Last year, I finished Motohiro Katou's first run of his flagship Q.E.D. series with a review of vol. 50 and "The Hit List: Top 10 Favorite Cases from Motohiro Katou's Q.E.D. vol. 26-50," followed by several reviews of Katou's C.M.B. series – recently reaching volumes 9 and 10. That was nearly a year ago. So time to get started on the return of Sou Touma and Kana Mizuhara under the title Q.E.D. iff. I've been given to understand the title change is more of a minor rebranding, due to the series switching magazines for serialization, than a serious shake up or soft reboot. There are, however, a couple of noticeable changes, but more on those in a moment.
Inspector Mizuhara, of the Metropolitan Police Division 1, is investigating the murder of a well-known, internationally celebrated sculptor, Misago Taimei, who was found strangled inside his sealed workshop – which has a special locking system. The door can be manually opened from inside, but not from the outside. It only opens from the outside by pressing a button at the reception desk. And that button can be switched off with a key when nobody's at the desk. Beside the locked room-puzzle, Inspector Mizuhara has four suspects who were at the workshop. Misago Taimei's manager/receptionist, Oshidori Mariko, his two students, Dobato Soukichi and Magamo Ai, and a nude model, Mozu Yuuka. Mizuhara wonders why her father hesitates arresting the obvious suspects, Dobato, who has motive and apparently the only one who could have worked a simplistic locked room-trick. Touma explains Dobato "fulfilled enough requirements to perform the crime, but does he actually fulfill all the necessary requirements to perform this exact crime?" Reason why Inspector Mizuhara hesitates arresting him is because he's “thinking about the possibility that other people have those necessary requirements.” Touma also explains the meaning of iff ("...short for 'if and only if' and it means 'equal'").
Touma employs this principle to solve the case and solves it in the most satisfying way. First by demonstrating that all four suspects has "their own components to commit the crime" and then demolishes the case against each suspect. So with everyone cleared, Touma starts from scratch and shows whom of the four really did it. A first-class solution that's both satisfying and feels inevitable with one hell of a daring locked room-trick seamlessly worked into it. A fantastic start to this second run of Q.E.D. stories!
By the way, as an aside, those changes I mentioned are minor, but noticeable enough. Touma and Mizuhara appear to have aged slightly and Touma moved into a new place. Touma has taste for someone who's barely sixteen. Anyway...
The second and last story, "In the Year of Quantum Mechanics," is halfway between a historical whydunit and a scientific romance from a bygone era. Tazuna Komakichi wants to buy a long abandoned, practically inaccessible house, tucked away deep in the mountains, where he plans to do research on vacuum energy. The house was a temple of "some rising cult," built a hundred years ago, but, when inspecting the place, a mummified body is discovered underneath the partially collapsed roof – a mummy in sitting position with a rifle on his lap. A phrase is scrawled on the wall behind the mummy, "FLOWER IN THE ROOT, BIRD IN THE OLD FORMER HOME." The body is identified as the founder and leader of that old cult, Tategami Kaijirou, who disappeared following the tragic, bloody end of his cult. Around the same time, Touma bought several boxes full of scientific magazines from the 1920s ("it's fun!"). Between the magazines is a notebook, titled "The Year of Quantum Mechanics," belonging to Hizume Ryougo. A name Touma recognizes as one of the authors from the 1920s magazines.
"The Emperor's New Clothes" is the first story from Q.E.D. iff vol. 2 and begins when a floundering comedian, Yuubari Yuuki, looses his script and last shot at making it as a comedian/comedy writer. A play about an emperor who prances about naked to amuse his subjects and the audience, but his script attracted the attention of a spoiled artist, Suzuka Sanda, and his unscrupulous manager, Akashi Natsuhiko – who do everything to get their hands on it. So the first mystery is how Sanda could have stolen the script when barged in on Yuuki bud naked. Yes, there's a surprising amount of nudity in these two volumes, but fortunately, Sanda's stand-up comedian was blurred out. However, the story then turns into a 21th century cat-and-mouse game between Touma and Natsuhiko involving social media and crowd funding campaigns. So decent enough, on a whole, but not one I found interesting or memorable. Katou has done better with these type of stories.
The second, and last, story closing out this second volume is "The Shape of Murder" and brings Touma and Mizuhara to Malta. Sid “Loki” Green asked Touma to come to Malta to help out a friend, Alf Retts, whose wife was murdered four months ago at Hotel Geometry and the police have already given up on finding the killer, because they believe she had been the victim of a botched burglary and "believe the culprit has already fled the island." Retts can't accept this answer and vows to find his wife's killer himself, but he has been completely wrecking himself trying to find new leads or witnesses. Touma turns down Sid's request to investigate the murder, however, Sid knows all it takes to change Touma's mind is flipping on his "interest switch." So he asks Mizuhara to do the legwork and tell Touma what she had found out. It turns out the murder has some unusual features.
Firstly, Alf and Camilla Retts were on holiday with friends, Derrick and Franny Goodman and Zadok Bliss, who were occupying a series of newly erected, neighboring suites – named Moon, Sun, Sea and Green Rooms. Camilla was shot while sleeping in a perfectly locked room ("...door and windows locked"), but why would a burglar, or someone faking a botched burglary, create an impossible crime scene? Secondly, Camilla turns out to have been a horrendous woman and loose canon who cheated on her husband constantly. So why is he now running himself to ground to find a killer who might not be on the island anymore? Touma becomes interested and sees the shape of an answer in these apparently contradicting questions. This is a good locked room mystery, not only because the locked room-trick is excellent. Simple and straightforward, but not too simplistic and straightforward with a light touch of originality. But also why the murder had to take place behind a locked door. A fine story to end this volume on.
So, a pair of excellent locked room mysteries, one very well done historical crime story and a decent, but not terribly exciting, cat-and-mouse game is not a bad return on this return to the Q.E.D. series. It was good to return to these characters again. You can expect me to rotate between Case Closed, C.M.B. and Q.E.D. iff for future reviews with maybe the occasional reappearance of The Kindaichi Case Files.
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