Still Waters

「はい？」

 『相棒』

 "Excuse me?"

"Partners"

Yes, I know, it's not a bad book that usually results in a bland review. It's just a bland book. 

Aibou ("Partners") is an extremely succesful police drama in Japan that's been running since 2000 and by the time this post is published, Season 21 should be entering its final stage.The series is about Sugishita Ukyou and his partner in the two-man unit the Special Orders Unit within the Metropolitan Police Department. Sugishita is a brilliant police detective, but with very strong sense of justice and therefore not always willing to play along with political games within the police organization. Yet, he's too valuable to let go, which is why he is been assigned to the SOU, stuffed away in a small office in police headquarters. Technically, he shouldn't have anything to do unless there's a special order, but Sugishita likes to stick his nose in police investigations all the time nonetheless, unless there's a special order telling him not to. Over the course of the series, several younger detectives have been assigned as Sugishita's subordinate within the SOU, who often form a contrast with the cool-headed Sugishita but work well as a team, hence the title partners. But with a series as long as Aibou, it's of course only natural for cast changes to occur, and Sugishita has seen several 'partners' go throughout the series, starting with his first partner act-before-think Kameyama, followed by the dandy gentleman Kanbe, the hotheaded Kaito and the more conniving Kaburagi.

Sugishita also stars in a series of novels written by Ikari Uhito (a pen name of Torikai Hiu), where he isn't joined by these partners. The stories are usually set in the period between one partner leaving and the new one arriving in the show, or other moments within series continuity when the two aren't working together. Last year I read Sugishita Ukyou no Misshitsu (The Locked Room Mysteries of Ukyo Sugishita, 2013), the third book in this series and found it an entertaining novel for fans and even for newcomers to the series, it could still work as an entry point even if not the optimal choice. Anyway, I was curious to the rest of the series, so I decided to read the first book this time. Sugishita Ukyou no Jikenbo ("The Casebook of Sugishita Ukyou") was released in 2010 and consists of two novellas. Both are set in the time period with Sugishita's first partner Kameyama: the first story between season 1 and 2 during Sugishita's holiday, and the second story after Kameyama left the series in season 7 in 2008-2009. I read this book late 2022 by the way, and after reading the book, I decided to look up the timeline details of this book and I was utterly surprised to learn Kameyama had actually returned to the television series as Sugishita's partner in the currently running Aibou 21. I hadn't really been watching the series the last few years, so I had never expected Kameyama to really return to the main cast. As a reader, you don't really need to know about Kameyama of course, and he's only briefly mentioned in these stories, but I thought it was funny I read this book right around the time Kameyama returned to the series. 

The first story titled Kage to Taru ("Mist and Barrels") is set in Scotland: Sugishita is in the UK for a holiday and via his B&B, he learns that a small whiskey distillery is going to have a special event in a few days: that distillery has ten barrels of single malt whiskey aging for fifty years, and now they'll be opening the warehouse. Andy McMillan is the current owner of the distillery, but it was his grandfather Paul who came up with the plan to make super mature whiskey, creating five warehouses: one for ten years, one for twenty years, etc. Last year's barrels with whiskey aged forty years was a huge success, so everyone is looking forward to opening the last warehouse, though some are worried. Thirty years ago, Andy's grandfather Paul died in an accident in a warehouse and ten years ago, Andy's father Ian too died after opening the forty-year old warehouse, in a very enigmatic manner as it appeared like he had been stepped on by a giant. This is tied to a local belief that seeing the God of Scotch, a mythological giant, will lead to good whiskey, but will also bring misfortune. And now Andy's son says he saw the giant in the mist himself too recently. Sugishita is invited to witness the opening of the warehouse too, but when it is unlocked, they find one of the barrels has fallen off the rack, upside down. They lift the barrel up, only to find the head craftsman had been stuffed inside the barrel. The poor man is rushed to the hospital, but it is too late. But how did the head craftsman get inside the locked warehouse, inside a whiskey barrel, and what does his death have to do with the death forty years ago?

I don't know much about making whiskey, but I guess the author does, because a lot of the story is about the things that go on at a distillery and how whiskey is made. The story is quite long (much longer than the second story in the book) and deals with several semi-impossible situations, like the death of the head craftsman in a warehouse which has been locked for fifty years and which shouldn't have been opened, and the mysterious death of Ian ten years ago. Sugishita is a Japanese police officer on holiday, so he can't really butt in, but Sugishita wouldn't be himself if he actually cared about that, so naturally, he investigates this tragedy that happened to his hosts. I don't really like the truth behind the body-in-the-barrel death and the locked warehouse on their own to be honest, because it involves people just acting really stupidly multiple times for all of that to work, though I have to admit I am more impressed by the way Ikari (Torikai) manages to tie everything together: he comes up with a convincing reason for why certain things had to happen and is also good in leaving a variety of clues like Andy's young son's testimony about the God of Scotch and him playing with his cat, it's just that the actual "event of the death" isn't quite convincing to me. At least, not the way it is done (perhaps if it had been executed with different details, I would've liked it more). This is one story I'd have loved to see in television form though, as while the trick of the locked warehouse is a bit silly, I can imagine it would at least have been funny to see acted out on screen.

The second story, Kenmun no Mori ("The Forest of Kenmun") is one I really didn't like. It involves Sugishita travelling to Amami Oshima on the reqeust of Kakuta, his old friend and head of the division Organized Crime. A wanted criminal was recently involved in a boat accident on the island and is now being detained in a hospital there with his accomplices, and Sugishita is to escort this Yasuda back to Tokyo. Yasuda and his Chinese henchmen manage to escape the hospital just before Sugishita arrives though, and thus starts a manhunt for the dangerous criminals, who seem to be busy with a certain plan, but nobody knows what it is. In the meanwhile, Sugishita also hears about tourist sighting a kenmun, a local yokai, in the forest, but what does this have to do with the flight of Yasuda? It's one of those stories that's really just about working towards a punchline, which can work for a detective story, but this particular punchline just wasn't that impressive or surprising. I feel like that the idea behind the punchline could have been used as a "normal" focus for a mystery story pretty well, but by making it a punchline to the mystery of what Yasuda is trying to do while on the run from the police, it feels a bit underwhelming.

