Mystery on the Menu

"Only in England is the coffee so atrocious. On the Continent they understand how important it is for the digestion that it should be properly made."

"The Big Four"

I actually have a story to tell about this book, but now is not the time... yet. Probably! Maybe in the future!

Disclosure: I translated Higashigawa Tokuya's Lending the Key to the Locked Room. If you haven't read it yet... read it! 

Murasaki Renji, a writer for the magazine Future Weekly for the publisher Hodansha (do not confuse for Modern Weekly of Kodansha), is sitting on a big story, but his editor won't accept Renji's first draft of his article. Renji is mixed up with a genuine murder case, with a crucified victim no less. The victim is Renji's uncle professor Takafumi Midorikawa, who was found inside the annex in the garden, his lifeless body bound to two planks which formed a cross. The man had been strangled before he had been put on the cross and left inside the annex, which had been discovered with the door locked from the inside. Renji had been visiting his aunt and uncle that day, who live with another relative in a spacious home. The professor was actually having an affair with a student of his, and Renji's aunt had asked Renji to keep an eye on the professor while he was in the annex, to make sure he wouldn't slip away. The following morning, the professor still wouldn't come out of the annex, so Renji, his aunt and the other relative go and check up on the professor, only to see him lying on the floor, his body fixed to a cross. But how did the murderer get inside and out again, without being seen by Renji last night and locking the door from the inside? That is the answer Renji's editor also wants to know, as he doesn't care much for simply a personal, and yet sensationalistic account. While trying to come up with a possible answer to the impossible crime, Renji wanders around the streets of the ancient capital Kamakura, when he notices a sign saying "Ippukudou" standing in front what appears to be a private home, but it's in fact a quaint little café. Inside, he finds one of the customers is the police detective Akane, who is friends with Yoriko, the extremely shy proprietor of the café who can't speak with first-time customers because of how nervous she gets. Renji decides to confide his story to Akane, hoping she give him some pointers for a possible solution, but to his great surprise, it's not the veteran police detective, but that shy woman dressed in traditional Japanese clothing behind the counter who'll turn out to be the armchair detective in Higashigawa Tokuya's short story collection Junkissa Ippukudō no Shiki ("The Four Seasons of Café Ippukudou", 2014).

If you have been reading my blog for some while now, you'll probably be familiar with the name of Higashigawa. Not only because I translated his debut novel Lending the Key to the Locked Room, but because I very often discuss his work here. His trademark light-hearted style where he uses the slapstick comedy in his stories to ingenously hide clues for the mystery plot is something I'll never stop loving, and he writes consistently enough for every read to be worthwhile. Most of the work I discuss by Higashigawa belong to the same few series (Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de (The After-Dinner Mysteries), Koigakubo Academy and the Ikagawa City), though I have read a few of his other series or non-series work too. Junkissa Ippukudō no Shiki is also the first book in a series, all with an armchair detective setting (the second book is set in an izakaya, though I am not sure if it's the same Yoriko as in this book). Yoriko is a fun character: extremely shy when it comes to first-time customers, to the extent she can't even manage to ask the customer their order and she has next to no confidence in her coffee-making skills, as she inherited the Café Ippukudou, but she listens very carefully to the discussions her customers have, and once she notices something her customers don't, she won't hesitate to snap (somethings breaking plates in the process) to tell them how they're on the completely wrong track (often by comparing their thoughts to her own, badly made coffee).

The four stories in this book are all set in different seasons (hence the title), but another connecting theme between the four stories is surprisingly, the gruesome murders. While the stories are told within the setting of the quaint Café Ippukudou, with Yoriko often clumsily trying to serve her customers, who are bantering about whatever case they got involved with (in a comedic manner, of course), the cases are actually quite grim, with grotesque murder scenes. The contrast between the framing story, and the actual case is pretty significant, and it leads to an unusual, but very alluring tone at times.

The opening story, Haru no Juujika ("A Crucifix on Spring") for example has the victim crucified (well, tied to a cross) and discovered under seemingly impossible circumstances, as the annex had been watched for Renji for most of the night, and the door was locked from the inside. The story provides three suspects, because three is the magic number (the aunt, the relative and the student with whom the victim was having an affair), but none of them appear to have been able to enter the annex (and certainly not unseen). The solution to the problem is probably not very surprising if you're experienced with these kinds of locked room mysteries, but I think it works well enough, considering the limited page count and Higashigawa did enough to properly clue the path to the solution too, so while not a gem by any means, I think it's a very capably plotted story, that shows that Higashigawa at least knows how to handle t a plot that could've come out a lot less enterrtaining if not for his experience.

In Mottomo Ryoukitekina Natsu (A Most Macabre Summer), Renji is meeting someone at Ippukudou: Miyuki got involved in a murder case recently, and is being interviewed by him. On a summer day, Miyuki was helping her childhood friend Kousaku on his rice farm, cutting weeds together. They see three people visiting Kousaku's neighbor Nakazono's place that afternoon: a representative of a supermarket that wants to buy Nakazono's land, Nakazono's ne'er-do-well cousin, and the local madwoman who started a snake cult. All three seem to find the house empty, as they each of them go inside and leave after a short while. After finishing their work and having dinner together, Miyuki returns home only to be sent to Nakazono's place to return a pineapple cutter. She finds the door unlocked, and inside, she discovers Nakazono's dead body has been tied to a cross, placed against the main pillar of the house The man was killed during the afternoon, but which of the three visitors killed the man? This story competes with the last story for being the best: while the set-up is very simple, I love how the incriminating clue was hidden in the text: it's easy to overlook it, but once you realize its significance it points so clearly to the culprit, and it's quite daring in that regard. 

Kiritorareta Shitai no Aki ("A Cut-Up Body in Fall") has the not very succesful author Minamida Gorou visiting his friend, the very successful Higashiyama Atsuya (not to be confused with Higashigawa Tokuya, of course). Higashiyama invites Minamida out for a night of drinking, and after saying goodbye to Higashiyama's secretary/assistant/lover Nakahara Saeko, they spend the night hopping bars and end up in a karaoke bar with a guy they don't even know. When they return to Higashiyama's home in the morning, they find Renji in front of the house: he had an appointment with Saeko to discuss a project for Higashiyama, but she won't respond at all. Minamida and Renji decide to check if Saeko's in her own apartment, but they find the door not locked, and inside the bathroom, they stumble upon her body, minus some body parts like her head. The following day, her head and other parts are found scattered around town in gardens and other places. Minamida and Higashiyama end up discussing the case at Ippukudou, after hearing Renji talking about Yoriko, and indeed, she quickly points out why the murderer must've cut the body up in pieces and more importantly, who the murderer is. This story suffers a bit from the limited page count of the stories: there are extremely few characters in this story and basically only one is a viable suspect, meaning the story doesn't really have whodunnit aspect, only a howdunnit, but once you can safely guess who done it, you almost immediately arrive at the how as the possibilities to commit the murder for this person are just too limited. So this story feels a bit too straightforward, and it would have felt more satisfying if the story had a larger scale. 

Barabara Shitai to Misshitsu ni Fuyu ("A Chopped Up Body and a Locked Room in Winter") has Akane visiting Café Ippukudou again, and after some chatting, she's asked to tell about a case she had mentioned she had been working on the last time she visited (when she met Renji in spring at the Café). She and her subordinate had by driving along a road undergoing reperations after part of it collapsed the previous night, when a patrol officer notes he feels something off about one of the two lonely houses standing in front of the site: the lights in the house have been on since the previous night, but not once has the inhabitant come outside or even peeked outside at the construction work. They take a closer look and through the windows, they find the man lying dead inside in the living room, his throat having been cut with the knife lying besides him. They break inside as the doors and windows are all locked, and while searching the house, they stumble upon a second body, which is lying in pieces in the bath tub. Because the house is completely locked from the inside, and the chopped-up body obviously didn't commit suicide, it appears the first man must've killed the other man (his brother), chopped him up in parts, but then committed suicide by slicing his own throat. However, Yoriko quickly points out there's one other possibility, which is actually quite ingenious! While I liked Mottomo Ryoukitekina Natsu for its simplistic set-up and the execution, this final story is probably the best in terms of actual plotting and clewing: the solution Yoriko proposes comes in two parts, both quite surprising, and they result in an extremely memorable solution for this locked room mystery. The first part isn't really fairly clewed perhaps, but it plays wonderfully with the expectations and assumptions of the reader, and even adds a surprisingly emotional touch to an otherwise very light-hearted collection of stories, while the second part of the solution (the actual howdunnit) is just... a very unique way to commit a locked room mystery. It's not completely fair because unless you are aware of a certain thing, you wouldn't know it could be used in that manner (and they only first mention it explicitly in the solution), but the idea itself is both original and memorable, and it's especially the two-part set-up, with the first part of the solution allowing the introduction of the second part of the solution, that makes this a very unique locked room mystery.

