Old Habits Die Hard

"Extra, extra, read all about it!"

Huh, I am really using the anthology tag only once a year...

Disclosure: I am a member of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. However, I didn't vote for the stories this year though. Or any year to be honest.... I just never read short stories published in magazines, making it impossible for me to vote in the first place...

We've made it halfway through the year 2022, so here it is: Honkaku-Ou 2022 ("The King of Honkaku 2022"). This annual summer anthology collects the best honkaku short stories published the previous year, as selected by the members of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. It is basically a counterpart to the Honkaku Mystery Award, which is awarded to the best published book each year. Short stories are usually published in magazines or online, which occasionally can make them difficult to track down several months later, so that is why each year, this anthology is published, to ensure these stories can be easily found. I've been reading this collection since they started the current format in 2019, and while it's not like I love every single story each time, the anthologies do give a good idea of what's going on each year in the mystery scene of Japan. Last year's volume for example had a #StayHome themed story because of a certain pandemic, so I was curious to see whether that would still find its way into this volume one way or another. But while each year can be quite different, the last two entries featured some stories that were really strong and some even ended up on my favorite reads of the respective year, so it's always worth it to at least take a look at these books.

Nemuranai Keiji to Inu ("The Detectives and Dogs That Don't Sleep") by Michio Shuusuke and Island Kitchen by Ashizawa You are the stories by the two novelists I had never read before, and to be really honest, these were also the two stories in this volume I liked least. I can easily explain why though, as both stories feature a somewhat vaguely defined problem/case, so it takes a long time for the story to get to a point where you really feel you are reading a mystery story, rather than something else. Both do start out with a seemingly "straightforward" case though. Nemuranai Keiji to Inu for example has a police detective hiring a... pet detective to find a missing dog. The dog's owners were murdered in their home, and their dog went missing on the same night, so it is assumed the dog is involved in one way or another with the case. The pet detective in question is Ezoe Masami, a pet detective who has an incredibly good track record, but the narrator, a female police detective knows Ezoe isn't always honest to his clients, occasionally finding pets early and keeping them hidden so they'll hire him for a longer period. She hires Ezoe to find the missing dog behind her superior's back and thus the two go looking for the dog together. What follows is a story that works pretty good as a character study, where parallels are drawn between the two detectives and dogs, but the reveal about how the dog is ultimately connected to the murder feels a bit... underwhelming, because most of the page count seems to be more focused on the characterization than the puzzle. Which is a matter of personal taste of course, but I feel like even with the same puzzle elements, this story could have been a tricker, and more amusing detective story had the emphasis on the themes been shifted a bit. The same holds for Island Kitchen, which starts with a retired police detective visiting a real estate agent, hoping to find a home with a garden for him and his wife. He spots an apartment building among the listings where he once investigated a deadly fall and he starts reminiscing. The case involved a woman living in the building falling to her death, but it was unclear whether it was an accident, suicide or murder. The woman had been stalked by someone for a long time, but the police hadn't done anything to help her, so suicide due to despair, or murder both seemed quite possible. As the former detective thinks back to the case, he realizes not everything was as it was, and personally, I think the *idea of the twist* is pretty good. But the "set-up" to the twist is so long and involves so many elements that ultimately aren't relevant to the twist specifically, it kind falls flat for me, because now it's almost like you're reading two seperate stories that are only linked in a very, very minor manner. I really do like the twist itself though, so I kinda wish it had a different story as the set-up.

Ooyama Seiichirou's work is always a joy to read, and he mostly writes short stories, so he fits here really well. Karamazov no Doku ("The Poison of the Karamazovs") is of course a story inspired by The Brothers Karamazov and is part of a series about Kayou Daisuke, an actor specializing in villain roles, but who is actually a gifted armchair detective. This time he is consulted by the elderly Yamazono Marue, who in her younger years as a housekeeper for an agency. She recounts the time she was involved in a murder case. At the time, she had been assigned by her agency to work at the house of the wealthy Karamura Tatsuo. On her first day, she met with the man, and his three sons, and they soon reminded her of The Brothers Karamov and the characters of Fyodor and his sons Dmitri, Ivan and Alexei. She has only just arrived when she is asked to pour in tea for everyone, and she quickly returns from the kitchen with the refreshments. But the moment Tatsuo has his drink, he starts coughing and gagging. An ambulance is called, but it is too late, and the man ends up dead. The police learn he was poisoned, but can't figure out how: the young maid had never met the man before and had just arrived on her first day here, while her three sons each had a motive to kill the man for his money, but couldn't have tampered with the drinks the maid had prepared. It's a very short story, so I think the actual explanation of how this seemingly impossible poisoning was done will not be incredibly surprising, but I do like the initial one or two clues that put the reader on the trail. I think that even when the actual "how" of an impossibility in Ooyama's work is simple at the core, he always does a good job at actually laying out a trail of clues for the reader to follow in order to arrive at that how logically (instead of just guessing), so in that sense, his stories never disappoint.

It's been while since I last read something by Morikawa Tomoki... Wa-wait! It's been 8 years!? The last one I read was back in 2014?? Anyway, Whodunnit Reception is a pretty interesting story that is foremost a puzzle. The story starts when Masatsugu and his classmate friend Yumiko sneak into the room of Masatsugu's brother Masakazu, a young mystery writer. Masatsugu is just looking for some files he knows are in the room that'll come in handy for a school project, but Yumiko accidentally knocks over some coffee over some hand-written documents, which turn out to be a finished, but unpublished manuscript, being the solution to a mystery story that's being serialized right now! Masatsugu knows his brother doesn't use computers and hardly keeps any copies, so he realizes in how much trouble they are right away as the coffee has erased a lot of the text. Masatsugu and Yumiko eventually manage to reconstruct most of the documents, but there are still spots that were tainted too much by the coffee, making it impossible to see what was originally written there, and it turns out they are the most important part of the story, where the detective explains how they figured it out and who the culprit is. Yumiko, a budding writer herself, however comes up with a plan: they are going to guess what is supposed to go in the blank spots based on the context of the surrounding passages, reconstrucing the solution of the story! A very interesting story, as it turns the solution of a mystery story into a mystery! There are 17 blank spots, and the reader, Masatsugu and Yumiko have to deduce what goes in each blank spot based on the surrounding context of the detective's explanation of the case (they do not have the first part of the story). It's very puzzle-like: you first fill in the spots that are very obvious based on the context, and that allows you to fill in other spots too because of the implications of the previously filled in spots etc. The story surprisingly has a few twists too while you fill in these blank spots, and it's pretty fun to read, but it does very "puzzle-like" because you are really filling blank spots, and some readers might find it a bit too "artificial." I myself enjoyed the whole concept though of a solution part of a mystery story being a mystery itself and have you deduce the solution of a mystery story of which you don't even know the first part!

Houjou Kie has been a personal favorite since she made her debut of course and I loved her short story Amulet Hotel last year, so I was really looking forward to her short story Kage wo Kuu Mono ("Shadow Eater"). And of course, this story features supernatural elements: the narrator is out camping deep in the woods with a friend and his dog. The narrator wakes up in the middle of night and happens to spot a Shadow Fish, a kind of yokai (supernatural being) that feeds on the shadows of living beings. The Shadow Fish can only move in shadows, jumping from one shadow to another, and it preys on the shadows of living beings. Once they have jumped into the shadow of their victim, they remain in their shadow (even if the person/animal wakes up) and feeds on the shadow until the shadow is gone, which kills the person/animal in question. The narrator sees how the Shadow Fish jumps out to the shadow of a dead fox and in the direction of his two sleeping companions and by the time he has waken both of them, he realizes it's too late: the Shadow Fish is in the shadow of either his dog or his friend, but they can't tell which of them. They happen to have a very powerful drug that can kill the Shadow Fish, but they have only one tablet, and the drug is so powerful it will kill a person/animal if they take it without a Shadow Fish being their shadow. With little time left until the Shadow Fish is done feeding on its prey, the narrator and his friend have to quickly deduce where the Shadow Fish is, based on the shadows at the time the Fish was spotted. Houjou once again brings a new kind of mystery story by using supernatural elements: this is almost like a "whodunnit", only you are looking for the "culprit" hiding inside a different person. You can also tell Houjou is a gamer (like with her third book), as there are (segments in) games where you have to move from shadow to shadow as a gameplay mechanic and this story of course feels very similar to that. While there is an emphasis on deducing where the Shadow Fish went based on "rules" (the Shadow Fish can only jump a certain distance, it will always go for the nearest sleeping target etc.), the way the story is also very focused on visuals do form an obstacle for this story, I think. A lot of the story hinges on how far each shadow of everything in their camp reached at the time the narrator spotted the Shadow Fish, and while this story has diagrams, you do have to consider multiple "moments" of where each shadow was, so I think this story, ironically, would have worked better as a game, allowing you quickly "scroll" between the various moments. It's a good mystery story though that as always shows detective stories don't need to be realistic to present interesting mysteries.

