The Blood-Red Herring: Case Closed, vol. 83 by Gosho Aoyama

The 83rd volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed, originally published in Japan as Detective Conan, kicks off with the story that was setup in the previous volume in which Conan accompanied Masumi Sera on a case to a cottage in the woods – a place with a troubled, blood-soaked history. Fifteen years ago, a woman savagely butchered her cheating husband in one of the rental cottages and disappeared into the woods never to be seen again. And that gave rise to the rural legend of the Red Lady. Three years later, a high school student goes missing in the wood and her body is eventually dragged from a swamp alongside the murder weapon from the Red Lady case. More recently, the cottage has been vandalized with the color red. A "bushel of apples was thrown through a window, the water heater tank was stuffed with rose petals" and "red paint was splattered on the front door."

So there's more than enough to investigate at the cottage and vol. 82 ended with the discovery of a body in a hot tub filled with bright, shiny red tomatoes. The victim is one of the former class mates of the high school student, Satoko, who drowned in the swamp and they gather once a year at the cottage to commemorate her death. You already know there's more to that drowning than merely an accidental death and the possible motive is easy to anticipate, if you're familiar with the anime-and manga version of the shin honkaku detective story. But the whole story is not without interest, even if it has one or two weak spots.

Firstly, the hot tub murder presents Conan and Sera with an alibi-puzzle, of sorts, which has the appearance of an impossible crime, because nobody could have killed him without being noticed or hauled in "armloads of tomatoes" – not to mention "the dumbbells used to keep the body weighed down." And while the alibi is a tricky one, Conan and Sera see through it almost immediately. On the other hand, the alibi-trick is not one of the best nor most convincing that has featured in this series. I very much doubt (ROT13/SPOILER) gur obql naq gbzngbrf pbhyq unir orra pbzcyrgryl bofpherq sebz ivrj jura Enpury, Freran naq Fhzvxn purpxrq gur ongu jngre. I also thought the murderer unnecessarily littered the place with clues (ROT13/SPOILER) nf gur fbhaq bs gur inphhz pyrnavat ehaavat naq ohzcvat vagb jnyy jbhyq unir jbexrq orggre jvgu n fbhaq erpbeqvat rather guna cynlvat nebhaq jvgu n onfronyy ong, pneqobneq, fgevat naq ryrpgevp sna. Secondly, I really liked how Aoyama handled the plot-thread concerning the Red Lady and how she went from background dressing to suddenly interacting with the main plot. Thirdly, Conan and Sera bounce off each other nicely as their chemistry has grown.

Sera remains a mysterious presence in the series who has even more mysterious relatives and the story ends with her setting Conan up to find her phone. Conan sees a photo on the screen of "Sera with a little girl who looks like a relative." A very close relative like a sister, but Sera has only two older brothers and she has stated she not close to any other relatives. So who's the girl in the photo? Conan asked her in a text message and response, "my little sister is outside your territory." Interestingly, this volume ends with an excerpt from a booklet that came with issue 33 of Shonen Sunday Magazine in 2013 to commemorate the series 20th anniversary, which has 16 pages of interviews and behind-the-scenes artwork. One of the questions Aoyama answered, or rather dodged, casts a potentially illuminating light on Sera's story-arc. Sera is a died-in-the-wool tomboy and a running gag is her being mistaken for a teenage boy, which got me thinking when reading Aoyama's answer to the question (ROT13) ner gurer nal bguref va gur frevrf yvxr Pbana naq Navgn jub unir orra genafsbezrq ol gur qeht (“ng yrnfg bar znl fubj hc fbba”). So what if (ROT13) gur yvggyr tvey va gur cubgb vf npghnyyl Fren'f byqre qrgrpgvir oebgure jub fur'f nyjnlf pnyyvat be grkgvat. Whfg yvxr Pbana, gur oebgure zvtug unir unq n fvzvyne rapbhagre jvgu gur Betnavmngvba naq abj uvqrf nf n yvggyr tvey nf ur fpbhgf bhg cbgragvny nyyvrf. Nsgre nyy, vs Fren pna cnff nf n grrantr oblf, gur puvyq irefvba bs ure oebgure zvtug cnff nf n yvggyr tvey. Under the circumstances, it's arguably a better disguise than the Clark Kent glasses Conan is sporting. And it's the kind of mirror-like characterization Aoyama seems to like.

So, on a whole, a pretty good, solid story with an ending that nicely sets the table for the second story. Sera currently lives on her own at a hotel ("I was hoping to move in with my other brother... but he said no") and Serena invited herself, Rachel and Conan to come over to see how their friend is living. But the hotel has a famous resident guest.

Keigo Hiuri is a well-known romance novelist who experienced "a dip in popularity" a few years ago, but, since then, he has made a comeback with a popular, ongoing magazine serial crossing time travel with romance – entitled The Telephone, the Sea and I. Hiuri is currently working on the final chapter of that serial as well as putting the finishing touches to two other novels, which is why there are three editors impatiently waiting in the lobby. So decides to stage a little competition between the three editors and orders a ton of food with the promise, "I'll finish my manuscript for the publisher who eats the most." While the editors go to the living room to begin their Herculean task, Hiuri takes a bath to brainstorm and could not have left the hotel room without immediately being spotted by the editors. And that provides him with an unshakable alibi when his assistant is found murdered in the room directly below his.

Conan immediately catches him in a mistake ("...how'd you know she was killed while you were writing?"), but his alibi proves to be a tough nut to crack. Hiuri was on the 30th floor and could not have climbed down the balcony, because it's visible from the living room where "the editors were pigging out in." However, the story had enough clues and hint to (roughly) work out how it was done and the solution hinges on a plot-technique that has come to fascinate me ever since Christopher Bush rekindled my interest in the manufacturing of alibis. A plot-technique that is to the unbreakable alibi what the replacement in time-and space technique is to the locked room and impossible crime. Having only one central puzzle intertwined with Sera's story-arc made for a much better, tighter plotted story than the previous one.

The third story is very minor stuff, but kind of stands out for its slightly unusual premise and take on the who-of-the-three type of detective story often used in this series. Conan and the Junior Detective League bump into a man who drops large bags of weeds as well as an old notebook filled with coded messages. Yeah, these language-or locality based code crackers rarely work in translation and tend to read them without trying to play armchair detective, but Ho-Ling says people who have visited Japan might have "a good shot at solving this case." So there is that. Harley Hartwell also makes an appearance, but only because the story and particular the ending needed him to be there to work. Other than that, Harley's presence felt wasted on such a small, ultimately inconsequential case.

Traditionally, the volume ends with the first chapter setting up a story that will be concluded in vol. 84. This story is a flashback case, or prequel, set shortly before the events in vol. 1. – which turned Jimmy Kudo into Conan Edogawa. Jimmy and Rachel were one of their deadly dates at the aquarium when someone is stabbed to death. Jimmy knows the victim was "stabbed by somebody in this aquarium," but when Rachel asks how can be so sure he unhelpfully replies, "the smell." And that's where the chapter ends.

So, all in all, vol. 83 is a huge improvement over the previous volume, which ended up being one of those rare disappointments in the series. This volume opened strongly with a slightly uneven, but good, detective story complemented by the ongoing story-arcs. Something the second story improved upon and the third story no doubt is a lot better in Japanese. I was entertained and eagerly look forward to the next two volumes!