The Secret of the Knight’s Sword

Meeting you with a view to a kill

Face to face in secret places, feel the chill

"A View to a Kill" (Duran Duran)

This is actually the first post I have written in over four months...

Detective Conan manga & movies:
Part 1: Volumes 1 ~ 10
Part 2: Volumes 11~20; The Timebombed Skyscraper (1) / The Fourteenth Target (2)
Part 3: Volumes 21~30; The Last Wizard of the Century (3) / Captured in Her Eyes (4)
Part 4: Volumes 31~40; Countdown to Heaven (5) / The Phantom of Baker Street (6)
Part 5: Volumes 41~50; Crossroad in the Ancient Capital (7) / Magician of the Silver Sky (8) / Strategy Above the Depths (9)
Part 6:  Volumes 51~60; Private Eyes' Requiem (10) / Jolly Roger in the Deep Azure (11)
Part 7: Volumes 61~70; Full Score of Fear (12) / The Raven Chaser (13) / Lost Ship in the Sky (14)
Part 8: Volumes 71~80; Quarter of Silence (15) / The Eleventh Striker (16) / Private Eye in the Distant Sea (17)
(You will find the links to the reviews of volumes 70, 72~76, 78, 82~104 and the films Quarter of Silence (15), The Eleventh Striker (16), Private Eye in the Distant Sea (17), Dimensional Sniper (18), Sunflowers of Inferno (19), The Darkest Nightmare (20), The Crimson Love Letter (21), Zero the Enforcer (22), The Fist of Blue Sapphire (23), The Scarlet Bullet (24), Bride of Halloween (25) and The Black Iron Submarine (26) in the library or via the Detective Conan tag)

 

High school student detective Hattori Heiji is attending a major kendo tournament in Hakodate, Hokkaido and he hopes to confess his love to his childhood friend Kazuha while they're in Hakodate, as Hokkaido features several spots with beautiful scenery, perfect for such an occassion. However, at the same time, the wealthy Onoe Takuzou, an Hakodate inhabitant, has received a notice from the notorious phantom thief KID, who declares he'll steal his two antique wakizashi swords, which were once gifted to Hishikata Toshizou of the Shingengumi. While wondering why KID is after the sword, as he usually only targets jewels, Hattori and Conan (high school student detective Kudou Shinichi who has been turned into a child and is hiding his identity) manage to fend off KID. However, Onoe's attorney's dead body is later found in the city, with a characteristic X-slash across his chest. Based on his belongings, the gang deduces the attorney had illegally brought another Japanese sword back from Dubai to Japan on orders of his employee, which now has been stolen. They eventually learn the swords were all made by swordmaker Higashikubo Eitatsu. Onoe Keizaburou (Takuzou's grandfather) had more sets of swords created during the war, as he was a high-ranking supplies official and rumors have it he hid a treasure somewhere in Hokkaido, with the swords serving as a clue to its whereabouts. Besides KID himself and the murderer, who is seen wearing a fox-mask, more parties appear on the scene who seem after the treasure, starting a race against the clock to see who can first obtain all the swords and find Onoe's treasure in the 2024 theatrical film Detective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram.

 

Wait... a Detective Conan film review... in this time of the year? Yes! This is the first time since 2012's The Eleventh Striker where I didn't need to wait for the home video release, but got to see it in the theatres again! First time I saw a Conan film in 4DX too by the way, and while I do complain about the recent films being so more much action-focused at the expense of the mystery plot, I do have to admit watching the modern films in 4DX is a lot of fun!

Detective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram is the 27th Detective Conan film and marks a return of mystery writer Ookura Takahiro as the screenwriter for the film. I wasn't too big a fan of the mystery plot of his Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire (2019), but I consider Detective Conan: The Crimson Love Letter (2017) as one of the best Conan films overall, especially mystery plot-wise, and at the very least, one can definitely say Ookura has an excellent grasp on the characters, often inserting very fun character interaction scenes throughout his films. Like The Crimson Love Letter, Detective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram focuses on the relationship between Hattori and Kazuha, with the film providing a conclusion to a storyline that has been running in the manga for some years now, with Hattori trying to confess his love to Kazuha at a memorable spot. For the character-focused fans of the franchise, The Million-Dollar Pentagram has a lot of great moments, from seeing Hattori finally confronting KID after their first clash in 2019, to the "big secret" of KID which the trailers have been talking about (Thought to be honest I.... don't like the reveal... I really don't) and some cool cameos. What I do appreciate about this film in general is that like The Crimson Love Letter, it's so much more accessible than some of the previous films, which built too strongly on the complicated character relations in the series. With so many character being (double) spies, having their own agendas and complicated pasts, some of the films would demand a lot of a viewer with nil knowledge of Conan, while this film keeps things relatively simple, with a murder mystery/treasure hunt plot, plus a simple rom-com plot of "boy wanting to confess love to girl", and not expecting you to remember that in volume XX, this and that character discussed this together. The previous two films (Black Iron Submarine and Bride of Halloween I both described as films that do "... things I hadn't expected a Detective Conan film to do, but also didn't do a lot of things I expect, or at least hope to get from a Detective Conan film." In that sense, I felt The Million-Dollar Pentagram was much more like a conventional Conan film, being universally easier to see for a wider audience.

As a mystery film however, The Million-Dollar Pentagram is really not especially memorable. While technically it is a murder mystery, the plot is mainly focused on the treasure hunt aspect, with all the parties trying to figure out 1) what Onoe's treasure was and 2) where the treasure is. While fortunately, the treasure hunt isn't reliant on one of those wordplay riddles you often see in the series, the actual puzzle-solving aspect of this film isn't really interesting, and you'll probably just be passively watching everything unfold, rather than really trying to solve any of this yourself. The mystery of the murderer is fairly simple too, partially due to a very small pool of viable suspects, and while there's a very minor piece of misdirection I feel is executed quite well on screen, I won't be recommending this film on its mystery merits. Fortunately, I was watching this in 4DX, so I did physically enjoy all the outrageous clashes between the various parties while chasing after the treasure!

Still, I do wish we have we get a more mystery plot-focused film soon again... I really loved The Crimson Love Letter, as I think it struck a great balance between the plot and the modern focus on action. As always, we already got a sneak preview/teaser of next year's film at the end of The Million-Dollar Pentagram, and while it honestly could go anyway, the teaser did suggest a focus on a set of characters that usually come with pretty robust mystery plots...

I happened to have been watching the 2008 Gegege no Kitarou animated film before this film, where they did a lot of local tourism PR by having Neko Musume visit various places briefly in the film, and I did think The Million-Dollar Pentagram felt a bit like a PR film at times. When the Conan films are set in Tokyo, they are usually set in fictional Beika, or use fictional landmarks like Touto Tower and the Bell Tree Tower instead of the Tokyo Tower and the Skytree. This film however features a lot of real Hakodate (and Hokkaido) landmarks, and with modern visuals, these sights are presented photo-realistically, as compared to the more drawn style we see in the earliest Conan films. Not really a bad thing per se, but seeing a hyper realistic Hakodate in this film did feel a bit weird as usually, real-life locations are drawn in a more stylized fashion in the television anime series.

