A Hostage Situation: Case Closed, vol. 67 by Gosho Aoyama

The 67th volume in Gosho Aoyama's long-running series Case Closed, originally published in Japan as Detective Conan, customarily begins with the conclusion of the story that began at the end of the previous volume – an inverted detective story that uses a popular sub-culture to create a perfect alibi. So let's dig in.

Previously, Richard Moore, Rachel and Conan were getting a bite to eat at a diner when the body of a young woman is found in the restroom dressed as a Gothic Lolita. She had rope and scratch marks on her throat. The murderer is known to the reader, a close friend of the victim, but the problem is that the murderer possesses "an airtight alibi." Conan has a keen eye for details and shatters the alibi based on a broken drinking glass, fingerprints and the fact that the victim wasn't wearing the fake nails that came with the Gothic Lolita getup.

I'll admit that this is not one of the strongest stories in the series, but passable enough and thought it was interesting how Aoyama used the particulars of a niche-culture to create an alibi-trick. What can I say? Christopher Bush has given me a new appreciation for alibi stories.

The second story consists of a single chapter and concerns an elderly men, who seems full of life and positivist, but Conan spots a number of holes in his story and together with the Junior Detective League they prevent not one, but two, tragedies – which somewhat reminded me of Agatha Christie's "Wasps' Nest" (collected in Double Sin and Other Stories, 1961). These one-chapter stories are incredibly rare in Case Closed and are usually nothing more than filler material to bridge a (publication) gap between story-lines. The end of this story has a reference to the hostage case from volume 65 and the man who closely resembled the supposedly dead Shuichi Akai. And this reference is very relevant to what comes next.

The third story, covering no less than five chapters, is complex in nature and has multiple layers stacked upon each other.

Richard Moore is hired by an anonymous client to find out who has been sending this person red, long sleeved shirts in the mail every week and Moore is asked to meet with the client at the sporting goods store at the Baker Department Store, but there Conan and Rachel spot Ms. Jodie – who's looking there for a trail of the Akai look-a-like. The look-a-like who was spotted in the hostage case was wearing a limited edition, black-knit hat with the logo of the department store on it. However, this apparently simple case quickly becomes a dangerous one when an innocent shopper is knocked out in the restroom and a masked man straps a remote control bomb to his body! The perpetrator demands that whomever has been sending him the red shirts reveals himself. And the Akai look-a-like is present in the department store.

However, their problems are only just beginning: Gin and Vodka are waiting in a car outside of the department store with Gin pointing a gun at Kir, who killed Akai in volume 59, because the Black Organization has become aware someone is walking around the city who closely resembles Akai and they suspect they might have been played a sucker – which is why they stationed Chianti in a top-floor window, across the department store, with a sniper rifle. A very tight situation, to say the least.

So Conan has to diffuse the hostage situation by cracking the code of the red shirts and the torn receipts, which show that all the shirts were purchased at exactly 12:29. The code is a nifty twist on Conan Doyle "The Adventure of the Dancing Men" (collected in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, 1903), but perhaps a little impractical and a little bit too easily solved. Still, it was definitely an ingenious code. I won't give anything away what happened with the Akai look-a-like or the Black Organization, but Aoyama spoiled one plot-thread in the ongoing story-line when he injected Subaru into the story. Aoyama gave him way too many lines and facial expressions, which gave his own story-line away. I know who you are now, Subaru!

Anyway, this was a good, multi-layered story with a whole group of familiar characters moving around in the background and long-time readers of the series will definitely appreciate it.

The last three chapters are a continuation of the Metropolitan Police Love Story from volume 66 with a simplistic murder of a pawnshop owner thrown in for good measure, which will be concluded in the next volume, but I already identified the murderer – because the attempt of misdirection here is beneath Aoyama. Granted, I have seen silhouette-trick (or mistake) before, but still, it's childishly easy.

So, all things considered, this was a pretty decent entry in the series with the hostage case as its highlight and an improvement over the previous volume, which only had one really good story. Well, I had been warned in the comments on my review of volume 65 (linked above) that this period in the series experienced a slight dip in quality, but slowly gets back into form as it moves towards volume 70. I can live with that considering how strong this series has been up till now.