Overall, I enjoyed Junkissa Ippukudō no Shiki: it's not big epic mystery by any means, but it's a short, yet pleasant read, where Higashigawa gets to show off his trademark style of comedic writing coupled with proper puzzle-focused mysteries, and he certainly always manages to keep a certain level of quality, and that consistency is also found in this book. Perfect material to squeeze in your schedule between thicker and darker mysteries. I might return to Ippukudou myself in the future too, because I am curious to see how the second book works as it has a different setting, but seemingly also (a?) Yoriko working there as the armchair detective.

Original Japanese title(s): 東川篤哉 『純喫茶「一服堂」の四季』:「春の十字架」/「もっとも猟奇的な夏」/「切りとられた死体の秋」/「バラバラ死体と密室の冬」

Topsy-Turvy Land

The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain

"The Rain in Spain" (My Fair Lady)

I do like how all the covers in this series have managed to incorporate elements of all stories included, and not simply only the title story.

Professional photographer/amateur detective Minami Mikikaze has been close friends with the Kittridges for some years now, ever since father Kittridge acted as the surgeon who successfully conducted Mikikaze's heart transplantant a few years back. Daughter Elizabeth Kittridge, a medical forensic expert, has been visiting Japan to attend an international symposium and workshop program on criminal forensic investigation, and Mikikaze has been showing her around his home country since, but for some reason the two keep getting involved in various murder cases. After a few shorter cases in Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo ("An Egyptian Cross Mystery") and Aru America-Juu no Nazo ("An American Gun Mystery", 2022), and a longer adventure in Aru Girishia Hitsugi no Nazo ("A Greek Coffin Mystery), Beth is almost ready to return to the States, as the symposium is over and her father has been in bad health lately. But before she leaves, she's of course going to visit her old friend Takizawa Atsushi, who lives in Wakayama. Atsushi is very fond of the country Spain, and his Spanish wife Alicia, and his home has been built like a Spanish house. A few years ago, they built a giant sculpture and set it on fire like the Fallas, which attracted the attention of a lot of locals, and ever since, they've been doing it every year, with more people participating with their sculptures. It's for this reason the cliff where Atsushi's house stands is known as the Spanish cape. During their visit, Mikikaze and Beth see how Alicia's daughter Akemi from a previous husband is attacked in the garden house, even though she should be alone in there and the doors and windows were locked. They also learn about an earlier attack on Alicia a year ago, when she walked out in the garden, but was found by her uncle lying naked in the garden, having been knocked out. Her clothes however were found neatly folded in the house hallway. Who is after Alicia, and why had she been left naked in the garden a year ago? That's the big mystery in Tsukatou Hajime's Aru Spain Misaki no Nazo ("A Spanish Cape Mystery", 2023).

With this final book, Tsukatou Hajime finally ends this miniseries starring his series detective Minami Mikikaze. As one can guess going by the titles, this miniseries took its inspiration from the earliest Ellery Queen novels (the 'nationality' books). These stories are not directly based on the respective Ellery Queen novels though, but only built on themes or just the title: in the case of Aru Spain Misaki no Nazo, we have a location called the Spanish Cape, and there is a naked victim. The collection itself features three stories, which might sound surprising to the more attentive reader: for The Roman Hat Mystery, The French Powder Mystery, The Dutch Shoe Mystery, The Greek Coffin Mystery, The Egyptian Cross Mystery, The American Gun Mystery and The Siamese Twin Mystery have all been adapted already in this series, which should only leave The Chinese Orange Mystery and The Spanish Cape Mystery, so two stories. Well, in Japan, the book The Door Between is published with a title that translates to The Japanese Jay Mystery, which is why it's considered quasi-part of the Nationality novels. It's actually the same in this book too, as it's basically a bonus story, set after Beth has already left Japan, so it's not "really" the same kind of story as the ones preceeding it.

In the first story Aru China Daidai no Nazo ("A Chinese Orange Mystery"), we folllow Mikikaze and Beth during their visit to Nara General Art College: Atsushi's son Shigeru is a student here, and they're having a campus festival today, and Shigeru is actually part of the committee. The big artistic project they show off today is a hall where everything has been turned around and topsy-turvy. They actually made two of these rooms, as one was used during the day, but they have a second room prepared for the evening part of the festival. One of the guests at the festival is the Chinese artist Xu Yuan and his interpreter, as he'll be doing a speech in the evening, and in the meanwhile, they are being shown the campus by people of the committee. When the students can't find Professor Tachibana, they learn someone has locked the storeroom serving as the evening topsy-turvy room from the inside on all three entrances. They break the door open, and find a dead woman lying on the ground, but whose face has been burned off. And that's not all, want the victim is wearing her clothes the wrong way around, with the front facing her back. Meanwhile, the main topys-turvy room is discovered to also have been tampered with: somebody has put everything back in its proper place and facing the correct direction. What has happened at this university?

I kinda liked how this story came up with a reason to have a topsy-turvy room like the original The Chinese Orange Mystery, and it even has a mystery with a "normal" room which should have been topsy-turvy. This was a story I partially liked, and partially didn't like. The mystery part for the room which has been turned back normal was by far the part I didn't like: a lot of the deductions leading to the solution came out of nowhere, and it was dependent on so many outlandish assumptions by the culprit to do that, but also an outlandish idea to create the exact motive that forced the culprit's hand, it didn't feel at all convincing as a mystery. The murder victim in the "straightforward" topsy-turvy room however, was a bit more interesting. While the locked room mystery isn't really an important factor in the grand picture and a lot of other clues seem a bit simple, I do like the reason given to explain why the murderer did all kinds of seemingly silly things to create the crime scene, as the reader is just as likely to fall for the trap as the in-universe characters. As a mystery story, I don't think Aru China Daidai no Nazo ranks among the best of this miniseries, but hey, it's not the worst story in this book!

The second and title story is by far the longest, and the story is in scale also quite large, as it spans two periods of time: Mikikaze and Elizabeth see how Akemi crumbles down in the garden house as they approach it, but find the building locked from the inside, and when they do get inside, they can't find any trace of an assailant hiding. Afterwards, another character disappears from the Spanish Cape, making the matter even more baffling. As "impossible crimes", these present-day mysteries aren't really memorable, though I do like some of the deductions Mikikaze poses in regards to Akemi's attack, as it does require you to have spatial awareness, which is something I always like in mystery stories. My favorite part is definitely the past mystery, when Akemi was knocked out by someone in the garden, and left naked there. While the fact she was found in the garden does seem to indicate the attacker was someone of the household (she was not sexually assaulted either), the mystery remains baffling, for why did the attacker undress Akemi and why did they go all the trouble to fold her clothes up and leave them in the hallfway of the house? This mystery is also related to Akemi's dark past, as she actually committed two acts of arson during a stressful time. After surviving her attack, she decided to come clean, but some of the victims of course never forgave her even to this day, which would provide a motive for attacking her now, but what then about the attack on her in the past? I love the explanation to why Akemi was left naked in the garden: it is sooooo simply, but so easily overlooked, and I like how elegant it is: once you figure out why Akemi was left naked, you immediately realize it could only have been one person, and this would immediately also explain some other mysteries lingering in the background. Definitely the best story of the collection.

Both these stories still have the usual problems this series has had with its writing by the way. In my review for the first book, I wrote: "Tsukatou often jumps a few minutes ahead and has the characters discuss all kinds of things that seem slightly vague to the reader and after that section, the narration catches up and explains how they got to that point (which explains the vague allusions in the earlier dialogue). It's a story device you often see in detectives, especially in the conclusion when the detective suddenly unveils the identity of the murderer, and only after that, the narrative explains how the detective laid their trap, but these stories, it happens too often: Tsukatou does this 'jump a bit forward, have some dialogues that include facts the reader hadn't heard about yet and then explain afterwards' thing few times per story. It's like you're being driven around in a car, but the car speeds up for no reason, only to turn around and do the same part slowly once again. It's jerking you around all the time, which makes enjoying the stories a bit difficult. At first, I thought it was just me needing to adapt to Tsukatou's writing style with the first story, but it happens in all four stories." This hasn't changed at all in this fourth book. The stories feel unusually long, because each time you get a scene in media res with some cryptic comments and names, then it jumps back in time to explain everything, and then you get the original scene again, and the next section it happens again. Every scene feels much longer than they need to be, being told in a roundabout manner. Even after so many stories, I still can't get used to this writing style, and each time, I can't help but feel annoyed by it.