Oh, and while not really related to this film, but I might as well mention it here: I did visit the special Detective Conan 30th Anniversary exhibition that's travelling across Japan now. Pretty interesting to see the original drawings and all of that. While it is understandably very character-focused, so not especially interesting for those who are only interested in Conan for the mystery stories, there were some fun displays for the mystery fans too, like this showcase of the various murder weapons used. Would be fun to see more of these mystery-focused exhibitions. Imagine how fun it'd be to visit sets of murder scenes of famous mystery stories!

Anyway, Detective Conan: The Million-Dollar Pentagram is a film that is probably best enjoyed by long-time fans of the series, who want to see characters like Hattori and KID interact with each other (and the conclusion to Hattori's attempts at confessing his love to Kazuha), while also being somewhat involved in a murder mystery. The film is better enjoyed for its action scenes than the mystery, but at the very least, it's a lot more accessible than its immediate predecessors as it does work as a standalone rom-com too.  That said, I do hope next year's entry will be a bit more substantial mystery-wise.

Original Japanese title(s): 『名探偵コナン 100万ドルの五稜星』

The Pale Horse

All living things

Into the spiral

"Spiral" (Garnet Crow)

And that wraps up another series...

Over the course of about a year, I have reviewed the spinoff novels of Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna or Spiral ~ The Bonds of Reasoning, a mystery(-themed) manga created by writer Shirodaira Kyou and artist Mizuno Eita which ran from 1999 until 2005. Each of the novels I had discussed until now followed the same structure: one novella, featuring a completely original adventure with series protagonist Ayumu, and two shorter stories which were originally published online, which focused on Ayumu's big brother Kiyotaka, who disappears at the start of the main series. These short stories were set in the past, and were about Kurumi, a sixteen year old heir to a wealthy and influential family. Her grandfather wants her to marry Kiyotaka, who at that time is known as a prodigy in the Tokyo police force, but Kurumi of course refuses, and declares she'll beat Kiyotaka in solving police cases to show she's better than him and can thus marry someone else. Of course, in the short stories we saw included in volumes 1 until 3 of this spin-off series, Kiyotaka was always the better detective. Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna 4: Koufuku no Owari, Owari no Koufuku ("Spiral ~ The Bonds of Reasoning 4: Ending of the Happiness, Happiness of the Ending" 2004) is the final spin-off novel and unlike the previous books, focuses solely on this storyline revolving around Kurumi, wrapping her story up and setting the pieces ready for the start of the main series. 

Interestingly, this book also follows a different structure because it is the ending. In the previous three volumes, we had first the original novella with Ayumu, followed by two extra prequel stories with Kurumi and Kiyotaka. Which made sense, as they were just extras. These stories had also been posted online before. In this volume however, things are turned around: the book opens with the two stories which were posted online previously, but ends with the original novella.

The two short stories the reader first encounters are called Kinkyou Houkoku ("Update") and Kudan wo Korose ("Kill the Kudan") and are fairly short, and don't follow the same two-chapter structure of the previous short stories. In the first, we learn about a woman who has been killed, but in her stomach a handwritten note was found with the name "Kiyotaka" as well as Kiyotaka's phone number at the police station. While it is not likely he killed the woman and that she wanted to leave a clue to indicate her killer, Kiyotaka turns out to have a connection with the victim, as they used to date in college. But why did the victim have that note in her stomach? This is a fun The Nine Mile Walk-esque story where they speculate about why she'd have swallowed that note before being killed, and while the answer comes very soon after the introduction of the problem, it does fit with the humanistic angle this series sometimes takes. This story also has Kurumi meet with a younger Ayumu for the first time (he's still in elementary school in this story), who turns out to be quite clever like his big brother. In Kudan wo Korose ("Kill the Kudan"), Ayumu's old teacher confesses to killing her husband with a statue of a Kudan (a yokai with the head of a man and the body of a cow),because she believes the prophetic powers of a Kudan will only lead to misfortune. Ayumu however has information that seems to put the matter in a different light. Again, the story is very short, so you don't really get much time to think about this yourself too much, but it's an okay story considering the page count, and because of the yokai links and the type of deductions made, it does make you wonder whether Shirodaira was already playing with ideas for Kyokou Suiri/Invented Inference when he wrote this tale.

The main story is Koufuku no Owari, Owari no Koufuku ("Ending of the Happiness, Happiness of the Ending") which might also be the longest original novella of this four-volume series. It is also by far the best pure mystery story of the four, focusing on a clear murder mystery and using the extended page length to present a robust novella. Kurumi challenges Kiyotaka one last time, and this time, they are working on the murder of a wealthy man, who was very much into horse racing. Each Sunday, he'd bet on horses, but whenever he lost, he would write down the names of the two horses he lost to, and fold a very intricate origami model of a devil figure with head, arms, legs, fingers and wings, which takes hours to fold even if you know exactly how to do it. This Sunday, he was killed, but he had finished his origami model, meaning he had died some hours after losing his horse bet. During the race, his son, illegimate daughter and another son-in-law, who all had reasons for wanting to kill him for his money, were all with him at his house, but they all left after the race and had tea together, meaning they all have a perfect alibi for after the race, when the victim was working on his origami model. Because the names of the winners of that race were indeed written on that model, it means it couldn't have been prepared beforehand, because you can't know which two horses exactly would win that week. Ayumu helps Kurumi this time to see if they can beat Kiyotaka together.

As a problem, this is probably the most "normal" murder mystery we've seen in the novellas in this spin-off series, and it's a pretty good one. Nothing mind-blowing mind you, but it's a solid "which of the three suspects is the killer" type of story. They all seem to have solid alibis because they were together after the murder, but could any of them have somehow prepared the origami model beforehand, even though you could never guess which horses would win that week beforehand and prepare an origami model so complex it even takes a veteran hours to create? You can't prepare the model beforehand, fold it open, write names in and quickly fold it back, because the pen markings would be different writing on folded paper, and the model is so complex having folded paper would only make it more difficult to fold it back into the devil. The solution is close to the type of reasonings you'll find in Shirodaira's later Kyokou Suiri, in the sense that they very much focus on what a person would do to commit a murder, looking into hypotheses more than in actual physical evidence, though I'd say the foundation for the deductions is fairly sound here. I quite like the answer to the origami problem as a proof of alibi actually, being something I had not seen before, and the answer is just crazy enough to be fun, but also quite logical even from the POV of the murderer. 

