The Man Who Died Seven Times (1995) by Yasuhiko Nishizawa

Three months ago, Pushkin Vertigo released Yasuhiko Nishizawa's Nanakai shinda otoko (The Man Who Died Seven Times, 1995), translated by Jesse Kirkwood, which is not only a very good, very unusual and original detective novel – one of my new all-time favorite detective novels. Not for any of the usual reasons most would expect from me. The Man Who Died Seven Times is at its core a fairly ordinary whodunit within a family circle without any bells and whistles, like locked rooms, unbreakable alibis and dying messages, except for one extraordinary detail.

Hisataro Oba, a.k.a. Kyutaro, is a 16-year-old high school student who has "the aura of some jaded old man" and people are always telling him he seems old for his age. That's because Kyutaro is, mentally speaking, years older than his classmates on account of experiencing frequent time loops lasting nine days. An unexplained, personal phenomena Kyutaro calls "the Trap" during which the same days repeats nine times. Kyutaro is the only one who's aware of the loop and can alter the events from the first loop ("the 'original' version of the day in question") to the final loop, but "whatever happens in the final loop becomes, for everyone else, the only version" of that day. And, for Kyutaro, the definitive version of that day. But without loosing his memories of the other versions. These time loops can happen "as often as a dozen times in one month, or only once in eight weeks."

Kyutaro used one of these time loops to ace the entrance exams for the exclusive Kaisei Academy, but the promise of a brilliant student delivered fluctuating results. Good results always depends on whether, or not, an exam coincides with a time loop. Beside cheating on his school exams, Kyutaro never had to deal with a serious situation, while stuck in the nine-day trap, until he goes to a New Year's family gathering at the mansion of his grandfather, Reijiro Fuchigami, and maiden aunt, Kotono. A fairly recently established tradition to repair family relations after the family fractured in several different branches following a fallout between Reijiro and two of his three daughters. Kamiji left home to pursue an academic career and married a young, promising student, Michiya Oba, who have three sons – Fujitaka, Yoshio and Kyutaro. The third and youngest daughter, Haruna Kanagae, followed suit and had two daughters, Mai and Runa. So that left Kotono, the second daughter, to look after their increasingly difficult father under dire circumstances, but their situation miraculously improved. A lucky windfall that turned their restaurant into a restaurant chain under the Edge Restaurant Group umbrella. So these New Year gatherings aren't only meant to get the family back together, but for Reijiro Fuchigami to pick a successor.

Nothing out of the ordinary happens, except for Kyutaro getting blackout drunk, when everyone goes home at the end of January 2nd, but Kyutaro wakes up back at his grandfather's house early in the morning of January 2nd. He has fallen into one the time loop traps. This time, the day ends in tragedy. Reijiro Fuchigami had spend this new version of January 2nd drinking by himself in the attic of the old annex building. There he was found murdered! What follows is a long, exhaustive day of police questioning and only Kyutaro knows the day is going to reset seven more times. And that his grandfather will be alive, and well, the next morning on the third version of January 2nd. And the next half dozen resets.

Kyutaro tries to prevent his grandfather from getting killed and protect one of his relatives from becoming a murderer, which turns out to be easier said than done even with multiple retries – like a number of stored lives in a game. Firstly, Kyutaro has to consider two outside candidates to inherit the company. Reijiro's assistant and driver, Ryuichi Tsuchiya, and Kotono's assistant, Emi Tomori. Secondly, the complicated, sometimes uncomfortably tangled family relationships from the simmering hatred between Reijiro's three daughters to cousins fooling around. Thirdly, Kyutaro has to do a lot of scheming, manipulating and maneuvering, but, try as he might, Reijiro dies in every loop ("He was dead. Of course he was"). This is the first time Kyutaro is trapped inside a loop with something as serious as a murder in the family. A murder that was not part of the original "schedule" of the day and not the only deviation on the original day that confounds Kyutaro.

Like I said, The Man Who Died Seven Times is not a detective story about the who, why and how, but how Kyutaro attempts to prevent a murder before the ninth loop makes it definite. Before the ninth loop, Kyutaro gets to see everyone he knows acts and respond differently under varying circumstances of that days. Sometimes the situation got very ugly, but, tragically, Kyutaro is the only one who remembers these alternate events of the eight loops. Showing the reader his jaded old man persona is not an act. However, The Man Who Died Seven Times is not a lightly-plotted, character-driven mystery employing the time loop device and the trappings of the detective story to explore the frayed relations between the various family members. That certainly is part of the story and plot, but the explanation for the murders of Reijiro Fuchigami and why he kept dying in every loop is genuinely clever. That last part is really key because what allowed this to work, so satisfyingly, is seeing it play out under different, manipulated circumstances, but always with the same confounding results. How that came about is simply brilliant.

So, if the story had ended there and then, I would have been more than satisfied, but some lingering questions and inconsistent details about Kyutaro's time loop experience remained. Those answers... no, that twist, bumped The Man Who Died Seven Times from merely an excellent take on the hybrid mystery to a masterpiece and personal favorite. That completely took me by surprise! This is not merely a good twist to end an even better detective novel, but the final touch to a very pleasing nestle doll pattern emerging from the overall story and plot. First you have an unvarnished, straightforward murder of the family patriarch, but within that simple framework there's Kyutaro reliving the same day nine times. His attempts to get a different outcome, and why he keeps failing, is what gives the plot its weight. Lastly, the twist on Kyutaro's time loop experience that gives yet another perspective on the previous versions of that early January day. If it's not perfect, it's close enough. Highly recommended!

Note for the curious: The Man Who Died Seven Times has had some interesting comparisons between Groundhog Day and various mystery writers, series and movies ("Groundhog Days meets Knives Out"), but the only comparison that would be on point is The Girl Who Leapt Through Time meets Case Closed.