Background Details: Case Closed, vol. 93 by Gosho Aoyama

The 93rd volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed traditionally begins with the conclusion to the story that started in the previous volume, which finds Conan and Harley Hartwell at Coffee Poirot during a brief blackout – used as a cover for an attempted murder. When the lights turn back on, they find one of the customers crumpled up on the floor with a serious knife wound. A messy job spattering both Conan and Harley with blood. So the culprit must also be covered in blood, but none of the four suspects have so much as drop of blood on their hands or clothes. And how could the murderer have navigated a pitch-dark cafe to find the victim?

Plot-wise, the story is typical for this period, in the series, written around a trick-of-the-week which tend to have mixed results. This trick is hampered by its Frankenstein construction. I liked that the problem the stabbing presents is halfway between an impossible crime and an unbreakable alibi, but only the method the murderer employed to locate the victim is really good. I found it pleasantly surprising and had no idea that's actually possible. If you're interested, this YouTube video demonstrates it (spoilers, of course). However, it feels wasted on this story and the trick used to avoid blood splatter is clever in theory, but, considering the amount of evidence the would-be killer left behind, it comes across as delaying tactic rather than a serious attempt to get away with it. Inspector Meguire and his forensic team eventually would have stumbled to it without Conan, Harley or that barista detective.

It honestly would have made for a better, more satisfying, detective story had the murderer just used the location-trick/alibi to slip or inject the victim some poison. That being said, the story is not only about a strange stabbing at a cafe, but sets the tone for the overall volume as the individual cases basically function as stages for the bigger storylines, character-arcs and introducing new faces. This first story introduces two characters tied to a new storyline involving Harley. And it helped this otherwise average, uneven story.

Only exception is the next and best story from this volume. I mentioned in previous reviews I dislike kidnap plots, because they make for lousy detective fiction or paint-by-number thrillers, but Case Closed has delivered a couple of surprisingly good, original even, mystery-thrillers with a kidnap plot – e.g. vol. 72. The kidnap victim this time is Richard Moore's ex-wife and Rachel's mother, Eva Kaden, who's a successful attorney at law with enemies. Some of her enemies banded together, kidnapped her and brought her to an abandoned building to do some uncharacteristic heinous things (for this series) to her. Fortunately, Eva manages to escape and hide somewhere in the building to contact Rachel through a messenger app on her phone, but one of kidnappers joins the group chat under Eva's name ("mom is multiplying"). So now Conan, Rachel and Richard Moore not only have to find out where Eva is held captive, but how to separate Eva's real messages from the false ones. What ensues is a three-way cat-and-mouse game between Eva, her kidnappers and Conan & Co.

Admittedly, the setup is a little bit contrived, tech-wise, as the kidnappers had to strip down their phones (removing sim card, disabling GPS, etc.) to the point where they can make calls or use an app over the internet ("a police station antenna can't pick up WI-FI signals"). But it made for an incredibly fun story. I really liked how the messenger app was used to drive and direct the story, which in turn also provided a neat twist on the related code cracking and dying message stories from this series. Loved it!

Interestingly, Conan had to take charge and direct a panicked Richard and Rachel, which forced him to act more like Jimmy Kudo than Conan Edogawa. Rachel notices Conan's deduction skills aren't "those of an ordinary first grader" and finally demands answers from Conan. The ease with which Conan sidetracks Rachel is just ridiculous so close to vol. 100. We have reached the point where Rachel can catch Conan doing the "Sleeping Moore" routine and all he would need to do distract her is flash a laser pointer or jingle keys with his free hand.

The third story takes place during one of the regular, not always bloodless, camping trips of the Junior Detective League, but Doc Agasa is sick in bed and Rumi Wakasa takes his place – who has been behaving suspiciously since her introduction in vol. 91. She has caught the eye of Superintendent Hyoe Kuroda, of the Nagano Police, who also caught on the fact Conan is pretty much "Sleeping Moore's brains." So he right there at the camping ground alongside the Junior Detective League and a small group of college basketball players. Needless to say, the last group end up providing the story with a body and murderer. One of them burns to death while alone in his tent that had been tightly "zipped and locked shut" from the inside. More importantly, the victim was seen by everyone doing squats in his tent before the tent caught fire. It appears to be an tragic accident, but Conan believes it was murder. And proves it!

Just like the first story, the answer involves a two-part trick. I liked the simple, uncomplicated solution to the locked tent and the elaborate, maybe overly elaborate, fire-trick is undoubtedly very clever, but feels entirely out of place in this story with its outdoors setting. So not bad, on a whole, but it feels very uneven. I think the presence of Hyoe Kuroda and Rumi Wakasa added more mystery to the story than the quasi-impossible murder in a locked tent. Both fit the description of a high-ranking member of the Black Organization.

This volume ends with the setup of a story that will be concluded in the next volume, but setup is a good one with a crossover bonus. Harley is participating in a high school kendo tournament with a good chance of taking home the gold, when the tournament unsurprisingly becomes the scene of a gruesome murder. Someone dressed as a kendo fighter with mask, face covering and knife slashes one of the referees to the death in front of a blind witness – who heard the murderer go into the public restroom. And he heard nobody coming out since then. So the three people inside the restroom form a nice, tight closed-circle of suspects, but they're all free of blood? The solution to that problem will be presented in the next volume, but note that the story has two cameo crossovers by characters from Yaiba ("a hit comedy-adventure series which Aoyama created before Detective Conan").

So not a terribly bad or below average volume, especially not the excellent kidnapping of Eva Kaden, but overall, the stories are very uneven and an undeniable step down from the previous volume. What happened in the background of the stories really is what helped to keep this volume above average by preventing from it becoming terribly uneventful or worse.

The Fifth Tumbler (1936) by Clyde B. Clason

Clyde B. Clason was an American copywriter, trade magazine editor and author of ten once very popular, critically acclaimed Van Dinean detective novels about a mild mannered Roman historian turned amateur sleuth, Theocritus Lucius Westborough – blessed with "the instincts of a ferret and the brain of a Holmes." Clason certainly was one of the more sophisticated, literate writers to come out of the Van Dine-Queen School driven by a genuine curiosity and knowledge of art, culture and science. Despite his weighty name and occupation, Westborough never becomes a lecturing snob like Van Dine's Philo Vance or early period Ellery Queen.

More importantly, Clason was not an incompetent plotter with a healthy interest in locked room mysteries and impossible crimes. Seven of the ten Westborough mysteries count as impossible crime novels making Clason one of the leading locked room specialists of his day, right alongside John Dickson Carr and Clayton Rawson. Clason's best locked room mysteries are admittedly fairly minor affairs compared to the best locked room trickery from Carr or Rawson. They tend to be practical tricks and smaller parts of a bigger, more complicated plot overall, not the focal point, but Clason usually delivers a cleverly constructed, often fairly clued mysteries. Clason regrettably believed "his kind of book had gone out of fashion with the emphasis on blood-and-guts hardboiled fiction during the post-World War II period" and exited the genre in the early 1940s.