The final story Aru Nippon Kashidori no Nazo ("A Japanese Jay Mystery") feels more like a gaiden story, as it's set after Mikikaze and Beth have gone their own ways. During a stay at an acquintance's place, Mikikaze hears Tanemura Kaitarou has been arrested on suspicion of murder of his roommate Kyouko. The elderly poet was living together with a woman whom he considered a soulmate, though not in the romantic sense of the word. The two live in a small house near Mikikaze's acquaintance, and the woman was bed-ridden, being taken care of by Kaitarou. After a rare visit to the city to talk with his publishers, Kaitarou returned home to find Kyouko had been murdered, having been attacked by someone, but instead of contacting the police or the physician, he decided to go on a stroll in the forest to process the death, as, as he claims, he had promised to Kyouko to write a poem immediately after she died. It was only long after Kaitarou had, by his account, found Kyouko's body he bothered to inform the authorities, and this of course seems more than suspicious to them. But as Kaitarou himself also says the house was locked when he returned, it does seem only he could've committed the murder on Kyouko.

This story just didn't work for me. Part of it might simply be because I don't feel as strong about the original The Door Between as for the Nationality novels, but some of the mystery in this story also seems a bit forced. A large section of the otherwise not very long story is for example dedicated to a certain theory the inspector in charge has, but the theory seems to come out of nowhere and they keep going on about it for such a long time, it felt a bit tiring. There had to be a more natural way to introduce that theory, because it comes so sudden now and I do like the idea behind this theory, but the story is so short, it doesn't feel like its full potential has been tapped into. Perhaps a re-read at a later time might change my mind.

So overall, Aru Spain Misaki no Nazo was a somewhat uneven end to this miniseries with Minami Mikikaze. The first two stories are the best, but I can't love them unconditionally, and I didn't like the last story at all, which is always a sad way to end a series. Overall, I think the first two books in this series were better than the last two books, but I'm still glad I read them all as a fan of Ellery Queen, and also because it was Aru Egypt Juujika no Nazo ("An Egyptian Cross Mystery") which got me reading Tsukatou seriously four years ago, and it has brought some interesting things on my path. I wonder whether Tsukatou will have Mikikaze take on other "series" in future books! Only the future will tell!

Original Japanese title(s): 柄刀一『或るスペイン岬の謎』:「或るチャイナ橙の謎」/「或るスペイン岬の謎」/「或るニッポン樫鳥の謎」

Trouble Island

Tell me, princess 

Now, when did you last let your heart decide? 

I can open your eyes 

Take you wonder by wonder

"A Whole New World"

I do like this cover art a lot...

The members of the art university club Muse travel to the private island of Kiseki Island for a job arranged for them via a former member of the club, who currently works at a museum. Kiseki Island is owned by the Ryuumon Clan, but the island has been sealed off for three decades now. At the time, before World War II, it was the home of "princess" Ryuumon Yukako, the granddaughter of the patriarch of the clan at the time. She had a gigantic manor built on the island called the Chalk Manor, a smaller version of Gaudi's Sagrada Familia and collected all kinds of art. She entertained a lot of men at her home, who all fell for her beauty and all hoped to take her for themselves. However, one night tragedy struck: the princess was found decapitated in the top room of an adjoining outlook tower, where she had gone alone the previous night. However, the only footsteps left in the muddy ground around the tower, were those of her, and the man who discovered her body the following morning (but who has an alibi for the time of death the previous night). A wax doll of Yukako was also found decapitated in the manor. The house and island had been left sealed since, but now the current patriarch of the clan (Yukako's uncle) thinks it's time to open the island again, perhaps turning the manor into a museum. The members of Muse are to stay for a week in the Chalk Manor to try and create a tentative catalogue of the art treasures inside the manor, with proper museum experts coming later based on their findings. They are brought to Kiseki Island on a boat, which will return in a week for the group of 8 students, plus their supervisor, as well as an elderly couple who worked for the Ryuumons and will now take care of food and washing for them during their stay. During their stay, they are shocked to learn that the Ryuumons are actually related to a woman who had been a member of Muse last year, and who was at the center of a shared traumatic experience to all who had been a member at the time. She has passed away now, but left a will addressed to the members of Muse, telling them that the person who will create the best work of art during their stay here on the island, will inherit the island, Chalk Manor and all the art inside! The members are however very reluctant to follow this will, as their memories with the deceased are very dark, so for the time being, they decide to just focus on their work. But then one of the students dies in a freak accident by falling over a balustrade and being crushed by a lamp.Or was it an accident? For the following morning, the decapitated head of the dead student is found in the dining room, having been placed on a plate. Is there a murderer on the island, or is it one of them? And who can solve this mystery in Nikaidou Reito's Kisekjima no Fushigi ("The Wonders of Miracle Island", 1996)?

While the book seems to make it a mystery who the detective will be, I don't think it really works, especially not now in 2024, as almost every write-up on the book will mention it: yes, this is a book in Nikaidou's Mizuno Satoru series, which is immediately obvious because of the title convention. So yeah, we'll see the handsome, but somewhat geeky detective appear here. The Mizuno Satoru series is divided in two eras, with books set in his student days (with books titled [Something] no Fushigi), and books set after he's become a working member of society (with books titled [Location] Magic). In the first book, Karuizawa Magic, we saw Mizuno working as a travel agent, and Kisekjima no Fushigi was released a year later, as the second book in the series, and it seems Nikaidou basically goes back and forth each time between the two eras when publishing the Mizuno books. This is only the second time I read a book about the student Mizuno by the way: Kikounin (Collector) no Fushigi ("The Wonders of Collectors") is one of the very first Nikaidou's I ever read (I mostly remember it from the in-depth Tezuka Osamu discussions), so it's been basically fourteen years since I last read a book about Mizuno set in this era.

I have read a lot of Nikaidou's work, like all of his main Ranko series, and once you start reading his work, you'll quickly notice he's mainly a howdunnit person. He's great influenced by John Dickson Carr, and most of his works feature locked room murders and other impossible crimes. And that's the reason why I got interested in Kisekjima no Fushigi, because it was touted as the work where Nikaidou focuses solely on the whodunnit for a change! The whodunnit form has never been something I associated with him at all, so this surprising twist really made me curious. How would someone best known for creating impossible crimes, tackle a very different kind of mystery writing, with clues pointing to who the culprit is and the logic leading up to that revelation?

In terms of form, Kisekjima no Fushigi follows a very familiar format, being the closed circle situation on an isolated island, and comparisons with And Then There Were None are of course quickly made, and the closed circle with art students and the surprisingly many discussions on various forms of art remind of Ayukawa Tetsuya's Lila-sou Jiken and Maya Yutaka's Natsu to Fuyu no Sonata. As you can guess, the students are getting killed off one by one, and of course, they suspect the killer is one of them, and they start getting more suspicious of each other as the story develops. As a book focusing mostly on the whodunnit, Nikaidou really doesn't do very much with his trademark impossibilities: there's the decapitation on Yukako in the past, but there's not much beyond that, with most murders being possible to most characters (very seldom people have alibis), so you'll have to look out for very different kind of clues if you want to figure out who did it.

But... there's a reason why we associate Nikaidou with the howdunnit and not the whodunnit, and sadly enough, this book tells us enough. As a whodunnit, Kisekjima no Fushigi really isn't remarkable in any way, and seen purely as a whodunnit, there are quite some spots where the logic leading up to the identification of the culprit is playing very lightly with the definition of the term "logical". The book tries to do an Ellery Queen-style "identification of the culprit" segment, but it seldom really works. The logic behind who could've decapitated the first student, whose body had been laid to rest in the cellar after he had been crushed by the lamp, is a prime example of the weird logic: there's one step eliminating two people from the suspect list that make absolutely perfect sense, but then the other characters on the list are eliminated based on just psychological impressions ("they wouldn't do that because they wouldn't"), in order to arrive at the culprit. Other murders often have this too, where there's a moment of a good idea to show someone couldn't have been the murderer, or that something might not have been the way we assumed, but then other moments in the same process are very sloppy, which makes the whole process of elimination feel not convincing, and by the time we arrive at the identity of the culprit, the moment just doesn't feel triumphant at all as you still have all those questions in your mind telling you "Hey, the way that suspect was eliminated... did that actually make any sense?" The result is a whodunnit that... simply has trouble feeling fair to the reader. You can see Nikaidou tried to play with few familiar tropes in classical 'process of elimination'-style deductions, trying to subvert the tropes, but it just falls flat here.

Art plays a surprisingly big role in this story, with the characters name-dropping a lot of art styles and famous artists in various fields as they explore the mansion and discover all kinds of interesting pieces of art, from stained glass windows to wax dolls (9 wax dolls...) to paintings and vases and more. Knowledge of art is also handy for certain parts of the final deduction, though again, you can see Nikaidou isn't really used to doing fair-play whodunnits, as the knowledge necessary to pick up on the clues as Nikaidou intended, isn't provided to the reader before he points it out. While he talks a lot about art throughout the book, the necessary art-related clues are not discussed in detail, making it impossible to guess his intentions until he does his "Tadah!" trick, pretending like you should've caught that before.

