Mathematical Goodbye (1996) by MORI Hiroshi

The BBB began serializing MORI Hiroshi's Warawanai sugakusha (Mathematical Goodbye, 1996), third novel in the S&M series, in the summer of 2024 with the complete edition being slated for release in late February, but technical issues with their distribution platform delayed its availability – a minor blessing in disguise. Technically, Mathematical Goodbye is a Christmas mystery. Yes, the middle of summer is still a little early, however, it's slightly more preferable than two months after the Christmas tree was unceremoniously shown the door.

That also helped making Mathematical Goodbye, translated by Ryusui Seiryoin, the most orthodox of Hiroshi's three S&M novels the BBB has published so far. According to the description, Mathematical Goodbye is the masterpiece that "cemented the popularity" of the S&M (Saikawa & Moe) series, "the most beloved master-disciple detective duo in Japanese mystery history." Let's explore!

Moe Nishinosono, a sophomore at N University, is invited by a classmate, Kazuki Katayama, to celebrate Christmas with his family at the home of his grandfather, Dr. Shozo Tennoji. The home of Dr. Tennoji, a genius mathematician, is Three Stars Mansion, originally an observatory, comprising of three domes with the planetarium serving as its central hall. It's the interior where the architectural peculiarities of Three Stars Mansion can be found. So, naturally, Sohei Saikawa, associate professor in the Department of Architecture, N University, is interested to come along to meet the famous mathematician and examine Three Stars Mansion in person. Moe, on the other hand, is interested in an unsolved mystery Kazuki told her about. When he was a child, Kazuki witnessed how his grandfather performed a magic trick that's better described as a minor domestic miracle.

Outside the mansion stands a gigantic, ten ton bronze statue of Orion big enough for the children to use the space between its legs as a soccer goal, but somehow, someway, Dr. Tennoji made the statue inexplicably disappear – before making it reappear the following morning. Dr. Tennoji promised "whoever solves this mystery will be the heir apparent to the Tennoji family." But nobody solved it. And the problem remained unsolved for the past twelve years.

So, after everyone arrived, Dr. Tennoji gathered them in the planetarium to greet them. Just not in person, because he's been living alone in the basement of the planetarium for the better part of decade. It's his voice booming from ceiling speakers who greets them. Dr. Tennoji begins the celebrations by giving them a few tough math puzzles, but Moe has a challenge/request for him, "can you make that bronze statue disappear, Doctor?" He reluctantly agrees and, when they go back outside, the statue has disappeared again ("there was nothing but concrete spread out before them"). Wait, there's more. The hermit mathematician has one more riddle for them, "what's the greatest trick in human history?" It's the seemingly disappearance of the statue giving the plot about half of its bulk with the other half coming from its reappearance.

When the Orion statue returns to its original place, it's accompanied by a body lying beneath it and second body found in the first victim's locked bedroom. This double murder, committed in close proximity of place-and time, represents something of a reverse, inside out locked room mystery with the first victim discovered outside the locked mansion with the key to the locked bedroom on their body. Saikawa and Moe have plenty to mull over without additional problems like Moe being shot at in the surrounding forest and discovering a skeleton.

 

 

As said before, Mathematical Goodbye is the most orthodox of the three S&M novels translated, so far. So it's obviously not as experimental as Subete ga F ni naru (The Perfect Insider, 1996) nor as densely-plotted, highly specialized locked room puzzle like Tsumetai misshitsu to hakase tachi (Doctors in the Isolated Room, 1996), but astonishingly solvable. I expected my crude, roughly imagined armchair solution for how the statue disappeared, and reappeared, would end up being dismissed as a ridiculous false-solution. It seemed too easy and at the same time too complicated, but that was more, or less, how it was done. So don't be discouraged when Saikawa philosophizes, "this might be a mathematical problem rather than a magic trick." Of course, the problem with vanishing-tricks involving large, hard-to-move or even immovable objects like houses, trains and statues is that there are hard limitations on what you can do – which is why there are so few of them. I wasn't too bothered about the trick, but a little annoyed nobody thought of (ROT13) fvzcyl gnxvat n fgebyy nebhaq gur cerzvfr gb frr vs vg unq orra zbirq nebhaq gur cynpr, because that's what I would have done if I found myself in such a situation (yay, I'm the world's greatest detective!).

The solution to the double murder is much more interesting and tricky, but not exactly a classically-styled locked room mystery. It's not so much about how the doors and windows were locked and closed, but why there were locked and closed. This is demonstrated when Moe gives, what appears to be, a perfectly reasonable (armchair) solution accounting for every aspect of the murders. Saikawa points out it only work if the murderer had a reason for the bedroom to be locked. Or why the murderer decided to suddenly improvise by using a vase as a weapon. So it's more along the lines of those double murders closely linked in time-and place I have come to associate with Christopher Bush's 1930s novels (e.g. The Case of the Tudor Queen, 1938) rather than a proper locked room mystery, but gave the plot some much needed weight. It's the real meat of the plot even if the who and especially the why are a trifle weak.

Mathematical Goodbye appears on the surface to be another, Yukito Ayatsuji-like "weird house" shin honkaku locked room mystery and, plot-wise, a fairly average one at that, but it's a little more than that. What really lifts up the up book, as a whole, is the theme of inversion running through every aspect of the story, from the setting and vanishing statue to the murders. Hiroshi takes the concept "not everything is as it appears" or "more than meets the eye" as used in the detective story and pulled it inside out and back together again, which created some pleasing plot patterns to ripple through the story. That made up for what it lacked in expected plot complexity/ingenuity. So, Mathematical Goodbye is perhaps not the strongest entry, plot-wise, in the S&M series, but by itself, it's a pretty solid piece of detective fiction trying to do something pleasingly different with tried and tested recipe from the first wave of shin honkaku mystery writers. If you're looking for something a little off-beat for your December reading, you can take this as an early recommendation.

A few odds and ends: Ryusui Seiryoin is improving as a translator as the translation of Mathematical Goodbye is much smoother compared to the clunky translation of The Perfect Insider, but wish the BBB would translate one of Seiryoin's own mystery novels like Kazumikku: sekimatsu tantei shinwa (Cosmic: End of Century Detective Myth, 1996). Who here wouldn't want to read an impossible crime with a figure called The Locked Room Lord threatening 1200 people would die in as many locked rooms. In the mean time, the BBB and Seiryoin are working on the translation of the fourth S&M novel, Shiteki shiteki Jack (Jack the Poetical Private, 1997), in which a serial killer is working the college circuit. Lastly, I don't know how it could be done or who should do it, but a crossover between Hiroshi's Saikawa and Moe and Sou Touma and Kana Mizuhara from Motohiro Katou's Q.E.D. series needs to happen. They already feel like they could take place in the same universe and a crossover between the two has all the potential to be the perfect crossover. Yeah, not likely to happen, but it would be great.

Keep Cool, Mr. Jones (1950) by Timothy Fuller

Timothy Fuller was a member of the class of 1936 at Harvard and the son of Richard Fuller, head of Boston's Old Corner Book Store, who reportedly (PDF) penned Harvard Has a Homicide (1936) as a bet with his father to get out of college – stating "he would have a book published within twelve months." Not only was Harvard Has a Homicide published, but "the first contemporary mystery story ever to be serialized" in The Atlantic Monthly. The book introduces Fuller's series detective, Edmund "Jupiter" Jones, who assists the police when his professor is murdered. Fuller returned to Jupiter Jones five years later with Three Thirds of a Ghost (1941), Reunion with Murder (1941) and This is Murder, Mr. Jones (1943). A fifth and final novel, Keep Cool, Mr. Jones (1950), appearing seven years later.