Clason and his ten Westborough novels fell into obscurity for decades. Only people who remembered them were collectors of vintage hardbacks, genre scholars and feverish impossible crime addicts looking for their next fix. So, yeah, there probably was a point somewhere in the late 1970s or early '80s when only Bill Pronzini knew about Clason. Yet, Clason was among the first wave of obscure, long-forgotten mystery writers to return to print when the Rue Morgue Press reprinted his now most well-known locked room mystery, The Man from Tibet (1938), in 1998 – which slowly snowballed into a reprint renaissance and revival. Along the way, Rue Morgue Press reissued all but two of Clason's Westborough mysteries before closing down in 2015. The Death Angel (1936), second title in the series, was one of the last reprints Rue Morgue Press published.

So only The Fifth Tumbler (1936) and The Whispering Ear (1938) missed out on getting reprinted that would have given us a complete, uniform set of reprints. No other publisher has picked up the series since 2015, until recently.

Chosho Publishing, an indy print-on-demand outfit, has reissued a modest selection of slightly overpriced of Golden Age detective novels over the past two, three years. I reviewed their reprint of Isabel Briggs Myers' Murder Yet to Come (1929/30) last year, but they also reprinted Clason's The Fifth Tumbler, The Man from Tibet, The Purple Parrot (1937), Murder Gone Minoan (1939) and Green Shiver (1941). Just be warned The Purple Parrot is the weak link in the series and Murder Gone Minoan too text book-y. I gladly took their reprint of The Fifth Tumbler to get one step closer to that complete set of reprints and crossing another, once rare, title off the locked room wishlist.

The Fifth Tumbler is Clason's debut as a mystery writer and introduces the genial, mild mannered history professor as one of about half a dozen guests in the west corridor, on the third floor, of the Equable Hotel in Chicago – where one of the guests dies under bizarre circumstances. Mr. Elmo Swink is not the most esteemed or popular hotel guests, referred to by various characters in the opening chapters as "that fat mug," "dirty hog" and generally considered to be a bit nasty, who's found lying doubled up in the doorway of his room. Swink died from inhaling a strong whiff of hydrocyanic gas delivered by a booby trap attached to the inside of the door. When the victim opened the door, a test tube dropped containing chemicals that would mix and release the poisonous gas. So the immediate question arising from this situation is how the murderer manage to rig up the booby trap when the door, connecting doors and windows were all locked and bolted on the inside. And the door to the hall is out, anyway, as it could been used without disturbing the booby trap or knocking down the tube ("just like one of the 'murder in a sealed room' things that you read about in detective stories").

This strange murder is officially investigated by Captain Terence O'Ryan and Lieutenant John Mack, but Westborough uses the name of his dead brother, Jim Westborough, to get to sit on the investigation as a quiet spectator. Apparently, Jim Westborough saved Mack's neck when he was framed in "as dirty a deal as was ever cooked up." Westborough gets to sit-in on the investigation and silently begins woolgathering from an armchair in the corner. Even though Mack believes "crimes aren't solved by a guy sitting around on his fanny and thinking about 'em," but simply by old-fashioned legwork to chase the facts. However, I think this division between the leg work done by the police and reasoning largely from an armchair by the amateur detective is the most attractive, well-done part of The Fifth Tumbler. I appreciated "From the Notebook of Theocritus Lucius Westborough" was included early in the story.

A thorough investigation narrows down the list of potential suspects down to the people along the west corridor of the third floor and an employee or two. Like the lovesick night clerk and chemistry student, Chris Larson. The lovely, currently unemployed stenographer, Yvonne Grant. A self-proclaimed broker named James Chilton. A commercial artist, Ronald Graham, who's staying at the hotel with his wife and son. An acid-tongued, gossip mongering hotel widow, Sarah Blakely, and a pair of questionable traveling salesmen, Fred Hammond and Ben Devon. So the problem is not a lack of suspects or even the booby trap method, but that there apparently is not "a motive worth a damn." That actually causes a problem with the solution, but I'll get back to the solution in a second.

The Fifth Tumbler is Clason's first stab at the detective story and firsts rarely translate into classics or practically unblemished gems in our genre. Clason's maiden effort is no exception. For one, it feels much more of an imitation of the Van Dinean detective story than some of the latter books, which mostly comes down to establishing an amateur detective/official police working relationship and the story almost entirely taking place at the crime scene – a staple of the early 1930s Van Dinean detective story. Very different from novels like Blind Drifts (1937), Poison Jasmine (1940) and Murder Gone Minoan. A second problem is that despite the ingenuity shown in setting up an original locked room situation and various promising plot-threads, the solutions are routine and lack imagination. Something the author admitted when Mack groaned upon hearing Westborough's explanation, "the oldest trick known to detective story writers." If this had been all, The Fifth Tumbler would have been pleasant, competently routine first stab, but Clason tried to go for an Agatha Christie-style rug pull. Well, it's kind of impressive to see a mystery writer pull the legs from underneath himself. That's a trick I hadn't seen before!

Not that it did the story any favors. The problem is the extremely well-hidden, vaguely clued motive. There are, technically, "clues" to the motive, but they're just not very helpful and motive really is the key to solution. So what should have been a "surprise twist" to explain an apparent "murder without a motive" simply falls flat. John Norris likened it in his 2011 review to a kangaroo popping out to thumb its nose at the stunned, silent and cheated reader. I found the solution to be both disappointing and somewhat of a cheat, but up until that point, I enjoyed the story that definitely had its moments. Like the gossipy Mrs. Blakely giving a stunned Mack an unexpected demonstration of her psychometric abilities (predictable solution, but fun) or the Van Dinean mini-lectures on a variety of subjects (e.g. chemistry and locks). Westborough interestingly compares the case to "the mechanism of a pin-tumbler lock" with four of his five tumblers (i.e. suspects) in place, but "an obstinate fifth prevents the lock from opening." However, the lock analogies demanded a better locked room-trick.

So the routine plot and clumsily-handled, bungled ending makes it impossible to recommend Clason's The Fifth Tumbler to anyone, except completists or connoisseurs of the obscure.

Note for the curious: because the important motive is so well-hidden, I got hold of a red herring I thought offered a simple and practical solution to the whole mess and a murderer tailor-made for the story. My entirely wrong armchair solution (ROT13) crttrq gur rk-cbyvprzna naq pheerag ubgry qrgrpgvir, Wreel Fcnatre, nf gur zheqrere, orpnhfr uvf cnfg nf n cbyvprzna pbhyq unir oebhtug uvz vagb pbagnpg jvgu Ryzb Fjvax – n pbazna naq cneg gvzr oynpxznvyre. Fb gurer pbhyq unir orra bccbeghavgl sbe oynpxznvy naq cebivqvat gur ubhfr qrgrpgvir jvgu n zbgvir sbe zheqre. Vg'f rnfvre sbe gur ubhfr qrgrpgvir gb trg ubyq bs cnff xrlf gb perngr n cngujnl gb gur ivpgvz'f ebbz guebhtu gur pbaarpgvat qbbef guna vg jbhyq or sbe bar bs gur thrfgf/bhgfvqref. Abg gur zbfg fcrpgnphyne be bevtvany fbyhgvba gb n qrgrpgvir fgbel, ohg qrprag rabhtu naq yvxrq gur vqrn bs gur ubhfr qrgrpgvir orvat gur svefg zheqrere Jrfgobebhtu pngpurf. Maybe I wouldn't cut as an Ellery Queen or Philo Vance, but I would make one hell of Simon Brimmer!

