, so I decided to pick that one up too. One of the things that piqued my interest was one name in particular: The game hails from France and was designed by Guillaume Montiage, but of the three cases inside the box, one was written by a Paul Halter. I don't actually know if it's the Paul Halter, but given that this is a French mystery, I'm going to guess...probably? In Suspects, all the players (1-6) take up the role of female detective Claire Harper, an adventerous traveler who was one of the first women to graduate from Oxford. Set in the 1920s, each case (probably taking about 60-90 minutes, also depending on number of players) has Claire take on a mysterious death in a world inspired by the works of Agatha Christie, which is by the way also visualized by the gorgeous artwork of this game. As a board game, I'd say that Suspects too is very much like a gamebook/Choose Your Own Adventure, even though it uses cards to present its story. A lot of cards!

Like Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, each case begins with a short introduction explaining the basics of the mystery and the primary characters. Additional documents are also provided, like floorplans or family trees. And at the end of the introduction, the main questions are asked which you'll have to solve at the end of the game (culprit, motive etc.) From there, the game allows you pick your own route through the story of the game. Each action you can take within the game is tied to a card in the deck with a specific number: for example, the husband of the victim might be Card 1, and if you look at the floorplan, you'll find each room also has a corresponding card number, for example the Library being Card 34. To take a certain action, you simply take the corresponding card, flip it around and read the story section written on the back. Usually, a card will also point you towards other cards: on the first card with the husband, he might tell you about his alibi, but it might also mention follow-up cards you can read where they talk about their wife, or about the other suspects. The latter cards especially do help with fleshing out the characters. At times, you will also stumble upon physical evidence (cards) or other important information and the game actually uses nifty little tricks to actually incorporate the actual, physical cards into the mystery solving process, asking you to put cards together to make certain connections etc. It's a fun idea that helps strengthen the feel you are playing a physical board game. As you read more and more cards, you'll learn more of the story, slowing making connections between testimonies and physical clues and hopefully figure out whodunnit.

Suspects, at a glance, feels quite similar to Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, as far as the free-form Choose Your Own Adventure style goes. Like in Consulting Detective, you are mostly free to choose what to investigate in what order, but instead of using a case book and a London Directory, everything is written on numbered cards, and you're only allowed to pick a card that has been referenced on a card you have already read. A difference would be that many cards in this game can only be read after reading certain preceding cards, allowing for some kind of  linear story developments). But where the two games do differ greatly is the objective: In Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, you are challenged to follow the least number of leads in order to solve the case, thus asking you to read as little of the game. In Suspects, you will always read all of the cards available, after which you'll be allowed to open the sealed solution to see how well your deductions fared. However, Suspects does ask you to try to answer the main questions early. Once you have read about half of the cards in the case, you can make your first guess, and you get another turn at about 75% in, and one final time once all the cards have been read. You earn points for every correct answer you have at the end of the game, but you earn more points the earlier you made the correct guess. It's of course easier to make a correct guess at the end of the game, once you have all the information available, and the game does allow you to change your answers midway, but the better sleuths will still earn more points because they'll be able to make the correct guesses earlier, when there are fewer cards/information available. I do like that the game doesn't "punish" you for reading all the cards eventually, as opposed to Consuting Detective, where you are supposed to read as little as possible to "win". This point system leads to an interesting multiplayer experience with Suspects: you discuss with each other which card to read next and read the contents together, but you can choose whether to make the guesses together, or have everyone make their own guesses, adding a competitive element. If you play alone, the points are used for the simple multiple ending system (very short, one sentence epilogues that change depending on how many points you got).

At the moment, I have only played the first case of the game, and I have to admit it was a lot trickier than I had expected at first! It was an enjoyable session though, as neat things were done with the cards. The game also feels quite fair: the sealed solution doesn't just say "The killer was X!", but refers to all the relevant cards, allowing you to re-read the cards and see how the clues were laid out. And of course, I'm quite curious to see what the final case will bring, written by a Paul Halter of whom I am not completely sure whether he's Paul Halter. Perhaps that will become more clear once I've actually played it!

As mentioned before, I don't play board games in general, but I think that both Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective and Suspects are very enjoyable experiences that should appeal to fans of the mystery genre. These two in particular have a lot in common with gamebooks (and Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective in particular uses very prosey writing), so they also feel closer to a traditional mystery novel than say MicroMacro: Crime City, so perhaps these games are easier to ease into for fans who usually only read.These games do a great job at allowing the player to try and solve things on their own and making them work for it, while also being accessible enough to not require you to 4D chess your way towards the solution. Anyway, if you have played these games, or even better, have more suggestions for mystery board games, please leave a comment, because I'd love to try out even more in the future!

Absolutely Elsewhere

あの角曲がってく緑のバスが器用に

狭い路地を抜ける自由に走る? 

「スカイ・ブルー」(Garnet Crow)

 

That bus going around the corner is expertly

Passing through that narrow road - Is it moving around freely?

"Sky Blue" (Garnet Crow)

Sometimes, I read books not written in Japanese.

After leaving the Black Prince pub in Woodstock near Oxford, a young man finds the dead body of Sylvia Kaye lying a corner of the car park next to the pub. It's soon discovered by the police that Sylvia had been spotted at a bus stop the day before, trying to catch the last bus to Woodstock, but that she and an unknown companion had decided to hitch a lift to Woodstock. There are signs of sexual assault, so it appears something must have gone wrong on her way to Woodstock, but who picked the two young women up and where has Sylvia's companion gone too? Inspector Morse and his new partner Sergeant Lewis decide to tackle the problem from two sides: they want to track the driver who picked the girls up, but also suspect the unknown companion seen at the bus stop might be one of the girls of her work, so they want to see who might have hitched that lift with Sylvia that fateful night, and why they are keeping quiet. Lewis has not worked with Morse before however, and sees a man who can at times seem brilliant, but at times somewhat eccentric with a tendency to snap at his partner for no reason. As the investigation goes on however, the two detectives stumble upon more secrets than they had initially suspected in Colin Dexter's Last Bus to Woodstock (1975).