I read Harvard Has a Homicide and Three Thirds of a Ghost, but only dimly recall thinking they were decent, lightweight mysteries. Not enticing or quite good enough to immediately grab Keep Cool, Mr. Jones from the big pile where it has languished ever since. Recently, while tidying up my shelves, I came across my Dell edition of Keep Cool, Mr. Jones and the plot description caught my interest right away.

First of all, Keep Cool, Mr. Jones was published after the series apparently ended following the publication of This is Murder, Mr. Jones, seven years earlier, which reads like a soft reboot of the series – suggesting an intended continuation along modern lines. It's also why I wish I remembered more details about Harvard Has a Homicide, Three Thirds of a Ghost and Jupiter Jones. I believe Jupiter started out as a wisecracking version of 1930s Ellery Queen, but Keep Cool, Mr. Jones finds an older Jones living in the suburban Boston village of Saxon with a wife and three young children. Jupiter had hung up his deerstalker nearly six years ago, however, "much as the banker must bank or the preacher preach," Jupiter "had been grotesquely conditioned to deduce amateurishly." Something that had been suppressed for years when incident made the old urge to detect and deduce resurface.

This incident takes place at Jack Maney's second annual, old-fashioned barn dance to raise funds for the local library. In the barn's basement, Maney has installed a large, state of the art walk-in deep freezer stocked with food ("...the handiest symbol of the Dream..."). During the party, Maney goes down to the freezer to show Mrs. Parker Madison, Harry Dexter and Dr. Wren some birds, but never return. When they go out to investigate, they find the closed freezer door securely padlocked from outside and the four inside. Not dead or even seriously injured, but badly shaken and Jupiter believes the padlock proves intent to murder. However, if it was attempted murder, the murderer had a motive "powerful enough to account for the cold-blooded disposal of three extra, presumably uninvolved, victims." So identifying the primary target is key, but "the unharmed victims unanimously denied having enemies."

Following night, the investigation turns into a full-fledged homicide case when Howie Howland, Chief of Police, is found shotgunned to death in the cabin of the local character, Arnold "The Indian" Baxter – who's nowhere to be found. Jupiter takes Howland's place as acting police chief as the manhunt for Arnold begins, but the case is not as clear cut as it appears on the surface. And is there a link to freezer incident? So not your typical, Golden Age village murders or college slayings from previous decades peppered with social commentary and observations on America bracing itself as it's about to enter the second-half of the twentieth century. In this modernized, updated whodunit a decidedly classical trope is introduced concerning the local legend of old Hiram Potter and his fortune in buried gold. Something his family and treasure hunters have been digging for in the Potter woods the better part of a century. Only clue old Hiram left behind are six couplets found scattered through his diary. I instinctively knew where the gold was secreted away, however, it's solution is perhaps a bit tropey (SPOILER/ROT13: gur tbyq jnf ohevrq va gur przrgrel naq cebcbfr gb anzr guvf gebcr va juvpu n cybg cbvag unf gb or qht hc va n tenirlneq "ohevny cybgf"). Between acting as police chief and amateur treasure hunter, there are a few other minor plot-threads involving the various inhabitants of Saxon that need to be tidied up. Jupiter's basically plays a cross between a fairy godmother and a diplomat on a peacekeeping assignment.

All of this is packed tightly in a svelte 155 pages making for a compact, breezy story, but, needless to say, the plotting is not terribly complex and layered. Nevertheless, the way in which Fuller tied together the freezer incident, the shooting, the disappearance and the buried treasure made for a pleasant tangle with a light sprinkling of those good, old-fashioned fair play principles. Unsurprisingly, Jupiter finds himself trapped inside the freezer towards the end and how he keeps warm, and gets out, is genuinely clever (ROT13: abg gur fahttyvat hc naq xvffvat jvgu Fyvz Znarl, juvyr uvf jvsr naq xvqf ner ng ubzr, ohg gur znxrfuvsg vtybb cneg naq hfvat n pbva gb xrrc oybjvat gur shfrf gb nggenpg nggragvba gb gur serrmre). And had it been whittled down, Keep Cool, Mr. Jones would have made for an excellent, first-rate mystery novella. But it's fine as it stands. More substantial than most of these 1950s traditionally-rooted, but light-on-plot, mysteries (e.g. E.G. Cousins' Death by Marriage, 1959). More importantly, I enjoyed it.

In fact, I enjoyed sufficiently to go hunt for copies of Reunion with Murder and This is Murder, Mr. Jones. After all, the latter is a locked room mystery and they have been a little neglected lately. So... very likely to be continued.

Notes for the curious: Firstly, yes, I hadn't forgotten or overlooked Jupiter Jones also happens to be one of the protagonists from Robert Arthur's The Three Investigator series, but don't believe it has ever been confirmed whether it was a nod to Fuller's detective or just a coincidence. It's not unlikely Arthur had read the books and perhaps was a fan. I can see him appreciating how Fuller handled the buried treasure and its clue, because it's Jupiter's daughter who makes an astute observation about the couplets. So, yeah, possibly. Secondly, it was never suggested in the story, but another possibility to the freezer incident is that one of the four people pulled "The Loubet Sacrifice" to take out the other three. That would have made for an interesting take on the classic locked room situation: how can someone inside a walk-in freezer leave the door padlocked on the outside with three other people present? Now there's a challenge for today's locked room experts.

Wilders Walk Away (1948) by Herbert Brean

Herbert Brean's debuted as a mystery writer with Wilders Walk Away (1948) and, according to Curt Evans, the praise it received from Anthony Boucher, critic and mystery writer, Brean "almost walked away with an Edgar" for best first novel – alongside with a cult status that lasted for decades. Wilders Walk Away was considered to be one of the great impossible crime novels not penned by John Dickson Carr. A reputation that wasn't tested too severely during the post-WWII decades as the traditional, Golden Age-style detective novels entered its dark age. That changed during the 2000s.

Wilders Walk Away remains out-of-print today, but used copies are neither ridiculously rare nor eye-watering expensive. When the internet began to offer a new, open market place copies of Wilders Walk Away began to circulate again and it's cult status began to unravel. Barry Ergang summed it up perfectly in his 2003 review posted on the GADWiki, "for a little while I thought I'd found in Wilders Walk Away a companion to The Three Coffins and Rim of the Pit for ultimate greatness." Somewhat of a shared experience as most of us were promised something like a Wrightsville mystery by Ellery Queen as perceived by Carr, centered on a series of miraculous vanishings across several centuries, but the explanations are disappointingly prosaic and mundane. Nor did the rediscovery of Hardly a Man is Now Alive (1950), Brean's true masterpiece, do its reputation any favors.

So read it at the time anticipating an all-time great, unjustly out-of-print impossible crime classic and soured on the book when the impossible vanishings, generations and centuries apart, were explained away with plain, unimaginative solutions – which probably was too hasty a dismissal. Jim, of The Invisible Event, suggests in his 2017 review Wilders Walk Away is better read "as a prototype for the small town thriller" because it's "much more successful as that kind of book." I wanted to revisit Wilders Walks Away for some time now to see how the story lands without the high, somewhat unreasonable expectations of finding an impossible crime novel equal to the best from Carr and Hake Talbot.

The backdrop of Wilders Walk Away is the historical town of Wilders Lane, Vermont, whose history dates back to the mid-eighteenth century and named after the lane leading to old Ethan Wilder's log cabin. By 1775, a fairly sized village had grown around it that developed into the current town with the Wilders as its richest, leading family. There is, however, something curious about the Wilder family. Some of its members, through out the generations, have to habit of simply vanishing without a trace. Or, as it's locally known, they "walked away" never to be seen again.

