The Shanghai River Demon's Curse (1997) by Seimaru Amagi

During the 1990s and early 2000s, the co-creator of The Kindaichi Case Files, Seimaru Amagi, wrote nine "light novels" in the series and four were translated as part of either the Kodansha English Library or Kodansha Ruby Books, which were intended as an educational tool to help improve the English of Japanese readers – not to dazzle Western readers. Hence, each novel ends with a nearly thirty-page long English-Japanese vocabulary list. 

According to our resident expert, Ho-Ling Wong, the English editions enjoyed a long print-run in Japan and there must be "a fair number in circulation," but, in the West, copies have become as rare and elusive as a Kappa. Not quite rare or obscure enough to elude me forever!

Several years ago, I came across Dennō sansō satsujin jiken (Murder On-Line, 1996), which is possibly the first detective novel to use the internet meaningfully in a traditionally-styled mystery complete with an isolated, snowbound setting and ironclad alibis. You can borrow a digital copy from the Internet Archive. Next one that fell into my hands was Operazakan – aratanaru satsujin (Opera House, the New Murders, 1994), published in English simply as The New Kindaichi Files, but the plain, uninspired title hides a classic, first-rate theatrical locked room mystery – translating into my favorite Kindaichi title to date. Ikazuchi matsuri satsujin jiken (Deadly Thunder, 1998) is a very minor, short and somewhat flawed detective story, but you can cross-off some of its shortcomings against an imaginative piece of miniature world-building and an inventive impossible crime. So that left with me with one more title to track down. 

Shanhai gyojin densetsu satsujin jiken (The Shanghai River Demon's Curse, 1997) is the fifth novel in the series and the third to be translated, which turned out to be a bit of an odd duck. 

The Shanghai River Demon's Curse brings Hajime Kindaichi and Miyuki Nanase to Shanghai, China, where the famous Yang Variety Troupe performs a daily, two-hour variety show at the Mermaid Hall. An enormous ship moored along the bank of the Huangpu River. The main event of the show is an acrobatic underwater act, "The Legend of the River Demon," which is patterned after the tale of a creature that's half-fish, half-human that lives at the bottom of the river. A monster with the ability to curse, or even kill, human beings. In some places, it's considered "bad luck to mock such spirits on stage" like "in Japanese ghost stories."

Following a performance of "The Legend of the River Demon," the director of the troupe, Yang
Wang, is found in his office with a bullet in his head, but his body and the floor are unaccountably soaking – water has "the unpleasant odor of freshwater fish." Even stranger is that the murderer scratched a huge Chinese character for “spring,” a meter wide, on the wall. The first word of the lullaby of the river demon's curse. However, the Shanghai police have a very human suspect in their sights.

Once the show begins, with "animals like the tiger and monkey roaming around," the door to the dressing room is locked from the inside and it's "impossible for anyone from the audience to get in," which was still locked from the inside when the show ended. Nearly everyone on that side of the door had an alibi except the victim's son, Yang Xiaolong. His young sister, Yang Lili, writes her Japanese penfriend, Miyuki, a distressed letter saying her brother is suspected to have murdered their father. Miyuki decides to go Shanghai to help by bringing her childhood friend, Hajime Kindaichi, who's "the grandson of the master detective Kosuke Kindaichi" and "solved several cases for the Metropolitan Police Department." But his grandfather's name or reputation is not as well-known in China, which is one of the challenges facing the young detective who became a little timid when landed in foreign country for the first time in his life.

When they finally arrive in Shanghai, there are two big surprises waiting in the wings. Firstly, they find Detective Li Boer, of the Shanghai Police, in the company of their friend in the MPD, Inspector Kenmochi. Recently, the body in a decade old murder case was identified and "a small clue" led the Tokyo police to the Japanese director/producer of the Yang Variety Troupe. But is there's a link to the new murder? Secondly, Kindaichi and Miyuki get to witness a second murder during a performance of "The Legend of the River Demon" when a body plunged down from above the stage into the swimming tank. Another bullet to the head and the Chinese character for "summer" was slashed in the victim's back with a knife. So the murderer was intended to follow the grim lullaby. 

In spring, the boat is flooded,

In summer, the river turns a murky mauve,

In autumn, the traveler must drink putrid water,

In winter, fish no longer swim but sleep.

These murders also have an element of the impossible as the victims were shot with a derringer, which apparently can vanish, or materialize, whenever it's convenient to the murderer. The part of the ship between Yang's office and the dressing room was locked at the time of murder, which meant that nobody went in, or out, before the police arrived. So nobody had an opportunity to dispose of the gun, but they went over the entire ship with dogs and metal detectors without finding anything. They simply assume the murderer found a way to throw it in the river until discovering the second murder was committed with the same weapon! I've seen two variations on this type of vanishing weapon trick before and hated both of them. This one is marginally better, because Amagi tried to make it somewhat convincing. But the trick is still Yozaburo Kanari. Yes, Kanari's name in this context is a euphemism for shit.