The Hit List: Top 10 Locked Room Mystery Novels That Need to Be Reprinted

In 2022, I posted an addendum to Nick Fuller's "Detective Stories to Reprint" entitled "Curiosity is Killing the Cat: Detective Novels That Need to Be Reprinted" going over a lengthy list of tantalizingly obscure, out-of-print mystery novels that remained out-of-reach – even in the midst of a reprint renaissance. Some writers and novels on the list have since returned to print. Such as Anthony Gilbert's The Tragedy at Freyne (1927), Mignon G. Eberhart's From This Dark Stairway (1931) and the complete works of Eunice Mays Boyd and James Ronald, but most remain annoyingly out-of-print today.

So wanted to do a shorter, trimmed down version focusing on out-of-print locked room mysteries and impossible crime novels (because, of course). Not simply as an excuse to climb on my favorite hobbyhorse, but because I really needed a filler-post to replenish the diminished backlog of blog-posts and reviews.

However, I always try to avoid doing a standard top 10 list of favorite characters or mysteries by picking somewhat unusual, sometimes niche, topics allowing for a surprising list. For example, "Top 10 Fascinating World War II Detective Novels" starts with a novel from 1934 and ends with one from 2008. "Top 10 Non-English Detective Novels That Need to Be Translated" lists ten mysteries from four continents, written in six different languages, peeking over the language-barrier at us. "Top 10 Works of Detective Fiction That Have Been Lost to History" goes over the list of unpublished manuscripts from some very well-known, celebrated mystery writers that were lost or destroyed – consigned to the phantom library in the sky. On a more positive note is the "Top 10 Beneficiaries of the Reprint Renaissance." So didn't simply want to go over my personal locked room mystery wishlist and pick ten titles.

This list is basically split in two, mashed together halves. There are five titles directly plucked from my wishlist, while the other five have been reviewed before on this blog. But they all deserve or need to be reprinted for one reason or another. So publishers take note! Hope everyone else finds it an entertaining and interesting list with hopefully a few picks that'll surprise you.

The Case of the Gold Coins (1933) by Anthony Wynne

Robert McNair Wilson, a Scottish-born physician, is the man behind the "Anthony Wynne" pseudonym and, before John Dickson Carr, was the first Golden Age writer to specialize in novel-length locked room mysteries – producing twenty-one impossible crime novels and some short stories. The quality of Wynne's Dr. Eustace Hailey series is uneven, but The Case of the Gold Coins is considered to be one of his most ingenious takes on the impossible crime problem: a body found on a beach without any footprints. John Norris called the solution "simple and rather brilliant" and Curt Evans thought the explanation "worthy of John Dickson Carr." The Case of the Gold Coins sounds like a perfect, long overdue follow up to the British Library reprint edition of Wynne's Murder of a Lady (1931; a.k.a. The Silver Scale Mystery).

Three Dead, One Hurt (1934) by Scobie Mackenzie

Robert Adey highlighted Mackenzie's Three Dead, One Hurt in his introduction of Locked Room Murders (1991) as "something a little different." Something he described as a Buchanesque tale about a group of people marooned on a Scottish island with "a clever locked room situation." In 2022, Martin Edwards reviewed Three Dead, One Hurt and thought it "a notch or two above many others that were being written at the time." But, as he pointed out, the book has never been reprinted since its original publication over 90 years (!) ago.

Terror at Compass Lake (1935) by Tech Davis

Brian Skupin highlighted Tech Davis' Terror at Compass Lake in Locked Room Murders: Supplement (2019) as an intriguing mystery in which Aubrey Nash investigates the deaths of a chauffeur and his employer in upstate New York. The death of the chauffeur apparently that was "neither murder, suicide nor natural death" and the murder of his boss offers "a new twist on the locked room mystery." You should know that a review from 1990 by the late William F. Deeck points out that the book is better plotted than written ("recommended for locked room fanciers, and other problem solvers").

The Whispering Ear (1938) by Clyde B. Clason

Clyde B. Clason wrote only ten detective novels, over a five year period, but they're among the most sophisticated, well-written and often soundly plotted the American detective story produced during the Golden Age – making his obscurity all the more baffling. Rue Morgue Press reprinted eight of Clason's Theocritus Lucius Westborough mysteries in the 2000s and 2010s. The second novel in that series, The Dark Angel (1936), was one of the last reprints they published before closing their doors. So we missed out on a complete set of reprints that would have included The Fifth Tumbler (1936) and The Whispering Ear. Recently, Chosho Publishing reprinted The Fifth Tumbler, The Purple Parrot (1937), The Man from Tibet (1938), Murder Gone Minoan (1939) and Green Shiver (1941). The Whispering Ear remains the only title in the series that has not been reprinted since the 1930s or '40s. It could very well be Clason's most substantial impossible crime novel concerning "an impersonation problem in which a bad twin, taking the place of his famous brother, gets the latter's money and is killed" – shot in a locked bathroom. A 1938 review called it a "fair enough puzzler."

The Longstreet Legacy (1951) by Douglas Ashe

So the first of the previously read and reviewed titles on this list. Ashe's The Longstreet Legacy, alternatively published as A Shroud for Grandmama, was discussed earlier this year by Martin Edwards, "a classic whodunit with macabre trimmings," who linked to my review. Not only is this a classic whodunit from the twilight years of the Golden Age, but an imaginative and original impossible crime novel. The elderly victim, Ella Longstreet, is found lying at the bottom of staircase dressed in a bikini and surrounded by a circle of dusty, waltzing footprints with the rest of the hallway inexplicably free of footprints. Regrettably, The Longstreet Legacy is likely to remain out-of-print for the foreseeable future. John Norris tried to get the books reprinted in 2014, but the author's son is "sort of contentious and is holding on tight to the rights."

The Glass Spear (1950) by S.H. Courtier

This is going to be contentious entry! Wynne's The Case of the Gold Coins, Davis' Terror at Compass Lake and Clason's The Whispering Ear appear a little dubious when it comes to the overall quality (i.e. writing, characterization and plot), but they appear to be fully-fledged locked room mysteries. And two of them are reportedly excellent when it comes to the locked room-tricks. Courtier's The Glass Spear is, what John Norris called, an anthropological detective novel and a fine one at that. Simply as a regional detective novel it succeeded in what a regional detective novel is supposed to do: create a story, plot and crime that feels native to the setting. Something that feels like it could not have taken place anywhere else, except in the setting of the story. There's a locked room murder, but it's immediately solved and the locked room-trick routine. I decided to include it as a reminder Courtier is still waiting to be reprinted.

Note for the curious: John Norris (what, him again!?) reviewed Courtier's Let the Man Die (1961) earlier this year, describing it as "remarkable retro" and "truly feels like a love letter to the plot heavy books of the 1930s and 1940s." Something tells me the traditional, Australian detective story has been criminally overlooked by the rest of the world.