Asakura Akinari's Ito no Hito wo Sagashite ("Looking for the Person of My Thread") is tied as my favorite in this volume with Kage wo Kuu Mono and is in a way the polar opposite, as it pertains to a very "realistic" occassion: a goukon or group blind date. The narrator, Kawase, is an unremarkable university student who never had a girlfriend, which is why he didn't really believe his friend Yoshimi told him his girlfriend knew a girl who was interested in Kawase. The girl is rather shy however and doesn't dare to approach Kawase without "any cause", so the idea is having both of them appear at the same group date, with five men and five women. That would give the girl an opportunity to strike up a conversation with Kawase and see how things'll go from there. Kawase has never been in a group blind date before, so when Kawase first arrives at the restaurant, he's quite nervous, but the first girl to arrive immediatey says she knows Kawase from classes, so the plan to find the person on the other end of the red thread of fate seems to work... until the second girl also says she knows Kawase. And the third, fourth and fifth too! Kawase remembers he was never told what the other girl's name was or how she looked like, and now all five girls seem somewhat interested in him (to the chagrin of the other four men). At first, Kawase thinks that it shouldn't really mattter with what girl he ends up with: his friends may have  intended him to meet a certain girl and arranged for both them to attend this group date, but they can hardly critizie him if he happened to get along better with someone else, right? But then he receives information that tell him he has to be very, very careful, as there's "something dangerous" about each of the other girls: one of them for example is actually a married woman cheating on her husband, while another girl is the daughter of a boss of a crime syndicate, and another is an underground idol with very fanatic fans who are willing to kill if they learn their idol is dating someone... So can Kawase deduce which of the five girls in front of him is the girl he was supposed to meet? Okay, so the setting of this story is a bit silly, as apparently people around Kawase do recognize some of the women in their group date and know they are "dangerous" one way or another, but at the same time they don't actually know which woman they are or don't tell Kawase. The way the puzzle is constructed feels a bit forced, but you know, I can live with it, because this is just a fun story. It has a distinct, comedic tone where Kawase keeps falling in love with basically every girl all over again every time he thinks they are "safe". At the same time, this is a well constructed detective story, where you have to use the few hints Kawase did learn about each girl and try to deduce the identify of each girl. Some of the hints are a bit too obvious I think, or in some instances the "time" between a certain clue and the revelation which girl is who is a bit too short, giving you too little time to think for yourself. But overall, this is a very memorable story, because it is basically a "whodunnit" only now you're just trying to figure out which girl Kawase is supposed to be dating. So as mentioned earlier, this story is strangely enough very different, and similar to Kage wo Kuu Mono, as both are original takes on a "whodunnit" concept, but in very different manners.

Like the 2021 edition, Honkaku-Ou 2022 is a pretty solid anthology, with a few really strong puzzle plot stories. Personal favorites are the entries by Houjou Kie, Asakura Akinari and Morikawa Tomiki, but none of the six stories are truly bad, and while these volumes usually only have five, six stories, they tend to be fairly consistent in quality exactly because they have been selected by a whole group, rather than just one single editor. This is the fourth volume in this format, but I have really grown to appreciate reading this anthology once a year, just to see what is going on in the short story format. Hopefully we'll have a solid volume next year too!

Original Japanese title(s): 『本格王2022』: 道尾秀介「眠らない刑事と犬」/ 大山誠一郎「カラマーゾフの毒」/ 芦沢央「アイランドキッチン」 / 方丈貴恵「影を喰うもの」 / 浅倉秋成「糸の人を探して」 / 森川智喜「フーダニット・リセプション」

To Kill a Legend

犯人はこの中にいる！

『金田一少年の事件簿』

 

"The murderer is among us!"

"The Case Files of Young Kindaichi"

This year, Kindaichi Hajime, grandson of the famous detective Kindaichi Kousuke, "celebrates" thirty years of solving mysteries! When the manga series Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo started in 1992, its creators couldn't have known that their puzzle plot mystery manga would become such a long-lasting hit, which would also leave a mark in the history of mystery fiction. As explained in the seminal Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar, the publication of Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, followed by Detective Conan two years later, was a true watershed moment, as they became big multimedia hits and paved the way for future puzzle plot mystery manga. If you're looking at the history of mystery fiction in Japanese popular culture, there's a period before Kindaichi and Conan and after. Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo in particular is an interesting case, because the manga was followed by a live-action adaptation relatively soon, which became a hit on its own and an icon in pop culture, making the franchise widely known beyond just a comic-reading audience. Both Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo and Detective Conan have became huge multimedia franchises with anime series, spin-off series, theatrical releases, drama CDs, novels, games and much more, but unlike Detective Conan, Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo does not have one continuous main manga series. It technically consists of multiple, shorter series, like the original series, the 20th anniversary series and Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo R, with sometimes one or two years rests between these. Nevertheless, the series has never really been out of the public eye in Japan in these thirty years, whether it is in manga form, television drama, games or something else. And at the moment, it doesn't seem the series will end any time soon, so let's hope for another thirty years of this giant in mystery history!

The current main manga series is called Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo ("The Case Files of Kindaichi, Age 37"), and is set twenty years after the previous series, with a middle-aged Hajime working for the promotion/marketing company Otowa Black PR. Volume 13 was recently released, collecting the last chapters of the story The Killer with Twenty Faces which started in volume 11. Hajime's company is one of the companies involved in an grand Edogawa Rampo exhibition produced by none other than Araki Gou, better known as the Japanese Banksy. The hugely popular anonymous artist has reproduced a 1920s Tokyo inside a large event hall, themed after the works of Edogawa Rampo and even Hajime himself is impressed by all the references to Rampo's work hidden in the hall, from a Red Chamber of the same-titled short story to a reproduction of Rampo's own storage house. Hajime and his assistant Marin are responsible for a special preview event of the exhibition, with some of the guests including an influencer and a journalist. One of the attractions they visit during the tour is the Red Chamber: the first time they look at the chamber, situated on the other side of a courtyard, it's empty, but when they look at the chamber a few seconds later, they see one of the guests is sitting in a chair in the chamber, stabbed in the heart. They rush to the room and confirm the man's dead. Everyone else was together on the other side of the courtyard when they observed the empty chamber the first time and also when the body appeared, so nobody on the preview tour could've killed the man and placed his body in the chair. Leading to the question, who killed him? A message signed by the "Killer with Twenty Faces" (yes, that's a reference)  direct the party to Rampo's storage, and when they arrive there, they find the doors locked. They unlock it with a special key carried only by the manager of the event, who had been with Hajime all the time, but when they look inside, they find another of the guests killed, strangled like the victim in Rampo's debut story The Case of the Murder on D. Hill. Hajime soon realizes this is a locked room murder, as the person holding the key had been with him all the time, so how did the Killer with Twenty Faces pull this off? When they learn they are locked inside the event hall, Hajime knows he has to solve this case quickly or else they might all end up dead in one of Rampo's works.

