The Big Four

"From the ashes of this world I will build a better one. Go forth, my horsemen and let chaos cleanse the world."

"X-Men The Animated Series"

Hmm, funny how a lot of the reviews posted this winter are set in the summer...

After a murder case that involved her own friends, Nadia Maugars, daughter of Inspector Maugars, still doesn't know quite how to move on, especially as in contrast, Yabuki Kakeru, a Japanese student who studies philosophy in Paris who tutors her in Japanese, seems eerily cold and untouched by the incident. Kakeru is in fact far more interested in Nadia's friendship with Giselle Rochefort, daughter of August Rochefort, one of the major names in the financial world of southern France. Giselle is studying history under the tutelage of Charles Sylvain: Kakeru wants to view certain documents involving the Cathars, which Charles can provide him. Kakeru and Nadia learn Giselle will be staying at her father's holiday home in the south of France this insanely hot summer, as her father is trying to get a nuclear power plant in that region. Charles will also be there due to an excavation where they expect to find objects related to the Cathars, and others are also expected to be there, like Giselle's boyfriend Julian, a nuclear researcher connected to the Rochefort nuclear plant, and his sister Simone, a teacher and activist. Kakeru and Nadia also travel to the same village, as Jean-Paul Barbes, a subordinate of Nadia's father, hails from there. Everyone is hanging around the holiday home of the Rocheforts, when a loud crash surprises everyone. They gather in front of the second floor room where the noise came from, which they find locked from the inside. Kakeru enters the room via the garden and outside balcony, and inside they find the murdered body of Fest, a visiting antiquarian. For some reason, Fest was knocked out on the head and then an arrow was stabbed in his chest, with the bow and arrow being part of the room's decoration. When Kakeru finds Fest had first been knocked out with an object with one of the biblical Johns on it, and he also later learns a white horse belonging to the Rocheforts was killed too at the same time, he realizes what is going on: this murder was styled after the Book of Revelation: the segment regarding the first horseman of the Apocalypse says: "A white horse appears, whose crowned rider has a bow with which to conquer." But that begs the question: does this mean three other people will be murdered too, and why commit a murder like this? Meanwhile, Kakeru has more things to think of, as an attempt on his life has been made due to his interference in the previous incident. Can he solve all of these problems in Kasai Kiyoshi's Summer Apocalypse (1981)?

The first novel by mystery author, critic and philosopher Kasai featuring Yabuki Kakeru I read was back in 2015, but after reading Tetsugakusha no Misshitsu ("A Locked Room for Philosophers", 1992), it took me about ten years to return to that series with Oedipus Shoukougun ("Oedipus Syndrome", 2002), which I read last year. Perhaps it's therefore surprising I'm reading another entry in this series so soon, but what shouldn't surprise frequent readers is that I once again read the series completely out of order. After reading the fourth and then the fifth novel, I decided to go back to the second novel: Summer Apocalypse. To be completely honest, the Yabuki Kakeru is really not the best series to read out of order: Kasai really likes to start each new book with a recap of the events of the previous book and he doesn't mind spoiling major events, including the identity of the murderers, in these prologues. That holds even for this second book, which freely spoils the identity of the murderer of the first book (Bye Bye Angel), which I haven't read yet. The prologue also builds directly on the ending of the previous book, with shocking incidents happening to Nadia and Kakeru due to what happened in Bye Bye Angel. This storyline is also of importance later in the book, as Kakeru remains invested in the aftermath of what happened in the first book throughout his investigations in this second book. Why did I start with this book then, you might ask. Well, I wasn't really planning to read "a Yabuki Kakeru" novel when this book found its way on my reading pile to be honest. I had in fact been looking for mystery fiction themed after the Book of Revelation and the Apocalypse, and this book was one that was mentioned a lot in Japanese sources (in the past, I also reviewed the manga Father Sakura which had a story involving the Apocalypse too).

My previous experience with this series already taught me Kasai likes to write long novels, and that likes to use them as vehicles to talk about philosophy, history and other topics that might interest him, and to be honest, I have often felt he went too far with that for my taste, having to wade through pages of characters discussing philosophy while they're in imminent danger of being murdered. Fortunately for me (your mileage may vary), this book is a bit shorter than the previous two novels I read, and therefore it stays a bit more focused on the core mystery plot, though there's still plenty of talk about Catharism and the characters' stances regarding art, nuclear plants and more of that. Ironically, the one thing I did hope he'd write more extensively about, that being the Book of Revelation and the meaning of the Apocalypse, is surprisingly less of an important theme, and while they of course do discuss the topic over the course, I do have to say I was a bit disappointed it never went as deep as I hoped it'd go: I'd loved to have read more about the historical background or for example interpretations of the Book of Revelation.

Nonetheless, a mystery novel about a series of murders modelled after the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is of course an exciting idea: each time a murder is commited, a victim is killed with an object invoking the respective horseman, and you might want to avoid this book if you love horses, because yep, horses are also murdered each time. Many of the murders have slightly impossible aspects to them too, at least, if you assume the murderer is someone in the main cast of characters, as each time, all or at least most of them seem to have fairly good alibis for the murders. For the first murder for example, most characters arrive in front of the room very soon after they hear the noise made by the murderer, making it unlikely any of them had been inside the room seconds ago: with the door locked from inside, the murderer would have needed to take the long way around via the balcony and the garden to get back inside. To be honest, I was not a big fan of the solution to this quasi locked room: the solution is one of the type that can work in some situations, but here I think the hinting to the existence of such a thing seemed a bit too weak, though I do like how it tied to the horseman imagery. In fact, I think the manner in which Kasai integrated the Horseman themes into the mystery is the most interesting part: they fit very well with the motive of the mastermind behind these murders and the props indicated in each of the verses are used in interesting manners to faciliate said murders. Obviously, 'dressing up' each murder to correspond with the Horseman verses is partially done to act as misdirection, and I think that is executed really well here, but Kasai does go beyond just using it as misdirection, giving a proper thematical (character driven) reason to have these murders indicate the end of times.

What I also liked about Summer Apocalypse is that Kasai has more surprises beyond the allusions to the Apocalypse: the way the murders are ultimately explained is done in a rather surprising way, and while at first you might be wondering why it is done in this particular way, it all does come together in the end, and mystery-wise, I think this was an interesting approach by Kasai. I can't talk too much about this unfortunately, but it's a theme I generally do like in mystery novels, and while you see it relatively often nowadays, it would have been far less common in 1981, and in that sense, Summer Apocalypse still feels very modern despite it predating shin honkaku novels.

While Summer Apocalypse didn't go as deep in the topic of the Apocalypse and the Four Horsemen as I had initially hoped, I still think this is a fine example of a mitate (themed) murder mystery: murders committed in a way to allude to the Book of Revelation is just a really exciting theme, and Kasai manages to use the theme in a very clever way that is also deeply connected to what moves the characters in this novel. While I wasn't a fan of all the individual murders, the Apocalypse glue did make this a fun mystery to read, and in terms of the mystery plot, page count and Kasai talking about philosophy and other topics, this was definitely the one book that managed to feel like it balanced these elements the best, at least, it fitted my own personal preference much better than for example Oedipus Shoukougun, which felt much slower and meandering. At this point, it is likely I will also read Bye Bye Angel one day, but beyond that, I feel like I'm not really reading these books because I am invested in the story and characters of this series, and I'll probably just return to it if one of the books happen to be about a theme I want to read about, rather than me wanting to read a Yabuki Kakeru novel.