Jonathan Wilder was the first to walk away, in '75, when going down to the cellar to fetch a bottle of wine, but his wife swears he never came back up again. There was no other way out of the cellar except going back up the stairs to the kitchen. Forty years later, Langdon Wilder disappeared from his bed and Walter Wilder was on the ill-fated Mary Celeste ("...people hereabouts think that whatever happened on the Celeste happened because Walter Wilder was aboard"). Wilders continued to walk away into the twentieth century. In 1917, John Michael Wilder was seen walking down a wet beach, before inexplicably vanishing from sight leaving nothing more than a trail of footprints, "plain as paint," stopping in the middle of the beach – "no concealment for yards around." Only the previous year, Fred Wilder disappeared from the supply room of his office under impossible circumstances on Columbus Day. These never-ceasing, strange and sometimes miraculously disappearances gave rise to a catchy jingle that became part of the folk lore of Wilders Lane:

 

"Other people die of mumps
Or general decay,
Of fever, chills or other ills,
But Wilders walk away."

 

In recent years, Wilders Lane has done a lot of work to restore the town to its colonial charm to attract tourists with families owning a Colonial house opening their homes to the public between two and five each afternoon. So visiting Wilders Lane was like a trip back in time to the days of the American Revolution. That brings Reynold Frame, a freelance writer and photographer, to Wilders Lane to do several picture pieces on the town, but soon finds consumed by everything Wilder. Particularly with the daughter of Fred Wilder, Constance, who, very much to Frame's horror, has a fiance. But there are other puzzling mysteries surrounding the Wilders and Wilders Lane. Such as a minor historical mystery, a hidden code, indicating where an old diary had been secreted away.

More importantly, Constance's sister, Ellen, disappeared shortly after Frame arrived in town and its him who eventually finds her, but that discovery turns a local legend into a full-blown murder investigation – first in the career of police chief Miles Maloney. Ellen is not the last of the Wilders to walk away and turn up dead, before the story draws to a close. Frame, "a faithful reader, and disciple, of Sherlock Holmes" is prompted to start playing detective to impress Constance, because she believes "someone else could do better than the police." The mysteries of the Wilder family not only involves strange disappearances and murder, but hidden treasure, skeletons and grave digging.

So, as you probably gathered, I enjoyed Wilders Walk Away a lot more the second time around and even got more out of the miraculous vanishings, especially the historical ones, out of this second read – even though they remain largely second-rate. A good example of the strength and weaknesses of these impossible disappearances is the 1775 vanishing of Jonathan Wilder from the windowless cellar with the exit under constant observation. The trick is old hat (n frperg cnffntrjnl), but why he never returned after disappearing has a great answer. So why they all vanished and who's responsible is more important here than how they disappeared, which always has a simple, unimpressive answer. I think Wilders Walk Away would have benefited from ditching the impossible nature of some of the disappearances in favor of their strangeness and habit of repeating themselves across generations. Frame even discusses the work of Charles Fort to explain to Constance that her family don't hold the patent on anomalous phenomena.

After all, "the idea that anyone can vanish off the face of the earth without leaving a trace is uncomfortable." Like the series of very odd, non-impossible disappearances from Freeman Wills Crofts' The Hog's Back Mystery (1933). The impossible disappearances in Wilders Walk Away were less of disappointment knowing before hand that the importance is on why they disappeared, and by whom, rather than how. So, understandably, its reputation cratered when locked room fanatics started getting their hands on it in 2000s.

Wilders Walk Away has more to offer than a string of very odd, inexplicable disappearances. Beside being a fun, old-fashioned whodunit presented as a small town thriller, something is to be said about its style and structure. Something I completely missed on my first read. In 1948, Wilders Walk Away represented a perfect blend of the genre's past and present with glimpses of the future (see Jim's prototype comment). Some all-important elements of the plot would have been very much at home in a Victorian melodrama or Conan Doyle story, but hardly a throwback considering how Brean handled the plot and the answers waiting at the end. Speaking of Doyle, Brean was a Sherlockian and every chapter is headed with a quote from the Sherlock Holmes canon and the story is littered with Van Dinean footnotes – ranging from historical information to a recipe for "easy to make" Jokers. It never tips over to being too much and is surprisingly subtle in how it balances it various plot-threads and characters. Far too subtle for what I demanded from my first read. But it earned a place among my favorite, non-impossible Golden Age detective novels.

So, yeah, Wilders Walk Away proved to be far better than I remembered from my first read and even better than I hoped it would be on rereading it. It's undeserved reputation as an impossible crime classic has done it no favors, but if you don't expect any "Carter Dickson-effects" from the vanishing-tricks, it's going to be difficult for Wilders Walk Away to disappoint. A tremendously fun and enjoyable romp that comes with a heartily recommendations. Just don't expect a fusion between Queen and Carr, but more something along the lines of Theodore Roscoe's Four Corners series and Jack Vance's two Sheriff Joe Bain novels.

The Aluminum Turtle (1960) by Baynard Kendrick

Baynard Kendrick's The Aluminum Turtle (1960), alternatively titled The Spear Gun Murders, is the eleventh, and penultimate, novel in the Captain Duncan Maclain series published early in the post-Golden Age era of the genre – which tries to keep up with the rapidly changing times. An old school detective story with a new class of criminals and attitudes to crime. It's not only the ever-changing times that makes The Aluminum Turtle distinctly different from the 1930s and '40s novels taking place in a darker, pulpier version of New York City. The Aluminum Turtle brings Captain Maclain and his entire entourage to the sunnier climes of Florida. Captain Maclain has a good reason to return to Florida.

Seven years ago, Ronald Dayland was brutally killed in a presumably robbery gone wrong somewhere between Tampa Airport and Courtney Campbell Parkway. Dayland had been battered with "almost maniacal ferocity" and his wallet had been emptied, but why didn't robber take a valuable gold watch and a diamond ring? Sheriff Dave Riker, of Poinsettia County, doesn't believe this is a simple robbery gone wrong and turned his attention to a club of teenage delinquents calling themselves the Water Rovers. They started out as an outlet for bored teenagers, boat races and skin divers, before broadening their activities to drinking parties, drag racing with the family car and eventually small, costly crime sprees. Everything from rowboats, cruisers and outboard motors to anchors, tools and other gear were "slickly stolen." But did they extend their activities to robbery and murder? Sheriff Riker never got the proof and the unsolved murder had terrible consequences for Dayland's then twelve year old son, Ronnie.

Dayland is the owner of the successful Dayland Fruit Company, which ensured his wife and son had everything they wanted, but the emotionally neglected Ronnie has always craved the attention of his parents and went out of his way to get it – like arson and crashing a boat. In the years following his father's murder and second marriage of his mother, Ronnie went "down the sliding board from marihuana to pills and the needle" to become "an expert snowbird and doomed entirely."

Captain Maclain is an old friend of the Daylands whose work in New York and the lack of an official invitation prevented him from probing the murder of his old, long-time friend. Ronnie intends to use their fishing trip to ask Captain Maclain for help with his addiction, because it was easier to ask someone "who couldn't see the terror in his face" or "read the truth of his weakness." Very different to how Kendrick handled the "funny cigarettes" in The Last Express (1937) decades earlier. Their one-on-one aboard Ronnie's fishing boat, the A-bomb, sets the tone and pieces for the overall story.