This is most of all a fun story, I think. I am of course quite fond of Edogawa Rampo's work (disclosure: I have written the introduction to The Fiend with Twenty Faces), so the idea of an exhibition with a rebuilt "Rampo-esque" 1920s Tokyo full of Rampo references is just a really fun setting for a good old closed circle murder case, which is made even more interesting if you are aware that Yokomizo Seishi, the creator of Kindaichi Kousuke, knew Edogawa Rampo very well in real-life and even acted as his editor for some time. Anyway, the first murder definitely has the right amount of Rampo references I like: a body suddenly appearing in the Red Chamber, which is under observation by all the characters. Voyeurism is a big theme in Rampo's work, so to have an impossible situation hinging on the fact the characters witnesses the Red Chamber across the courtyard through binoculars and then having a body suddenly appear feels really like a Rampo-inspired situation. The second murder, in the locked storage, is perhaps less "Rampo-esque" despite it supposedly being themed after The Case of the Murder on D. Hill, but overall, I think this Rampo amusement park setting does a lot to sell the story. That is perhaps also why I think that the story works pretty well, even though the actual tricks behind the impossible murders aren't really mind-blowing. Some of the things pulled off by the killer in this story almost feel like a parlor trick, but you know, that's exactly the kind of tricks Rarmpo used in his works! Some of the tricks may feel very familiar and some of the fundamental concepts behind the trickery here have definitely been featured before in earlier Kindaichi Shounen stories, but in this particular context, in a story that is about murders being committed in what is effectively a Rampo story, I think they work perfectly fine. Volume 13 ends with this story perfectly by the way, so we'll have to wait for the next volume, though I am not really sure when that'll come out, because....

To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the series, a new manga series has started, titled Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo 30th, or The Case File of Kindaichi 30th, and this series takes us back to the "normal" timeline, with a seventeen year old Hajime and Miyuki. So it's basically the direct sequel to Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo R, which ended in 2017. I have to admit, after about four years of the 37-year old Hajime, it's nice to go back to the familiar format again. The story starts in the usual way, some chatter with fellow classmates like Souta, and then Inspector Kenmochi arriving to invite Hajime and Miyuki to some remote village: Yatagarasu Village is a place which will be erased from the maps in just a week because the nearby dam project will be finished, which will flood the village. Most people have moved out already, and the few remaining villagers are those who help coordinate the final days of the old village. Kenmochi wants to visit the village for a recently deceased friend: this fellow police inspector always regretted he never managed to solve a strange disappearance case in Yatagarasu Village a few years ago: the man had been threatened and was given police protection, and yet the man disappeared from his inn. Kenmochi, Hajime and Miyuki arrive at the same inn as the last tourist to visit the village and are also invited to attend the last ritual visit to Yatagarasu Shrine. The Yatagarasu, the mythological three-legged crow, is worshipped in this village, and for centuries, there's been a monthly ceremony which involves a visit tot the deepest quarters of the shrine. The participants all have to walk in procession as they go deeper and deeper in the shrine, which consists of five chambers. The doors to the first four chambers are locked by two different keys, carried by two different important figures of the village, while the last door is sealed with special ceremonial paper by the shrine maiden. The procession slowly proceeds through the shrine, opening each door after another, but when they arrive in the inner chamber, they find a decapitated head on the altar. The victim is the secretary of a former village council member, but how could the killer have placed this head here despite the five locked doors? The road to the village *happens* to be blocked too, so while they wait for police reinforcements, Hajime and Miyuki decide to help out the villagers cleaning the village before it'll be flooded, but then another decapitated head is discovered, but everyone in the village has an alibi for the murder. It is then they realize that according to legend, the Yatagarasu eats humans, but always leaves the head...

Okay, this is just the set-up of the story, but for now, it feels like a classic Kindaichi Shounen story, and I'm perfectly fine with it! I like how The Case Files of Kindaichi, Age 37 sometimes gave us locations the old series didn't really have, but once in a while, Hajime just needs to end up in some isolated village or island with weird ceremonies! By the way, this first volume also has a limited edition, and I was kinda hoping for Original Video Animation DVDs like they had done in the past.... but the limited edition is basically just NFT marketing. You get a booklet with Hajime talking about NFTs, and an NFT. Sigh. The normal edition, it is!

Another important "pillar" in the celebration of the thirtieth birthday of the franchise was of course the new live-action drama series, which ended last week. It is quite unique in the history of the franchise, because it was immediately picked up for worldwide streaming on Disney+ with the English title The Files of Young Kindaichi. Michieda Shunsuke is the fifth actor to play Kindaichi Hajime on television in what is technically the fourth television series, though that is not reflected in the title. The fact this series was also made with an international audience in mind probably played a role in the decision that this is actually the first television adaptation of the series that also adapts stories that had been adapted before. The first drama adaptation aired in 1995, and since then, Hajime seem to return on Japanese television once every five-ten years with different lead actors and production teams, but they had always avoided redoing stories previous series had done. The Files of Young Kindaichi is the first time they started "remaking" these stories. For example, the first episode of The Files of Young Kindaichi is actually an adaptation of The Seven School Mysteries Murder Case, the fourth story in the manga, but the first story featured in the anime and also the first story to be adapted as a live-action special in 1995. It is in a way the quintessential Kindaichi Shounen story, so I can understand why they decided to redo this story as the first episode of The Files of Young Kindaichi, considering it is also aimed at a wider, international audience now who don't know the older series and episodes and have no (legal) way to watch them.

That said, most stories are adaptations of stories that had not been featured on television yet (not in anime form either), like the excellent The Seiren Island Murder Case from Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo R or the third Opera House story (unlike the anime adaptation, this version doesn't cut out a complete part of the mystery!). Overall, I'd say The Files of Young Kindaichi is a pretty solid adaptation by the way, and an excellent way to experience Kindaichi Shounen if you happen to have Disney+ anyway. I liked the previous adaptation, Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo NEO from 2014 a lot, but that series was made intentionally to feel very much like a continuation of the original 90s adaptations. While the same director worked on both NEO and The Files of Young Kindaichi, you can tell the new series was created to function almost like a reboot, so is a bit more accessible even if you are not familiar with the franchise at all, and is also slightly more serious than than NEO (it still uses a lot of stylistic choices of the old series though, old-school fans will be happy to know, and there's of course also the use of some iconic background music). The mysteries in this show often focus on space, and the layout of the locations, and I have to say this show generally does a great job at clearly conveying "space" to the viewer. The stories are also rewritten to be set in contemporary times, as of course a lot has changed between the 90s and now (no pagers and word processors anymore!). Some of the changes I didn't really like or felt indifferent too: the background story in the Seven School Mysteries for example is surprisingly different, and it didn't really work for me, but some other story or character changes, like in The Murder of Young Kindaichi, definitely made the story more convincing than the original story. I think overall The Files of Young Kindaichi is a really solid adaptation and a good mystery show on its own, so definitely take a look if you want to see a locked room focused live action mystery series, whether you are a fan of the franchise already or not!

Anyway, a lot of Kindaichi Shounen talk today, but even though the franchise is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary this year, it's clear the series is still going strong, with multiple running series and a brand new live action drama series. So you can rest assured that I'll be looking at Hajime's adventures in the future too. But while we're here anyway, let's all look back at thirty years of Hajime solving mysteries in the name of his grandfather! Feel free to leave comment on what some of your favorite stories are, your first encounter with the series, and all of things Kindaichi-related!

Original Japanese title(s):  天樹征丸（原）、さとうふみや（画）『金田一37歳の事件簿』第13巻
天樹征丸（原）、さとうふみや（画）『金田一少年の事件簿30th』第1巻

『金田一少年の事件簿』

Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned

残酷な天使のテーゼ

少年よ神話になれ 

(残酷な天使のテーゼ」(高橋洋子)

 

A Cruel Angel's Thesis

Boy, become a legend 

"A Cruel Angel's Thesis" (Takahashi Youko)

A few weeks ago, I reviewed one of Kitayama Takekuni's earlier novels, today it's his newest one!

When Tenjin Hitoshi made his debut as a professional writer in 1970, people mainly read social school mysteries, but his puzzle plot mysteries, or honkaku mystery novels were received so well, he brought forth a revolution, leading in the revival of the honkaku detective novel and the subsequent shin honkaku movement. People therefore refer to him as the God of Honkaku Mystery, but not only for his personal accomplishments, but also because he has also been pro-active in nurturing his fellow puzzle plot writers. Tenjin and his teenage son Noah live in the Moonlight Manor, a mansion in the woods faraway from the city, but this Moonlight Manor has been the home for many, many mystery writers: Tenjin often invites fellow mystery writers to stay in his home as his guests, sometimes for weeks, months or even years, as the Moonlight Manor offers them an environment where they can focus completely on their writing, as everything they need is provided for by Tenjin himself. Before Tenjin made his debut and bought the Moonlight Manor for himself, he too had lived here with other mystery writers, an experience comparable to the legendary Tokiwa-so, an apartment building where some of the greatest names in manga history lived together, so he knows very well how great a home like this can be for his fellow authors.