Cherry Blossom Memories: Case Closed, vol. 66 by Gosho Aoyama

The 66th installment of Gosho Aoyama's hugely popular, long-running Case Closed series, published in Japan as Detective Conan, turned out to be the first volume in ages that was completely underwhelming with only one of the three (complete) stories being any good – an impossible crime tale about a hungry, haunted store house that eats stolen treasure. But more on that delectable story later.

This volume opens with the concluding chapter of the "mystery of bloodred wall" that introduced police-detective of Takaaki Morofushi, of Nagano, who has a personal link to the tragedy that took place in "the Manor of Death." A mansion built by a millionaire and gifted to a group of artists, but one of them died tragically and ever since the place has garnered an unfavorable reputation. This reputation was compounded when another artist was starved to death in one of the room that had been blocked from the outside. However, the victim left an elaborate dying message.

One of the walls had been painted red and two wooden chairs had been nailed together, back-to-back, which were respectively painted black and white.

I've seen this dying clue referred to as fantastic and epic, but I think that would be overstating it. Nevertheless, the dying message deserves to be praised for tackling a problem often encountered with these clues, because they're regularly altered, destroyed or faked by the murderer – occasionally they were even left unfinished. So they don't really work as dying message stories, but here the victim had the time needed to create a destruction-proof dying message. And he did by simply giving it a double meaning. I only know of one other example in which the victim had the time to protect his dying message, which was in the Columbo classic Try and Catch Me (1977).

So I would definitely rank this story as a notable example of the dying message and something tells me Ellery Queen would have approved of it. Something tells me they would have appreciated the true meaning behind the painted wall and chairs.

Regrettably, the next story is a poor example of the unbreakable alibi. The Junior Detective League are at the cinema to see the latest monster movie, Gomera Final, where they find a familiar face, Inspector Santos, who's mooning about his unanswered love for Detective Sato. She changed his life when, as children, a soda drink decorated with paper cherry blossoms. The cherry blossom is "the emblem of the Japanese police" and that makes it "the flower of courage." One of the woes of the ongoing saga known as the Metropolitan Police Love Story.

At the cinema, they meet a woman who confides in them that she's being stalked and when they accompany the woman back to her condo, they discover the body of her boyfriend. Everyone knows she committed the murder, but the problem is that she was with Santos and the Junior Detective League at the cinema watching a movie. However, the alibi-trick is ridiculous with a lot that was left to chance, such as "befriending the people seated around her," establishing her alibi, but the whole trick was risky, particularly how the witnesses were used, everything could have gone wrong – like a certain someone waking up or a late moviegoer taking one of the unoccupied seats. And how she established her presence in the cinema, during the murder, was plain ridiculous.

Christopher Bush and Freeman Wills Crofts have rekindled my love of the alibi problem, but this alibi-trick was unbelievable rubbish that, even in a comic book setting, was hard to believe.

The next (locked room) story is my favorite from this volume and begins with the news of "a string of thefts," but the Junior Detective League are discussing the story of "the monster store house." A class-mate of Mitch was playing hide-and-seek in the neighborhood and was looking for a friend when he peeked through the top-floor window of an old store house, but the place was filled with expensive looking antiques – someone was staring at him from behind the treasure. The door was locked and nobody answered when he called. According to the owner, the building had been locked for years and nobody could possible be in it. And, when he unlocks the door, the place was entirely empty!

The store house was designed by a 19th century craftsman, Kichiemon Samizu, who also constructed the impenetrable vault from volumes 64 and 65. The place is reputedly haunted and, if you place anything inside, "a monster will gobble it up."

So they decide to take a look at this haunted store house and Conan witnesses this vanishing mystery first hand, when he looks through the top-floor window, but the room is, once again, completely bare when the owner unlocks the door – except for footprints in the dust. You can probably guess the nature of this locked room trick. However, it was still nicely constructed story with a nifty way to resettle a 19th century-type of locked room story in a contemporary setting. There is a nice side-story in which the members of the Junior Detective League try to upstage Conan. And he has to figure out who's giving them support in the background.

So a nice, old-fashioned impossible crime story that reminded me of Keikichi Osaka's short-short "The Hungry-Letter Box" (The Ginza Ghost, 2017).

The next story brings Harley Hartwell and Kazuha all the way from Osaka to Tokyo, because they need help finding a student attending Teitan University, Teruaki Kunisue, who grew up next door to Kazuha. Kunisue was in Osaka on holiday and Kazuha had made him a lucky charm, but Harley had accidentally given him Kazuha's charm. And she has a good reason to want it back before Harley can lay his hands on it and discover her secret.