Well, so far, it seems like a fairly standard and typical Kindaichi story with exception of the setting and its effect on Kindaichi's normally cocky attitude, but the story moves away from the series formula in the second-half – turning into a chase story with a coming-of-age angle. Kindaichi helps Yang Xiaolong to escape from police custody and they're chased to Shanghai as they make a run to the Yang's home village. A dirt poor place where the children had to grow up faster in order to make money, which is why Xiaolong and his sister acts so much mature than Kindaichi. But, while their on the run, they both find something of themselves they had either lost or never had. This comes at the expensive of the usual plot structure with the alibis, impossibilities and the nursery rhyme theme of the murders being heavily underplayed during the second-half.

I also hated that during the first-half an intriguing, quickly discarded plot-thread was introduced when Kindaichi learned of a former troupe member, Wang Meiyu, who was a superb swimmer, but a bit strange. Meiyu not only swam really well and could stay underwater forever, but "she only ate aquatic plants and freshwater fish." And it was her talent that lead the troupe to adopt the "The Legend of the River Demon" as their signature act. But then strange rumors began to circulate. Members began to talk that every time she took a shower, the bathroom would "reek of fish" with "large fish scales on the floor." So they began to avoid Meiyu and culminated in her committing suicide by jumping into the river from the toilet window. She left four characters scrawled in blood on the wall and has now risen from "the depths of that murky river" to extract revenge. But the plot-thread was quickly brushed aside. And given an even quicker explanation towards the end. So the only reason why it was even brought up was to give the book a snappy title.

Thankfully, the solution was not all bad with a pretty good alibi-trick and an inspired piece of misdirection, which successfully hid the murderer for a good chunk of the story. I eventually figured it out, because if you how the gun can vanish and reappear, you know who pulled the trigger. Not so good is that other parts of the solution stretches things considerably with an unnecessary, rather cruel twist nearly ruining the whole thing. I mean, this murderer is very likely going to be executed. So why throw that revelation out there? Amagi is the Soji Shimada of the anime-and manga detective story who is nearly unmatched when it comes to erecting grand-scale plots with majestic locked room-and alibi-tricks, but when it comes to characters, sometimes he goes one twist too far. Deadly Thunder has a similar problem.

So, on a whole, The Shanghai River Demon's Curse is not entirely without interest and its break with the formula and foreign setting makes it a worthwhile read to long-time fans of the series, but don't expect anything more than an average detective story. Regrettably, the weakest of the four translated novels.

This more or less closes the chapter on The New Kindaichi Files light novels with such untranslated novels as Yūrei kyakusen satsujin jiken (The Ghost Passenger Ship Murder Case, 1995) and Onibijima satusjin jikes (The Ghost Fire Island Murder Case, 1997) remaining tantalizingly out of my reach. Well, the novels are out of my reach, but not the '90s anime adaptations. So I might make one of those my next stop in the series.

The New Kindaichi Files (1994) by Seimaru Amagi

Two years ago, I reviewed Seimaru Amagi's Dennō sansō satsujin jiken (Murder On-Line, 1996), a so-called "light novel," which is the Japanese, manga-like equivalent of young adult fiction complete with illustrations and penned all nine light novels in The Kindaichi Case Files series – published between 1994 and 2001. Only four of the novels were translated as part of the Kodansha English Library, but copies have become scarce over the past two decades. 

Ho-Ling Wong commented on my review to explain that "these books were not really intended for the international market," but to help Japanese readers who were learning to speak English and the reason why there are English/Japanese vocabulary lists at the end of the books. So not that many copies journeyed to the West.

Nevertheless, when has the obscure, out-of-print status of a tantalizing-sounding detective novel ever stopped any of us? John Norris has obscurity serve him drinks while reading. I managed to get hold of a copy of the first novel in the series, Operazakan – aratanaru satsujin (Opera House, the New Murders, 1994), which appeared in English under the nondescript title of The New Kindaichi Files. But don't let the bland title fool you. The book is an important entry in the series mythos and a sterling performance of the theatrical mystery novel with a five-star locked room-trick! 

The New Kindaichi Files is a sequel to the very first Kindaichi (manga) story, Operazakan satsujin jiken (The Opera House Murder Case, 1993), published in English in 2003 by TokyoPop as The Opera House Murders, which brought Hajime Kindaichi to the Hotel Opera on Utashima Island – where he was confronted by a string of murders modeled on Gaston Leroux's Le fantôme de l'opéra (The Phantom of the Opera, 1909). Kindaichi would return to Utashima Island a total of four times to solve Phantom of the Opera-themed murders. Ho-Ling reviewed the first three cases in 2012 in his blog-post "Three Act Tragedy" and discussed the fourth story in two-parts, which can be read here and here. But, for now, let's take a closer look at the second story that once again bathed the small island in blood.