I also think that for fans of the series, this volume is probably the most interesting. The previous novellas were all set extremely early in the main series (like, two chapters in), so they seldom felt like Spiral stories, while the short stories were about Kurumi (who doesn't appear in the main series), Kiyotaka (who barely appears in the main series) and Madoka (Kiyotaka's surbordinate/later wife), who fortunately does appear in the main series a lot. Still, they often didn't really feel like Spiral. Ayumu however appears in all three stories in this volume and interacts with the other characters, so give an interesting look in his younger years and the way he thinks, the way the other stories didn't do as well I think (especially when it comes to him and Kiyotaka's relation).

And that means I am done with the spin-off novels of Spiral. Not all of them were as good as others: The second one is memorable as it has a crazy story, but also because of how it works as a proto-Kyokou Suiri, focusing on deductions and not the truth per se. The final volume Spiral ~ Suiri no Kizuna 4: Koufuku no Owari, Owari no Koufuku has the best selection of stories when it comes to conventional murder mystery stories, and you could even read this without any knowledge of the main series and still think it's a coherent volume, whereas the other volumes are a bit more chaotic as they have stories set both in the present day of the main series, and the stories set in the past with Kurumi and Kiyotaka. Anyway, I'm glad I have read these now because I had been aware of them for many years, but never got around to them until last year.

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4　幸福の終わり、終わりの幸福」

Outrageous Fortune

Chance chance

Chance Chance

Catch your dream tonight

 

『Chance』（神谷明）

"Chance"(Kamiya Akira)

This is one of those books I got "started on" like three different times, every time reading the same first few pages again and me only really getting into the right mood the last time, but it went pretty fast once I got past that first part.

Disclosure: I translated Yamaguchi Masaya's Death of the Living Dead.

Mystery novelist Hiwatari Miyabi is one day driving along the highway, when there's an explosion at the nearby nuclear powerplant in Komaura. While he is quite some distance away, he can't help be somewhat worried whether he was affected by the leaking radiation, though he does not have himself checked. Three months later, he finds himself visiting a casino with his editor to discuss his planned book. It is the eleventh of September 2011, and they happen to catch the news of the terrorist attack in the United States while at the casino. There Hiwatari notices a man with a distinctive yin-yang-patterned tie, whom he remembers having seen twice before this week while outside, though he doesn't know him. They watch the yin-yang tie man, who is losing money continuously at the craps table: a little person is throwing the dice, but for some reason this man has managed to throw sixes consistently after each other: the other man keeps betting against that, but the double sixes won't stop coming. Baffled by how the little person could've beaten the odds of throwing so many double sixes one after another, Hiwatari hopes to interview the man, but the latter tells him to try another day. Later that night however, Hiwatari spots the yin-yang tie man again outside the casino building, but at that exact moment, the gigantic neon dice on top of the building break off, dropping straight on top of the man... throwing double sixes. That same night, Hiwatari suddenly loses sight in one of his eyes, which might be connected to him being near the nuclear power plant three months ago. Having lost sight in one eye, Hiwatari becomes desperate, as he needs his eyes for his work, but at the same time, he reflects back on the last few days, and realizes he had been witness to a lot of coincidences, culminating in the death of the yin-yang tie man. But was it really all a coincidence? What is coincidence actually? That is the matter of Yamaguchi Masaya's 2002 novel Kiguu ("Coincidentialea").

In the past, I have reviewed Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken, Dogura Magura and Kyomu he no Kumotsu, which are known as the sandaikisho, or The Three Great Occult Books, which are considered the pinnacle of the anti-mystery genre in Japan. The three books take on the form of a mystery novel, but at the same time show the limits of the genre, often by taking the genre conventions to the extreme or simply using a detective story as a device to go off on tangents. The term Three Great Occult Books is actually a play on the Four Great Classics from Chinese literature, but give another meaning to the word ki: In Chinese, the same word is used in the context of "outstanding", but in this Japanese instance, the word is used in the meaning of "strange", "occult" or "deviant". Oguri Mushitarou's Kokushikan Satsujin Jiken (1934) for example is in fact Philo Vance on crack, being a "detective story" that uses the murders as an excuse to discuss topics including (but not exclusively) occultism, mysticism, criminology, religions, astrology, astronomy, psychology, heraldry, medicine and cryptography. It basically ridicules the concept of solving crimes based on evidence and logic by presenting incredibly farfetched deductions based on obscure trivia and symbolism of said themes. Yumeno Kyuusaku's Dogura Magura (1935) simply removes a sense of reality, as the protagonist might or might not be a mental patient is presented with contradicting documents, records and accounts about a murder case that might or might not have happened. Finally, Nakai Hideo's Kyomu he no Kumotsu (1964) utterly deconstructs the notion of logical reasoning as a means to arrive at the truth, by having a group of people deduce the most fanciful, yet convincing theories about a death that might not even be a murder, and about a series of hypothethical murders that may or may not happen in the future. All because they think serial murders in faction are fun, so they want the tropes of mystery fiction to apply to real world too. Takemoto Kenji's Hako no Naka no Shitsuraku ("Paradise Lost Inside A Box", 1978) is often considered the fourth book in this series, as it builds on the themes of the aforementioned three books, and it would influence a lot of writers in the shin honkaku movement (of whom most at the time of the publication of this book would just not quite have made it to university yet).

Kiguu is, at least going by the blurb on the back of the book, seen as a fifth book in this series, though there is much less consensus in the mystery world about whether this is the fifth great book, or even whether there is a fifth one in the first place. At any rate, whether one considers it the fifth or not is not really relevant: the matter is that this book at the very least does fit the pattern of the previous mentioned four books, being steeped in anti-mystery themes, and thus being a book that takes on the form of a mystery novel, but isn't really one. So if isn't a mystery novel, what is this book about? Well, I assume it's clear by now: it's about coincidences.

Coincidences and mystery fiction don't really mix well. Van Dine says "The culprit must be determined by logical deductions--not by accident or coincidence or unmotivated confession", Knox too poses "No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right" and for the most part, most readers of puzzle plot mystery, of mystery novels that are solved through logical reasoning, probably don't like the idea of luck in a mystery novel, as luck or a coincidence aren't topics that allow for logical reasoning. But is that really so? That is the question Yamaguchi asks as he takes the reader on a journey riddled with chance, "the forbidden trope" for mystery fiction, and attempts to tell a mystery story solely about coincidence.

We follow Hiwatari Miyabi as he recounts the many coincidences he has experienced lately, from seeing the same man a few times in one week, to people he gets to know having similar names, to dice falling on the same numbers, or small accidents leading to him bumping into the people he wanted to meet that exact moment. He discusses these coincidences with the many people he meets, from the little person to his editor, his roommate Silphy and a fellow patient at the hospital after he had his eye examined. These discussions on coincidence and luck are the meat of this book, and what this book is really about. The concept of coincidence is discussed in many, many forms, and up to great length, ranging from historical views on coincidence, anecdotes about accidents, philosophical views on coincidence, probability mathematics, synchronicity, quantum theory, yin yang philosophy, and so, so so much more. Yamaguchi basically researched the concept of coincidence from various angles, from social sciences like history and philosophy, to the role of coincidence in "hard" scientific fields, and he shows the reader that in this book. Often, this does lead to really captivating subjects to read about, but personally, I do think very often, the discussions went on far too long, which made this book sometimes a bit tiresome to read. I understand it's probably also intentionally done like that to invoke a certain atmosphere for the book, but I personally would have liked a slightly trimmed down version, for I do think the many ways to look at coincidence are really interesting.