Original Japanese title(s): 笠井潔『サマー・アポカリプス』

Doom With a View

"I stopped my horse beside the building, on the edge of a dark and quiet lake. There, I could see reflected in the water a clear picture of the dead trees, and of the house and its empty eye-like windows. I was now going to spend several weeks in this house of sadness - this house of gloom."

"The Fall of the House of Usher"

It's been years since I last discussed a critical work here...

Disclosure: I have translated Ayatsuji Yukito's Jukkakan no Satsujin/The Decagon House Murders and Abiko Takemaru's 8 no Satsujin/The 8 Mansion Murders to English. I have also translated the Shimada Souji short story The Running Dead.

Hankou Genba no Tsukurikata ("How to Make A Crime Scene", 2006) was written by Yasui Toshio, an architect with a love for the mystery genre. The book was received very well upon release, becoming a finalist for the Mystery Writers of Japan Award for critical works of that year, and it also led to collaborative works with Arisugawa Alice: Yasui actually designed the building featured in Arisugawa's Jooukoku no Shiro, and they also wrote a volume on locked room mysteries together. But anyway, back to this book. In this critical work, Yasui examines the (main) crime scenes from well-known mystery novels from the viewpoint of his profession, and that means looking at famous locations like say, the Decagon House in a very different way than most readers will. He discusses a different book in each chapter and starts examining each location (a building) based on the description in the work itself, as well as using the provided floorplans/diagrams to present a clear picture of said location. And then comes the interesting part: as he examines these buildings as an architect, he starts looking at things like whether the building would actually comply to Japanese laws, or whether it would actually be physically possible to create a building as described, or would it tumble over? For example, would a 'crooked house' with slanting floors be legal to build in the first place? Or where do all the drainage pipes and lines go in all those huge manors with dozens of guests rooms? Here we have an architect who is not worried about whether a murder trick using a house would be feasible: he is looking whether the location itself makes sense, which is a fresh way to look at the locations in the genre.

In this book, Yasui discusses the (main) locations of, among others, Ayatsuji Yukito's Jukkakan no Satsujin/The Decagon House Murders, Abiko Takemaru's 8 no Satsujin/The 8 Mansion Murders, Shimada Souji's Nanameyashiki no Hanzai/Murder in the Crooked House, Higashino Keigo's Juujiyashiki no Pierrot ("The Clown in The Cross Mansion"), Yokomizo Seishi's Honjin Satsujin Jiken/The Honjin Murders and Edogawa Rampo's Sankakukan no Kyoufu ("The Terror of Triangle Manor") (= rewritten version of Roger Scarlett's Murder Among the Angells). Do note that I have not actually read the complete book, as I skipped the chapters on books I have not read yet. While Yasui's focus is on the architectural importance of these books, in a few cases, the building itself will have certain features that are integral to the main mystery of the book (i.e. being closely tied to the solution), so I thought it would be wiser to skip those chapters for now in fear of spoilers. Those chapters are on Mori Hiroshi's Warawanai Suugakusha ("Mathematicians Don't Laugh" AKA Mathematical Goodbye), Utano Shougo's Nagai Ie no Satsujin ("The Murder in the Long House") and Shinoda Mayumi's Kuroi Megami ("The Dark Goddess"). 

Anyway, the focus is thus not actually on the mysteries of each book, and most chapters follow the same format: we see Yasui first following the descriptions of each building as described in the book, using the available floorplans if provided in said book. He'll use these descriptions of for example room layouts or how people move about in the house to estimate the sizes of each building, and give a ballpark figure for how much constructing the building in question might cost. And then comes the more interesting part: he starts looking for weird things that stand out to him as an architect. As most of the authors discussed in the book are not actually architects, they might overlook issues that real architects deal with (building codes/laws, among others) and Yasui often succeeds in pointing out little things that you are likely to overlook yourself. Often, it has no real bearing on the mystery plot of each book, but it's still funny to see someone examine a mystery novel from a completely different point of view.

In his chapter on Jukkakan no Satsujin/The Decagon House Murders for example, Yasui first uses the book's own description of the titular building to create his own diagrams based on those descriptions and the floorplans provided in the book. He estimaties the exact sizes of the building in a clever way: in the book two characters are working on a rather large jigsaw puzzle in one of the rooms (which all have the same size, as the rooms form a decagon together), so with the knowledge a room has enough space to not only hold a bed/desk/closet, but should also allow for one or two people to work on a jigsaw puzzle with pieces scattered around,  Yasui manages to make a realistic estimate of the sizes of the house. Once he's done with his model of the house, he points out that the building would be quite difficult to build, as it completely lacks support pillars for the roof at the places where a normal building would have them. Nothing that would immediately impact the story, but still an interesting thing that is pointed out. In fact, he calls it the biggest mystery of the Decagon House! He also makes an estimate of how much it'd cost to build the Decagon House (in Japan, in 2006), for those interested in building a decagonal house (funnily enough, his estimate does specify you'd need to procure your own island somehow).

Other chapters follow a similar pattern, where Yasui first faithfully follows the book's description of the house, and then the questions follow. 8 no Satsujin/The 8 Mansion Murders for example has Yasui moving the furniture in the guest rooms, as it feels very weird for him to have a bed next to the window for various reasons, like safety, while he also estimates the width of the gallery in the house, using the fact ground floor rooms require direct sunlight via the courtyard, meaning the gallery can only be so wide before it blocks sunlight. Higashino's Juujiyashiki no Pierrot ("The Clown in The Cross Mansion") is set in a house where one of its inhabitants is in a wheelchair, so a lot of attention in the relevant chapter is paid to the dimensions needed to allow for the girl to be able to move freely in the house in her wheelchair. The chapter on Honjin Satsujin Jiken/The Honjin Murders focuses on the traditional Japanese building details of the book, while the chapter on Nanameyashiki no Hanzai/Murder in the Crooked House asks some really interesting questions about the house that usually won't bother you during a read, like the question of how much it would've cost to give all those guest rooms their own bathrooms/toilets, as that means a lot of plumbing! He also points out the building has no communal toilet, meaning the person in the tower room has no toilet to use. One interesting point for people who have read the English translation of this book is that the English version apparently changed something: in the original Japanese, there's also no kitchen marked on the diagram of the house, which puzzles Yasui greatly of course. The English diagram actually marks a section in the diagram as the kitchen, even though it wasn't the kitchen in the original Japanese!

Anyway, like most critical works on mystery fiction, Hankou Genba no Tsukurikata is probably best read if you have already read all the books featured here, or if you don't care at all about spoilers. On the whole however, it is quite fun as a read, as it is quite different from the usual genre critical work. Because most people will have some knowledge about architecture (simply by living in buildings), Yasui's points usually make a lot of sense, as he writes in a very accessible manner and doesn't fret too much about construction details, instead pointing out things you and I will understand from a livability POV. 

Original Japanese title(s): 安井俊夫『犯行現場の作り方』

Dead Man's Cavern

"Ragnarok, the end of the Viking world with a terrible winter that covered the Earth in ice, when vile crimes were rampant and all humanity lost."