So on the whole, I didn't like Sugishita Ukyou no Jikenbo as much as I liked the third volume. I think the third volume can be enjoyed even without much knowledge of Aibou, but I think the stories in this first volume are rather bland, so if you don't have any connection with Aibou in the first place, there's very little here to warrant a recommndation. I'll probably still read the second volume, just to see if it's closer to this volume, or the third volume in terms of plotting, but this one is only for the fans.

Original Japanese title(s): 碇卯人『杉下右京の事件簿』：「霧と樽」/「ケンムンの森」

I can’t make bricks without clay

Minor service announcement.

I am not sure how many readers here make use of the master list of all the reviews/editorials found in the Library, but if you had looked at the list say the last two, three years, you may have noticed I hadn't really kept it up to date. To be very honest: that was because the list had become a complete mess backstage with bloated HTML and mark-up conventions that usually broke everything every time I wanted to add a new link. My only way out was basically redoing the whole list, or at least, cleaning up everything now to make things easier on myself going forward. And after a lot of time squinting my eyes at the screen cleaning code I have finally done that. I simplified the master list in terms of mark-up conventions so I don't have to play with font sizes and italicizing book titles etc. anymore (meaning there's less chance of me breaking things in terms of page lay-out). I have also simplified the list itself a bit: I have reduced the number of repeated entries as now, adaptations are generally only listed once with the original creator (instead of also being listed a second time in the seperate games/TV/film/theater categories). Authors who I have only read in anthologies also don't get seperate entries anymore, but are only listed in the anthology category. This should make the list less bloated, and easier for me to update because I don't have to enter some entries twice in different categories.

I hadn't updated the list in 3+ years, so there were quite a few notable absentees in the list until yesterday. Imagine, the old list had only one entry for recent favorite Houjou Kie and I had to add like 10 Kindaichi Case Files volumes... Anyway, the update should make things easier if you are looking for a certain book or reviews of a certain author. This blog has been running for 10+ years, so there are quite a number of posts, and hopefully the renewed master list makes it easier to find things. 

(Oh, and as this isn't really a deep post anyway, I might as well point to the Honkaku-themed Discord server again. Have a look around if you want to talk about mystery fiction with other honkaku fans!)

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

“No, no! The adventures first,” said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: “explanations take such a dreadful time.” 

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

Always interesting to compare the cover of the pocket edition of a book with the original release. Sometimes, it's the same, sometimes they go for a completely different style and sometimes, you have something like today's book: obviously designed by the same artist, but still a different illustration for whatever reason.

The shin honkaku movement brought forth a renaissance of the puzzle-focused mystery novel, but it was one non-fiction book that really helped revitalize interest in such novels. Proof of the Great Detective was an account by the real-life great detective Yashiki Keijirou, who wrote about his own cases and adventures. While the real-life murders he wrote about in his memoirs were never as fantastical as the fictional ones created within the shin honkaku movement, his exploits did spark interest in all things mystery related. On the other side of the spectrum was the author Haijima Tomie, one of the leading figures in the early periods of shin honkaku and therefore highly respected by mystery readers everywhere. Her success led to her building her own house named after one of her books: the Locked Room Manor. 

It is in a guest room inside the Locked Room Manor where college student Hinoto Ryou wakes up. At first, he's confused about his current situation, but then remembers he had been invited into the house by Hajima, but then knocked out somehow. A video message appearing on a monitor addressing him, and other people, tells him to leave the room and go up to a central room on the third floor. Eight people arrive in the great hall there, all obviously confused about what they are doing here. They find Haijima standing high up on a balcony overlooking the spacious room, far beyond their reach. Haijima explains all eight of them are her prisoner and there is no way out of her house now. In the coming four days, locked room murders will occur inside the Locked Room Manor and she challenges her eight prisoners to solve them. Each day, they are given one collective chance to come to this room again and explain their deductions about how the locked room murder(s) are committed: if they get it right they are released at once. After four days, she'll stop this insane game and even go to the police herself to surrender herself, but perhaps everyone will be dead by then. To prove she's serious, she kills another woman right in front of her prisoners, dumping the body from the balcony. Fortunately for them, one of the prisoners is Mikan Hanako: a former super-popular tv-personality who is also a talented detective. One year ago, she stopped all her media activity and deleted her Twitter account with over a million followers to concentrate on her detective work. However, there's one problem: Hinoto Ryou absolutely hates Hanako and all detectives. Previously, Ryou's family had been murdered and even though the murderer had sent a challenge letter to Hanako, she was not able to prevent the tragedy from happening and only managed to solve the case when it was too late. Since that moment, Ryou has harbored an intense hatred towards Hanako, whom he sees as a blight on this world: a person who doesn't recognize the tragedy behind murders and only sees them as puzzles to be solved, and it's detectives like her that in fact attract insane murderers like Haijima to come up with these insane crimes that involve innocent people. But even Ryou has to admit that Hanako is their best way to get out of this mess, and while not all eight prisoners are all too keen to work together because obviously, these are all people who don't know each other, they are united in their struggle against Haijima. After the first night however, one of them is found murdered in his locked room, but how was the murder commited and save Hanako get the rest of them out of Haijima's trap in Ichikawa Tetsuya's 2014 novel Meitantei no Shoumei - Misshitsukan Satsujin Jiken ("Proof of the Great Detective - The Murders in the Locked Room Manor")?

Ichikawa Tetsuya made his debut in 2013 with the first Meitantei no Shoumei ("Proof of the Great Detective") by winning the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award. And nope, I haven't read that book. I'm not really fixated on reading things on order, assuming (hoping) later books don't explicitly spoil previous ones, so for some reason I decided to start with the second novel (and as far as I know, it didn't spoil anything from the first). Anyway, I went in mostly blind, and basically all I had was the subtitle, so I figured it would be safe to least assume it'd be about locked room murders.