As the book progresses, Hiwatari gets involved with an almost cult-esque organization, and "coincidentally", more people involved with this organization die in seemingly freak accidents. But are they really accidents? While Hiwatari gets more and more entranced by the idea of coincidence, he also can't help but suspect something else might be at play here, especially as a few clues he picked up (...by chance) seem to indicate something might behind all of this after all. This culminates in what is essentially a locked room murder, when two people are found dead in a room that is mostly sealed (the door had been cemented tight, but there was a small ventilation on top of the room, and there was a AC unit). Can this locked room mystery be solved with pure logic, or should Hiwatari somehow just consider the deaths a coincidence? Ultimately though, this locked room murder is of course not the crux of the book: it is just a device to talk about coincidences even more. A few logical solutions are proposed to explain the murders, though physical proof can not be produced now at this stage, but at the same time, how could coincidence then explain how the deaths occured? While we never learn how much is true or not in Kiguu, I do have to say I like the last proposed solution to the locked room mystery in the context of the book. Obviously, coincidence does play a role in this solution, as you can guess from the whole theme of the book, but I genuinely like the set-up to provide for this solution, but it is something you can really only pull off in this book. Memorable however, it certainly is.

Kiguu is certainly a unique read: the book intentionally takes on the challenge of telling a detective story based on coincidence, accidents and luck and the result is a captivating read. It certainly isn't a book you're going to read if you want to read a straighforward, conventional mystery story focusing on logical reasoning, but as a book about coincidence, it's absolutely stunning as the concept of coincidence is examined through so many angles, resulting in a very educative and entertaining read. I do think many of the discussions go on for too long, and while I personally think the locked room murder has a memorable solution, one shouldn't read Kiguu with high expectations for it as a pure mystery story alone. But it's definitely worth a read, and is highly recommended, if you want to try something different for a change.

Original Japanese title(s): 山口雅也『奇偶』

The Upper Flat

“I learned (what I suppose I really knew already) that one can never go back, that one should not ever try to go back—that the essence of life is going forward. Life is really a One Way Street, isn’t it?” 

"At Bertram's Hotel"

Now I think about it, it's been a while since I last stayed in a hotel...

It was Kujuu Masanosuke who made the Palace Side Hotel into one of the biggest and most succesful in Tokyo. While the hotel started out modestly as the Palace Hotel with only about fifty rooms, Kujuu's aggressive, but inspired leadership led to the organization growing into a gigantic 35-floor hotel, with two-thousand rooms and seventy event halls. Recently, the Tokyo Royal Hotel had been catching up, and even overtook the Palace Side Hotel's at the top, but Kujuu managed to arrange for a deal with Clayton International Corporation, routing their international visitors to Japan to the Palace Side Hotel to create a very steady stream of income. The deal is almost signed and done, though there are some internal objections to the deal within the Palace Side top management. So when Kujuu was found murdered in his private suite room on the 34th floor, the police had plenty of people to suspect: was it someone on the Palace Side Hotel side, or perhaps someone of the competition, who feared the CIC deal? But what puzzles the police even more, is the double locked room situation in which Kujuu's body was found in Room 3401. His suite consists of a living room and a bedroom. Obviously, the door connecting to the living room to the hallway was locked, but the connecting door betwen the living room and bedroom was also locked from the bedroom-side. The hotel room key was found on the bedside table, while the other known spare and master keys, in possession of the housekeeping captain of the 34th floor, the hotel manager or kept in the key safe, were confirmed to no have been stolen during the night, when Kujuu was killed. Hiraga, one of the detectives on the case, happens to be dating Fuyuko, who is Kujuu's private secretary and the person closest to Kujuu, as he had no other relatives. It is therefore not strange that Fuyuko becomes a suspect, but she has a perfect alibi for the murder, as she had spent the night with Hiraga when Kujuu was murdered. Early on, the police however manage to solve how the murderer managed to kill Kujuu in the double-locked room, a method which also needs an accomplice. The police don't know yet who the murderer could be, so hope the accomplice will confess everything, but the accomplice is found dead in a hotel room in Fukuoka almost immediately after an arrest warrant was issued. Finding a half-faded note in the toilet, the police eventually manage to identify a man whom they suspect killed Kujuu and the accomplice, but the man has an alibi for the murder in Fukuoka: he checked in before noon at a hotel in Tokyo to work in his room, and checked out late that night. He has no real alibi for the time he was in his hotel room, but at the same time, it would have been impossible for him to commit the murder in the fourteen hour gap, as the police can not find any trace of him having taking the train or plane from Tokyo to Fukuoka, and time-wise it would be nearly impossible in the first place. Can the police still capture this suspect in Morimura Seiichi's Kousou no Shikaku ("The Blind Spot in the High-Rise" 1969)?

Morimura Seiichi was a novelist who started out writing business books originally, but eventually moved on to mystery fiction: Kousou no Shikaku was his debut work as a mystery novelist, with which he won the 15th Edogawa Rampo Prize in 1969. I had heard his name before, but I have to admit I never looked up his work until he passed away about one year ago. That is not to even imply he was a minor novelist though, in fact, he was one of the most succesful mystery novelists in Japan. He was a member of that oh-so very exclusive club of mystery novelists who had over a billion copies of their books in circulation. To put in perspective, an extremely succesful modern-day writer like Higashino Keigo finally managed to reach that milestone last year. Other people on that list would be Nishimura Kyoutarou, Akagawa Jirou and Uchida Yasuo, writers I know and have read, but Morimura was a blind spot in my reading until now. I don't think all of his works are puzzle plot focused, but I at least knew this one was, so there was no better place to start that this book.

I have to admit this book surprised me a few times plot-wise. I had heard about this book being about a perfect alibi, so I was first surprised with a double-locked (hotel) room murder... and then I was surprised again when that double-locked room murder was solved basically two or three chapters later, after which the book focuses indeed on an alibi-cracking plot. The book opens with a cool floorplan of the 34th floor of the Palace Side Hotel, which is designed like an elongated three-pointed star... but because the locked room is solved so early in the book, you basically never page back to this floorplan, as it's not really relevant to the whole book. A weird choice, because it would have made more sense to just insert that floorplan in the early chapters, instead of at the start of the book. The locked room is solved fairly early, and as you can perhaps guess, the trick is fairly simple. In fact, it was so simple it caught me off-guard. You see, Morimura really goes into detail in his explanation of how hotel doors work, their auto-lock functions, the whereabouts of the spare and master keys and who keep watch over them and all of that, but the solution is in comparision incredibly straightforward, in comparison to the meticulous analysis of the many other (wrong) possibilities. The solution to the how will probably not impress anyone, though I have to say that Morimura's very detailed examination to write off the other possibilities was surprisingly impressive, even if the conclusion is so simple.