Allow me to confess right away: I have never ever seen a whole episode of Inspector Morse or any of its spin-offs. In my whole life, I might have seen 10 minutes in total of Inspector Morse, and my record on Midsomer Murders isn't that much better either. So no, I don't really have a connection with the British police procedural. So why did I try the first novel in the Inspector Morse series, the one that sparked that long-lived television series? To be honest, I don't really know. I had written the title down and judging from the other titles I wrote down around the same time, I was looking for puzzler-type mystery novels, but.... this isn't really one. So either it was a misinformed recommendation somewhere, or I had jotted it down for some reason, but either way, I can't really say Last Bus to Woodstock convinced me to read or watch more of Inspector Morse, as it's not exactly the type of mystery fiction I commonly read.

The writing and Inspector Morse's not really likeable personality (despite the weirdly inserted romance subplot) is a thing your mileage may vary on, and let's say that some of the views presented by the characters in this book on women and rape are dated, but as for the core plot of Last Bus to Woodstock, I can't say it really made an impression. I think I can best describe it as a plot that has a few okay ideas here and there, which are however overshadowed by some moments that seem so out of place and forced, it's hard to take the story really serious. For example, one of the earliest moves Inspector Morse takes in this novel, is to check out all of the private correspondence of the victim's female collegues received at their workplace, in an attempt to find the mysterious companion who hitched a ride. Only this action doesn't make any sense at all. It's a looooong shot that such a search would yield results and there's no reason why the police would need to not only check the private mail of the victim, but of every female colleague at her workplace on the off-chance something of interest might be there. If the police would go through the private mail of the victim's colleagues every time someone is murdered for no specific reason at all, well, that's a full-time job there. Of course, Inspector Morse's nonsensical move does lead to a certain clue because the author decided so, but it doesn't make any sense at all from a narrative point. And that happens few other times too in this novel, where Morse makes outrageous guesses based on flimsy foundations, which are of course rewarded by the author but never do these moments feel satisfying. The way Inspector Morse stumbles upon the trail of the person who picked the girls up for example is supposed to be very convincing, only the method sounds as convincing as me predicting the weather tonight based on how the tea in my tea cup looks like at this moment.

Strip the plot of the details, and Last Bus to Woodstock has some okay ideas: Dexter manipulates his web of characters to create a base that could serve as an interesting whodunnit game, with several developments shifting suspicion from one character to another consistently and enough puzzling facts and incidents that don't seem to mesh entirely until you see the correct shape of the puzzle. But fill in the details, and you'll notice that so many moments and actions feel rather artificial, and not in a "natural artificial" manner. Meaning that even within the logic of the artificial world that is this novel, people's behavior and actions to be supported enough by the way they are actually portrayed and described. Ultimately, I didn't enjoy reading this novel, because many of the major moments of the book felt to come out of nowhere, and Morse was constanty rewarded for his deductions/guesses plotwise despite the fact they shouldn't. The puzzle of whodunnit just never clicked with me because of this.

So yeah, Last Bus to Woodstock was my first foray into the world of Inspector Morse, but it's likely I won't return. As a police procedural, I didn't find this one satisfying or convincing at all, and I'd muuuuch rather read Inspector French's adventures then. It may be the book that started the famous series, but it's not one that managed to capture me. As a whodunnit puzzler, it's just not plotted tightly enough. Perhaps there are other Morse novels that are more satisfying? If anyone has a recommendation or anything, feel free to leave a comment!

The Secret in the Dark

"Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.” 

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"

I like the art style of these covers, but they are literally all just Shiina, so when you look at all six covers which are basically all the same, it's kinda boring. I wish there was more variety in terms of composition...

After losing most knowledge on magic in the witch hunts, mankind has been rediscovering and re-examining magic and in the last century, magic has developed as an academic field. While there are only six known magicians on the world, magic can be studied by anyone as an academic theme, the same way not all Literature students actually write literature. Japan is still just a "developing" country when it comes to magic and it is only this year that Jousui University opened Japan's very first Magic Faculty. After incidents occuring in April and June, narrator Amane and fellow Magic students Ririko, Hio, Imina, Rie and Chisato had a short, uneventful time, but a new mystery befalls upon them in October, during the 42nd Jousui University Campus Festival. Early in the day, Amane and Ririko are asked by Imina to swing by the stand of the Mystery Club, as she's a member of the club. During the opening ceremony of the festival, the two walk over to the General Studies A Building to find the stand, but suddenly they become unconscious. When they wake up, they find themselves inside the General Studies A Building together with a few members of the Mystery Club, but for some reason they find the building is completely covered in darkness. Literally even. It's not just that the lights are out: there's some black force field enveloping the whole building, keeping daylight out and preventing them from going outside. The people inside start looking for a way out and an explanation for what obviously seems like a feat of magic, though the two Magic students are quite sure no single magician could ever pull such a force field off and given that their own professor Shiina is the only magician known to be in Japan at the time, the whole thing seems quite impossible. But as they look for answers and an exit, they are attacked by a mysterious being and one by one, they are taken away by the beast. Can Amane and Ririko figure a way out to contact the outside world and their professor and save everyone in Kuzumi Shiki's Tricksters D (2006)?

A month ago I reviewed the first Tricksters, which I thought was a fun light novel which used a magic setting to tell an entertaining and clever mystery story. Magic is still a developing academic field in the world of Tricksters, so the number of possible magic spells are still fairly limited, all with clearly defined limitations, so magic as a plot element in a mystery story feels very fair here. I mentioned in the previous review that it was actually Tricksters D that first caught my attention, as I had seen some people discuss it as a very clever mystery novel, but with the caveat that it was the third novel in the series and that it was best to read the first two novels first, or at least one of them. This is actually also mentioned in the introduction to Tricksters D. So that's why I did read Tricksters first, though I have skipped the second novel for the time being to go straight to Trickster D. I'll probably return to the second novel in due time.