Imagine my surprise when I learned that wasn't really correct.

Despite the subtitle, the place of the murders being called the Locked Room Manor and yes, the murders happening in this story being locked room murders, the main focus of the story isn't on the locked room murders. The focus is much more on their closed circle situation. At the start of the story, Haijima even refers to games like Danganronpa, saying how they are now trapped inside the house and how her prisonors will be killed off one by one in impossible crimes. She even adds a rule that during the night, her prisonors will have to stay in their own rooms and not leave until the following morning (or else...). That coupled with the rule they only get one collective chance a day to guess how the murders have been committed results in a very game-like set-up similar to Werewolf, and makes you really aware they are in a closed circle situation. While Hanako and the rest do spend time trying to figure out how the murders are committed, some of them coming up with their own theories, you'd be surprised how much of the book isn't directly about the locked rooms, but for example about the distrust that usually exists in closed circle mystery stories, how everybody feels like they can't really trust the other even though Haijima's shadow is looming over them. 

This is of course personified by narrator Ryou, who hates Hanako despite knowing she's their best chance to get out of there, but Ryou is also used to address some post-modern interpretations of the detective-character like you might know from Late Queen Period problems: in Ryou's view, detectives like Hanako are just cruel people who see murders and crimes as nothing more but intellectual games and entertainment, and the victims and their loved ones are just a by-product. Criminal masterminds like Haijima or others who go for locked room murders or other impossible crimes only exist because such "great detectives" exist, as if to challenge these criminals to try their best. This Batman-Joker problem can be felt throughout the novel via Ryou's narration and at times admittedly, this can be tiring because I assume most readers of a puzzle plot mystery novel are... not against the great detective archetype, though it's also not a very long book so it's not like you have to cope with it for ages.

If you're looking for an original take on the actual mechanics behind the locked room murders, I don't think this will be the book for you, The truth behind how the individual locked room murders are committed is fairly simple in the end, though to prove that, Hanako has to go pretty far, and that in itself is pretty interesting. For the rule is that not only do they have one chance per day, the solution has to be logical and based on clues and facts found at the scenes and can't be just a 'guess.' To prove how the locked room murders were committed however, Hanako looks less at the actual physical evidence found at the scene, but more at the whole situation: why is Haijima holding them hostage, why is she holding this sick game of locked rooms and more, and that eventually brings Hanako to a solution that is more than just a series of locked room murders. I actually do like the truth that Hanako ultimately arrives at and it fits the themes of this book perfectly, but yeah, don't expect too much of the locked rooms as mysteries on their own, it's more about what lies beyond them.

So with people often confusing closed circles with locked room murders, it's ironic that this book, that has locked room in its title and does feature locked room murders, is actually more interesting in the way it handles its closed circle situation. Though that may be intentional. It is a fun book when looked at it as such, and the way it plays with the post-modern themes while incorporating 'real' detective fiction history (there are a lot of references to real books and writers) make it a worthwile read for those who are into modern Japanese mystery.

I wonder if you see Hanako more from a less biased view in the other novels though. Ryou is obviously looking at Hanako with a certain mindset which really colors the whole book in a certain way, but I hope other books show Hanako a bit more, because here Ryou often intentionally avoided the series detective. She's an interesting enough character though, with just enough of an air of mystery, so I'd like to read more about her adventures.

Oh, and as one last note. Tokyo Sogen Suiri's books usually all feature an extra English title inside or on the cover to accompany the Japanese title. Sometimes it's a direct translation, sometimes not. This book's English title however is just "The Detective 2" which is a biiiiiit too generic I think.

So Meitantei no Shoumei - Misshitsukan Satsujin Jiken wasn't at all what I first expected it would be, focusing more on the closed circle situation rather than the locked rooms from the title, but I still ended up liking it for tackling the themes it focused on. It might be a bit too meta for some readers, though I think it's still perfectly readable without much 'meta-knowledge' and I'm certainly interested to read more of this series.

Original Japanese title(s): 市川哲也『名探偵の証明　密室館殺人事件』

Murder Digs Deep

「論理の旋律は必ず真実を奏でる」

『スパイラル～推理の絆』

"The melody of logic always plays the truth."

"Spiral - The Bonds of Reasoning"

Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna or Spiral ~ The Bonds of Reasoning was a mystery(-themed) manga created by writer Shirodaira Kyou and artist Mizuno Eita which ran from 1999 until 2005, and which also saw an anime adaptation in 2002. The series was about Ayumu, who lives with his sister-in-law Madoka after his brother Kiyotaka disappeared. Kiyotaka was a true prodigy, talented at everything he did and his brilliant mind was put to good use as he was a police detective, but two years ago, Kiyotaka disappeared after a final phone call with Ayumu where he mentioned the phrase "Blade Children". At the start of the series, Ayumu gets involved in a murder case that occurs at his school, but with the help of the school newspaper club president Hiyono, he manages to prove his innocence, only to learn that this murder involved the Blade Children and that he himself, as the younger brother of Kiyotaka, has become involved with this affair too. This is the start of an adventure where Ayumu and Hiyono start digging in the mystery of the Blade Children, which however is not without danger for themselves and more often than not, Ayumu finds himself forced into deadly games of life and death to get to the truth. While the first volume or so might make Spiral ~ The Bonds of Reasoning look like Detective Conan or Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo with 'a case of the week', it soon becomes a very different series, focusing more on deadly strategic games where Ayumu has to fight for survival with his mind, and the last third/ending of the series is probably not at all like you'd expect based on the first chapter, 