A search that leads them to a sports bar, where Kanisue was assaulted, and Conan has to deduce, who of three suspects, had attacked him. I think the attacker was fairly obvious to spot for more than one reason. A simple and forgettable story.

Finally, the last chapter of this volume sets up an inverted detective story about the murder of a Gothic Lolita in the restroom of a dinner. As to be expected, Richard Moore, Rachel and Conan were present when the body was discovered. And that story will be concluded in the next volume.

So, all in all, this volume was rather underwhelming and only saved by the concluding chapter of the red wall case and the story about the hungry store house. Hopefully, the next volume is back up to its usual strength.

The Iron Tanuki: Case Closed, vol. 65 by Gosho Aoyama

The story opening the 65th volume of Gosho Aoyama's acclaimed, long-running detective series, Case Close, begins where the previous one ended and pitches an imitation of the infamous gentleman thief, Kaito KID, against the original as they clash over the contents of the Iron Tanuki – an impenetrable safe constructed by the 19th century puzzle master, Kichiemon Samizu. Caught in between them is the owner of the burglarproof safe, Jirokichi Sebastian, who acted in previous volumes (44 and 61) as a foil to KID. So far, he has been unable to ensnare the elusive thief in one of his traps.

The vault where the Iron Tanuki is kept is fitted with weight sensors, which transforms the room into an iron cage when as much as a hair touches the floor, but in the previous volume a note was left there without triggering the alarm. A note from the real KID announcing that he's coming for "the treasure in the tanuki's belly." However, the story progressed differently than I expected.

It's suspected early on that KID might already be in the house, disguised as an employee of his long-time nemesis, which is what you'd expect, but then the story begins to focus a little more on the unusual behavior of Jirokichi – such as why he has been taking two dinner plates and a walking stick with him when inspecting the safe. Or why a man, "obsessed with catching the KID," is blocking the investigation.

Conan was, as usually, present when all of this was going down and not only deduces as who KID has been posing, but also figured out why Jirokichi was behaving out of character. And this has everything to do with what they find behind the impenetrable door of the Iron Tanuki. A heartwarming explanation that turned this rogue's tale into a humanist detective story with KID as its unexpected hero ("even I bow before the original gentleman thief, Arséne Lupin"). Undoubtedly, the best story from this volume!

The second story appears to be picking up a plot-thread that was dropped after the all important, novel-length events from volume 58 and its direct aftermath in volume 59, which begins when a shocked Jodie Sterling notices the face of Shuichi Akai in a crowd of people – who supposedly died in a fiery car wreck. However, they both become hostages when a group of armed men storm Teito Bank, but the man who resembled Akai disappeared after the situation is resolved. So this was a rather minor story, but good to see that the story-line with Akai is being picked up again.

Unfortunately, the next story is not all that interesting and only functions as a bridge to the fourth and longest story in this volume.

Doc Agasa and Anita are stranded with a broken-down car and no money, but they're offered a ride from two people, a man and a woman, who happened to be on their way to see Richard Moore. However, Doc Agasa and Anita overhear them talking about Conan, saying how being "half dead ought to be enough for a kid" or how they could have prepped for "a full massacre," had they been given more time, but all of this turns out to be a misunderstanding – hinging on the knowledge of slang common in the Nagano prefecture. Their reason for coming to Tokyo is to consult Moore on the unexplained "mystery of the bloodred wall."

There's a house in the woods, initially known as the Manor of Hope, which was built by a millionaire and gifted to a group of gifted artists to help them pursue their dreams, but ever since one of them was found dead in the cellar room the place garnered a sinister reputation – now locally referred to as "the Manor of Death." Recently, the manor became the stage of a murder as bizarre as it was gruesome.

One of the artists, who was married to the dead woman, was locked inside a room by blocking the door on the outside with crates packed with books and the victim was slowly starved to death. But he left behind a curious and elaborate dying message: a wall had been spray-painted red and two wooden chairs had been nailed together, back to back, which were painted black and white. After this the victim threw all of his tools, paints and lacquers from a small window high in the wall.

