Phantom of the Knight

"Only you can put the king in check, vigilante. Move according to the rules, or it's the end of the day."

"Batman: The Animated Series"

I wish we could return to the schedule of having three or four new Detective Conan volumes a year instead of the barely two we get now...

It's been about six months since we last saw a new Detective Conan volume so here we have volume 104. I am not really sure why they didn't time the home video release of this year's theatrical release, Kurogane no Submarine, with this volume, as there's a gap of over a month now even though they are usually quite good at timing these kinds of releases, but this is the way things go, and what do we have this time? A very, very disappointing volume indeed, that is only kinda saved by one story, but also not really. The volume opens with The Knight Was Witness, where we learn Inspector Shiratori is participating in an amateur chess competition. His girlfriend Kobayashi is there to cheer him on, as is fellow teacher Wakasa, and their pupils the Detective Boys. They also run into Kuroda, the Managing Officer of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police (so Shiratori's superior), who also turns out to be quite the mean chess player. During the first round, someone plays Amazing Grace, which seems to unsettle a few of the players, who say something similar happened last year too. During the down-time between rounds, a few players who finished their games early chat and have some drinks, but then one person in the room suddenly has his drink shot into fragments by an crossbow arrow! Kuroda and Conan run into the hallway in the hopes of finding the assailant, but they onyl find a second victim in the men's bathroom, who not only has an arrow shot in his stomach, but next to him lies his belongings.... and a keychain figure of a Knight's piece, which Kobayashi had gifted Shiratori earlier.  He claims he lost the figure and that he had been making a call at the stairs. Security footage confirms nobody took the elevators after the victim arrived at the floor, limiting the number of suspects to three, plus Shiratori, who seems to be the main suspect considering his keychain was found next to the victim. But what are those blood smears in that magazine of the victim?

A dying message of course, and not a very interesting one either. Wordplay dying messages are seldom my favorite, and one major clue that serves as a kinda twist is telegraphed with such enormous lights, it's hard to miss. The story also seems only to be an excuse to serve as a prologue to the next story: Kuroda sees Conan solving the riddle of the Knight so fast, he decides to confide to Conan about an incident he got involved with 17 years ago in the United States, involving a bloody knight's piece...

And fans who have been reading Conan this whole time of course know what Kuroda's finally going to tell Conan about, as we have been getting hints about a murder case involving a wealthy person that occured 17 years ago for a long time ago, and we know the incident also involved Rum, the second-in-rank in the Black Organization that created the drug that shrunk Kudo Shinichi to his current child-form, forcing himself to play the role of Conan. We also know other suspicious figures were involved one way or another with this case, but not exactly how, so in The Truth of 17 Years Ago, we finally get the story told completely, via flashbacks of both Kuroda and Rum themselves, who has plans to assassinate a certain person involved with this incident. The case involves the death of the wealthy Amanda Hughes, an elderly lady with both financial and political powers, who is also an amateur chess player who recently became friends with a young, but very talented shogi player. She has caught the attention of a certain crime organization however, who plan to assasinate her at her hotel, where the shogi player is also staying. She indeed ends up dead, and others fall victim too to the organization, but Amanda left one curious message as she died, leaving lipstick on her watch and smearing her blood on a knight's piece on her chess board. Kuroda now hopes Conan can solve this message for him.

While this incident taking place 17 years ago is important in Conan-lore as it connects several characters to each other, and also clarifies the actions and motives of a lot of the characters finally (we only got hints and fragments telling us about that before), The Truth of 17 Years Ago is not a very interesting story mystery-wise. Not at all. The fact we got another dying message involving a knight's piece one after another doesn't really help, but the message as Conan solves it doesn't even really tell either Kuroda much, nor the reader: because the reader is also shown flashbacks of Rum (who was involved in the murder 17 years ago), we know exactly what occured when Amanda died, and while Kuroda and Conan didn't know, the message that is decyphered doesn't tell them much in the first place, and it tells us the reader absolutely nothing noteworthy, as we already know the contents of that message via Rum's own flashbacks! So as a mystery, the story isn't interesting at all. There's a secondary plot, where in the current day, we see Rum bossing his sniper assassins Chianti and Korn around to assassinate a certain person, but this plot point also didn't really work for me, because for some reason Conan, after hearing about Kuroda's story, somehow guesses an attempt at this person's life might be made this very moment, and while that is, miraculously, really the case, there is no way Conan could've known that Rum would attempt such a thing on that day at that time, and not on any other day. The created tension thus feels very fake, and ultimately, this story offers nothing mystery-solving-wise. It is just a gigantic lore dump. Which makes this story a must-read for people who want to follow the story, but that is the only reason why you'd be reading this story.

The Ghost Tale of the Man-Eating Classroom is set at Teitan Elementary, where a new transfer student in the class next door has been telling the kids the tale of a ghost who roams classrooms, demanding for food or else it will cause fires or destroy pots and things. Some kids believe him, though Conan is of course sceptical. But then, during lunchtime, the flower bed just outside the classroom catches fire! While Haibara manages to quickly stop the fire with water from a vase with flowers, Conan suspects it's certainly not a ghost who set fire to the flower bed and he even has an idea of what people in the class might have a reason for causing an incident, but on the other hand, nobody saw anybody near the flower bed before the fire started, and besides some burned chips, he also can't find evidence somebody set up some time-mechanism to set fire to the flowers (so the culprit wouldn't need to be there at the time the fire started). The story is... okay? I don't think the fire incident meshes that well with the ghost story (which is more about a ghost demanding food or else it gets hangry) and there's no way you're going to figure out howdunnit based on the hints given, but I think that as a whodunnit, it worked surprisingly well, because the howdunnit feels very natural in relation to the culprit (i.e. the actual means available to that person to create this incident), as well as the whydunnit. As in, the way the incident was started fitted well with the classmates of Conan as we know them from previous stories and also with their characters, so it didn't come out of nowhere. But still, the actual howdunnit is a bit lacking in clues, and there's just no way you'd arrive at that conclusion based on those hints.

Volume 104 ends with the first chapter focusing on Heiji and Kazuha taking the train with... Momiji (Kazuha's rival in love) and her butler, who seems to get involved in a rather mysterious incident while on the train. I am actually curious to how this story will develop further, but we'll have to wait for next year, when the next volume is released...

Anyway, Detective Conan 104 was not one of my favorite volumes of this series. The main story is important lore-wise, but not interesting at all as a standalone mystery tale, and the other two stories which are fully included in the volume are not very memorable either, either because it's another far-fetched dying message, or simply because it was a story that is intentionally not very big: you usually have such "smaller" stories after bigger event stories, which The Truth of 17 Years Ago technically is, and while I understand not all can be as good in bringing a lore-important, action-packed story while also providing a good mystery as volume 100's The FBI Serial Murder Case, this is the other end of the extreme, where it focuses so much on finally conveying some context to an event that had been hinted at over the course of many years, to the extent it forgets to be interesting as a standalone mystery too. Let's hope volume 105, scheduled for next year (probably when the new film releases in April), is better!