Author Shirodaira Kyou also wrote four novels set in the world of Spiral ~ The Bonds of Reasoning (with illustrations by artist Mizuno), and in general, they seem to have been received pretty well, so I always wanted to read them, and recently, I managed to get hold of them. The first one I read is not the first on the series though: I started with the second one, because it was often referred to as the best in the series and I even sometimes saw references to the book outside of a Spiral ~ The Bonds of Reasoning context, so just on its merits as a mystery novel! Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna 2: Koutetsu Banchou no Misshitsu ("Spiral ~ The Bonds of Reasoning 2: The Locked Room of the Steel Gang Boss") was first released in 2002 and as I am typing this, I was paging through my own copy, which was apparently from the 14th printing run in 2004, so I guess this book sold reasonably well to have at least so many print runs! The book has no direct ties to the main series, so you could get pretty easily into it without any prior knowledge of the series, as it is clearly set very early in the series' timeline, when most of the Super Dramatic Events haven't happened yet. You could easily read it after just reading the first volume of the manga or watching the first few episodes. The book opens with a nightly visit to the convenience store by Ayumu, when he witnesses a girl dancing on the street. The girl feels offended by Ayumu's staring eyes, while Ayumu is offended by her dancing in the street for everybody to see, and after a bit of bickering, the girl orders Ayumu she never wants to see him again, but also gives him a metal badge with the kanji for "steel" etched into it, telling him to keep it safe. The following day, when Ayumu is loofing around in the newspaper club's office, Hiyono immediately recognizes the badge as the one once owned by the "Steel Banchou" or "Steel Gang Boss" about five decades ago. She tells about the Golden Age of School Gangs, when juvenile delinquents at schools across the country formed gangs who would gather under charismatic "banchou" (gang bosses) like the Magic Gang Boss or Pistol Gang Boss, and how ultimately the dramatic suicide of the Steel Gang Boss prevented a nation-wide gang war. Ayumu buys nothing of Hiyono's story, but then the mysterious girl, who happens to be a student at their school too, appears in the club office. At first it appears she wanted to hire Hiyono to locate "the boy she gave a badge to", but finally noticing Ayumu in the room and being too proud to admit she wants the badge back, she changes her request to Hiyono (and Ayumu): she wants them to prove that contrary to what is believed, the Steel Boss didn't commit suicide, but was in fact murdered inside a locked room and by doing so, destroy the nearly fifty-year old legend of the Steel Boss who gave his life to prevent a war.

Okay, I have to admit this book wasn't at all what I had expected of it. For on the whole, this tale isn't really connected to the main Spiral ~ The Bonds of Reasoning series and at times even feels out of place. The only real connections are Ayumu and Hiyono, but the "world-building" presented in this story sounds nothing at all like the rest of the series, which is really odd. It feels more like a story author Shirodaira wanted to write, and he happened to use Spiral ~ The Bonds of Reasoning to tell this story because it would have an established audience of readers already. On the other hand, I can definitely understand why so many readers like this particular novel, and how it is an important novel when seen in a wider context, to be exact, in relation to Shirodaira's later work.

So the book doesn't really feel like a Spiral story, and that's also because almost half of the book consists of excerpts from an in-universe book, being the definitive work on the Golden Age of School Gangs and their wars. This book details how in post-war Japan,  juvenile delinquent students started forming gangs at school under the leadership of banchou, who would get into fights with the leaders of other schools. What follows is an absolutely bonkers story about school gang bosses plotting to become the number one boss across the whole of Japan, putting other schools under their control, and in-party power struggles eventually leading to the rise of the Magic Gang Boss and the Pistol Gang Boss, two charismatic leaders who basically each controlled half of the schools in Japan. But when a new leader arrived in the form of the Steel Boss, the balance of powers was disturbed, and things were heading to a nation-wide school war between the three factions, until on the day of the war of the fates, the Steel Boss was found dead inside the little shed he was living in on the riverside. He had taken poison, and the cottage was locked from the inside. A few days later, letters were delivered to the Magic Gang Boss and the Pistol Gang Boss signed by the Steel Boss, where he stated his wishes to stop unnecessary bloodshed and his death should be enough to make everyone realize this, and this became the legend of the Steel Boss. Author Shirodaira obviously has immense fun writing this completely ridiculous story of high school students fighting each other like Warring State period generals, with 'wars' being fought along the riverside and 'clever' strategies and tricks employed by the warring factions, It doesn't feel like it fits Spiral ~ The Bonds of Reasoning, but the world of those stereotypical Japanese school gang delinquents fighting nation-wide wars is just really funny, and while this "history lesson" is really really long, it does set-up the mystery and all the necessary clues to solve the death of the Steel Boss. For the facts say the Steel Gang Boss died drinking poison in a small river-side shed, of which the door was barred from the inside and the window wouldn't open due to a crooked frame. That coupled with the suicide letters sent to the Magic Gang Boss and the Pistol Gang Boss seems to indicate suicide, so can Ayumu prove this was actually not a suicide, but a locked room murder, and can he prove who did this and why?

And this is the point where this book becomes important in the greater context, for we soon learn their client isn't exactly looking for the truth, but she simply wants to destroy the legend of the Steel Gang Boss. And so Ayumu comes up with three different explanations based on the known facts for the death of the Steel Gang Boss that indeed put the Steel Boss' death in a completely different light, changing his death from a honorable suicide to prevent a war, to a one-direction murder. So in a way, Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna 2: Koutetsu Banchou no Misshitsu is a kind of direct precursor to Shirodaira's later series Kyokou Suiri (known in English as both Invented Inference and In/Spectre). In Invented Inference, the truth usually often involves something supernatural, and the series detective has to come up with a believable human explanation for the events, so one without the supernatural stuff even though that is the truth. So that series revolves around coming up with believable inferences based on the known facts, but they don't need to be true. Invented Inference is about interpretation and multiple solutions and those are exactly the themes of Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna 2: Koutetsu Banchou no Misshitsu: we are told what is likely a factual build-up to the death of the Steel Boss nearly fifty years ago, but Ayumu then comes up with alternate interpretations of the facts that lead to believable theories about the murder of the Steel Boss. And that is quite fun! The basic puzzle pieces are all the same, but by shuffling them and turning some pieces around, you are able to come up with a very different picture. Each of Ayumu's theories seem plausible enough, but make use of clever interpretation of the facts presented in the excerpts from the history on the Golden Age of Gang Bosses, allowing him to "open the locked room" and change the Steel Boss' suicide into a murder and make the Steel Boss a simple "victim" rather than someone who sacrificed himself. The book isn't really long, so the three "solutions" are all fairly simple, but they are supported well by the clues both in terms of "mechanics to create the locked room situation" as well as in motive, and they can be quite surprising. I believe a lot of readers praised this book because it was their first encounter with a mystery novel built around multiple solutions/interpretations, and given that Shirodaira later came up with Invented Inference, I think he himself liked the idea a lot too. The book is more interesting read as a book about motives though than as an actual locked room mystery, but I certainly enjoyed it.

Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna 2: Koutetsu Banchou no Misshitsu also contains a short story which is technically a prequel, starrring Ayumu's brother Kiyotaka back when he was in the police force. Apparently, there was a whole series of these short stories published online back when the manga was still being serialized. The four novels would all include these stories with Kiyotaka as extras. This particular story is a pure whodunnit which is split up in two parts, the problem and the solution, so I assume originally, they published the first part online and the solution would be published a bit later, allowing readers some time to guess who the murderer was. As a whodunnit it's pretty simple, and a bit weird because it involves a man creating a robotic hand for himself to commit a murder but stuff happens of course, but it's fun enough considering this was just a short story published on the official site. 

Anyway, Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna 2: Koutetsu Banchou no Misshitsu is not at all what I had expected. I have read spin-off novels for detective manga series before, like those of Detective Conan and Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, but those novels were written to be like the stories in the manga. Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna 2 was clearly not written with such intentions. It is only marginally connected to the Spiral series. but as a mystery story, it's pretty fun, focusing on the concepts of multiple solutions. The story itself, about the student gang wars, is really ridiculous, but you can sense Shirodaira had a lot of fun coming up with that backstory and especially knowing he later went on to write Invented Inference, I think Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna 2 is a pretty rewarding mystery.

Original Japanese title(s): 城平京(著) 水野英多(イラスト) 『小説　スパイラル～推理の絆2　鋼鉄番長の密室』

Wrong-Way Door

"There's no place like home."

"The Wizard of Oz"

I've been watching this Youtube channel where they introduce interesting apartments up for rent in the Tokyo Metropolis area a while now, from apartments that have very weird layouts to rather inventive manners to make incredibly cramped rooms feel somewhat spacious and still have all the utilities you'd expect from an apartment.

A writer on occult matters who also functions as narrator receives a call from an acquaintance, hoping to get some advice regarding a house he's thinking of purchasing. The house is quite new and is put on sale because its previous owners have moved out. It is in a nice residential area near the station and with lots of parks in the vicinity, making it a perfect home for him, his wife and his first child, but there's something that bothers the acquaintance. Because on the floorplan created by the real estate agent, there's a mysterious walled-up space between the kitchen and the living room. Not only is the "dead space" incredibly small, it is also surrounded by the walls of the various rooms around it, so it has no use. A walled-up space is pretty creepy, so the narrator decides to call in an architect he knows, who also happens to be a fan of mystery fiction. At first, they arrive at the idea that the space might originally have been a built-in closet or cupboard for either the kitchen or the living room, but that a tight budget might have meant they had to abandon the plans and they walled over the "reserved" space. Sounds innocent enough, but as they take a closer look at the house, they see more and more peculiarities hidden within the floorplans of this two-storey house. At first, these small points seem strange, but not particularly important, but as they start theorizing why the rooms are laid out the way they are, they slowly arrive at a completely unexpected, and astonishing theory about this curious house. While at first, their theory seems incredibly absurd for it would be much more than just plain "creepy" and actual horror, some time after the narrator publishes a horror story based in this event, he is informed of a different house with a floorplan with very similar characteristics. What is the truth behind the horrifying mystery behind these floorplans in Uketsu's Hen na Ie ("A Curious House" 2021)?

An interesting book, with an interesting story behind it. Uketsu is a horror storyteller who is also a Youtube content creator, and originally, this story was one of their 2020 videos, a creepy story about a mysterious floorplan and their attempts at learning what the meaning could be behind the strange kitchen space and the other rooms. This "real estate" mystery was like an urban legend, starting with something very mundane (a house on sale and its floorplan), but then slowly the horror creeps in, leading to a surprise twist revelation. The video was quite popular, leading to Uketsu writing a whole novel based on the video. And now even a film is the making! In the past, I have written short editorials about floorplans in mystery fiction, and the use of (3D) space in mystery fiction (games), which probably is enough of a hint to tell you I quite like floorplans in mystery fiction, so the idea of a mystery tale that revolves around looking at floorplans, finding out what's "off" about them and figuring out what the meaning behind it is, sounded quite alluring.

It is a very short book ultimately, and I feel it's definitely the first chapter, directly based on the original video which is the most fun and surprising. If you just glance at the floorplans, it seems normal enough for a Japanese home, but as you check the rooms and the "dead space", you start to sense there is certainly something not quite normal about this home. Uketsu is introduced as a horror writer, not a mystery writer, and I would say you can definitely feel this from the atmosphere of the story. It's really like one of those urban legends, where something small that doesn't seem quite right turns out to have a surprising and often far-fetched truth, but that's what makes urban legends fun in the first place of course, the irrational horror hiding behind modern, urban elements. But in terms of build-up of the story, it's definitely a proper mystery story, with clues hidden within the floorplans themselves, but also for example what we hear about the previous owners from the real estate agent etc., with theories regarding the seperate curious elements of the house being put on top each other to build a surprising daring tower of connected theories. The theories here of course not "Queen-style" super tight chains of logic that seem to point to the one and only truth, but they are alluring and silly enough that I will gladly "believe" like a good urban legend. 