Kazuma Kurosawa is one of the top five directors in Japan, reformer of modern drama and "the man behind the commercial success of theater" who had written and directed eight hit versions of The Phantom of the Opera. Ten years ago, Kurosawa had bought the island and spent six years restoring and converting the Georgian-style vacation home into a hotel with theater, which opened four years before The New Kindaichi Files. And what happened during its opening can be read in The Opera House Murders. Four years later, the old theater had been torn down and a new one built where Kurosawa plans to stage his ninth version of The Phantom of the Opera.

Hajime Kindaichi, Miyuki Nanase and Inspector Isamu Kenmochi all receive an invitation to the grand reopening of the Hotel Opera, because they were caught in the middle of "the serial murders at the Hotel Opera" and it was Kindaichi who unmasked the Phantom – although it was Kenmoichi who received the credit and the Metropolitan Police Superintendent's Medal. When they arrived on the island, Kindaichi experiences "a twinge of nostalgia" and "something less pleasant." A strong feeling that something bad is about the happen and the cast of characters for the impending tragedy have already taken their place on the stage.

The stars of the Genso theater group and play are an husband-and-wife acting duo, Kozaburo and Seiko Nojo, but they're not particular warm, or pleasant, people to be around. Yukio Midorikawa, Atsushi Takizawa and Rio Kanai are the other actors of the troupe who have one, or more, roles to play in the production. There's also a university student, Rokuro Eguchi, who works on the island every summer and a reclusive painter, Seiji Makube, whose features are obscured by a surgical mask. Dr. Eisaku Yuki rounds out the party and he was also present during the first series of murders on the island. Only eight hours pass before all hell breaks loose on the isolated island.

A small piece of paper with an ominous warning is found, saying "Carlotta sang farewell as the chandelier fell," signed "P," but when they investigate the theater with "an enormous chandelier" suspended over the stage, it's discovered completely empty. So they fastened the door from the outside with a padlock, but a short time later a crash shakes the house and rattles the windows, which unmistakably came from the theater. The door is opened in full view of everyone and what they discover is Seiko Nojo's body on the stage, "crushed beyond recognition," among the smashed and shattered remains of "that massive piece of intricate glasswork." More shockingly, Seiko had been strangled before the murderer dropped the chandelier on her. But how?

The whole auditorium had been "completely locked up," but somehow, "the murderer carried the body onto the stage" and "dropped the chandelier on it" before vanishing from a theater where "one set of doors was closed from the inside" and "the other entrance was shut with a padlock" – not a window to be found. Honestly, The New Kindaichi Files is the best and most original locked room mystery I've come across since Tokuya Higashigawa's Misshitsu no kagi kashimasu (Lending the Key to the Locked Room, 2002) and James Scott Byrnside's The Strange Case of the Barrington Hills Vampire (2020). Amagi crafted a minor gem of a locked room mystery, while flexing his plotting skills, peeling away the layers as he added new ones. Such as giving away part of the trick early on in the story, but at the same time complicating the whole problem with pesky alibis, unclear motives, more murders and a false-solution to the padlocked entrance. Only to deliver a knockout punch in the end with a thoroughly satisfying and original solution the murder in the locked theater. A solution that even takes into account the illogicality of presenting the murder as an impossible crime and what gave the murder the idea to stage such a trick.

A multi-layered locked room-puzzle that clearly shows the difference between Amagi and the series co-creator, Yozaburo Kanari. Amagi understands what makes a detective-plot ticks and Kanari clearly doesn't. Something that's also reflected in how Amagi managed to cleverly subvert the series formula to (temporarily) hide the murderer. It's why it took me longer than usual with this series to catch on to the murderer, which gave me a pretty good idea about the real angle of the motive. But not the locked room-trick. The trick I envisioned was amateurishly stupid and clumsy in comparison. Amagi is the Soji Shimada of the anime-and manga detective story.

Only weak spots in the solution is that the story conveniently ignores how easily a padlock can be picked open, or refastened again, and long-time mystery readers unfamiliar with the series will likely have an easier time spotting the murderer – because they don't know what they're supposed to expect from the setup. Other than that, The New Kindaichi Files is not merely a good and solid entry in the long-running Kindaichi series, but an excellent and beautifully executed theatrical locked room mystery in its own right. I can't exactly tell you why, but this is the most fun I had reading/watching Kindaichi. Highly recommended, if you can find a copy!

