A Novel Crime: Q.E.D. vol. 33-34 by Motohiro Katou

So the original plan to get to Q.E.D. vol. 36, or even as far 38, regrettably didn't pan out as planned, holiday's certainly did its part in sidetracking it, but still, not a bad result considering I covered vol. 21-32 in 2023 – on top of "The Hit List: Top 10 Favorite Cases from Q.E.D. vol. 1-25" and "Q.E.D. X-MAS/NEW YEAR SPECIAL." I'm getting back on track with the intention of finishing this series this year or get as close as possible to vol. 50, which is likely going to translate into some extra Q.E.D. reviews down the line. That includes sampling the first two C.M.B. volumes in anticipation of the crossovers between C.M.B. vol. 19 and Q.E.D. vol. 41.

Q.E.D. vol. 33 opens with a fantastic story, "Paradox Room," which is very different from what the title and my track record suggests. The story is not a locked room mystery, but a puzzle of personalities.

Hisanaga Rio is the legal representative of her elderly, ailing grandmother who had to go to court to get the tenant evicted currently living in her apartment. Mineyama Tatsuo had rented the apartment, but stopped paying rent eight months ago and, somehow, appeared to have disappeared. Presumably leaving the apartment abandoned, but she needed and secured an eviction letter from the courts. Rio confides in her two friends, Kana Mizuhara and Sou Touma, who accompany her to the apartment to oversee the eviction. When they try to go inside, they're immediately repelled by a foul stench ("smells like a corpse in here"). Behind a sliding door and a garbage heap, they find the decomposed remains of Mineyama Tatsuo. This is where things begin to get weird.

Firstly, the police suspects from the lack of external injuries that he either died from an illness or possibly suicide, but then his ex-wife, Mineyama Etsumi, turns up at the crime scene – screaming blue murder that her ex-husband was murdered. Not only murdered, but taken out by assassins ("...hired by a mysterious organization which rules all of Japan"). According to her, Tatsuo had a strong developed sense of justice and "often wrote books books and blog articles that exposed the bad side of the government." Secondly, the investigation turns up two more people who were close to Tatsuo, but they both describe two entirely different people. Somehow, the apartment reveals clear cut evidence supporting all three differing testimonies! So what's going on? Sou Touma recognizes the problem as a paradox, "something that can trap mathematicians in a labyrinth," because the three "are all simultaneously supporting as well as contradicting each other's testimonies." Touma assures this particular paradox can be destroyed, "the key to that is already hidden in one of their testimonies," but also reminds Kana and the reader "paradoxes exit not just in cold logic" ("but also in people's hearts"). Touma breaks the contradictory testimonies apart in order to destroy the paradox and reveal the tragic backstory of the real Mineyama Tatsuo, which made for one of those human, character-based puzzles that sets this series apart. I kind of liked the open, unanswered question posed to Touma and the reader in the final panel.

The second story from vol. 33, "The Detective Novelist Murder Case," was praised in an anonymous comment left on the review of vol. 31-32, "it is not a grand trick by any means, but it is original and still one of my favorite tricks by Katou." I agree. But more on that trick in a moment.

Enoki Sadayuki, Higashinaka Kazuo, Maitake Toshihiro and Shimeji Mamoru are a group of friends who all have one thing in common: they're all published mystery writers. Some more successful than others. A week before the story begins, the four were drinking at a Shinjuku bar and discussing the state of the genre when Higashinaka tells them he come up with a method to commit the perfect murder. A murder disguised as a domestic accident in the bathroom, but someone detects a flaw in the trick. How is the murderer is going to get out and leave the place locked from the inside, because "the police will suspect the presence of another person if the victim is found in the bathtub at night with the door unlocked." So exactly what you expect to hear from four drinking, mystery writing buddies, but then Higashinaka "died in the exact same way as described in that trick" – only the murderer added something to the trick. All the doors and windows to the house were found to be securely locked from the inside!