It's funny, because there's the impossible crime set three decades ago, about how Yukako got killed and decapitated even though there were no footsteps of the culprit going to/from the tower, and that part alone has at least a more original take than the rest of the whodunnit plot. Apparently, this part alone was originally a short story on its own, starring Ranko, but Nikaidou wasn't content with it, and eventually incorporated it into the backstory for this book. While it's true that on the whole, it's not really that memorable a locked room mystery, and some might even find it utterly insulting, I did kinda like the explanation to how Yukako ended up decapitated, especially the motive behind the actual decapitation. 

As I was reading the book, I did find it odd a lot of the book's setting didn't seem to correspond to the actual story. Like, there's a whole backstory to Kiseki Island, how people used to believe there were Oni living there throwing rocks at people (Kiseki) and how it got renamed to Miracle (Kiseki) later on, and there are still locations on the island named after Oni... but we never visit those places. And then there's the Chalk Manor,  a smaller version of the Sagrada Familia and the book even opens with a super detailed floorplan of the manor... but it's not actually directly relevant to solving the mystery. It makes no difference whether there's a floorplan or not, it at best just makes it slightly easier to visualize the place. It's almost like the setting was originally created for something else, and Nikaidou just ended up using the place for this story. It's a shame because the Chalk Manor is really designed in surprising detail, with all of the rooms accounted for (even though you barely go there in the book, or they are only mentioned in passing), and I was expecting something much more bigger hiding behind it considering how overwhelming the floorplan looks at first.

So I decided to google to see whether anything had been written about my suspicions, and I ended up on on Nikaidou's own website, and it turns out... well, he didn't write about my suspicions, but he did write something else very surprising. Apparently, the version of Kisekijima no Fushigi that got published, is actually the "B version" of the story. The original "A version" featured a different prologue and epilogue, and these framing devices actually led to a very different type of mystery added on top of the whodunnit plot. Nikaidou and the editor apparently couldn't quite make up their mind which version to publish until the very end, and Nikaidou has posted the alternate prologue/epilogue on his site. While the core whodunnit plot doesn't change, I think the added dimension does at least make the book feel a bit more special than it is now, though I can also understand why they went with the simpler B version, as the tone of the book is very different in the A version, which would have worked better as a completely standalone novel. The A version wears some of its inspiration far more prominently on its sleeve, and I do like it for that, so if you have read this book, I do think it's worth to read the A version too if you have the time, just to see how the book was originally conceived.

But while Kisekjima no Fushigi is certainly a very readable book despite its rather lengthy page count, I wouldn't say this is a must-read by any means, especially as it's certainly not written to play up to Nikaidou's strenghts as a mystery writer. As a pure whodunnit, it takes on the correct form, but at no point is it really a showcase of wonderful logic, nor does it manage to really surprise you with the "shocking" revelation of the culprit. 

Original Japanese title(s): 二階堂黎人『奇跡島の不思議』

The King is Dead

“The trial cannot proceed,” said the King in a very grave voice, “until all the jurymen are back in their proper places—all,” he repeated with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as he said so.  

"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

Huh... they did the title for these covers in yellow twice in row now...

Disclosure: I am a member of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. But as always, I didn't vote for the stories this year.

Honkaku-Ou is the annual summer anthology collecting the best honkaku short stories published the previous year, as selected by the members of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan. The publication is basically a companion to the Honkaku Mystery Award, which is awarded to the best published book (novel or short story collection) each year. Short stories often get lost as time passed by, as they are commonly published in magazines or online. Unless they are later collection in a short story collection or an anthology like this one, short stories can become difficult to track down several months later. Anthologies like Honkaku-Ou ensure these stories can be easily found. The current format of five, six stories in 1 volume started in 2019 and I have been discussing the books annually since, and there have been some really cool inclusions in these books, so I was of course also looking forward to this year's entry: Honkaku-Ou 2024 ("The King of Honkaku 2024").

Honkaku-Ou 2024 opens with Ja, Kore wa Satsujin tte Koto de ("Okay, So This Was Murder") by Higashigawa Tokuya, and the story is part of his Ikagawa City series (disclosure:  I translated Higashigawa Tokuya's Lending the Key to the Locked Room, the first book in the series). This is a hilarious inverted mystery, where Oomaeda Noriyuki plans to kill his uncle, Tokujirou, in order to become owner of Oomaeda Pharmaceuticals himself. The idea is Noriyuki will use the trick from a locked room murder mystery he read as a kid to make it seem like his uncle committed suicide in the annex of his seaside mansion, where his uncle usually sleeps. Noriyuki sets the plan in motion, and while the moment when his uncle didn't die immediately and was about to grab a pen to write down a message on the floor was a bit scary, his uncle died before he could hold the pen, so with that, the scene is set. The following morning, he drags his younger brother Toshiyuki and his aunt to the annex to discover the body after his uncle didn't appear at breakfast. Their aunt faints upon the sight of her husband's apparent suicide, but Toshiyuki reveals something to Noriyuki he hadn't been aware of: their uncle had a life insurance, and his two nephews are beneficiaries, but no money will be paid out in cases of suicide. So Toshiyuki suggests to his brother... to make their uncle's suicide appear like somebody killed him, using a locked room murder trick! Soon after, familiar faces from the Ikagawa City Police Station arrive, but can Noriyuki manage to walk this tight rope of 'multiple truths'? Absolutely hilarious story, and I really like the simple, but inevitable mistake Noriyuki made that of course eventually leads to the police solving this case of suicide/murder. Nothing complicated here, but a real short, but nice showcase of what can make trope-relient puzzle mysteries so much fun.

Yuuki Shinichirou was featured in last year's anthology too with a story in the same series as Akuryou Taisan Tebasaki Samgye-tangfuu Soup Jiken ("The Case of the Evil Spirits Begone Chicken Wings Samgye-Tang Soup"). And yes, that's another odd title. The narrator in this series is a struggling comedian, who has a part-time job as a kind of Uber Eats driver. One of the shops he works for is rather special: it is one cook who pretends to be running multiple restaurants offering different cuisines, but it also serves as a detective agency. By making very specific orders, usually combining different dishes which usually have no business being ordered together, clients can engage the detective/cook's services. The delivery guy acts as a kind of Watson, delivering the food, but also interview the client for details and occasionally do some extra research. In this tale, the cook is hired to investigate a rather creepy happening in an apartment complex: the client says food has been delivered to the empty apartment next to his more than a few times now. The food was placed in front of the door, and at first, the client thought it had been delivered to the wrong door, but nobody on his floor had ordered any food. This repeated itself more than a few times. Eventually, food and other items were even delivered to another empty flat on a different floor in the building too, where somebody had committed suicide before. After installing camera security and an auto-lock front door to stop the delivery men, the phantom deliveries stopped, but they never figured out who made the orders and why. Or was it really a ghost who wanted something to eat? I still don't really get the necessity of the set-up of the cook and the uber driver, but I do like this mystery. It's a harmless one, but the idea of food being delivered to an empty apartment is pretty creepy, especially if it's one where somebody died in the past. The explanation for the ghostly deliveries is not only convincing, but Yuuki does a great job at setting up the clues, making it a really fair story too.

Kitayama Takekuni's Mikansei Gekkou - Unfinished moonshine ("Unfinished Moonshine") is written as a homage to Edgar Allan Poe, and starts with the narrator visiting Toudou, an old writer friend, who wants to consult the narrator on something important: Toudou says he found an unpublished and unfinished manuscript by Edgar Allan Poe, but the manuscript has been occupying his mind since, making him hear "their" voices who tell him he needs to finish it. The problem is: Toudou doesn't know how. The manuscript tells the story of someone who returns to his destroyed home and runs into a girl in a hut outside of town, who soon dies. The man then goes to sleep in a lookout tower, with a view of the hut, but the following morning, the whole hut has disappeared completely. Toudou doesn't know how the hut could've disappeared, meaning he can't write the conclusion, so the narator must come up with a solution. This is a cute (?) short story, brimming with Poe themes, imagery and references. The explanation for the disappearing hut is rather simple and rather underwhelming on its own, but I think Kitayama did a great job using the Poe framing device to lay out all kinds of hints, though I think that it might be a bit too obvious because a certain hint is probably better hidden for Japanese readers than for those who also regularly read English. It's perhaps not the kind of solution you'd expect from Kitayama for an impossible crime, but it fits the setting well.