So the problem of the plot is intriguing enough by itself, but the story also introduces police-detective Takaaki Morofushi, of Nagano, whose nickname is "Kong Ming." One of the many references in this story to the 14th century epic novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Unfortunately, the concluding chapter of this case, which holds the solution, is part of the next volume and that one won't be published until a month from now. Oh, woe is me!

Anyway, this was a good, nicely balanced collection of stories with the two standout cases book-ending the middle ones that flirted with the ongoing story-line that runs like a red-thread through the series. So I really look forward to the next volume. Not only to find out how the last case will be concluded, but also to see what happens next with the Akai story-line. Until then, I'll probably use April to continue my probing of the Q.E.D. series and perhaps even return to the Detective Conan movies.

Old Scars: Case Closed, vol. 64 by Gosho Aoyama

Last month, I reviewed the 63rd volume of Gosho Aoyama's long-running series, Detective Conan, published in the U.S. under the title Case Closed and the stories in that collection were jam-packed with unusual, high-quality impossible crime material – ranging from an inexplicable poisoning at a revolving sushi bar to a phantom car that was seen flying. A gem of a volume that will always stand as one of my personal favorites in the series.

So the impossible crime, two of them focusing on cars, was a recurring motif of that volume, but the 64th also had a dominant theme running like a red thread through all of its stories. All of the stories here, in some way, draw on the past of the semi-regular characters or events that have occurred in previous volumes. And scars! Scars play an important role in the two main, interlinked stories.

The opening story marks the return of, what was supposedly to be, a one-time character from volume 45, Ejiri, who was the victim of an attempted murder, but Conan and Doc Agasa saved his life – which is why he filled in for the latter when he was unable to take the Junior Detective League on a short fishing trip. On their return, they pass a secluded spot in the sea known as Horn Rock. A cursed, rocky islet, shaped like a giant horn, legendary for dooming fishermen and blessing children. So they decide to take a brief detour and explore the jagged rock, but upon their arrival they make a gruesome discovery.

It begins when they find words carved into a rock wall, "mackerel, carp, sea bream, flounder," with a swimming fin jammed between two rocks right next to the words. This leads them to the body of a woman in a wet-suit and the clean mouth piece of the oxygen masks makes it clear to Conan that this murder.

A fourth clue turns up when they discover the victim's diving watch with Akamine Angel Fish Club engraved on the back of the watch, but the word Fish had been scraped off. At this moment, three of her diving friends turns up and becomes very clear that one of them left her behind on the rocky islet to die, which she understood and left behind a trail of clues that would identify her killer – only problem being that this elaborate dying message doesn't really translate into English. And that's often a problem with dying messages, codes and word puzzles in this series. Nevertheless, the story was a fun one and the return of a relatively minor character from a previous case, once again, drives home the idea that the series takes place in a (living) universe of its own.

The second story primarily serves as an introduction to the third case and has a pretty obvious explanation, but still had some points of interest.

A very wealthy, but blind, woman bought a lottery ticket on a whim and won 100 million yen (about 1 million dollars), which she wants to give away to the boy who saved her as a child. She only knows the boy's nickname and that he suffered an injury that should have left a scar across his chest or back. Only problem is that two men came forward with a long scar on their chest or back who claim to be the boy from twenty years ago. So she decided to hire the famous detective, Richard Moore, to figure out who of the two is speaking the truth. The answer becomes pretty obvious, as the story progresses, but Conan discovers that the regular cast of police-characters are staking out the place outside and the reason is that one of the scarred men could be a notorious serial killer who gave Superintendent McLaughin (originally named Kiyonaga Matsumoto) a facial scar – before disappearing over fifteen years ago.

A note for the curious: the blind client (partially) sees through Conan's secret when she finds out that he's not "a teenager whose voice hadn't broken yet," but "a little boy." Or, as she calls him, "Sherlock Holmes disguised as a child."

The third case deals with a final attempt by the police capture this serial killer, who's known to whistle "Let It Be," but ever since this killer disappeared from scene fifteen years ago the statute of limitation has been running out. So they only have one shot left to bring this sword-wielding murderer to justice, but then, inexplicably, the killer strikes again. This time the victim is a well-known criminal psychologist, who issued a challenge to the murderer on television, which ended with him being stabbed to death in his condo. However, the victim left a (solvable) dying message this time.