I do have to say that I'm happy I read Tricksters first though. Not just because it makes for a much better introduction to the characters and setting, it also featured a more "familiar" mystery plot with a good old fashioned impossible situation/locked room mystery, while Tricksters D has a more tricky plot to it. In a way, Tricksters D reminded me of Houjou Kie's Kotou no Raihousha ("Visitors on the Remote Island"), which also featured a plot where the characters are trapped inside a closed circle while being hunted by an unknown being, and part of the story revolved around figuring out what the unknown assaillant is, how it is conducting its attacks and why this is all happening. In Tricksters D, we have a group of students who are trapped in a building that's been cut off from the outside world by some kind of magic cloak with something hunting them in the darkness. It's not a typical plot for a detective story and because of the other focus of the story, I too wouldn't recommend people starting with Tricksters D.

For the other part builds on your knowledge of the previous stories, but in a surprisingly funny manner. Trapped inside the building with members of the Mystery Club, Amane and Ririko are startled to learn that those students already know them... in a way. It is only then that Amane and Ririko are told that Imina has been writing a mystery series for the club with the title Tricksters, based on the adventures they had with their professor Shiina the last few months. What follows is a fun meta-look at Tricksters and the characters themselves, with Amane and Ririko slowly realizing that Imina has used "artistic freedom" in her portrayal of the past events and that the characters based on themselves are both accurate, but also fictionalized on certain points. This blending of reality and fiction however is also played on the reader, with some events we saw in the previous books being explained as having been quite different from reality and the result feels likke a recontextualization and subversion of Tricksters lore in an interesting manner, especially as the original Tricksters derived its title that it was fooling the characters and the reader in multiple ways: seeing the third novel suddenly turning things around again is something most series wouldn't get away with, but it strangely works for Tricksters and the pay-off this sub-plot builds towards to in the end is actually really good. But for the ideas presented here to work, you do really need to have at least read the first Tricksters.

As for the main mystery of Tricksters D, it is an entertaining one, but it's hard to write about the story in detail, because like with Kotou no Raihousha, so much revolves around the slow process of peeling away the layers to find out what is actually happening. Early on, they figure out that the sudden black-out inside the building, the force field outside the building that blocks light and physical movement in and out the building, and the beast that's attacking them one by one must be related to a magic amp (amplifier) that was kept inside the building, but the precise connection between all these points remains vague, so the reader is kept guessing at the correct explanation until the end. I have to admit that the plot was much more complex than I had first imagined: there was a lot more trickery going on than I had noticed, and the way the story eventually manages to tie up all the minor spots that at first seemed mildly odd, was quite good. The Tricksters books are of course set in a world where magic and magicians exist, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to learn that magic (and the related set of rules) are connected to the solution in a way (in this case, the magic amp plays a big role), but I do think that Tricksters D is not as good in explaining the world of magic and its workings as the first novel. The books were obviously written to be read in order, so details on magic and magicians might feel a bit lacking in this novel, which could make the final explanations of the case feel a bit underwhelming. In that sense too, it is greatly advised not to read Tricksters D as your first Tricksters.

Would I say that Tricksters D was better than the first book in the series? It's definitely more unique, with a rather creepy atmosphere and an interesting mystery because at first it's not clear at all what's going on and as the reader, you honestly have no idea where to even begin to start solving this mystery, but then slowly the darkness is lifted and it does reveal a clever mystery plot that is both original and it makes good use of the existence of magic, but a lot of the better points of the book work only in the context of the series, so you do need to have read another Tricksters first for this book to really work. But if you've read more entries in this series already, you definitely owe it to yourself to read Tricksters D too, because it's a really original meta-take with an original mystery plot.

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

Dead in the Water

Resignedly beneath the sky 

The melancholy waters lie

"The City in the Sea"

Will the next cover be a green one, like in a forest? Or a yellow one, like in a desert? Who knows!

High school students Tadokoro Shinya and Katsuragi Teruyoshi had been suspended for a while after the two had snuck off during the summer trip to meet a famous mystery writer, getting themselves not only trapped on a mountain on fire, but also getting involved in a murder case occuring at the home of the writer. But even after their suspension ended, Katsuragi did not return to school. At first, it was because his grandfather had died and he was given leave, but he's been absent from school longer than he was supposed to be, which worries Tadokoro greatly. Due to his upbringing, Katsuragi is very sensitive to lies, a trait which has made him quite a talented amateur detective. However, the events on the mountain had thorougly shaken Katsuragi's beliefs in what a detective is supposed to be, as he had been confronted with can happen if you just call people out on their lies without thinking about other people's feelings or how they may react. Learning that Katsurugi is currently not staying in the city, but the manor of the Katsuragi clan in the village of Y and that the Buddhist service on the 49th day after Katsuragi's grandfather's death is coming up, Tadokoro and classmate Mitani decide to visit Katsuragi to convince him to return to school. 