One by one, the mystery writers turn to the police, represented by Inspector Mizuhara, to air their fear and suspicions how one of them might be a killer. Why employ a very specific trick narrowing down the potential suspects to just them? And how did the murderer manage to turn that trick into a full-fledged locked room mystery? Sou Touma and Kana Mizuhara insert themselves into the investigation with the latter doing the legwork, while the former acts as an armchair detective reasoning from the shadows. Touma reasons "the culprit is someone who has a reason to use this trick" and ends with a challenge to the reader, before all the suspects are gathered at the victim's house. Note that none of the suspects has met teenage detective until then ("what does this brat want to talk about?") and enjoyed that little touch to the storytelling. Touma not only reveals the who, why and how, but also explains why the other two couldn't have done it. A detective story with a purity of the highest order.

What about the locked room-trick, you ask? I agree with anon that the trick is a grand one, but locked room mysteries and impossible crimes don't always have to be grandiose spectacles like John Dickson Carr's The Three Coffins (1935) or John Sladek's Black Aura (1974). A locked room murder can have a simple, elegant solution without being inferior or less effective than those grandiose spectacles. For example, Anthony Boucher's The Case of the Solid Key (1941) and Douglas Clark's Death After Evensong (1969). "The Detective Novelist Murder Case" is a beautiful demonstration of combining elegance and simplicity to create a very satisfying impossible crime. Just avoid the really time-worn tricks (secret passages) or the dull routine ones (culprit simply replacing the key after the crime is discovered). A fantastic detective story all around!

After two first-class detective stories, the first story from Q.E.D. vol. 34 is a bit of a step down. "Disaster Man's Wedding" brings together some familiar recurring characters for the wedding of the CEO of Alansoft, Alan Blade, whose last appearance was in vol. 22. Alan Blade is about to be married to his company secretary, Ellie Francis. Part of the wedding gift is a joined charity, Alan & Ellie Foundation, "to help those less fortunate than us that live in third world countries." Just one problem. A notorious international bank, "infamous for the many failures that led to people becoming victims worldwide," has shown interest in their charitable organization. So the bank is want to attach themselves to the newly minted, high profile charity, in order to rehabilitate their tarnished reputation, but their behavior strongly implies to Alan "they're definitely trying to cover something up" – which might have something to do with a refugee camp in Africa. But what? Sou Touma, Kana Mizuhara and several other recurring characters begin to trot across the globe in search for answers. I suppose the story deserves some credit for planting an unusual puzzle at its heart and trying to do something with a rarely touched subject, but it all fell a little flat in the end. Not in the least because the bank is apparently run by a collection of cartoon-like villains who can't help but say the quiet parts out loud. So, on a whole, a fairly minor story in the series that could, perhaps, have been better than it ended up being.

Fortunately, the second and last story making up vol. 34, "Bonaridou," is a return to form. Sou Touma and Kana Mizuhara travel to the Tono City, Iwate Prefecture, to support Kana's friend from middle school, Shirakawa Ryo.

Ryo is competing in the local diving tournament to secure a place in the national competition, but, before they even arrived, trouble has started. Ryo was raised by her grandmother, Shirakawa Hari, because her father ran away with another woman and left her mother with a large debt. Just before the arrival of our two protagonists, the body of Ryo's father is found inside a car on the side of a road. Fukatsu Shinji has a bullet wound in his stomach and a gun is lying in the passenger seat, but "how did the culprit get out of the car?" Yes, this is a locked car mystery, of sorts. A second, cleverly camouflaged murder occurs halfway through the story at a swimming pool and a masked stranger with a scythe appeared to make threatening gestures at them. Touma points out that “these are not murders, but choices” and begins to reconstruct what really happened noting the importance of the locked car doors, a gun with only one shot fired and the similarity between both deaths. I also liked how the floor plan is used, if only in a very small way. The methods of both murders might not go down with every reader, but I thought they fitted the character of the murderer like a glove. More importantly, the motive is a refreshing take on a well-worn trope of Japanese mystery fiction (ROT13: vafgrnq bs niratvat gur qrnq, gurl jrer xvyyrq gb cebgrpg gur yvivat). So not as good as the two stories from the previous volume, but a pretty solid story on a whole.

All in all, two truly excellent stories, a good one and one that's average at best, which is not a bad at all and convinced me that compiling "The Hit List: Top 10 Favorite Cases from Motohiro Katou's Q.E.D. vol. 26-50" is going to be bloodbath. I already have seven or eight candidates from just vol. 26-34!