Firstly, Ronnie's plan to ask for help is shelved when he fishes up a curious looking object: an aluminum turtle with rubber flippers, head and tail. Ronnie believes he had "lucked on to an underwater buoy that marked some sunken treasure." Something that's going to propel to plot later on. Secondly, Captain Maclain is firmly in fallible detective mode. Not only for neglecting the murder of his friend for seven years ("wasn't it more of an obligation to do his best to solve the murder of a friend... than to take a fee to investigate the murder of some person he had never known?"), but trying to understand Ronnie and his generation ("their jargon is as uncomprehensible as their music") and generally getting older. That's why he's unsure what's happening half of the time ("there were undercurrents he couldn't fathom") with the developing case rubbing it in his face how depended he still is on Sybella, Spud Savage, Rena and his two dogs, Schnucke and Dreist.

The developing case comes to a head when Captain Maclain joins the boating party returning to the spot where Ronnie discovered the aluminum turtle. Ronnie dives into the water with an hour's supply of air, but never resurfaces and ninety minutes later they call the coast guard. Not long thereafter his body is recovered, but Ronnie didn't drown. He was shot with a spear gun. Suddenly, the sea is crawling with potential suspects. Two members of the Water Rovers were spotted nearby with one entering the water carrying a spear gun and boat that recovered the body is manned by cut-throat treasure hunters. Not to mention a fleet of shrimpers, run by an ex-mobster, known to be a cover for a huge smuggling operation. There are more spear gun killings, past and present, discovered and committed along the way.

However, the plot of The Aluminum Turtle lacks the puzzling complexity of earlier novels like The Whistling Hangman (1937) and Blind Man's Bluff (1943). The murder method has echoes of those two novels (ROT13: perngvat gur vyyhfvba bs qvfgnapr orgjrra zheqrere naq ivpgvz), but nothing is done with it, plot-wise, before being explained away between a few sentences. Only real plot-complexity, to speak of, is the school of red herrings trying to obscure a routine plot and rather obviously murderer. So the focus of The Aluminum Turtle is not on the traditional who, why and how, but how Captain Maclain grapples with this case and himself. If you have only read the pre-1950s novels, The Aluminum Turtle feels like a threadbare affair with too much drama and not enough plot. More like Brett Halliday than Ellery Queen. Fortunately, I really like Captain Maclain and appreciated what Kendrick attempted to do here, which I think fans of the character will agree with. But, purely as a detective novel, The Aluminum Turtle is a far cry from the first five, or so, novels. I highly recommend you start there before skipping this far ahead.

That being said, The Aluminum Turtle has made me curious about the last title in the series, Frankincense and Murder (1961), which sounds like a hyper conventional drawing room mystery. The kind of drawing room mystery most of Kendrick's contemporaries debuted with in the '20s and '30s. You might see a review of that one before too long.

Murder in the House of Omari (2021) by Taku Ashibe

Taku Ashibe, a former journalist, became a full-time mystery writer in 1994 and member of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of Japan who penned nearly forty novels and numerous short story collection – only one novel and a short story have been translated over the years. In 2012, Kurodahan Press published a translation of Ashibe's Koromu no satsujin (Murder in the Red Chamber, 2004) and "Shikku suru joker" ("The Dashing Joker," 2001) appeared in the September/October, 2020, issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. In May, Pushkin Vertigo added a third translation to that shamefully short list, Oomarike satsujin jiken (Murder in the House of Omari, 2021), translated by Bryan Karetnyk.

Murder in the House of Omari, a true retro-GAD whodunit, is a fairly recent work, but Ho-Ling Wong pointed out in his review that it's very representative of Ashibe's work. According to Ho-Ling, Ashibe has three story themes/personalized tropes running through his work, of which the first two are historical and literary references. For example, Murder in the Red Chamber is set in the world of Cao Xueqin's Dream of the Red Chamber (1791) and populated with many of its characters. The third theme is old Osaka and the bustling commercial hub it became following industrialization, which provides the historical setting for the wholesale slaughter of the House of Omari.

House of Omari is a family business, manufacturing and selling pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and other luxury goods, but the once household name is on the decline with the outbreak of World War II and a string of murders doing it no favors.

Before getting to the killings, Murder in the House of Omari hops around the timeline beginning with a prologue taking place in the 2020s as construction workers uncover an unfilled, long forgotten air raid shelter revealing a treasure – "a complete set of the Ryuko-Shoin world detective-fiction series." This stash of detective novels is wrapped in a cloth emblazoned with a faded, old-fashioned logo with the name "House of Omari." At the same time, not far away from the demolition site, an identified, dying person mentions that forgotten shop in a startling death bed confession ("so that's why I killed the lot of them..."). The story than goes back to 1906, when the family business was securely on top of their market, but the first tragedy occurs when the young heir presumptive, Sentaro Omari, disappears during a visit to the Panorama Museum. So, in 1914, the head clerk of the business, Shigezo, takes his place by marrying his younger sister, Kiyoe. They initially continued the success of the House of Omari, however, the trade began to decline during the late 1920s and were forced to scale down. When the Second Sino-Japanese War turned into a World War, their business model was decimated as their Westernized, non-essential luxury products could "label a person unpatriotic." So now they're trying to stay afloat by selling comfort bags to be mailed to soldiers on the front line.

This preamble to murder roughly covers the first hundred, or so, pages, but never flags and full of historical interest. A noteworthy point is the appearance of wood and charcoal powered cars. These so-called "charcoal engines" were introduced to conserve petrol, but "were notoriously slow and lacking in horsepower" making them "incapable of handling slopes." Not exactly the romantic picture steampunk envisioned.

The detective story proper picks up in 1945, towards the end of the war, when the two sons of Shigezo and Kiyoe are serving abroad. Taichiro Omari as an army surgeon and Shigehiko Omari soldiering on the front line. So the already depleted household and dwindling business begin to suffer a string of gruesome, personal tragedies. Firstly, Tsukiko Omari, eldest daughter of Kiyoe and Shigezo, is attacked and wounded, but the circumstances are strange indeed. Tsukiko has "real wounds" that "appeared to be bleeding fake blood." Secondly, Shigezo is found hanging from a rope in his bedroom and the evidence points towards murder. Shigezo is not the last of the Omaris to be killed under bizarre circumstances. Strange, downright bizarre circumstances pile up alongside the bodies. Like one of the bodies being found stuffed, upside down, inside a barrel of sake or the sightings of a household spirit dancing through the dark, deserted corridors of the Omari house in the dead of night. Not to mention the storybook appearance of the "Great Detective," Koshiro Hojo, who lugs around a copy of Hans Gross' Criminal Investigations: A Practical Textbook.

Murder in the House of Omari becomes tricky to discuss, in detail, pass the halfway mark with its various plot-strands, complications and new developments practically every other chapter – right up until the moment the war catches up with the characters. What can be discussed, however, is the admirable way in which Ashibe handled this dense, maze-like plot to weave an engrossing tale of a merchant family that finds itself under siege from all side. Not to be overlooked is how the story is structured like a period-accurate, Western-inspired honkaku detective novel by Akimitsu Takagi or Seishi Yokomizo. So very different from what most have perhaps come to expect from shin honkaku translations. However, Murder in the House of Omari also differs from other shin honkaku translations in that Ashibe lavished all his attention on his personalized tropes and not the usual tricks and tropes. That makes it a more accessible title for readers who find the usual shin honkaku style with its eccentric architecture, grisly corpse-puzzles, gruesome locked room slayings and elaborate deductions heavy going. Murder in the House of Omari is a pure whodunit without any impossible crimes, unbreakable alibis or untranslatable codes. A incredibly tricky, complicated and densely-plotted whodunit in which Ashibe admirably weaves his love of literature/detective fiction, history and old Osaka into logically patterned whodunit. How the (meta-ish) ending is handled ensured it a place on my list of favorites.

