The Forbidden Fruit: Case Closed, vol. 80 by Gosho Aoyama

The 80th volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed, a.k.a. Detective Conan, begins with the conclusion of the headline act of the previous volume, "Vampire's Mansion," but ended my review with the hope that the concluding chapter would pull everything together in the end – as it had been uncommonly poor story up to that point. There were too many cheap, second-rate tricks and the murderer too easily identified, but the elaborate, fleshed-out explanation gave the plot some much needed polish. Overall, it elevated the story from uncharacteristically poor to passable. There is, however, not enough plot-polish to cover up how hilariously stupid the solution to the last impossibility looks on paper. Things pick up with the next story. 

The second story begins with the Junior Detective League playing soccer when their game is interrupted by a wandering, extremely pettable, stray cat. Conan recognizes the cat as the stray, named Cappy, who hangs around the neighborhood of Richard Moore's office and is fed by the waitress of Coffee Poirot. She named him Captain, or Cappy, after Captain Hastings. But, as Cappy runs off, a thread from Anita hand-knit sweater is caught in its claws and they have to run after him before her entire sweater unravels. Conan and the Junior Detective League follow the cat inside a refrigerated food delivery truck, but they get locked inside and, as the two delivery men continue their route, they make a gruesome discovery among the undelivered packages.

Conan overheard one of the delivery men saying that they "need the alibi to stick" and discovers the body of a man inside an unmarked, cardboard box with crushed, dirty edges and sides – suggesting the box has been rolled around "to keep the body from developing livor mortis." So they caught the delivery men in the act of fabricating an incontestable alibi, but now they're locked inside a refrigerator on wheels and not everyone is warmly dressed. And every delivery made leaves them with less room to hide. Conan has to play MacGyver to put together a (coded) message, get the message out of the truck and hope it finds its way to the correct person before they're either discovered or the cold takes it toll. A splendid concoction of the inverted detective story, the time-ticking thriller and a dash of code cracking, but agree with Ho-Ling that the escape plan only works in-universe "where there are genius detectives all over town." Still a very well done and entertaining story. And liked how pure chance mercilessly obliterated what could have been a perfect crime.

Curiously, the third story also concerns the delivery of food, but here it results in a bizarrely-staged impossible crime instead of a cast-iron alibi. Richard Moore chaperons Conan, Rachel, Serena and Sera to the tapping of a competitive cooking show. A main feature of the show is the closely guarded mystery fruit. On each episode, a huge, double-padlocked iron chest is brought on stage and the contestants have to make something on the stop with the mystery fruit. There's a complicated, old-world encryption system with physical keys to ensure "not even the staff knows what that night's fruit will be until the iron chest is opened." A food service picks the fruit and packs the chest, which is secured with a padlock and send to the TV studio. The producer puts a second padlock on it and sends it back to the food service to have the first padlock removed, which is then returned again to the TV studio. So only the food service knows what kind of fruit is inside the iron chest until its opened.

During the taping, the host opens the iron chest with the producer's key and inside, stuffed among the apples, is the body of food critic and judge on the show. Shotoku Takeki was a severe judge who suspected the winner of the previous six episodes, Chef Shuhei Kurimura, of cheating as he always had the perfect dish ready to go with the mystery fruit. But how could he have known? And how did the body end up in the locked chest? The keys were hard-to-duplicate and "the padlock is alarmed to deter lockpicks," which eliminated the palming-and-swapping usually found in locked room mysteries involving padlocks. Aoyama came up with a genuinely original solution which has a simplicity that nicely contrasted with the complicated setup, but you need to make an inspired guess, or imaginative leap, to get the very late hair-clue and figure out the locked room-trick. That being said, the evidence that's the murderer's undoing is kind of brilliant and disgusting at the same time.

The fourth story focuses on the two female officers of the Traffic Department, Yumi Miyamoto and Neako Miike, who were talking about the former's ex-boyfriend when the latter receives a call from a friend, Sakurako Yonehara – who previously appeared in the optical illusion case from vol. 74 and vol. 75. She works as a housekeeper at the Chateau Baker Condos where she discovered a body, which is where Yumi's ex lives. The victim is, in fact, his next door neighbor, Mrs. Chiyoko Itami, who was found with an arm in a sling hanging from a light fixture in the living room. She had a domestic altercation with her husband, Naganobu Itami, who turned up with a black eye, but everyone with a key to the house have alibis. A spare key is kept in a mailbox with a combination lock on the first floor and the only outsider who knows the combination is Yumi's ex-boyfriend, Shukichi Haneda.

Conan and the Junior Detective League happened to overhear the phone call, scrambled to the condo and crawled all over the crime scene like ants on a picnic blanket, but the story obviously meant to introduce Shukichi Haneda as a new recurring character. This plot-thread is what gave the volume its shogi-themed cover. However, while a fairly minor story, the alibi-trick here is not without interest. I really liked how Aoyama combined something very modern and up-to-date (n fznegcubar) with a related item that's hopelessly outdated and obsolete (n cnlcubar) to create something new and novel.

The last chapter opens a story that will be concluded in vol. 81, but the premise is already full of intrigue and promise. Conan meets with Jodie Sterling in a public park during the Flower Viewing Festival to brief her what happened on the Mystery Train (vol. 78) and what he learned. But they keep being interrupted. Firstly, there's someone who recognizes Jodie from the bank robbery hostage case (vol. 65) and he drops a small bombshell on them. Secondly, a woman begins to scream that someone had stuck a hand in her bag and that there's a pickpocket. A few minutes later, Doc Agasa calls Conan to say he just witnessed a murder in the park!