Withered Murder (1956) by A. & P. Shaffer

Many of the once extremely rare, prohibitively expensive and out-of-print (locked room) mystery novels returned to print in recent years. A notable example is Christianna Brand's Death of Jezebel (1948). It used to be one of the most wanted, next to impossible to obtain impossible crime novels in the genre as secondhand copies were scarce and often expensive. That list of ridiculous rare, out-of-print mysteries with the quality to match their legendary reputation has been thinned out considerably. I think the most famous title to top that list today is Shaffer's Withered Murder. Nick Fuller praised Withered Murder for being "as flamboyantly fantastical and fearsome as a Father Brown case" and "as brilliantly clued and surprising as a Carr." So you understand us locked room fanatics need a reprint of Withered Murder almost as much as oxygen.

Diving Death (1962) by Charles Forsyte

There were a few unsuccessful, short-lived attempts during the 1960s to continue and modernize the fair play, Golden Age-style detective novel. One of these short-lived attempts came from the husband-and-wife team of Gordon and Vicky Philo, writing as "Charles Forsyte," who penned a handful of classically-styled whodunits. Three of them feature their series-detective, Inspector Richard Left, who's confronted in Diving Death with a seemingly impossible murder during an archaeological expedition at sea. A reprint of this wonderful detective novel full with impossible murders, false-solutions, waterproof alibis and a fallible detective would be greatly appreciated by fellow mystery aficionados.

Black Aura (1974) by John Sladek

Sladek's wrote two famous and beloved, classically-styled detective novels featuring his equally popular detective, Thackeray Phin, whose specialty is solving locked room murders and other seemingly impossible crimes. Black Aura and Invisible Green (1977) are fan favorites often mentioned in same breath as John Dickson Carr and Hake Talbot. We've been arguing for years, some even decades, about which of the two Thackeray Phin novels is better. Fortunately, copies of Black Aura and Invisible Green are neither absurdly rare nor ridiculously expensive, but what's absurd and ridiculous is that neither have been reprinted since 1983.

Operazakan – aratanaru satsujin jiken (The New Kindaichi Files, 1994) by Seimaru Amagi

I wanted to include a translation, any translation, of a non-English locked room mystery in need of fresh printing-ink, but choices proved to be limited. I could pick between S.A. Steeman's Six hommes morts (Six Dead Men, 1930/31) or Chin Shunshin's Pekin yūyūkan (Murder in a Peking Studio, 1976). I then remembered there's another option, Seimaru Amagi, who in my opinion is the Soji Shimada of the anime-and manga detective story. Amagi co-created the anime/manga franchise The Kindaichi Case Files and penned a series of “light novels” about Hajime Kindaichi and his cohorts. A light novel is a relatively short-ish, illustrated novels and four of Amagi's Kindaichi light novels received English translations. However, Ho-Ling Wong pointed out the translations were intended for educational purposes and the reason why every edition has a long English-Japanese vocabulary list. So they were translated to help improve the English of Japanese readers.

That being said, they are generally excellent, shin honkaku-style detective stories with ready-made translations. Originally titled Opera House, the New Murder, the much more mundanely-titled The New Kindaichi Files is the best of the four. A theatrical mystery set on an island theater where an actress ends up underneath a crystal chandelier behind the locked doors of a theater. My second favorite is the fascinating Ikazuchi matsuri satsujin jiken (Deadly Thunder, 1998) with its strange setting and bizarre impossible murder. Dennō sansō satsujin jiken (Murder On-Line, 1996) is a solid detective story distinguished by incorporating early internet and internet culture into a classically-styled whodunit. Only Shanhai gyojin densetsu satsujin jiken (The Shanghai River Demon's Curse, 1997) failed to impress. Considering the current interest in Japanese detective fiction, these ready-made translations can be bundled together as an omnibus and all that needs to be added is an introduction to the characters and history of the series. Because it would a shame to have them waste away in obscurity when, now more than ever before, there's an actual audience for them.

Logic Games: Q.E.D. vol. 42-43 by Motohiro Katou

The first story from Motohiro Katou's Q.E.D. vol. 42, "Escher Hotel," brings Sou Touma and Kana Mizuhara to the titular hotel, "designed based on the paintings of the artist M.C. Escher," during its grand opening ceremony – hosted by its rich owner, Elie Silver. A hotel entirely based and modeled after the "mathematically-inspired artwork" by my homeboy Dutch artist Maurits Escher. So the hotel is full with seemingly impossible architecture and artwork like a Penrose Staircase.

However, the opening of the clifftop Escher Hotel makes it direct competitor to the once popular Takadai Hotel directly below it. Kurozumi Ryozaburo, an influential prefecture council member, is the owner of the Takadai Hotel and likes to throw his weight around by acting like a mobster. He even has a goon following him around posing as his secretary to goon arm people who annoy his boss. So he's not happy about a hotel opening directly above his. Not to mention he has a shady history with the place. Decades ago, there was an artist's studio where the Escher Hotel stands and Ryozaburo had been fighting with the artist over spring water. That conflicted ended with the artist going to prison for apparently trying to kill Ryozaburo. And he's right there at the opening ceremony when a murder is discovered.

The body of Aohara Shuji, a newspaper reporter, is found lying on the Penrose Staircase with a noose around his neck knotted tightly to the handrail, but how did the murderer placed the body in such an inaccessible, impossible place – which had to be done in five minutes or less ("...corpse wasn't here when we looked the first time"). Not to mention that the staircase is only a miniature ("it'll break if you jump"). So how did the body end up on the staircase? This story really is a howdunit as the who-and why are fairly obvious, but the how-was-it-done angle makes for a very neat, well-done and imaginative variation on the locked room mystery. However, I'm still not entirely sure whether it counts as an impossible crime or only a borderline impossible crime. You can make a case for both, "viewed from a certain angle," but suppose that's in keeping with the Escher theme of the story. One last thing worth mentioning is Sou Touma confronting the murderer made for a decidedly nontraditional ending ("good luck!") that should have been used more often in traditional detective fiction. So a pretty good story overall!

The second story of vol. 42, "Logic Tower," is a weird one and probably would have been a bit more appreciative had I been familiar with a series like Liar Game.

Anyway, the story concerns a new processor system developed by a former, overworked employee, Mia Field, of Lindell Corp. She quit her job and plans to go overseas, but informs several people she's hidden the designs somewhere. And whoever can find it, can claim it. The place turns out to be an old, abandoned casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, which is scheduled to be demolished in mere hours ("dynamite has been installed in the entire building"). One of the people asked Sou Touma and Kana Mizuhara to help him find the hidden designs. Sou Touma recognizes the challenge as a logic puzzle as Mia gave contradictory clues to the various participants, "that thing is not in the odd numbered floors" and "that thing is not in the even numbered floors," but knows there must be logic and reason to those contradictory hints. Something that reduces the space, spread out over 48 floors and nearly 1000 rooms, to a single location. Not necessarily a bad or even a dull story. Just one that failed to grab me in any way.