In a way, the weird floorplans in Hen na Ie are very similar to the floorplans you see in the curiously-designed houses in mystery fiction like The Decagon House Murders and Murder in the Crooked House, but at the same time, they are very different because the houses in Hen na Ie should be completely normal buildings, built in normal residential areas and made to house normal nuclear families. And yet, a good look at their plans reveals they are not normal, and that gives off this sense of creepiness, whereas the floorplans in mystery stories like the two mentioned above may look strange due to their shape or because of strange rooms, but there it's almost expected, as you know a murder is going to happen there and that these grotesque houses themselves also play a role. So again, the "horror" element plays a big role in the enjoyment of Hen na Ie, the sense of uneasiness of not expecting such elements in a normal house.

The book is fairly short and written like a non-fiction reportage, consisting mostly out of transcripts of interviews and telephone calls. After the first chapter, we learn about more houses that have these weird characteristics in their layout, and the theory behind the meaning of these layouts grows and grows as the narrator and his friend start comparing the various houses and their floorplans, and guess what the purpose of these houses are. The idea behind the other houses after the first chapter are quite similar in a way, so they aren't as surprising, but part of that is explained due to the connection these places have. But I do feel the ending isn't as satisfying as the set-up of this book. As mentioned, the first chapter really manages to capture the uneasy feeling of an urban legend with the seemingly normal, but actual abnormal floorplan, and even though the narrator and his friend arrive at a theory, you don't really get solid confirmation about whether they are really correct or not, so that feeling of uneasiness stays. But in the last chapter, we do get full confirmation about everything, which is I guess suitable for a normal mystery story, but this was more a horror mystery tale, and in this specific instance, I would have been content with just the idea of people coming up with elaborate theories based on the floorplans (whether they are real or not), as I think the "definite" answer leans a bit too "obviously" into the horror, while I liked it when it was less defined.

But on the whole, I quite enjoyed Hen na Ie as a short read with an original angle. The book is perhaps better as a horror story that uses mystery fiction "grammar" but the focus on the floorplans and also giving the reader a chance to look at the plans first to see if they can figure out what's wrong about the houses and what the meaning of that could be is entertaining, and as someone who loves floorplans in mystery fiction in general, I was pleasantly surprised. It's not a super deep mystery, but perfect as a short inbetweener.

Original Japanese title(s): 雨穴『変な家』

Camping-Out Murder

「真実はいつも一つ！」

『名探偵コナン』

 

"There's always only one truth!"

"Detective Conan"

 

I should probably point to the Honkaku-themed Discord server more often. Take a look there if you want to chat with other fans about mystery fiction, including (shin) honkaku stories!

By the time this review is published, the second season of the anime adaptation of Kyokou Suiri, also known as Invented Inference or In/Spectre should have started airing. Iwanaga Kotoko, seemingly a small girl ("woman!") with a glass eye and one prosthetic leg is in fact the Deity of Wisdom for youkai (all kinds of supernatural beings, spirits, etc.). She helps these supernatural beings whenever they were in trouble involving the human world, acting as arbitrator and detective. Sometimes it's having to come up with a reasonable excuse for problems caused by a rampaging spirit, sometimes a youkai is actually a witness to a suspect's alibi, but obviously, the youkai can't go to the (human) police. So this often leads to Kotoko having to create fake, but believable (human-world) explanations for events that occured with actual supernatural causes. Hence the title Invented Inference, for in this series, the truth is often clear from the start and explainable through supernatural means, but it's a rational fake solution Kotoko is after, and of course the solution still has to be based on "clues" in order to sound convincing to humans. The fifth book in this series by Shirodaira Kyou is titled Kyokou Suiri - Gyakushuu to Haiboku no Hi (2021) and also bears the English title Invented Inference Short Stories - Day of Counterattack and Defeat. I am not really sure why it is called "short stories" though, as it's basically a novel, even if the opening chapter isn't about the main case of the book. Kotoko and her boyfriend Kurou are surprised when they are contacted by the police, who are asking about Kurou's cousin Rikka who had been evading them ever since the events of the first novel. Rikka had been roaming Japan without a fixed address, but got involved in an accident and because Rikka had lived in Kotoko's home for some time before she moved out, they were contacted as the persons closest to her to confirm her identity. When they visit her, they learn she was involved in much weirder accident than the police believes it is. As far as the police know, Rikka happened to be out camping on a mountain and on her way up, she also met a group of four men who were also planning to camp on the mountain. Later that night, three men fell from a cliff and died, while a fourth man barely managed to survive his fall. Rikka found him and carried him all the way down the mountain. The police is of course investigating the death of the three men, but they could never imagine that the direct cause of their fall is...the vengeful spirit of a giraffe whose remains were kept at a shrine on the mountain, but which has been left unattended for ages. The men were suddenly assaulted in their camp by the rampaging giraffe spirit, causing their fall, and Rikka even faced off against the spirit herself, surviving due to her own supernatural powers. But now Rikka has been placed in the custody of Kotoko and Kurou again, Kotoko has to come up with an explanation for the curious fall of the three men, and also device a way to tame the rampaging giraffe.

 (I really shouldn't read a book and then wait... *checks notes* ...eight months before writing the review...)

This is most definitely the fifth book in a series. Yep. I wouldn't recommend anyone to read this entry as their first step into the world of Invented Inference, for while I think the underlying theme of this book is interesting, it won't work without having seen Kotoko work and do her thing in the previous stories, and the fact that this story is the first we actually see Rikka real-time is also a reason why a lot of the pay-off is in the fact this is the fifth book. We first learn about Rikka in the first novel, where she has already been evading Kotoko and Kurou, and while she pops up now and then in flashbacks, this is the first time we have a direct confrontation between these characters. However, a lot of how she acts and what she actually wants from Kotoko becomes a lot clearer with the knowledge we have of her from the previous flashbacks, so yeah, read this one in order.