So, all in all, a pretty good and solid volume with all the complete stories nicely balancing the ongoing, character-driven story-arcs with cleverly constructed, often original plots showing how to incorporate today's world in traditionally-styled detective stories. Very much looking forward to the next volume!

New Murders for Old: Case Closed, vol. 79 by Gosho Aoyama

The 79th volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed, published outside of the English-speaking world as Detective Conan, has some big shoes to fill coming right after the ambitious, multi-layered and massive "Mystery Train" story from vol. 78 combining a classically-styled, railroad detective story with a character-driven thriller – cleverly putting the series' cast of recurring characters to good use. In the last chapter of that volume the groundwork was laid for another Kaitou KID heist of the impossible variety! 

Jirokichi Sebastian is one of my favorite recurring characters, a wealthy, semi-retired CEO of a financial company and adventurer, who has become embroiled in a very public rivalry with the modern-day Arsène Lupin. So now he uses his personal fortune to purchase rare artifacts, gems and elaborate traps to lure and ultimately capture Kaitou KID, which makes him the perfect antagonist for that playful antihero. It's like Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner, but the traps are baited with precious gems and KID escaping from them usually present an impossible situation.

As stated in the previous volume, Jirokichi "never misses a chance to exhibit a gem that might attract the Kaitou KID" and his latest acquisition is a pendant with a red diamond, the Blushing Diamond, which is fastened to the shell of a turtle – named Poseidon. Jirokichi went through great lengths to protect both the turtle and the diamond that's attached to its shell. The aquarium at the exhibit is constructed out of shatter-proof glass and impenetrable wire netting on the top and sides, but the Moonlight Magician kept his word and made the diamond disappear as if by magic. Leaving behind a sealed, but empty, aquarium and a note saying, "the shy mermaid has dissolved into foam in my hand."

These Kaitou KID heists tend to be visual spectacles that handily exploit the comic book format to get away with tricks that would be hard to pull off in prose. Such as his miraculous mid-air walk (vol. 44) or his astonishing transportation-trick (vol. 61), which still succeeded in not being wholly implausible. By comparison, the theft of the turtle and diamond felt very contrived and unconvincing. However, the impossible crime turned out to play second fiddle to the solution revealing a cleverly done inversion of the Jirokichi vs. KID story format. So my impression is that the impossible theft was plotted around that inversion, but it undoubtedly improved an otherwise average KID story with his mistake being the proverbial cherry on top. I liked that there was a large crowd of Kaitou KID fans in front of the exhibition erupting in celebration to the news that "THE KID GOT THE GEM!!"

Speaking of playing second fiddle, the third, vampire-themed story is the headline act of this volume, but the second story, "The Unlocked Locked-Room Murder," should be considered a landmark of the contemporary-traditional detective story. A story that broke new ground with a rough, unpolished idea demonstrating the 21st century has fresh opportunities, not obstacles, to offer to every mystery writers who knows how to plot.

This original piece of detective fiction begins conventionally enough with Harley and Kazuha accompanying Inspector Torotaki, of the Osaka Police, to Tokyo to help investigate a suspicious death, but before picking up Conan at Richard Moore's office – because Harley suspects Conan might be interested in the "outta-reach locked-room murder." A schoolteacher, Hidemichi Mizuki, came to the attention of the police and they place his Tokyo condo under observation, but, on the third day, he failed to come outside for his daily walk. So they decided to enter the house and found his body hanging from a rope in the living room, but the gap between the dangling feet and seat of the chair suggests it could have been murder. But "how could the killer get in and out without being spotted by the cops?"

Harley, Kazuha, Torotaki, Richard, Rachel and Conan (yes, the whole group) travel to the condo to hunt for clues, but Harley becomes disappointed when evidence clearly points towards suicide. So a potentially interesting and tough case was cruelly snatched away from under his nose, but then something unexpectedly happens. When the elevator comes up to their floor, a man is standing inside with a gun trained to his temple and he pulls the trigger in front of their eyes. The doors close again and briefly goes up before coming down again. The doors open to reveal the body of the man lying inside and the word "GOODBYE" scrawled on the inside doors. Whatever trick you think was used, you're wrong. This is not the kind of detective story you can solve by relying solely on your knowledge of detective stories. Aoyama came up with something completely new that can only be described as some straight up reality manipulation. More can be done with this idea, but the execution of it needs a little more fine-tuning and polish.

So this brings us to that previously mentioned headline act that covers the last seven chapters and will be concluded in the next volume, but it better be good, because have been impressed with the story thus far. Conan, Rachel, Harley and Torotaki tag along with Inspector Torotaki to an old-fashioned manor house in the manor. Six months ago, the body of the maid was found in the surrounding forest, "strung upside down from a stake," whose only injury was "a pair of small punctures in her neck" and locals suspected the owner of the manor, Hakuya Torakura – who turned out to have a rock-solid alibi. But lately, he also adopted all the characteristics of a vampire. He sleeps during the day in a coffin, threw out the priceless family silver and told the cook never to use garlic ever again. Inspector Torotaki is asked to look into this case again as favor to his chief (Harley's father).

Upon their arrival at the manor, they find a family of rivaling siblings and their partners who all have their eyes on inheriting the family fortune. It doesn't take very long before all hell breaks loose. Hakuya Torakura is found dead in his coffin with a stake driven through his heart, but the body inexplicably vanishes as if he turned into mist and disappeared. Just like a vampire. Torakura's figure reappears, "filmy and pale like a ghost," during a group photograph, but only Rachel and Kazuha spotted him. Until the photograph is developed. This is the last time his ghostly presence is both seen and felt. Not to mention several (impossible) murders and getting cut-off from the outside world.