The first of two stories from Q.E.D. vol. 43, "Investigation," takes a delightfully unconventional approach to telling an ultra-conventional whodunit. Azumaya Kouichiro, director of a pharmaceutical company, is killed with a bolt from a crossbow-like weapon at his private residence and the police arrest one of his employees, Nishijin Akira – only person in the house without an alibi. Nishijin Akira maintains that's innocent and his lawyer, Shiradai Masayoshi, decides to take an unconventional approach to breakdown the other alibis. A televised reconstruction of the day of the murder staged at the scene of the crime. Sou Touma and Kana Mizuhara are two of the participants to play parts of the people who were present at the time of the murder, which has been written down in a scenario/instructions by the lawyer. And the objective is simple. Try to find a hole in the scenario big enough to get to victim's private room without being seen and topple of the kekeshi doll (i.e. victim). Anyone "who manages to tip over this doll is most likely the suspect."

Befitting a classically-styled whodunit, there are several floor plans of the house and the position of the suspects at various times. However, the reconstruction failed to establish the innocence of the only suspect, but Sou Touma's part anchored him to a single room and gave him plenty of time to do a bit of woolgathering. The solution he arrives at reveals a clever, daring piece of risk management and planning on the part of the murderer, but not a perfect plan. Touma destroys it by demonstrating reality doesn't always conform to someone's expectations, which revealed a fatal flaw in the plot. Very well done in both presentation and execution easily making it the best story from these two volumes.

"Ginger the Salesman" is the last story from vol. 43 and feared it would be a repeat of "Logic Tower" as it's essentially another "liar's game" type of story, but developed into an unexpected interesting story. Ginger Garage is the central character of the story who worked his way up from a teenage street vendor to a first-rate salesman ("your speaking skills are god-given..."). Ginger crosses path with Sou Touma when the latter is asked by an old teacher, currently hospitalized, to take his place as a consultant on an investment project for a large bank ("every time you refuse, my leg hurts more... aaah, so much pain..."). This project concerns a start up company that wants to bring tourism to space. They claim to have developed a spaceship capable of "making the journey in two hours" and stay there for two minutes in zero gravity, before coming back down to Earth. Rudolf-1 is still in its trial phase and the Universal Frontier Company needs funding to get their business off the ground. Sou Touma has to talk with the company's consultant, Ginger, but it's blatantly obvious there's something dodgy about their already dubious claims.

Nevertheless, they give a demonstration to Sou Touma and numerous witnesses showing Rudolf-1 can really reach space. Something that should be impossible to fake, but Touma appears skeptical. And not without reason. I think this part of the plot and its solution comes very close to that type of impossible crime rarely observed in the wild, "Impossible Technology." The observed flight of the Rudolf-1 is only background dressing to Ginger's backstory and the reason why he appeared to have lost his touch as the smooth, silver-tongued salesman. So an unexpectedly interesting and decent little character-puzzle to close out this volume.

I really enjoyed "Escher Hotel," thought "Investigation" was excellent and "Ginger the Salesman" surprisingly decent. Only "Logic Tower" came up short, but three out of four is not bad. So expect the next review before too long, because I can finish the series in four reviews. I aim to have this series wrapped up by July. Mark your calendars!

Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone (2022) by Benjamin Stevenson

The traditional, Golden Age-style detective story has seen a tremendous resurgence over the past ten years spurred on by the fortunate concurrence of the reprint renaissance gaining full momentum with the outbreak of the translation wave – which occurred a decade ago this year. A confluence of discovery, and rediscovery, leading to a rebirth of the classically-styled, fair play detective novel. Not to mention a locked room revival that came as a byproduct of the reprint renaissance and translation wave. Happy little accidents, indeed!

So times have definitely changed over the past twenty years, particularly the last ten, which even gave rise to a strong, independent scene of traditional and borderline experimental impossible crime experts. After all, a rising tide lifts up all ships.

I'm still flinchy when it comes to modern detective fiction presented as clever, hilarious send-ups of the Golden Age country house whodunit or clever, hilarious modern reinterpretations of the classic British mysteries. More often that not, they aren't clever (e.g. Catherine Aird's The Stately Home Murder, 1969) nor hilarious (e.g. Gilbert Adair's The Act of Roger Murgatroyd, 2006). At their worst, they trot out old, dusty tropes and cliches presented as clever, subversive takes on the "surprise" solution (the butler did it by way of a secret passage). Like I said on a previous review, I've been tricked too many times with false promises of contemporary, Golden Age-style mysteries not to be flinchy – hence why I was skeptical about today's subject. Nearly everyone raved about Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone (2022) by Australian stand-up comedian Benjamin Stevenson upon its release, but the packaging and presentation was cause for hesitation.

I honestly forgot it existed until John Norris, of Pretty Sinister Books, returned from hiatus in January and recommended Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone as "the best one" with "a couple of impossible crimes." Yeah, it's embarrassing how easy it really is to reel me in. The promise of a couple of impossible crimes usually does the trick.

Stevenson's Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone is the first entry in the Ernest Cunningham series, which currently counts three novels comprising of Everyone on this Train is a Suspect (2023) and Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret (2024). The titles in combination with their covers immediately pushes them in the cozy corner of the genre, but John Norris turned out to be correct when he called them puzzling, engaging meta-mysteries – both honoring and spoofing the fair play principles of the traditional detective story ("Knox would have me drawn and quartered..."). That still sounds a bit cozy adjacent. Regardless of its traditional trappings and narrative, Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone is a dark, gritty crime novel with all the plot-complexity of a classic mystery. There are, however, no impossible crimes or locked room murders.

Ernest Cunningham is a writer who writes books on how to write a book and something of an expert on crime-and detective fiction. Cunningham is also the narrator who promises the reader to be a reliable narrator, contrary to the customary reliable narrator, but "not competent." Everything he tells is the truth or what he believed the truth to be at the time. Cunningham regularly addresses the reader or foreshadow what's to come like referring in the opening to the chapters where the readers can expect the "gory details" or acknowledging "there is only one plot-hole you could drive a truck through." There are layers and double meanings to everything. Cunningham's narrative recounting the events gives this otherwise dark, modern crime tale its classical whodunit structure festooned with clues and red herrings.

Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone takes place during the Cunningham family reunion at the remote Sky Lodge Mountain Retreat, which sounds conventional enough, but everyone in Cunningham's family has killed someone. Some of his relatives, "the high achievers," killed more than once. So the family is well-known to the police and media, especially after the murder Ernest's brother is serving time for. Three years previously, Michael turned up at Ernest's doorstep with a bag of money and a dying man in the backseat. Michael asks him to help bury the man and Ernest complies at first, but witnesses something wishing he hadn't and turned him to the police – even testifying against him. That betrayal turned their mother, Audrey, against Ernest. Her current husband and their stepfather, Marcelo Garcia, who's a lawyer and defended Michael in court. It only got him a three year sentence.