Kogi Uron's the newest guest to be invited to the Moonlight Manor, as Kogi's editor hopes an extended stay will finally help Kogi get over that writer's block and get started on a second novel. Kogi arrives on the first day of snow: an ominous day, as snowfall in this region is extremely harsh, and every winter, the Moonlight Manor gets snowed in, keeping the inhabitants inside for a month or so. Kogi is the sixth mystery writer currently residing in the Moonlight Manor, with the other guests being people like Yumekawa Ran, who was accused of plagiarism with her debut novel, and Kuromaki Koryuu, a mystery writer who looks up to the classics and writes in a very classical puzzle plot style. Most of the guests keep to themselves while staying at the Moonlight Manor however, and most writers only regularly see the two servants, or perhaps Tenjin's son Noah hanging around in the library. A few weeks pass by, and by now the Moonlight Manor is truly snowed in, as expected. On the Winter Solstice, everyone is invited by Tenjin Hitoshi to attend to a dinner, though not everyone comes. During the dinner however, a tape suddenly starts playing in the dining room, which accuses all seven mystery writers in the house of being guilty of one of the seven Cardinal Sins of honkaku mystery: pride, theft, ignorance, greed, kitsch, sloth and envy, and collectivelly they are dubbed the Seven Fallen Angels of honkaku mystery. The parallels with And Then There Were None and Mr. U.N. Owen are obvious, but nobody admits to knowing anything about the tape and nothing happens, so dinner ends early and everybody retreats to their room, thinkin it's just a prank. Of course, until the following the morning. When Tenjin Hitoshi can't be found for his breakfast, Noah and the servants find the dining room has been locked from the inside, and when they break the doors down, they find a crucified Tenjin Hitoshi upside down from the chandelier. And he's missing his head. Everyone of course now understands the tape wasn't just a prank, especially when they learn the phone lines and their internet connection have been cut and they can't get help from outside. Noah and Kogi decide to investigate this locked room murder, but it doesn't take long for a second locked room murder to occur, and a third... What is happening in the Moonlight Manor and what will happen when all Fallen Angels have been killed in Kitayama Takekuni's Gettoukan Satsujin Jiken ("The Moonlight Manor Murder Case" 2022)?

Kitayama's latest novel, released last week, is touted as being his attempt at a so-called yakata (house/mansion) story, the familiar trope of a creepy country house serving as a closed circle location as seen in works like The Decagon House Murders (*insert disclosure message about me translating said book*). Of course, in truth, Kitayama has written plenty of novels that follow that exact same trope, even if those books weren't formally set in buildings named as such. Three of the four books in his Castle series for example are practically speaking about "series of murders happening inside an isolated building" and Alphabet-sou Jiken, a book I reviewed just two months ago is basically the same too. And about half of the stories in his Danganronpa: Kirigiri novels follow the same trope too. So Kitayama tackling this type of story isn't really out of the ordinary at all, in fact, he's quite used to it, and you can definitely tell, for Gettoukan Satsujin Jiken is a very amusing novel, even if I don't think everything works out completely.

For example, Kitayama is of course best known for the mechanical trickery behind his locked room murders, and you have quite a few locked room murders in this book considering it's not actually a very long book. A decapitated man being crucified upside down in a locked dining room, a decapitated victim in a locked library, a decapitated man in an atelier... you might recognize a pattern here. Some of Kitayama's best work involve a lot of "moving parts" in the explanation of his locked rooms, with ingenious mechanisms that seal off a room and often in a way that is both absolutely ridiculous yet memorable and entertaining. Diagrams are a must in his books, and like I mentioned in my review of the last Danganronpa: Kirigiri novel, while Kitayama's puzzles are often very technical and mechnical, they are also at the core very simple, and can usually be explained with one clearly drawn diagram that explains all the magic, even if the concept and execution is fairly complex. The puzzles in Gettoukan Satsujin Jiken are, in comparison to some of Kitayama's other novels I'm familiar with, a bit smaller in scale, and while you can definitely recognize his hand in the manner in which he constructs his locked room murders, I do have to say they feel slightly underwhelming because of the more modest approach. A major warning by the way: this book explicitly re-uses, and spoils one of the locked rooms in Kitayama's own Rurijou Satsujin Jiken (and this is pointed out in the book), and while thematically, there's an explanation for it, it doesn't take away it does casually just use the same trick and tells you it's from Kitayamas novel, so I think a warning is fair. The other locked room murders that occur in this novel have fairly simple solutions and while none of them are "oh, wow, this is an idea I'm going to vividly remember in 10 years" they are functional and fit with Kitayama's style and are cleverly written in this tale. There's a different instance of misdirection that I will remember though, because I usually am not easily fooled by this type of misdirection, but Kitayama definitely caught me completely off-guard and I had to page back immediately to re-read the corresponding passages because I couldn't believe how I could have missed it!

For I do think the underlying themes of the book are really what sell Gettoukan Satsujin Jiken, but at the same time, it does feel a bit underplayed. The book is undoubtedly about honkaku and shin honkaku mystery fiction in Japan. While it rewrites history with the insertion of Tenjin Hitoshi as the "God of honkaku mystery" the book addresses a lot of "issues" that play among both authors and readers of the puzzle plot mystery. A writer being accused of plagiarism, even though she feels she was only inspired by a certain type of trickery in another novel, an novelist who is more about quantitity than quality, a writer who "abandons" mystery fiction because she can make more money in other genres, an author being so fixated on classic puzzle plot mystery he won't in the least accomodate to modern reading tastes and then starts criticizing the reading audience... Kitayama touches upon a lot of questions and problems that may play with contemporary mystery writers and makes it into a Grand Theme, calling them "Cardinal Sins" and having people murdered in this novel who are considered Fallen Angels of honkaku mystery. It is certainly an interesting approach... but you need to be somewhat familar with the history of honkaku fiction, shin honkaku fiction and trends in these genres to really appreciate what is touched upon here. For Kitayama doesn't do any of that for you. The book very much assumes you know all of this, and I think that without prior knowledge, the book does lose an important layer. Of course, this book is published in a line that is very much aimed at a very specific audience who is likely to know about all this, and had this book been written for a different publishing label, I think Kitayama might have expanded more on the history of honkaku mystery novels. In a way, it's similar to Garasu no Tou no Satsujin, which touches upon similar themes by looking back at the history of shin honkaku novels, but the latter tried more to explain the underlying themes by explaining more about the history within the book. But I do think Gettoukan Satsujin Jiken does point out some really interesting points about shin honkaku fiction in general and its future by focusing on the theme of the Seven Sins, and I think both authors of shin honkaku fiction, and people who are interested in the development of shin honkaku fiction will get a lot out of this book. Kitayama focuses on this theme in an almost fantasy-like manner/tone like we know from his Castle series, but it does keep you thinking about it even after you close the book.

The idea of a Tokiwa-so for mystery writers is pretty interesting by the way. People interested in the history of manga should of course know about Tokiwa-so: it was an apartment building where many of the legends of manga lived, including Osamu Tezuka, Ishinomori Shotaro, Akatsuka Fujio, Fujiko Fujio (both of them) and Mizuno Hideko. The idea of these young artists living together, helping each other out and inspiring each other is of course very attractive, and part of the reason why for example shojo manga legends Hagio Moto and Takemiya Keiko came to live together in a house that became known as the Ooizumi Salon. So the concept is very well known among people familiar with Japanese pop culture, so having the concept of a Tokiwa-so for mystery writers explored in this book was very fun, especially as I had been reading a lot on the Ooizumi Salon last year. While quite different from actually living together in one building, I guess a lot of university mystery clubs in Japan come close to the idea: young writers coming together, exchanging and bouncing off ideas at each other while all working on their own stories in their own style. I think it'd be pretty cool to read a story with a more straightforward take on the concept of a Tokiwa-so for mystery writers (without people ending up killing each other).

If you are already familiar with Kitayama's Castle series, I think you already have a good idea of what you can expect from Gettoukan Satsujin Jiken: despite the isolated, closed circle situation, the book does addresses rather big themes concerning shin honkaku fiction, themes that may have troubled Kitayama himself even and I think the book in that regards does make you think about the genre in a meaningful manner. The locked room murders are perhaps slightly less grand than you might expect from Kitayama, but I think that thematically, it works very well in this book, so that's not really a problem, but perhaps this is not the book you'll want to be reading as your very first Kitayama. Overall though, I really enjoyed this book and I think people who enjoy Kitayama's books and themes in general, will find this one quite satisfying. 