So let me end this review with a plea to Kodansha to reprint those four light novels that were translated into English during the 1990s, which would now be a welcome addition to the steadily increasing stream of shin honkaku translations. Now there's an actual audience for them. A good alternative would be a four-in-one volume from Locked Room International with Ho-Ling, a huge fan of the series, writing the introduction to give new readers a crash course in all things Kindaichi. Even better would be brand new translations of all nine novels, but that's perhaps asking too much. Well, here's hoping something will materialize in the not so distant future.

On a truly last note, my edition is a thing of beauty: a paperback with dustjacket with the back and leaves covered in Japanese writing, but you can actually read the story inside with the detailed floor plan of the theater, diagram of part of the locked room-trick and illustrations of the characters/scenes as the cherry on top – giving you the best of all worlds.

Policeman in Armour (1937) by Rupert Penny

E.B.C. Thornett was an English crossword expert and the author of nine densely plotted, jigsaw-like detective novels, published under the pennames of "Rupert Penny" and "Martin Tanner," which were almost completely forgotten in modern times – until they were brought back in print by Ramble House. Back in 2010, I decided to give Penny a try and, obviously, settled on Sealed Room Murder (1941). Unfortunately, the torturous, snail-like pace of the story wasn't exactly an open invitation to continue my exploration of Penny's Chief Inspector Beale series.

Sealed Room Murder has an audacious and original locked room-trick, but it was tucked away in the last quarter of the story and it was preceded by seemingly never-ending domestic quarrels between the characters. Something that became tedious and boring very quickly. I do believe Sealed Room Murder could have been pruned and whittled down to a classic short story or novella, comprising mostly of the last quarter, but, as it stood, it completely killed any desire to read the rest of the series.

Cue "JJ," of The Invisible Event, who has been raving about Penny since 2015. The cretin even had the gall to say (I quote) "the emergence of an unpublished penny novel" would be more exciting to him than "an unpublished work of John Dickson Carr." He actually said that... on a public forum!

You can say what you want about Mary Tudor, but she knew how to treat apostates and heretics, like JJ, which makes it fortunate for him that I'll be the one who'll be passing judgment on this occasion and always give someone a second hearing – such as Yazoburo Kanari and Clifford Knight. So I went over JJ's blog-post, "Policeman's Lot – Ranking the Edward Beale Novels of Rupert Penny," and decided on the novel he called "Penny at his most presentable." Was he right? Let's find out!

Policeman in Armour (1937) is the third novel in the Chief Inspector Edward Beale series and embarks a month after Albert Carew is sentenced to five years of penal servitude for forgery.

Carew "kicked up no end of a fuss when the verdict was brought in" and wrote a threatening letter to the judge who presided over the case, Sir Raymond Everett, stating that "Hell is the only place for people who take five years off a man's life for what he didn't do." Closing the letter with the promise that the judge certainly hasn't more than five years left to live. Sixteen months later, a deathbed confession released Carew from prison with "a lot of apologies" and a financial compensation, but he had not forgotten about the man who put him behind bars.

Justice Everett, of the King's Bench Division, suffered a severe heart attack after the sentence and was forced to retire to his mansion, Heath Approach, where lived with his relatives and has filled a private room with a collection of knives – resembling "a war museum." An aspect that remained underdeveloped in the story, but something I thought was worth mentioning since Penny so closely aligned himself with writers of the Van Dine-Queen School like Anthony Abbot, Clyde B. Clason and Roger Scarlett.

Chief Inspector Beale is consulted by Justice Everett, now "a plain private citizen" with "a very weak heart," on a very peculiar threat he received from Carew. A letter arrived advising the ex-judge to start doing "a few good actions," because Carew was going to make up a balance of his life and pass judgment. And the letter is filled with details only known to his household. Several months later, Chief Inspector is called back to Heath Approach to investigate the murder of the retired judge.

Before he was murdered, Sir Raymond Everett has suffered a second heart attack and was put to bed, sedated with morphia, but was found later in the evening with the bone-handle of a nine-inch knife sticking from his back.

Some of my fellow mystery bloggers, like JJ and SaHR, have labeled this murder as a locked room mystery, which is not only incorrect, but it sells short what Penny tried to do here. Beale observed that "nobody could have done the murder," but, as the explanation shows, the crime-scene was hardly a locked room under close, unwavering observation. There were several ways in, and out, of the bedroom. However, these entrances and exits resembled an obstacle course, or maze, comprising of latched windows, a door with a noisy lock, an occupied dressing-room and ticking clocks – through which the murderer had plotted a route. Beale had to find this way to get in, and out, of the room without being seen or heard. Something very different, but just as intriguing, as a good, old-fashioned locked room puzzle.