Original Japanese title(s): 青山剛昌 『名探偵コナン』第104巻 

J.B. as in Jailbird

あなたの声で just next stage resume and "Revive"

「Revive」（倉木麻衣）

 

In your voice, just next stage resume and "Revive"

"Revive" (Kuraki Mai)

Never again...

Allow me to tell you about a person, who read the 2004 book Kangokutou ("Prison Island") by Kagami Masayuki in March, wrote a lengthy review of the like-wise very lengthy book and had scheduled the post to be published in August. This same person tried to edit something in the week before the post was to be published... and accidentally wiped the entire text of the post. And then the empty post was saved, overwriting the previous saved document. 

Sigh.

That person was me. For the first time in over ten years of blogging, I wiped an entire post that was ready and everything. And just the week before it was about to be published. And some months had passed since I had actually read the book and written the post, meaning I honestly didn't remember all the things I wrote about in the post. Today, I bring a post I can guarantee is not even half of what I wrote about originally, and in a way, it's just me trying to squeeze out the little I do remember out of me. At this stage, I honestly don't feel like re-reading the book anymore, so I am afraid that this, for both me and the readers here, will be the non-optimal solution, but I guess it's the best I can for now...

Charles Bertrand, the brilliant Paris magistrate feared by all criminals has a past working for the French secret service during World War I. His old superior, Nathan de Eagleroche is now the head of the Parisian police and has a very special mission for Bertrand, with a very personal connection. Alexei Baldwin was a legendary criminal operating on both sides of the Canal, but who was eventually captured by a joint effort between the police forces of Britain and France: in particular it was Bertrand on the French side, and John Carterbone on the British side who managed to capture Baldwin during a raid, but during this attack, Bertrand fatally shot Baldwin's lover, who was carrying their unborn child. Baldwin was sentenced to a life-time in prison, but he swore he'd get revenge on Bertrand and Carterbone for destroying his operation and killing his loved ones. Baldwin was shipped off to St. Tantoine, an island just off the coast of Marseille, which once housed a castle, but holds a prison complex, as well as a closed-off mine. de Eagleroche has received anonymous information something is going on at the Tantoine Penitentiary Complex, and there are also signs a new smuggling operation is going between Great Britain and France making use of the old routes the Baldwin gang used, so that makes de Eagleroche nervous. He convinces Bertrand to join him in a visit to the island, and they'll also be joined by John Carterbone. But because they don't want to alert the people at the prison, they pretend it's a normal observational visit, which is why Patrick Smith, Bertrand's nephew and chronicler joins the trip, as well as two British art researchers, who truly believe they are here at the island because they have been given an opportunity to examine the parts of the medieval fortress still left on the island.

Arriving on the island, Bertrand wishes to see Baldwin, who is kept in a building seperate from the other prisoners, as the director of the prison claims Baldwin has a certain way to almost hypnotize people to do his bidding, and not even the guards are allowed to have too much contact with him. Carterbone and Bertrand are allowed to meet Baldwin, who however claims something will happen that night. The following morning, one of the prison director's head guards is found dead inside the building where Baldwin was kept: the door was locked from the inside, and what's more, Baldwin himself has gone missing! The director hopes to have Baldwin found on the island quickly, as he doesn't want to inform the mainland authorities about his failure, and fortunutely for him, a storm does prevent them from getting help for the moment. Guards are sent out to comb the island for the escaped criminal, but during this hunt, more mysterious murders occur like a prisoner ending up chopped up in pieces in his cell, a doctor getting hanged from the main tower, and a man suddenly bursting out in flames. Is this the work of Baldwin and will Bertrand be his final target?

Kangokutou was the second novel by Kagami Masayuki, an author who made his "big" debut in 2002 with Sougetsujou no Sangeki ("The Tragedy at the Twin Moon Castle"), but died early in 2013 in his early fifties. His debut novel was very strongly inspired by John Dickson Carr's work, and his detective, Charles Bertrand in particular was modeled after Henri Bencolin, sharing the same background story of being French spymasters turned magistrates and having an American narrator. Kangokutou was a very ambitious sequel, which is reflected in its incredible length, which is easily double the first book. The version I read consists of two volumes of over 500 pages each, in double columns. In a regular pocket release, this would probably put the book well over 1200 pages. Earlier this year, I read Tsukatou Hajime's Misshitsu Kingdom (Kingdom of the Locked Room), which was also around 1200 pages, so for some reason I ended up reading two of these impossible crime epics in one year...

I praised Sougetsujou no Sangeki for being nothing but a homage to Carr, where you could tell Kagami just thought: "I am going to write 1930s style mystery story, exactly like Carr would have done and do it on those terms alone!" and succeeded in that goal. If you had told me the book had in fact been a 1930s book, I would have believed you immediately, and the book was refreshing, knowing it was written in a period in Japanese mystery fiction where a lot of books relied on being a lot more meta-conscious, whereas Kagami played the game as straight as possible. That can be said of Kangokutou too, which is a very straighforward novel despite its length. During their stay on St. Tantoine, several impossible murders occur, while a manhunt is also being held on the island to capture the escaped Baldwin. The island is quite spacious, as it houses more than just the old fortress which now functions as a prison complex, with a big cross-shaped prison with an observation tower and four wings spreading from it as its main attraction. Further away from the prison is a lighthouse as well as an old mine which is now abandoned, because of a cave-in some years earlier, but that does mean there's plenty of place to hide for an escaped convict. Due to the very open nature of the island though, and the fact we hear about a lot of guards (about thirty) who never get a named role, but of whom we know are on the island and participate in the manhunt or otherwise in guarding the prisoners, the story never takes on the role of a closed circle mystery by the way. While the island and the prison is a bit creepy, and there's even a ghastly backstory involving the building where Baldwin is held, the island never feels really dreadful, because it somehow feels rather open as a mystery, with many people walking about in the background who just aren't important enough to earn a name. The book seems a bit claustrophobic at first, but as the story continues, you realize the place is pretty open.

Kangokutou is a long novel, and a lot happens during their stay on the island. In fact, while the story takes two volumes to tell, the denouement of the story happens about half-way through the second volume, meaning you get nearly 300 pages dedicated solely to explaining everything that's been going on. The mysteries range from murders happening in a locked room (cell) and someone assaulting Patrick and escaping unseen to a case of spontaneous combustion. I don't quite remember the details (because... I deleted the original post), but I think Bertrand has to address about ten different mysteries during his explanation of the case, all of them occuring on the island. I think I can safely say right away that in general, Kangokutou impresses more with its number of impossible crimes, than the actual quality. Not that all of them are bad, but of the ten or so mysteries, you can bet more than a few of mysterious deaths in locked rooms relied on Ye Olde Thread and Needle Trick. I am not against them per se, but having multiple of them in one book can feel tiring. 