So the family comes back together for a reunion and greet Michael back a free man at the Sky Lodge, which honestly would have been enough to fuel the entire as the unraveling of the family's backstory demonstrates. Not only the various, individual backstories giving the book its title, but the overarching backstory in how the killing three years ago is connected to the death of Ernest and Michael's father. A small-time criminal who died in a shootout with the police decades ago. Neither the murder three years ago nor the shootout are quite what they seem as everything obfuscated by layers of lies, misunderstanding and misconceptions. All wrapped up as meta-mystery penned by someone who understands how to gracefully lie through your teeth without uttering a single untrue word. A talent that separated the likes of John Dickson Carr, Agatha Christie and Christianna Brand from their contemporaries.

Normally, a crime novel or even a more traditionally-styled detective story focusing entirely on backstories is a huge red flag, as it rarely bodes well for the quality of the plot, but Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone simply turned the collection of backstories into the various, interconnected pieces of an intricately-designed, fairly clued puzzle plot. Impressively, it recreated the traditional whodunit without dragging out bodies-in-libraries or subversively secret passages, but the sordid, downright reprehensible crimes not often associated with the good, old-fashioned whodunit. So peeling away the layers surrounding the Cunningham family secrets alone would have been a compelling modern take on the classic mystery novel, but it's not just the past throwing up questions and mysteries. The reunion is interrupted when the unidentified body of a man, an outsider, is found under mysterious circumstances. A death that could be the handiwork of an active serial killer, "The Black Tongue," who already made three victims by employing a very unusual, terrifying murder method.

This only touches a fraction of the deeply rooted, widely branched family plot buried at the core of Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone streaked through with thrills and a couple of close calls. There was, in fact, so much going on I became skeptical how Stevenson intended to pull all the twisted, intertwined plot-threads together in such a way that had my fellow detective aficionados raving. Well, I suppose my fears were put aside when Ernest turned to the reader to give a list of all the clues, "to keep Ronald Knox happy," he used to put every piece in place. So everyone still alive gathers in the library where Ernest explains everything. Admittedly, there's a lot to explain and unpack, technically and emotionally, which slows down the pace a little. But absolutely necessary to digest everything properly. One, or two, things stretched things a little (ROT13: gur zvpebqbgf nxn “fcl fuvg”), but nothing detrimental to the plot, story or characters. I rather have a plot that's a little over indulgent in some places than threadbare. I really liked who the murderer turned out to be. I certainly had my suspicions against that person, but not that. Very, very cheeky!

So it can be said Stevenson succeeded Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone in creating a genuine, character-driven modernization of the plot-oriented Golden Age detective story, but I like to see it as a long overdue continuation of the traditional, fair play detective story. There have been glimpses over the decades of what the Golden Age detective story could have turned into had it not been slowly snuffed out during the post-WWII decades, which were often short-lived or somewhat hidden, but it looks like its time has finally come. Stevenson's Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone comes recommended as not only a superb detective novel, but as another step towards that Second Golden Age. I very much look forward to Everyone on this Train is a Suspect (2023), which is going to be short-tracked to the top of the big pile.

Murder at the Open Air Museum (1954) by Ine van Etten

It's been awhile since I poked around the vague, difficult to pin down "classical period" of the Dutch detective story, which can be roughly placed between the late 1940s and early to mid '60s, but the detective story is not highly regarded in my country – especially homegrown detective fiction. They were dismissed by critics and rarely, if ever, reprinted or studied and written about. You can find biographical information on their authors and bibliography, or two, but that's pretty much it. So trying to find good, Dutch-language detective novels and obtaining copies can be like trying to find your way through a maze blindfolded. So it often comes down to pure guesswork and sheer luck.

I had some serendipitous finds over the years. Most notably, Ton Vervoort's Inspector Floris Jansen series with the Ellery Queen-inspired Moord onder astrologen (Murder Among Astrologists, 1963) and Moord onder de mantel der liefde (Murder Under the Mantle of Love, 1964) as the series high notes. I was also pleasantly surprised by De moord op het sloependek (The Murder on the Boat Deck, 1941) by the pseudonymous "Vanno," A.R. Brent's Voorzichtig behandelen (Handle with Care, 1948), C. Buddingh's Vrijwel op slag (Almost Instantly, 1953) and W.H. van Eemlandt's take on the British humdrum mystery, Kogels bij het dessert (Dessert with Bullets, 1954). Unfortunately, I stumbled across many more that were either disappointing or complete stinkers. These far from inspiring works include A. Rootheart's Onrust op Raubrakken (Unrest at Raubrakken, 1935) F. van Overvoorde's Moorden in Maastricht (Murders in Maastricht, 1937), Bob van Oyen's Na afloop moord (Afterwards, Murder, 1953), Martin Mons' Het huis met de poppen (The House with the Dolls, 1955), Dick A. van Ruler's Moord op een negatief (Murder of a Negative, 1963), B.J. Kleymens' In de greep van de kreeft (In the Grip of the Lobster, 1965) and K. Abma's De hond was executeur (The Dog Was Executor, 1973).

So blind picking one of these obscure, forever out-of-print Dutch detective novels is always a gamble, but it's been long enough to take another shot in the dark. Some of you actually enjoyed the reviews of these mostly forgotten Dutch mysteries. I had something on the big pile perfectly fitting the description of obscure, forever out-of-print detective novel.

G.B.M. van Etten-Sjoukes cut her teeth as an author on novels for older, teenage girls and young women, known today as Young Adult fiction, during the 1940s – decided to try her chances in a detective story competition organized by A.W. Bruna & Zoon. Van Etten submitted De moord in het openluchtmuseum (Murder at the Open Air Museum, 1954) and won the first prize, which got the book published (as by "Ine van Etten") in the "Boek van de Maand" series with a cover illustration by Dick Bruna. Murder at the Open Air Museum was then promptly forgotten, never reprinted and Van Etten's short-lived success wasn't quite the incentive needed to write a second detective novel. So you can see why the Dutch variation of the Anglo-American detective story never really got going, except for a few short-lived bursts or individual breakouts. And, to show this review can go both ways, Van Oyen's abysmal Murder, Afterwards won the third-place prize in the 1953 edition of the same competition that had 166 submissions. I've pre(r)ambled on long enough.

So is Van Etten's Murder at the Open Air Museum a long-lost masterpiece, another dud that completely missed the mark or simply an average, but competent, piece of detective fiction? Time to find out!

Murder at the Open Air Museum begins with a prologue in which two dozen soft, lilac envelopes are sent out all over the country, Amsterdam, Den Haag, Rotterdam and Utrecht, carrying invitations for an overdue family reunion. An invitation for day in Arnhem beginning with meeting in a cafe, a visit to the open air museum and dinner at the sprawling country estate of Aunt Emilie Warner. Who could have known the family reunion would "create opportunities for murder, blackmail and more murder."

