Blogging Gone Wrong: Case Closed, vol. 87 by Gosho Aoyama

The 87th volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed series begins, traditionally, with the concluding chapters to the story that left the previous volume, quite literary, on a cliffhanger as the latest victim of the cop-killing serial killer is dragged behind a car with a noose around his neck – plunging over the edge of a ravine. The victims reputedly belong to the Woodpecker Society. A secretive group of Nagano policemen and the latest murder appears to implicate someone from their own ranks, Kansuke Yamato, who disappeared as the evidence against him began to emerge.

This is somewhat of a strange story, because everything except the Woodpecker murders are of interest here.

Firstly, the previous volume introduced the character of Nagano's 1st Investigation Division Director, Hyoe Kuroda, who makes a startling remark, "the brains behind Sleeping Moore, a little boy who collects clues and makes clever observation so Moore can close the case" – "that's the gossip about you at the Metropolitan Police Headquarters, Conan Edogawa." Worst of all, Hyoe Kuroda fits one of the descriptions of the second-in-command of the Black Organization, "Rum." Secondly, Conan role in the story is pretty much that of an observant, well-informed onlooker as the Nagano police need no help identifying and capturing the murderer. So rather a shame the case itself is one of the worst series with the cliffhanger murder revealing a preposterously stupid trick. It also made the murderer standout like a light flare, but scratched my head (like Kosuke Kindaichi) trying to figure out how such a stunt could have been pulled off. I like a good trick as much as the next detective fan and have overlooked some stretching for the sake of a good or original idea, but, even by comic book standards, this solution is insultingly bad, unconvincing and hardly worth the risk. Something that can get the killer killed.

The only way to make such a trick work is to have it go horribly wrong (SPOILER/ROT13): sbe rknzcyr, Nxvlnzn qvrf qhevat gur rkrphgvba bs gur gevpx ol fznpxvat snpr svefg vagb gur fvqr bs gur enivar, juvyr gur cybg pbagvahrf gb hasbyq jvgu nhgbzngvpnyyl fraq grkg zrffntrf. Ohg abguvat unccraf va gur raq. Fb gurl erghea gb gur fprar bs gur ynfg zheqre naq svaq Nxvlnzn qnatyvat sebz gur gerr oenapu jvgu gur urnqyrff znaardhva ba vg. That would have been acceptable. So read this one for the characters and ongoing storyline.

Fortunately, the second story is much better and combines the inverted mystery format with the locked room mystery. Doc Agasa won a trip to an all-you-can-eat cake buffet at a famous hotel and the Junior Detective League is right there with him to share in the spoils of victory. While enjoying their cake, they meet two rivaling TV stars, Saya Kitami and Kyona Shono, who star in reality show competition to have the most popular blog ("...loser has to shave her head"). Anita calls it "trashy fun." Kyona claims to have found out a dirty secret and tells Kyona she better start waving the white flag, if she doesn't want it to go public. So, of course, Kyona is found bludgeoned to death in her hotel room with the key card right next to her. And the doors don't lock automatically. That makes it locked room murder, but Conan knows Saya killed her co-star. But how? And why?

I had to go back to two much earlier volumes to refresh my memory, but this story indeed recycled its plot ideas from a previous story dating back to the late '90s. Everything from the locked room-trick to the motive, but recycled into something entirely new. The similarities are obviously there, however, the way in which this story, originally published in 2015, plays out could not have been done back then. Simply because some things featuring in this story didn't exist in 1998. It would have been better had these new things been used to create something new instead of recreating old plots. One new addition to the plot screams out to be used for an alibi-trick or frame job, but, as it is, this is not a bad locked room mystery overall.

A minor highlight of this story is Inspector Meguire thinking of Conan as "a tiny grim reaper," because he "pops up at every crime scene."

The next story is a flashback to when Conan, then still Jimmy, met Rachel for the first time in preschool and their friendship was not immediately evident. Jimmy is an obnoxious, bratty child who just discovered Sherlock Holmes and tries to impress Rachel with his deductions. Jimmy becomes mightily suspicious of their teacher, Ronsuke Efune, who seems to be playing favorites with Rachel. But why? I expected this to be nice little fluff story showing where their friendship started and Jimmy's shaky beginnings as a detective. Jimmy might have been clever, mouthy brat in preschool who notices things, but clearly lacked the life experience to follow his astute observations to its logical conclusions. And misinterpreted their teacher's action ("I bet he's trying to recruit that kid to be his evil henchman"). But then the story took a slightly darker turn towards the end. A touch darker than the premise warranted (rira gur jbeq tebbzvat jnf hfrq). A good story regardless.

The last two chapters setup a story that will be concluded, traditionally, in the next volume and centers on two recurring side characters from the pop-culture of the Conanverse, Yoko Okino and Ryusuke Higo. Okino is the famous pop star Richard Moore is always drooling over and Higo is the star player of the Big Osaka soccer team. Apparently, Anita is as big a fan of Ryusuke Higo as Moore is of Yoko Okino. Anita and Moore are left devastated when the news breaks on social media that the two stars were spotted jewelry shopping together. Anita asks Moore to investigate ("pro bono, of course") whether, or not, they are dating ("these two are getting unhinged"). That leads them to an Italian restaurant recently opened by one of Higo's high school teammates and a body in the storage room with the next volume revealing how "the killer created an instant alibi by making clever use of a simple tool."

So, on a whole, a pretty good volume of cases, but one carried by the promise and intrigue by the main storyline and the introduction of the character of the Divisional Manager, Hyoe Kuroda – who has noticed the pattern of Conan's involvement in Moore's cases. And the ending of the blogging case reveals Kuroda has transferred from Nagano to Tokyo. So very much look forward how that develops further over the next couple of volumes, but really hope the individual cases will see an uptick in plotting quality.