Arisugawa Alice's Honkaku Mystery Library

This is half a review. The book is an anthology of traditional detective stories edited by Japanese detective story writer ARISUGAWA Arisu (or Alice), 有栖川有の本格ミステリー・ライブラリー　(Arisugawa Arisu no honkaku misuterī raiburarī , Alice Arisugawa's traditional mystery library, 2001). Four of the ten stories are translated from English. I don't think I've read any of them; and I'd rather read them in English if I get a chance. I don't imagine anyone is going to specially seek out this out of print anthology; but for what it's worth the translated stories are Robert Arthur, "The Fifty first Sealed Room", W. Haidenfeld, "The Unpleasantness at the Stooges Club", Bill Pronzini, "The Arrowmont Prison Riddle" and John Sladek, "By Unknown Hand".

First "Buried Malice" ("もれた悪意 umoreta akui, 1990) by 巽昌章 (TATSUMI Masaaki, born 1957). A successful businessman looks to find the lost son of an early patron, probably adopted by a local family. When two different claimants appear, a lazy detective story writer is engaged to identify the impostor. Then the midwife from the district called to decide is murdered, and the writer has a more serious problem to solve. This is an effective mystery in a light style, often flippant and with frequent jokes about the genre.

"Car Chase"( 逃げる車, nigeru kuruma, 1979)　白峰良介 (SHIRAMINE Ryousuke, born 1955) starts with a midnight car chase, as police try to catch a speeding sports car on the motorway. It leaves the motorway and races through smaller streets, grazing lampposts on the way. Finally it stops outside a clinic. The police who get there moments later follow the driver in and find a bewildered doctor in the corridor. He tells them that a man had just rushed past him into the pharmacy; and there the police find a dead man, who has swallowed cyanide. An interesting opening, but the "spot the culprit" story suffers from being stripped down too far here.

"The Golden Dog" (金色犬, konjikiinu, 1968)　つのだじろう (TSUNODA Jirou, born 1936). One of the oddities of the collection, an early manga detective story. Like many young Kindaichi stories it takes the Conan Doyle "Hound of the Baskervilles" model of a decorative and diversionary ghost story as a background to the mystery. The detective Johnny Hirota is another boy detective, but along with the simplified drawing style of the comic, there's nothing in his behaviour or his treatment by other characters to differentiate him from an adult.

The only translation from the anthology that I read is "Life and Death on the Line" (生死線上, seishisenjou, 1990), whose author is recorded in the anthology as 余心樂 (YU Xinle, the same Chinese characters as in the Chinese Wikipedia, which I can't read) but known to the Japanese Wikipedia as  余心楽 (YO Shinraku, born 1948) and to Switzerland (where one of his books is available in his own translation as Die Mordversionen) as Wen-huei Chu. The author is a Taiwanese resident in Switzerland, who studied tourism and related subjects there. It's perhaps fitting that this is a 'travel mystery' set on the Swiss railways, a long alibi story, with one obvious suspect. For some reason I had more trouble than I normally do focussing on the details (despite provision of a rail map of Switzerland and various timetables) and found more interest in the view of Switzerland from Taiwanese eyes, particularly describing the immediate aftermath of the brutal suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

"Pillar of Water" (水の柱, mizu no hashira, 1980) by 上田廣 (UEDA Hiroshi, born 1905), another travel mystery, this one on Japanese railways. The narration is divided between chapters following the police investigation and letters from a train conductor, who ends up doing most of the police's work for them.

"The Killer is 'Me' ....." (「わたくし」は犯人....., 'watakushi' wa hannin, 1976) by 海渡祐 (KAITO Eisuke, born 1934) starts with the synopsis of a planned inverted mystery. The female "I" character narrates how they plan to kill their lover's evil wife, with a cunning alibi trick. In interspersed chapters, police are investigating the murder of a married woman, who seems to have died in very similar circumstances.

The Scream Castle Murder Case

絶叫城殺人事件 (zekkyoujousatsujinjiken, The Scream Castle Murder Case, 2001) is the title story of a collection of six short mysteries by ARISUGAWA Arisu or Alice (有栖川 有栖), first published in magazines between 1996 and 2001.