I admittedly started to become skeptical when starting on the last two parts of the final chapter, "1946: Amid the Ruins, Part I" and "Amid the Ruins, Part II," because the pages quickly began to diminish with still so much left to explain. If it wasn't for the curious twist the denouement scene makes, it would have been a big chunk to digest. Ashibe mostly pulls it off with only the explanation for the dancing household spirit leaving me unimpressed. I thought the sightings was a clue that one of the sons had sneaked back home and was hiding in the air raid shelter with a pet monkey he brought back from abroad. Other than that disappointing minor plot-thread, Ashibe delivered a first-rate, classically-styled family whodunit in which old sins cast large, all-consuming shadows while American bombers begin to appear on the distant horizon. Hopefully, Murder in the House of Omari is going to be first (well, the second) of many more of Ashibe's detective novels to make it pass the language barrier. In the meanwhile, Murder in the House of Omari comes highly recommended to fans of Takagi, Yokomizo and the historical retro-GAD writers like Tom Mead and James Scott Byrnside.

Such Bright Disguises (1941) by Brian Flynn

Last year, Dean Street Press resumed its publishing activity following the untimely passing of its founder, Rupert Heath, reprinting the first five, of forty-eight, Anthony Maitland mysteries by Sara Wood – originally published between 1961 and 1987. So not exactly a vintage mystery series, but they're reportedly very good and intend to sample Bloody Instructions (1961), Malice Domestic (1962) and Error of the Moon (1963).

This month, DSP is going to resume their reprints of Brian Flynn with brand new editions of the long out-of-print Men for Pieces (1949), Black Agent (1950), And Cauldron Bubble (1951), Where There Was Smoke (1951) and The Ring of Innocent (1952). When DSP (temporarily) closed down in 2023 following Heath's death, I took a break from Flynn to savor the remaining half dozen reprints on the big pile. After all, the shuttering of DSP appeared to be permanent two years ago. Now that they have started back up, I decided to return to Flynn by picking the reportedly best title from the remaining, previously reprinted, Anthony Bathurst novels.

Flynn's Such Bright Disguises (1941), the twenty-seventh Anthony Bathurst mystery, indeed turned out to be really good. Surprisingly different even when compared to Flynn's own unusual takes on the genre. An inverted, character-driven crime novel with numerous twists and turn described by a contemporary review as "suburban horror melodrama" with an "ingenious final solution." Agreed!

The three characters at the center of Such Bright Disguises form that cussed Eternal Triangle. Dorothy Grant, a good looking woman in her early thirties, is married to the self-satisfied, completely oblivious Hubert Grant – respectable Deputy Treasurer of Tudor, Surrey. Together they have a 10-year-old daughter, Frances. Hubert believed their marriage is a happy one, which is why he didn't see Dorothy drifting away from him. Six months previously, Dorothy had taken a lover, Laurence Weston, who both made sure their affair remained a secret with nothing to connect them publicly. Their passionate meetings became milestones in Dorothy's life, but made life at home and Hubert increasingly difficult to bare. Over the period between Christmas and New Year, their marriage deteriorates rapidly and Flynn takes a remarkable modern approach by not shying away from the bedroom. Dorothy finds it impossible to sleep with Hubert now that she's given herself to Laurence and that results in some embarrassing bedroom scenes for Hubert, which ends with him having to sleep in the spare bedroom.

So the first-part of Such Bright Disguises details Dorothy's go from tolerating her husband to passively disliking him and "from passive dislike to the active, from there to something perilously akin to hatred." Not helped by the fact that a divorce is out of the question, because "the Courts would almost certainly give Frances to him." Meanwhile, Hubert is starting to notice the dots he needs to connect to understand Dorothy's distant, antagonistic behavior towards him. But he connects them wrongly. And an argument ends with him striking her. That brings murder into the conversation between Dorothy and Laurence.

Laurence's idea to use himself as the proverbial "unknown quantity" in order to ensure Dorothy has an unshakable alibi as he disposes Hubert in the river. A neat enough job that the inquest delivers an open verdict with nothing for the police to go on. Dorothy eventually moves away with Frances to play out her first meeting with Laurence, courtship and finally marriage. So the second-half picks up as Dorothy and Laurence start their new life together with Frances, but what happens next can't be described without giving away too much important, spoiler-ish details as events get very dark, grim and devastating – humanly devastating. Culminating in a surprising, but puzzling, double murder with a quarter of the story left to go.

So with no time to spare, Sir Austin Kemble, Commissioner of Police, throws up his hands and tells Chief Inspector MacMorran to send for Anthony Bathurst. Bathurst has to speed run his investigation and quickly piece together such clues as taunting messages signed with "Harry the Hangman," coal trade cards and the curious incident of the radiogram. While this part is perhaps rushed, giving the impression Flynn inserted Bathurst on the insistence of his publisher, the ending absolutely delivers. The kind of ending and solution you hope to find in a vintage mystery, even when presented as a domestic suspense drama. A great payoff justifying taking two-thirds of the story working towards it. Such Bright Disguises is one of Flynn's best written novels with Dorothy, Hubert and Laurence shining as characters and a conclusion that comes like a final, merciful twist of the knife. So it would certainly make my top 10 favorite Flynn mysteries. There are, however, a couple of loose plot-threads preventing it from taking a place among Flynn's objectively best work.

Firstly, (ROT13) n jbzna ol gur anzr bs Zef. Vatenz vf vagebqhprq evtug orsber Uhoreg'f zheqre naq nccrnef gb or na nppbzcyvpr, ohg fur qvfnccrnef sebz gur fgbel arire gb or frra be zragvbarq ntnva. Ynherapr arire zragvbarq ure naq fur qbrfa'g svther va Onguhefg'f fbyhgvba. Bayl gur ernqre vf znqr njner bs ure vaibyirzrag jvgubhg ernfba. Gung znxrf ab frafr orpnhfr gurer jnf ab ernfba sbe gung fprar gb or fubja, orpnhfr gur fgbel nyernql tybffrq bire gur qrgnvyf bs Uhoreg'f zheqre. Ubj qvq ur trg uvz vagb gur evire jvgubhg n fgehttyr be yrnivat n znex ba gur obql? Gung'f arire rkcynvarq. Fb jul abg whfg cynl bhg gur fprar jvgu Qbebgul przragvat ure nyvov nf fur cergraqf gb jnvg sbe ure uhfonaq gb pbzr ubzr, bayl gb yrnea gur arkg qnl ur jnf qenttrq bhg bs gur evire. Gur fprar jvgu Zef. Vatenz jnf gurersber haarprffnel naq zhqqyrq na bgurejvfr rkpryyrag raqvat. Another thing I found dissatisfying, is how (ROT13) dhvpxyl cbbe, oyvaq onol Snvgu jnf sbetbggra nobhg nsgre ure cneragf jrer zheqrerq. Jung unccrarq gb ure? Bayl grahbhf eryngvirf fur unf ner gur tenaqcneragf bs ure qrnq unys-fvfgre Senaprf, ohg gurl'er nyernql va gurve rvtugvrf. That last thing admittedly is in keeping with the tone of the story, but therefore not any less depressing.

So, on a whole, Flynn's Such Bright Disguises is, for the most part, an excellently written, well paced, cleverly constructed and unusually characterized Golden Age detective novel – not shying away from being uncomfortable, soul-crushingly grim. It's just not entirely spotless. If you ignore a loose thread here and scoff mark there, Such Bright Disguises is a highly recommendable vintage, especially to fans of Anthony Berkeley's twisted inversions and Anthony Gilbert's domestic suspense mysteries.