So as a detective story, this serial killer case is pretty good and relatively well-clued, even if some of the hints hinge on the jargon of Mahjong players, but where the plot really shines is in telling the stories of the policemen who usually play second-fiddle to Conan in the background. We get to know how the Superintendent got his face-scar and the reader is told the tragic story of a police detective who never made it into the series, because he was killed in an attempt to apprehend the murderer. And then there is, what is known as the Metropolitan Police Love Story, between Takagi and Sato that actually appears to have some real progress here. This whole story-arc strongly reminded me of the 87th Precinct series by Ed McBain.

Finally, the last chapter lays the premise of a new story and sees the return of Serena Sebastian's incomparable relative, Uncle Jirokichi, who has become a foil to that famous gentleman burglar, Kaito KID – who has matched wits with the old man in volumes 44 and 61. A fake Kaito KID has promised to loot his "impenetrable safe," known as the Iron Tanuki, which had been built by "the renowned 19th-century craftsman Kichiemon Samizu just before his death." This attracts the attention of the real Kaito KID and announces that he's coming for "the treasure in the tanuki's belly." And this story will come to a head in the next volume.

On a whole, this was another pretty solid volume with good stories and interesting character-development for the police-detective characters. The next volume is already on my pile, but will probably save that one for next month.

Dangerous Driving

"You'll get pinched for reckless driving."

- Captain Stoyner (William Gore's There's Death in the Churchyard, 1934)

The 63rd volume of Gosho Aoyama's ever-expanding series, known around the world as either Case Closed or Detective Conan, begins with the final two chapters of the story that ended the previous volume and concerns a locked car mystery – reminiscent of Edward D. Hoch's "Captain Leopold and the Impossible Murder" (collected in Murder Impossible, 1990). A car driven by a dead man who was the only occupant of the vehicle!

This miraculous situation followed immediately upon the events of the main story-arc in the previous volume and occurred when our hero's were driving homeward.

A car sped past them on the freeway and came to a standstill against the guardrail, but when they investigated they found a dead man behind the wheel with ligature marks across his throat. The man had been throttled to death. Only problem is that he was only person found inside the car. A peculiar problem that finally offers a case for the dream-team of Jimmy Kudo and Harley Hartwell, "the two biggest teen detectives in Japan," who immediately begin to check out the cars that were netted in a road blockade by the police and they picked three cars with potential suspects – all of whom turned out to have a personal connection with the murdered man.

The victim is identified as the leader of a street racing team, The Red Comets, who was involved in a deadly accident and, as to be expected, that past tragedy proves to be the heart and soul of the case. But the brainy part is definitely the devious trick used to murder a lonely driver, inside his car, while speeding down the freeway. Hoch could not have imagined a better explanation to this particular impossible problem!

An additional complication of this story is that Kudo's serum is rapidly losing its potency and this gives him a limited amount of time to solve the case, because the maintenance of his long-guarded secret depends on it. Goddammit, Kudo! Just tell her already!

The next three chapters form a nifty little impossible crime story about "a murder that could only be committed with sushi."

Doc Agasa takes Conan and the Junior Detective League to a revolving sushi bar where the various dishes, like squid, sea bream and flounder, pass the customers on a conveyor belt and they only have to take the dishes they wish to eat – after which the number of empty plates make up the bill. At the sushi bar, they meet a well-known, but unpleasant and feared food critic, who has no less than three enemies around him. So there are three prime suspects when the food critic drops dead from cyanide poisoning.

Only problem is how the murderer managed to make the victim taking "the poisoned plate" from the conveyor belt without anyone else accidentally picking it.

The story has a cracking false solution, playing on the left handedness of the victim, but the actual explanation neatly plays on the clue of the grains of rice stuck to the victim's finger and the customs of a sushi bar. My only complaint is that the murderer's motive was a trifle weak. Apart from that, I though this was a clever and original impossible poisoning story that excellently made use of the sushi bar setting.

However, I did not care all that much about the third story, which also consists of three chapters.

On the behest of Gonsaku Kaminski, Chairman of the Kaminski Group, Nichiuri TV is organized a multi-event competition for men who share the chairman's family name and "a genuine ink painting by the famous artist and priest Sankyu" is the grand prize of the tournament. The competitive events are a fitness test, a singing contest and a written kanji test, but the best contests aren't the ones who are making it to the next round. And then the event comes to a sudden end when one of the three finalists pushes the chairman down a flight of stairs.