Original Japanese title(s): 山猛邦『月灯館殺人事件』

Dead Man's Gold

Rheingold! Rheingold! Leuchtende Lust wie lachst du so hell und hehr! 

"Das Rheingold" 

Rhine gold! Rhine gold! Radiant joy, thou laughest in glorious light!

"The Rhinegold" (Frederick Jameson translation)

I think today's book was on the "I should probably read this book one day" list for over ten years now...

Not surprisingly, many of the comments that are posted on this blog are lamenting the fact they can't read a certain book, especially if I keep referring it to them all the time, making it obvious there is probably some kind of interesting factor to it. In a way, I have had the same for the longest time with the Norma & Alexander Gold novels by Herbert Resnicow: I saw a lot of the English-language puzzle plot blogosphere writing about Resnicow's work in general, especially in the earlier days, but I never came across the books myself, so Rescinow always remained an author I defnitely wanted to read eventually, but never really got a chance too. A while back though, I finally got around to reading The Gold Solution (1983), the first of Resnicow's detective novels and also the first about Norma and Alexander Gold: both brilliant minds in their own fields, and both not willing to even consider their spouse might be smarter than themselves. Norma, the narrator, is definitely the snarkier of the couple though, but even she acknowledges that while she's more "practically" smart, it's Alexander who's best at tackling abstract problems. After a stroke that was nearly fatal, Alexander is forced to quit his job as he'll take months to recover properly, but not being able to do anything but crossword puzzles isn't doing much for his mental health.

That is until neighbours and best friends Burton and Pearl Hanslik swing by with a problem for Alexander. Pearl's niece Nina's fiance Jonathan Candell is accussed of the murder of his employer, and not even Burton, a high profile criminal lawyer, can figure out how to prove how his client and cousin-in-law-to-be is innocent. The victim, Roger Talbott, was one of America's most prominent architects, and he was found murdered in his penthouse studio of his brownstone, with... Jonathan bent over his boss' body, with the knife in his hand. Talbott craved privacy during work and nobody could ever get into his studio without his permission. The studio was only accessible via the elevator, which needs to be unlocked to reach the studio floor via a special switch in Talbott's desk in said studio. On the morning of Talbott's murder, both Talbott's wife and Jonathan chatted with Talbott through the intercom before Talbott unlocked the elevator for Jonathan, who went up alone. After a frantic call for help by Jonathan through the intercom, the maid went upstairs too, only to find her master dead and Jonathan holding the weapon in his hand. As Talbott's wife and maid were downstairs and Jonathan the only person who went up the elevator, it seems only he could have committed the murder, as the elevator is the only way to reach the studio: while there were emergency stairs leading to the floors downstairs from the studio, the alarm would go the moment the emergency exits on each floor would be opened. Alexander, who had been worrying about his finances too, arranges so he'll receive a reward if he can find the true killer of Talbott, with Burton, Pearl and Norma doing the work "in the field" for him to gether information. Naturally, it doesn't take long for them to discover that while Talbott, as the golden child, was the face and name of the company, most of the people working with him had at least one or two reasons for wanting him dead too...

The Gold Solution is a very detectivy-novel. It is both very fun to read, but also at times not really fun to read. To start with the good: the banter between Norma, Alexander, besties Pearl and Burton and all the other characters is really good. It's easy to read and absorb, light-hearted witty dialogue with people throwing things back and forth constantly and with both Norma the narrator and husband Alexander boasting huge egos (Norma is slightly better at hiding her ego), the at times bombastic tone of the book is from start to finish a fun experience. The other characters are at times even cartoonish, with names that are easy to remember because they are literally based on their role in the story, and all of that makes for a smooth read that at least in terms of writing, is enough to keep the reader engaged.

As purely a detective story though, I think The Gold Solution is a debut novel that is competently written, but it doesn't feel ambitious at all. In fact, at times, the book even feels like it follows the less interesting parts of the Detective Fiction Tradition more than the more interesting aspects, making the book, despite its short length, feel dragging in terms of how the mystery develops (which is luckily somewhat obscured by the funny writing). The middle part of the book is just a series of interviews with all the other suspects in order, where they talk about alibis, how they all hated Talbott, their possible motives etc. While the banter in between might be funny to read, it is mystery-wise an incredibly boring segment where nothing occurs but just info dump after info dump (not to mention that this part was preceded by some reports written by Norma about Talbott, which are by definition info dumps). Nothing happens for most part of this book, just a chapter with Suspect A, followed by B, then C, then D etc. it's not Norma and Alexander make really worthwile deductions until the very end of the book, nor do they act upon things they might have thought of during their investigation. 70% of the book is, in terms of plotting how to present information to the reader, very boring in this format: I can totally live with this in short stories, but here it feels dragging, especially as the dialogue parts are actually good in this book, which makes the uninspired manner in which the puzzle pieces are laid down feel stand out. This is a thing that might be improved upon in later novels of course, but this was one aspect where it felt like the book took over the worst part of puzzle plot detective novels.

As for the main locked room murder puzzle in the penthouse studio... it's a practical, yet not at all awe-inspiring solution. It is basically one of the first things you'll start to suspect once all the facts/parameters have been presented to you, and while yes, it is a solution that fits the known facts and "works", it is a bit disappointing. In a way, it reminded me of the little of Norman Berrow's work I have read: a solution that does explain how the alluring murder could've been committed, but it isn't going to win any originality points because come on, that is going for the first and most obvious explanation any reader will think of considering the given facts! At no point does the solution surprise the reader, nor will I ever remember what happened in two months because the whole affair was ultimately just so... nondescript. Sometimes you read mystery novels that have very silly solutions that seem improbable (even if possible), but at least those make an impressiona and I remember, and I can imagine how they could be tweaked for better execution. The Gold Solution's solution however is on the other side of the spectrum, presenting a workable, but very boring solution that one reads, shrugs at and will forget the moment they close the book. 

Does that mean The Gold Solution is a bad book? No, it doesn't. The writing is good, and while the mystery plot is not particularly memorable, it's not like The Gold Solution is an utterly impossible or cheating mystery novel. But it is not a book that stands out in any way looking at its merits purely from a mystery POV. It works, and that's it. As the characters and dialogue are fun to read, I can definitely recommend this as an easy read in between more heftier works, just don't expect something that will manage to amaze you when it comes to its locked room mystery. But then again, this was Rescnicow's debut novel, so perhaps this will be one of those cases where you see an author improve with each following work. I sure hope so!

It Runs in the Family

「論理の路はつながりました」

『春ゆきてレトロチカ』

 

"The path of logic is connected"

 "The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story"

Is there like a rule that when Square-Enix makes a mystery game, it needs to take place across time and needs to have game mechanics revolving around generating hypotheses?

One of the earliest games I discussed on this blog, and one that I still think fondly of, is Trick X Logic on the PSP. The manner in which it translates the reading experience of a puzzle plot whodunnit story to a video game is absolutely fantastic, and shows very well how a properly written mystery story should allow a reader to gather clues, build hypotheses and lead them to the one and only answer. Of course, this was not surprising, considering the stories found in Trick X Logic were written by authors like Ayatsuji Yukito, Arisugawa Alice, Maya Yutaka, Ooyama Seiichirou and more! (Disclosure: I have translated the works of some of these authors!) Each of the stories in this game was presented in a novel game style, so simply a prose story you read like any other book. As you read the story, you pick up key words and phrases. Once you're done with the "Problem" part of the story, the interactive element start: as the player, you now have to answer the question of whodunnit. How? By using all those key words and phrases from the story in question, and combining them to generate questions, insights and hypotheses. For example, if the story mentions both "X is left-handed" "X caught the ball with his right hand", you could combine these two phrases to generate questions and hypotheses like: "X is ambidextrous," "Is X actually right-handed?" "Is X not able to use his left hand?" These new phrases could also be used, for example, "Is X not able to use his left hand?" and "X fell earlier from his horse" might generate the theory "X hurt his left hand." Trick X Logic thus was a game that really showed how you are supposed to read a detective story, focus on key phrases and combining them to create all kinds of hypotheses, even if they might be wrong. And as you create more and more hypotheses and combine these with each other again, you eventually arrive at the truth. Trick X Logic is in my opinion still one of the few games that really shows how a prose puzzle plot detective story should be tackled and I have always lamented the fact it never got a sequel or never inspired other games in the same spirit.