Regrettably, the solution to the vanishing body and spirit photograph exposed some very cheap, second-rate tricks unworthy of this great series and already have a pretty good idea who's behind the murders. But that will be revealed in the next volume with a very late, as of yet unexplained impossibility might rescue the story from ending up being uncharactertically poor entry in the series. Fingers crossed!

So, on a whole, this volume distinguishes itself by toying with some fun and even groundbreaking ideas with only the execution of those ideas leaving something to be desired. The third story had potential, but has so far only disappointed me. That unfortunately makes for a very uneven volume. Particularly coming right after the volume that contained a series-classic. Still not a bad volume, all things considered, but that vampire murder case really dragged down the overall quality.

The Crimes in Cabin B: Case Closed, vol. 78 by Gosho Aoyama

The 78th volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed, originally published as Detective Conan, which has the longest story since vol. 58 that was setup in the previous volume and covers seven chapters with the second, three-chapter story acting as its aftermath – while the last chapter sets the stage for the return of Kaitou KID. A return alluded to in the opening chapter as KID's long-time nemesis, Jirokichi Sebastian, announced he was planning to use the Mystery Train to exhibit "one of his rare gems." Somewhat of a baited trap, as usually, but more on that in a moment. 

The Bell Tree Express is the "Mystery Train," owned by the Sebastian Conglomerate, which hosts an annual murder mystery game with "no stops until the final destination." A "murderer" and "victim" are chosen at random from from among the guests with the other passengers playing detective and "try to solve the mystery before the train reaches the station."

Anita presented Conan with a Mystery Train Pass Ring in the previous volume to lay the groundwork for a truly special kind of detective story. A story that succeeded in being both a classically-plotted, baroque-style mystery with no less than two impossibilities and a character-driven thriller with a galore of recurring characters and some major plot developments.

Firstly, the murder mystery game begins early when Conan and the Junior Detective League receive a note telling them they've been selected as the detectives and to follow instructions, namely visiting "Cabin B of Carriage 7 in ten minutes," where they witness a shooting – turning the murder mystery into "a game of tag" with the fleeing assassin. But when they meet one of the conductors, he tells them the mystery game is scheduled to begin in about an hour. So they rush back to Cabin B, which is when they make a startling discovery. Carriage 7 has "disappeared from a moving train" along with the victim in Cabin B!

Conan only needs a handful of pages to solve the impossibility of the vanishing train carriage, but the reappearance of Cabin B presents him with another miraculous murder. This time, the victim is actually dead with a very real bullet in his head, but the cabin door was "chained shut" from the inside and the conductor in the corridor "didn't see anyone enter or leave the cabin." A seemingly impossible murder in Cabin B begs to be compared to John Dickson Carr, but the story is unmistakably a clever and warm tribute to Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express (1934). There are many nods and winks to the story and Aoyama very effectively recreated a well-known scene for his own ends. Most amusing of all is Richard Moore badly imitating Hercule Poirot throughout the story and he barely broke character.

However, the story is not merely a lighthearted sendup of Christie's Murder on the Orient Express as the plot is quit good. The locked room-trick is a clever combination of simple trickery and elaborate misdirection strengthened by some good clues like the defective light above one of the cabin doors.

So the puzzle-side of the story is absolutely solid and a first-class specimen of the railway mystery, but there's a darker, parallel story taking place in the background involving a ton of recurring characters and agents of the Black Organization.

Black Organization received intelligence Anita, or "Sherry," is traveling on the Bell Tree Express, "a steel cell on wheels," which means the hunt is on and they intend to "flush her out like a deer" – catching a bullet as she leaps out. The opening pages revealed "Bourbon" is tasked with hunting down and eliminating Anita, but his, or her, identity has never been revealed. And, as to be expected, more than one familiar face has boarded the train who can all be the mysterious Bourbon. What follows is dangerous and explosive battle-of-wits crossed with a game of hide-and-seek, while Conan is busy investigating the impossible murder in Cabin B. A very well-done and handled piece of storytelling that not only added an extra dimension to the regular murder investigation, but furthered the ongoing story-arc and revealed the identity of Bourbon. My sole complaint is the surprise cameo, which pretty much was put to use as a deus ex machina. They were so lucky [REDACTED] decided to put in an appearance.

The second story is a strange and mixed bag of tricks, but not for the reasons you might think, because it's mostly a pretty decent detective story. The problem is that the various components don't "gel" together all that well.

A story best described as the aftermath of the previous case and "the Mystery Train was such a disaster" that "the Sebastian family decided to make up for it" and invited Richard Moore, Rachel and Conan to their villa in Izu – apparently famous for its tennis court. When they arrive, they find a group of college tennis players who use the court to practice and one of them gives Conan a light concussion with a flying tennis racket ("mada mada dane"). Bourbon is also there under the identity he was introduced to the reader. Conan is the only one who knows it. This seriously hampers his investigation when he wakes up in his room with a body blocking the inside the door, which places him smack in the middle of another locked room murder.

I liked the premise of Conan waking up in a locked room with a murder victim and the solution to the locked room found a new and original way to use an age-old trick. Something that has often been used for a very different type of impossible crime, but the premise and locked room-trick should have been two separate stories. I think it's a waste to not have used the premise for a story in which Conan is the only suspect. You can even have a never-before encountered police inspector who learns Conan has been involved in a ton of murder cases and begins to suspect he's a homicidal child. I don't think it helped the murderer stood out like sore thumb or that the plot played second fiddle to Bourbon looking over Conan's shoulder.