It was at this point, I started realizing this was very much like a Freeman Wills Crofts-inspired police procedural. The book moves very, very slow and deliberate, examining each minor step carefully and showing you one thing at a time, before moving on to the next item on the list. I also learned that Morimura in fact used to work at a hotel, which explains why his descriptions of the workings of a hotel are so detailed, which again, factors in how meticulous his investigations are when it comes to hotel affairs. He has great knowledge about procedures in a hotel, how different staff sections work with each other, the manner in which shifts being taken over, how spare and master keys are being supervised, check-in and check-out procedures, guest-staff interactions, even the way how employees from different hotels would interact with each other, all of that comes into play in this book, and each time, the descriptions and explanations are detailed, yet clear. These depictions of hotel workings are definitely a highlight of the book.

Once we arrrive at the Fukuoka murder, you get a book that very much reminds of Matsumoto Seichou's Ten to Sen for very obvious reasons, as there too a murder occurs in Fukuoka, but the main suspect is in a complete different part of the country. In this case, the alibi of the suspect isn't absolutely perfect, as they are only seen checking in and out of the hotel before noon and before midnight, but the police can't find any traces of the suspect having taken the plane from Tokyo to Fukuoka, not even with a fake name. While there are indications of what the murderer must have done after the murder, they don't seem to match the timeline the police try to make for the suspect, as they couldn't have done and still make it back to the hotel to check out (and be seen by someone who knows him). What follows is a very slow, Crofts-esque chipping away at the alibi of the suspect. This process is slow, and is basically always two steps forward, one step back. Each time, the police think they have a brilliant idea of what the suspect could've done to go to Fukuoka to commit the murder, but then they learn it couldn't have been accomplished in that specific way, so then they have to figure out another way, leading to another new idea, and once again learning it doesn't quite work that way. This jerking around takes quite some time, and while you do feel the police are very slowly making progress, it's definitely a police procedural style, where you see that a lot of police work is just... repeating motions and slowly, but surely crossing out possibilities. The murderer's plans are muti-phased and quite complex, and I quite like that, because that explains why the police keep thinking they've got it, but then have to adapt again, but a lot of the steps taken by the killer in this book, are quite outdated. Obviously, this book was published in 1969 so I assume it would have worked like that back then, but 99% of what is done here, would not fly in 2024, and some things, I may have heard once in my life about, like I know things worked like that back then, but I had no active memory of that, so while it didn't feel unfair (that's just how things go with older books), Kousou no Shikaku is definitely a product of its time (in fact it feels very much like a Showa-era story). It's a feeling I also often have when reading Crofts, but Crofts' books are of course much older than this one, and I read plenty of books written in this period, but because this book, like Crofts' work, is so methodical and focuses so much on the details and exact workings of the infrastructure and service industry, sometimes you feel the differences in time more than other books written in the same time, but don't go in as much detail in such things.

Not a big fan of the way the accomplice was portrayed in this book at all by the way, a lot of the actions of the accomplice only seemed to help the killer, but not the accomplice, even at a time where it was clear the killer was also going to kill the accomplice after Kujuu... 

Overall, Kousou no Shikaku was pretty entertaining. The depiction of how a hotel works is the highlight for me of this book, but the methodological manner in which the crime is solved is definitely going to appeal to people who also enjoy Croft's slower police procedurals where an alibi is slowly, very slowly, but surely cracked. I definitely found this an interesting first encounter with Morimura's work, so I might read more in the future.

Original Japanese title(s): 森村誠一『高層の死角』

Still Waters

So when in tears ]

The love of years 

Is wasted like the snow

"The Forest Reverie"

I think this is the first time I read a "general" fiction book by publisher Tokuma, all the other Tokuma books I ever read where Ghibli-related...

Kaji Tatsuo (1928-1990) was a mystery author who debuted in the fifties of the previous century and basically kept on writing until his death in 1990. Publisher Tokuma started re-publishing some of his books in their label Tokuma's Selection about two or three years ago, and these books have pretty interesting covers, which was what first caught my attention. I hadn't heard of Kaji before, and actually thought initially these were newly written novels, but apparently they have been around for decades, and I saw a few mystery authors I follow on Twitter (...) be quite positive about them, so I decided to pick one up. Kiyosato Kougen Satsujin Bessou ("The Murder Villa in the Kiyosato Plateau") was originally published in 1988, so it was one of Kaji's last novels to be published. The book opens with the arrival of a group at a villa in the Kiyosato Plateau, a popular place for people with means to have a second home. The group of five sneak inside the house with a copy of the key they made earlier, and quickly lock the door behind them. This is a second home the art collector Kawakuchi Kouei had built for his son, but it is not used right now as the son (the stereotypical spoilt son who loves women) has gone missing, and the group plans to use this house for some time. The leader of this group, Katsuura quickly orders the other four to check the rooms and prepare for their stay here. Yoshinobu for example will be cooking for everyone, Ruriko (his girlfriend) helps him move the groceries inside, while Takamori and Kure (who don't really get along with each other and were already arguing upon arrival) start checking out the rooms, while Katsuura disconnects all phones except for one. While checking out the house, they find a shocked woman in one of the bedrooms: Akie tells them she's the daughter of Kawakuchi and that she decides on a whim to come here. The five tell her they have no intention of harming her, but they will be staying her for a few days, waiting for a certain phone call, and they'll be together until then. After a while, Akie learns from Yoshinobu that the five have robbed a bank. They are now staying low in the villa, waiting for their leader to pick up the money from where they hid it, so they can split the money. That is why nobody is allowed to go out of the villa (afraid of traitors), and all the phones are disconnected. They all pick a room to stay in, and Yoshinobu starts preparing dinner. Everyone is waiting for Takamori, who comes stumbling in the room late, but then falls on the floor: he has a dagger in his chest! But who could have stabbed him? Everyone was at the dining table, and they are sure there was nobody else besides Akie in the house... or are they? 

Interesting first experience with Kaji's writings! On the whole, the book follows the very familiar trope of the closed circle situation of a villa during a snowy night, though technically, this is not really a closed circle that is cut off from the world due to the snow: the group of five choose to not leave the villa, because they robbed a bank and have to stay hidden for a while in this house. This is an interesting idea for a closed circle, the "self-inflicted" closed circle (like the sect in Arisugawa's Jooukoku no Shiro), where a (believable) reason has to be given why these people don't just step out of the house and call for help from the police. It works here, I think, partially also because we have Akie, an extra character who is not part of the robbers, so they have even more reasons to not just leave while she has seen them and talked with them. I'd love to see more of these self-chosen closed circle situations actually...