Tadokoro and Mitani make their way to the remote village, where they find the Katsuragi manor standing on a hill, where they are welcomed by Katsuragi's older brother Tadashi, a police detective who thought his little brother how to be a detective. He's glad to that his brother actually has friends who are worried about him and brings the two to his brother. Katsuragi himself is glad to see some familiar faces, but is clearly still coping with his trauma. During their visit, Tadokoro and Mitani also meet the other members of the Katsuragi clan who are present for the service, and at first sight, they all seem like nice and impressive people: Katsuragi's own parents are accomplished politicians and scholars, he also has a sister who's a model, and his uncle and aunt are all succesful in their own fields. But it doesn't take long for Tadokoro to realize how Katsuragi became so sensitive to people's lies, as it's clear everyone is just keeping up appearences. Tadokoro and Mitani aren't the only uninvited visitors: the sleazy reporter Sakaguchi used to date Katsuragi's sister Michiru is hanging around and seemingly has something regarding the death of Katsuragi's grandfather some weeks ago. Tadokoro is also puzzled by statements by Katsuragi's little cousin who seems to suggest his grandfather didn't die a natural death. Due to a heavy storm, Tadokoro and Mitani are offered to stay for the night, and even the reporter is allowed to stay at the manor because with roads flooded, it's honestly too dangerous to go outside. During the night however, everyone is awakened by the disaster alarm on their phones, warning them of the river flood and advising people to evacuate Y Village. When they realize that Tadashi hasn't shown himself, they go looking for him and his body is discovered in the annex. The annex was originally grandfather's quarters and had been offered to Sakaguchi last night, but Tadashi and Sakaguchi had swapped rooms. Tadashi was shot in the face with a shotgun, so it's obviously a murder, but due to the relentless rain, the village below is slowly flooding, making the arrival of the police impossible. But as time passes on and they discuss Tadashi's death, Tadokoro notices something horrible: the whole Katsuragi family is trying to push a narrative that it was an outsider who killed Tadashi, and definitely not someone of the family. Realizing that he and Mitani might be in danger with the family seemingly conspiring to push the blame elsewhere, they hope Katsuragi can help him by solving the murder, but his earlier trauma and the death of his brother seemed to have its toll. Meanwhile, the water keeps on rising and rising and slowly, but surely, the water is swallowing the villlage below and creeping up to the manor on the hill. Can Tadokoro escape this predicement in Atsukawa Tatsumi's Aomikan no Satsujin ("The Murder in the Marine Azure Manor", 2021)?

I read Atsukawa's Gurenkan no Satsujin in 2020 and found it an entertaining mystery novel: it was absolutely packed with classic mystery tropes and the way it made use of the mountain fire to create a suspenseful closed circle situation was actually surprising, not being just a "thrilling" plot device but actually intricately connected to the core puzzle plot. It was a bit too packed perhaps, as the novel was definitely not short, and the meta-discussions on what a detective should be and how they ought to act is something your mileage may vary on. Still, when I learned that Aomikan no Satsujin would be a direct sequel to Gurenkan no Satsujin, I knew I wanted to read it, as Atsukawa had shown he could plot a great mystery novel. Oh, and have you seen that cover! The cover also has the English title Murder of Aomikan by the way.

Aomikan no Satsujin will feel very familiar to to those who have read Gurenkan no Satsujin already, as the plot structure is nearly identical. The first half of the book sets up the murder, but also introduces us to the cause behind the closed circle situation: the storm and resulting flood. Last time, it was a fire that trapped our heroes on the mountain, this time it's the rising water that forces the people of Y Village to evacuate, and near the end of the novel, some of the remaining people find themselves forced to evacuate to the Katsuragi manor on the hill, which isn't actually that safe either as in the past, floods have reached inside the manor. Like the previous book Aomikan no Satsujin's second half also takes on a slightly different form: after the initial investigation into Tadashi's death and the proposals of several theories regarding his death, we see Katsuragi once again peeling away the layers of deceit of everyone involved, as everyone inside the Katsuragi manor seems to be hiding something, even if it's not directly related to Tadashi's death. This is the exact same set-up Gurenkan no Satsujin had, so at times, the book will feel a bit too familiar.

For those who like Ellery Queen-type mysteries, Aomikan no Satsujin is once again a book worth checking out. In the first half, we have a few interesting moments where the rest of the Katsuragi clan seem intent on proposing theories that point away from the family and towards any of the outsiders present in the house. The focus on the physical evidence, as well on the actions and knowledge the characters have to create elaborate hypotheses regarding the murder on Tadashi is of course straight out of the Queen school. The initial crime scene may seem simple, as it's basically a man shot in the face in an annex building, but the scene holds many clues that allow for diverse possible theories regarding the murder, but at the same time these clues also function as evidence to disprove incorrect theories. As the reader, you'll be asked to stay focused, as new theories are proposed constantly, making a seemingly simple murder an amusingly complex matter. The focus on physical evidence remains throughout the novel, even when the initial hypotheses have been discarded, so it's interesting to see how some pieces of evidence are considered from multiple angles to support different theories.

Things go into overdrive as the water rises more rapidly in the second half, and Katsuragi's father decides to evacuate the last remaining people in the village and invite them into the Katsuragi manor. Katsuragi meanwhile finally makes up his mind about what a detective ought to do, and he decides to solve all the mysteries that have puzzled him until now, whether they are directly related to the murder of his brother or not, hoping to find who his family members truly are behind their facades. Everyone has something to hide, and this section can be a bit slow: basically everyone is involved in something that is making the murder on Tadashi so mysterious, whether intentionally or not, so Katsuragi has peel away all the layers of lies that are currently covering the truth. It's only by solving all these minor mysteries Katsuragi starts to see the true shape of the crime, which allows him to unveil a rather diabolical truth behind the murder on his brother, but like in Gurenkan no Satsujin, the plot does seem to rely a lot on coincidence. This is a consequence of how Atsukawa plotted these books: if you want everyone (even those innocent) to be involved in some minor mystery, and have all those mysteries ultimately connect together to the main crime directly or indirectly, you're bound to have to rely on coincidence. There are actually quite few parts of the mystery where we learn the murderer was secretly trying to influence things, but it's basically a matter of luck whether they'd be successful and the way so many things just happened the way the murderer planned, seems a bit hard to swallow. Of course, coincidence often plays some role in mystery fiction, but there's a lot of it in this book and some of the machinations of the murderer seem rather farfetched attempts. That said, the core puzzle regarding the murder on Tadashi is surprisingly complex and does feel rewarding after all the fake solutions proposed in the first half of the book. The murderer actually pulls off some quite memorable feats throughout the tale, and while that's also definitely partially because they simply had a lot of luck that everything went as planned, the fundamental scheme is a fun mystery unravel, leading to a great climax scene where Katsuragi slowly pieces the underlying logic together to work his way towards the identity of the murderer. Guessing who the murderer is based on instinct may be easier than the book actually thinks it is, but figuring out how it was actually pulled off and more importantly, figuring out the logic that points towards the murderer is far more difficult, but fun to read for fans of logic-focused mystery fiction.