The last chapter sets the stage for another Kaitou KID heist, which was alluded to in the opening chapter, but Jirokichi Sebastian had to move the exhibit in the wake of the Mystery Train disaster. But the challenge to the master thief stands. KID already promised to steal the Blushing Mermaid on the opening night of the exhibition. Something that's easier said than done, because the pendant with a red diamond is stuck to the back of a turtle, named Poseidon, who swims in a large, bulletproof aquarium surrounded by twenty guards – which is as good as burglarproof. KID lives up to his reputation and stages a grand magic trick that makes both the turtle and pendant vanish from the aquarium. And leaves behind a note saying "the shy mermaid has dissolved into foam in my hand." This story will continue in the next volume.

So, on a whole, a pretty strong and interesting volume, but with all of its strength and interest lying in the Mystery Train story. The second story was not bad, but uneven and can't judge the Kaitou KID story until I've read vol. 79. A volume containing another promising-sounding, half-a-dozen chapters spanning impossible crime story involving vampire lore. More than enough to look forward to!

Beware of Snakes: Case Closed, vol. 77 by Gosho Aoyama

This year, Viz Media will be publishing a translation of vol. 80 in Gosho Aoyama's long-running, immensely popular detective-series, Case Closed a.k.a. Detective Conan, which is amazing considering the first English release dates back to September, 2004 – roughly a decade and fifty volumes behind the original Japanese releases. So that backlog will be reduced to about twenty volumes by the end of 2021! 

Unless there's a drastic change in their schedule, Viz should catch-up with the Japanese releases sometime this decade and hand me the excuse needed to finally reread the series. While complaining about having to subsist on one or two new releases a year. But that's a post-2025 problem.

So, for now, let's tackle vol. 77, which begins with the conclusion to the kidnapping case that ended the previous volume on a cliffhanger. Detective Takagi, of the Metropolitan Police, disappears without a word and the next day a package is delivered to police with a stripped and modified tablet showing a live camera feed of the missing policeman – gag and tied to a plank on a high-rise construction with a noose around his neck. Conan helped track down the kidnapper, but this person slipped through their fingers and now it has become a race against the clock to find the ever weakening and fatigued Takagi. Satisfyingly, the ending revealed the story was a little more than merely thriller-filler.

I'm not overly fond of kidnap stories as they tend to be an author's excuse for lazy plotting, but Aoyama regularly proves himself to be the exception to the rule and knocks out a good one every now and then (e.g. vol. 72). This story is another one of his demonstrations that some ingenuity can be applied to a kidnapping plot, but here it also helped that one of the character-centered plot-threads ran through the story. So not a bad start to a new volume.

The second story is fairly simple and straightforward with a who-of-the-three situation, which is typical for the series, but the plot has a great take on the alibi problem.

Conan, Anita and Takagi happen to be nearby when a sleazy tabloid publisher, Daisuka Katsumoto, dropped to his dead from a top-floor of a condo building with a phone in his shirt pocket, which has a recent message he texted to multi people – cleverly used to isolate the three suspects from the crowd of onlookers. Conan resents the message and three phones in the crowd began to buzz. All three suspects live in the same building as the victim and even worked under him, which turns out to give them a motive as he used them to concoct a dirty smear story. A story that resulted in a suicide. Only problem is that they all possess a very unusual alibi.

The three suspects lived on the third floor of the condo complex and the victim resided on the 26th floor, but "they claimed they could prove they'd been in their condos" and could not have made the seven-minute trip to the victim's condo. And reappear seconds later on the sidewalk. What they give as evidence is "a beer with fresh foam... steam from a coffee cup... and smoke from a cigarette." So no tinkering with clocks or people's perception of time, but foam, steam and smoke that gave the suspects a solid, ten-minute alibi!

I can think of one other detective story that played with a similar idea, Arthur Porges' "Black Coffee" (1964), in which a burning cigarette and a cup of hot coffee in a locked room were the ingredients of a clever alibi-trick. The trick here is a little simpler in idea and execution, but, what propped it up, is (ROT13) gung gur zheqrere unq vzcebivfr ba gur fcbg. This made an otherwise simple trick a little bit more impressive. So, yeah, I liked it.

Unfortunately, the next story began very promising, but deteriorated and crumbled into one of the worst stories in the entire series!

Ten years ago, a nursery school principal stumbled on an uneven stone pavement with a fish bowl in his arms and was stabbed in the chest by a glass shard, but "the kanji for death was written in blood beside the corpse" – suggesting the hand of a murderer or even a serial killer. Conan/Jimmy's father dismissed and abandoned the case, unresolved, assuring everyone that they'll "never again see this bloody kanji." A decade later, a body is discovered in an alleyway with the kanji of death written in blood. However, the police defers the case to the division investigating thefts and robberies. So why do the homicide detectives refuse to touch the kanji deaths? Regrettably, the solution is preposterous and stretches credulity beyond what's reasonable to expect a reader to accept. You can blame that on the second death. I can accept that happening once, but not twice. This aspect of the story should have been solely focused on that past, unresolved case.

Only thing that somewhat saves this story is the ongoing, character-oriented story-arcs running in the background and the development in this story is very significant. Subaru Okiya observes Conan doing his Jimmy voice over the phone!

The closing story is mostly filler in order to setup vol. 78 and furthering those ongoing story lines, which begins with Anita giving Conan a Mystery Train Pass Ring to the Bell Tree Express. A steam locomotive, "made up to look like the Orient Express," which the Junior Detective League will be riding next week and Anita tells Conan she hopes "that's the only resemblance to an Agatha Christie novel" – a story that will be centerpiece of the next volume. I really look forward to its publication, but now they're on their way to a campsite in the woods. Naturally, they caught someone red handed trying to bury a body near a "Beware of Snakes" sign and this lands them in a heap of trouble. But the focus of the story is on how Anita is going to get them out of it (predictable) with ending showing that her identity, too, is compromised. 