There are some bigger set-pieces that are more memorable though. The spontaneous combustion, which involves one of the guards suddenly catching fire out of nowhere while standing at the central guard tower is clewed pretty cleverly for example, even if the trick itself is a bit forced. This type of clewing is hard to do I think in a book, but it works quite well here, and you really don't notice it until it's pointed out to you. The biggest set-piece involves the death of a prisoner in his cell and how the murderer managed to escape despite Patrick in the neighborhood of the supposed escape route. While I think the clues pointing to the trick were telegraphed a bit too obviously, which in turn then point too directly to one character, the trick itself is good. I have seen different variations on the same principle, but I always like it when it's executed in a succesful manner, as it requires a lot of planning plot-wise. I did miss some kind of synergy between the various impossible crimes. I wish some of them had a stronger connection between them, but more often than not, the impossible crimes in Kangokutou are discrete instances, and very little data pertaining to one incident, will have any bearing on another incident. That is something that kinda works agains the length of this book, because for the longest time, you just feel like you're reading seperate events that just happen to be happening on the same island, rather than one big epic.

The escape of Baldwin from his private prison, and the way he stays hidden on the island afterwards is probably the most memorable part of the book. He disappears fairly early on in the book after announcing something will happen on the night of Bertrand's arrival on the island, and indeed, the way he spirits himself away from the prison, leaving only a dead guard behind, is mystifying. The solution to how he got away is in hindsight so simple, but clewed cleverly through small actions and conversations. It is quite daring, as if, unlike me, you happen to think of the solution, it'll probably seem very obvious where he's hiding the way things work out, but I quite liked the gambit Kagami played. Kangokutou is quite stuffed, and while I don't think any of the tricks seen here are on their own as memorable as the first murder in Sougetsujou no Sangeki, I think that, keeping in mind some of these murders feel less developed, still an enjoyable murder mystery overall, even if none of them are truly jaw-droppingly amazing.

Oh, and by the way, I wouldn't recommend reading Kangokutou as a whodunnit. At the end, there are just too few suspects who made significant appearances, and were actually given names, who are still alive! The body count is fairly high in this book... I also think Kagami tried a bit too hard to come up with a surprising culprit despite this, because the build-up to the motive/backstory for the culprit is more than bit forced, relying on a lot of coincidence all somehow gathering on St. Tantoine on those days. Surely at the end, a lot of it almost fell comical, in a Mission Impossible-esque manner, where there had to be a surprising twist/connection behind everything.

As mentioned in the introduction, I wrote this replacement post months after reading the book and writing the first post, so I forgot about a lot of the points I did made originally, but overall, I think Kangokutou was an interesting follow-up novel to Kagami's debut. It continues the very much Carr-inspired atmosphere, this time (mainly) set in a prison on a small isolated island, and while not every single mystery is memorable on its own, the fact Kagami managed to stuff this adventure with so much mysteries to solve is already impressive. It's certainly one of the longer impossible crime-focused mystery novels, and people with an interest in Carr will probably find a lot to like about the book. In fact, I read later Sougetsujou no Sangeki was specifically modeled after Castle Skull, so I have a feeling someone with more Carr-reading experience than me might notice more Carr references in this novel too.

Original Japanese title(s): 加賀美雅之『監獄島』

The Adventure of the Secret Partner

Sparking!!

"CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA" (影山ヒロノブ）

 

Sparking!!

"CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA" (Kageyama Hironobu)

I do love my Detective Pikachu tote bag and mug I got with the game... I wish more mystery media had merchandise...

Two years ago, Tim Goodman moved to Ryme City in search of his father Harry, a private detective who went missing. Tim teamed up with his father's partner Pikachu, who turns out to be able to talk, though Tim is the only person who can understand him. The coffee-addicted Pikachu suffers from memory loss and can't quite remember how Harry disappeared, or explain why he can talk with Tim, but the two work together to find Harry and in their search for leads, they manage to protect the city from a nefarious plot involving "R", a drug that could make Pokémon go wild. Two years later, Tim and Pikachu still haven't managed to find Harry, but the city has finally recovered from the major incident: Tim and Pikachu are to be awarded for their efforts by the city, which is also launching a new campaign to promote itself as a city where humans and Pokémon live together. The ceremony however is disturbed by a Corviknight, a gigantic black raven-like Pokémon , swooping in on the podium. Is someone using R again to control Pokémon? As Tim and Pikachu investigate the case, they slowly learn this all is tied to Harry's disappearance, and with the first real lead in two years, they are determined to learn about Harry's fate in the Nintendo Switch game Kaette Kita Meitantei Pikachu (2023) or Detective Pikachu Returns.

When I first wrote about Detective Pikachu in 2016, I honestly didn't expect it would take so many years for us to finally get the whole story. It was in 2016 when the Japan-exclusive, download-only Meitantei Pikachu ~ Shin Combi Tanjou ("Detective Pikachu ~ Birth of a New Duo") was released on the Nintendo 3DS, which first introduced us to Tim and Pikachu, and brought us the first detective game within the Pokémon franchise. I truly hope I don't have to explain what Pokémon is, but in short: Pokémon is a gigantic media franchise that started with videogames, but also features animated series, theatrical releases and muuuuuuch more. The games are about the titular Pokémon (Pocket Monsters), about 1000 different species of creatures with special powers. People use them for a variety of activities, from pets to using them for Pokémon fights and having them help with work. Pikachu, the best known Pokémon for example, is a yellow mouse species of the Electric type, capable of generating electricity for attacks. Meitantei Pikachu ~ Shin Combi Tanjou ("Detective Pikachu ~ Birth of a New Duo") was the first time a mystery adventure game had been made with Pokémon, but this release was basically only a preview: it was about three chapters long, and stopped just after Tim and Pikachu got their very first lead. It would take another two years before the first full game was released on the 3DS. It turned out the 2016 release was really just the first third of the final product Meitantei Pikachu (Detective Pikachu), a game which I quite enjoyed as a detective game set in the Pokémon world, as it actually did interesting things by combining the concept of Pokémon (creatures with unique powers) with puzzles and a mystery plot. But while the game did provide a full story, the disappearance of Harry was not resolved yet at the end of the game, so we had to wait for a sequel. Which took a long time to come. A live-action film of Detective Pikachu was released in 2019, which did provide a full story, but of course, it didn't follow the game exactly, so I always wanted to see how the story would be resolved in the games. And now it's 2023, and we finally have our answers!

