Death of the Living Dead (1989) by Yamaguchi Masaya

The first post to appear on this blog in 2020 was a review of a very unorthodox Japanese crime novel, Hirakasete itadaki kōei desu (The Resurrection Fireplace, 2011) by Hiroko Minagawa, which is a historical and cultural travelogue of 1770s London – a time when body-snatchers were emptying the cemeteries and illegal autopsies were performed by candle light. A somewhat strange historical crime novel casting the morgue in a distinctly Dickensian light, but the plot did very little to scratch that detection itch. John Pugmire, of Locked Room International, had me covered there and published an English translation of Masahiro Imamura's Shijinso no satsujin (Death Among the Undead, 2017) back in August. 

Death Among the Undead gave expression to the yearning of the Japanese shin honkaku movement for "the kind of impetus" Soji Shimada's Senseijutsu satsujinjiken (The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, 1981) and Yukito Ayatsuji's Jukkakukan no satsujin (The Decagon House Murders, 1987) had created over thirty years ago. Something daring and different to refresh the traditional, fair play detective story. Just like they have done with their ghoulish corpse-puzzles and often youthful, college-age detectives. So the path Imamura took was simply to add a fantastical element to an otherwise traditional shin honkaku (locked room) mystery by staging it smack dab in the middle of a small, localized zombie apocalypse. Zombies alter the equation of any closed-circle situation or locked room murder, but the rules of fair play were thoroughly honored. I wanted more of this kind of impetus myself! But where to find it?

Fortunately, an anonymous comment was left on my review saying "that there is actually another famous award-winning zombie-related honkaku mystery," Yamaguchi Masaya's Ikeru shikabane no shi (Death of the Living Dead, 1989). The comment also mentioned the book had "been completely translated into English," but Masaya "was still looking for somebody to publish it," which immediately dampened my hope as that meant it would probably take another year or two before the book was published – only for Christmas to come unexpectedly early! Back in November, Ho-Ling Wong announced on his blog that he was the one who translated Death of the Living Dead, "widely considered to be one of the more important works of early shin honkaku mystery fiction," which Ammo published last December. Just in time to brighten the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, which ended and began over here with another complete lockdown. So let's dissect this classic!

First of all, Death of the Living Dead is a beast to review. A 400-page detective novel with half of the pages setting up a story populated with over thirty characters (dramatis personae covers an entire page), multiple plot-threads and a series of truly bizarre crimes. One that takes place in a world that has to come to grips with the fact that the gap between the living and the dead is narrowing. 

Death of the Living Dead begins with a prologue demonstrating that very point. A homicide detective, Lieutenant Neville, confronting the culprit of a domestic murder in a blood-spattered room. But, as Neville explains to the murderer that her "whole alibi depends on the hourglass inside that aquarium and the clown doll covered in ketchup," the lips of the corpse quivered. Just a few moments later, the corpse stood up, cried out "I won't let you kill me again" and jumped out of the window. The next chapter explains that the prologue described one of numerous "astonishing incidents that had been happening all across the United States, and indeed the whole world, of the dead coming back to life" – thirteen known occurrences in US within the span of a month. However, these "living dead" are not your typical horror movie zombies, who want to snack on your brains, but have "the same mental capabilities as when they were alive." Some go crazy when they learn they are dead or refuse to believe it, while "others feel like outcasts among the living and fall into depression." So with the dead coming back to live with their full mental capabilities changes quite a few things.

This changed world is explored during the first, lengthy half of the story and introduces the most important character of the story, Francis "Grin" Barleycorn. Steve Steinbock aptly described Grin as "a Punk Ellery Queen living in an otherworldly Wrightsville." An otherworldly Wrightsville known as Tombsville in the countryside of New England. Grin is the grandson of the dying Smiley Barleycorn, head and general manager of the family-run Smile Cemetery, who welcomed back the child of his estranged son. Grin traveled to the Smile Cemetery to meet with his family for the first time and is accompanied by his girlfriend (of sorts), Saga "Cheshire" Shimkus, whose mother (Isabella) is connected to the cemetery.