A note for the curious: Anita packed the (temporary) antidote to APTX 4869, but refuses to share it with Conan, because he would use it "to play out your little romantic comedy." I've been saying for years that the only logical flaw in the series is Conan/Jimmy continue to keep his secret from Rachel. The third story here showed why it's cruel to keep her out of the loop ("Don't creep me out like that! You're already the spitting image of him") and the ending why it would be valuable to have her in on it. It's not like she would be any more or less danger than usual.

So, on a whole, this was a very uneven volume, but liked the conclusion to the kidnap story and the alibi-trick of the second story with the two weaker stories benefiting greatly from all the character-development and story progression being played out in the background. Not too badly. I really look forward now to reading the next volume!

Familiar Faces: Case Closed, vol. 76 by Gosho Aoyama

The 76th volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed, a.k.a. Detective Conan, opens with a big, five-chapter long story covering nearly half of the volume and starts out as a fairly standard detective story, but then the plot takes a wild left turn and becomes part of the main storyline – revealing the potential presence of a Black Organization spy. A dramatic, double-layered case that began as a routine assignment. 

Conan built a website for Richard Moore's detective agency, "Private Eye Extraordinair," which netted him the first paying client who hired him over the internet. And the case looks like easy money.

Kei Kashitsuka found a key to a coin locker in the belongings of her recently deceased brother and hired Moore to find the locker, because "it might something important that could be placed in the stiff's coffin," but text messages about scheduling results in missing each other – returning to the office without having met their client. But upon their return, they notice someone has been in the office and they find their client tied up in the bathroom with her assailant, dead as a door nail, sitting on the toilet. Kashitsuka tells them she came to the office and was met by a man claiming to be Moore's assistant, but he knocked her out with a stun gun and came to in the bathroom "bound with duct tape" when Moore with his entourage returned. The man panicked and shot himself. Only minute traces of gunshot residue found on her body and clothes confirm she didn't fire the gun, but Conan has his suspicions.

So this part of the story is basically an inverted mystery with the question how-and why it was done with the shooting being a (borderline) impossible crime and the motive is tied to a botched bank robbery. During the robbery, a bank teller was shot and his last words form one of the most elegant and natural dying messages I've come across since Ellery Queen's short-short "Diamonds in Paradise" (collected in Queen's Full, 1965). This makes for a nice little detective story, but the situation takes an unexpected turn when Conan is kidnapped and everyone comes into action to find him, which include three of the most recently introduced recurring characters, Toru Amuro, Subaru Okiya and Masumi Sera.

All three of them obviously have ulterior motives to hang around Conan and Moore, but the final page of the story suggests one of them is a Black Organization spy, "Bourbon." Considering the three suspects and Aoyama's style of plotting, Bourbon will probably turn out to be a sheep in wolves clothing pretending to be a wolf in sheep's clothing (i.e. a double agent). A good, eventful story with a new development in the ongoing storyline.

A note for the curious: there's a brief reference in this story to the "Silver Witch Case" from vol. 63, which is a fun impossible crime story about a phantom car that can fly!

Unfortunately, the second story is one of the weakest, most unconvincing stories in the series in a very long time and begins when Doc Agasa, Conan and the Junior Detective League are invited to a barbecue at the home of Sumika and Takushi Konno – a married couple who they met and helped during a camping trip. However, they're constantly arguing with each other and ends with Amy seeing Sumika threatening Takushi with a knife and yelling "I've had enough... I'll kill you." But when Agasa and Conan hurry to the scene, it's a wounded Sumika who's on the floor with a knife sticking out of her body. This could have been a decent enough detective story and one line in particular, "you always get carried away with pranks," suggested the Konnos could have prepared a prank for the young detectives by staging a little domestic murder. Takushi simply took advantage of it to take his wife out the picture in a way that looked like self-defense. Sadly, the solution leaned heavily character manipulation and timing, which was neither cleverly done or very convincing. And the happy, lighthearted ending struck a jarring note with all the drama preceding it.

The third and last story of the volume is a Metropolitan Police Love Story, but this time, it's a thriller! Detective Takagi disappears and a package is delivered to his colleague and girlfriend, Sato, which contains a modified tablet with a live stream – showing Takagi in a precarious situation. Takagi lies flat on his back, tied up and gag, on a wooden plank on a very high construction surrounded by tarp. A noose is tied around his neck and without any clues, or demands, they only have his past cases to go in order to find him. A story ending on a cliffhanger that will be concluded in the next volume.

On a whole, it's not too interesting a story (so far), but one aspect of the plot deserves to be pointed out. This is the second time, in the entire series, Western readers have an advantage over Japanese readers when it comes to a language-based clue, which this time was impossible to hide in the English translation. You've to be denser than Arthur Hastings to miss it. You can find that first story in vol. 55.

So, yeah, it's difficult to rate this volume, because all of its strength is in the first story, but followed by a very weak one and something I fear will turn out to be nothing more than thriller-filler. But then again, if you're this far into the series, you'll be more than happy with the first story!

Ask DNA: Case Closed, vol. 75 by Gosho Aoyama

The 75th volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed, originally titled Detective Conan, begins, as so often is the case with this series, with the conclusion to the story that left the previous volume with an open end, which began with a dead man's letter summoning Harley Hartwell to Tokyo – where he and Conan become involved with the murders of two of the dead man's relatives. Conan and Harley were present when his son ate a randomly picked, poisoned slice of cake and Harley found the body of his mother in her study. However, "she was alone in the study" and "the room was guarded by cops." So it was either suicide or "a locked room murder."

This is a long, involved and somewhat complicated story in which two different cases overlap and the focus in these last two chapters are on the two poisoning-tricks, because the plot-threads revolving around Harley's dead client are quickly resolved through a written confession. Such as who killed him and why his dying message was destroyed. Conan and Harley turn their attention to the brace of seemingly impossible poisonings.