This story has two (minor) points of interest: 1) one of the suspected finalists is the father of a member of the Junior Detective League and 2) the kanji-based clue can actually be used by Western readers who are willing to closely scrutinize the text and art-work – which is not always the case with the language-based clues and stories in this series. So that was nice change, but the story, as a whole, is unremarkable.

You surely can't label the final story in this collection as unremarkable, because it's an engine-revving impossible crime tale about a drag racer whose car can reputedly fly! 

Richard Moore learns of the resurrection of "the untouchable driver," The Silver Witch of Fuyuna Pass, who "turned Mt. Fuyuna upside down a few years ago," but the silver-white Mazda of the Witch has recently reemerged and this has atracted a crowd of drag racers who challenged her – resulting in a number of accidents. So the police is trying to put an end to it. There is, however, a supernatural aspect to the case, because the Mazda can apparently fly. One of the witnesses even claims she saw the Witch step out of the car, standing in mid-air, and waved at her.

Moore, Rachel and Conan get to witness this apparent impossibility first-hand when the Mazda sped past them and drove, or rather passed, through a guardrail above a cliff. However, the car did not plunge into the dark depths, but simply drove on, in mid-air, with nothing but a thick mist-bank as the road underneath its wheels.

The police stops three white Mazdas, each with two occupants, and Conan deduces the culprits based on the items found in the cars, which subsequently also reveals how the flying car illusion was done. Interestingly, the explanation closely resembles the false solution Ken Holt and Sandy Allen imagined for a very similar impossibility in Bruce Campbell's The Clue of the Phantom Car (1953). Aoyama's take on the ghost car trick was slightly more cartoony than the (false) science-project solution by Campbell, but absolutely allowable on the pages of a comic book detective.

So, all in all, this was an almost rock solid volume, comprising of three excellent impossible crime stories, which more than made up for the weaker story about the curious competition.

On a final note, the next blog-post is going to my best-of list of 2017 and will go live on Saturday. A week earlier than usual, I know, but it worked out better like that this time. So glue those eyes to your screen, because it's coming!

Identity Crisis

"Always approach a case with an absolutely blank mind..."

- Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box," collected in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, 1893-94)

The 62nd volume of Case Closed, originally titled Detective Conan, begins with the conclusion to a short, elementary story that began in the previous volume and concerned the missing brother of the waitress of Coffee Poirot – who's suspected by the police of having murdered his employer. There's not much that can be said about this story except that the murderer is an idiot who should have accepted the frame had failed and kept quiet.

The next three chapters make up a semi-inverted detective story with a Crofts-Bush style alibi-trick at the heart of the plot.

Rachel Moore's mother is a well-known attorney, Eva Kaden, who has a former judoka as a client, named Yuko Arasawa, and she recently consulted Kaden regarding a problem pertaining to her troubled husband, Shiro. Arasawa confided in Kaden that Shiro is "haunted by the conviction that someone is out to get him," but she believes this elusive stalker is merely a figment of his imagination. So Kaden promised to personally search their home and prove to him that "there's no sign of surveillance."

But when they give him a call, he tells them that he was called away to attend a funeral and asks them to move their appointment to later that evening. Kaden and Arasawa, alongside Conan and Rachel, decide to kill some time by getting a bite to eat at the hotel down the street, but Arasawa has begun to act slightly suspicious – such as inexplicably placing Shiro's phone call on speaker. When they arrive at the home of the client, they have to poke around the premise for Shiro and his lifeless body is eventually found inside a small storage room.

Conan and Kaden have their suspicions against the judo expert, but she possesses "a nearly perfect alibi" with an incredibly tight, ten-minute window when she took a bathroom break. And that's hardly enough time to drive to her home, strangle her husband and go back to the hotel's restaurant again. So how did she do it?

The alibi-trick is not too complicated and you should be able to (roughly) work out how it was done, but what I liked about it is how Arasawa created the alibi by using, an acting upon, the actions and movement of her husband – cleverly putting half of the works in the unwitting hands of the victim. A good and solid story that also takes a peek at the strained relationship between Kaden and her estranged husband, Richard Moore, who gives her huge clue over the telephone about the alibi.

The second story is a long one, covering six chapters, which may prove to be an important link in the ongoing story-line, because something tells me that one particular character will come to play an important role during the end game of the series. This person has an asset that can be used as the proverbial ace up the sleeve when the inevitable confrontation with the Black Organization happens.