Detective Pikachu Returns is a direct sequel to the 3DS game, with many references to events and characters from the first game. While not absolute necessary, it is recommended to play that one first as the two games do form one single narrative. Going back to my own reviews of the 3DS releases, I would say that this new release is still very similar to the previous release in terms of gameplay. During their hunt for answers, Tim and Pikachu constantly come across problems they have to solve or mysteries that need to be explained, ranging from identifying a thief to finding a way through a hidden temple. After collecting both physical evidence and witness testimony at the scene, Pikachu will lead Tim through some questions to see if they can solve their conundrum (= testing the player). Once the problem is solved, the story progresses, bringing new locales and new challenges for the duo. Rinse and repeat. This was how it worked in the 3DS games, and how it works now. It is not a very challenging game by any means, though that is also because it is clear this is aimed at a younger audience, and it works perfectly fine as a "first mystery adventure game". You usually just find all the necessary evidence and testimony, and then Pikachu will condense that information in usually three or four "hypotheses" based on everything you know. Of course, only one of them will be correct, while the others wrong. A game for an older audience would probably implement a step between that, where the player themselves has to use the evidence first to create a hypothesis, and then have those hypotheses as possible solutions, but again, this is for children, and thus I don't really see a problem with the game condensing this process a bit, as the proposed solutions by Pikachu are still logically based on the evidence you collected, both the correct and false solutions, and at least the questions and their related answers make sense, unlike Detective Conan: The Mirapolis Investigation, which for some reason always had questions that didn't precisely match up with the correct answers, leading to frustrating gameplay. This game adds some moments not found in the first game, where Pikachu teams up with other Pokémon to solve puzzles, like having to shove boxes to clear a way like Sokoban, but these moments don't really add very much in terms of gameplay.

Detective Pikachu is unique in the sense we get Pikachu as a partner, who can communicate with other Pokémon. Mystery-wise, you can just think of Pokémon as intelligent animals with specific powers, or perhaps even as yokai and this opens up possibilities for interesting mysteries. In a "normal" detective story, you can't really have people ask random animals whether they saw the culprit pass by, or whether they themselves were part of a criminal plot, but in this game, it is possible. Pokémon all have unique special powers, which allow for unique mystery plots a we have Pokémon who can fly, turn invisible, can see through walls and all of that, but at the same time, for basically all people who know Pokémon, this still results in a fair play detective story, as this is all shared knowledge: we all know Pikachu can use electric attacks, we all know Gengar is a ghost. It's not secret I love mystery fiction with supernatural/magical elements in them, and Detective Pikachu is really no different from that, heck, I'd say it even feels fairer to a lot of people, because players know the world of Pokémon and their position in the fictional society very well.

That is also why however I was a bit disappointed this game had so many chapters that focused less on providing such mystery plots. The second and fourth chapter don't really have a clear main mystery, and are also set in locations further away from society, resulting in not very interesting plots mystery-wise, and the way Pokémon are involved with them. The second chapter in particular is a bit more puzzle-focused, where you are just exploring a ruin, and constantly solving minor puzzles to clear the way so you can move deeper in. In the original 3DS game too, the best parts were those where Pokémon were used in human crimes, set in very human-filled locations, and that's the same case here, only it's a minority of the cases in Detective Pikachu Returns that deal with that. The first case is probably the case that adhers to this preferred model the most, dealing with a jewel theft from a large mansion, with Tim and Pikachu having to deal with both human and Pokémon suspects, and investigate who'd have the opportunity and means to pull off the crime. A later chapter involves a gigantic wave of Pokémon causing trouble in Ryme City, leading to them being detained by the Pokémon Protection Bureau, the police-equivalent for Pokémon. These Pokémon however claim they are innocent of the crimes they are accused of, and Tim and Pikachu work slowly to verify their alibis and try to figure out whether someone is setting these Pokémon up and why. These plots are the most fun, as you see a lot more of how Pokémon are integrated in human society and how their powers could be used for crimes, or for solving crimes, which is something you sometimes see depicted in the anime, but less so in other Pokémon games (which focus for example more on trainer battles, or collecting Pokémon etc.). But I have to say, on the whole, I do think the 3DS game was better in terms of balance, as Detective Pikachu Returns just dedicates less time of its playtime to these mystery plots, as the more story-drived episodes are more about solving minor obstacles on Tim and Pikachu's way, rather than about solving things like impossible crimes.

It's also a missed opportunity the side quest mechanic wasn't used more extensively. You can now help other people and Pokémon who have their own problems while you're working on a case, but besides them mostly being (cute) fetch quests, each chapter usually confines you to a certain location (with several sublocations), and you don't really get to revisit locations from previous chapters. Which I don't really understand, as many locations are actually interconnected, so making the game a bit more "open-world"-esque would really not have changed much, but for example, you can enter certain streets in the first chapter, but which are closed off in the third chapter. Just keeping everything open would have made for a more lively setting, and also allowed for more interesting side-quests spanning chapters, or for example still offer minor human-crime mysteries even if the chapter's main focus is on a human-lite setting.

Story-wise, the game does finally provide a conclusion to the quest of Tim and Pikachu looking for Harry, so in that sense, I'd definitely still recommend this game to anyone who played the 3DS game. People who have seen the live-action film will probably recognize a lot of the cues in Detective Pikachu Returns, and it seems likely the producers of that film already had access to a rough outline of the events of this game, but still, the games are their own world, and I still had fun playing the game. Also, the game is cute. Really cute. I took soooo many screenshots of this game, just of Pikachu babbling, making funny comments or simply walking around.

Detective Pikachu Returns is undeniably a very simple mystery adventure game, but I don't ever think it ever aspired to be anything but that, and while I do think the 3DS game was the better mystery game overall, I did have fun playing this game and finally finding out what happened to Harry together with Tim and Pikachu. While I can't deny I would have wanted to see more of the human-Pokémon society-focused crimes in this game as they are by far the best moments of the series, I did enjoy my time in Ryme City again. It would be fun to see another Detective Pikachu game that would explore the potential of these supernatural-themed mysteries more, and perhaps aimed at a slightly older audience, but I can only hope! For now, I'm just glad we finally have closure after seven years!

Original Japanese title(s): 『帰ってきた　名探偵ピカチュウ』

The Organ Speaks

"It's not a ghost. It's a player piano."

"Scooby Doo, Where Are You?"

Speaking of man-eating pianos, go watch the Japanese horror film House!

Earlier this year, I reviewed Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna 2: Koutetsu Banchou no Misshitsu ("Spiral ~ The Bonds of Reasoning 2: The Locked Room of the Steel Gang Boss"), the second spin-off novel of the Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna or Spiral ~ The Bonds of Reasoning series, originally a a mystery(-themed) manga created by writer Shirodaira Kyou and artist Mizuno Eita which ran from 1999 until 2005. While the main series focuses on young prodigy Ayumu's adventures as he delves into the mystery of the "Blade Children", something his older brother was handling before his disappearance, the novel series seem quite detached from this main narrative, being set very early in the story chronology, when Ayumu has recently met the very nosy and busybody school newspaper club president Hiyono and they're often hanging out in the school club room, with Ayumu occasionally, despite him usually not really wanting to, getting involved in minor mysteries to solve. I started with the second book because I didn't have the first one yet and I knew the second one was particularly well-received, even beyond a Spiral audience, and it was funny how just a few weeks later, I read a completely different novel that actually started with a dedication to the second Spiral novel, showing how it really influenced some people. 

Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna 3: Elias Sauer no Hitokui Piano ("Spiral ~ The Bonds of Reasoning 3: The Man-Eating Piano of Elias Sauer"), once again written by Shirodaira Kyou and illustrated by Mizuno Eita, follows a similar set-up to the second novel, featuring a novella that was originally written for this book, as well as three short prequel stories Ayumu's brother Kiyotaka back when he was in the police force. These stories were originally published online and were often split in two, featuring a "Problem" part and a "Solution" part. These stories are pretty short, and I won't be discussing them here this time. They are usually fairly solid, but not particularly memorable puzzlers, and if you're a fan of the series, it might be fun to see Kiyotaka a bit more around, as he seldom appears in the main series. The main story however is about Ayumu and Hiyono of course, and starts with a girl who suddenly addresses Ayumu on the street. Curious Hiyono of course wants to know who she is, and despite Ayumu's attempts to ignore her, Hiyono eventually learns that the girl's called Yuzumori Fumio, and that the two used to go to the same piano school. A year ago, Ayumu apparently hlped Fumio with something, and Hiyono learns that this involved Fumio's grandmother Tamaki. She was a very unhappy woman. The Yuzumori clan was a very prominent family, but the son seemed not fit to lead such a family, being a failure business-wise, and having four children from a previous wife to care for. That is when his father decided he should marry Tamaki, who worked in one of the Yuzumori's businesses. She was an "ordinary" woman, but worked incredibly hard and was very intelligent, but burdened by her parents' debt. In exchange for relieving her parents of her debt, Tamaki was to marry into the Yuzumori family and become the mother of the four children. The marriage remained loveless however, and while it was undoubtedly her brains that allowed the Yuzumori business to grow, her personal life was never enrichened. She was married into the Yuzumori clan, but had no inheritence rights at all, and in fact possessed nothing at all, while she had no true blood relation with "her" children either. This seemed to have embittered the woman, which is why Fumio was always a bit afraid of her grandmother. 

One year ago, Fumio was called upon by her grandmother, who showed her a piano. She told Fumio the story behind the piano. Two centuries ago, it was found inside a ship which had sunk to the bottom of the sea during a storm. It had been sealed tight, so the piano itself was still intact, but when they opened it, they found the body of a young boy inside: Elias Sauer. Since the piano's recovery, it seems its owners constantly end up dead, with the piano's cover falling and breaking its victim's necks. But why did Tamaki tell Fumio this story, and does this have to do with her grandfather's death five years prior?

(Minor comment: by the time this review is posted, it'll be November. This is in fact the first book I finished in 2023 back early in January... I really have the bad habit of not writing reviews in time)

I called this a novella, but it's basically just a very short story. Interestingly, it has basically nothing to do with the main series of Spiral ~ The Bonds of Reasoning in terms of themes or style, like the previous book. It's like author Shirodaira just had these ideas for novels, but knew he couldn't get them published as standalone stories so just forced Spiral into them. So I wouldn't recommend these novels per se if you are looking for material similar to the main series, because they're not even similar, not even to the earlier chapters of the manga which had more of a 'case-of-the-week' structure. Interestingly, this story too features an narrative-within-a-narrative structure like the second novel. Whereas the second novel spun a whole outrageous history of gang wars between schools across Japan, this book comes with a creepy story of a man-eating piano which has killed several owners in the last few centuries.

Unlike the second novel however, there's no clear mystery in this story, and that's basically also what makes Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna 3: Elias Sauer no Hitokui Piano as a book, and as the title story, a bit... boring. After Fumio had been told about the piano, she became really afraid of the piano, but she never knew what her grandmother really wanted to accomplish by telling her that story. She only remembers her grandfather would also play this same piano, but he died some years ago, so what relevance could the story now have? But it's at this point already Ayumu basically arrives at an interpretation of the situation, and he confronts Tamaki about why the story was told to Fumio. It's a very straightforward story, relying on an intuitive mode like a Christie or Chesterton story, and because the solution basically follows immediately after.... no real mystery has been presented, the story feels a bit underwhelming as a tale of mystery and detection. I think the story might be more fun if it hadn't been a Spiral story, but just something completely independent of anything, but as it is now, it just reads as a very weird installment in a longer series, having next to nothing to do with the main series. It almost reads more like a horror story, and while I guess there is a twist, I didn't think this was a very remarkable story mystery-wise.

So I didn't like Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna 3: Elias Sauer no Hitokui Piano ("Spiral ~ The Bonds of Reasoning 3: The Man-Eating Piano of Elias Sauer") nearly as much as I did the previous book. It's just too little, and what is offered still doesn't provide for a very memorable mystery story. The extra short stories give the book a bit more content, but still, on the whole, this is not a very remarkable volume on its own, and certainly not a book I'd recommend to anyone who has not read Spiral, and even then, I wouldn't really make it a priority. I think my next one will be the first novel, before I tackle the last one because that one seems to have a slightly different set-up.

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3　エリアス・ザウエルの人喰いピアノ』

Castle Skull

We'll fight you in the harbor.

We'll battle you on land.

When you meet singing pirates... 

They'll be more than you can stand.

"The Curse of Monkey Island"

I sometimes hardly read the summary/blurb of a book, just buying a book based on knowing it includes certain tropes etc. So I actually thought this book would turn out very different. Based on the covers, I thought this book would be about an adventure-rich mystery odyssey across the seas!

The Island of Solon lies off the coast of the Kingdom of England, located between the British islands and Denmark. Technically, Solon consist of two islands, the Greater Solon Island, where the town is and economic activity takes place, and the Smaller Solon Island, where Aylwin Castle stands. Some generations ago, an Aylwin battled the Danes that lived on these islands, and since then, the Aywlin family has governed the islands in name of the Crown of England. Rolent Aylwin now leads the prosperous merchant island, but lately, he seems worried, and for some reason, he has summoned mercenaries to his castle. Amina, daughter of Rolent, spots Falk Fitzjohn at the harbor, and mistakenly assumes he and his disciple Nicola are mercenaries too, bringing them to her father where other mercenaries have gathered too. To her great surprise, it turns out her father has been expecting the Danes to attack the island in an attempt to take what was stolen from them, and the problem is: these Danes are not normal Danes but supernatural, immortal Danes. Rolent will pay handsomely however, so the various mercenaries agree to assist the very small troupe of soldiers stationed on the island to fight the Immortal Danes. Some like Konrad Neudorfer may just be a "normal" knight with his own troupe of men, but someone like Suwayd can actually use magic while Iter is a great bowman. Falk however is not a mercenary, and it turns out he is here for a completely different reason. 