"Max Payne"

I wonder if at those detective fiction courses at university they actually have locked room murder lectures...

During a holiday, Narumi, the self-proclaimed great detective of the Sealed Door club, invites his fellow member Kakeru (who was recently made his debut as a mystery writer), to go on an adventure together. While Narumi hesitates to tell Kakeru exactly why, they are travelling to a small village deep in the mountains of Gifu called Kagerou Village. When they arrive, they notice a strange church-like building in the middle of the village. They chat a little with the local people there, when they hear a cry coming from the nearby cliff: one of the Jizou statues has toppled on top of her, trapping her legs. Narumi and Kakeru quickly help her, but she then tells them her friend Yasoshima Daisaku fell off the cliff down in the swamp below. There's a dangerous path along the cliff that climbs down to the swamp, so Narumi and Kakeru carefully make their way down to look for Daisaku, who fortunately is safe: he is a firefighter and has experience with this. A tremendous storm starts as they climb up the path however, and it's becoming too dangerous to walk up this way. Daisuku instructs Narumi and Kakeru to find shelter in a cave halfway up the cliff path, while he goes further up to secure a way for them. Narumi and Kakeru are just inside the cave when the ground shakes, causing a cave-in that blocks off the entrance. To their surprise, they find there were more people inside the cave, and as they talk with these people, they learn this cave runs beeneath Kagerou Village and that in recent years, it has actually been converted to a cave hotel: the "church" Narumi and Kakeru had seen above is a wedding venue, and an elevator there goes down to the main part of the cave, which is surrounded by several rooms. The hotel is a somewhat eccentric attempt to attract tourists to the region. They also learn that Daisaku is a local who is to be married soon to Tsugumi, who is one of the people in the cave, as she was being shown around.

The group makes their way back to the main "lobby cave" to take the elevator back up, but when the elevator doors open, they find the nearly deceased Nanako, a local high school student: she's been shot in the cage. When she's asked who did this to her, Nanako points her finger at... Kakeru before she dies. While Narumi can quickly prove it couldn't have been Kakeru who shot her considering they just arrived there, the local people are still a bit suspicious about these two outsiders. They learn the elevator doesn't work anymore and for some reason, there's also no answer when they try the intercom connecting to the wedding venue above, even though there should be people there, and Daisaku should also know they're there. While afraid the murderer might have attacked the people above too, the people below in the cave can only wait, so they stay in the hotel rooms for the night, with Narumi warning everyone to keep their doors locked in case the murderer is still down in the cave, but his warning is not enough to prevent another murder the next morning. When one guest doesn't respond to calls from outside, Narumi and Kakeru try to open the steel door, but are only able to bend it slightly to create a gap, but the gap is enough for them to see the inhabitant is lying dead on the floor. But she has also written something in blood on the floor that seems to point to Kakeru again! Who is the murderer in the cave, and can Kakeru prove this time he really isn't the murderer in Kirisha Takumi's Ragnarok Dou - Akazu no Tobira Kenkyuukai Kagerou Numa he ("The Cave of Ragnarok: The Sealed Door Goes to Kagerou Swamp", 2000)?

Ragnarok Dou is the third entry in Takumi Kirisha's Sealed Door series, about the colorful members of a college club specializing in opening sealed doors. Last year, I read the first book in this series, Doppelgänger-kyuu - Akazu no Tobira Kenkyuukai Ryuuhyoukan he ("The Doppelgänger Palace - The Sealed Door Club Goes to the Ryuuhou House", 1999), which was also Kirisha's debut work. You might wonder why I skipped the second book and went straight for the third book in the series. Well, like with Summer Apocalypse a few weeks ago, I didn't actually choose this book because it was a book in this series. I was looking for books with dying messages as the theme, so when I learned this book had a dying message lecture, it found a place in the to-be-read pile, despite it meaning I would be reading a series out of order. Again. As always.

So yeah, the theme of the book is dying messages and it might be surprising to learn Narumi, the self-proclaimed great detective, comes up with a dying message lecture fairly early on in the book. While he namedrops Doctor Fell, Nikaido Ranko, Mercator Ayu and Sorachi Masaya as eminent predecessors when it comes to presenting a lecture on a specific trope in mystery fiction (locked rooms, no footprints in the snow, motives for creating locked rooms and alibis, respectively), I do have to say I find Narumi's alibi lecture really original. While I have seen dying message lectures before (disclosure: I translated Arisugawa Alice's The Moai Island Puzzle), the one in this book is quite original in that because it is about a message: being there's a sender and receiver, this lecture actually consists of two seperate sections (chapters). In the first Narumi presents a categorization of the type of dying messages a victim may leave behind to denounce the murderer (writing, oral, etc.), so the medium of the message, while in the second part, the lecture goes in detail about why said message might be misinterpreted/not understood (so the signife of the message). But what I liked especially about this lecture, is that it is in fact not just a fourth wall-breaking moment, or just two chapters where Kirisha shows he has done his homework and to provide the reader with context to understand how his twist on the dying message in this book will work. While I can't give details because it spoils one of the cleverest elements of this book, Narumi actually has a fantastic reason to actually be holding a lecture about dying messages, and it's precisely because he does this, they're in the end able to solve the case. Narumi might be a self-proclaimed detective, but.... he's actually truly a very clever detective, who in every other series would have been the protagonist. Narumi's just not lucky here, as the club president Godou is just a little bit smarter than Narumi (though less active). At any rate, I have seldom seen a lecture in a mystery story used in such a clever way in-universe, and that alone makes this worth a read, I think.

As the proper cave entrance is blocked and the elevator broken, the people in the cave hotel find themselves in a closed circle situation, but an odd one, as at first, there's no reason to believe the murderer is still in the cave, and it in fact seems more likely the murderer is on the surface, having shot Nanako and then sending the elevator down. The pistol used to kill Nanako is believed to be the one that should have been enshrined in the shrine in the cave: it used to belong to a World War II pilot who crashed in the swamp. But if the murderer did go up, how come a second murder occured in one of the hotel rooms? The door was locked from the inside, and because it's a steel door with a very sturdy, submarine-esque turn-dial lock, Narumi and Kakeru can't even force the door open with a steel bar, only able to open a minor gap through which they could confirm the victim died. As the story progresses, more people are of course killed in the cave. Meanwhile, everyone is also worried about the people above, for Daisaku and other people should know people are trapped in the cave hotel (especially Daisaku, as his soon-to-be-wife Tsugumi is one of the people there!) and Daisaku's a firefighter who told Narumi and Kakeru he'd inform the rescue unit, but why is nobody coming to their rescue? This leads to a lot of speculation on Narumi's part, and it's here where the book kinda repeats some of the... I wouldn't call them faults per se, but it's definitely something that stood out when I read the first book.

