A Hostage Situation: Case Closed, vol. 67 by Gosho Aoyama

The 67th volume in Gosho Aoyama's long-running series Case Closed, originally published in Japan as Detective Conan, customarily begins with the conclusion of the story that began at the end of the previous volume – an inverted detective story that uses a popular sub-culture to create a perfect alibi. So let's dig in.

Previously, Richard Moore, Rachel and Conan were getting a bite to eat at a diner when the body of a young woman is found in the restroom dressed as a Gothic Lolita. She had rope and scratch marks on her throat. The murderer is known to the reader, a close friend of the victim, but the problem is that the murderer possesses "an airtight alibi." Conan has a keen eye for details and shatters the alibi based on a broken drinking glass, fingerprints and the fact that the victim wasn't wearing the fake nails that came with the Gothic Lolita getup.

I'll admit that this is not one of the strongest stories in the series, but passable enough and thought it was interesting how Aoyama used the particulars of a niche-culture to create an alibi-trick. What can I say? Christopher Bush has given me a new appreciation for alibi stories.

The second story consists of a single chapter and concerns an elderly men, who seems full of life and positivist, but Conan spots a number of holes in his story and together with the Junior Detective League they prevent not one, but two, tragedies – which somewhat reminded me of Agatha Christie's "Wasps' Nest" (collected in Double Sin and Other Stories, 1961). These one-chapter stories are incredibly rare in Case Closed and are usually nothing more than filler material to bridge a (publication) gap between story-lines. The end of this story has a reference to the hostage case from volume 65 and the man who closely resembled the supposedly dead Shuichi Akai. And this reference is very relevant to what comes next.

The third story, covering no less than five chapters, is complex in nature and has multiple layers stacked upon each other.

Richard Moore is hired by an anonymous client to find out who has been sending this person red, long sleeved shirts in the mail every week and Moore is asked to meet with the client at the sporting goods store at the Baker Department Store, but there Conan and Rachel spot Ms. Jodie – who's looking there for a trail of the Akai look-a-like. The look-a-like who was spotted in the hostage case was wearing a limited edition, black-knit hat with the logo of the department store on it. However, this apparently simple case quickly becomes a dangerous one when an innocent shopper is knocked out in the restroom and a masked man straps a remote control bomb to his body! The perpetrator demands that whomever has been sending him the red shirts reveals himself. And the Akai look-a-like is present in the department store.

However, their problems are only just beginning: Gin and Vodka are waiting in a car outside of the department store with Gin pointing a gun at Kir, who killed Akai in volume 59, because the Black Organization has become aware someone is walking around the city who closely resembles Akai and they suspect they might have been played a sucker – which is why they stationed Chianti in a top-floor window, across the department store, with a sniper rifle. A very tight situation, to say the least.

So Conan has to diffuse the hostage situation by cracking the code of the red shirts and the torn receipts, which show that all the shirts were purchased at exactly 12:29. The code is a nifty twist on Conan Doyle "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" (collected in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, 1903), but perhaps a little impractical and a little bit too easily solved. Still, it was definitely an ingenious code. I won't give anything away what happened with the Akai look-a-like or the Black Organization, but Aoyama spoiled one plot-thread in the ongoing story-line when he injected Subaru into the story. Aoyama gave him way too many lines and facial expressions, which gave his own story-line away. I know who you are now, Subaru!

Anyway, this was a good, multi-layered story with a whole group of familiar characters moving around in the background and long-time readers of the series will definitely appreciate it.

The last three chapters are a continuation of the Metropolitan Police Love Story from volume 66 with a simplistic murder of a pawnshop owner thrown in for good measure, which will be concluded in the next volume, but I already identified the murderer – because the attempt of misdirection here is beneath Aoyama. Granted, I have seen silhouette-trick (or mistake) before, but still, it's childishly easy.

So, all things considered, this was a pretty decent entry in the series with the hostage case as its highlight and an improvement over the previous volume, which only had one really good story. Well, I had been warned in the comments on my review of volume 65 (linked above) that this period in the series experienced a slight dip in quality, but slowly gets back into form as it moves towards volume 70. I can live with that considering how strong this series has been up till now.