As a closed circle mystery however, Kiyosato Kougen Satsujin Bessou is pretty predictable for about 80% of the book. The cast is pretty small (and the book is short), so the counter of survivors goes down rather quickly, and a lot of the murders are fairly straight-forward. There's often an element of impossibility/implausibility involved with the murders, like when one of them is poisoned, or another is found dead in the hallway even though it doesn't seem anyone could've done it time-wise, but these impossible angles are not really played up to very strongly, and most of the time it seems they shrug it off as 'oh, but perhaps it could've been done anyway'. I think the impossibility angle is kinda hard to achieve, because ultimately, the setting is just one villa, and there's only that much "unobserved" space in a house with 6 people in it, so I guess it would be difficult to really make it feel impossible, but the book tries to feel both claustrophobic, while also trying to sell some deaths as semi-impossible in a setting that's not really suited for it, so that kinda fell flat for me. When you learn the solution to most of these murders, you'll probably just shrug and say 'sure, okay, I guess that works.' (and probably shake your head at the first one). The middle murder might be the most interesting, using a rather unexpected prop in a clever way to create a kind of impossibility, and the hints pointing at the prop can be rather tricky.

But, I have to say, the book really got me at the end. The ending went in a direction I had not expected at all, but in hindsight, I have to admit it was really pretty well telegraphed. Some moments I simply thought there was weird writing, but it turns out they were clues building up to the ending. If the book had not featured this ending, it would have at best an average closed circle mystery (mostly saved by the middle murder), but I have to say this ending does pull the book into the 'oh, I think that was worth reading' territory. The misdirection works really well in this book. The motive of the murderer was not as convincing I think, it might be a 'your mileage may vary' thing, but I think that overall, the book was worth the time I spent on it.

So I did enjoy Kiyosato Kougen Satsujin Bessou as a short read. For a long time, the book develops as a rather predicatable closed circle thriller with on the whole, not really inspired murders, and while the ending may not be the kind of eye-opening conclusion you'll remember for decades like And Then There Were None, I do have to say the book will probably end up a lot better than you'll initially expect based on the middle part of the book. It's a short novel anyway, so it's not like it'll take up much of your time, but it'd be a shame if you'd give up early on it, as I did really like the ending. I'll probably try out more of Kaji's work in the future.

Original Japanese title(s): 梶龍雄『清里高原殺人別荘』

Il Nome Della Rosa

「俺の名を言ってみろ」

『北斗の拳』

 

"Say my name!"

"Fist of the North Star"

As I write this review, I also looked back at the older reviews for this series and it's absolutely insane how this series manages to maintain this incredibly high level of quality throughout.

Toujou Genya series
1) Majimono no Gotoki Tsuku Mono ("Those Who Bewitch Like The Evil Spirits", 2006)
2) Magatori no Gotoki Imu Mono ("Those Who Are A Taboo Like The Malicious Bird", 2006)
3) Kubinashi no Gotoki Tataru Mono ("Those Who Cast A Curse Like The Headless", 2007) 
4) Yamanma no Gotoki Warau Mono ("Those Who Sneer Like The Mountain Fiend", 2008)
5) Himemuro no Gotoki Komoru Mono ("Those Who Stay Inside Like A Sealed Room", 2009)
6) Mizuchi no Gotoki Shizumu Mono ("Those Who Submerge Like The Water Spirit" 2009). 
7) Ikidama no Gotoki Daburu Mono ("Those Who Turn Double Like The Eidola", 2011)
8) Yuujo no Gotoki Uramu Mono ("Those Who Resent Like The Ghostly Courtesan", 2012)
9) Haedama no Gotoki Matsuru Mono ("Those Who Are Deified Like The Haedama", 2018)

10) Maguu no Gotoki Motarasu Mono ("Those Who Bring Forth Like the Demon Idol", 2019) 

11) Ina no Gotoki Nieru Mono ("Those Who Are Sacrified Like The Shunned", 2021)

Horror novelist Toujou Genya is also an accomplished amateur scholar in folklore, which is why his old university friend Fukuta needs his help. Fukuta plans to marry Amagami Ichiko, a girl who, like himself, works in the toy company of his parents. Ichiko hails from Mushikubiri Village in the Inanagi region, and her family is one of the two wealthiest clans in the small community. Fukuta's mother Katsuko is very much fixated on social status. Katsuko is also fond of Genya, as he is former nobility, so Fukuta wants Genya, with his knowledge of folklore, to explain to Katsuko what an important role the Amagami family has in Mushikubiri Village, by explaining the Rite of the Ina and its connection to the Amagami family. The Rite of the Ina is a centuries-old ceremony that used to be conducted widely in the Inanagi region, but now, about a decade after the Second World War, the Amagami family is one of the few that still does it. In principle, the ceremony is conducted by everyone whenever they turned 7, 14 and 21, as is connected to the fact children in the past died easily: while children were especially prone to die before their seventh birthday, the Rite of the Ina was to ensure that even after turning seven, they would be warded from evil and not be 'taken by the demons.' For that, every child is given an "Ina", or "the Name of the Shunned" when they turn seven. The Shunned is basically a "shadow self", a fictional replacement who shall undergo all the misfortune and every bad thing that would otherwise happen to the child itself. The child must therefore never utter the name, nor ever react to the name by turning around when called by that name, for then all the misfortune that the Shunned had been enduring in their place for all those years, will bounce back to the actual child. When they turn 7, 14 or 21, the participant needs to take a talisman with the Name of the Shunned, and make their way through a path through the forest up the mountain to throw the talisman in the waterfall there to appease the Shunned. 

When Ichiko did the ceremonies, she remembered she felt as if something had been following her all the time, calling out her name and trying to attract her attention, and when she was fourteen, she even ended up nearly dead. Genya does some minor research on the ceremony and the following day, he manages to convince Katsuko that the Amagami's long-running tradition indeed is connected to their historical social status in the village, setting Katsuko at ease about the upcoming marriage, but that same day, Ichiko and Fukuta receive a phone call telling them that Ichiko's half-brother Ichishitarou died yesterday, while performing the ceremony at age 14. What's more, it seems like he was murdered right in front of the waterfall, in a rather brutal manner with him being stabbed in the eye with a weapon coated in poison! Ichiko of course needs to travel back to Mushikuburi Village to attend her brother's funeral, but Fukuta and Katsuko are also asked to come along, as they have not met Ichiko's family yet, and they hope they can also properly discuss the marriage between the two too (and Ichiko thinks her very conservative and stubborn grandfather Genzou, the patriarch of the family, might be a little less stubborn due to the family tragedy). They invite Genya along too, as he has a personal interest in the Rite of the Ina but also local funeral rites. When they arrive in Mushikuburi Village however, the local police seem to know of Genya's reputation as an amateur detective too, and they hope he can also shine some light on the death of young Ichishitarou. He and his twin sister Itsuko are actually illegitimate childs of Ichiko's father Taiichi. Ichiko's two oldest brothers died in the war, her third brother was deemed too weak character-wise by his grandfather to become the next patriarch and Ichiko will marry into Fukuta's family, so Ichishitarou would have become the next patriarch, but it seems some people in the Amagami family were quite against Genzou's decision, but did one of them kill Ichishitarou during the ceremony? Sightings of a figure with a horn for an eye on the day of the murder also roam around, fueling rumors something otherwordly might have committed the murder, but could that really be true? Genya, reluctant as always, tries to figure out who killed Ishitarou so his friend can marry safely in Mitsuda Shinzou's Ina no Gotoki Nieru Mono ("Those Who Are Sacrified like the Shunned", 2021).