For like the first book, this book does feature a large cast of characters like many closed circle murder mysteries... but the narrative is mainly focused on the recurring characters, in this case Narumi and Kakeru, and later other club members after everyone is rescued and they go over the case again to try and solve it. Most of the book revolves mainly around discussions between just the recurring cast as they go over theories and discuss what they could do next, and the side characters that only appear in this book barely get anything to say before they die. The worst example of this is Nanako, who appears as a dead person right away, and we hear some characters lament her death, but we don't actually hear about how they know Nanako, who she is, and why she was in the elevator or anything. She's just there, dead. Only much later you hear a throwaway line about how one character knew Nanako exactly. This happens with other parts of the story too, where you don't really understand what their role is and how character X knows character Y, because the story is focused on Narumi and Kakeru chatting among themselves, instead of with others. It does allow the story to focus on a lot of the detective plot, as Kakeru and Narumi obviously talk about the ongoing case, but some of the puzzle pieces remain vague because you don't hear the other characters speak up too often. And while I do think the members of the Sealed Door club are fun and their banter does mean we get intelligent, genre-savvy discussions regarding the mystery, like the first book, you do feel some of the other characters should have given more speaking lines to flesh out the mystery more.

As for the mystery itself.... it's really dense! You have multiple dying messages (in the broad sense of the meaning, so writing, gestures, in-actions etc.), a locked room murder, long deduction chains about how the murderer must have been moving both on the surface and in the cave, and while I do think sometimes feel a bit chaotic, ultimately, I think it worked out pretty well. The solution to the locked room isn't that interesting to be honest, and the closed circle situation is resolved in a rather easy manner, but the deductions regarding the dying messages and the reasoning chains that point to the murderer are more memorable, and they work really well in conjuction with the aforementioned dying message lecture. Parts of the backstory of the shrine in the cave, which ties directly to the motive, are interesting ideas, though it's debatable about how "fair" it was presented and at times, this backstory goes pretty weird ways: I wouldn't have found the revelations here in any way weird had this been for example a Nikaidou Reito novel, but this being my second book in the series, I hadn't quite expected Kirisha to tell us this kind of backstory. This is an element I think could have been worked out in more detail to feel both more shocking, but also less... coming out of nowhere. 

The book also provides some more insight into the history of the Sealed Door club and why club president Godou started the club, which likely will tie to the final, fourth book in the series, I assume. These books are easy and fun enough to read, so I will eventually get there, not sure whether I will read the second book first, or the last one though.

Ragnarok Dou - Akazu no Tobira Kenkyuukai Kagerou Numa he is a fun mystery novel that does some original things via its dying message lecture, and for that alone, I think this is worth a read. Like the first book, it's a story that focuses a lot on the recurring characters and often has a comedic tone to it, so like many character-focused mysteries, it's pretty easy to get into, and while because of that focus, I do feel the mystery isn't presented as strongly as it could be, overall, I do always end up enjoying these books. Solid entry, and I'll be sure to read the other two books in the series too.

Original Japanese title(s): 霧舎巧『ラグナロク洞 《あかずの扉》研究会影郎沼へ』

Telltale Touch

"Only in the leap from the lion's head will he prove his worth."
"Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"

What is it with reviews on sex-focused media that also happen to be mystery fiction this month...  

Last week, I discussed the newest issue of Nemoto Shou's own mystery comic Sharaku Homura: Detective of the Uncanny. Nemoto is not only a creator of mystery fiction in manga form, but also studies it. He has been briefly discussing various mystery manga on his website, especially those that ended up not getting included in Fukui Kenta's (otherwise extremely comprehensive) Honkaku Mystery Manga Zemi ("Honkaku Mystery Comics Seminar", 2018). Not all of these works are easily available now, of course, but as a fan of the mystery comic format myself, I of course try to read the ones I can find.

Today's topic was one highlighted by Nemoto which is still easily obtainable in digital form, and interestingly enough, it has actually seen an official English release in the past, though it is not available anymore: Marina Mystery File was created by Byakkomaru and was originally serialized between 1997-1999 in the magazine Young Teioh, though the magazine later folded and was transformed into Comic Maruman. The four volume series stars Marina, a 22-year old teacher at a high school, who is secretly dating one of her own students: Ishiyama Tooru. Their love is pure, she insists, so while the two do fool around a bit, they have not actually fully consummated their relationship yet, despite Tooru's attempts to convince Marina. The two are also both members of the Japan Mystery Club, a group of people interested in researching mysterious, supernatural events occuring in Japan, ranging from ghost stories and monster and UFO sightings. During their trips with the club however, Marina and Tooru have the knack of getting wrapped up in creepy and bloody murder cases that involve the supernatural phenomena they are investigating. Fortunately for them however, Tooru soon discovers Marina is a rather clever detective herself, but under one condition: she needs to be sexually aroused and pleased to get her little grey cells working at full speed.

Cue the sex scenes! I should probably mention right now that while Marina Mystery File is a mystery manga in the same tradition as Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo and Nemoto Shou's Sharaku Homura: Kaiki Tantei, featuring long series of murders that involve monsters or other seemingly supernatural beings/phenomena, it is also an adult manga, meaning it involves plenty of scenes where characters are having sex (rape at times) or fondling each other or themselves and more of that. The art style is rather mild and you can easily imagine Byakkomaru also doing "straight" comedy manga with this style, so the sex doesn't feel too realistic, but it is certainly something to keep in mind if you want to read this. I am not going to mention it in the write-ups on each story below, but just remember that basically every chapter (most stories are about five or six chapters long) will feature one or more scenes with sexual content, the last one generally being Marina being fondled/touching herself so she can get sexually stimulated enough to get that flash of inspiration that allows her to solve the case.

As mentioned before, the series feels very similar in build up to both Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo and Nemoto Shou's Sharaku Homura: Kaiki Tantei, though in general, the pure murder plots are not as intricately structured as those series. That said, considering Byakomaru is probably more an adult comic artist than a mystery writer, I do have to admit these comics are often reasonably amusing as mystery fiction, though a lot of the tricks seen here will feel familiar. Still, the stories actually follow good build-up and while not all the clues/hints Byakkomaru uses are as convincing as others, on the whole I'd say he actually gets the fundamentals of a proper mystery comic really good and the base stories are usually interesting too, so if Byakkomaru had studied the genre a little bit more while he was working on the series, this could actually have developed into a mystery manga more of us would remember, I think. The manga was released digitally over a decade ago in English by JManga, but that site is already defunct.

 

The opening story, The Kappa Murder Case, for example, has a great setup: the Japan Mystery Club is visiting a small village near a lake to investigate rumors of a hopping Kappa roaming around: the story goes that centuries ago, a kappa kidnapped a girl and raped her for three days and nights and now that kappa has returned. Which is bad news, as there's a girls' academy near the lake. The day after the club members arrive at the lake, they actually run into the kappa near the lake, and it is holding something gruesome: the head of a teacher of the nearby academy. And that was only the first death, as more people are murdered that seem to have a connection to the school. But why? While the first 'major' deduction of Marina that "proves" the kappa is in fact, not really a kappa is rather boring, there is acutally a pretty good visual clue that involves the identity of the kappa, one that makes very intuitive use of the comic format. Some of the surrounding drama is perhaps not clewed as well and feels rather forced, but this is actually not a bad story to begin with.