Aosaki Yuugo's Ningyo Saiban ("Mermaid Trial") is a story in his Undead Girl - Murder Farce series, and I have to admit I haven't read the books, nor have I seen much of the anime series yet. This story is apparently a prequel story revolving around a murder trial in which a mermaid was the suspect, and where the reporter Annie Kerber first became acquainted with the protagonists Aya (a decapitated head) and Tsugaru, her wise-cracking assistant. It was the first trial involving inhumans in eighteen years in Trondheim, Norway. Holt was a well-known public figure in Trondheim and notoriously anti-inhumans, which made it all the more shocking when after a gunshot, his family found him dead outside at the lake, with the mermaid bending over him. It appeared the mermaid had killed him and was busy trying to set-up the scene to make it look like Holt had gotten into an accident with his row boat, but the family quickly captured the mermaid. As per law, nobody has been able to talk with the mermaid save for the prosecutor. That is, until Aya appeared at the trial to defend the mermaid. The story then unfolds in a familiar courtroom mystery manner, with both sides interrogating the suspects (with their testimonies also serving as the way the reader actually learns about the precise circumstances of the murder), and Aya of course slowly picking up on small contradictions that eventually build up to a major revelation. This is a competently constructed mystery, with short, but good deductions based on the testimonies and physical evidence, though it perhaps lacks a bit in actual surprise, as in: none of the revelations made in this trial feel as triumphant and shocking as you'd like them to be. There are some clever turnabouts though, and on a technical level, I think this is the best story in the collection.

Araki Akane's Kotoeawase ("Checking Answers") starts with the death of the narrator Touma's adoptive father, who was found by Touma as he was lying in the snow-covered garden, bleeding heavily from a cut in his neck. It took five minutes for the ambulance to come, and in the ambulance, his father's final words to Touma were that he loves him and that Touma should take care of himself. When things have settled down, the young teacher however starts having doubts about what he heard. Why didn't his father say anything about who cut him in the neck? With the realization that Touma actually only heard what he wanted to hear from his father, and that it might in fact have been a completely different message, garbled as his father's strength faded, he tries to reconstruct his father's last word and find out who did this to him. This is a story that deals with a theme very important to dying messages (the interpretation of what was said), and it takes on this time in a rather surprising proper linguistic manner, exploring various ways in which Touma could've misheard what his father said. Ultimately, that does make the story feel a bit weak, because it feels a bit arbritrary what could be considered a "plausible" interpretation of the message, and what isn't. I think that thematically, it's a strong story, but all the talk about whether a certain word couldn't be that other similar-sounding word soon becomes a bit boring.

The final story, Saigo no Hitoshigoto ("His Last Job") by Miyauchi Yuusuke,  is about a writer on music, who decides to write a piece on Caustic, an indie duo consisting of lead singer and bassist Yuhara Seiichi and Shiga Makoto on the guitar and side-vocalist. In 2013, while they were recording their third album, Shiga died in the recording studio: he had been bashed in the head. However, Yuhara didn't report the murder until many hours later, even though he had been in that same studio. Eventually, their manager was arrested, but rumors always floated around that it was the eccentric prodigy Yuhara who murdered Shiga, and that their manager took the fall for him. The writer decides to learn more about the way in which Caustic fell apart,  and eventually arrives at a very surprising conclusion... Interesting story about a crime set in the past, in which a suspect was actually arrested and tried, but still, doubts exist about what actually happened, like Christie's Five Little Pigs. The crux of the problem lies in the question why Yuhara didn't report the murder immediately, as you are usually wont to die if somebody is murdered in the same room. The solution doesn't require as much imagination as the story pretends, partially because it is clewed and hinted at early on, so in that sense, it's a fair solution, but it does seem to show its card too early, making the finale, despite having a twist, feel a bit underwhelming.

On the whole, this year's Honkaku-Ou proves to be another fairly decent anthology, though I do think it starts off stronger than it ends, and it misses a story I am really a fan of this year, though I do greatly prefer this one over last year's. And perhaps it's just me, but because most of the stories included in this book are pretty short (and the volume itself isn't very long either), I do often find myself liking the more lighthearted stories better. I often read this anthology while reading other things, so I'll be reading a different book and occasionally squeeze in one of the stories in this volume, but I always end up liking the ones offering mystery and a laugh the best. So that'll always skew my view on these books, I guess. Expect another look at the Japanese short story mystery scene next year! 

Original Japanese title(s): 『本格王2024』:東川篤哉「じゃあ、これは殺人ってことで」/ 結城真一郎 「悪霊退散手羽元サムゲタン風スープ事件」/北山猛邦「未完成月光 Unfinished moonshine」/ 青崎有吾 「人魚裁判」/ 荒木あかね 「答え合わせ」/宮内悠介「最後のひと仕事」

The Haunted Bridge

 "I'm Guybrush Threepwood and I want to be a pirate!"

"The Secret of Monkey Island"

Awesome cover art!

Neville is a simple shoemaker in Salisbury and happily married to the mother of his soon-to-be-born first child. One day, after a visit by his father-in-law, Neville decides to walk him back home, but on the way back, they swing by a pub, a decision Neville would regret his whole life. For England is at war with France after the French revolution, and harbored at Southampton is the Halberd, a British warship which is severely short on sailors at the moment. All the actual sailors on trade ships know the navy are forcing capable people into service, so they have all gone underground the moment the Halberd approached Southampton, but the captain of the Halberd needs more men before he can ship off, so he decides to send his press gang to Salisbury to simply kidnap a group of men who are physically capable of the work. And so Neville and a few other of the locals, among which a co-worker and someone he knew since he was a child, are abducted by the Halberd's press gang and forced into service. Before they truly know what has happened to them, they find themselves on the Halberd, a formidable warship and Neville and the other new recruits barely get them to get used to the idea they are now navy sailors, in war with France. They get rudimentary training, and Neville fortunately gets assigned to a unit with some friendly faces, who gladly teach him the ropes, though they are clear to state he should abandon all hope of escaping, and all he can do is try to survive the best way he can, because that's what they are all doing. One evening, when Neville's group is assigned to the night watch, Neville hears a strange noise next to him, and the next moment, he find the sailor next to him is lying dead on the deck, his head having been bashed in! But while he couldn't see much in the darkness, he is quite sure he didn't hear anyone moving about near him before it happened, and other sailors in the vicinity testify the same. But the doctor soon determines the way the sailor was hit makes it quite clear this was murder, and an investigation is started. When later, another sailor is found murdered during a rat hunt, and Neville is once again the first one to discover the corpse, Neville finds himself in a rather risky position. But once again the witnesses seem fairly certain nobody else approached the victim. Who is the unseen assaillant on the Halberd, and why is he killing people on a ship on its way to war in Okamoto Yoshiki's Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin ("Murders on The Sailing Warship" 2023)? Could it be the ghost of the French captain who died while being held captive in the isolation cell of this ship?

Every year, publisher Tokyo Sogensha accepts manuscripts by unpublished authors for the Ayukawa Tetsuya Award: the award includes a publishing contract for the debuting author and due to its focus on puzzle plot mysteries, it's an award I always try to keep an eye on. In recent years for example I have read and loved 2019's winner Jikuu Ryokousha no Sunadokei ("The Hourglass of the Time-Space Traveller"), 2017's winner Shijinsou no Satsujin ("The Murders in the Villa of the Dead") and 2016's winner The Jellyfish Never Freezes. The last two years however, no manuscript had managed to convince the jury, so there had been no Ayukawa Tetsuya Award winner since 2020's Goshoku no Satsujinsha (The Murderer of Five Colors). Fortunately, 2023 brought us Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin, the first winner in three years, and one with a rather unique setting. For I certainly hadn't read a mystery novel yet set in the late 18th century, aboard a British warship about to head for war with the French.

Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin certainly shines as a historical novel. We follow Neville as the Halberd's press gang force him and a few other physically capable men at the pub into service, and together with Neville, who of course has no experience on sea whatsoever, we the reader learn about the workings of a 18th century British warship. The start of the novel is fairly slow, and it can feel a bit like studying at times, as Neville and the reader are taught about all kinds of things about the warship itself, like all the names and locations for all the decks, masts, lines and more, but we also learn about the navy and the hierarchy on a ship, and the workings on a warship, from the tasks of each crew member assigned to a cannon during a naval battle, to how the clock works on a ship and how shifts are handled. I had very little knowledge about this, and I have to admit, I found the beginning, like Neville, a bit difficult to grasp at times, having to remember all the masts and decks and everything. There is a simple diagram a the beginning of the book with the parts of the Halberd, but even so, it can be a bit confusing being suddenly thrust into a setting where everyone is using terms you're not very familiar with. 

That said, it does create a fantastic atmosphere, and Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin is very memorable as a book depicting the life of sailors on a warship. Not surprisingly, life on a warship is not really fun, with many of the non-ranking sailors being just like Neville, basically kidnapped and forced into service and while they get food and drinks, the way sailors are bound to their ship and are basically not rewarded for their services and can be forced to work for an undetermined period in a rather life-threatening position, makes you realize it's basically just slavery. Neville, very obviously, feels a lot of despair realizing his child will soon be born even though their father might not survive for much longer, though there's something understandable seeing the more experienced sailors who know this isn't the good life, still trying to keep up appearances and telling dark jokes and trying to at least enjoy the little they do still have. It's clear the author has done a lot of historical research, depicting many facets of the sailor life, from their daily life and their tasks, to other aspects like the matter of what happens to sailors who try to bail.