When earlier this year Square-Enix announced they'd release the FMV (Full Motion Video) detective adventure game Haru Yukite, Retrotica ("As Spring Passes By,  Retrotica") in May 2022, I was absolutely thrilled, for it was made by the director of Trick X Logic and was clearly inspired by that game. Released in English with the less poetic title The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story and available on Switch/Steam/PS4/PS5, the game tells an epic story that takes place across a whole century, and is told through live-action drama (interestingly, the director of this game also worked on 428, which also used live-action heavily). The titular Shijima family is a clan with history, sordid history even as recently, a skeleton was found under a tree at Shijima manor. Shijima Eiji, a medical scientist, asks the mystery writer Kagami Haruka to look into the case of the skeleton found at his parental home: Eiji is a medical consultant for Haruka's mystery novels, and thinks she can find out more about the mysterious skeleton. Haruka and her editor Akari go to Shijima manor, where they are welcomed by Eiji's father and they are allowed to witness an ancient ceremony which is held once a century by the Shijima family. After the ceremony, they are to have tea, but Eiji's father is poisoned. Haruka soon learns the Shijima family not only has skeletons in their garden, but also in the closet: for the last century, members of the Shijima family have been involved in various murder cases, and each time these murders were connected to the "Tokijiku" or Fruit of Youth, a mythological fruit that is supposed to give eternal youth to those who eat the coveted food. Realizing that the poisoning in 2022 and the skeleton have to do with the past murder cases, which also all involved a scarlet camellia left at the various scenes, Haruka decides to read up on the old cases and see if she can solve those, as they are the only clues she has to solve the current poisoning case. And thus Haruka's investigation into a series of murder cases taking place across the twentieth and twenty-first century starts...

The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story is not a perfect game. It is not a perfect mystery game. But I really, really want to recommend this game to people who like puzzle plot mystery fiction, because it is basically the best next thing after Trick X Logic, and that game is hard to recommend because, well, it was only released in Japan and only on the PSP.  But while The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story has its hick-ups here and there, like its spiritual predecessor, it does really show well how a proper mystery story should lay its clues, how it should invite the reader (player) to use these clues to come up with properly built-up theories and how to combine theories to ultimately arrive at the truth. Few mystery games really show and teach you "reasoning techniques" that are also applicable to mystery in for example prose form, but The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story definitely does. Sorry for the self-promotion here, but if you liked mystery stories like The Moai Island Puzzle, Death Among the Undead, Death of the Living Dead and other puzzle-focused shin honkaku novels: this is a proper shin honkaku mystery game and you owe it to yourself to at least check it out. 

Once you're done with the game, you feel like you have watched a full season of a detective drama. The story starts in 2022 and many chapters ("episodes") are also set there, but Haruka also looks into prior cases involving members of the Shijima family, the Tokijiku and the Scarlet Camellia, some even taking place as early as in 1922!  In terms of terms of structure and gameplay, The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story is very similar to Trick X Logic as mentioned earlier. Each chapter/episode starts with a lengthy live-action drama part that unfolds like a proper mystery detective story, from the building up drama to the discovery of the crime and subsequent investigation. Once the first "Problem" part of the episode is over, Haruka starts theorizing about the case in the Reasoning part.  Here the player has to answer a few crucial questions by using the clues and observations made during the first part. You can also rewatch all the relevant scenes of the drama part, or check other important information like floorplans and character relation charts here. As you consider the case using the leading questions as a guide, you combine these questions with the gathered clue fragments to generate hypotheses (many of them actually incorrect). Once you have generated enough hypotheses and new insights, you can move on to the Solution part of the story, where you get the classic "Everyone is gathered in the parlor and the detective reveals who did it" scene: this too is presented as a live-action drama, but the player now has to use the various hypotheses they generated earlier to answer all the important questions and eventually point out who the murderer is. 

 

The process of "observation" -> "creating hypotheses" -> "combining hypotheses" -> "point out whodunnit" is really satisfying, and the game mechanic itself is an excellent translation of how one should tackle a prose detective story too. I do have to say that the controls for the Reasoning part are pretty bad, at least on a console (I played the game on Switch). You have to constantly drag clue fragments to the corresponding question, but not only is dragging these fragments across the screen very time-consuming with a controller, for some reason, you are required to move each clue fragment to a specific place (suppose a question requires three clues: you can't place clue A to the right side of the question because it has to be to the left side). And strangely enough, the touch screen of the Switch is not supported, even though that would make dragging a lot more convenient... 

Generating hypotheses is definitely one of my favorite parts of the game. The mechanic is very simple (the game is made to appeal to non-gamers) and of course, the hypotheses are automatically generated once you combine the correct clues together, but the game does a great job at showing the player how each hypothesis, correct and wrong, are properly based on the clues. Often mystery games just offer you a list of optional answers, one of them good and the rest wrong, but there is no true explanation how each of those options actually came to be. In The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story, you are shown how every hypothesis (= possible answer in the Solution part) is built, from which hints they derive and how they all make sense (up to a degree). Sometimes, you have a fairly good idea of the case already when you start in the Reasoning part, but occasionally the game really manages to throw a screwball at you because when you combine clue A and B, you not only get hypothesis D you were expecting, but the same clues A and B also generate hypotheses E and F, which on second thought actually seem pretty convincing too (because you are shown that they derive logically from clues A & B). Of course, sometimes the hypothesis you create is obviously fake, in a funny way, but that's okay too: the game always shows that a theory in mystery fiction is based on actual clues shown in the story, and not just a gut feeling of "that person looks suspicious".

As for the cases themselves, most of them are not really complex, but I found most of them quite enjoyable. This is partially because of the grand scale of the story: Haruka is not only dealing with what happens at Shijima manor in 2022, but she also reads a few records of the cases that occured in the past. These parts are of course also presented as live-action drama, and it results in quite some variety on screen: one episode you are investigating a case that occurs in the modern world, the next episode you are transported to a suspicious underground auction in 1922. The period drama parts definitely manage to convey the atmosphere of those periods despite each episode not being very long (most chapters are about an hour long in total). What is also funny is how these period drama parts actually use the same actors as in the 2022 parts: the in-game explanation is that Haruka has to visually imagine the past cases while she reads the old records, and in her mind, she "casts" every character with the faces of people she knows, meaning that her editor Akari can be "cast" as one character in 1922, and "cast" as another in another case. It kinda reminds of the Nero Wolfe television show, which also reused a fixed cast who'd play different characters in different stories. I think these historical episodes are also the most memorable, as the plots of those episodes often make good use of their historical setting, utilizing props and ideas that belong to those periods. 

 

Oh, by the way, for some reason this game doesn't actually automatically move on to the final chapter on its own after playing the preceding chapter. There are no unlock criteria or anything, save for completing the previous episode but you have to especially choose to start with the final chapter in the main menu, even though the game doesn't actually tell you it added the new option for the final chapter, so it's quite possible you think you finished the game, but haven't actually started the final chapter. It's so weird, for it really should have just moved on to the final chapter on its own after finishing the previous one, but it doesn't... The final chapter answers a lot of important lingering questions too, and really helps make this a memorable mystery game by the way, so be sure not to miss it, because without it the story of The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story is incomplete. 

And some minor trivia: voice actor Kaji Yuuki has a minor role in this game, but also the shogi player Kagawa Manao. The latter is interesting, because she also has a role in the shogi-themed mystery adventure game Senri no Keifu as herself. Is she actually a big mystery fan and that's why she has all these guest roles in mystery games???

The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story has plenty of minor faults, from its short run-time, the somewhat clumsy controls to the game being mostly a fairly passive experience. But it does present a very interesting and attractive mystery story dealing with a mysterious family, a mythological fruit and a series of murders that take place across time, and more importantly: it translates the experience of "solving a mystery story" perfectly. Like Trick X Logic before it, The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story shows how a proper detective story should be structured and how it should lay out a trail of clues for the reader to follow, and how readers are supposed to build theories based on these clues. The game mechanics of The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story are exactly how I read mystery fiction, and for example how I tackled my earlier playthroughs of Umineko: When They Cry and Higurashi: When They Cry. That is why I think that fans of puzzle plot mystery fiction really owe it to themselves to play The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story sooner or later. I think that at least for me, this will be one game that'll end up in my list of favorite mysteries at the end of this year.