The Spirited Away Murder Case has Marina and Tooru visiting the Seikouin Girls' School, a Christian elementary school, which is Marina's old school. As they wander around, Marina learns one of Marina's sempai has become a teacher at the school too. But while they are chatting, children start vanishing from the school, prompting the teachers to call in the parents of the missing children. However, while they are searching the school grounds, one of the teachers is found naked and murdered in a room. Marina goes off to bring the husband to his wife, but when they return the room, they find it empty and clean of any blood traces. This puzzles Marina greatly, as she hadn't been gone for that long, but when they later return to the room again, they find two naked women dead in the room. Why are these women being killed, and where have the children gone off to? This one is immediately less interesting as a mystery. The mystery of the disappearing corpse is pretty easy to solve due to the way it is presented, and the trick itself is one you'll often see in these kinds of stories. The mystery of the disappearing children borders on the insane and doesn't belong in a puzzle plot mystery.

Just like the first volume, volume two and three each contain two full stories. The Ghost Mansion Murder Case has the Japan Mystery Club visiting a haunted mansion on a small island. They have only just arrived when they are welcomed by a poltergeist throwing cutlery around and soon afterwards, one of the members is found stabbed with a cross high up the wall. The boat that brought them to the island won't be back soon however, and soon more people are killed one by one, one of them even while they were inside a cabin that had been locked from the inside. This And Then There Were None-esque story gets the vibe perfectly down, though a lot of the happenings feel a bit familiar: the locked cabin murder for example uses a trick which is telegraphed a bit too obvious and there are famous mystery novels that feature the exact same trick (the iteration here can't even be called a variant). The hint pointing at the killer is... okay in theory, as I do have to admit Byakkomaru uses the comic format in a clever way to subtly show how two seemingly similar actions are not the same, which eventually point to the murderer, which would be fine if the murderer wasn't already looking extremely suspicious in this story even without the clue!

The Zashikiwarashi Murder Case is one of the more interesting stories in terms of execution. Marina and Tooru are visiting Kumono, a remote countryside village where Tooru used to live. They are visiting Sayuri, Tooru's childhood friend who suffers from a weak heart and isn't able to leave the village. Her parents are dead and her brother has run away from home, leaving her all alone. Her father however arranged that his fortune would go to the family member who will take care of Sayuri after his death: however, it is up to Sayuri to decide whether she'll go to her aunt or either of her two uncles, who are all very, very eager to get on her good side. These would-be guardians of Sayuri however are being killed one by one, but why and by whom? The who is a question that is easily answered to be honest, especially as the cast is so small in this story, but the story makes brilliant use of the comic format here to create a good suspenseful story. The foreshadowing here really show off that Byakkomaru does know the potential of the visual, comic format in mystery fiction, and he explains pretty well in this volume's afterword what he was going for in this story, and I think he pulled it off very competently! This is one story I would recommend especially if you're going to read this.

The Ghost Photograph Murder Case starts with the death of one of the Japan Mystery Club members. Apparently their death was already foreshadowed by a "ghost photograph": a while back, the club members visited an abandoned hospital which was supposed to be haunted, and one of the photographs taken of the member who died, featured a strange dark shadow covering half of their body. Marina herself hadn't gone on that trip then, but now the club is going once more to investigate this creepy photograph. While they are driving to the hospital, a landslide ends up covering the road behind them, trapping them in the hospital. They eventually go to sleep, all staying in the same large hall, but when they wake up, they find one of them has been strangled to death. But was it by a human, or a ghost...? A human of course. While the overall flow of the story, as in the scene-to-scene transitions, feel a bit unoriented, I do have to say I really like some of the psychological hints introduced in this story. The hint pointing at how the murderer managed to strangle one of the members without anyone noticing, even though everybody was sleeping in the same (spacious) hall and just a few meters away from each other, is actually really good in the context of this manga, and another psychological clue that points to the identity of the murderer, is actually a very clever idea with far deeper (cultural) roots than you'd guess at first sight.

The Snow Woman Murder Case has Marina being invited by her friend Naoko to a ski trip with some more acquaintances: they are staying at the holiday villa of Isaki Fusako at the ski resort. Three years ago, Fusako's son Seijirou got injured while skiing, but he was saved by the people at the piste: the people they have invited to stay at the villa now (+ Marina). They learn that there's a local ghost story of a Snow Woman, who can instantly freeze men and... she then breaks off their penises and runs off with it. That evening, Marina thinks she sees the Snow Woman outside, and the following morning they find... the corpse of Fusako outside, buried in the snow. Who is obviously not a man, so why was she killed? Heavy snowfall prevents them from getting help, and Fusako ends up being only the first of more murder victims in the villa, which seem to be committed by the Snow Woman, as the second murder is actually witnessed by several people, who then see the white Snow Woman jump out of the window as she flees into the snow outside while holding a dildo. This is an extremely daring mystery story, which uses a trick that is both brilliant... and not convincing. While there is good shock value when the trick is revealed, it also instantly raises so many practical questions about how it all works, it immediately makes you wonder if it could work. That said, it does make interesting use of the visual medium once again and I think it's still worth it, even if only for the hilarious image of a Snow Woman running around with a dildo.

The fourth and final volume features three stories which are bit shorter than the usual ones. The Kokkuri-san Murder Case centers around a group of girls in Marina's  class, who recently did a session of Kokkuri-san (table turning), which seems to have backfired on them, as the participants are dying one by one. The story seems more focused to tell a thrilling story than be a puzzle plot mystery, and while there's an interesting hint in theory that allows Marina to figure out something fishy's going on and who is the one that stinks, I feel Byakkomaru could probably have used the visual format a bit more to make the clue feel fairer: I think the idea is alright enough (even if limited, but that's also because of the shorter length of the story), but showing it more often would have made it feel more satisfying when the clue is pointed out to the reader.

Marina became acquainted with the police detective Eguchi Gorou in the previous story, and he has invited Marina to come along to the shooting of a film he will appear in to on orders of his superiors (to promote the police).  The Haunted School Murder Case takes place in an abandoned school, which stands on a cliff and is only accessible via a bridge and it is here where the film will be shot. And by now you of course already know the bridge will collapse and that people will be killed one by one. There is a locked room murder, but the trick is hopelessly outdated and boring. In comparison, the hint that points to the murderer is actually really clever, using Queenian logic to cross off suspects of the list. It is just a one stage deduction, but certainly one of the best mystery moments in this series.

The final story, The Black Magic Murder Case, is set at Marina's school, and starts with the discovery of a student being stabbed into the blackboard at school, surrounded by satanic symbols. It turns out some of the senior staff at the school are actually in some kind of crazy cult, but then these people are being killed one by one too. The main murder situation is very simple in set-up, and there's not really much of a mystery here in presentation: they find the victim dead in a room, but it was not like it was a locked room or anything. The misdirection falls a bit flat here, and the trick itself relies on what might be the one of the oldest/most cliched locked room tricks that exist: while Byakkomaru does introduce a twist, this twist feels impractical and not likely a trick that would succeed,

Marina Mystery File was oddly enough a series that left me slightly disappointed not because it didn't succeed as a mystery manga: I was disappointed because while my expectations were low, there are genuinely moments that surprised me mystery-wise, and you can tell Byakkomaru is familiar with the genre, so it somewhere I feel like it perhaps could have been much better as a mystery series. It didn't crash and burn, and comes close to being good. Very few of the sexy moments in this series are actually "needed" for the mystery plot, but when they do become relevant in terms of the mystery solving, it works pretty well, and you almost feel like if Byakkomaru had been given some more research time to work out the mystery plots more, this could have been a much better known mystery-cum-porn manga. Now it's just an interesting note in the annals of mystery manga.