Scarlet Skeins: Case Closed, vol. 94 by Gosho Aoyama

The 94th volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed series represents a milestone as the chapter opening the all-important last story in this volume is chapter 1000, but, more importantly, the story itself is a milestone when it comes to the Conan/Jimmy and Rachel character-arc – which should please fans frustrated with its lack of progress over the years. Firstly, this volume traditionally opens with the conclusion to the story that closed out the previous volume. A crossover story!

Harley Hartwell is participating in a high school kendo tournament and a favorite to come out on top, but the competition is rudely interrupted when one of the referees is slashed to death near the bathroom stalls. The murderer, wearing a kendo mask and gear, was heard by a blind witness going into the bathroom. Nobody was heard coming out since then. But the three people found inside didn't have a drop of blood on them. Conan and Harley have to make quick work of the case, before Harley has to appear in the semi-finals of the tournament. There's also a crossover appearance of a character from Aoyama's pre-Case Closed adventure-comedy series Yaiba. Soshi Okita inserts himself into the investigation ("let me have a go first") with an amusingly dumb, not entirely incorrect false-solution. Interestingly, this volume also reveals Okita is a classmate of Momiji Ooka. She has romantic designs on Harley Hartwell and always refers to him as "my future husband."

The actual solution is deduced from an array of kendo-themed clues, red herrings and red herrings doubling as clues, which regrettably diminishes the fair play aspect for the average reader not intimately known with kendo – otherwise a technically sound, fair play detective story. I was really glad the ending didn't trot out another stitched together, Frankenstein-like solution or trick marring so many of the individual cases in later volumes. The next story continues this trend as well as setting everything in motion for the big story.

Conan and Richard Moore notice Rachel has been having strangely lately, acting secretive and generally being a Miss Sunshine, which is why they decide to shadow her. So they follow her around town, ending up a cafe, where Rachel meets up with Serena and Sera to plan a trip to Kyoto for spring break. They, of course, get caught and Rachel tells Conan their trip is not an ordinary one, but before she can explain, someone screams. The unpopular waiter of the place, Daiki Saraie, is found dead in the staff room. Whoever killed him demonstrated some extraordinary feats of strength.

First of all, Saraie's skull had been crushed with a huge, heavy vase, "even empty, it weighs a ton," but it was filled with water. Secondly, the murderer opened Saraie's locker by apparently tearing away the padlock ("how could a human being break a padlock open like this?") and the toolbox contained nothing that could have been "used to smash a padlock." So who killed him and how was it done as none of their suspects appears to have had the strength to lift the vase or tear off a padlock. Admittedly, the solution is not too difficult to anticipate as it also sets up the next two stories, while Conan being seriously distracted by trying to figure out what's so extraordinary about Rachel's trip to Kyoto, but appreciated this little, very well-done borderline impossible crime story. No stitches between the two tricks or between the tricks and the whodunit. Just a well-done (borderline) impossible crime/howdunit story reminiscent of certain short stories by Arthur Porges like "The Puny Giant" (1964).

The ending to this story directly sets up to the next story when Conan learns the trip to Kyoto is not a secretive, all-girls outing, but simply their high school class trip and everyone, especially Rachel, expects Jimmy to finally show his face – which is going to be tricky. Conan asks Anita to give him some of the temporary APTX 4869 antidote, but Anita refuses to hand multiple doses "so you can tour Kyoto with your girlfriend." So time to butter her up! Anita is a big fan of Big Osaka's star football/soccer player, Ryusuke Higo, but she lost her Higo plushie phone charm. Anita considers the charm unique, because Higo touched when he met her in the stands. So she's left emotionally devastated at its lost and Conan is determined to find it. But retracing it proves to be trickier than anticipated. Aoyama skillfully spun a great deal of believable complexity out of a very simple, straight forward story. Still a very minor story, plot-wise, which has its main purpose in getting Conan to the school trip as Jimmy. Nonetheless, a very well done retrieval story.

So the last story brings Conan, as Jimmy, to Kyoto to finally reunite him with Rachel and his class mates. The relationship between them appears to have gone from childhood friends to high school sweet hearts, only for Jimmy to run into an old friend of his mother, Keiko Kurachi. An award-winning actress who got her break through a university film club project ("...they're all big names now") and they have reunited to remake their first movie, but one of them received a weird, coded message with a dried leaf. She wants Jimmy to take a crack at the coded message.

Ho-Ling was not kidding when he said this story is "absolutely packed." Jimmy barely got a chance to glance at the code when their screenwriter is bizarrely murdered in his hotel room. A bloodied Taro Nishiki is found lying on the floor, but the big, ugly bloodstain with a trail of bloody footprints aren't found on the carpeted floor. But on the ceiling! So it looks as if "the killer yanked the victim into the air, stabbed him to death" and "walked across the ceiling," before flying out of 15th floor window – suggesting the handiwork of the Tengu ("...killer clearly wanted us to think it was Tengu"). A second murder is committed in the streets with a similar, bloody presentation, but the question here where the murderer found the time to create the scene. And, in between murders, a giant Tengu appeared in a hotel room witnessed by Jimmy. Jimmy also has to manage his “breaks” when reverting back to Conan with Harley secretly "helping" him out. There are other guest appearances, notably Inspector Fumimaro Ayanokoji and his pet chipmunk, originally created for the Case Closed anime movies, but they have now crossed over to the main manga series. So look forward to its conclusion in the next volume!

So, on a whole, a rock solid, thoroughly engaging volume of stories with the quality of the individual cases representing a return to form, while the quickening pace of the Jimmy/Conan/Rachel storyline rekindled the spirit of an earlier period in the series. Unabashed, quality fan service!

Visitors to the Isolated Island (2020) by Kie Houjou

Last year, Kie Houjou became one of my favorite mystery writers on the strength of two novels, Jikuu ryokousha no sunadokei (The Time Traveler's Hourglass, 2019) and Meitantei ni kanbi naru shi wo (Delicious Death for Detectives, 2022), which are respectively the first and third title in the "Ryuuzen Clan" series – translated by Mitsuda Madoy and "cosmiicnana." Technically, they're hybrid mysteries. The Time Traveler's Hourglass weaves time travel into an intricate, immaculately-plotted detective novel and Delicious Death for Detectives entrenched its plot in an immerse, futuristic Virtual Reality game. However, they're so very well done, well rounded and incredibly innovative mysteries, it would be more accurate to call them the detective series of tomorrow. I especially can see Delicious Death for Detectives becoming the classic detective novel from the first-half of this century (i.e. comparable to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, 1939).

I had a sneaking suspicion the second book in the series, Katou no raihousha (Visitors to the Isolated Island, 2020), could become my favorite. A suspicion that proved to be not far off the mark!

Kie Houjou's Visitors to the Isolated Island is the second title in the "Ryuuzen Clan" series, but Meister Hora only appears in the foreword to assure the reader that although "the events of the story seem absurd, there is no need for you to fear" as it will remain a detective story at heart ("I value fair play above all else"). Kamo Touma is only mentioned as the author of an article on the titular island in the Unsolved Mysteries magazine. Instead, the story focuses on Kamo's brother-in-law, Ryuuzen Yuki, who's the Assistant Director at J. Production en route to the lush, now uninhabited Kakuriyo Island to shoot a TV special for the World's Mysteries Detective Club show – which is going to spotlight the 1974 "Beast of Kakuriyo Island" incident. A mass murder robbing the island of the last of its last inhabitants.