Falk is a Knight of the Brotherhood of the Holy Ambrosius, and he has been hunting the Dark Knights: former members of the Brotherhood who have turned to the dark side, using magic to act as assassins. Falk has followed the trail of the dark knight Edric to the Solon Islands, and when he learns a loyal guard died "accidentally" only recently, Falk is convinced Edric has come here. Edric is a special kind of assassin, as he can use his magic to make someone his loyal puppet and have them kill someone, without his puppet ever remembering committing a murder. Falk suspects Edric might be after Rolent, and the following day, his fears are proven right: Rolent is found murdered in his war room, having been killed with a sword from the war room. There is little time to mourn Rolent's death however, as the Danes are coming. Amina's brother Adam, while character-wise perhaps not suitable, becomes the de-facto leader of the island and has to prepare the few soldiers on the island for the incoming attack, while Amina is given permission by her brother to investigate their father's murder. Because it seems very likely Edric was behind this, she asks Falk in turn to find out who committed the murder. This is easier asked than done however, as due to Edric's spell, not even the murderer will remember they commited the crime! Can the people of the Islands of Solon find the murderer and fight off the Immortal Danes in Yonezawa Honobu's Oreta Ryuukotsu (2010), also known as The Broken Keel? 

 The winner of the 64th Mystery Writers of Japan Award was touted as a mystery that combined a puzzle plot with a supernatural setting, something we have become quite accustomed too nowadays. While they have been around for a longer time, they were certainly less common in 2010, and I was quite curious to read this one, especially as it was set in a sorta historical Europe (England)... only with a little bit of magic. The world as depicted in The Broken Keel mostly follows real-life history, being set in the 12th century, and making references to the crusades and King Richard. But as mentioned in the introduction above, there's also a bit of magic in this world, ranging from a mercenary who can control a Golem, to Immortal Danes (there's a captured Immortal Dane in the Aylwin Castle who has been there for generations, ever since the Aylwins took the Solon Island) and of course the main problem of the book: a spell that can turn anyone into a murderer, without them knowing they are a murderer.

That said, the book is fairly long (two volumes in the pocket release), and for a great deal, the story reads as a fine historical fantasy book. We get a glimpse in the lives of the people living on the Islands of Solon, and we especially see much of Amina, daughter of the leader of the island, so in a lot of ways a very powerful and free woman, but at the same time completely chained to her own fate as the daughter of a wealthy family. The death of her father especially seems to seal her fate, as she knows her brother is not likely to be very thoughtful of her personal wishes when arranging her future in the form of a political marriage. Tagging along with Falk and Nicola while they investigate the suspects of the murder on Rolent is a way to break away from her usual life (...after the death of her father) and so we go on an adventure together with Amina.

And an adventure it is, as during their investigation, Falk will also occasionally find himself venturing into the seedier parts of town. Early on in the investigation, Falk is able to significantly reduce the number of suspects from the whole island of Solon to a much smaller number, as the Smaller Island of Solon is inaccessible during the night due to a treacherous stream which even the usual experienced ferry-man doesn't dare to overcome. The suspicion lies especially on the mercenaries: any of them could've been turned into an unknowing minion of Edric, being suddenly activated that night to kill Rolent and then forgetting everything. Edric's spell will also cause the minion to die after some time has passed after the murder, so it's a race against the clock to find the murderer, even if they themselves don't remember a thing. Edric's spell however is not an all-mighty spell: it does not make the minion smarter or suddenly capable of doing things they couldn't before. Thus Falk knows the murderer committed the murder in a manner that was actually possible for that specific person, giving him his first opening into the hunt for the minion and Edric behind them.

While Falk tries to interrogate every suspect on their movements on the night of the murder however, the trio of Falk, Nicola and Amina stumble upon a few more mysteries they have to solve on their way, but this only takes up more time as the Immortal Danes start to approach the island. It's around the half-way point of the story the story sets the mystery plot aside for a moment as it shifts a bit more towards a fantasy adventure mode where we finally see the Immortal Danes. Fortunately, I think the adventure parts of this book do not outweigh the mystery parts of the plot, something I did feel with A Case of Dragonslayer, which was more fantasy + a mystery element, rather than a mystery + a fantasy element. 

Ultimately though, despite the setting with Immortal Danes attacking the island and there definitely beign other magical elements (Edric's spell being the most important one), I don't think the fantasy elements are overwhelmingly "present" in the story, and it's almost a historical mystery with a hint of magic. As a mystery story, it does provide a satisfying plot where these minor magic elements do play a role together with other "conventional" clues. We are treated to a long deduction chain where one by one, suspects are eliminated from the list based on everything we know the culprit must have done that night to murder Rolent (and what they must have known or have been capable of doing, to be able to commit the murder). And yep, that includes criteria involving what magic can or can not do. That said, the concept of magic is fairly loose in this book, it's not like we actually know exactly how magic works or what magic in general is capable of, we are only told about the spells that are relevant to this particular plot, but it can feel a bit vague, which can fuel a sense of "unfairness" as we simply don't know if there could've been some other spell that could've been used or not, we only are told this is the only solution assuming we know all the relevant pieces. That is a minor gripe though, as overall, The Broken Keel is a pretty interesting fantasy mystery novel, with a rather unique setting. I think I still like Kokuroujou ("The Castle with the Dark Prison") AKA The Arioka Citadel Case AKA The Samurai and the Prisoner, better overall as a historical mystery, but I think The Broken Keel is also much more accessible.

You will certainly find books that go either deeper into the historical element or deeper into the fantasy element than Oreta Ryuukotsu/The Broken Keel does, but the combination of the two does give the book something unique. It certainly feels very different due to its original setting, and as a fantasy adventure novel, it's a very pleasant read, while at the same time offering a robust mystery plot that embraces the minor magic element it also has. Definitely a solid supernatural mystery, and I think this book in particular will also appeal beyond a mystery-reading audience, as it has enough fantasy-elements to attract readers there too.

Original Japanese title(s): 米澤穂信『折れた竜骨』

A Little Night Work

“I looked down at the chessboard. The move with the knight was wrong. I put it back where I had moved it from. Knights had no meaning in this game. It wasn't a game for knights.” 

"The Big Sleep"

Brown covers lately...