Aomikan no Satsujin is a book that is very similar to Gurenkan no Satsujin, almost to a fault. While it does not recycle actual plot points/clues, the story structure and themes are basically unchanged, so I think it's best to wait for a while after reading one before starting on the other. But like Gurenkan no Satsujin, Aomikan no Satsujin is an entertaining mystery novel, that is obviously written by a mystery fan, for mystery fans. It builds clearly on familar tropes, but uses them in a confident, capable manner, weaving a plot that, despite its reliance on concidence, is really the kind of complex murder mystery fans of the Queen school will enjoy. I like Aomikan perhaps a little bit better than Gurenkan, though I'd say you'd best read these books in order, as Aomikan is really a direct sequel and answer to the first book. If you liked the first book, you know exactly what you can expect here.

Original Japanese title(s): 阿津川辰海『蒼海館の殺人』

The Dying Game

「この世界は不思議に満ちている。どんなにあり得ないことでも起こり得る」

『名探偵に甘美なる死を』

"This world is brimming with the unknown. No matter how impossible it seems, anything can happen."

""Delicious Death" for Detectives"

Anyone here reading the manga Delicious in Dungeon by the way? I absolutely love it...

It's the very distant year of 2024 and the world has finally started moving forward again after an unparalleled pandemic called COVID-19 basically stopped the lives of everyone on the world. The last few years, many people were forced to stay at home, but there was one industry that profited from everyone barely getting out of their houses: the video game industry. The VR game industry in particular grew immensely, as the technology allowed people to go outside and explore fabulous locations, without actually going outside physically. One of the major companies to benefit from the increased popularity is Megalodon Soft, best known for its hit open-world RPG Battle Without Honor and the unique detective game Mystery Maker. The latter is of course similar to Super Mario Maker, allowing players to solve murder mysteries in a VR environment, but more importantly allowing players to create their own cases to challenge other players. Especially popular is the real-time versus mode, where one player has to plan and commit a murder in real-time, with other players roaming around on the stage. Once, and if the murderer succeeds in killing off one of the other participants, an investigation phase follows where all the players (including the unknown murderer) are allowed to investigate the scene for clues and question each other. The unique gameplay made Mystery Maker an immense hit, and Megalodon Soft is already working on its sequel, which also includes upgraded hardware: besides the usual VR-goggles and gloves, players can now wear a special feedback suit which can also simulate temperatures and a sensation of pain among others. The suit also synchronizes with the hardware module RHAPSODY, a special seat regulating the VR-environment and it has the advantage of making you not look like a fool in the eyes of the other people i the room while playing a VR game.

As part of the marketing campaign of Mystery Maker 2, Kurata Chiaki, the producer of the Mystery Maker series, plans to invite eight amateur detectives to play a session of the upcoming game within RHAPSODY. The idea is that they'll record everything, both inside the VR world and in the real world, to make a kind of web-series/documentary and show how these amateur detectives tackle a case. Freelance journalist Kamo, who has written on miscarriages of justice, is one of the people invited as an amateur detective, but he is asked a special favor by Kurata: she wants Kamo to become the murderer in their session of Mystery Maker 2. She hopes he can come up with a brilliant murder to fool the other seven detectives and stay undetected himself. Kamo agrees, and is given some time in advance to work with the development team to plan his fictional murders and to implement the things he wants for his plan into the special stage the eight detectives will be playing. Three months later and the eight amateur detectives are brought to a small island. The Megaladon House on this island is of course owned by the company, and they'll be playing the game and recording everything in this private building due to security reasons, as the game is still in development. Among the other guests are a famous private detective, a former police detective who still appears regularly on television as a criminal expert and a high school student detective. And then there's Yuuki, a budding mystery writer who also happens to the cousin of Kamo's wife. But they have only just arrived on the island, when everyone is knocked out by their coffee. When they wake up, they find that the only people inside the Megalodon House are the eight detectives. They find instructions that tell them to wear their personal VR gear found in their room and log-in in their ID-locked RHAPSODY units to come to the VR world.

Inside the VR world, they find themselves in the Doll House, the setting of the murder game Kamo had planned. However, someone has taken over as the Game Master, and it's the same person who is keeping them captured inside the Megalodon House in the real world too. They are informed that the smart watches they are wearing have a poisonous injection installed into them and are advised to obey the game master's orders, especially as these injections are also installed in the smart watches "gifted" to the participants earlier on, and which they have all given to their loved ones, meaning people like Kamo's wife and daughter, and Yuuki's girlfriend, are in danger too. The game master's orders are simple though: the eight detectives are to play a game of Mystery Maker 2 as planned. The Murderer (Kamo) has to try to commit his murders undetected in the Doll House, while the Normal Players have to figure out who committed the murders and how. The game is divided in a Murder Phase, where in principle only the Murderer is allowed to move inside the Doll House to commit his crime (the others are to stay in their room, but are allowed to "fight" back against the Murderer), and an Investigation Phase, where the Normal Players can investigate the murder, while the Murderer of course has to remain undetected by pretending to be a Normal Player too. However, the Game Master makes this virtual game of life and death, one of real life and death. One of the eight amateur detectives is actually an accomplice of the Game Master called the Executioner. If the Murderer is found out by the others, or if a Normal Player makes a wrong deduction, the Executioner will kill them in the real world in the Megaladon House as punishment. Kamo is thus forced to commit murders in the VR world, while in the real world, everyone is on their guard for the Executioner, but it doesn't take long for locked room murders to occur both in the VR Doll House and the real Megalodon House. But who is the murderer? The Game Master has dubbed this game "Delicious Death" for Detectives, which is also the English title of Houjou Kie's Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo (2022).