In any case, the story begins with Harley Hartwell and Kazuha taking Conan, Rachel and Richard Moore to East Okuho Village, nestled on the outskirts of Tokyo, where a year ago a murder case had been solved by that famous high-school detective, Jimmy Kudo. At the time, Kudo was assisted by a local teenager, Makoto Okuda, who now claims to have spotted a glitch in his deductions. And he wants Kudo to come down to the village in order to rectify his mistake.

Only problem is that Kudo has disappeared from public view ever since the events in the first volume and his current whereabouts are unknown, which is why Okuda contacted Hartwell. But, upon arrival, they learn Okuda has been missing for the past six months and the villagers snarl at them for mentioning Kudo's name. They vehemently disagree with his conclusion that the previously mentioned case was a murder/suicide that casted their beloved, late-lamented Mayor Hinohara as the murderer.

This situation becomes even more entangled when Conan vanishes from the scene and Kudo reappears on the bank of a lake, "butt-naked," but his memory appears to have been completely wiped clean as he has no idea who or where he is – even failing to recognize his friends. So this places Hartwell in a precarious situation, because he is the only of the group who's aware of the Conan/Kudo situation. And that's only the beginning of his problems!

A dense forest surrounds the village and is reputedly haunted by a Shiragami, "a guardian who punishes those who harm the land," whose presence has been felt ever since a girl died in the woods five years ago. Locally, it is believed the girl had angered the spirit by entering his domain after dark and only the reader knows for sure that someone is out there, because this Shiragami is seen lurking in the background of several panels. And to complete this cocktail of problems, Kudo is found standing over the body of a severely wounded reporter, dazed and confused, with a knife in his hand and bloodstains on his clothes. The reporter had alluded earlier to Kudo that she knew all about "the unspeakable truth" he's "trying to hide" and that gave him a rock-solid motive to attempt to silence this person. Or so it appears.

Plot-wise, this short story-arc is a mixed bag of tricks. First of all, I admired how Aoyama handled the amnesia angle of the plot, which could have turned out to be very hacky, but turned out to have a clever explanation and perfectly tied-in to real identity of the Shiragami – which did not disappoint even though I saw it coming. I was not as impressed by the explanations for the attempted murder (a mere bluff) and the past mistake in Kudo's deductions, but understand these answers were necessary in order to explain the culprit's motivation. And that is why I think we'll see this character return towards the end of the series, because the whole story feels like it was written for the sole purpose of introducing and storing away this character for later use.

Finally, the last chapter sets up a new story, which immediately follows on the events of the previous one, and stars when our troupe of detective are driving home and witness a speeding car scrapping against the guardrail. Eventually, it comes to a stop and when they check on the driver, they find a dead man behind the wheels with ligature marks across his throat. Somehow, the driver had been strangled to death, while driving, but only the victim was inside! It's an impossible crime reminiscent of Edward D. Hoch's "Captain Leopold and The Impossible Murder" (Murder Impossible: An Extravaganza or Miraculous Murders, Fantastic Felonies and Incredible Criminals, 1990).

So I'm very curious to see what kind of explanation Aoyama has found to explain how someone could have been murdered inside a moving locked room on wheels, but that revelation will have to wait until next month.

A Twenty Second Miracle

"As a general rule, in order to find the author of a crime or a theft, it is necessary to determine how that crime or theft was committed, or, at least, how it could have been committed."

- Chevalier Floriani (Maurice Leblanc's "The Queen's Necklace," collected in The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar, 1907)

The 61th entry in Gosho Aoyama's voluminous series, known as either Case Closed or Detective Conan, opens with a first-rate Kaito KID story, showing the brightest pupil of the modern-day Rogue School at work, which offers a very cunning and original impossible problem – namely a teleportation trick!

In an earlier volume (44), Aoyama introduced an elderly relative of Serena Sebastian, Uncle Jirokichi.

During his first appearance, Jirokichi attempted to capture the dashing, white-clad thief by baiting a trap with a priceless artifact of history, but KID simply used this opportunity to showcase one of his most daring illusions: a miraculous mid-air walk. So the billionaire learned from his previous mistake and devised a new scheme to ensnare "the infamous thief known as the moonlight magician."