Arisugawa has two main series, the "Student Alice" series, in which the narrator is ARISUGAWA Arisu, a student and budding detective story writer, recounting the deductions of his fellow student EGAMI Jirou, and the "Writer Alice" series, in which the narrator is ARISUGAWA Arisu, a professional detective story writer, recounting the deductions of his friend, criminology professor HIMURA Hideo. You might guess that the two Arisugawas are the same person at different points in their life; but there are hints in the "Student Alice" series that the "Writer Alice" world is the creation of student Alice, and in the "Writer Alice" narrative that "Student Alice" is a character in the books written by writer Alice. There are far fewer "Student Alice" books; and they include some of real world Alice's best regarded books. Any moment now, you should be able to try one of his best known early works in English translation, 孤島パズル (kotou pazuru, The Island Puzzle, 1989), published by Locked Room International as The Moai Island Puzzle. It makes an interesting comparison with the first Japanese novel from the same publishers and translator, The Decagon House Murders. At first sight the two are very similar (serial murders on an isolated island), but their approach is the polar opposite.

To come back to this collection, like the title story, the others all have titles of the form: [building name] "murder case". This is a very standard title for traditional detective stories in Japan (much like e. g. The White Priory Murders in English). In one of the stories the policeman in charge comments that Arisugawa would call it that in one of his stories, and (narrator) Arisugawa remarks that in fact he never had used such a title. That seems to be true for real life Arisugawa too. In fact there is a deliberate slight discrepancy between the image the title conjures up (like an English country house or isolated mansion murder) and the actual subject matter in the stories.

The first, 黒鳥亭殺人事件　(kokuchouteisatsujinjiken, "The Black Bird Villa Murder Case") is the nearest to the classical setting. Himura and Arisugawa visit the lonely house of an old friend from university. The friend lives alone there with his five year old daughter, having inherited it from an aunt who bought it cheap after the previous owners died in a murder-suicide. Now however, it turns out that the suicide part had been a fake, as the supposed suicide has been found, recently killed, at the bottom of the garden well.

壺中庵殺人事件　(kochuuansatsujinjiken, "The Retreat in a Vase Murder Case") is a locked room mystery. The victim had a cellar study, humorously called "retreat in a vase" after a Chinese folktale about a man who makes his home in a pot which is larger on the inside. The witnesses find the victim hanging from the ceiling, with the only exit (the hatch in the roof) barred from the inside. Most strangely, someone has put a vase on his head.

In 月宮殿殺人事件 (gekkyuudensatusjinjiken, "The Moon Palace Murder Case") Arisugawa takes Himura to see an unusual building he had discovered near the road they are taking, the tower like house built without permission by a homeless man out in the woods from discarded building materials. When they get there though, they find that the building has been burnt and the owner killed.

雪花楼殺人事件　(sekkarousatusjinjiken, "The Snowflake Tower Murder Case") takes place in the shell of a multistorey building, built in real estate speculation as a resort hotel, but then abandoned. A young runaway couple and an older unemployed man are squatting in different parts of the building. The young man has apparently fallen from the roof of the building; but he died not from the fall, but from a violent blow to the head. On the snow covered roof, the only footprints leading to the edge of the roof are the victim's.

紅雨荘殺人事件 (benisamesousatsujinjiken, "The Red Rain Mansion Murder Case") has a murder case somehow connected to a movie filmed in the title house, a romance of which Arisugawa was a fan.

絶叫城殺人事件(zekkyoujousatsujinjiken, "The Scream Castle Murder Case") is the longest story in the book, over a hundred pages. Himura pursues a serial killer, whose murder seems to be connected to a horror video game, in which young women are chased by an unknown killer through the corridors of a castle in which they are imprisoned.

The stories are mostly good, some very good, although the "footprints in the snow" impossible crime was one the least convincing versions I've read, and the solutions to one or two of the better stories were perhaps a little obvious.

The Island Puzzle

I talked about a book in ARISUGAWA Alice's "Writer Alice" series last week, here. Now I've finished reading one of the "Student Alice" books, 孤島パズル (The Island Puzzle, 1989), the second in the series (and the only one I've read). In this series Arisugawa is a member of the Eito University Detective Fiction Research Club, and the detective is the club president, EGAMI Jirou (江神二郎). The club has a new female member ARIMA Maria (有馬麻里亜), and at her invitation Egami and Arisugawa are going to the Arima family's house on an isolated island. Maria's grandfather had had a great love for puzzles; and he had hidden a fortune in diamonds for whoever could solve the clues and find them. The last person to try, Maria's cousin ARIMA Hideto (有馬英人), thought he had got a good line on them; but on the same day that he said this he was found drowned in the island's bay, apparently in a night swimming accident. The club members' search starts as a pleasant island holiday, but is soon interrupted by murder, as two members of the Arima family are found shot in a room closed with a latch from the inside, although the rifle that shot them is not in the room.