Original Japanese title(s): 白虎丸『まりなミステリーファイル』

The Problem of Cell 13

“WORDS IN THE HEART CANNOT BE TAKEN.” 

"Feet of Clay"

To be honest, when I first heard about the story, I was hoping the book would be about a real Golem...

Mitsuki Usami is an academic researcher in natural history connected to a multi-disciplinary research facility in the United States. He has the tendency to get involved in odd crimes both real and fictional: while occasionally, he ends up solving cases via his work as a researcher, with his co-workers and even the police aware of his skill in problem solving, Usami also has the habit (?) of just finding himself in completely different world or realize his mind is now inhabiting the body of someone else. That doesn't seem to surprise him that much however, and wherever and whenever he faces an intellectual problem, he can't rest until he has managed to find a solution. In Tsukatou Hajime's 2005 short story collection Golem no Ori ("The Cage of the Golem"), Usami finds himself solving a murder in a world where the creations of M.C. Escher are real, a prisoner escaping a sealed prison in which he had been imprisoned for decades and the riddle of a man escaping a mysterious sun cult among others.

While the last three years or so, I have started reading Tsukatou's work fairly regularly, this is the first time I read anything in this specific series, though I had been wanting to read this for a long time. In a mook on locked room mysteries edited by Arisugawa Alice, a group of mystery authors was asked to vote for their favorite locked room mysteries, and the title story Golem no Ori was ranked in the top 20. When I learned about the short story however, the book was already out of print, but fortunately, Tsukatou's older works have been given a digital re-release the last two years, so I finally was able to have a look at the title story. 

The book however opens with Escher no Sekai ("The World of Escher"). During a break, Usami has a look at the art exhibition held at the research facility,  an event to invite people from the neighborhood to have a look inside the facility. The art exhibition shows the art of Harold Mueller, who was known as a successor to M.C. Escher, making all kinds of trick art pieces. His most famous work is a painting with a very unique backstory: the work was created after his wife and daughter were murdered, and according to Mueller, this painting shows who the murderer is. However, the painting contains multiple persons, depending on you look at the painting, including Harold's old housekeeper, himself and his art dealer. While contemplating about this painting, Usami dozes off and finds himself awakening in a world where the works of M.C. Escher are actually possible, like the waterfall where the water drops down and somehow ends up at the top of the waterfall again in an eternal loop. For the people in that world, the "impossibility" of these buildings seems natural, but they talk about a person who like Usami came from a different world with other rules, and that he eventually managed to return. Usami looks for the villager who might have talked with that man and know how he returned, but before Usami can find the villager, the villager is found dead. But who could've murdered him?

This is a weird story, with two very different parts that are only partially connected via M.C. Escher storywise. The murder in the world of M.C. Escher is obviously a fantasy-like story, but this story is more of an interesting idea, than one that is really worked out well. While I imagine it has to do with rights, the book is devoid of illustrations, so if you're not familiar with the M.C. Escher illustrations mentioned in this story, you have to imagine them based on the descriptions in the story, which probably doesn't really convey the essence of these works. Obviously, the fact that in this world, the M.C. Escher buildings can actually exist and function ends up connected to the murder, and while I think the essential idea is funny, it's also not really anything more than a funny notion, and the lack of visuals really hurt the story. The part regarding Mueller's painting is a bit more interesting, and is at least thematically cleverly connected to the M.C. Escher story (though story-wise, not at all), but the complete true meaning of the painting is impossible to guess simply based on the hints.

In the second story Schrödinger DOOR, Usami and his co-worker Hartman are called by the "colonel" (who runs the research facility) for an emergency at the research facility: the Moren twins, two researchers, are involved in a crazy situation which has already taken the life of one of the brothers. In a laboratory, one of the twins is found murdered, while the other has been put inside a special capsule nside a locked lab, but he doesn't react to anything. In a document signed by Karlie Moren, he confesses to being the PRA bomber, a serial bomber who had been active for several years. He states he has committed suicide, and that his brother Gerald is inside the lab. Last year, both brothers were suspects in a murder case commonly referred to as The Chinese Scissor Mystery, and Karlie now states that one of the brothers was indeed guilty and that he has now punished that murderer: if Karlie was the murderer, he's lying dead on the floor, and Gerald is knocked out, but alive in the locked lab, but if Gerald was the murderer, he's dead too. The authorities are challenged to put in a password, a keyphrase to show they understand what actually happened last year, to open the lab: if they're right, the door opens and they can check whether Gerald is alive, while otherwise, everything will be blown up with explosives. 

This is a a very chaotic story, with the story about the PRA bomber and the Moren brothers being in a Schrödinger's cat-inspired situation where you don't know whether Gerald is alive or not, and then "The Chinese Scissor Mystery" part set in the past, where both brothers were a suspect. To be honest, I didn't really like this story: "The Chinese Scissor Mystery" is an okay mystery story, but not remarkable mystery story on its own that relies a lot on Queenian deductions regarding certain used objects, like a set of scissors, and sets of footprints that seemingly make it impossible for either Karlie or Gerald to have murderered their neighbor, while they were having a masquerade at home, but like Tsukatou sometimes tend to do, the story is told in a way where you get fragments of information in in media res scenes, meaning you miss a lot of context which makes everything seem confusing at first, only to explain things a few pages later, only to do the exact same thing again the next scene, constantly jerking around with the pace. The Schrödinger's cat-inspired part also is interesting on its own, but misses real synergy with the Chinese scissor mystery part, and isn't really a "deduce it yourself" type of mystery, so this story just didn't work for me.

Mienai Otoko - Usami-shiki ("The Invisible Man, Usami-style") is a very short story where Usami is challenged to solve a mystery written by a co-worker. In the story, Helen, a career woman, is haunted by a voice of someone accusing of a murder she most definitely did commit to climb up the ladder. But while she keeps hearing the voice, she can never find out who is saying it, leading her to believe it is really a ghost. This is a very simple story, and the whole thing is very similar to a short story by a prolific American locked room mystery specialist whom I am sure Tsukatou has read, so it's hard to feel really enthusiastic about this one.

After three medicore stories, I was glad to learn Golem no Ori ("The Cage of the Golem") was indeed a lot more interesting, though again, I am not that big a fan of the double story structure of these stories. The plotline of a handyman falling off the roof of the research facility and calling for help, and his rescuers not being able to find him despite going to the exact spot the handyman says he is at, is not very interesting. However, at the same time, Usami has another of his weird experiences where his mind ends up in the body of a prison warden in 17h century England. "He" has been newly appointed to this prison, where there is one special inmate: a man only known as the Golem, a man so feared his name and records have been completely obscured and who has been kept for decades in a specially built cell from which there is no escape, as the door has been completely sealed, shuttered and barricaded. The door of this special cell has never been opened in the decades since the Golem has been kept: there's only a special small opening just large enough for a tray of food and water to slide through, and this opening is always kept shut from the outside until the food is brought. While he has been in the prison for decades, the arrival of the new warden seems to have changed something, as the Golem starts hinting at an imminent escape, which scares another inmate in the prison, who had a personal fued with the Golem. The warden can't believe the Golem can escape: the Golem is put in a room with thick stone walls, the door can't even be opened as it's completely barricaded and has been like that ever since the room was finished and you can barely get an arm outside the window. But on the night the Golem announced, the Golem does indeed appear to manage to escape his prison, and even kill the other inmate on his way out. How did the Golem manage to do this? This part of the story is probably the best of the whole book, and I do quite like this mystery, even if I have already seen a variation of the same solution before. It goes over the many seemingly possible situations there are for escaping a locked cell like in The Problem of Cell 13, but these possibilites are of course discarded. The solution however is clever as it plays with your expectations of why the Golem escaped his cell now, leading to a surprising way to escape the cell that seems so utterly impenetrable.