This is the eight novel in Mitsuda Shinzou's Toujou Genya series (the eleventh entry in total) and ever since I started reading these books about five years ago, I've been an absolute fan of them. The way Mitsuda mixes horror with brilliant puzzle plot mysteries is amazing, and I especially love the focus on folklore. Basically each novel is set in some (fictional) obscure, isolated community in the mountains or near the sea, with their own local, centuries-old ceremonies and rites, tied to religious history. While the ceremonies themselves are fictional, a lot of the dynamics and interpretations presented throughout these books is based on genuine folklore studies, so a lot of what you read in these books is actually applicable to actual Japanese religious customs and rites. These books are incredibly informative, but also work very well as horror stories: while being detective stories, the books usually do include elements that are not really explained, suggesting there really is something supernatural out there, even if they have no direct connection to the murder plots. While I started late with reading this fantastic series, I have been buying the pocket releases on release ever since I have caught up, and Ina no Gotoki Nieru Mono is at the moment the most recent release, so I'm finally really completely up-to-date!

While this book does take on the usual format of most of the Genya novels, it does feel a bit different, though not as extremely different as Yuujo no Gotoki Uramu Mono ("Those Who Resent Like The Ghostly Courtesan", 2012). As usual, we start with a horror-esque opening, where we are told about the Rite of Ina from the perspective of Ichiko, as she relates how she experienced her own Rites when she was 7 and 14, and the really creepy things that occured to her while she went up to the waterfall and back. While a lot of the information here is relevant to the overall plot, you can also easily read these first few chapters just as a horror story, and it really sets the mood, as we learn about the Shunned, a fictional being that only exists to basically suffer instead of the "real" person and must never be acknowledged by name. Ichiko's detailed description of the route up to the waterfall as she retells her own experience is also very important here. The route starts at a gate, and then goes up the mountain, going past a small path with a big rock in the middle, a shack of someone who has been ostracized by his own family, through a small cut-out U-shaped path until you come near the waterfall. The route is not actually completely closed off, as one could make it through the thick bushes and threes to get on and off the path unseen, but this would take a lot of time, and your clothes would not go unscathed, and this becomes part of the mystery of Ichishitarou's death, as while he died on the route to the waterfall, it was not physically a genuine "locked room" (sealed space), but considering the alibis of the suspects and how much extra time it would have taken to get on and off the path unseen via the bushes, they do treat it as practically a locked room mystery, even if it's not really one.

While there are other mysteries that puzzle the police and Genya, like the sighting of a figure dressed in white, and a figure with a horn for an eye, around the time of the murder, the investigation is mostly focused on the death of Ichishitarou, and especially the alibis of various members of the Amagami family, who might have a motive for wanting to kill Ishitarou, from father Taiichi or the third brother Sanshirou (who might have resented not being picked as the next patriarch), to Sanshirou and Ichiko's mother and grandmother, who might resent having an illegitimate child taking over the clan. I have to admit, I wasn't that big a fan of this problem. Previous books had true impossible crimes occuring during the rituals in those books, like murders happening a closed off area where only the victim was, but here we have a relatively open area, that is kinda treated as a locked room due to the bushes/forest/cliffs surrounding the route, but isn't really. It takes away a bit of the mystery, as you can never really discount "random third party appeared at the watefall, killed kid, and left again." The investigation also focuses on motive, but these motives are fairly static: they point out what motives each of the Amagami family members could have or don't have at all, and while there is one new fact introduced later on, that changes the motives a bit, that one new fact is basically a wild guess, that is only confirmed because the author wants it to be like that, so that doesn't feel very satisfying. The middle part of the book is also a bit slow, as Genya only enters the area after the murder already has been committed and the whole village is helping out with organizing the funeral for Ichishitarou, so he has trouble getting information about the family and the rite as everyone is busy. Of course, we later learn a lot of these slower parts do hold vital hints for the mystery, but after the chilling first few chapters with Ichiko telling how her own rites went, the book slows down considerably, with a slow start-up time for Genya's investigation, which again is very alibi-focused, and sometimes is really about "it takes 20 minutes to walk from this part to this part, 10 minutes to the next part, here a witness saw this, then another five minute walk..."

The relatively simple set-up of the murder leads to another anomaly for this series, as Genya doesn't even need to make a list of 50~80 questions that bother him about the mystery, and which act as a guide towards solving the crime! Previous books had Genya making these gigantic lists of every little thing that bothered him, from facts related directly to the murder to things that bothered him about about the rituals in question and their history and it was by answering all of them, Genya would eventually arrive at a solution, but this time, Genya doesn't even gets time to do that, as he is rather suddenly asked by the police to just point out who did it. As always though, Genya uses his "multiple solutions" method, where he just loudly voices a possible solution, examines it, and then discards it if he finds a flaw an moves on to a next solution. Some of the false solutions are fairly simple, but I really love the major "wrong" solution of this book! It is absolutely bonkers, but is absolutely terrifying and fits so well with the theme of the book and the Rite of the Ina. I am glad it wasn't the real solution because it was a bit silly, but man, thematically it would have been great, and I think I would have learned to accept it anyway.

Up until this moment, I thought this was an okay mystery novel, though not quite up at the level of the usual very high standard of the series. While I can't expect all novels in the series to be like the absolute high points Kubinashi no Gotoki Tataru Mono ("Those Who Cast A Curse Like The Headless") and Yamanma no Gotoki Warau Mono ("Those Who Sneer Like The Mountain Fiend"), it did feel like this novel missed something. It felt like a story that would have been absolutely great as a short story or novella, but a bit too lean for a full novel. But the final solution did manage to win me over! While I still don't think the actual murder on Ichishitarou at the waterfall manages to be really memorable, though it does lead to some very interesting clues. I did find it a bit disappointing to learn the actual meaning behind the Rite of the Ina (Genya realizes the underlying meaning behind the ceremony, giving meaning to each and every single part/action of the ceremony) was not a vital clue in solving the how of the murder, I have to say that thematically, it is fantastic, as it ties very deeply with the why behind the crime. The motive behind the murder of young Ichishitarou is absolutely brilliant and the absolute high point of the book. It is a motive that could only work in this world, in this community as portrayed by Mitsuda. A lot of minor things that bothered me about the book suddenly made perfect sense in hindsight, as yes, things would end up like that if that's the motive! The motive is so deeply rooted in the old-fashioned, isolated, restricted culture of Mushikubiri Village portrayed in the book, and while yes, this is a fictional village, the underlying dynamics behind the motive are very real, and you could almost imagine this motive leading to murder in the real world too (which is what makes these book so horrifying at times, as they are based on real folklore). The clewing in regards to this is excellent too. The book is great at misdirection, at not drawing your attention to the motive despite it, in hindsight, being addressed so many times, and a lot of the minor things I thought were odd, turned out to be connected to this too, only I never made the connection between the various things that bothered me. The motive is something you will never see anywhere else but here, and that makes this book definitely one of my favorite reads of the year.