A few weeks back I wrote about Hikawa Tooru's debut novel Makkura na Yoake. Hikawa was strongly inspired by Ellery Queen, by not only using a same-named detective character who was an aspiring mystery author, but also by presenting the reader with a pure, logic-based whodunnit where a chain of deductions ultimately proves who the murderer was. Hikawa made his debut via the Mephisto Prize, which is awarded to unpublished authors (of novels), but Hikawa hadn't been keeping all of his eggs in one basket. As many starting novelists do in Japan, he had sent in different manuscripts to apply for different publishers' newcomer awards. He ended up winning via the Mephisto Prize, but that's what makes his second novel quite interesting. Misshitsu wa Nemurenai Puzzle ("A Locked Room is a Sleepless Puzzle", 2000) was actually originally a manuscript Hikawa had written for the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, where his story did made it to the final selection (alongside manuscripts by Tsukatou Hajime and Shirodaira Kyou among others!). It wasn't picked as the winner, obviously, but oddly enough it was later picked up not by Kodansha, through which Hikawa made his debut via the Mephisto Prize and who published his first novel. Even weirder is that this second book, of which the original title was Nemurai Yoru no Tame ni ("For A Sleepless Night"), was also not published by Tokyo Sogensha, the publisher behind the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award. It was Harashobo that published Hikawa's second book, and because of that, we end up with something that might annoy some people: Hikawa Tooru wrote five books in total starring his same-named detective, and four out of those five books are published by Kodansha under the same label as pockets. But this second book was published by a different publisher, in a complete different format, with a large hardcover format, so if you place this series in order on your bookshelf, this book will stand out a lot.

The book starts, not surprisingly, at night, at the offices of the publisher Touto Shuppan. Hikawa Tooru is having a meeting with his editor Komiyama, who is very enthusiastic about Hikawa's work and they're adding the final touches to Hikawa's book to have it published so Hikawa can finally make his debut as a novelist. The meeting turns into a normal chat, with some drinks Komiya keeps at the office, and they're occassionally joined by some other people who are still at the office late at night, like the part-timer Ueno and the managing director. When it's about time to leave the building, they get out of the editor's office. Hikawa happens to look down the hallway, where he sees the managing director step inside the elevator. He approaches the elevator, only to see another office worker lying on the floor just around the corner behind the elevator, nearly dying! The man's been stabbed, but manages to say he was stabbed by the managing director, who Hikawa just saw taking the elevator up to the executive floor on the sixth floor. Hikawa and his editor quickly decide to warn the guard and the other people still staying in the building, but then they learn the outside door has been blocked from the outside. A printer's salesman who had been visiting another editor and an artist elsewhere in the building for a final check on a cover, but has not been able to go out the building because something's blocking the door from outside. They learn the phone line's also been cut, meaning they're all trapped inside the building now, with a killer! But when the elevator is stopped again, they find.... the managing director also stabbed in the back inside, dead. But who could've killed the director, and why, and why did the director kill the first person?

Before you start asking me: yes, most of the time this book isn't about a locked room. The setting is a closed circle, and there are some impossible crime features to the crime, but most of the time, this book does not focus strongly on the impossible aspects of the crime.

Anyway, this was a book that felt very similar to the first, and also very different, and part of that is probably because this was originally written for a different type of newcomer award. This was originally written for the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award, and perhaps that is why this one feels far more puzzle-focused than the first novel, as the Mephisto Prize isn't as puzzle mystery-focused in general. This book also has something that really helped an aspect I found tiring in the first novel: the middle part was very slow, as a lot of time was spent just jumping between characters, with Hikawa occasionally dicussing theories with others and few revelations made until the very end. This book is a lot more interesting in that regard due to the closed circle situation. In the earlier parts, they try to find every person in the building, while being careful not to run into the managing director, but later, when the director himself is found dead in the elevator, things still remain tense because they really don't understand why he ended up dead too, and whether there is another killer in the building, or perhaps it turns out one of them is the killer (you can guess what the answer is). They also try to find ways to contact the outside world or to open the door, but this leads to some interesting observations regarding the closed circle. Because the door is locked from the outside, it means the killer is outside the building, right? Meaning this is the reversed idea of a locked room or a closed circle, being the killer who intentionally closes off a space to show they couldn't be inside during a certain period, and the discussions regarding this topic will appeal to mystery readers alike.

This leads me to another thing that made this book a lot more enjoyable in the middle parts than the first book, and that's the presence of a rival for Hikawa in the form of his edtor Komiyama. At least, he becomes a rival because this is the second book published, but if this had been the first book, I suppose you were supposed to think Komiyama was the real protagonist and that Hikawa was just a Watson? Komiyama, as an editor of mystery stories, is a great expert in mystery fiction and uses his knowledge to lead the investigation in the building, as they realize they can't escape anyway until the morning shift people arrive at the office and set them free. Hikawa himself too acknowledges Komiyama is actually a better detective than him, being more pro-active in both voicing his deductions and acting upon them. But because we as the reader know the true series detective Hikawa, there's a certain tension in these segments as you are waiting for Komiyama to make a mistake somewhere which Hikawa will correct. This makes the middle half a much more entertaining read than the first novel. Having a genre-savvy character around also allows for more indepth theorizing about the events, making this a far more puzzle-focused book.

The murders themselves, as in the acts themselves, in this book are quite plain and straightforward by the way, with people just being stabbed. So the puzzle is really focused on figuring out why the first person was stabbed by the managing director, and how the managing director ended up dead too (as he couldn't have committed suicide like that). There is as mentioned a minor impossible aspect to the story, as the back door was blocked from the outside fairly early on in the night (the front door is automatically locked outside of office hours, meaning people coming or leaving in the night have to take the back door, where the night guard is) and after the first murder, Hikawa sees the elevator move up to the sixth floor, until it is called down again and the managing director's body is found inside. Meaning that if there is an unknown murderer loose, they should be on the sixth floor, but when they go up the elevator to the sixth floor, they find it completely empty, meaning there couldn't have been a murderer up here anyway, especially as the door to the staircase is locked from the inside too. The book therefore starts to focus a lot on the alibis of all the characters inside the building, to see if any of them could've killed the managing director, and this is coupled with a lot of Queen-esque deductions about who could've have known what at what time to allow for a certain action. Stuff I like a lot personally, and it made this a very entertaining read.

Ultimately, I do have to admit the solution is fairly simple, and I think genre-savvy people like Komiyama would likely think of the real solution as a very viable candidate very early on. That said, while I think a lot of readers can intuitively guess the solution, the logical road to the solution is definitely worth reading too, as you can clearly see Hikawa is a Queen devotee, and in these kinds of novels, it's not about guessing what the solution is, but having an actual chain of reasoning built on the evidence and testimonies and actions of all the characters, and in that regard, Misshitsu wa Nemurenai Puzzle is quite solid too.

Overall, I think I liked Misshitsu wa Nemurenai Puzzle better than the first novel. While the first novel had a better final chain of reasoning leading to Hikawa identifying the murderer, I think that on the whole, this second novel was much more readable, while still staying close to the Queen style despite being a closed circle story too. While the solution to the impossible aspects of the story might be a bit simple in design in comparison to the logic needed to solve it, I do think this was a good novel that makes me want to read the rest too.

Original Japanese title(s): 氷川透『密室は眠れないパズル』

A Double for Detection

Wishing on a dream that seems far off, hoping it will come today

"Wind's Nocturne"

Hmm, discussions on non-Japanese comics are rather rare on this blog, which is why I use the manga tag for all comics...