But, of course, I wasn't reading Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin because I wanted to read a historical novel. At least, that wasn't the only reason: I was of course interested in Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin as a mystery novel. In that regard, I found the book to be quite entertaining, and not very surprisingly, the work as its best when the mystery aspects utilize its unique historical setting. The book starts out with some deaths that are semi-impossible at best: Neville twice stumbles upon a dead body during his shift (once at night, once while he's sent on a rat-batting mission by the cook), and twice he is fairly sure nobody was near the victim, besides himself and the other men in his unit, but of course, those situations are not really impossible, as Neville can't vouch for the other men, nor can he be absolutely sure nobody else (who didn't have their shift) didn't sneak into the scene. An officer is assigned to investigating the murders, as they are at least sure they're not accidents, but as there are few clues around, this investigation moves very slowly, and the focus of the book is more on the seafaring adventures of the Halberd as it prepares to wage battle, rather than the criminal investigation. We even get to see a genuine skirmish between the Halberd and two French warships, very exciting of course, but yes, the book is more often not about the investigation than about.

It's in the later quarter, when more deaths occur, the investigation finally seems to become the focus of the book. While Neville is not seen as the sole suspect at first, things move in a way that seem to implicate him more and more as the murderer, but he's quite sure he didn't do it, but what can he do to prove his own innocence, being a mere, lowly sailor with no freedom at all to do any investigation himself? One death is most definitely an impossible one, with two officers hearing a shot from the isolation cell, and when they check it, they find the man being kept there shot, but the officers swear nobody came out of this part of this ship after the shot, and all the rooms there have been searched. The trick used here to deceive the officers is perhaps when Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin is at its best, utilizing its highly unique historical setting for what is in essence a very simple trick, but it works very well, because it fits so naturally within the way we have seen life on the Halberd portrayed, and it's easy to completely overlook it. So here, I did find the book really managed to use the historical setting to create a naturally-feeling trick for the impossible situation. I was not a very big fan of the whodunnit aspect of the book though, sometimes the way the story limits the suspect pool feels very arbitrary (we're just getting a report of an off-scene investigation telling us that only like 5 men could've performed a certain action, without explaining how they limited it down to that). The book tries to go for an Ellery Queen-esque, "crossing off the suspects" type of denouement, but this part doesn't feel really satisfying. And the culprit's plan was rather... shoddy. Like he (yes, he, there are only men on the ship) had to be both lucky and unlucky at the same time, the way he learned certain facts and commited his murders... Some of the earlier murders are really not remarkable at all, so that is a bit disappointing, but I guess it works as build-up...

Hansen Gunkan no Satsujin is perhaps more a historical swashbuckling adventure novel that also concerns a mystery, than the other way around, but overall, I think it was an entertaining novel that really showed the author's love for the setting. The book offers a very unique location and time for a mystery story, and while the emphasis of the story is more about Neville's life as a sailor on the Halberd, it's a decent mystery novel, Definitely recommened to history buffs!

Original Japanese title(s): 岡本好貴『帆船軍艦の殺人』

There Wolf

"The killer is not wolf! It is werewolf! You must hunt it down, and kill it!"

"The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery"

Warning you now already: there will be no Werewolf-themed manga next week, despite the trend set by today's post and last week's post...

Mobile Suit Gundam is one of those franchises you'll hear about sooner or later once you start reading manga or watching anime. It is an enormous franchise, and even if you have never seen any of the many anime series, you might know the series through for example the video games, or the plastic Gundam models. The franchise originally started as an anime series created by Tomino Yoshikyuki and detailed the space war between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon, known as the One Year War. In the world of Gundam, long-range precision warfare is made impossible due to Minovsky particles, which disrupts communications and inferes with electronic circuitry. Military tasks are therefore conducted with mobile suits, piloted bulky robots which excel in close and semi-close combat quarters: the titular Gundam is a special type of mobile suit, featuring more advanced weaponry and technology, but usually therefore also not suitable for all pilots. While the series was not a huge succes initially, it has now grown into one of the best known Japanese franchises in the world and probably the one franchise you think of when you think of mecha anime. The franchise is huge with probably hundreds of different works, so it was actually surprising there never had been a mystery Gundam entry before, at least, not until 2023.

It is the year Universal Century 0087: the aftermath of the One Year War has resulted in a three-way conflict between the Titans, an elite unit created by the Earth Federation; the Axis of Zeon, consisting of remnants of the Principality of Zeon, and the AEUG, the Anti Earth Union Group which opposses the militaristic Titans taskforce. The Hecate is a Pegasus class carrier of the Titans with a secret mission: to test out a new experimental Gundam model. However, somehow information on their mission leaked, and they find themselves attacked by mobile suits of the AEUG. Because Gundam W.E.A.R. Wolf is still in the testing phase, it is not deployed, to the chagrin of the test pilot Rasaid Grendon. Most of the mobile suits of the Hecate are destroyed during the surprise attack, but the carrier itself manages to escape, though not unscathed: its propulsion system has been hit, and they find themselves now drifting in a lonely part of the Zebra Zone. When they find themselves attacked once more, but this time by the Axis, it seems clear they may have a intelligence problem, but this time, Rasaid can't sit still. He strongarms mechanic Makami Talbot into preparing Gundam W.E.A.R. Wolf. W.E.A.R. Wolf's immense might soon forces the enemy to retreat, much to the relief of the crew of the Hecate, who welcome W.E.A.R. Wolf back into the hangar. When Rasaid doesn't appear out of the cockpit however, they fear he might have gotten injured during the skirmish, despite the Gundam not having any external damage. The ship's doctor is standing by as the cockpit is remotely opened, but to everyone's shock, they find Rasaid shot through the heart. But as the Gundam itself is undamaged, it means Rasaid was shot while inside the cockpit after the skirmish. This would of course have been impossible: the cockpit was opened in front of everyone, and considering the small size of a cockpit, it would have been impossible for a murderer to hide in the cockpit with Rasaid during the whole raid and escape unseen. This means the Gundam's cockpit was a locked room. In any way, it seems more than likely Rasaid was killed by someone on the ship, meaning the murderer is one of their own. 

Despite the physical impossibility however, mechanic Makami is accused of the murder, as he was the last one to see Rasaid alive before he boarded W.E.A.R. Wolf and because he was being bullied by Rasaid. Because they are stranded and can't contact home base, Lycus Freyburg, captain of the Hecate, makes a desperate decision: in twelve hours, the whole crew has to take a vote on who they think the murderer is. By making it a "democratic decision", Lycus hopes the whole crew will band together again and keep their morals up, having "found the murderer of the Gundam test pilot" together. Leto Shia, a reserve mobile suit pilot, however warns Makami that at this rate, it'll be he who'll be branded the murderer. Leto herself also admits she had a motive, as she was being sexually harrassed by Rasaid. She decides to investigate the locked Gundam murder in order to find the real murderer in Itou Kei's Kidou Senshi Gundam Wearwolf  ("Mobile Suit Gundam Wearwolf", 2023-).

Kidou Senshi Gundam Wearwolf is a manga which started serialization in Gumdam Ace in 2023 and is drawn by Itou Kei, with a scenario by Shigenobu Kou. At this moment, two volumes collecting eight chapters have been released, and the series is still running (with a few uncollected chapters already having been released). I myself am not at all super familiar with Gundam to be honest: I have basically only seen the original trilogy films (based on the original series) and Gundam Wing, which story-wise are not directly related to the story of Gundam Wearwolf, but despite a few names being dropped which seemed to be coming from other series like Zeta Gundam, I could still follow it pretty good, so as long as you know what mobile suits are, you should be able to follow this. 

When this manga was first announced last year, I knew I wanted to read this, because the premise just sounded so much fun: the story was going to be inspired by the social deduction game Werewolf/Mafia, but also feature a locked room murder. And let's admit: a locked room murder in the cockpit of a Gundam is an awesome premise. To be honest, the werewolf theme in turn is a bit underused: while the Gundam itself is called W.E.A.R. Wolf and allies and enemies all liken the powerful mobile suit to the monstrous werewolf as it rages in battle, the social game is not really used in the manga itself, at least, not in the first two volumes. For the story focuses very much on Leto and Makami as they investigate clues in order to find the real murderer of Rasaid, while there's not that much of seeing the other members of the crew discussing the case or really coming up with theories why X or Y could be the murderer or pointing at each other. Up to this moment, the Werewolf theme is only used effectively as a time limit to have a voting round, though this could change in coming volumes.

So while the manga is still running, the how behind the locked room murder of Rasaid has already been solved in these first two cases, which is why I decided to already discuss this manga, especially as this series runs in a monthly, so it's not moving really fast. I have to start with admitting the start was a bit rough for me: the art is alright in normal scenes, but Itou Kei's action scenes are really difficult to follow: it's very hard to make out how mobile suits are moving about or how they are even attacking each other and while it's not very important for the mystery, the chaotic action scene with which the series opens, and the ones which we occasionally see later in the series too, are rather disappointing. It makes you really appreciate again how brilliantly the fights in Dragon Ball are drawn by Toriyama, simple but so incredibly effective in showing how characters were moving in relation to each other and the environment.

