The Foggy Past: C.M.B. vol. 11-12 by Motohiro Katou

The first story from Motohiro Katou's C.M.B. vol. 11, "Phaistos Disc," returns to the two part, two chapter format in which Mau Sugal, the black market broker, invites Sakaki Shinra and Nanase Tatsuki to her antique shop in Santorini, Greece – one of a dozen shops she has around the world. Sugal promised Shinra to show him parts of her collection of historical artifacts, but, when they arrive at the shop, there's a man waiting for them.

Bier Brust, of Europol, is "the head of the department that deals with stolen artifacts" and, sort of, plays the Jirokichi Sebastian to Sugal's Kaito KID. She just calls him a stalker. Brust is very surprised to see Shinra, holder of the C.M.B. rings, in the company of Sugal, but Shinra is even more surprise to spots "a first class artifact that's been undiscovered until now" among Sugal's inventory. A stamp from the Phaistos Disc! Sugal tells them the stamp has already been sold to Pan Sirius, younger, more outgoing brother of shipping magnate and family patriarch, Andreas Sirius. A family currently in turmoil as Andreas' mistress, Themis Treille, was nearly killed when her boat exploded and whispered rumors say his wife, Illias, tried to kill his mistress. So when Shinra and company accompany Sugal on her delivery of the stamp, they become embroiled in a murder investigation when Illias is shot aboard the family's private yacht with Pan standing over her with a gun. Pan claims he didn't shot her and Andreas was visiting Themis in a nearby hospital. What really happened?

Shinra compares the case to the failed attempts at deciphering the titular disc, because "quite possibly, this incident may not be solvable for the same reason." Shinra, of course, reveals the murderer in the second and concluding chapter showing the theme of the story and plan of the murderer dovetail, but take away historical trappings, the murderer is nothing more than a legendary, hall of fame idiot gambling (ROT13) ba n qnatrebhf oyhss – redeemed only by the motive. So, storywise, this is not a bad story at all with some fascinating sidelines on out-of-place artifacts, hoaxes, decoding ancient tablets and historical background details, but, plot-wise, not the best or terribly convincing.

The second, one-chapter story is "HATSUGAMA Case" and begins Sou Touma and Kana Mizuhara from Motohiro's Q.E.D. series making a brief cameo. They dropped by Shinra to wish him a happy New Year, but find he's out and wonder what he's doing. Shinra was asked by Tatsuki's grandfather to join a gathering with a few of his old high school friends for hatsugama, a tea ceremony to ring in the new year, because the friend hosting the ceremony, Kurmatsu, is a terrible snob and bragger. So he wanted Shinra to come along to outsmart him when it comes to tea ceremony trivia. Shinra is far more interested in the other items, but during the ceremony the tea cups disappears from its box and replaced with another item. So who replaced the cup, how and why? This story ended up reminding me of Isaac Asimov's Black Widower short stories with its fairly minor problem and explanation that hinge on a piece of trivia. However, if you happen to be aware of it, there's one scene that will probably bring it back to mind and help you spot the culprit and method. So, yes, a minor story, but a good and fun one.

The third and last, one-chapter story closing out this volume is "Marujime Neko" and is one of those human interest, or heart-shaped puzzles, Motohiro has done so expertly in the Q.E.D. series, but this might be the first one to work in this series. Shinra acts here like a cross between a spoiled brat and an extortionist, but not without a good reason. 

An elderly, recently widowed man, Hiraya Hideyoshi, who had all kind of bad things happen ever since his wife passed away. A stone was thrown throw a window, fire crackers thrown into the garden and eventually an accident happened. Shinra is prepared to help out with the case, but demands Hiraya Hideyoshi's statue called Marujime Neko, "said to be an early prototype of the Maneki Neko," better known as the Beckoning Cat. However, the Marujime Neko was a gift he bought for his wife on their honeymoon and "full of memories," but Shinra refuses to take no for an answer. So the series of strange incidents is only a small side issue, but with a clever piece of visual clueing and reasoning. What makes this story is why Shinra appeared to be so cruel towards an elderly, grieving widower by demanding such a sentimental item as payment. More than meets the eye indeed! Another relatively minor, but very good, story to end this volume on.