Ina no Gotoki Nieru Mono is a book that might not be as good as some of the other novels in the series, but that doesn't say much if the level of quality of the Toujou Genya series is consistently insanely high. Like Yuujo no Gotoki Uramu Mono, this book does things just a bit differently, though it stays relatively close to the usual format, but the ending does show Mitsuda is still a master at his craft, providing a haunting conclusion with one of the most memorable and fantastically founded motives I've ever seen in mystery fiction. I can't wait to read the next adventure of Genya, whenever it comes!

Original Japanese title(s): 三津田信三『忌名の如き贄るもの』

The Mad Mermaid

It was many and many a year ago, 

 In a kingdom by the sea, 

That a maiden there lived whom you may know 

By the name of Annabel Lee

"Annabel Lee"

I seem to have been experiencing the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon regarding the city of Choufu. I recently heard about it (home of Mizuki Shigeru!), and since I see the place appear in all kinds of novels...

Budding mystery novelist Hikawa Tooru is on his way to the Choufu Welfare Hospital, where his old high school friend Ikuta Shun works as a psychiatrist there. On his way, he has a rather weird encounter with someone who seems to hit on him, or perhaps not, but that was not the strangest happening that day. When he arrives at the hospital, he is surprised to see fire trucks parked around there, and when he asks what's going on, he's told shocking news: his friend has died! A fire occured in one of the free offices, which was assigned to Ikuta that day. Inside that office, a burnt body was found, but its face has been rendered completely unrecognizable. Because Ikuta was supposed to be working that time at that office, and he's not found anywhere, the people at the hospital of course assume it was him who died, but both the police and Hikawa are familiar with tropes of detective fiction, and Hikawa in particular wonders whether the body is really that of his friend. But what if the body is not that of Ikuta, whose body is it, and is Ikuta then involved with this person's death? As he asks Ikuta's co-workers about how Ikuta was as a person, since they didn't see each other much any more after high school, he learns Ikuta was indeed always the person he was at school too, but could that have led to his death? Hikawa is determined to learn the truth in Hikawa Tooru's Ningyo to Minotauros ("The Mermaid and the Minotaur" 2002), which also carries the English title The Border-Line Case.

Ningyo to Minotauros is the fourth novel in the Hikawa Tooru series, written by the same author, following the Ellery Queen model not both in this form, but also by how the character of Hikawa Tooru solves the crimes in these books, with a focus on chains of deductions, physical evidence and the conclusions one can make based on them, and eliminating suspects one by one off a list until the last suspect ends up being the murderer. As in previous novels, the crime takes place in a semi-personal circle, with Hikawa Tooru being friends with the (supposed) victim this time, while in previous novels too, his friends and people he worked with ended up being victims and/or suspects. Story-wise, we have some references to earlier novels (including the second one, which was published by a different publisher than the other books), but there's not much of story development here, as Hikawa is still a struggling novelist at this point, still waiting for his first book to be published.

The book starts rather sudden, with just a few moments before Hikawa arrives at the hospital, only to hear his friend (very probably) died in the fire. Shocked by the loss of his friend, Hikawa goes around the hospital, asking Ikuta's co-workers what kind of person he was at the hospital, as Ikuta was a very unique person at high school, one of the few people Hikawa could really get along with, and he wonders whether or how his personality could've led to his death, as he was the sweetest guy around. During his "investigation" Hikawa gets to know several people around the hospital, from nurses to fellow doctors and even some of Ikuta's patients, and they all seem to agree Ikuta was not the kind of person to get himself murdered. Some of the women Hikawa talks to even seem to fancy his old friend, which hurts as hell, knowing he just died so young. Because of previous cases Hikawa got involved with, he also gets fed some confidential investigation information from a friend with the police, which slowly give Hikawa a better idea of what happened before he arrived there. 

As a puzzle however, Ningyo to Minotauros isn't that interesting. Perhaps it's because the setting is very limited, with few characters who were at the hospital at the time of the fire, meaning there are very few suspects, and most of the book is just devoted to Hikawa interviewing people about where they were at that time, with almost no other story developments after the initial scene of Hikawa arriving at the hospital. After that it's just a lot of talk about Ikuta, and occasionally some talk about alibis of where everybody was before the fire. The idea is of course you've got to check whose alibis are actually confirmed and which are just based on the suspect's own testimony (without supporting proof), but this is something Hikawa Tooru has already done in previous books, and each time it just felt... too bland. This focus on timelines is very technical, but it is also told in a very dry manner, and because there are usually few other developments in the story, it all feels very clinical, with little to keep the reader entertained but hoping the next bit of information will be interesting. Previous novels however were a bit lengthier than Ningyo to Minotauros, which allowed for a bit more variation and more insight in the characters, but that is a bit lacking here, especially as a lot of the book is devoted to drawing a portrait of Ikuta, at the expense of the actual (living) suspects. 

There ultimately isn't like something clever or trick behind the arson in the office, and while there's some meta-talk about the unrecognizable corpse, this does not remain a mystery for long as the police just have the body examined and they arrive at a clear answer relatively soon (before the actual conclusion), so the mystery ultimately really revolves around who committed the murder and set the office on fire, and therefore, the matter really just revolves around alibis. While there are a few clever clues that point to the murderer at the conclusion, leading to an interesting revelation about the whole first scene (the final step in determining the murderer is interesting), I still find this the least engaging book of the series until this point. There's just too little really interesting about the mystery and the way it is solved, and I guess there's some interesting talk about gender studies here (hence the Japanese title), but it's not enough to really keep my attention.

As a fan of Queen-esque mysteries, it's a bit of a shame that while on a technical level, Ningyo to Minotauros certainly follows the model in terms of chains of deduction to identify the murderer, the very brief story is told in a rather dry manner, despite the "personal" angle about Hikawa's friend either being a victim, or otherwise involved in the mysterious death, and while the chain shown here would be okay for a short story, it's not enough to carry a whole novel, at least, not the way it is told. One more of these novels to go!

Original Japanese title(s): 氷川透『人魚とミノタウロス』