 My first post of 2020 was about Houjou Kie's fantastic debut novel Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei ("The Hourglass of the Time-Space Traveller", 2019), and last year's first post was about her second, equally impressive novel Kotou no Raihousha ("Visitors on the Remote Island" 2020). I had hoped that 2022's first post could be about her third novel, but while the previous books were released late fall/early winter, Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo was released in the second week of January 2022, hence it not becoming 2022's first post. But you guess from my intention to make it the first post, that I had been looking forward to this book. Which is of course because I loved her first two novels. Houjou is a former member of the Kyoto University Mystery Club and also wrote whodunnit stories back then, and it shows in her writing style: these books are pure grand-scale puzzlers, plotted incredibly densely with almost any action, and utterence being a valid piece to the puzzle. While at one hand, you can feel Houjou is really trying to play as fair as possible with the crazy amount of clues laid down, these stories have also been deliciously hard to solve, challenging you to do long chains of reasoning in order to solve the impossible murders seen in her books and personally, it's the style of detective fiction I love best. The other interesting part about her writing is that she loves special settings: her debut novel Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei was a much a fair-play classic puzzler as you can get, but also included the brilliant plot device of time travel, while her second book Kotou no Raihousha cleverly had the characters fight against a true mystery, a being of unknown origins, of which they had to deduce its capabilities and intentions based on its actions and inactions. Houjou managed to write brilliant detectives using original, supernatural ideas, so I was really looking forward to the third novel in the so-called Ryuuzen Clan series, as these books all involve family members of the Ryuuzen clan. Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo features the both protagonists from the two previous books by the way: Kamo being the protagonist of the first book, and Ryuuzen Yuuki of the second.

Going from themes of time travel and unearthly beings to... a VR game might sound a bit... tame in that regard. Because while the VR-system in this book is slightly more advanced than the things we have now, it's not like the setting is really unusual or "special", because consumers have had access to VR games for years. And while the concept of the closed circle death game, where people are locked up in a location and forced to kill each other while others try to figure out who the murderer is, might not be as popular in detective novels, gamers are very, very familiar with them with popular games like Danganronpa, the Zero Escape series and many, many more about this exact theme (Oh, by the way, I started with The Sekimeiya a while back. It's both very fast, and very slow, so no idea when I'll be done with it...).  And the concept of having special phases for the murders is of course not only familiar for digital gamers (Danganronpa again), but also for real-life board game players who play games like Mafia/Werewolf. So on paper, Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo might feel not as exciting as Houjou's previous books. Especially not after my over-convoluted summary above!

Because in actuality, the plot of this book gets going surprisingly fast and it basically never stops until the very, very end, keeping you hooked all the way through. Because of the Game Master's rules, the story follows a basic "gameplay loop" of a Murder Phase, followed by an Investigation Phase in the VR World, which will lead to an accusation by one of the Normal Players aimed at who they think is the Murderer within "Delicious Death" for Detectives, while the accused is also given a chance to rebute these accusations. This is followed by a Murder Phase in the real world, where the players are forced to stay in their rooms while the Executioner tries to kill the person who failed in their role earlier in the VR game, which then loops back into a new cycle in "Delicious Death" for Detectives. The eight detectives are given two days to solve all the murders that occur in the closed circles in both in the VR world and the real world (with Kamo, as the Murderer in the game, having an advantage of knowing what happened in the game, but he'll be killed if any of the players figure his crimes out without figuring out those of the Executioner). Because all these phases follow each other and this insane death game keeps on going until the end of the book, Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo ends up being a very, very densely plotted mystery novel, with accusations, false solutions, clues and foreshadowing constantly flying around. There's the inverted angle for example, as we as the reader know Kamo is the Murderer in the game, but we don't see exactly how he manages to pull off his impossible murders there, so there's plenty of mystery there already, even without considering the other murders committed by the Executioner! Then you have the various characters arguing theories about the murders happening in the Doll House in the VR world, investigations in the locked room murders in the real world, people discussing the reason why they're being held by the Game Master in the first place, and so much more.. And with murders occuring both in the VR world and the real world, this book is truly a treat for those who love solving puzzles.

By the way, I love how the game Mystery Maker is portrayed in this novel. You can clearly tell Houjou is from a generation who grew up playing video games, as the way the game is shown feels so natural to gamers, all the way down to the little things. While the idea of RHAPSODY and VR suits feel a bit "near-futuristic", the actual "game grammar" will feel naturalistic to gamers with little details like having item descriptions for in-game items in your inventory, having save points and floating name markers. The Game Master also immediately rules out the cliched "they were using fake in-game names!' trick that is so outdated now, showing that Houjou is definitely a "contemporary" writer who plays games and is familiar with the cliches of how games in (mystery) fiction are sometimes portrayed. But it's not just the description of Mystery Maker that works; a lot of the ideas in this novel work only because half of the murders are committed inside a VR environment, and there are some brilliant tricks pulled off here! People who have played the Danganronpa games might remember a certain episode that made brilliant use of the game-within-a-game plot device and I'd say it's the same type of idea: some of the things the Murderer (Kamo) and the Executioner pull off are so original in mystery fiction, because they could only have been used within a video game context/world, and yet it makes perfect sense. That is why despite "a VR world" not being a theme as "supernatural" as time travel, Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo does do a great job at presenting murders that could only have been committed in these special circumstances.

People without experience with video games might find this book a bit too dense because of this though: with murders going on in the real world and the VR world, and having to learning the fundamentals of game grammar, one could say the book can feel a bit overwhelming even at times. I myself had to remind myself to really pay attention to what sections happened in the VR world and which in the real world, because even within one chapter people often have to go back and forth between the two worlds, so the book does require you to really pay much attention, more so than the previous two books, and if you already have trouble adapting to the idea of a VR game,  I can imagine Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo being a rather hard book to follow. I had to think to the Umezz Collection release of the classic manga The Drifting Classroom, which used different kind of paper depending on whether the narrative was in the present world or the place where the school had been zapped to, or to Shimada Souji's Okujou no Doukeshi, which used different fonts for the four different narratives, but such techniques wouldn't work here as good, as the section cuts are less "clean" with people going in and out the VR world within one chapter multiple times.