Thankfully, the weak and dangerous explanation to the first poisoning, given in the previous volume, turned out to be a false-solution with the actual solution being so much better, cleverer and more believable – a neat trick making good use of the visual comic book format. The second (locked room) poisoning-trick is a lot harder to swallow and the method struck me as very unreliable. But, in either case, it was disturbing to see how carelessly the murderer flung cyanide around the place like it was candy on the 5th of December.

So, on a whole, a good and decent enough story, but not one of the best Conan/Harley team-up stories. Not by a long shot.

The second story is an interesting one! Conan and Rachel accidentally discover that someone is posing as her father, Richard Moore, who has been visiting the 70-year-old Takae Kiritani and "solving cases free of charge." Moore refusing to accept money? Something smells fishy! Conan and Rachel confront the man posing as the great "Sleeping Moore," Ryohei Onda, who turns out to be a young college student and is engaged to the granddaughter of the old lady, but why the deception. Ryohei explained that she had been afraid of burglars and posing as a famous detective, to help install new locks, helped to make her feel safer, but she kept calling him to give small cases to solve. Such as finding a lost cat or why her TV kept changing the channels even though she "wasn't touching the zapper." Conan decided to help fake Moore solve the case of the living room poltergeist, who kept changing the channels, but then a murder is discovered next door.

A very loud, rude and much disliked resident is found dead when his neighbors forced open the door of his apartment, because his alarm-clock kept beeping, where they find him slumped against a wall with his throat slit and clutching a bloodied knife – a key is lying near the body. Conan immediately deduces that the murderer has to be one of the three neighbors who discovered the body, but the murderer's alibi-trick proved to be a tougher nut to crack than the locked room-trick.

This is undeniably a minor entry in the series, but also a perfect example of Aoyama's abilities and talent as both a plotter and storyteller. A relatively simplistic story with multiple, beautifully dovetailed layers. Firstly, you have the breakdown of the locked room and alibi-tricks. Secondly, the true reason why Ryohei is posing as Richard Moore and why he's so interested in the old lady. Thirdly, why the old lady habitually raises her voice and barks out orders. Everything is connected, one way or another, which include the throwaway problem of the living room poltergeist. Yes, Conan's initial solution was wrong! So, yes, I liked this amusing and clever story.

The third story is another chapter in the ongoing soap, known as the Metropolitan Police Love Story-arc, in which Detective Chiba is entirely oblivious that his first, long-lost love is the new police recruit of the traffic department, Neako Miike. Conan and the Junior Detective League try to bring them together as they're trying to find someone who spray paints cars with the slightly hostile message, "DROP DEAD." The plot hinges on finding a link between the vandalized cars and why they were being targeted, which had been well-clued in advance. Another relatively minor, but good, story.

The fourth and last story ends this volume with a punch to the gut! A dark and sad story as good and strong as "The Poisonous Coffee Case," from vol. 60, which brings Richard Moore to a belated engagement party of an old high school friend, Raita Banba, who will be married to the next day to Hatsune Kamon – only she never makes it to the wedding. Hatsune burned to death that night and evidence at the scene suggests it was murder.

I spotted the key piece of the plot on the second page, but refused to believe what I was reading and didn't expect Aoyama would go there. But he did go there. And how! I know most of you don't read this series and you might have gotten the idea from the bright, colorful covers or cartoon-like premise that Case Closed is a comic cozy, but Case Closed is no stranger to some gloom and doom. I already mentioned the very noir-ish and excellent "The Poisonous Coffee Case" or the second story here has Conan (pretty much a small child) crawling around a dead man who had bled to death in his home. Case Closed is by Western standards not exactly kid friendly (rated T+ in America), but it's still a traditional, puzzle-oriented detective series. And these type of detective stories tend to eschew certain crimes or subjects. For example, I've read an ungodly amount of detective stories, but can only remember three novels in which a rape occurred. While this story uses something very different, I honestly never expected it to be used in this series.

Even with stumbling to it early on in the story, the solution still delivered its intended blow. Even without the tragic ending, the plot is a minor technical masterpiece with a solution woven around to normally unpardonable sins. One of them is a personal dislike and the other a rule that was set in stone nearly a century ago, but miraculously, they both worked under these very specific set of circumstances. Proving once again that the rules and conventions of the detective story can be broken, or bend, but only by people who understand and respect them. Aoyama also demonstrated modern forensic science, like DNA, doesn't have to be a stumbling block or obstacle.

My only complaint is that [redacted] decision seems a little too radical and drastic. There's no denying [redacted] situation is not an enviable one, but surely, there must have been a better solution. Otherwise, this was a very good and memorable story that came close to matching "The Poisonous Coffee Case." The story also introduces a new face to the ever-growing cast of recurring characters, Toru Amuro, who's a private detective.

So, yeah, a pretty solid volume with two minor, but well written and plotted, stories bookended by a big Conan/Harley team-up and one of the most tragic cases in the series. I wasn't disappointed.

Sweet Poison: Case Closed, vol. 74 by Gosho Aoyama

The 74th of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed, published in Japan as Detective Conan, begins with the conclusion to the case that closed out vol. 73 in which an armed man with explosives strapped to his chest takes Richard Moore, Rachel, Sera and three aspiring female mystery novelists hostage – demanding that the famous "Sleeping Moore" identifies the murderer of his sister. Miku Sawaguri had become one of the youngest, bestselling novelists of Japan when she was found dead, in a locked room, at a hot spring resort. She apparently committed suicide, but her brother refused that explanation.