Original Japanese title(s): 『春ゆきてレトロチカ』

Locked in Time

“Time was something that largely happened to other people; he viewed it in the same way that people on the shore viewed the sea. It was big and it was out there, and sometimes it was an invigorating thing to dip a toe into, but you couldn't live in it all the time. Besides, it always made his skin wrinkle.”

"Thief of Time"

Okay, it's almost summer now so a snow cover might seem a bit weird, but was still winter when I read this book...

Three years ago, Japan saw its first trial of a locked room murder case. The police and prosecution knew they had the right person: every piece of evidence they could find pointed towards the defendant, the only person near the crime scene who had anything remotely like a motive. However, there was one problem: they could never figure out how the locked room murder had been executed. They tried and tried, but could not explain how the defendant could've murdered the victim, and then left the room, as it was found locked tightly from inside. The prosecution argued this was a moot point: every thing else pointed at the defendant, and the locked room itself was a just a parlor trick and not relevant to the case at hand. The judge, naturally, did not agree with this argument. The prosecution failing to explain how the locked room was created, basically provided the defendant, and everyone else for that matter, with an alibi. How could the defendant have committed the murder if by all accounts, they couldn't have left the room afterwards? The defendant was found not guilty and with that, the Golden Age of Locked Rooms started in Japan. For all would-be murderers realized that if they managed to pull off a locked room murder the police couldn't solve, they'd always get away, even if they managed to find other evidence implicating them. After the first locked room murder, Japan saw a rise in the number of locked room murders in the country, which also urged society to adapt: locked room specialists appeared, ranging from architects to detctives and the Ministry of Justice even compiled an official list of all existing types of locked room tricks. On the other side, cults appeared that started to worship locked room murders as a way to mourn the dead.

Kuzushiro Kasumi is roped in by childhood friend to Yozuki to visit the House of Snow, a hotel somewhere in the mountains that used to be the private residence of a famous mystery writer. Yozuki is here because of a local Yeti-sighting, but Kasumi's interest lie within the hotel's history: Ten years ago, the mystery novelist who lived here held a party, and during the party he enacted a locked room murder: a "murdered" doll was found inside a locked room of which the key was found inside a bottle next to the victim. Nobody managed to solve the mystery, but it soon became a legend among fans of detective fiction, and even after the house got a new owner who turned it into a hotel, the "crime scene" was preserved and mystery fans still visit the hotel to try to solve the puzzle themselves. The hotel is also extremely popular due to the cooking skills of the owner and basically always booked full. Arriving at the hotel, Kasumi and Yozuki meet some of the other colorful guests, like the 15-year old Riria, an actress who everybody knows. Kasumi's interest is initially only focused on the murder game of 10 years ago, but then a real locked room murder occurs in the hotel, and of course, the usual happens: a snow storm arrives, the phone lines are cut and the one connecting bridge to the other side of the cliffs back to the main road also collapses. Everyone is now trapped inside the Hosue of Snow, and the killer is likely one of them. In the three years since The Golden Age of Locked Rooms started, most people have become somewhat familiar with locked room murders, so some guests try to solve the mystery themselves, but more and more murders follow, and always under impossible circumstances. Teaming up with a somewhat reluctant Mitsumura Shitsuri, a former classmate and fellow club member who happens to be staying at the hotel too, Kasumi too tries to solve the many murders that occur in Kamosaki Danro's 2022 debut novel Misshitsu Ougon Jidai no Satsujin  - Yuki no Yakata to Muttsu no Trick, or like the cover also says: The Murder in the Golden Age of Locked Rooms - The House of Snow and the Six Tricks.

I'll be the first to admit that it was the title, and a quick glance at the summary, that immediately convinced me I wanted to read this book. The premise of a new age in society, where so many murderers commit locked room murders even the government has to compile its own "locked room lecture", just sounded so incredibly fun, with so much potential to get incredibly meta. Which is perhaps I was a bit disappointed once this book got going. For while the concept of The Golden Age of Locked Rooms is relevant to the story's main plot in several ways, it does feel like this book doesn't quite make full use of the potential of the premise. This is for a large part due to the setting of the book: The Murder in the Golden Age of Locked Rooms - The House of Snow and the Six Tricks is a classic closed circle situation mystery, with the characters stuck in the House of Snow due to a heavy snow storm/collapsed bridge, so ultimately, you don't really get to see much of modern day society that is now experiencing The Golden Age of Locked Rooms. Sure, the characters mentions locked room murders, and among the other hotel guests, you have a locked room murder detective and even someone from the Tower of Dawn, a cult worshipping locked room murders, but it's such a shame we don't really get to see how The Golden Age has really changed society at large, we only get to see very limited snippets of these changes. Would the book have felt very different if it were just set in "normal" times, but with characters who all happen to be locked room murder mystery fans? Probably not very much, and that's where I think the concept of The Golden Age of Locked Rooms has a lot of unexplored potential.

The title reveals of course that this book is about six different locked room murders, with six different tricks utilized to create those situations. Some of these happened in the past (like the murder game organized by the mystery writer ten years ago), some are the current murders. The book is not very long, so you can imagine that the story does kinda rush through all of these murders. I think I can definitely feel the love of the author for mechanical trickery behind locked room murders though. None of the locked rooms featured here are pulled off based on some kind of psychological trickery, like fooling people into thinking a door was locked when in fact it was not: all the doors in this book are properly locked through some kind of mechanical trickery of the needle and string variety. I do have to say that even though mechanical tricks can be kinda tricky to understand because usually there are a lot of moving parts (strings being pulled and moved, for example), I'd say that for a debut novel, Kamosaki does a good job at explaining each trick rather clearly and easy to follow. I've definitely read work by authors who don't write as clear when it comes down to these kind of tricks. The book in general is very easy to read through, though some might not be very much into little techniques to make the reading so smooth, like using simple, "obvious" naming conventions for the characters, basically in the spirit of a manager being named M. Anager. Not surprisingly, the book has a distinct, often light-hearted tone like you'd expect from a light novel.

As for the six locked rooms, I'd say they're... okay? The various locked room murders aren't really connected to each other, as in, it's not like elements in one locked room situation will help you solve another locked room or anything like that, so you basically have six discrete situations. Some are more interesting than others, though I have to say that due to the short runtime of the book, most situations don't really get much time to settle: usually something happens, Mitsumura and Kasumi have a look around and by then they've already solved much of the how of the mystery, because of course the next locked room murder is already waiting around the corner. As mentioned above, the individual locked rooms are very much focused on mechanical trickery and a lot of them do feel like (combinations of) variations of ideas you'll probably have seen elsewhere before, but for the most part, I found this an entertaining book. I do also like the fact that the whodunnit is also given proper attention, implementing classic Queen-style deductions chains that look at things the murderer must have done to create said murder situation and then examining those actions to determine who couldn't or wouldn't have done those things in order to cross off names of the suspect list until you arrive at the murderer. Some of the deductions feel a bit forced (especially the premise that allowed for the final step in identifying the murderer at the very end), but in general, it'd sayt that despite its focus on the how of the murders in terms of premise (and title), the whodunnit aspects feel a bit more impressive: the focus on the mechanical trickery behind six locked rooms do make some parts feel a bit samey, which is less so in the whodunnit parts of the book.

The Murder in the Golden Age of Locked Rooms - The House of Snow and the Six Tricks is obviously written by someone who loves locked room murder mysteries and for a debut novel, it certainly has a lot of interesting ideas. While the full potential of the concept isn't explored in this book, I do like the idea of the Golden Age of Locked Rooms, and having six servicable locked room situations in any debut novel would be quite a feat. This book might not be a true classic of the genre, but I did enjoy reading the book and I'm definitely interested to see what Kamosaki will release in the future.

Original Japanese title(s): 鴨崎暖炉『密室黄金時代の殺人 雪の館と六つのトリック』

Snow White, Blood Red

So when in tears

The love of years 

Is wasted like the snow,

"The Forest Reverie" (Edgar Allan Poe)

I did read this book in the winter, fitting the theme, but by the time this review is posted here, it's probably almost summer...