But still, personally, I think this book is a banger and certainly one of the best novels I'll read this year. The concept of having murders happening in a closed circle situation in both the game world of Mystery Maker and the real world isn't just a story set-up, it's an integral part of the puzzle plot. There are some great inspired ideas, like having the Normal Players who are killed in "Delicious Death" for Detectives reappear in the game (with a halo!) so they can join the investigation in their own deaths, meaning you have "ghosts" testifying about their own "murder." But you also have small occurances happening in one world that are later revealed to have been connected to incidents in the real world and more connections like these that tie the two worlds together, making this not a book consisting of two seperate halves, but a single story of ambitious scale.  The impossible murders happening here use tricks you are not likely to have seen anywhere else (the big reveal two-thirds in is truly memorable!), made only possible because of the special setting. The false solutions are also great, often very convincing and based on hints you thought were cleverly hidden, only to realize there were even more cleverly hidden hints that disprove those false solutions! For fans of the Ellery Queen-style of reasoning, with an emphasis on fair-play and long chains of deductions based on various clues spread throughout the book, Houjou has never disappointed and she doesn't disappoint in this book either.

In the end, I think I only need to mention two caveats for this book. Yes, this book can become insanely complex due to so much happening, and I also have to mention that it is definitely best read after the first two books in this series, because some of the moments work better having seen Kamo and Yuuki in their own adventures first. But besides that, I think Meitantei ni Kanbi naru Shi wo was another incredibly strong mystery novel by Houjou, one that I'd recommend everyone interested in pure puzzlers. This is the kind of mystery novel I personally love: an ambitious puzzle plot that's packed with clues from start to finish, detectives who throw theories at each other and debunk them, original murders that make good use of the unique setting of the book and long chains of reasoning where you see the detective crossing off each suspect one by one by utilizing every piece of information we've seen until that point until all the loose lines come together at one single point. Few novels manage to make solving a puzzle so fun with such a memorable concept. 

Original Japanese title(s): 方丈貴恵『名探偵に甘美なる死を』

To Wake the Dead

「わたしの手法は、このルーブ・ゴールどバーグ・マシンのようなものですから」 

『invert 城塚翡翠倒叙集』

 

"For my methods are similar to this Rube Goldberg Machine."

"Invert - A Collection of the Inverted Stories of Jouzuka Hisui"

These covers are gorgeous!

One of my favorite reads of 2020 was Aizawa Sako's Medium - Kourei Tantei Jouzuka Hisui ("Medium - The Medium Detective Jouzuka Hisui" 2019), a brilliant book where the reader was treated to a very unique experience. Jouzuka Hisui is an attractive spirit medium who can channel spirits of the deceased and see flashes of what happened in their last moments. Normally, you'd think that having a medium capable of channeling the victim would be cheating, but Aizawa managed to turn this completely around. For one, Hisui could only see vague fragments of the past, and more importantly, she was quite aware that the police isn't just going to believe her visions, and she knew she'd need to have real evidence to support her supernatural visions. This made Medium an incredibly memorable reading experience: while Hisui's supernatural visions would vaguely in the correct direction, it was still a pure detective novel, meanng that they basically had to reverse-engineer each vision to see how they'd fit the crime scene and still come up with the logical explanation for the vision and find evidence to support whatever Hisui saw. It's like you were only shown a small section of the longer mathematical answer in advance, but you were still required to find all the steps leading up to that part yourself, and you still had to work towards the conclusion to find out who did it and how to prove it. That coupled with a brilliant story structure, made Medium one of the best plotted books I had read in 2020.

So when I learned a sequel had been published, I knew I had to read it. But Medium - Kourei Tantei Jouzuka Hisui had such a unique premise and execution, there was no way Aizawa pull off the same trick again, so I did wonder how this book would work. Though I guess the title gives it away immediately: Invert - Jouzuka Hisui Toujoshuu ("Invert - A Collection of the Inverted Stories of Jouzuka Hisui" 2021) is a short story collection with three inverted mystery stories, where we follow murderers who come up with brilliant plans to hide their crimes, but who suddenly find a mysterious woman in their way claiming to have supernatural powers. At first, they don't believe this woman of course, but when she starts poking around based on her visions and starts coming closer and closer to the truth, these murderers slowly start to realize that even though they may have safeguarded themselves for any earthly obstacle when planning their perfect murders, they may have forgotten to account for the supernatural.

Shifting the focus to the murderers and using an inverted format is actually quite brilliant I thought as I started with this book, as it fits the concepts introduced in the first book perfectly: in inverted mysteries you are also shown large parts of the answer ("how the crime was committed") in advance, but there's still the puzzle left of where the murderer made a mistake and how the detective is going to prove their guilt, so in terms of ideas, this is still very close to what Medium did. And there's the added joy of seeing each new murderer cope with Hisui: of course nobody is going to believe a woman who claims she has supernatural powers and who seems to be 'receiving' signs from the netherside about a crime, but as she starts looking around and voicing her guesses, the murderers realize that while they managed to fool the police, she's actually the only person to come close to the truth. Hisui fits the archetype we know so well from Columbo so well, being a charming, disarming woman who turns out to be much more dangerous than she appears at first. Note that by the time of this second novel, Hisui is already trusted by the police, and with their help, she's able to go undercover each time to approach the person she suspects, and while her visions give her an inital edge, she, like the reader, has to use their powers of observation and reasoning to figure out what the murderer did exactly and how to prove it. This book also takes from the Ellery Queen television show and Furuhata Ninzaburou by the way, for Hisui always addresses the reader directly when she has figured everything out and prepares for the climax of each tale. Also note that this volume does spoil a few of the stories in Medium, so you'll want to read these books in order.

The collection opens with Unjou no Harema which also has the English title Murder on the Cloud. Yoshida Naomasa's legs never quite recovered from the accident partially caused by Komaki Shigehito when they were younger, and Komaki had always felt responsible for that. He always kept at Yoshida's side to help him, but many years later, Komaki finds himself still chained to Yoshida and basically working as a ghost-programmer for Yoshida's software studio. Yoshida definitely has marketing talent, but he is nowhere the programming prodigy he pretends to be. Komaki is, but all the programming work he and his colleagues do is basically put on Yoshida's name, even for projects Komaki himself came up with. Fed up with this, he decides to kill Yoshida for the sake of the company and himself. He creates a fake alibi, pretending to be alone at the office at night working on a server problem during the time of the murder, while in reality, he had killed Yoshida in his apartment and had dressed the scene like Yoshida had slipped and hit his head. The police initially seems to go with this interpretation of the scene, but then a police consultant appears who claims to have supernatural powers, and while as a man of science, Komaki doesn't believe her at first, her visions turn out to point towards the truth.