As in the other series there are a lot of elements familiar from Ellery Queen: a dying message; a challenge to the reader; a solution depending on a chain of deductions. Come to think of it, treasure hunts are a rather common feature of Ellery Queen's stories if I remember rightly. This one certainly adds to the amusement. The locked room is not a very Queenish element of course. It's not much of a locked room either (quite often reading Japanese detective stories, I feel I should add a "locked room of sorts" label to the blog tags). I like Ellery Queen's complex deductions a lot, even if I never feel convinced that they're all that watertight. I was not such a fan of the one in this book. Part of the problem is that it's a little dull. Before we even get to the murder in question, our minds have been focused on the various ways of getting around the island. And then, the various elements are so artificial: you can get from A to B in x minutes rowing, y minutes cycling, z minutes walking; the three bicycles were seen at this hour and this hour and this hour, only two of them were seen at this hour etc.

Another mild irritation was what you might call the orphaned clue. I mean the kind of clue which only becomes a clue in combination with another piece of information, which we then don't get until the culprit makes their confession.

Reading this, it sounds like I didn't enjoy the book very much, but I wasn't bored reading it or dissatisfied at the end. You can see someone else's opinion of it here. (Update: Oh, and another one here.)

I started to make the list of characters I usually make for reading detective stories; but then I noticed that the publishers for once had done it for me (except for those members of the club who only appear in the preface).

Incidentally I suspect a western reader's largest puzzle reading the book will be, 'How come the female characters are doing all the housework?'

[UPDATE 2016: There is now an English translation by Ho-Ling Wong, published by Locked Room International, The Moai Island Puzzle.]

Death in Nara by the Sea

Ellery Queen is an important figure in the world of Japanese detective stories. Among modern writers, two in particular show his influence. 法月 綸太郎 (NORIZUKI Rintarou, born 1964) writes stories about a detective story writer NORIZUKI Rintarou, who helps his father, a police inspector, solve cases. 有栖川 有栖 (ARISUGAWA Arisu, or Alice, born 1959, real name 上原 正英, UEHARA Masahide) also has a character with the same name in the detective stories he writes, though in this case Arisugawa is the narrator and also plays the Watson role rather than the detective. The one Norizuki book that I have read had a much more "Queenish" feel than what I have found in Arisugawa books; but Arisugawa too both makes use of favourite Ellery Queen elements (like "dying messages" and elimination of suspects) and also demonstrates allegiance in titles like his first novel, 月光ゲーム Yの悲劇'88 (Moonlight Game, The Tragedy of Y '88, 1989) and his short story collections, which have nation + puzzle titles like the first Queen novels, e. g. ロシア紅茶の謎 (The Russian Tea Puzzle, 1994).

I spoke of  Arisugawa as a character in the books; but it might be more correct to say that he is two characters. There are two different series, the Student Alice series that starts with 月光ゲーム and  the Author Alice series that starts with The Forty-sixth Locked Room (46番目の密室, 1992). In the  Student Alice series, Arisugawa is a law student in the university's detective fiction club, in the Author Alice series, he is a professional mystery writer. The detectives are different too. In the Author Alice series, it is HIMURA Hideo (火村 英生), a lecturer in criminology.  

Death in Nara by the Sea (海のある奈良に死す, 1995)  is from the Author Alice series and like the more famous 46番目の密室, it concerns the death of another detective story writer. Arisugawa, visiting his publishers for discussions over his new novel, meets fellow writer AKABOSHI Gaku (赤星楽). Akaboshi is just off to "Nara by the Sea" for research, he says. The phrase is one of those "Athens of the North" type expressions used to sell a town, in this case the coastal town of Obama. The next day his dead body is found floating in the sea off Obama. Looking for traces of Akaboshi, Himura and Arisugawa search the area for stories connected with a mermaid, referenced in the title of the book Akaboshi was writing.

46番目の密室 has some metaliterary reflection on the locked room mystery. 海のある奈良に死す might be seen as playing with the idea of the "travel mystery". Travel mysteries are a genre (or perhaps two genres) in Japan. The name is used particularly for stories, set in a tourist destination, where to solve the mystery the detective has to learn about the points of interest of the area. It is also used for stories which depend on travel related alibis. Some stories mix alibi breaking and tourism, as does this one. The main trick is no novelty, but the play on generic expectations perhaps makes it stronger. A second murder has a method which to my eyes is about as realistic as "he killed him using mental death rays".

In sum it's one of the weaker mysteries that I've read. Also, this may be a problem of my Japanese competence, but in the Arisugawa books I have read, the characters don't really come across. It's not just that they're two dimensional. Plenty of detective stories have characters with no depth, who are still at least lively puppets. In Arisugawa many of the characters come across as smaller than life.