Since the cast of characters is not exactly a small, tightly-drawn circle of suspects, I won't go over the whole cast of characters. Just know that the family is represented in practically every layer of the social strata from a no-good blackmailer, struggling widow, overworked office worker and a poor artist to an art critic, a mayor and a filmstar – who flew over to visit his widowed sister. There are two salient points to this edition of the family reunion. Firstly, the previous reunion ended in a fight over the inheritance of the family patriarch, Great-uncle Karel, who was notoriously "stubborn, spiteful and very difficult to get along with." And very finicky when it came to his heirs. Great-uncle Karel had changed his will several times, but the last version made Aunt Emilie the primary beneficiary. Secondly, the person who had been whispering in his ear to blacken his cousins names was Albert van der Baan. So there's some bitterness among the various branches towards cousin Albert. It doesn't help Albert has a childish love for publicly embarrassing people with practical jokes and annoying gags. When he turns up at the reunion, Albert immediately digs into his bag of practical jokes to embarrass several relatives at the cafe. Some begin to gleefully fantasy and speaking of murdering their loathsome cousin, "we are banding together in a union to exterminate Albert van der Baan, right Willemien?" ("you're joining us, right?"). Fortunately, Albert appears to have left the reunion during their trip to the museum.

However, they only notice Albert has gone missing when they arrive at Aunt Emilie estate for dinner and everyone is relieved, until the police arrives to interrupt their meal. Albert's body was found crammed into a bedstee (box bed) of a Veluwe farmhouse at the museum. Someone cracked his skull with a copper beddepan (bedpan) and delayed the discovery by placing a "VERBODEN TOEGANG" ("DO NOT ENTER") sign at the door. I should mention here for non-Dutch readers that the titular museum is the Nederlands Openluchtmuseum, a cultural historical museum, which shows how people lived and worked over the centuries. It has replicas of old Dutch houses, farms, shops, huts etc.

So the first-half of Murder at the Open Air Museum appears routine enough with a setup suggesting Van Etten was going to style her first mystery novel after the British Crime Queens, but the handling of the investigation has unmistakable features of the police procedural. The investigation is in the hands of Inspector Peter Schoten, but since everyone involved live all over the country, it's not a one-man show. Schoten has to delegate a lot of work to his subordinates and work together with the police of other cities like Inspector Kindelman of the Rotterdam Police (I wonder if Lucien de Klerck has heard of him). The investigation during the first-half consists of mapping everyone's movement at the museum, tracking down witnesses to corroborate their statements and generally trying to whittle down the number of suspects – while fishing for a potential motive. So it almost reads like a proto-police procedural which made it a bit surprising when Van Etten seemed to interject an actual amateur sleuth into the case.

I know what most of you're saying: "but Tom, those meddlesome nuisances are as common as the common cold and all over the genre." Not really in this country and suspect the holds true for other nearby countries like Germany and Denmark. A nosy, busybody with too many questions wouldn't be indulged or tolerated for very long. That why Dutch detective novels, particularly those in a more or less traditional mold, tend to have professionals as investigators who are both in a position to ask questions and expect an answer. So police inspectors, private detectives or lawyers. Maybe even a doctor or clergyman at a stretch. If you read my previous Dutch detective reviews, past and present, you probably noticed the lead characters are nearly always policemen. Someone who doesn't fit the bill of a typical, professional Dutch detective character is a twentysome, third-year sociography student named Johannes "Joop" Verkoren de Zwart – who's lively, sociable and rarely at a lost for words. Behind his indifferent attitude and chatter "lies a remarkably sharp mind."

It was Joop who discovered Albert's body together with the gatekeeper when looking for his lost walking stick and that's how he comes into contact with Inspector Schoten. Joop starts working his charm on Schoten, "do you ever read detective stories... in which the clever amateur always sees more than the police." So against better judgment and protocol, Joop gets to participate in the investigation and not without consequences. This throws the second-half of this orderly, procedural detective story in complete disarray. Not because of the promised second murder. That one is still a few chapters ahead, however, an unusual death by poisoning during a lecture is cleverly-linked to the first murder by both the suspects in audience and an unexpected, equally unusual murder weapon/method. But describing anything pass this point would be crossing into spoiler territory.

So how does Van Etten's Murder at the Open Air measure up as a detective novel and can stand comparison to its American and British counterparts? Just as a Dutch detective novel, it certainly is a cut above most of the 1950s titles I've read for two clear reasons. Most of the pre-1960s titles suffer from old-fashioned, stilted use of language and archaic spelling, which is not a problem at all and suppose her background in writing for teenagers helped to keep Murder at the Open Air readable for a today's readers. It feels much closer to the works of later mystery writers like Ton Vervoort and Cor Docter. More importantly, it has a consistent plot with substance and a solution that holds together. I know that sounds like the basic requirement for any detective story, but refer you to the previously mentioned reviews of Van Oyen's Afterwards, Murder or Van Ruler's Murder of a Negative to remind everyone that's not always a guaranteed in this country.

Murder at the Open Air Museum is not without its fair share of imperfections and shortcomings. I can see how most non-Dutch readers would likely find the characterization a bit lacking compared to her British counterparts, clueing not as sharp and the plot becoming a little workmanlike towards the end, but perhaps its biggest drawback is leaving a couple of potentially good ideas underdeveloped. For example, the fantastic scenery of the museum is just that, scenery, while the second murder could have been developed into a much more meatier howdunit – which could have been used to turn it into an inverted mystery during its closing stages.

Murder at the Open Air Museum is not a flawless gem, but Van Etten produced a fairly competent, spirited first stab at the detective story showing she had the right idea, but lacked the experience. But had she continued, Murder at the Open Air Museum could have been to Van Etten what Death in High Heels (1941) was to Christianna Brand or The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1916/20) to Agatha Christie. The first, tentative steps towards writing a genre classic like a Green for Danger (1944) or Death on the Nile (1937). Somewhere in the vast, all-encompassing everything of the multiverse, Van Etten would have gone on to become the Christianna Brand of the Low Countries with the Dutch detective story actually taking off during the 1950s and following a similar route as the British or Japanese genre. Instead I am stuck here in this shitty Berenstain universe with you lot.

Anyway, to cut this meandering mess shot, I quite enjoyed this less than perfect, second-string diamond-in-the-rough.

Note for the curious: I know this has gone on long enough and initially wanted to delete this part, but decided to keep it in. Some of you also enjoy my occasional brilliant, but completely wrong armchair solutions. During the first-half, I puzzled together a fun and entirely incorrect solution which was obliterated by the second-half. So the opening chapters established Albert took a childish joy in embarrassing people with party store pranks and practical jokes. I reasoned Albert could easily have hidden himself inside the box bed, drawn the curtains and jump out to scare one of his relatives, which would not have been out-of-character for him. But mistakenly jumped out when Joop was examining the farmhouse, perhaps handling the antique bedpan to take a closer look. Joop, in a reflex, hit the figure who jumped out at him with the bedpan and unintentionally killed Albert. So what appeared to be deliberate family murder really is an accidental killing by an outsider with no direct link to the victim or apparent motive. And perhaps inserted himself into the investigation to divert suspicion (setting up a delaying tactic first and then help to find the body earlier than seemingly intended) or trying to prevent someone getting wrongly arrested. It's something I can see a Dutch mystery writer do in an attempt to rub some realism/normalcy into a British-style detective story, which would have perfectly fitted the first-half. But the second-half tossed my armchair solution into the dustbin. I'm done now.