But let's focus on the main mystery of these first two volumes: the locked cockpit murder. The premise is sublime, as we have seen pilots going in and out of their mobile suits since forever in this franchise, and of course many pilots have been murdered while in a mobile suit.... but usually not under impossible circumstances (i.e. being shot down or having a beam sword pierce the cockpit is not an impossible crime...). The W.E.A.R. Wolf cockpit however was a locked space: there are logs of when the cockpit is opened and closed and Rasaid was confirmed to be alive when he entered the Gundam, as he actively fought in a skirmish and commnicated with others before his return to the Hecate, but when they open the cockpit for him in the hangar, they find he has been shot with a pistol through his heart. The situation is brilliant, and I wonder why it took so long for such a mystery to be created. The Gundam franchise has a lot of sci-fi gadgets of course that would allow for interesting murder situations and tricks (like the above mentioned Minovsky particles), so while a murder mystery in the world of Gundam can feel a bit "artificial", it is also true that Gundam has such strongly established world-building, a lot of tricks, even if relying on "sci-fi gadgets" would feel very fair, because they are constantly featured in so many series.

In that regard, I found the locked room of Gundam Wearwolf a bit disappointing. The trick itself for shooting Rasaid is one I feel very indifferent about. I think the psychology why the trick would have worked in general reasonable, but it feels a bit unfair to the reader because they can't know whether Rasaid would have realized what was going on in time or not (Rasaid is the one person likely to have been able to predict it). The actual trick is one that I feel could have been used in so many situations besides an actual Gundam cockpit, which is what makes it feel a bit like a let-down: I would have loved to have seen a trick that seemed more uniquely Gundam: it comes close now, but not quite, and ultimately, it is a variation of a trick you could also imagine seeing in a modern, or even classic setting and if you had seen it there, you would probably have found it a very trite trick. A lot of the investigation scenes with Leto and Makami also ultimately don't really focus on figuring out how the murder was committed (Leto basically figures it out in a dream), with most of their poking around resulting in information about the why, which would have been more interesting if the story had focused more on the social aspect of Werewolves.That said, Gundam Wearwolf is still running, and even though the first locked room murder has been solved, there's more mystery awaiting the crew of the Hecate it seems, so perhaps the series will manage to develop itself.

At this moment, the merits of Gundam Wearwolf as a detective manga lie more in its cool premise, of combining Gundam with a murder mystery set-up, than its actual execution. In the first two volumes, we are treated to a very cool and unique premise, but its solution is nowhere as original and creative as that. The theme of Werewolves is also underutilized, though that may change if the series continues on longer: I was actually expecting this to be a relatively short series, but with the way the second volume ends (and I believe there's already enough material serialized for a third volume), this aspect of the series might be used in a more memorable way. Anyway, it's likely I will continue reading this eventually, so perhaps my feelings on this series will change in time!

Original Japanese title(s): 伊藤亰 (漫画), 重信康（シナリオ）、小太刀右京（アドバイザー） 、矢立肇・富野由悠季（原案） 『機動戦士ガンダム ウェアヴォルフ』第1, 2巻

Puzzle for Pilgrims

"It's morphin' time!"

"Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers"

No, that's not weirdly specific compression: the cover illustration is really pixelated.

Disclosure: I have translated works by Norizuki Rintarou and Abiko Takemaru.

As reflected by the winners of the same-named Mephisto Prize, Mephisto is a magazine providing entertainment fiction, with a focus on mystery, but not exclusively so, as it also features storie encompassing scifi and other genres. It has gone through a few formats since its inauguration in 1994, and since 2021, it has become one of the perks for subscribers of the Mephisto Readers Club, being published four times a year as its club magazine, featuring serializations of for example the newest House novel by Ayatsuji Yukito, but also original stories written for the magazine. In 2023, author Norizuki Rintarou became the chief of a project focusing on the classic detective device of the Challenge to the Reader, or in this case, a challenge to subscribers of the Mephisto Readers Club. Each story would be published in two parts: the problem part would be published in the magazine itself and end with a Challenge to the Reader. The reader would have a few weeks to send in their answer, complete with the proper logic behind it, and then the solution would be published online after the deadline (and they'd have live-streams with the writers to look back at the stories). Norizuki approached five other authors to write a story with a Challenge to the Reader, and while the Challenge to the Reader is commonly associated with the pure whodunnit, he interestingly also divided the stories in three groups: they would do two whodunnits, two whydunnits and two howdunnits. Early 2024, these six stories by the authors Norizuki Rintarou, Houjou Kie, Abiko Takemaru, Tanaka Hirofumi, Kitayama Takekuni and Ibuki Amon were collected in the volume Suiri no Jiken Desu ("It's Morbin' Time" "It's Inference Time"), finally giving non-subscribers also access to these stories.

I myself was not a member of MRC at the time, but I had seen Houjou Kie talk about her contribution to the project last year, and as I am a big fanboy and know she's good at these Guess the Criminal/Whodunnit + Challenge to the Reader-style stories, I of course wanted to read her entry too, so I was more than thrilled when I heard the stories would be collected in an anthology. Norizuki, Abiko and Houjou were also all members of the Kyoto University Mystery Club, where these two-part puzzle-like Guess the Criminal scenarios (with a Challenge to the Reader) are a club tradition, so I knew they'd have experience with the format, and I was already familiar with the works of Kitayama and Ibuki, and I've enjoyed their works too, so I was very curious to see how they'd do the Challenge to the Reader too. Tanaka was the one author I hadn't read yet, and his entry was quite fun too, so I might read more of himin the future.

As mentioned in some of my older posts on the tradition in the Kyoto University Mystery Club, these scenarios are generally a lot closer to "pure puzzle"-esque than a normal mystery story and one important factor is that these stories really need to be solvable. When the Challenge to the Reader comes, all the hints must be given, and more so than "conventional" mystery stories, the logical chain from hint, to insight, to conclusion must be solid and not stretched too far apart: these stories generally don't expect you to come up with a brilliant locked room murder trick just by seeing the vague hint of a needle lying on the floor. Usually the process is plotted with a lot more hints, to keep the game fair. This would especially be the case for this project, as readers were encouraged to write in their answers, and had to explain the logical process (not a guess!) by which they arrived at their conclusions. So going into these stories, that was certainly something I kept in mind and I was also curious as to how it'd work with the whydunnits and howdunnits: as I explained in this article, the Queen-style whodunnit feels very fair as it's often based on the process of elimination and observed facts, whereas stories might feel less fair, because they expect the reader to "imagine" something.

The book opens with a story by Norizuki himself, titled Higisha Shibou ni Yori ("Due to the Death of the Suspect"). The last Norizuki I read was King wo Sagase last year, which was about the trope of the murder exchange, a theme I noted he liked as he had written about it in other stories. And he really likes it apparently, as this story is about it too! Mystery novelist and amateur detective Rintarou is visited by his friend Iida, who introduces him to Kajitani Kouhei, a financial planner who is being suspected of murder by the police. Kajitani is in fact somewhat of a swindler, and he had convinced Kajitani Iwao, a retired ship's cook, to adopt him, and take out a life insurance, with Kouhei as the beneficiary. Iwao was, not surprisingly, killed, but Kouhei has an alibi for that night. However, near the crime scene the former city councilman Mizoguchi Takanori had been seen, and it happens his wife was also killed just the week before: the police suspects Takanori and Kouhei swapped their murders, but the police cannot be sure, as Takanori committed suicide while in the custody of the police. And why go through the trouble of swapping murders, only to commit suicide immediately afterwards? But if there was no murder exchange and Kouhei has an alibi, who then killed Kouhei and Takanori's wife?

I have to admit: this set-up with a murder exchange wasn't what I had expected of a whodunnit scenario by Norizuki, though the foreword did mention him leaving the more traditional type up to Houjou. This story is great though: while fairly limited in cast of suspects, the chain that logically points to the murderer is very sound, and this is a prime example of a story that is clearly written to be fair, and that is willing to be "solved" and surrender to the reader, as long as the reader will do the bare minimum of sorting the clues in the story out and keep a good eye on who knows what at what time and things like that. 

Houjou Kie's story is titled Fuudani-kan no Satsujin ("The Whodani House Murders"): the Whodani House is the home of the jeweler Hatano Rokuhiko. The house consists of two buildings, which are connected in the middle by a glass house courtyard. Other people in the house include his two sons, his wife, his mistress and his secretary. And of course our narrator Uzuki, the maid and also a thief. One night, just as she hopes to steal a valuable painting from the living room, she first hears one muffled pistol shot going off, and five minutes later two more, but much louder, which also attracts the attention of other people in the house. She makes up some excuse for being in the living room at night with the lights off, and they go off looking for the butler, who for some reason doesn't show himself despite the ruckus. The butler is in the East Wing, while the living room is in the West Wing, so Uzuki and the secretary go to the security room, but they find the butler shot to death with two shots with a pistol from Rokuhiko's collection. When they want to report to their master in his bedroom back in the West Wing however, they find him shot to death too, and it's clear it was done with the same pistol. But who in the house managed to kill two people in both wings, while Uzuki was in the living room, which you need to pass in order to enter the connecting glass house courtyard?