A very competent, even if slightly unsurprising, inverted mystery story. While the reader isn't shown everything Komaki did and it's slightly technical because Komaki's alibi depends on him working on a server problem that could only be fixed at the office, they can probably make a good guess how Komaki's alibi trickery was done, but Hisui's visions do point out interesting contradictions about the crime scene and it's of course these mistakes that ultimately lead her to the truth. The "final" mistake which ties Komaki to the murder conclusively is clever and something every one will recognize, and yet not think off until Hisui points it out, but it lacks impact. With these kind of stories, you want the murderer making a mistake that seems really big in hindsight, but which they, the detective and the reader missed until that moment. The 'gimmick' at the end in this story would have been perfect as a set-up, but it is at the same time such a small mistake, it makes you feel like "Well, okay, it's pretty normal that someone would miss that."

Houmatsu no Shinpan, or Bubble Judgement, starts with the murder on Tagusa Akio by the elementary school teacher Suezaki Eri at the school. Tagusa, a former employee at the school, had been blackmailing Eri with videos secretly shot inside the restroom stalls at the school, and the man was even selling the videos he had of the children making use of the restrooms. The man was better off dead of course, so she lured him into the school late in the evening, pretending to pay him off. Not suspecting anything, Tagusa was quickly killed by Eri by surprise, who threw him off the building, making it appear like Tagusa had been trying to break into the school by scaling the wall and falling to his death. When a school counselor is appointed to the school to help the children cope with the trauma of the incident, Eri doesn't seem to suspect much, but when the attractive psychologist starts talking about possessing supernatural powers and having friends in the police force, Eri starts becoming suspicious of the woman's movements, and she realizes the woman is slowly, but surely uncovering the truth behind Tagusa's death. The final piece in the chain is nicely hidden in the narrative, so when Hisui points out what mistake Eri made, it's actually quite satisfying despite it being a relatively minor point. In that regard, I think it worked better than the previous story, because the build-up to the reveal was better. The overall story is a bit slower though, as Eri's plan is less complex compared to the one in the first story, and more of the story revolves around Eri slowly seeing through who the mysterious school counselor really is.

It's nearly impossible to not think of Columbo when you think of inverted mystery stories, so most people will quickly recognize the core plot of Shinyou Naranai Mokugekisha, or Unreliable Witness, as it's very similar to the early Columbo episode Dead Weight. Unno Yasunori runs a very succesful detective agency which also has a habit of 'asking for favors' from some of the people they investigate in exchange for silence on the matter, but Sonemoto, one of Unno's employees is about to make everything public, so Unno decides to take matters into his own hands. As a former homicide detective and an experienced private detective, Unno is quite knowledgeable about murders of course, so he kills Sonemoto and dresses the scene to make it seem like Sonemoto committed suicide. For a moment Unno suspects somebody in an opposite building saw him committing the murder through the windows, but figuring there's too much of a distance, he quickly finishes things. And as he had planned, Sonemoto's death is initially investigated as a suicide, but a mysterious woman appears in front of him claiming to have supernatural powers who says Sonemoto's death may not be a suicide. Unno however has contacts with the police and quickly learns that he has to be careful around Hisui and he also learns of the presence of a witness: a female writer living in the building opposite the crime scene had seen someone struggling wth someone else. Realizing that she is the only person who can link him to the crime, he makes contact with her. He's relieved to see she doesn't recognize him at all, but meanwhile Hisui's deductions are getting closer to the truth. Unno realizes that the police investigation can only continue as long as there's a witness who claims to have seen something happening at the crime scene, so he befriends the witness, taking her out for dinner and everything, while also planting seeds of doubt about her testimony, hoping she will withdraw her witness account. Hisui know what Unno's doing, but can she convince a woman who is in love with the murderer?

Definitely the highlight of the volume! Unno is a great adversary for Hisui, as he has inside information about her powers, and is quite knowledgeable about murders. This leads to a cat-and-mouse game that goes back and forth, as both parties try to cover their own mistakes while simultaneously attempting to catch the other on mistakes. This means this story has a lot of threads and little contradictions for Hisui to pounce upon, but Unno always manages to turn things around so he's in the clear again. And there's a "Joker" in this game in the form of the witness who at one hand does want to do the right thing, but who is also in love with Unno and slowly being tempted into doubting her own testimony. As mentioned, this set-up does remind a lot of the Columbo episode Dead Weight, which also had the murderer charm an eyewitness to make her withdraw her testimony, though the conclusion of this story is far more brilliant, with a incredibly clever trap set by Hisui which few people will see coming, least of all Unno. It's a trap that works because it features Hisui and her powers, and someone like Columbo would never be able to pull the same idea off, which makes this a very satisfying end to an amusing read.

On the whole, Invert - Jouzuka Hisui Toujoshuu is never as clever or surprising as our first encounter with Hisui, though that is understandable, as Medium was really an outlier in terms of quality and plotting. Invert is not as clever, but it's still a very good inverted short story collection that makes clever use of the spirit medium plot device by having the murderers first shocked by a claim that they believe can't be true, but then we see Hisui digging deeper into the meaning of her visions, which actually lead her closer to the truth and based on real evidence too, and witnessing this shift from the supernatural to the practical from the side of the murderer is truly suspenseful.  Medium is the better book, but for those who enjoyed that book, I'd recommend Invert too.

Original Japanese title(s): 相沢沙呼『invert 城塚翡翠倒叙集』: 「雲上の晴れ間」,「泡沫の審判」,「信用ならない目撃者」