Kakuriyo Island, "a perpetual summer paradise," actually consists two islands. A bigger, oval shaped island and a smaller tidal island, known as the Divine Land, which is connected to the main island during low tide when a gravel path appears. In 1974, the entire population (12), in addition to a visiting professor researching folklore, was wiped out in a single night with bodies found in different locations. All the victims had one thing in common: they had been stabbed in the heart by "a cone-shaped object." The police concluded the visiting scholar, Professor Sasakura, killed the islanders when caught digging up the cemetery looking for buried treasure. And died himself in a struggle with the last victim. Furthermore, the police believe the dogs kept on the island were responsible for savaging Professor Saskura's body. A conclusion that doesn't satisfy or hold up, as outlined in Kamo's article, but that's where the case stood for nearly half a century.

Fast forward to 2019, Yuki has come to Kakuriyo Island not only as the assistant director, but to get revenge for a friend whose death can be blamed on certain members of the production company.

However, Yuki plans to break with long-standing (shin) honkaku traditions by opting for practical methods rather than "crimes patterned on old legends or nursery rhymes and serial killings in villas," because locked room murders, fabricated alibis and other fictional crimes "were often useless in real life" – preferring to arouse as little suspicion and panic as possible. Only the appearance of a great detective, which is why invited a well-known researcher of subtropical ecosystems and detective fiction enthusiast, Motegi Shinji, to "reveal a false truth prepared by Yuki." So imagine his annoyance when one of his prospective victims is impossibly killed in a way mirroring the 1974 murders. Unno Nisaburo, the director, is found stabbed through the heart on top of a bush with only his muddy footprints leading to the spot.

So the plot, up till this point, still sounds fairly conventional shin honkaku mystery with the customary closed circle of characters stuck on an isolated island when a murderer begins leaving bodies in bizarre or impossible circumstances. It could describe the plot of Yukito Ayatsuji's Jukkakukan no satsujin (The Decagon House Murders, 1987), MORI Hiroshi's Subete ga F ni naru (The Perfect Insider, 1996), NisiOisiN's Zaregoto series: kubikiri saikuru (Zaregoto, Book 1: The Kubikiri Cycle, 2002) or half the titles from The Kindaichi Case Files series. Not to forget Danro Kamosaki's recently reviewed Misshitsu kyouran jidai no satsujin – Zekkai no katou to nanatsu no trick (The Solitary Island in the Distant Sea and the Seven Tricks, 2022). Where Visitors to the Isolated Island begins to differ is when Yuki proves Sherlock Holmes' adage, "when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth," correct. Yuki deduces from the circumstances in which the director was killed that "the so-called Beast of Kakuriyo Island actually exists." A creature not native to the island, our planet and perhaps not even from this reality!

 

 

Yuki's outlandish theory is quickly proven correct and places entirely new complexion on both their situation and that of the detective story. Now the problem is not trying to fit motive and opportunity to one of the suspects, but applying the art of deduction to unraveling the nature of the creature ("...so little information and so many unknowns..."). Where did it come from? What can it do? What are its limitations? How intelligent is it? How can they possibly protect themselves from it? One thing that's obvious from the start is the creature, called a Visitor, is halfway between a Chupacabra and a Skinwalker. It sucks living creatures, preferably humans, dry like a juice box. More disturbingly, it can take on the form of its victim in addition to some other distinctly non-human traits and abilities, but its “mimicry” poses a direct treat to the group. Visitor has the ability to replace someone in the group and this danger even extends to animals no smaller than a cat. So they not only have to find answers and trying to draw conclusions from the gathered information, but strategize in order to survive and prevent the Visitor from escaping the island.

A comparison can be drawn with the zombie hoard encircling the villa in Masahiro Imamura's Shijinso no satsujin (Death Among the Undead, 2017), but the Visitor presents the Yuki and the reader with a genuine, ultimate unknown – an intelligent, non-human interloper. An invasive species knocking humanity down a place on the food chain. And with every new discovery about the Visitor, it throws another complication on their various problems while the bodycount and suspicion steadily rises. So not exactly the same obstacle presented by the zombies from Death Among the Undead, but towards the end, the traits and abilities of the Visitors come into play when someone is bumped off while alone in a watched room with a dog guarding the hallway. Solutions to this impossible murder and Yuki's explanation twists and coils right up until the final pages with some wonderful, highly imaginative applications of the Visitor's abilities to the traditional, fair play detective story.

How fairly the game was played here is more impressive than how Kie Houjou handled the ultimate unknown within the confines of the traditional detective story. A good, non-spoilerish example is the coded message the original inhabitants left behind revealing the hiding place of a treasure trove of information on the Visitors. In my experience, Japanese code cracking stories, or subplots, rarely work in translation, but Yuki pointed out that "this code was made to be solved by a complete outsider to the island" – including the reader. Not only is the code 100% solvable, it's solution is a clue in itself. Houjou played it so fairly, she included two relatively short chapters from the perspective of the Visitor. I was, in fact, able to anticipate an important part of the solution without getting all the way. But it was fun trying to find my way in what's new territory for the detective story.

That's another noteworthy aspect of Visitors to the Isolated Island. It demonstrates why hybrid mysteries have become the next frontier for Japanese mystery writers. When done correctly, the hybrid mystery allows to break new ground and create new possibilities, while staying well within the framework of the classically-styled, fair play detective story. Visitors to the Isolated Island is a superb example of the fair play, hybrid mystery done right. Only drawback is how unrealistically perfect, almost dreamlike, all three novels are. Like a collective wish-fulfillment of detective fans come true!

So what else to say, except that The Time Traveler's Hourglass, Visitors to the Isolated Island and Delicious Death for Detectives deserve an official release in as many different languages as possible, because these three detective novels are going to be the classics of the 21st century. To quote Mitsuda Madoy, "they phenomenal, absolute masterpieces" and "boringly perfect" to boot. Highly recommended!

Note for the curious: yes, I know, I rambled on long enough, but something else I liked is how Visitors to the Isolated Island, an experimental hybrid mystery, embodies the past, present and future of the genre. Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841) was not only the first modern detective story and first official locked room mystery, but also the first hybrid mystery combining horror with a tale of ratiocination. A line can be drawn from Poe to this book and the direction the genre (in Japan) seems to be headed in the years ahead.

Zombie Mail: "The Devil in the Summerhouse" (1942) by John Dickson Carr

Two months ago, John Norris, of Pretty Sinister Books, posted a review of Charles Ashton's annoyingly obscure, long out-of-print Death Greets a Guest (1936) in which a summerhouse during a storm becomes the scene of an impossible murder – an impossible that got compared to the works of Anthony Wynne. One of the early detective writers to specialize in locked room murders and other impossible crimes. I thought John's description of the inexplicable shooting in the watched summerhouse reminded me of a radio-play John Dickson Carr penned for the CBS radio series Suspense.

There are two versions of "The Devil in the Summerhouse." The first version, featuring Dr. Gideon Fell, takes place in England and aired on BBC radio in 1940, but the second version takes place in New York and Dr. Fell was replaced with Captain Burke of the New York police. I think this Suspense version, originally broadcast on November 3, 1942, is the better known of the two because its script received several notable publications. "The Devil in the Summerhouse" was printed in the September, 1946, issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and reprinted in Dr. Fell, Detective and Other Stories (1947) and The Door to Doom and Other Detections (1980). So wanted to refresh my memory on this one after John's review of Ashton's Death Greets a Guest.

"The Devil in the Summerhouse" is a small, intimate affair bringing two men to the overgrown grounds of a small house near the Hudson with a spacious garden and "a summerhouse of evil memory." A place where twenty-five years ago Mayor Jerry Kenyon apparently committed suicide.