Stanislas-André Steeman was a French-speaking, Belgian illustrator and novelist, who wrote mystery novels (in French) from the 1930s until the late 1950s. I have to admit, I had never ever heard of his name until I started to see references to him in Japanese literature: while he is apparently fairly well-known in the Franco-language sphere of mystery fiction, just two of his novels have been translated to English, and they sell for quite the price. Apparently his work is also available in Flemish (Dutch) translation, I have never seen them going around in the used market, so they are not that common either. As my French isn't that good, I never really thought about looking deeper into this (I do believe there are multiple film adaptations of his books). But earlier this year, I learned a few of this books had been adapted as comics in the late 1980s, and the Flemish translations of these comics are still very cheap in the used market. The imprint which published these comics did several detective and thriller adaptations, ranging from Sherlock Holmes to Rouletabille. Interestingly, some of these adaptations inserted detectives in stories they were not originally part of, like having Rouletabille appear in The Phantom of the Opera.

These four books were all adapted from Steeman's novels by André-Paul Duchateau: the first three featured art by Xavier Musquera, the last one by Didier Desmit. The art obviously follows the French Ligne claire style, and the comics are also all the same lenght at around fifty pages. This does mean some of these stories feel rather rushed, though I can't say whether that's only because of the limited page count, or whether the original books also felt like that. Still, I feel that for some stories, an extra ten pages would have changed a lot. The page layout is, as often is with these comics, rather static, so it's a bit boring to look at at times, but that's also partially because I read much more manga, where page layouts are often more dynamic. That said, for those who are not as familar with manga, these comics might be easier to read exactly because they are so static in layout.

Zes dode mannen ("Six Dead Men") is based on 1930-1931's Six hommes mort (a book which is also available in English), and concerns a pact by six men down on their luck, who want to change their fate. They will split up and try to make something out of themselves and in five years, they will reconvene and share all their wealth with each other. Every mystery fan recognizes this has a tontine-esque element (if someone dies, the share of the remaining people grows). Five years later, most of them have indeed crawled up the financial ladder and are making their way back home to share their fortune with their friends, but one of them dies on the boat back. Another man has tattoed the secret to his fortune on his chest, but he has been followed by a mysterious figure, and just as he explains about this, he is shot and later his body (with the tattoo) is even spirited away. The men are offed one by one, and not even Inspector Wenceslas Vorobeitchick, also known as Wens, seems to be able to do anything. But will this really continue until one is left alive?

This story is absolutely fine to read as a tontine-based thriller, but as a proper mystery story, it's quite outdated. I am going to guess many readers will guess what is going here, as you will probably have seen the criminal's big gambit in a similar form one way or another in mystery fiction before, and... it's just not surprising anymore to the modern reader. There is a minor locked room-esque situation when one of the men is found dead in an elevator cage even though he was seen stepping inside the cage alive, but it is solved rather swiftly and it's not really a major problem in the book, just a short mystery to temporarily halt M. Wens' actions, even though he solves it rather quickly. Some parts of the plan of the murderer also seem a bit weird (the endgame for killing everyone in the tontine can't really work... right?), which is probably why as a contemporary reader, this is more fun to read as a thriller.

De vijand zonder gezicht ("The Enemy Without a Face") based on 1934's L'Ennemi sans visage (also released as M. Wens et l'automate) starts off really creepy: the death row inmate Jund is given a chance on a new life, as he is given the chance to become a guinea pig for professor Arthus, who is researching a way to transfer a human brain to the body of an automaton.  So yes, Jund's brain is going to be put in an automaton, and if he's lucky, he'll have a second life as he was supposed to be executed anyway. A prison detective is assigned to watch over Jund as they go to the professor's home, where his daughter and two sons also live. M. Wens is also present in the creepy house that is full of automatons that can move on their own once activated. During the brain operation however, something happens and they find the professor killed in the operation room, and the automaton with Jund's brain has gone missing. Has the automaton become a killing machine? Again one that is best read as a pulpy thriller. There are some scenes where Wens 'fights' the automaton, but the explanations for the powerful automaton are disappointing and as a whodunnit, it's not really remarkable.

De moordenaar woont op Nr 21 ("The Murderer Lives At Number 21") is based on 1939's L'assassin habite au 21, which I believe isn't originally a Wens novel, but he's in this adaptation as well. A murderer roaming the misty streets of London has been leaving calling cards signed "Mr. Smith" at his crime scenes, but one day, a drunk guy tells a police constable he actually saw Mr. Smith after his latest murder, and saw him enter Russel Square 21. The problem? It's a guest house, so which of the people staying there is Mr. Smith?  The police try to ask the French professor Julie, who is slated to stay at the house during his stay in London, to act as their spy, but he becomes scared, but before he is even able to flee the house, he's murdered by Mr. Smith, which seems to confirm the police's suspicions Mr. Smith lives there. But who is the murderer? What follows is a story that is actually pretty funny, because the guests have rather strong personalities and bicker a lot with each other. But the comic ends in a rather abrupt manner, and I have no idea whether the original book is like this too, or it's just because the comic has a rather limited page count. No motive is given for Mr. Smith's murder's before that of M. Julie. The murder of M. Julie does include an interesting dying message idea, which I think works on paper better than on... comic page paper. As in, I think the idea is good, but I don't think the comic itself really sold the idea really well, though I can't say whether the book did it any better. I think the atmosphere of the story is good though and of the four, I liked this volume the best.

Kaarsen voor de duivel ("Candles for the Devil") is based on Des cierges au diable from 1932 (also known as Les Atouts de M. Wens) and deals with the twins Frédéric Dolo and Martin Dolo: Freddy is a notorious swindler who has always been able to stay out of the police's hands, while Martin is a hardworking salesman who as of late has been making fewer sales due to his infamous brother. After a poker night at Georges D'Aoust's home, Georges is found shot in the head the following morning. At first it appears to be a suicide, but as Freddy Dolo was one of the poker players, the police start to suspect this was no self-inflicted death and start looking for Dolo, while some figures in the underworld also want to "pay back" Dolo for "services rendered" in the past. Martin Dolo too also gets involved in everything, as the brothers' resemblance leads to more than a few mix-ups, while more and more people with a connection to Freddy get attacked or killed. At this point, I was of course not surprised I enjoyed this better as a suspense thriller with mild mystery elements, rather than full-blown fair-play mystery. The story's big surprise won't really surprise now, I think, and I also have my doubts about how surprising it really would have been back when this was first released, but it wasn't boring at least!

Overall, I can't say these comics really made me a Steeman fan, though I am glad to have finally read something of his work (even if it's an adaptation). While I don't think I have seen anything that's really impressive in these stories, they were okay thrillers that build on familiar mystery tropes. Perhaps I would have been more enthusiastic about them if I had read the originals in the 1930s, and of course, the comic format and the limited page count might have changed the feeling of the novels too, but for now, I think I have gotten some idea of Steeman's work in terms of plotting, and I don't feel the immediate need to search for more, though I am happy to have read these four.