"Clay Seal" is the first, one-chapter, story opening C.M.B. vol. 12 and digs a little bit into Shinra's backstory. Shinra was raised by the previous holders of the C.M.B. rings when his mother passed away, acting as his three stepfathers, one of whom Ray Black – a professor as brilliant as he's reckless. Ray Black was called in as an expert by the Louvre when it was discovered clay tablets had someone been stolen from ancient Babylonian pots sealed shut for millennia. Somehow, "the clay seals that had not been opened for thousands of years were bypassed" and tablets stolen. And, to make the situation even more impossible, the seals were marked with a cylindrical stamp rolled over the clay seal. Only kings and other royalty possessed such stamps, which means once it's opened it can never be resealed to its original state. The main interest of the story naturally comes from Shinra and Black's backstory, but enjoyed the archaeological conundrum that reunited them and Shinra's solution how the tablets were taken from the sealed jars is very clever. A solid opener to this volume!

The second story, "An Old Woman and a Monkey," is another one-chapter story, but arguably the best short from these two volumes and a personal favorite. Shinra and Tatsuki are helping out Hinogure Toki, an elderly, sickly and frankly dying woman, clean out and tidying her home. During their work, Shinra and Tatsuki become concerned for the elderly woman, but not for health reasons. They overhear her grandson, Hayao, arguing with his wife Chika over his inheritance ("if you don't get any inheritance from her, I'm divorcing you”). They're not the only ones concerned over her money. Tatsuki eavesdrops on a heart to heart talk between Toki and her accountant, Umiyama Takeshi, who has embezzled her money and appears to be unable to return it ("...sicker I get, the less forgiving I will be... so please, keep that in mind"). So they advise her to lock her bedroom door during the night and Tatsuki even keeps guards in the hallway, which comes with a great floor plan of the situation. When they fail to wake her, they have call the police to have locked door broken open. Hinogure Toki is lying dead in bed, poisoned, while her pet baboon Hihimaru tries to wake her up. The door, and windows, are securely locked from the inside and Toki had not eaten during dinner. There was poison found in the water jug, but neither the jug nor the glass had her fingerprints on it. Hihimaru had nothing to do with either the method of poisoning or locked room-trick.

Like I said, this is a short, one-chapter story and the plot is not terribly complex, but sometimes, there's something to be said for straight forward simplicity – particularly when it has a glimmer of originality. The solutions to the who, why and especially how aren't cliched, or routine, offering a new, simple way to have someone end up poisoned behind a locked door and still make it appear like an impossible crime. A surprisingly tricky thing to do, but Katou did it effortlessly here as in "The Detective Novelist Murder Case" from Q.E.D. vol. 33. I also liked how the story ended with Shinra adopting Hihimaru after finding him being sad in Toki's empty bedroom. Yes, C.M.B. can be a whole lot weirder at times than its sibling series Q.E.D. Nonetheless, this story is (IMO) a series highlight!

C.M.B. vol. 12 ends ends with a longer, two-chapter story, "The Actress Sees a Ghost," which is much more of a psychological thriller with supernatural overtones than a detective story. The story takes place in Hong Kong where a man, Wang Qing Yun, fell to his death from rooftop into a garbage container. So his body was not found until collection day, three days later. A death filed as a suicide, however, the victim used to be the boyfriend of a rising actress, Zhang Qian Lian, who has been slowly unraveling and ruining her career in the process. For some time, she's being haunted by the unsettling, watery ghost of a man and the haunting provides the story with some of its best panels. For example, the ghost manifests itself at a fish market through a wall of fish aquariums! Shinra and Tatsuki become involved, but the hook of the story how "the person who successfully forced the real culprit to confess was an unexpected one." So a very well done story in that regard, but have nothing much else to say about it.

So, on a whole, vol. 12 is overall better than vol. 11, but both volumes show Motohiro Katou is starting to get the hang of these one-chapter stories as they get better, and better, from "HATSUGAMA Case" and "Marujime Neko" to "Clay Seal" – culminating with "An Old Woman and a Monkey." Look forward to the next two volumes!