Monster Hunter: Case Closed, vol. 86 by Gosho Aoyama

Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed, vol. 86 begins, as is usually the case, with the concluding chapter to the story that closed out the previous volume and concerns the body of a woman who miraculous materialized in a hotel swimming pool – alongside shards of glass from a broken aquarium. I called the story potentially one of the most transparently-plotted cases since the first half dozen volumes and the ending proved me correct. My solution was pretty much spot except for how the aquarium was broken, but hardly enough to keep it afloat. An uncharacteristically bad story for the series. Fortunately, the next three stories are much better and of considerable more interest.

The second story starts out a little weird and slightly contrived contrived with the familiar who-of-the-three setup, but turned that series trope on its head brilliantly.

Conan, Anita and the Junior Detective League are out and about, when they spot a boy twice in the same spot intently observing an apartment building. So they ask the boy what he's doing, but the kid bursts out in tears and tells Conan that the nice lady who lives there was likely killed. She had asked the boy to keep watching her apartment, because "three men would visit her apartment, one by one, and if she didn't come out after the last one left it meant she was dead" – a signal to call the police. Conan rushes to the apartment and finds the lady in question hanging from a makeshift noose, but evidence on the scene immediately suggests foul play and several items are missing (a telephone, money and TV script). The three suspects are quickly identified and all three claim to have found her hanging, but why did they leave without calling the police? I said this story turns the who-of-the-three suspects trope upside down, but actually does it twice and very cleverly so. Granted, the over-arching story and plot feels strained in parts, but nevertheless a strong recovery from the previous couple of the stories. Note that Conan gets called "a regular Jimmy Kudo."

The previous volume had the big blow-off of the storyline that was set in motion all the way back in vol. 58 and vol. 59, which means new pieces have to be set in place for the next arc in the ongoing storyline. A sub-plot running through this volume, starting with the second story, is Conan considering and discussing the identity of the second-in-command of the Black Organization, "Rum." A shadowy character who has been described as a large, muscular man, a slight, feminine man and an elderly man ("some people said they were all decoys"). Conan and Anita, of course, keep running into people fitting one of those descriptions ("it's certainly on the nose...").

The third story is a very good and delightful, pulp-style impossible crime story somewhat reminiscent of Theodore Roscoe and Hake Talbot. Harley Hartwell invites Conan, Rachel and Richard Moore to the mountains of Nagano to investigate sightings of the local yokai, or cryptic, named the Kamaitachi – who "rides a whirlwind an' slashes folks with a sickle." A magazine writer photographed the blade-wielding monster flying or running across the surface of a hot spring at a local mountain inn! So out they go to the inn to investigate and get told about a family heirloom, a scythe, which is kept in a shed. That where the initial attack happens as Harley, Richard and a reporter gets slashed after the light bulb exploded, but nobody appears to have been the attacker. Nor can they find any trace of a possible weapon. This part of the story has a nice moment between Conan and Harley when the same false-solution occurs to them simultaneously. However, the meat of the story is the murder under somewhat impossible circumstances of the old inn keeper, which is difficult to describe, but boils down to the murderer escaping either by flying over a long stretch of undisturbed snow or sprinted across hot spring again.

I think every observant reader or seasoned armchair detective can identify the murderer and motive, but the water walking act is a different kettle of fish altogether. Walking on water is the kind of impossibility you don't often encounter in detective stories with the only examples springing to mind being Ellery Queen Junior's The Mystery of the Merry Magician (1961), Robert Innes' Ripples (2017) and the mid-air strolls from John Sladek's Black Aura (1974) and vol. 44 from this series. The range of possible solutions is admittedly about as limited as those for disappearing buildings and vanishing streets, but never considered the trick used here. A trick that first elicited some skepticism on my part. I looked it up and apparently it's possible to work exactly as shown in the story. A solid, original and above all entertaining impossible crime story.

The last three chapters setup a story that will conclude in the next volume and immediately follows the previous one.

Conan, Rachel, Moore and Harley are still in Nagano, "historic Nagano," where they visit a shrine and bump into several familiar faces from the Nagano Prefectural Police. Kansuke Yamato, Takaaki Morofushi, Yui Uehara and three other police inspectors who were to meet with their squad leader, Shigeru Takeda – who went silent without a reason. Not long thereafter, they witness his decapitated head floating down the river and upon retrieving the gruesome catch, they discover the forehead has been marked with an "X." Like the X-shaped claw of a woodpecker suggesting a link with the mysterious Woodpecker Society. A group within the Nagano police with potential shady motives and the murderer appears to be targeting its secretive members, one by one, ending on a cliffhanger. And not the proverbial one. But by then, it has become clear that the stench of suspicion is clinging to Inspector Yamato. Not to mention the introduction of the 1st Investigation Division Director, Hyoe Kuroda, who resembles a more accurate description of Rum that emerged over the course of these stories. The next volume is shaping up to be excellent!

So, yeah, perhaps not the best overall volume from the last few years, but found the second story quite good, unsurprisingly liked the third and the cliffhanger makes me want to get to the next volume as soon as possible. Definitely a return to form with the new pieces being set in place adding to both the intrigue and enjoyment.