The Golden Window: Q.E.D. vol. 29-30 by Motohiro Katou

Oh, ye of little faith! Last February, I (once again) returned to the Q.E.D. series by Motohiro Katou and began the review of vol. 21-22 stating the plan to get as close to vol. 50 this year as possible without 6-8 month gaps between reviews, which you heard before – numerous times ever since discussing the first volume in 2018. So there undoubtedly was some amount of unspoken skepticism, but, this time, it took a little less than six months to reach vol. 30. If I continue at this pace, I should arrive at vol. 36 or 38 when December rolls around. That means I can begin sampling C.M.B. sometime in January in anticipation of the crossover event with Q.E.D. So with that out of the way, let's dig into vol. 29 and 30.

The first story from vol. 29, "Elephant," begins with Sou Touma and Kana Mizuhara spotting the homeless pirate on the streets. A man they call "the pirate old man," or pirate-san, who recently appeared on the streets and, if you get caught by him, "he'll make you listen to his ramblings of many weird stories from his supposed outer space travels." So they try to avoid him, but they notice the man has found an eager listener, Morita "Mulder" Orisato. A member of the Sakisaka Private High School Detective Club who's obsessed with aliens and the supernatural. The self-professed space pirate asks Mulder to help him find treasure.

If you're familiar with the series, or just read my reviews, you might expect the story to develop into one of those character-driven, humanistic stories posing a person as the puzzle that needs to be unpacked and solved – of which there's certainly an element present. But only partially. "Elephant" has a legitimate and excellent detective problem of the impossible variety. The treasure in question is a small, heavy safe located on the top floor of a high rise building and the pirate is suspected of having stolen it, but how, since the security footage shows he left the room empty handed ("is it even possible for one person to carry something that heavy from the top floor?"). And enigmatically hints that he took away the safe by putting it into a coffee cup. A neatly done little problem with an even better solution that would not be out-of-place in an Arthur Porges short story.

So an excellent story, overall, but let the reader be warned, the answers to the human puzzle involves something suspiciously looking like advanced math homework as Touma attempts to explain the Poincaré conjecture ("we don't understand at all... think about it from our perspective").

The second story, "Motive and Alibi," is a conventional, first-rate whodunit and begins with a surprised Mizuhara finding Touma doing oil painting as an after school activity. Touma is tutored by the high school's art teacher, Aonori Makio, who has to leave early to attend a private celebration party. Makio's old art academy teacher, Kuromame Fukuzo, won an award, but Fukuzo's history as an artist is not an unblemished one. There were accusations of plagiarism, "apparently he was copying other artists' paintings," but "since he was a big-shot, the judges didn't say anything." So the small dinner party is not without tension as Fukuzo announces that it's not time for him to step back and feels like he could last another hundred years. Famous last words! On the following morning, Fukuzo is found dead in his bed from an insulin overdose and everything points towards murder. There are three suspects to pick from: two painters, Ryokucha Yozo and Akagome Akira, who received backing from Fukuzo and the high school teacher, Aonori Makio. So with Inspector Mizuhara in charge of the case and Makio neck deep in murder, Touma gets roped in to try to figure out who gave Fukuzo an overdose of insulin.

A problem focused on the possible motives and particularly the peculiar alibis of the three suspects. Akagome Akira was watching a movie in the living room, while Ryokucha Yozo and Aonori Makio played shogi in the adjacent recreational room. Touma who notices an artificial-looking set of circumstances regarding the motives and alibis, "this kind of situation is not possible without someone pulling the strings from behind," which revealed a murderer who's extremely confident in his own alibi – passing through a "golden window of opportunity" to commit murder. The alibi-trick is as ingenious as it's original, but, more importantly, I really enjoyed how Touma's explanation built on Inspector Mizuhara's bare-bones solution. That's how the collaboration between the amateur detective and professional policeman should be done.

Motohiro Katou deserves acknowledgment and praise as an innovator who's always looking for new ways to tell the detective story, but "Motive and Alibi" is a perfect example of why his traditionally-styled, über conventional mysteries should not be overlooked. He does them very well.

The first story from vol. 30, "Doll Killer," returns to the slightly less conventional detective stories that begins when "a mannequin with a knife lodged in its forehead" is thrown from a second floor building in Setagaya, Tokyo. A second doll murder is discovered in Yoyogi Park, but this the stabbed doll is hanging from a noose and wearing a wig. Every mannequin doll has a card in his pocket implicating cabinet members with ties to dodgy pharmaceutical companies.

Shunji Nashida, an investigator for the Cabinet's Information Department, whom previously appeared in "Parallel" (vol. 25) comes to Touma for assistance ("I remember your help in an old crime, so I want to know if you can help us out once more in this murder case"). Touma answers. Touma has an unexpected answer, "this cannot be considered as a murder because the victim is a doll" ("it's just a broken thing"), which he explains later on in the story. A very interesting explanation having to do with human-shaped technology and why he believes "there's no benefit in making a human-shaped robot" as it will create unnecessary pressure on ordinary people ("the thinning line between dolls and humans"). Touma illustrates an example of a human-shaped robot and an automatic bulldozer getting struck by rocks in a landslide. For us, the bulldozer "still looks like a broken machine," but "seeing the robot with human-like injuries we will feel a greater shock." I wish the story had developed into something along the lines of "Jacob's Ladder" (vol. 4) about the implications of advancements in robotics. It would probably have been a more interesting story than this forgettable one about corrupt politicians, medical mishaps and a culprit as obvious as a flesh wound. Not a series highlight.

The second and last story, "Dog Bowl," is a fun, simple story in which Touma and Mizuhara match wits with the crooked, unscrupulous mind behind the Futuristic Products Research Group, Kuromatsu Bunji, who's "a seasoned scammer" without a single conviction to his name – always working behind the scenes and using a fall guy as a front man. Kuromatsu Bunji newest scam targets the elderly by selling them so-called luxury articles at ridiculously inflated prices ("this is called hypnosis sales"). Touma and Mizuhara know one of their victims. Mizuhara intends to get their money back "by any means legally possible," but Touma sees no other way than giving the salesmen a dose of their own patent medicine, old-school style! So this is basically a con story in which the detective turns the tables on the conmen involving the titular dog and bowl. A relatively minor story, but, as usually with these con stories, fun enough to read.

Evidently, the two cases from vol. 29 provided better, stronger and more skillfully executed detective stories than the doll killer case and con game from vol. 30. So, surprisingly, the conventionally-plotted stories stand tall for once over the usually fascinating experimental stories or sidetracks into other corners of the genre, which is what makes Q.E.D. practically unique in the genre. But got a good impossible crime and an excellent alibi-breaker stories out of it. So I'm not complaining.