Penny wisely decided to keep the pool of potential murderer's as small as possible and placed only a handful of people inside the house at the time of the murder. There's the victim's greedy, unlikable daughter and son-in-law, Mildred and Richard Dyson. A spinster daughter and qualified nurse, Sybil Everett, who has been taking care of her father since his first heart attack. The victim's niece and someone Beale believes to be entirely innocent, Evelyn Stoddert, and his physician, Dr. Malcolm Rider. And then there's always the outside possibility, Carew.

Beale methodically tries to find a way out of this maze-like problem, littered with such clues as "a squashed snail," a packet of taunting letters and a fatal assumption on the murderer's part, which even the most observant reader is likely to miss or overlook – until its spelled out during the denouement. This is indeed makes for a very densely, sometimes slowly moving, but a solid, plot-driven, detective novel. Penny shared most of clues fairly with the reader, because, as the Challenge to the Reader states, there's "not much point in setting a problem that nobody can solve except the setter and his puppets." My only complaint is that the motive of the murderer is only foreshadowed. This prevents the reader from comfortably settling on the murderer, because you're never quite sure about the motivation of this person. I also thought the nature of the motive was a little out of place in, what had been up to that point, a purely an intellectual game between author and reader.

Nevertheless, the plot is undeniable a piece of old-world craftsmanship and it didn't bother me there were conveniently converging plot-threads that complicated the overall scheme, because Penny handled them with care and skill. A plot that could have easily become a mess. You can easily envision the solution and follow along with Beale's explanation, but, more importantly, the murderer's pathway into the bedroom and another, well-hidden alibi-trick were (for me) the absolute highlights of a clever, complicated, but satisfying, detective story. Recommended to everyone who prefers a big hunk of meat on their plots!

So, all in all, I think it's safe to say Penny has redeemed himself with Policeman in Armour and will resume my exploration of Chief Inspector Beale's casebook later this year, but, while JJ was right on this occasion, he's not off the hook yet. He still has a strike against for him that last manuscript comment.

The Kindaichi Case Files: The Santa Slayings by Yozaburo Kanari and Fumiya Sato

The Santa Slayings is the 7th volume in the original series of The Kindaichi Case Files, written by Yozaburo Kanari and illustrated by Fumiyo Sato, which was among the 17 volumes that received an official release in the West – published during the golden days of TokyoPop. I mentioned in a previous review that there were gaps in my reading of the American releases and The Santa Slayings was one of the gaps.

So what better time to finally read, to my knowledge, the only seasonally-themed mystery in the series than the week preceding Christmas?

The Santa Slayings opens with a bleak prologue telling the reader that, ten years previously, the body of an unidentified woman was found off the coast of Kushiro, Hokkaido, which marked "the beginning of a tragic case." A case that would conclude ten years to the day later.

Hajime Kindaichi is unexpectedly invited by Detective Kotaro Tawarada, who first appeared in the abysmal The Mummy's Curse, to attend a Mystery Night at an exclusive, Western-style hotel during Christmas. However, this gracious invitation is in actuality a plea for help. The hotel received a letter threatening that whoever dares to disturb, or spoil, the writer's sanctuary "a bloody death as retribution" awaits them on Christmas Eve – signed "The Red-Beared Santa Claus." A mysterious figure who rented Room 315 for ten years and lived there as a recluse, but vanished one day. Reportedly, he had died in an accident.

A second problem bugging Detective Tawarada is the presence of the coldly competent, hard-bitten Hokkaido Police Superintendent, Fuwa Narumi. Several weeks before, there was a joint investigation between Aomori and Hokkaido Police, but, when the case was successfully closed, she wrote in her report that "the case was hindered by the Aomori police." And this damaged their reputation. So Detective Tawarada is now burdened with proving the real worth of the Aomori police force.

After this, the focus of the story shifts to the members of The Aprodia Theater Group, lead by the hated Suzue Bandai, who'll perform a two-part mystery play, but they immediately become the target of the red-bearded menace. Suzue Bandai receives a severed, but gift-wrapped, cat's head and their dressing room is thrashed. And that set the stage for murder.

During the final scene, the characters in the play share a toast, but the glass of the troupe leader contained cyanide and the police surveillance ensured nobody could have "snuck on to the stage to poison the glass" – which limited possibilities to "someone within the theater group." What follows is a series of murders, leaning heavily on some clever tricks, that carried the story. Starting with the poisoning-trick that made the murder on stage appear as if it was completely random. A trick that, in theory, only works with a very specific kind of victim, but a clever stunt nonetheless.

 

The third murder in the series is a tragic one and involved and involved Kindaichi personally, in more ways than one, when his roommate is murdered in Room 315 and Kindaichi is rendered unconscious by the murderer. So, when the door is opened, Kindaichi is placed under arrest, because he's the only one who could have committed the murder. The doors in the hotel have locks that can only be opened and locked with key cards, which automatically expire every twenty-four hours and the timing of the murder seems to exclude everyone except Kindaichi. A second aspect of the impossible murder is that Detective Tawarada saw the murderer standing in front of the window, of Room 315, five minutes pass midnight, but how did he manage to disappear from the locked room?