The final story bears the title Taiyouden no Isis (Golem no Ori Gendaiban) ("Isis of the Sun Temple - A Modern Cage of the Golem), the rescued handyman from the previous story tells Usami about a mysterious case at the headquarters of a sun-worshipping cult, where he worked once. A former follower of the cult had been detained inside a room at headquarters so he could "repent". This cell was made especially to punish the followers, so the windows were all frosted, allowing no direct sun inside the room. While the man was being held captive, the head of the cult, Ra, was worshipping the sun with his trusted assistants in the deepest parts of the headquarters. But the man somehow managed to not only escape his cell, which was being observed by a guard in the room outside, the man even managed to escape headquarters unseen! Even if the man managed to get out of his cell somehow, he'd only be able to go two ways from that point: one leading to the main entrance where plenty of other followers are, or one leading into the sun worshipping room where Ra and his assistants were, but none of them have any reason to have let the man go, so how did he escape both his cell and the sun cult's headquarters? The first part of this problem indeed offers an interesting twist on the idea of used in the original Golem no Ori, but in terms of feasibility, it seems very unlikely it would ever work: the story even says it was a gamble whether this would work, but simply addressing this problem doesn't mean it suddenly becomes more feasible, and while I like the idea on its own, it just seems like it needed something more to make the trick more... useable. The way the man escaped the building itself though is brilliant, and I really like the thematic implications of this trick. 

Overall though, I wasn't that big a fan of Golem no Ori as a short story collection. Most of the stories follow this two-plot structure, with one "outer shell" story and a narrative-within-a-narrative with Usami somehow being placed into this narrative-within-a-narrative (often with a fantasy twist), but I often felt the synergy between the two plotlines was not as strong as they could've been, and because of that, the stories just felt a bit chaotic, as if they were two stories mashed together for... reasons I simply don't get. The book also starts a bit weak, with the last two stories being the clear outliers and having the most memorable mystery plots, but even then, I don't think the "outer shell" stories really add that much to the plot, so it's difficult for me to feel truly positive about the book. I'd recommend reading the last two stories if you happen to have the opportunity, but don't expect anything as good in the earlier stories.

Original Japanese title(s):柄刀一『ゴーレムの檻』:「エッシャー世界」/「シュレディンガーDOOR」/「見えない人、宇佐見風」/「ゴーレムの檻」/「太陽殿のイシス（ゴーレムの檻 現代版）」

The Way to Dusty Death

"I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere."

"Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones"

And another short comic post week!

Sharaku Homura: Detective of the Uncanny has been one of my favorite mystery manga ever since I discovered it in 2018. Manga artist Nemoto Shou has been self-publishing the comics for many years now, though major publisher Bungeishunju has also been releasing collected volumes of this comic digitally, making all the older issues available via the major e-book storefronts. In more recent years, Nemoto Shou has been releasing newer issues via his Note site and I have been discussing those releases here too. There's no fixed release schedule though, as he does these comics between other work, so it's a matter of a lot of patience, and checking his website often. 

And last week, he finally updated again with a new entry in this series: Kaiki Tantei Sharaku Homura: Sunazukin ("Sharaku Homura: Detective of the Uncanny - The Sand Hood", 2005) is just fifty pages long, which is basically a short story in this series (long stories can run closer to 150), so it's fairly simple in set-up. A novelist from a neighboring prefecture is visiting Shimoyama City, or to be more exact: he's visiting the sand dunes of Shimiyama City to gain inspiration for his new book, which includes a scene of a man crashing with a plane in the desert. The writer is staying at the nearest inn, and goes out pacing around the dunes to experience what it is to be lost in the desert. However, it's his life that gets lost there, as later that day, a man discovers the author lying dead among the sand dunes, his head smashed so hard he lost his teeth. However, for some reason the only footsteps near the poor man are of his own: his footsteps show how he had been wandering around in the dunes, and then started circling around in thought, and he himself now lies dead in the circle of his own footsteps. But where did the killer who hit him come from, and where did they go? One onlooker suggests it was the handiwork of the Sand Hood, a local ghoul, who is said to be the ghost of a monk who died in these dunes and then became a Sand Man-esque character. The police then get a mysterious phone call of someone calling themselves the Sand Hood, and they have souvenirs for the police: the author's missing hat (which he wore while he was hiking in the dunes), and a metal pipe which according to the Sand Dune the victim had used in an attempt to fight the Sand Hood. The police doesn't know how to solve this murder, so they call in the help of middle student Sharaku Homura, who asssisted by Karate Kid once again try to reveal what's beneath the uncanny exterior of this case.

Like so often in this series, we have a genuine impossible murder mystery on our hands, and this time, it's one of the 'no footprints in the snow' variant, or in this case, sand. We have seen other examples of that in this series, like in Semi-Otoko ("The Cicada Man") (one of my favorite reads of 2023!) and Hagoromo no Kijo ("The Ogress With the Robe of Feathers") (one of my favorite reads of 20219!). However, there is one major difference between those stories, which I consider masterpieces of the puzzle plot mystery comic genre, and Sunazukin, and that is length. This story is barely a third of the length of the previously mentioned stories, and that of course severely limits the scale of this tale.

And that is immediately apparent once Homura explains the trick behind how the murderer managed to hit the victim in the face without leaving their own footprints in the sand. While I suppose the reader could very well randomly guess the solution to this, it's a shame the actual clues Nemoto planted to allow the reader to logically deduce the solution are uncharacteristically sloppy: he's usually extremely good at doing visual clues for example, but here it just doesn't work, and what's worse, in-universe, Sharaku doesn't even have to logically deduce the solution herself, as it's basically handed to her on a platter by being at the right place at the right time by complete coincidence. Nemoto is generally great at making a satisfying build-up to the solution, showing exactly (with page references!) where all the visual hints were that would allow the reader to figure out the solution based on those clue, here that process is barely there.

However, I do have to say I really liked the supporting clues, that revolve around the Sand Hood taunting the police by giving them the victim's hat and the metal pipe. The visual clues here that show you how this is all connected to the grand picture are much better in comparison, and show glimpses of how good Nemoto can really plot mystery stories, though it is just a very small element of this story, so it only makes you wanting for more.

Considering Nemoto Shou has written some of my favorite "no footprints in the snow" mystery comics in the past, I can't help but feel a bit disappointed by Sunazukin, even if I could guess from the page count it would be a relative simple story. I wouldn't recommend this one as your first Sharaku Homura read, as Nemoto's written much better ones, but I guess it's alright considering the length and all, and I still like the auxiliary clue. But I do think Nemoto really shines with the longer stories, and while I understand those take a lot of time (and he offers them for free too), I hope we'll see one of those super long stories again this year.