Strange Pictures (2022) by Uketsu

I noted in the 2024 roundup post, "Murder in Retrospect," Pushkin Vertigo had begun to expand their catalog of Japanese detective translations beyond the lavishly-plotted, grandiose honkaku and shin honkaku locked room mysteries – starting with the publication of Tetsuya Ayukawa's Kuroi kakuchou (The Black Swan Mystery, 1960). A police procedural originally published during the rise of the social school in Japanese crime fiction, however, the breaking down of two cast-iron alibis is done with all the ingenuity of the classic detective story.

Somewhat of a departure from what readers have come to expect from the Japanese detective novels of Seishi Yokomizo, Soji Shimada and Yukito Ayatsuji, but comments on my review called The Black Swan Mystery one of their best translations to date. I can't entirely disagree. The Black Swan Mystery is a 1960s police procedural with the heart of a Golden Age detective novel and the social issues playing out the background enhanced the overall story. Pushkin Vertigo has a few other intriguing, non-impossible crime translations lined-up for this year like Yasuhiko Nishizawa's time-loop mystery Nanakai shinda otoko (The Man Who Died Seven Times, 1995) and Taku Ashibe's classically-styled family whodunit Oomarike satusjin jiken (Murders in the House of Omari, 2021). I was most intrigued of all when Pushkin Vertigo announced the forthcoming translations of Uketsu's "strange novels."

"Uketsu" is the pseudonym of a popular, Japanese horror Youtuber who has nearly two million subscribers and his debut novel, Henna e (Strange Pictures, 2022), sold over three million copies, but the person behind this success remains a mystery – hidden behind a white mask, black bodysuit and voice changer. I didn't know what, exactly, to expect from Strange Pictures except that it appeared to bring the visual medium to the printed page. But was it a proper detective, a hybrid mystery, horror masking itself as a detective story or something completely different? I decided to not probe it too much and find out when its published. A good decision as Strange Pictures gives you a different experience than your average detective or crime novel.

Strange Pictures is a collection of four, interconnected short stories each centering on the hidden or obscured meaning behind a drawing, or series of drawings, but the book has a ton of additional illustrations, diagrams, timetables and even the odd floor plan. So richly illustrated you can almost call it wordy picture book.

This collection of linked stories begins with a short, untitled prologue in which a professor lectures on the revealing nature of pictures and drawings into the inner works of the artist. She shows the drawing of a child who had been involved in a murder case to illustrate her point and explain why the child is "now living happily as a mother." This analysis pretty much serves as the framework for the bigger picture behind the overarching story.

The first of these linked mysteries, "The Old Woman's Prayer," takes place in 2014 and reads like a 2000s-era creepy internet story. Shuhei Sasaki, a student and member of his university's paranormal club, learns about an innocently-looking, dormant blog – called "Oh No, Not Raku." A blog filled with the "empty silliness that was the hallmark of your average daily diary." Someone going by the handle "Raku" started blogging about his daily life in 2008 and discovering his wife, "Yuki," is pregnant. So the blog prattled on for months, before taking a tragic turn and the blog became inactive in 2009. Three years later, Raku returned with a last, cryptically-worded update about finally having figured out the secret of those numbered pictures. The pictures in questions were drawn by Yuki depicting, what she called, "visions of the future." The solution to what happened behind the scenes is locked away inside those drawings.

Yuki's strange, cryptic drawings aren't the only illustrations adorning this story. There's a screenshot of the blog (yes, I tried the address, but nothing) and a ton of other pictures to illustrate ideas/solutions. So it definitely sets the tone for the rest of the book and provides some answers, but the open ending leaves the reader hanging. However, not without reason!

The second story, "The Smudged Room," takes a more grounded approach with an apparently small, unimportant domestic problem. Naomi Konno is asked by a teacher if anything unusual or scary had happened at home, because her five-year-old Yuta drew a strange picture in class. At first glance, it looks like a typical child's drawing showing him and his mother standing next to their apartment building. But the room in the middle of the top floor was "covered with a large grey scribble." The room where they lived. So nothing worrying enough to fuel some domestic suspense, but then a mysterious man begins to stalk the two and Yuta disappears one night from their apartment. And figuring out the meaning behind the smodged room is the key to finding him. This story also closes with an open end, but you can already see the bigger picture of the overarching narrative taking shape. The next two stories bring everything together with the next one, unsurprisingly, becoming my favorite part of Strange Pictures.

"The Art Teacher's Final Drawing" is an out, and out, shin honkaku detective story, but in the tradition of Ayukawa's previously mentioned The Black Swan Mystery. So no locked rooms or other types of impossible crimes, but unbreakable alibis, a gruesomely ingenious murder method and one of the few genuinely classic examples of the dying message.

In 1992, the horribly mutilated body of Yoshiharu Miura, an art teacher, was discovered on the side of "Mt K—in L—Prefucture," where he had planned to stay for an overnight camping trip – whoever killed him took his food and sleeping bag. But why not his other supplies? And why the overkill? Miura had been stabbed numerous times and beaten over two hundred times! So the police assumed the murderer had a very personal motive behind it and they come up with three potential suspects, but two have alibis and only suspicions against the third. So the case goes unsolved for three years, until a veteran reporter and young, eager newshound pick up the trail again and try to retrace everyone's steps. But central to their investigation is the victim's dying message. A drawing of the mountain scenery on the back of a receipt which poses two questions: message hidden in the drawing and how he could have composes such a dying message under, let's say, less than ideal circumstances. But the murderer from three years ago returns. And leaves behind another human-shaped, battered mess along the hiking trail. Just the solutions to the murders and how it folds the gruesome murder method, alibi-trick and dying message together with the identity of the murderer is enough to make it a first-rate shin honkaku mystery, but, more importantly, is how these murders fit into this interconnected web of strange pictures.

The complete, not exactly comforting picture emerges in the fourth and final story, "The Bird, Safe in the Tree," which connects the prologue and the previously three stories in a way that's both deeply satisfying and disturbing. Not merely a play on that old, tired cliché of the horror genre, "humans are the REAL monsters," but on their cruel, uncanny knack to create monsters. Strange Pictures is eerily effective in how each drawing, in each succeeding story, gradually reveals the whole tragic, sordid mess connecting all the characters and pictures. Something that makes Strange Picture very difficult, if not impossible, to pigeonhole. It's both a traditionally-plotted detective story and entirely in line with the darkly modern, character-driven crime novels told partially in pictures, diagrams and timetables. I was tempted to draw a comparison with Shichiri Nakayama's Tsuioku no nocturn (Nocturne of Remembrance, 2013), but perhaps Strange Pictures is best described as a darker, grislier take on the puzzles-with-a-heart stories from Motohiro Katou's Q.E.D. series.

Either way, I found Uketsu's Strange Pictures to be an engrossing, original take on both the traditionally-plotted detective story and the darker, character-driven crime novels of today. A different way to tell either and still something fans of both can appreciate. I sure did! Very much look forward to the sequel later this year.

A note for the curious: I only found out after finishing the book Strange Pictures got multiple translations including Dutch. If I had known a Dutch translation was available, I would probably have been tempted to pick it over the English translation. Anyway, I included the cover of the Dutch translation, Vreemde tekeningen (Strange Drawings).