What makes this, plot-technically speaking, an interesting locked room problem is not the patchwork-trick, but how thoroughly the explanation broke down that locked room and the triple-layered motive justifying this elaborate setup – making this impossible murder a key-piece of the plot. Another noteworthy plot-thread is the one-hundred year history of Room 315. A grim history beginning with the suicide of the original hotel owner and the long occupation of the room by the red-bearded stranger, but it was never explained how this person was able to turn the whole room red.

So with a bag full of good tricks, false solutions and a surprising departure from the customary avenger-from-the-past motive, you would assume The Santa Slayings stands as one of the better, early titles in the series. Well, you're wrong. Remember, this is one of the volumes that was written by Yozaburo Kanari. And the poor sod was unable to keep the plot together during the denouement.

Despite all of the good or interesting plot-strands, Kanari thought it was necessary to add one more layer to the story. A layer allowing to add a surprise twist to the identity of the painfully obvious murderer, but this twist, coming out of nowhere, is so cringe-inducing ludicrous and unnecessary that it soured the whole story for me. I suspect this was only worked into the plot so that Kindaichi could have one of his moralizing speeches and emotionally break down the murderer in the last chapters. This is why I dislike Kanari so much. Watching him trying to plot and keep it together can be like watching a fly trying to get out of an open window.

I can only recommend The Santa Slayings to genuine fans of The Kindaichi Case Files, but advise everyone else to save themselves the money you'll likely have to spend in tracking down an overpriced, secondhand copy of the TokyoPop edition.

The Kindaichi Case Files: The Headless Samurai by Yozaburo Kanari and Fumiya Sato

Previously, I looked at a landmark novel of the Japanese detective story, Inugamike no ichizoku (The Inugami Clan, 1951) by Seishi Yokomizo and the detective on that case, Kosuke Kindaichi, is as iconic a figure in Japan as Sherlock Holmes is in the West – referred to some as the Columbo of the East. Yokomizo's famous detective has a well-known grandson, Hajime Kindaichi, who debuted in 1992 in Weekly Shōnen Magazine. A serialized mystery manga that has since spawned numerous manga-and anime series, light novels, video games, live action movies-and TV series and even had a crossover with Conan Edogawa from Detective Conan.

Originally, The Kindaichi Case Files was written by Yozaburo Kanari and my opinion of him, as a mystery writer, is somewhere at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Kanari would probably crack my top 3 of least favorite mystery writers and his hackwork has negatively colored my perception of the series.

Initially, I abandoned the series after only three (or so) volumes of the original series, which began with the uninspired The Opera House Murders that heavily leaned on ideas from Gaston Leroux's Le mystère de la chambre jaune (The Mystery of the Yellow Room, 1907) and Le fantôme de l'opéra (The Phantom of the Opera, 1910) – fluffed up with an impossible crime trick cribbed from a G.K. Chesterton story. The Mummy's Curse is a poorly abridged version of Soji Shimada's Senseijutsu satsujinjinken (The Tokyo Zodiac Murders, 1981) bordering on plagiarism. I don't exactly remember my third one, but it could have been No Noose is Good Noose or The Legend of Lake Hiren, but they were both equally poor in plot and execution.

I abandoned The Kindaichi Case Files with no intention of ever returning, but than I ran across Ho-Ling Wong and he insisted there were quality detective stories in the series. So I reluctantly returned with varying degrees of success. The Graveyard Isle was incredibly weak and don't remember thinking too much of Treasure Isle either, but Death TV, The Magical Express and The Undying Butterfly were generally excellent. House of Wax was even superb and still my favorite entry in this series.

There are, however, a few holes in my reading of the English edition that were published in the West, because TokyoPop folded in 2011. One of these titles, The Headless Samurai, had been recommended to me by a commenter, Jonathan, on my review of The Prison Prep School Murder Case, a multi-part episode of the latest Kindaichi anime – claiming that the story was even better than The Magical Express and House of Wax. Naturally, I was skeptical and had a very good reason to be, which has to do with my reason for picking The Headless Samurai as my follow up to The Inugami Clan.

You see, what I read about the plot of The Headless Samurai made me suspect Kanari had been "borrowing" from Yokomizo's celebrated detective novel and was ready to tar-and-feather him for it. I even hired an angry mob with torches and pitchforks. I was fully prepared for a good, old-fashioned verbal lynching, but, as much as it pains me to say, I turned out to be wrong. Again. The Headless Samurai turned out to stand toe-to-toe with House of Wax and kind of liked what Kanari did with the plot and (visual) clueing. Don't get me wrong. Kanari is still a hack of the first water, but you have to give credit where credit's due, you know.