But how is the book as a mystery?  Well, for one thing, it's actually a pretty short book (oh, so that's what "short stories" in the English title means?), so the whole set-up is a bit limited. We have one short prologue where we hear about a short case Kotoko once handled, which becomes important at the end again, but most of the book is about the 'mysterious' fall of four men, of which three died. Obviously, this isn't a normal accident, so you have to come up with something pretty convincing to explain three deaths, but fortunately for Kotoko, Rikka is actually very sharp too, and while she only met the party of four men once and later briefly talked with the man who survived the fall, saving him from the giraffe spirit, she actually managed to learn a lot about the dynamics between the four men, and has caught on the fact that something fishy was going on between them. This of course allows for Kotoko to come up with a plausible explanation for why three men ended up dead because we now know they weren't there just to camp. The focus in this tale is more on motive than anything else, I think. While the false solution is of course also based on physical evidence found at the camp and also on actions taken by the men, a lot of the mystery revolves around Kotoko having to explain why everyone acted the way they did on their trip, and how that eventually led to their deaths. While that is of course a matter very open to interpretation, interpretation is exactly what this series has always been about and that coupled with the physical evidence found to serve as support for her proposed "truth", it still feels fairly solid. As said, the mystery as it is set-up is really limited and it's not like we get that many different fake solutions proposed to explain the three deaths, but I do like how the supernatural elements really do play a very important role in the mystery. It's not just Kotoko having to explain away the ghost giraffe: some events that help explain what was going on between the four man at their camp are directly influenced by the presence of the supernatural on the mountain that fateful night, influencing the actions of the men and thus leaving "possibilities" for Kotoko to pick up to come up with a non-supernatural explanation. This concept of the supernatural creating possibilities for a non-supernatural explanation is really neat, and it works well here, especially as the reader is tempted to not think of the supernatural at all in order to come with a human explanation and just consider them anomalies.

The ending shines more light on why this book is also called the Day of Defeat and coupled with the first chapter and perhaps more importantly, the events from the previous four books, we are shown a kind of shifting point in the series, where it appears Rikka will join the main cast of Kotoko and Kurou, but that this will put pressure on Kotoko in her activities as the Deity of Wisdom and her absolute role as god in a world with inabsolute truths. This is more a thematic matter than directly involved in the mystery plotting of this series, but it might mean Kotoko will come up with slightly different kind of invented inferences in the future.

But while I liked Kyokou Suiri - Gyakushuu to Haiboku no Hi generally as a new entry in the series, it is really awfully short and feels more like an extended short story than a full novel. It is not the high point in the series and a lot of it only works because it expects you to have read the previous four volumes and be familiar with the trio of Kotoko, Kurou and Rikka. So it's not a book I will recommend as is: if you liked the first four books, yes, go read this one too, but otherwise, start with the beginning and just see how far you want to go with this series, and perhaps you'll end up here too.

Original Japanese title(s): 城平京『虚構推理 逆襲と敗北の日』

Invisible Green

To do such a thing would be to transcend magic. And I beheld, unclouded by doubt, a magnificent vision of all that invisibility might mean to a man—the mystery, the power, the freedom.

"The Invisible Man"

For some reason I thought the original 2020 paperback release of this book had a different cover with a more greenish tint, and the 2022 pocket release had similar, but different art with a more blueish tone, but it turns out they have the exact same cover...

I quite enjoyed the two novels by Atsukawa Tatsumi I read previously, so it was only a matter of time before I would try out his short stories, as I tend to prefer the the short story format when it comes to mystery fiction. Toumei Ningen wa Misshitsu ni Hisomu ("An Invisible Person is Lurking in the Locked Room") was originally published in 2020 and consists of four short mystery stories, which are all unrelated to each other. The only connection between the various stories is that each story has a clear source of inspiration: each story is book-ended with a short bibliography with the stories that served as inspiration or helped deepen his tale. Sometimes, the stories are directly based on the premise of the main inspiration source, sometimes it's just a single sentence that helped this imagination. If I had to voice a "complaint" about this short story collection however, is perhaps that it's rather short, and not having a real connecting theme between the four stories means that while I did generally enjoy all of them, the book as a whole doesn't really leave much of an impression. It's over before you know it and perhaps works well as an 'inbetweener' between longer books, but I think that for example in the future, if I were to refer back to this work, I am more likely to recommend a specific story from this collection, rather than the collection as a whole because everything is so disconnected away. This doesn't mean the book is bad, the opposite actually, but it somehow still lacks impact because it's all over too soon.

The title and opening story Toumei Ningen wa Misshitsu ni Hisomu ("An Invisible Person is Lurking in the Locked Room") is inspired by H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man and tells about a worldwide disease which makes people invisible. People slowly turn completely invisible, including their bodily fluids and human waste and for the moment, No permanent cure has been found yet, and society has learned to adapt to the people with invisibility condition. Modern society generally only works if everyone is visible, for even doing groceries or walking down the street can be difficult if people can't see you and constantly walk into you, so invisible people are expected to either use make-up to become visible, or take daily inhibitor pills that turn them visible again, The story starts with narration by an invisible married woman, who one day learns a professor at a nearby university is close to producing a permanent cure to the invisibility disease. The woman decides she needs to kill the professor and destroy his research, and plans his murder: her plan involves parking near the university, undress completely and in her invisible state, sneak inside the lab offices and kill the professor. She meticulously plans her deed, plotting which route to take so she won't bump into people, stop taking her inhibitor pills early in the week so she becomes invsible again, but masking that fact by wearing make-up and even making sure to have an easy to digest breakfast, as until the food is digested, you'd see food flying around. The woman manages to slip in the lab and indeed kills the professor, but then loud cries come from the other side of the door. At that moment, we switch to the viewpoint of the husband, who first thought his wife might be cheating on him and hired a private detective to trail her, and eventually, the two realized the woman was planning to kill the professor. They arrived at the lab just after the murder occured, and together with two students, they enter the room and immediately lock it behind them, for they know the murderer, the invisible murderer must still be inside the room. And thus starts a game of cat and mouse, where the four men try to catch the invisible murderer hiding in the lab, while our murderer knows that if she manages to escape this locked room, they can never prove she killed the professor.