Just before she died, Miku posted several messages online indicating she had three visitors to her hotel room, whom she referred to as the elephant, fox and mouse, to ask for an autograph. So one of these three visitors must be the killer, but who and how?

Conan has to assume his original identity and reason with the hostage taker over the phone to both solve a murder, in record time, as well as preventing a small bloodbath, which is done with an excellent use of the false solution – based on the victim's superbly titled novel, The Grim Reaper's Funeral Procession. Conan even gives a brief description of the plot and it's a psychological thriller about a homicide cop investigating his own murders. Anyway, the locked room-trick is nothing special and a slight variation on an age-old trick, but the vital clue pointing straight to the murderer was beautifully hidden in plain sight. So, technically, a good and solid story, but nothing to make it standout in the series.

The second story is going to be hard to properly describe, because the plot appears to be all over the place with recurring characters turning up or being mentioned. A trend that runs, like a red-thread, through the entire volume.

Doc Agasa found an old pot in his shed that he once bought at a flea market and posted a video online asking for an appraisal, but Anita accidentally appeared in the video. Conan is afraid that the video might lead members of the Black Organization to their doorstep, which is exactly what seems to happen when Amy, not Anita, is kidnapped. But the case takes a bizarre turn when they find a cellphone with a note saying, "read the text and follow the orders." Whatever they expected the ransom demand to be, it certainly wasn't that!

I've said several times before that kidnapping stories are my least favorite kind of detective story, because they're rarely any good, but, every now and then, a truly good one turns up and it's usually in this series – such as the excellent second story from vol. 72. This one is even better! I thought it was very clever to (ROT13) pbire-hc bar pevzr (gursg) jvgu nabgure (xvqanccvat) giving gur xvqanccref na rkphfr gb hfr gur eht gb jenc naq pneel Nzl va jvgubhg nggenpgvat fhfcvpvba. Normally, this would be good, if minor, entry in the series, but then there are all the recurring characters suspiciously sneaking around in the background or mysteriously being referred to. Masumi Sera is asking pesky questions and obviously is up to something. Subaru Okiya is spying and eavesdropping on Conan. A lost cat features in the story and has a coincidental link to another familiar face in the series. Black Organization is ominously referred to as "Them."

Somehow, Aoyama got more out of the plot than was originally in out with the result being an excellent and memorable story. A story that comes highly recommended to fans of Edward D. Hoch. You'll know why when you learn the solution. Only disturbing thing is how effortlessly Amy shrugged off her harrowing kidnapping experience. Have the Junior Detective League really become this callous and jaded?

The third story brings Harley Hartwell (Heji Hattori) back to Tokyo, but, before he can tell Conan why, Kazuha calls him to tell that she's detained at a restaurant where a man had died in the bathroom – apparently after eating poisoned candy. A foreign guy had found the body and ordered nobody to leave. And that guy is the FBI agent, André Camel, who previously appeared in vol. 58. Camel overheard the victim talking on his phone to someone he called his childhood friend and admitting to have murdered a man ("I'm the one who poisoned Abe"). Then he heard a groan, broke down the door and found the body. But did Camel correctly understood what he heard? Masumi Sera proposes to use the case to settle the friendly rivalry between the Great Detectives of the East and West, Jimmy Kudo (Conan) and Harley Hartwell.

I imagine Ho-Ling must have loved this story with its linguistic clues and plot balanced on the differences, and nuances, between regional dialects. And how it can even fool native Japanese speakers. A good and decent enough story that, once again, elevated by everything playing out in the background.

The last story tells why Harley traveled to Tokyo, "a letter from a dead man," who expressed his wish to meet the young detective to confess a sin and told him he'll be waiting at "the house of he murdered man" on "the night of the next full moon" – enclosed is a key and an address in Osaka. The writer is the president of design company, Wakamatsu, who was suspected to have been killed by a burglar at his summer villa. But when the appointment was held, they found someone in the bathroom who inexplicably "vanished into thin air." A message had been carved into the wall, "E-Y-E."

Harley arranged a meeting with the victim's family to discuss the case, but they couldn't been inside for more than 30-minutes when one of the family members is impossibly poisoned with a slice of cake. A single slice of poisoned cake that could not have been poisoned or have been forced upon the victim to take. These kind of mysterious poisonings have become a staple of Case Closed and often have solutions that are simultaneously very simple and devilish ingenious (e.g. "The Loan Shark Murder Case" from vol. 15), but this one was a little too simplistic and dangerously careless with cyanide! There's also an obliterated dying message that has to be found at the first crime scene, which is in the hands of two other characters who had previous appearances. Very fitting that they had to be the ones to handle that side of the case. Finally, a second poisoning adds a third victim to the bodycount and ends this volume on a cliffhanger.

On a whole, this was not a bad volume at all, but all of the stories, including the splendid and original second story, used the appearances, cameos and references to all those recurring characters to bolster their plots. For example, the third story would have been a very minor, forgettable case without Agent Camel, Masumi Sera and the battle-of-wits between Conan and Harley. But that's one of the perks of a long-running series that put in the effort to setup an entire fictional universe. So, yeah, an enjoyable volume for fans.

On a last, somewhat related note: three months ago, I posted my fan theory, "Detective Conan: Who's the Boss?," speculating on the true identity of the B.O. leader. Ho-Ling and 8bitorne shot the poor thing to pieces in the comments, but still like the idea of him being Conan's Moriarty.

Detective Conan: Who's the Boss?

Some weeks ago, I discussed Tetsuya Ayukawa's The Red Locked Room (2020) and ended the review with the promise to post my fan theory regarding the secret identity of the leader of the Black Organization, which is the red-thread running through the main storyline of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed – published outside of the English-speaking world as Detective Conan. Mild spoilers ahead!