The Headless Samurai has Inspector Kenmochi traveling to the remote mountain village of Kuchinasi in the Gifu Prefecture to visit a childhood friend, Shino Tatsumi, who had married into a wealthy family, as the second wife of Kuranosuke Tatsumi, but after he passed away she started to receive threatening letters – all of them signed by "The Cursed Warrior." Kenmochi is accompanied by two familiar faces, Hajime Kindaichi and Nanase Miyuki.

There are a few superficial resemblances to The Inugami Clan in the opening stages of the story. One of these is a masked man, Saburo Akanuma, who they spot on the bus to the village and turns up again at the Tatsumi home as a guest of Shino. A second resemblance is the reading of the will, appointing Seimaru Tatsumi as the head of the family and "the heir to all its wealth," but the problem is that Seimaru is Shino's son who was adopted by her husband and an outsider – which means that his appointment comes at the expensive Ryunosuke, Moegi and Hayato. The three children from Kuranosuke's first marriage.

However, The Headless Samurai goes its own way after the setup and the plot is draped in a legend that has hung, like a dark cloud, over the village for centuries.

Over 400 years ago, the village was visited by an army general, Kaneharu Hiiragi, who was badly defeated during the time of the battle of Sekigahara and came to Kuchinasi to seek refuge with his men. Upon his arrival, the general crowned himself leader of the village and attempted to drive out the village chief, but General Kaneharu was betrayed by his soldiers. They killed their master, presented the severed head as peace offering to the chief and settled down in the village. Only General Kaneharu placed a curse on them with his dying breath, "my spirit will wander the earth" and "you will never be free," which was followed by a series of decapitations of his former men.

So the frightened villages began to appease his spirit by erecting a shrine dedicated to him and headless statues were placed representing the victims. And the opening of the story showed that the suit of armor of General Kaneharu has disappeared.

The Cursed Warrior makes an entrance like a Scooby Doo villain, when he slashes through a paper screen with a katana, before disappearing and only an impossibly vanishing trail of sandal-prints on the veranda. However, this side-puzzle is quickly solved by Kindaichi, but the problem is that this reveals the person wearing the armor came from inside of the house. Ah, yes, detective stories are the thinking man's Scream.

This is followed by the impossible murder of the masked man, Saburo Akanuma, who is housed in the only available room at the time. A vault-like room hidden behind a hidden, revolving door that looks like a blank wall. The room itself has an iron door with a lock made in Germany, which comes with a unique, custom-made key that can't be duplicated and the only window is a narrow square with iron bars – looking out over a wide, steep cliff with a river below. One evening, Kindaichi gets a phone-call from Saburo asking to ask him if he really is "the grandson of the famous detective," because he wants to tells him the identity of the katana-wielding samurai.

Kindaichi and Shino go to the Saburo's room to have a word with him, but when they arrive in the passage they hear him scream out, "IT'S THE CURSED WARRIOR." Kindaichi tells Shino to fetch the keys and when they can finally open the door they're greeted by his headless corpse sitting in the silent, moonlit room.

A well-presented locked room problem with a good false solution by Kenmoichi, which fitted only one suspect, who promptly dies, but the actual explanation is practical, simple and believable. Clever and original enough to avoid being disappointing. And nicely contrasts with Kenmochi's solution.

However, the locked room mystery and its false solution are not the gemstones of the plot. An experienced mystery reader with a passing familiarity of the Japanese detective story will immediately suspect a classic, Eastern-style corpse-trick is being placed right under their nose, but not one you can easily unravel and the plot cleverly plays with the cast-iron certainties given by modern forensics and results in a beautiful piece of misdirection – which was nonetheless prominently foreshadowed in the artwork. This also gave the murderer an acceptable motive for all of the theatrics, because they were necessary to answer that age-old question. What to do with the body?

The Headless Samurai was surprisingly strong on motives, which is normally a weak aspect of the series, because the plot tend to be written around the eternal avenger-from-the-past theme. The murderer here had an entirely different motivation. A motive showing that old sins can cast long shadows, the cussedness of all things general and that blood will out. What drives the murderer also gives the story some nice clues and made for a dark, tragic conclusion.

So, all in all, The Headless Samurai was a pleasant surprise and, if I come across as overly enthusiastic, it's because I was determined to hate it going in. But I was proven wrong. I don't mind it at all when that happens. Kanari is still a hack though.

Detective Conan: The Cursed Mask Laughs Coldly

Recently, our guide in the land of the Japanese detective story, Ho-Ling Wong, posted an enticing review on this blog of an old episode from a long-running anime series based on the popular manga often raved about on this blog, Detective Conan, which has been running since 1996 – culminating in 26 seasons and 900 episodes at the time of this writing. Understandably, the source material proved insufficient to keep the anime running for over twenty years and original stories had to be produced.