An incredibly fun premise and it's almost a shame this is a short story, because there is a lot of potential for more! Because of the relatively short length of the tale, the game of cat and mouse is over pretty soon, but it's a fun one: the four men know the murderer is somewhere in the room as the professor is dead and nobody had opened the door since he was last seen alive by his students, but it's a pretty spacious lab with desks for the various students, so how are they going to find an invisible person here? They try all kinds of things to search the spacious room, but also have to be careful she doesn't attack them suddenly in an attempt to escape. Meanwhile, the invisible woman has staked all her bets on one attempt to escape this room, and it's a pretty daring one and while after a while, you probably start to guess what she's doing, it's a perfectly well-clewed solution to her situation. But it's all over rather soon, and you just wish Atsukawa had done more with the idea of the invisibility disease. Perhaps as a follow-up novel?

Rokunin no Nekkyou Suru Nihonjin ("Six Enthusiastic Japanese") is inspired by Mitani Kouki's play 12nin no Yasashii Nihonjin ("Twelve Gentle Japanese"), itself a parody of the film Twelve Angry Men. In Twelve Angry Men, we had jury members in a murder trial who were immediately convinced of the defendant's guilt, 12nin no Yasashii Nihonjin started with the jury members all being convinced the defendant is not guilty, so what is this story about? The narrator is a professional judge, who together with two other professional judges and six lay judges are deliberating over a murder trial. The defendant and victim were both fans of the idol group Cutie Girls, and they had been travelling together to attend to a two-day event of Cutie Girls. The victim had been murdered in their room at an inn, apparently they were watching a DVD of Cutie Girls together when they started arguing resulting in an unfortunate lethal blow. Initially, most lay judges seem to agree the defendant is guilty as he has confessed to the crime, but one isn't convinced, and as he starts zooming in on all kinds of facts at the crime scene, the others are slowly won over and together, they arrive at a rather surprising solution... This story is really funny, and definitely intended as a kind of parody. The crime scene is rather unique in that the story utilizes a lot of "idol otaku props", like glow sticks, idol calls and more, and you get surprisingly deep deduction chains about something like the proper way to store a glow stick. The big climax of the story is really something you have to behold, and while I think that the individual deductions are not super memorable, the "punchline" of this story definitely is.

Touchou Sareta Satsujin ("The Tapped Murder") introduces us to Mimika, a young woman who works at a detective agency and who has superior powers of hearing, being able to make out the smallest of noises. But that's all she can do however, so usually, it is her boss who has to make the connections based on the evidence Mimika heard. Their current case however, is special. For the last week, they had been investigating Kunisaki Chiharu, whose husband suspected she was cheating on him. With the help of the husband, they planted a teddy bear with a sound recorder inside it in the sitting room, but one day Chiharu was killed in the sitting room. When the teddy bear was discovered, the detective agency of course became a momentary target of investigation by the police, so now Mimika's boss wants Mimika to help clear their name. The teddy bear had indeed recorded the moment of the actual murder, and while listening to the audio file, Mimika hears a faint dissonant tone, but she can't figure out what the noise exactly is. Because they know the husband himself was actually also cheating on his wife himself, they suspect he might be the murderer, and they come up with an excuse to visit the apartment and the crime scene again, with Mimika trying to figure out what the dissonant tone was she heard during the murder and whether it can help them solve this case. This is a story that I really would have wanted to experience as an audio drama! The mystery of the dissonant tone and other hidden "audio" clues in the audio file are all fairly clever, though I do think more clues pointing directly to the murderer would've been nice, but reading about these clues you were supposed to hear does make it feel a bit less impressive than I think it should be. Definitely a fun take for a mystery story though. In fact, it's a shame you don't really have "direct-to-audio" mystery fiction...

Dai 13-gou Senshitsu Kara no Dasshutsu ("Escape from Cabin 13") is inspired by Jacques Futrelle's The Problem of Cell 13, but with a very modern twist: escape rooms! Kaito is a high school student who is attending a special invitation-only preview of an escape room event of the popular series Great Detective Sakuragi. The murder game event is held on a ship and has the participants solve a series of puzzles which will eventually lead them to the identity of the murderer. At the event, Kaito runs into his classmate Masaru, with whom he has a kind of a rivalry going. Masaru and his younger brother Suguru are sons of a wealthy family who happen to be sponsoring this event, which landed them the special invitations. During the game however, Kaito and Suguru are abducted by men dressed as sailors and held captive in Cabin 13, while for some reason Masaru keeps on playing the escape room game. Why were Kaito and Suguru captured, can they escape their predicement and why is Masaru still playing the game? I believe this is the longest story in the collection, and it is pretty "busy": we have Kaito and Suguru trying to figure out how to escape the cabin, but meanwhile Masaru is playing the escape room event as planned, so we get the four puzzles in the event to solve ourselves too. Of course, the big surprise is to see how these two plotlines eventually connect back together again, and while I do like the basic ideas behind this story, it somehow didn't quite work for me. The plot of the story is a bit reminscent of Detective Conan treasure hunts, with a few puzzles with a hidden meaning behind them, and while I like the big connection that is revealed, the actual puzzles of the escape room didn't really interest me (they are also discussed rather briefly), while the escape attempts from Cabin 13 also move rather slowly. 

As mentioned in the introduction, I think Toumei Ningen wa Misshitsu ni Hisomu on the whole has some pretty good stories: three of the four I really like, and I don't really dislike the last either. But the stories are all very short, so especially the first story feels like it has an underutilized premise and because the book is so short, I also kinda hesitate recommending this in this specific form, as a short story collection. I will gladly point to the title story if I happen to be talking about invisible murderers in the future, but perhaps some of these stories will make their way into an anthology or something like that, and you might as well read them there then. 

Original Japanese title(s): 阿津川辰海『透明人間は密室に潜む』:「透明人間は密室に潜む」/「六人の熱狂する日本人」/「盗聴された殺人」/「第13号船室からの脱出」