I think readers who prefer mystery writers to leave their literary pretensions at the door and get to the point might find the first 200 pages a little trying, but you have to give Masaya the space and time to setup the whole story. More importantly, there's a lot of important information, clues and developments in the first half that will become important later on in the story. And, if you love the arcane or macabre, you find a lot to enjoy in those first 200-pages. There's the necessary history of the family of undertakers and Smile Cemetery, but also sidetracks into embalming, cremation and "the unique funeral traditions of the United States" as well as discussions of the dead rising up and live and death in general. But, as mentioned above, there's plenty of relevant information hidden here that will become important later on. Not to mention a very important plot development happens during the first half.

After a family meeting, which resembled "the mad tea party in Alice in Wonderland," Grin is poisoned with arsenic, gets sick and dies in his bathroom – waking up from his eternal slumber only a few hours later. Grin only takes one person into his confidence, Dr. Vincent Hearse, who's a professor of Thanatology and special adviser to the local police. There's a rather sad and bitter taste to the scenes of Grin describing and trying to cope with his death and resurrection. Grin tells Dr. Hearse being a living dead feels like being in a dream, or watching a movie, like he was "separated from what's actually happening." This is shown in a very brief, but depressing scene, when Grim tries to sleep, gets up and kicks the bed in frustration. Grin "could see the bed shaking from the shock," but "not feel any pain in his leg" and cried "a tearless howl from the depths of his soul." By the way, typically Japanese storytelling to do either something truly horrible to one of the main protagonists or take them out of the story entirely.

Well, the readers who patiently waited for the plot to finally kick off are richly rewarded when one of the family members is stabbed to death in the viewing room, in front of Smiley's casket, in the West Wing of the Funeral Hall (floorplan included). That wing was "a hermetically sealed space" at the time of the murder and CCTV footage only deepens the mystery. The footage shows someone wearing a hockey goaltender mask, who they simply call "Hockey Mask," enter to the sealed wing unseen to play hide-and-seek with the victim-in-waiting. Only to disappear without a trace! No. The solution is not what you think it is (Fzvyrl qvq abg pbzr onpx gb yvir naq fgnoorq gur ivpgvz), but there's so much to the plot that has everything from hearse races to the possible return of a serial killer, who chainsawed college girls seventeen years previously, to the region. Than there are the murder victims who rise up right after they were struck down to complicate everything even further. Every aspect of the story, philosophical or practical, is used to perfection to build up to a beautifully orchestrated, three-punch ending.

Firstly, there's the wonderful character of the much harassed Richard Tracy, Police Lieutenant of the Marbletown Police Station, who has trouble adjusting to "living in an abnormal world where the dead can come back to life again." More than once, he has to deal with a victim whose murder he's investigation getting up and meddle with his work, exonerating his suspects or even getting physical with them – which results in regular scheduled appointments with a psychiatrist. Lieutenant Tracy battles through and pieces together a brilliant solution presented in a dramatic denouement "like the great detectives in mystery novels do." A false-solution that's immediately picked apart by everyone in the room (living and dead), but it's a false-solution worthy of the underappreciated Simon Brimmer. After the false-solution has been shot to pieces, Grin steps forward to reveal he, too, is dead and then proceeds to explain what really happened during that tea party and the subsequent crimes in an impressive chain of deductive reasoning. Grin has a lot to explain a lot and the explanation is a long one, but every piece of this intricate, maze-like plot is unraveled in a clear and methodical way. What emerges is an extraordinary, but logical, chain of events and crimes that could have occurred only under these very special circumstances that created some highly unusual and original motives. Throughout it all the motives of the living and death are both intertwined and at odds.

Lastly, you have the ending that drove home the fact that, while there will always be a dividing line between the living and living dead, they still have one thing that binds them together. The human element. Something that can be torn away again. This ended in a slightly depressing, bitter sweet conclusion when the time came to say goodbye.

So what more can be said about Yamaguchi Masaya's Death of the Living Dead? Masaya crafted a genuine masterpiece in more way than one. Death of the Living Dead is one of those rare, successful hybrid mysteries in which Masaya logically tackled the problem of murder in a world where "the dead are rising one by one, and can walk, think and talk." Masaya handled and treated humanity's old, morbid fascination with death in an equally fascinating way, which were craftily incorporated into a first-rate plot. A plot that has everything from corpses meddling in their murder cases, impossible crimes and a brilliant use of the false-solution, but it's the who-and why exposed by Grin that stole the show in the end. A wonderful, otherworldly, but also very human, detective story that gave a whole new meaning to a rising bodycount. If Western crime-and detective fiction was half as good as their Japanese counterparts, I wouldn't have the time to fanboy all over these shin honkaku writers.