Jirokichi is in possession of "the legendary shoes worn by Maria Theresa," the Holy Roman Empress, which has a two large amethysts embedded in the toes. Something that should attract the attention of KID, because he always appeared to have "a thing for large jewels," but to be sure an open challenge was published in the newspaper.

However, the slippers weren't securely placed in a heavily guarded, inaccessible room on the top-floor of a closely observed building, but were simply put on display in the middle of the Ginza shopping district and surrounded by only four security guards – reasoning that KID is vulnerable when operating at ground level. After all, the street level display eliminated the possibility of KID fleeing the scene with the assistance of his beloved hang-glider. So, when he swooped down from the sky, Jirokichi gave the order to raise several large, tight nets that blocked every avenue of escape on the Ginza Crossing and it appeared as if the elusive thief had finally been captured. Or so everyone assumed.

KID simply turned to the rolling cameras and announces his impending escape from the enclosure by crossing dimensions, which is followed by a puff of smoke and twenty seconds later reappeared on the rooftop of an adjacent building – a stunning trick accomplished without the assistance of a body-double. Something that is confirmed when the TV footage is closely scrutinized. And the great magician promises a repeat performance the following day, because one of the slippers he snatched from the display proved to be a fake.

So this gives Conan, who had been watching in the crowd, one shot to stop his adversary from completing his criminal masterpiece, which also results in some nice interaction between Conan and KID when the latter becomes aware of the former's presence. The trick itself was also pretty nifty and more workable than the levitation/mid-air walk illusion from the previously mentioned 44th volume. I (roughly) worked out how the teleportation stunt was pulled off, but only because I remember a story that used the same principles for an entirely different kind of trick.

Nevertheless, this was a nice, well put-together impossible crime story with some great (visual) clues and Jirokichi is proving himself to be a better foil to KID than Conan. Sure, Conan has the brains and deductive abilities to shatter KID's illusions, but Jirokichi has the resources needed to pose a genuine challenge for the modern-day Arsène Lupin. I really hope these three characters cross paths again in the future.

The second story in this volume involves the Junior Detective League and takes place during one of their many camping trips, but this time they're stranded on a lonely stretch of mountain road – because Doc Agasa forgot to put enough gas in the car. Luckily, the spot a classic Rolls Royce heading their way, but the driver is incredible rude and leaves them without helping them. What's even more discouraging is that the car is headed to the only habitable place in sight: a large, sprawling and luxurious summerhouse at the top of the mountain. However, an explosion occurs at the place shortly after the car must have arrived at the top.

When they arrived at the summerhouse, they find that a fiery explosion had occurred in the garage and the driver has been burned to a cinder. The police is of the opinion that the death was an unfortunate accident: a tipped over gas can had filled the garage with vaporized gasoline and a burning cigarette ignited the gasoline that engulfed the car – causing the explosion. However, the police only found a cigarette butt, but not the remains of a pack of cigarettes. And this suggested murder to Conan.

This story is purely a howdunit, as the murderer's identity is pretty obvious, which instead concentrates on how this person created the fire that blew the victim sky-high. A clever method that's believable enough, because it was revealed that it had failed several times before and had to be tweaked. Some of the tweaks served as a clue. Only the motive was poorly handled.

The third story is one of those code crackers, but the problem mainly serves as a vehicle for a story-line that was introduced in the previous volume.

Someone has been littering the streets with paper airplanes, all with patterns on them, which is blamed on a prankster, but Conan recognizes an SOS in the patterns. However, he's stuck at school and can only communicate with Rachel over the phone, as Jimmy Kudo, while Subaru Okiya (who stays at the Kudo home) also tries to crack the code at their end of the phone. The case primarily shows that Okiya is not who he says he is and it is suggested that he may be the Black Organization agent known as "Bourbon," but, based on the Sherlock Holmes comments from the previous volume, I very much doubt that is the case.

Finally, the last chapter opens a story that will be concluded in the next installment in this series and concerns the missing brother of the waitress of Coffee Poirot, Azusa, who is suspected by the police of having shot and killed his employer with a hunting rifle – ending on a note implying that Azusa may be in grave danger. But more about that the next volume.

So, all in all, a pretty solid volume with some excellent plot-and character-driven content and the Kaito KID story served as a perfect headliner. Once again, I really loved this series and might pick up the next volume sooner rather than later.