However, the TV originals are generally considered to be the poorer episodes and one of my reasons for sticking with Gosho Aoyama's original work. The other one is the frightful prospect of a backlog of hundreds, upon hundreds, of episodes!

The Cursed Mask Laughs Coldly is episode 184 from season 7 and originally aired on March 13, 2000 as a one-hour special. According to Ho-Ling, this episode has not only been "lauded as one of the best anime original episodes ever," but is considered to be "one of the best episodes" period. So my curiosity got the better of me and decided to give the episode a shot. I can already reveal that the plot has a ghoulish gem of a locked room trick! An absolute work of art!

Anyway, in order to stay consistent with my on-going review of the U.S. publications of Detective Conan, re-titled Case Closed, I'll be calling the characters by the names used in the English version. Yes, I know. Heresy and all that. You may vent your purist anger in the comments.

The Cursed Mask Laughs Coldly begins with Richard Moore, Rachel and Conan driving to the imposing mansion of Beniko Suo, President of Mahogany Promotions, which is a charity organization for children who lost their parents in a car accident, but they nearly crash themselves into a tree trunk that had been placed on the road – a note had been pinned to the trunk. It told them to turn around or "you'll regret it." The warning was signed with The Phantom of the Cursed Mask.

Not deterred by this threat, they arrive at the mansion and, upon entering, they're greeted by walls decorated with masks. There's even a mask room, or Chamber of Masks, which is the only room in the house connecting the east and west wings.

One part of the collection in the mask room are two-hundred, identical-looking masks that were made by a Spanish artist, Julio González, who was consumed by his work and committed suicide when he had carved the last mask. All two-hundred masks were found around his body and the blood made it look as if "the masks themselves had sucked it out of him," which helped them acquire the reputation of being cursed objects. As a precaution, every night at the stroke of twelve, the mask room is locked from both the east and west side, because "the masks like to do pranks" and after midnight "they will start to walk" – terrifying everyone unlucky enough to encounter them. And against this backdrop the other participants of the upcoming charity event arrive.

This group consists of a rock star, a well-known photographer, a popular baseball player and tarot prophet. The cast of characters is further rounded out by the assistant of the president and a pair of twin sisters who work at the mansion as maids. So the stage is properly set for some good, old-fashioned shenanigans.

During the night, Conan gets a phone-call from inside the house and the caller is nobody less than the Phantom of the Cursed Masks. The Phantom tells Conan that "the Cursed Masks are high for blood," a sacrifice and to hurry, or they won't make it, but there's a lot of confusing and running around – because the locked doors of the mask room separates the house in the east and west wing. However, they eventually arrive at the bedroom door of Beniko, but the door is double-locked from the inside. One of these locks is a big, sturdy padlock. So the window above the door is shattered and Conan climbs through the opening to open the room from the inside.

The "Case Closed" Look

The bedroom is littered with the González masks and Beniko is on her bed, a knife-wound to the throat, but nobody else is found in the room! A second door in the room was sealed years ago with bolts and the windows were shut air-tight. You couldn't fit an arm through the narrow bars of the grill above the bolted door. So how did the murderer enter and leave this tightly-shut bedroom?

I accidentally stumbled to the first step of the locked room trick, because the divided layout of the mansion and the bloodstained handle of the knife recalled Roger Scarlett's Murder Among the Angells (1932). You can say that these stories handle the knife in a somewhat similar way, but the comparisons end when the murderer of this story elaborates on this idea by creating a diabolic and nightmarish way to kill inside a locked room – an original idea complemented by the visual medium. You get to see the locked room trick unfold in front of your eyes and this ensures the explanation of this seemingly impossible murder is played-out to full effect, but the natural, down-to-earth solution does nothing to diminish the nightmarish quality of the murder's work. Some would probably argue that the trick is more terrifying than an unsolved murder with hints of the supernatural. Edgar Allan Poe would have approved.

The murderer and motive were easier to spot, but you only need a passing familiarity with a certain trope of these mystery anime and manga series to be able to do that. Somehow, the writers of these series have a fondness for a particular plot-motif, which tend to make the murderer standout in a crowd of suspects. Yozaburo Kanari mastered that like no other.

But the main attraction of The Cursed Mask Laughs Coldly is the ingenious, nicely clued impossible murder and the combination of originality, execution and presentation makes it a (minor) classic of the locked room genre. Highly recommend!

I'll end this post with a thank you to Ho-Ling for bringing this delightfully macabre locked room mystery to my attention. Now we'll wait and see how long it will take me to get back to the Detective Conan movies!