A Study in Scarlet: Case Closed, vol. 85 by Gosho Aoyama

This is likely going to be a very short review and not because of a lack of quality, but volume 85 of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed, originally published in Japan as Detective Conan, concludes a long-running story-arc that was setup years ago – going all the way back to vol. 58 and vol. 59. A longish story giving answers to what really happened at the Reiha Mountain Pass and the apparent murder of Shuichi Akai that involves a lot of familiar faces. So have to gloss over and dance around a lot of details in order to avoid spoiling anything.

Needless to say, the conclusion to this story-arc represents one of the most ambitious pieces of plotting from this series! Aoyama planted the seeds, clues and hints over a period seven years across more than twenty volumes with the lime light going entirely to the characters who have been lurking in the background or inserting themselves into Conan's investigations. So there's a cat-and-mouse game between Toru Amuro and Subaru Okiya, while Jodie Sterling and Andre Camel get chased by a band of armed men. And finding a huge surprise in the backseat of their car! Conan is mentioned several times through out the story, but mainly acts as a Wizard of Oz pulling strings and levers behind the scenes. What a great pay-off to a long-running, ambitiously plotted and told story-arc.

By the way, I assumed this big blow-off would cover the entirety of the volume, but only covered five of the eleven chapters.

Unfortunately, the blow-off scattered pieces across the board and, as Ho-Ling warned in the comments of my review of the previous volume, the stories following can be "a bit meh again as new pieces have to set in place" – as exemplified by the next story. Shukichi Haneda, a professional shogi player, was introduced in vol. 80 as the love interest of the female traffic officer, Yumi Miyamoto. This story has Shukichi Haneda preparing to compete the Master title match, "only title he doesn't hold right now," but, "if he wins the title 'Master,' he'll have all seven crowns." Only "one player in history has ever done that." Right before the match, he receives a message from someone calling himself "The Headless Shogi Player." Yumi has been kidnapped and only way to save her is solving a series of shogi-themed codes and clues. Conan comes to the rescue, but, like nearly all code cracker stories from this series, it's practically unsolvable to non-Japanese readers on top of being a boring and pretty forgettable story.

I don't know why Aoyama decided to tell this story coming hot off the biggest story-arc from the past twenty, or so, volumes. Why not take a breather from Conan & Company and fill out the second-half with a Harley Hartwell solo case? Or maybe a story focusing on Richard Moore or Conan's parents. It would have been an improvement over the shogi hunt and the story closing out this landmark volume.

The third and last story, which will be concluded in the next volume, has to be most transparent case since the first half dozen volumes. The story concerns a body discovered at the bottom of a hotel swimming pool, littered by shards of glass, but the solution seems painfully obvious (ROT13): jub “fgrccrq” ba gur oebxra cvrprf bs gur ndhnevhz? Rknpgyl! Gur bayl pyrire cneg bs gur gevpx vf gung oernxvat gur ndhnevhz haqre jngre jbhyq znxr ab fbhaq, ohg vg'f boivbhf jubqhavg naq ubj nf gur svfuvat yvar sbhaq va gur qenva jnf hfrq gb chyy njnl gur ndhnevhz gung uvqr gur obql sebz ivrj. Naq gura qrfgeblrq jura gur zheqrere cergraqrq gb fgrc ba tynff funeqf jura ur jnf npghnyyl fgnzcvat vg gbb cvrprf naq tbg phg.

So unless the swimming pool story pulls out a surprise ending in the next volume, the last two stories fall dramatically short coming right after the fantastic, red-hot conclusion covering the first five chapters – nothing disastrous enough to diminish what Aoyama accomplished in those chapters. I just hope that the individual, standalone cases see an uptick in quality again in the next couple of volumes. Onward to the next installment!

Well, I said this was not going to be a very lengthy review. So why not add some padding by dumping a bunch of Conan-related links. The Golden Age Detective fandom is a bit weird as it's not known for its fan theories or rampant speculations, but I have a fan theory, “Detective Conan: Who's the Boss,” revealing the ultimate least-likely-suspect as the mysterious series antagonist. I also compiled a best-of list with "My Five Favorite Impossible Crime Stories from Case Closed, vol. 1-69," but two of the best locked room mysteries can be found in TV original episodes The Cursed Mask Laughs Coldly and The Case of the Seance Double Locked Room.