One of the two men is Captain Burke and the other Joseph Parker, a family lawyer, who received, what should have been, a dead, undelivered letter – dated November 2, 1918! The letter reads "if you want to know how Major Kenyon really died, look in the third drawer of the desk in the library" ("press hard at the back of the drawer"). Parker was present twenty-five years ago when Kenyon was found dead in the summerhouse with a scorched bullet hole in his head and the gun beside him. Others who were around at the time were Mayor Kenyon's wife, Isabel, her younger brother Paul and their maid, Kitty. Angela Fiske, "the other woman," unexpectedly dropped in before the body is discovered. Only these people could have pulled the trigger, but everybody has an alibi. So the police settled on suicide, the case was closed, time moved on "and now they're all dead." And nearly forgotten, until that letter from 1918 arrived. When they open the secret drawer, they discover something that makes the past come alive. More impressively, through Carr's words, it gets the quality of a ghost story with such lines as "don't look at it as if it were alive" and "don't talk back to the thing, man, or you'll drive me crazy."

Fortunately, Burke's reason for being there is to bring the whole case back down to earth, shooting an alibi to pieces to reveal a neatly hidden murderer and to bury the past. Yes, bury the past is a euphemism for covering up the truth in typical Carrian fashion, however, the murderer this time doesn't go unpunished.

I remembered "The Devil in the Summerhouse" being a fully fledged locked room mystery, but it really is more in line with the alibi-breakers of Christopher Bush and not a bad one at that either! A very well done, compactly-plotted murder-from-the-past puzzle calculated to intrigue, to stir your nerves, to offer a precarious situation and then withhold the solution until the last possible moment. In short, "The Devil in the Summerhouse" is a story to keep you in... Suspense!

Nine Times Nine (1940) by Anthony Boucher

I previously reviewed H. Russell Wakefield's The Belt of Suspicion (1936), a not wholly uninteresting genre curiosity, but a curiosity nonetheless and one of a dubious, uneven quality – resulting in a lackluster review. So wanted to pick something good for the next one and settled on revisiting a classic.

Anthony Boucher's Nine Times Nine (1940), originally published as by "H.H. Holmes," is the first, of only two, mystery novels that make up the short-lived Sister Ursula series. A 1981 panel of writers and reviewers voted Nine Times Nine the ninth best locked room mystery up till that point. Not surprisingly as the book is pure, undiluted fan service for impossible crime addicts often grouped together with other non-John Dickson Carr fan favorites like Clayton Rawson's Death from a Top Hat (1938), Hake Talbot's Rim of the Pit (1944) and John Sladek's Black Aura (1974). Jim, of The Invisible Event, picked Nine Times Nine for his "Locked Room Library—One Hundred Recommended Books" calling it "pure detective fun from first to last” with "a very clever puzzle that hides its vanishing murderer well." Nine Times Nine was left off from my own "Updated Mammoth List of Favorite Locked Room Murders & Impossible Crimes" in favor of Boucher's often overlooked The Case of the Solid Key (1941), but have been second guessing that decision. So high time to give it second appraisal and see if it should be included in a future update.

Nine Times Nine is a detective novel written by a detective fan for detective fans is made clear from the start beginning with the dedication, "this locked room is dedicated to John Dickson Carr, facile princeps and prince of facility." Followed by a handful of excerpts from newspaper articles with a sort of pre-Challenge to the Reader to the "hypothetical Mycroft" at home to see how they fit in with, what the headlines, would come to call "The Astral Body Murder." After this, the reader is told how Matt Duncan, a freelance writer, came to be involved with the well-known Wolfe Harrigan and his household.

Wolfe Harrigan is a well-known author and authority on bogus, screwball cults and religious flavored rackets, a debunker, but the Roman Catholic Harrigan sees himself as "a lay crusader" combating heresy – desperate to reach the plain, ordinary lower-middle-class man and woman. The primary victims on which these cults and spiritualists prey. Duncan becomes his assistant/writing partner and takes him along to attend a meeting of the Children of Light. One of the latest pseudo-religious cults to spring up in California, but the leader of this cult is a bearded, yellow-robed and self-proclaimed immortal, Ahasver. In fact, Ahasver claims to be no less a figure than the Wandering Jew. During the meeting, Ahasver and his followers call upon the Nine Times Nine to curse and destroy their enemy ("free us from this evil man, O Nine Times Nine!"). The enemy in question is Wolfe Harrigan. Something that amuses the crusading debunker to no end. Well, not until later that day.

In the afternoon, Duncan notices the yellow-robed Ahasver standing in Harrigan's study, leaning over his desk facing his enemy, from the croquet lawn. And immediately smells potential danger. But their knocks on the study door remain unanswered. When they look through the french windows, they see Harrigan lying next to his desk with "the face shot half away." No one else is in the study, least of all a yellow-robed cult leader! So how did he manage to disappear from a room with every door and window either securely locked or under observation?

Nine Times Nine is Sister Ursula's first appearance, but she's practically a non-entity in the book who makes a couple of brief appearances before she gathers everyone to explain the apparent miracle murder. Halfway between an armchair oracle and a deus ex machina. So the book follows around Duncan as he goes from Harrigan's literary assistant to Lieutenant Terence Marshall's semi-official Watson. Marshall could use some help as he notes that “apparently this damned locked-room business is old stuff to mystery novelists, even though it's new in my police experience.” That's not the only detective story trope to turn up in the locked study. Such as an obscured dying message, “sort of thing Ellery Queen has so much fun with,” and Ahasver coyly admitting to having shot Harrigan while possessing a perfectly tight alibi – backed up by 108 witnesses. This, of course, results in the obligatory locked room lecture when Duncan sits down with Marshall and his wife, Leone, who's a huge fan of impossible crime stories ("...one hundred and eight sworn statements"). So they sit down to discuss Dr. Gideon Fell's "Locked Room Lecture" from The Three Coffins (1935) and try to figure out which locked room-trick can be applied to their impossible murder. Robert Adey called it one of the best locked room lectures/discussions of impossible crimes in fiction and find it hard to disagree, especially when a hint of Carrian brilliance is casually dropped (SPOILER/ROT13: jura gur jebat, ohg fgvyy fbzrjung pbeerpg, fhttrfgvba vf bssrerq gung gur inavfuvat svther pbhyq unir orra “n fgnghr nf ovt nf n zna,” ohg “ubj qvq gung trg bhg bs gur ebbz?”). Remembering parts of the solution, I immediately noticed how clever that is.

However, the seemingly impossible murder of Wolfe Harrigan and the involvement of the Children of Light is only part of the plot and characters. There are more characters and other subplots complicating matters, but decided for this one to concentrate purely on locked room fun.

So how does Nine Times Nine fare as a locked room mystery? Was the 1981 panel correct in voting it the ninth best locked room mystery? Yeah, kind of. I don't think Nine Times Nine should be considered top 10 material today, but back during the post-WWII locked room novel slump, it frankly deserved to be ranked a bit higher. Nine Times Nine is certainly better than either Rawson's Death from a Top Hat and Queen's The Chinese Orange Mystery (1934). Boucher's solution for the vanishing murderer certainly is not routine, original even, but it has to be admitted the killer was incredibly lucky it went off without a hitch. So much could have gone horribly wrong when trying to pull a stunt like that and suppose it was the reason why I picked The Case of the Solid Key for my best-of list. That aspect didn't bothered me as much this time around. Probably because I now recognize it as a cut, or two, above the average, non-JDC locked room mystery from the period. Back then, I mostly had Carr and a few other titles to compare it with.

Boucher's Nine Times Nine proved to be a lot better and more fun than I remembered. It's not a perfect locked room mystery, or detective story, but a pretty good, solid effort written especially for the enjoyment of locked room mystery fanatics – past, present and future. On that account, I can warmly recommend Nine Times Nine.