I'm currently at vol. 73 and wanted to bridge the gap with vol. 74 by rereading and reviewing the landmark story, The Sunset Manor Case, from vol. 30. A story that takes place in palatial, Western-style manor house where six detectives have gathered to solve a decades old mystery and getting murdered. I'm not far enough in the series to officially know that the elusive boss made an appearance, of sorts, in that story, but bits and pieces have been spoiled to me over the years. And when going through the story, it suddenly occurred to me who the boss could be. A character who shrewdly cloaked himself in someone else's feathers, but not in the way long-time readers of the series might assume.

First, I've to get those annoying, but necessary, spoilers out of the way. Continue to read at your own risk. The reader has been warned!

On December 13, 2017, Gosho Aoyama revealed that the boss is, or was, the multi-millionaire who owned Sunset Manor, Renya Karasuma, who "died half a century ago under mysterious circumstances" and, if he's still alive, he would be over a 140-years-old – suggesting he was the first one to rejuvenate. And assumed a new identity. Just like Jimmy/Conan in vol. 1. Very likely, he has appeared more prominently under that identity and has interacted with Conan. I think it's not unreasonable to assume that this identity had already been decided on when the series started with the idea existing some time before the first chapter was published.

So, if you take a look at the earliest characters Aoyama created, one character stands out as a possible candidate to be revealed as the rejuvenated boss. A character who did not originate in Detective Conan and would not appear in the series until that important story in vol. 30. I'm talking about the great teenage detective and arch rival of Kaito KID, Saguru Hakuba! Admittedly, I've only so-called "psychological clues" and a bit of educated guesswork to give as evidence, but they make sense to me. You can decide for yourself.

Saguru Hakuba: "Do you have any proof of that, Tom?"

Renya Karasuma is depicted in vol. 30. as an ominous silhouette with a pet crow perched on his left shoulder and, considering how he has clung to life, the passage of time is likely to great concern to him. Hakuba is hyper-conscience of the flow of time and can note time down to the millisecond, which is quite a developed sense of time for a 17-year-old. Something you would expect from a much older man whose "mind time" quickened its pace as he started to grow older. Since it's very possible Renya rejuvenated more than once, his "mind time" could have developed to the point where he's not only aware of the minutes and seconds ticking away, but the milliseconds as well – making it all the more interesting they appeared in vol. 30. A story in which clocks and outward appearances were integral to revealing the secret of Sunset Manor. You could read it as a metaphorical clue that someone more brighter and appealing was hidden behind that dark silhouette. This leads me to what is perhaps the most tangible clue.

Aoyama is very fond of parallel, or mirrored, characterization that he primarily reserves for his main and recurring characters. Jimmy/Conan and Kaitou KID are the most obvious example of this. But if you accept Hakuba and Renya are one and the same person, you can see this mirror approach to characterization all over their double identities.

I believe the most blatant clue is Renya's depiction, in vol. 30, as a dark silhouette with a black crow on his shoulder and Hakuba debuted in that same story carrying his pet hawk, Watson. Crows and hawks are natural enemies! Renya and Hakuba also mirror each other outwardly, an old, Moriarty-like master criminal and a young, Sherlock Holmes-inspired detective, but apparently, Renya tends to overthink his schemes – which makes him prone to mistakes. If my idea is correct, you can see this mistake reflected in his disguise.

Jimmy and Conan

A disguise that was put on a little too thick when he debuted, in Magic Kaitou, wearing a cape and deerstalker, which he later ditched, but could indicate Aoyama had already decided to make him the boss in Detective Conan. Renya is based on Professor Moriarty. So why not make him pose like a young detective who used to dress up like Sherlock Holmes who has the Japanese Arsène Lupin as his nemesis, which also gives him a double-layered motive to hunt down the KID. Firstly, KID is the kind of character who could become a potential threat to his organization and, one way or another, has to be eliminated. Secondly, a long-standing rivalry with a master criminal cements his position as one of the good guys. Thirdly, it would be a masterstroke to hide your main villain in another series and only have him appear in the main series as a novelty, crossover character to make some of the bigger stories even more special. It would be one of the greatest play on the least-likely-suspect!

There is, however, a weakness in my theory: Hakuba has two known relatives, a father and uncle, who can only be explained as members of the organization posing as relatives and help prop up his false identity. I know this is stretching things, but remember Renya has the resources and time to create such an elaborate identity that he could (literally) grow into over the years. And the relatives hold positions in society that can be very handy to a criminal organization. Hakuba father is the Superintendent General of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and his uncle is the owner of a research laboratory, which is another aspect that could be tied to the main storyline of Detective Conan.

When you take all of this together, there's one more thing that stands out as a potential clue. As previously mentioned, Hakuba made his first appearance, in Detective Conan, in the Sunset Manor Case and remarked that, "after 40 years," he was "finally able to step inside the scene of the tragedy" he had "long heard of only in frightened whispers" – not that he had never been inside before. And that the decades-old tragedy was hardly his "first reason for coming." In the story, his reason for being there is Kaitou KID, but if Hakuba is Renya, his remarks meant something very differently.

So what do you make of my theory? Do you think its close to the truth or just another internet fan theory that will turn out to be completely wrong? This is one post I would very much like some feedback on.

If this post happens to attract Detective Conan readers, I reviewed volumes 38-73 under the Gosho Aoyama tag. I also discussed two brilliantly original impossible crime episodes, The Case of the Seance Double Locked Room and The Cursed Mask Laughs Coldly, and compiled a list with my favorite locked room mysteries from the manga series. Occasionally, I dip into The Kindaichi Case Files or Q.E.D., but the primary focus of the blog is on classic, or neo-classical, detective stories and novels. That where I'll return to with my next post. So stay tuned.