This is the type of story I assume with a Kyoto University Mystery Club-style whodunnit scenario, and it's good one! Sure, it feels very "puzzly", but that is what I like about these stories, and man, this story is dense with clues. Houjou's work in general is quite dense when it comes to the pure mystery plot, but considering the page count, I'd say this might be her densest work yet, though I would admit that having this much density in a novel-length story might be a bit tiring. Still: this is a must-read if you want to learn how to these kind of fair-play Challenge to the Reader-style stories using a process of elimination: each step in the logical chain is explained clearly, allowing you to slowly cross out names on the suspect list until you end up wth the last name: the killer. Some clues are very obvious clues, but that's not a problem, as it's figuring out how to combine them that makes these stories so fun. Houjou also manages to hide more than a few suprises despite it being a relatively short story, but then again, it's so densily plotted you'll find crucial information everywhere, from the figures to the Challenge to the Reader itself. Definitely my personal highlight.

Abiko Takemaru's Osanasugiru Mokugekisha ("The Witness Was Too Young") is a whydunnit, which is probably a lot harder to put in a "fair play format", so I was curious how this would work out. We follow the police officer Hashitani Kaoru of the Community Safety Division, who is asked to assist with a murder investigation: Kiyomi, a pregnant mother, has for some reason stabbed her husband Haruto to death right in front of their son Subaru. He called the neighbors for help, but by that time, it was already too late. Kaoru has received training to talk with children, and is of course more suited to talk with Subaru than the angry-looking homicide detectives, so Kaoru is to see if she can get a little bit more information out of the shocked boy, as his mother is in the hospital in a dazed state and not available for questioning herself. The story of the boy whose his mother just came back home, pushed him away and started a fight with her husband sounds odd, and the boy can not imagine why her mother did that, but eventually Kaoru manages to figure out why. And this story works surprisingly well as a fair-play story. I have the feeling this story can also be "guessed" without any hints at all, but still, Abiko did plant proper hints, which allow a less imaginative reader to still arrive at the solution in a logical manner, and I find that very impressive. The solution is also pretty memorable, and overall, I'd say this tale too is good.

Tanaka Hirofumi's Perry no Haka ("The Grave of Perry") is the first of three historical stories: I am not sure why he, Kitayama and Ibuki all went for a historical setting. Perry no Haka starts in 1933, when a scholar visits a small village to open a tomb there. The scholar learned about the tomb via documents left by an ancestor, who worked as a (kind of) policeman in the Edo period, just around the time the Americans came to Japan, demanding them to open their borders for trade. The story then jumps back to the first arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry with his black ships at Edo, using the threat of their ships to first hand over a document demanding the Japanese to open their borders and saying they'd back one year later, expecting a positive answer from the Shogun. Meanwhile, we also learn about a worker in the kabuki industry who for some reason is visited by some Americans during this first visit, and one year later, when the black ships return, this man is found murdered, having been shot by the Americans. But why, and what does his death have to do with the tomb that is opened in 1933? This story has an interesting premise, focusing on Perry's arrival in Japan and the reaction to his fleet, and the way the mystery ties to actual history is quite clever. Hint-wise, I think it ultimately works out well: while I think the Perry-period story alone might not be enough, the prologue does provide enough context for the reader to make the necessary deductions, and while the story itself is not as densily plotted as Houjou, meaning there is much more "historical fluff" to flesh out the story, it is certainly a solid entry.

Kitayama Takekuni's Ryuugoroshi no Kunshou ("The Medal of the Dragonslayer") also has a story-within-a-story structure, as we first follow the narrator and his sister in Finland, who recently lost their grandfather. There's a safe in their grandfather's room, but they don't know the combination. They suspect a hint might lie in the stories he always told his grandson, though both believe their grandfather just loved tall tales. The clue might lie in a story their grandfather told about his father, who during World War II had been tasked with assassinating a nazi officer: while Finland had been working with Nazi Germany to fight off the Soviet Union, balance was going to shift soon, so they wanted to sabotage the operation, but without openly offending the Nazis. The operation occured during the transport of the railway gun Siegfried: two Fins (one of which their great grandfather) and two nazi officers were sitting in one carriage which was not connected to the other cars, meaning they could not leave it while moving. Meanwhile the Nazi commander was sitting in his own luxury carriage, which was connected to the railway gun carriage. The commander was seen to be alive when they boarded the train and set off. However, when they arrived at their destination, the commander was found on the roof of the railway gun wagon, at the controls, having been stabbed with a bayonet. But how could their great grandfather have done that, while he was in a different railway carriage, with three other witnesses?

You know, knowing Kitayama's work, I had actually expected a much more bigger, over the top trick. This was surprisingly.... normal. Okay, not really normal, but in comparison with his other works... I'm a bit torn on this story, to be honest. It's a good mystery story, that is for sure: I am familiar with other variants of the trick used here, but this specific iteration feels original to me, and it makes good use of the setting and of course, the idea of the murder happening on a moving train while we know the murderer is being watched, is pretty cool. But I don't feel this story is exceptionally fair, at least, not the degree we have seen in previous stories. While the story can be solved based on the hints, I feel this one does require a bit more imagination/intuitive guessing on the part of the reader, while personally, I think these stories with a Challeng to the Reader are the most satisfying when they do not require that, and allow someone with no imagination at all still solve the mystery by properly identifying all clues and following them to their logical conclusion. So in any other book, I would have liked this story better, but here it felt a bit off. 

Ibuki Amon's Hatozaki Taii no Homare ("The Honor of Captain Hatozaki") is set in Manchuria, where the detective Tsukisamu Sanshirou is sent by military command to investigate a certain unit. Command has been receiving letters accusing high ranking officers in that unit of illegally selling supplies to Koreans and other factions. However, command is actually aware of that, but turning a blind eye because they know that unit is stationed in a rather harsh place, so they give them a break. When the accuser threatens to blow the whole affair up if no measures are taken, Tsukisamu is sent (under the guise of being a journalist) to capture the accuser and silence him. Tsukisamu actually, by sheer coincidence, almost immediately learns his target is Captain Hatozaki, but during a skirmish, Hatozaki is injured and the surgeon won't allow Tsukisamu to question him just yet. In fact, Hatozaki was in a pretty bad shape and some of the medicine applied to him have put him in a rather confused state, so while he has been given sedatives now, he has been locked inside a room in the medical quarter's for his own, but also other people's safety for when he wakes up. Tsukisamu sees Hatozaki sleeping in the room, but has to wait until he wakes up. In the middle of the night however, as Tsukisamu wanders around the military complex, he sees someone shooting the lock off the door to Hatozaki's room, and while he and the surgeon immediately nab the guy, when they open the door to check inside, they find Hatozaki gone! But how could that be: the door was opened only just now by shooting the lock off, so neither someone on the outside, nor Hatozaki on the inside could've opened the door earlier.

This story has a bit of the same as the previous story, where it's an okay howdunnit, though not feeling as well-clewed as the other stories. The howdunnit itself is not as good as the Kitayama story, though I guess it's more solvable than that story too, with more hints. Oddly enough, I think the best part of this story is the whydunnit behind the culprit's actions; that part is actually really original and by far the most memorable part of the story and I would actually have preferred to have seen this worked out for the whydunnit part of the project, rather than it now feeling as a "bonus" to a howdunnit.

The book has a bonus section, where the autors themselves take on the stories of the others, and they can be interesting to read. You can really see how their thinking processses work and how they pick up on clues and more. The accompanying essays on the project are also I think also very useful to aspiring writers, as you can get an idea of how they plot these kind of logical problems and have to explicitly make it solvable.

Suiri no Jiken Desu is on the whole a really solid volume though, and a must-read if you're into fair play puzzle plot mystery. While these stories don't really offer much room for characterization or fleshing out of the background, they are good showcases of how to do stories with a Challenge to the Reader, and especially Houjou's story is a great example of how to plot clues and how to guide a reader's thinking process in identifying the culprit. It's very likely this will end up as one of my favorite reads of this year, and I hope they'll do a similar project again in the future!

Original Japanese title(s): 『推理の時間です』: 法月綸太郎　「被疑者死亡により」/ 方丈貴恵 「封谷館の殺人」/ 我孫子武丸　「幼すぎる目撃者」/ 田中啓文 「ペリーの墓」/ 北山猛邦　「竜殺しの勲章」/ 伊吹亜門「波戸崎大尉の誉れ」