Original Japanese title(s): 根本尚（札幌の六畳一間）「怪奇探偵 写楽炎　砂頭巾」

Bathtub Murder

Undinus sich winden

『黒死館殺人事件』

 

 Undinus sich winden

"The Black Death Mansion Murder Case"

The Tattoo Murder Case is probably one of the earliest Japanese mystery novels I ever read, so kinda funny how I only got around to reading its sequel now...

Matsushita Kenzou receives from his old schoolmate Urabe Kouichi, who hopes Matsushita and their mutual friend Kamizu Kyousuke, the famous detective, will come and save his family. When they were attending school together, Kouichi had shown signs of having vague precognitive powers, which is something which appears to run in his family: his great-uncle is in fact Urabe Shunzai: Shunzai had exhibited great precognitive powers at a younger age and presented himself as someone who was chosen by heaven. He became the head of his own "new religion", the Crimson Spirit, which started out as a minor cult in their home village in the rural plains of Musashino, but which rapidly attracted more followers, some of them even with great political influence. At one time, the Crimson Spirit had its headquarters in a splendid mansion in the capital and Shunzai would even be consulted during the war, but his predictions then missed the mark, and after the war, the cult shrunk as quickly as it had once grown: at the moment, it's basically just Shunzai and his next of kin, being his three granddaughters Sumiko, Retsuko and Tokiko, as well as Kouji. Because Matsushita knows Kouichi has been right about his feelings in the past, he travels to the village, though he isn't able to get hold of the travelling Kamizu. As he arrives in the village, Matsushita runs into a strange man who, when hears Matsushita is going to visit the Urabes, is told a prophecy: that night one of the girls will die floating in water. Matsushita has barely arrived at the house and told Kouji about this prophecy, when suddenly Tokiko ends up poisoned, though she fortunately survives the attempt on her life. It turns out the strange man is called Rokurou, who is a faraway relative of the Urabes and once a high-ranking member of the Crimson Spirit. He has however denounced Shunzai as being "real" and has started his own cult now. Matsushita is of course offered to a bed for the night, but that evening, as everyone takes turn to take a bath, a noise attracts everyone to the bathroom, where Sumiko is taking a bath. They find the door locked, so break it open, only to find Sumiko dead in the tub: she has been stabbed in the chest with a dagger. However, the window was locked from the inside, and there had been someone standing outside the bathroom to guard her. When later, a sheet of paper is found where Rokurou has written more of his prophecies, which indicate Shunzai and his three granddaughters will die in different manners. Are their deaths inevitable and fixed by heaven, or is it the act of a murderous human being? That is to be determined by Kamizu Kyousuke in Takagi Akimitsu's Jubaku no Ie ("The Spellbound House", 1949-1950).

Jubaku no Ie is the second novel featuring Takagi Akimitsu's fictional detective Kamizu Kyousuke, who debuted in Shisei Satsujin Jiken ("The Tattoo Murder Case"), which had ended serialization the previous year. While Takagi seemed quite enthusastic when he started serializing this story, it appears reception at the time wasn't that good: letters came from readers who bashed it, and eventually Takagi even gave up some of his payment for the story to set up a contest, with a money reward for the person who could guess who the murderer was. The book features two Challenges to the Readers by the way, one being a relatively conventional one, but then a chapter later, he adds in another where he basically says "You can't be serious, you still don't get it!??", which might be the time when they did the contest, I suppose? And oddly enough, Takagi really likes to spoil Van Dine (as in: actually stating the name of the murderer of The Greene Family Murders): he does so in the Challenge to the Reader, but he also spoiled Van Dine in Noumen Satsujin Jiken. Oh, and in the story itself, he basically spoils The Murder of Roger Ackryoyd while talking about something else. Forewarned is forearmed.

As the scond novel in the series, Jubaku no Ie is one of the better known entries in the series, and has actually also (relatively) recently been adapted for the stage. So I had been looking forward to reading this book. Atmosphere-wise, Jubaku no Ie is pretty good: the backstory of the Crimson Spirit cult and how Shunzai abused his authority to get women and money from first villagers, and then the whole country until his empire crumbled is interesting, and provides a great set-up where the whole Urabe clan is more-or-less hated by everyone who once was involved, like everyone in the village who donated money to Shunzai until they realized he must be a fraud. Meanwhile, the three granddaughters were brought up by their grandfather and at least Sumiko and Retsuko are still devoted believers of their grandfather, being one of the few practicing followers left. The prophecy left by Rokurou, who started his own rival cult and is clearly 'winning' in terms of gaining power, predicts the whole bloodline of Shunzai will fall, with each of the four remaining persons dying via one of the four elements of air, water, fire and earth. With Sumiko dying as the first one in a locked (bath)room, you'd think this might be a very cool mystery novel, as at the very least, the atmosphere is great and I see opinions online that, very understandably, compare it to the dark atmosphere found in Yokomizo Seishi's Kindaichi Kousuke novels.

As a mystery novel, and one with two Challenges to the Reader no less, Jubaku no Ie is probably not as impressive as Takagi probably had hoped it to be. When you add a Challenge to the Reader, you of course expect not a conventional matter "whodunnit", as in, the book shouldn't just expect the reader to instinctively guess who the murderer is, but there should be a proper trail of clues pointing specifically at one person, while also proving other people didn't do it. After the first murder on Sumiko, Kamizu arrives late at the scene (together with the police), but he is not able to prevent more murders from happening. Most of the subsequent murders seem able to have been committed by any person though, and while there is another locked room murder later in the story, it is resolved fairly quickly mid-way (and has a rather straighforward solution), the main problem is the first bathroom murder, which is also the one thing Takagi focuses on in his Challenge to the Reader, setting specific parameters about this murder to ensure to the reader he's playing a fair game here. The problem here is basically two-fold: one is that Takagi in an attempt to be clever, actually basically tells a falsehood in this Challenge to the Reader, rendering the whole Challenge moot and even more problematic... he skims over crucial parts of how he says the locked room murder in the bathroom occured. Like, going solely by what is said in the text, you still don't know how it happened, as Takagi basically skips over the part that actually explains how the murder had been committed without leaving any clues as to how the murderer entered. While there are interesting parts about this locked room murder, because it is set in a Japanese-style bathroom with its own characteristics, I feel the mystery of Jubaku no Ie falls apart, as the whole Challenge is based on the bathroom murder, but then it skims over parts of the solution (the parts that would actually be an obstacle in terms of execution). In fact, parts of this solution go straight against reasons the book itself raised earlier, but which for some reason are not addressed again when the actual solution faces the exact same obstacles.

Funny how this second Kamizu Kyousuke novel also revolves around a bathroom murder by the way...

But no, overall Jubaku no Ie didn't manage to leave a good impression on me on the whole. While it certainly earns high marks in terms of atmosphere, with the cult background and a creepy poem foretelling four murders, the main locked room murder skims over its own solution, despite it being the focal point of the book's Challenge to the Reader. I think what ultimately Takagi was going for with this locked room murder could be interesting, but the execution here is sloppy, and just doesn't work.

Original Japanese title(s): 高木彬光『呪縛の家』