Iwanaga Kotoko returns once again as the Deity of Wisdom for youkai (all kinds of supernatural beings, spirits, etc.) in Shirodaira Kyou's 2021 short story collection Kyokou Suiri Tanpenshuu - Iwanaga Kotoko no Junshin which also has the English title Invented Inference Short Stories - Innocence of Iwanaga Kotoko! When she was a child, she was abducted by youkai and made their Deity of Wisdom, helping these supernatural beings whenever they were in trouble involving the human world, acting as arbitrator and detective. Because Kotoko's cases are always connected with humans, she has become quite capable at the act of inventing inferences: while the truth is simply that some supernatural being is involved with the problem, Kotoko always presents the humans with completely false, but convincing explanations that incorporate all the known facts, without having to reveal that in fact youkai were involved. The series is thus not about finding out a truth, but fabricating a truth that humans will believe. Innocence of Iwanaga Kotoko is the fourth book in the series, and the second short story collection following 2018's Invented Inference Short Stories - Appearance of Iwanaga Kotoko, and the two books are quite similar in structure. Innocence of Iwanaga Kotoko too features five stories, some of which are very short and closer in style to short intermezzos/character vignettes, but all of them present rather unique mystery stories because they involve the supernatural. Interestingly, some of these stories were first published in manga format: the manga based on the series runs simultaneously with the books nowadays, but due to different publication schedules, some stories will be featured in the manga before the books.

The very short stories however are once again the less memorable parts of the book. Yoku kangaeru to Kowakunai demo nai Hanashi ("A Story That Could Be Creepy If You Think About It") tells the story of Kotoko's boyfriend Kurou, who has a part-time job as a mover. This time, he's moving stuff out of a house which is said to be haunted, but to his co-workers' surprise, nothing happens at all that day. It's more a story that works towards a punchline about the supernatural, but it's easy to predict where this is going if you know who Kurou is (and his history was already explained in the first book). Similarly, Mato wo enaide Mato wo iyou ("Hit the target without hitting the target") is a very short story where Kotoko is asked to arbitrate between two monkey spirits who are arguing about a bow and arrow they stole. This leads to a Judge Ooka/Judgement of Solomon-esque situation, but the story is over before you know it. These stories are not bad per se, but just so short you'll barely remember them once you're done with the book.

Shisha no Futashika na Dengon ("An Unclear Dying Message") starts with the visit of Reina to her grandparents in the countryside. On her way back to the station, she runs into a mysterious woman, who reminds her of her old high school classmate Kotoko. It turns out this woman is Rikka, cousin of Kotoko's boyfriend Kurou. Reina tells Rikka about Kotoko's life at high school and how everyone thought she was so mysterious, with rumors flying around that she had ties with the supernatural, and that she'd sometimes help people out, though often not in the way most expected. For example, one day, a classmate wanted Kotoko's help due to a problem her uncle had. Her uncle had been rivals with a co-worker at the office, vying for the same positions, but one day, the man was hit on the head with a hammer and died. But before he died, he wrote down the name Takehiko, which was the uncle's name. He became a suspect of course, but soon after the police arrested another man, who had confessed to the death, caused by a freak accident, This seemed to clear the uncle's name at first, but nobody knows why he wrote the name "Takehiko" before dying, and that combined with rumors of a bloody ghost still appearing at the scene of the death, and rumors of the uncle being the real murderer who somehow got away, the man is more-or-less ostricized at the office, unable to get a promotion. Kotoko's classmate has to listen to her uncle's story every time the family meets, so she hopes Kotoko can clear things up so her uncle will finally shut up. While initially, you might be inclined to think this is a classic dying message story, it certainly isn't, and that's made clear rather early on through a discussion about the dying message trope in mystery fiction and how it's so unbelievable and unpracticable. And that fits this series perfectly, because of course Kotoko's answer to the dying message is probably made-up, but it's convincing enough, and what's more, Kotoko's clever enough to recognize the true problem her classmate has, and the solution she provides is just a whole pack of convincing conjecture, but which does allow her classmate to solve the underlying issue. It's a fun story because it turns the idea around of a detective needing to find the truth, instead of focusing on the idea of a detective who only needs to find a workable solution for everyone involved.

The first and final story in this book are the main dish, and form a set together. Yukionna no Dilemma ("The Dilemma of the Snow Woman") features an interesting problem that, at first sight, could only occur in this series. Kotoko is this time approached by Yuki Onna (a female snow spirit) who seeks help for a dear human friend. Masayuki had once been saved by this Yuki Onna in the past already, but he had retreated to the countryside once again his wife cheated on him: he left his company and went back to the place where long ago, Yuki Onna had saved him from an icy death. Sheer coincidence has the two meet once again, and they slowly develop a friendship, with the Yuki Onna often staying at his home to drink and eat. A year after his divorce however, he's visited by the police, as his ex-wife has been murdered, and there are clues, like a partial dying message that point to Masayuki as the killer, as well as a letter written by his ex-wife sent after her death, where she accuses Masayuki of the murder if she dies an unnatural death. When asked for his alibi for the night of the murder however, Masayuki finds himself in a bind: he technically has an alibi, as he was eating and drinking with the Yuki Onna at his home, but how are you going to explain to the police you were spending the night with a spirit!? Masayuki and the Yuki Onna therefore ask Kotoko for help to resolve this problem. The idea of someone having a perfectly fine alibi save for the fact it's a supernatural alibi is pretty fun, though most of the problem is solved by Kotoko in a surprisingly "conventional" manner: she doesn't really need to twist facts for the police to solve this case without revealing the existence of the supernatural, for at the core, the murder itself is a completely human affair, and it's only the problem of Masayuki's alibi that depends on the supernatural. In that respect the story might be a bit disappointing, because the existence of the Yuki Onna is used in this story more effectvely for dramatic effect rather than for the mystery, even if it's an enjoyable story on its own.

The final story, Yuki Onna wo Kiru ("Slaying the Snow Woman") involves the Yuki Onna once again, but for a different problem. Long ago, in the Edo Period, there was a swordfighter who managed to defeat a Yuki Onna who had been challenging swordfighters and killed many of them. This man, Shirakura Hanbei, perfected his swordstyle, opening his own dojo and while he had no child of his own, he adopted a mysterious child who was at least as talented. At age 40 however, the unbeatable swordfighter Hanbei was found with his neck slashed open in the garden of his dojo and with his dying breath, he seemed to accuse the Yuki Onna. Many generations later, and Shirakura Shizuya finds himself consulting Kotoko. He is a direct descendent of the adopted son of Shirakura Hanbei, and he wants Kotoko to find out what happened to Hanbei, because he fears he's actually the offspring of the Yuki Onna, and thus a terrible murdering beast himself. Kotoko consults with the Yuki Onna from the first story, who reveals that Shizuya is actually her nephew, and that the Yuki Onna from the old story was in fact her older sister. So Shizuya is indeed half-youkai and while she explains everything to Kotoko, Kotoko is burdened with a different task: she has to come up with an explanation that will give Shizuya hope, an answer that won't lead to him cursing his own blood forever or even worse, actually turn himself into an evil spirit. This is not a conventional mystery story, as once again a lot of the "truth" is explained by spirits, and Kotoko's main concern lies not with the truth, but focuses on an acceptable lie. Personally, I do think the historical setting of (large parts of) the story undermines the "power" of this series. Kotoko's elaborate lies work best in the context of her abusing existing hard evidence to dance around the supernatural explanation, and such evidence are more clear in modern-day, real-time cases. But here, we're talking about a murder case that happened centuries ago, with only hearsay as "evidence" so Kotoko's interpretations just feel less... convincing in general.

I'd say Kyokou Suiri Tanpenshuu - Iwanaga Kotoko no Junshin (Invented Inference Short Stories - Innocence of Iwanaga Kotoko) is on the whole a fairly entertaining volume, though I do feel the first short story collection was better, with the individual stories being more memorable. This book does offer something interesting with two very different cases involving a Yuki Onna and those two stories are definitely the better ones in this volume, but their best moments simply don't match the best moments from the first short story collection. I'd still say the first book in this series is the best, and if you like the concepts and characters found there, this volume is also worth reading, The next one is a full novel again, and I have already purchased it, so let's see how that one will turn out!

Original Japanese title(s): 城平京『虚構推理短編集 岩永琴子の純真』：「雪女のジレンマ」/「よく考えると怖くないでもない話」/「死者の不確かな伝言」/「的を得ないで的を射よう」/「雪女を斬る」