Sitting on Top of the World

And thus, 2023 concludes, for me, with a picture-perfect rendition of the proverbial 'save the best for the last' scenario ...

My acquaintance with Japanese historical (or period) crime/detective fiction is limited to only a handful of works: Kidō Okamoto's Hanshichi torimonochō (translated as The Curious Casebook of Inspector Hanshichi : Detective Stories of Old Edo, University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007) and a couple of manga and anime series such as Shōtarō Ishinomori's Sabu to Ichi Torimono Hikae (Sabu and Ichi's Detective Tales),  Shōtarō Ikenami's Onihei Hankachō (adapted into a long-running manga series by Sentaro Kubota and Takao Saitō, as well as a 2017 anime series), Yuichiro Kawada and Takase Rie's Edo no Kenshikan (Edo Coroner), Fuyumi Ono and Niki Kajiwara's Toukei Ibun (Strange Tales of Tokyo), Kei Toume's Genei Hakurankai, and maybe a couple more. To this list, I now have the privilege and good fortune of adding Honobu Yonezawa's acclaimed, award-winning novel from 2021, Kokurōjō (translated as The Samurai and the Prisoner, Yen Press, 2023).

The period in which The Samurai and the Prisoner is set—1578–1579, falling in the last quarter of the Sengoku era—predates the historical setting of the other aforementioned works. This makes for interesting outcomes. For one, this is a far more chaotic time in history, marked by incessant, excessive warfare and strife, compared to the Edo and later periods. Second, the more visible difference is that the resulting focus or the gaze of this novel, unlike that of the ones set in the later Edo, Meiji, Taisho or Showa eras, is not as much on introspection that seeks to shed light on the internal decay or rot in society, as it is on the 'insider-outsider' dichotomy and the intrigue surrounding the relationship and politics between different clans and warlords negotiating who they want to ally with and who to fall back on in case of a betrayal.

What also gives the novel a distinct identity is the fact that the events of the novel transpire within a fortified castle besieged by enemies, within and without. Honobu's story picks on the historical events of the second siege of the Itami Castle (or Arioka Castle), orchestrated by Nobunaga Oda, the famous daimyō (feudal) and one of the "three Great Unifiers" of Japan. His plans for the ruthless conquest of the northern Settsu province (consisting of parts of the modern-day prefectures of  Hyōgo and Osaka) hit a roadblock when one of his allies, the general Murashige Araki, betrays the Oda in 1578. Araki—driven partly by his own ambitions and mostly due to his horror at the excesses of the Oda's brutality—seeks to mount an opposition against Nobunaga, with the help and support of the Mōri clan, an influential and powerful family in the Aki province (the western portion of modern-day Hiroshima prefecture), and the Buddhist temple-fort of Hongan-ji in Osaka. Araki holes up in the Arioka Castle (effectively a castle-city in Itami) with his commanders and members of several other clans who contribute to the army/military efforts, and his concubine Chiyoho, a 'blessing' and a 'gift' from the Hongan-ji to Murashige for helping defend them. 

And so it is, at the start of the novel in November 1578, when Araki receives a visitor called Kanbei Kuroda, a retainer of Hashiba Hideyoshi (a lord under Nobunaga; later Hideyoshi Toyotomi, the second of "three Great Unifiers of Japan") of Chikuzen province, who arrives to ascertain whether Murashige had indeed turned his back on the Oda, and to advise him against taking such a course of action. However, Araki goes on to capture Kuroda after a brief but bloody struggle. Instead of having him executed (which was the norm back then, and a matter of honour), Murashige throws him in a cage in the dungeon in the depths of the castle, alive but severely wounded—a truly ignominious fate for Kanbei.

The four short stories that form the bulk of the novel span the following year, corresponding quite accurately to the historical timeline of the conquest of the castle. The stories, divided according to seasons (winter, spring, summer, and autumn) follow a common pattern—strange, unsettling events threaten to undo the goodwill and harmony not just among the clans and commanders, but also among the masses, for reasons directly or indirectly tied to the events. Each time, Murashige has to rely on Kanbei's extraordinary intellect to get to the truth behind the incidents. The bad blood and further developments between the two influences the evolution of their relationship, with the result that Kanbei does not provide outright answers to the mysteries narrated to him (instead, replying in convoluted riddles), and plots behind Murashige's back. 

In the first story, a young hostage from a clan that betrays Murashige's faction is found dead in a closely guarded storehouse surrounded by an unfinished garden covered in snow. In the second story, a successful, surprise, nighttime attack leads to the elimination of an enemy camp hidden perilously close to Arioka Castle. However, unrest brews when the decapitated heads of two high-ranking enemy officers are switched during a head-identification session, and the camp commander's head is not found despite definite reports of his demise. Ugly rumours spread within the city, and a Christian place of worship is burnt to the ground leading to the death of a person. In the third story, a revered priest-messenger and a member of Murashige's personal guard-force are murdered in an old hermitage and its environs. The priest had been entrusted to convey a secret message and a treasured possession of Murashige to a samurai serving under an enemy general Mitsuhide Akechi (who would later force Nobunaga to commit seppuku in the Honnō-ji Incident of 1582). The article in question was stolen, while the secret message, even though left intact, had already been read by parties unknown—a development that, apart from hinting towards the presence of a potential traitor within the castle, meant certain doom for Murashige and Itami, especially in the face of defections by the generals and commanders in neighbouring forts and castles, as well as the rapidly declining morale of the soldiers who still stood beside Araki. The fourth story ties some of the loose ends in the preceding chapter, sees Murashige try to uncover a conspiracy and Kanbei enact his 'revenge' before the castle's inevitable fall, and heads off towards a surprising but extremely logical conclusion.

Seen in a vacuum, the mysteries can be dissected fairly easily. But, to better understand Murashige's struggles against them, it is necessary to look at and identify the numerous battles he was fighting on multiple fronts. And, it is here that the novel excels—without passing judgement, Yonezawa continuously sprinkles the narrative with details that give great insight into the socio-cultural and economic status of samurai and commoners, cutting across different strata, while also depicting, time and again, the mindset of the people, their religious beliefs, and the rituals and practices they subscribe to. All of these myriad, divisive elements determine the context, and ensure that the characters do not act in ways that seem too forced, unnatural or absolutely out of sync with their historical persona. For instance, in the first story, Yonezawa describes the standing and importance of the multiple clans in the war council, delving into their background, and the story behind their participation in the faction and reasons for doing so. These details give readers some idea of the possible frictions between clans and individual members inside this faction, while also explaining why Murashige personally analyses the so-called 'betrayal' of his close allies in a very measured, sympathetic manner. Yonezawa also fleshes out the story and background details of each member of his personal guard in vivid detail (even pertaining to their mastery of individual weapons), to explore who would want to murder a hostage, going against his explicit orders not to. The problem is, nearly all of the influential personalities or the suspects who had an opportunity to and even the victim himself wanted the hostage dead, so that an example could be made out of him, with many of them expressing surprise and discontent at Murashige's decision to spare him. Furthermore, there is also the mystery of the vanishing weapon and the no-footprints-in-the-snow conundrum to deal with. On a different note, Murashige also has to deal with the curious incident of a fort near the castle borders not reacting to the summons to join a skirmish in time. Little wonder then that Murashige—who is also continuously planning and trying to maintain harmony between the individual clans and their heads, and uplift the spirit of his troops—finally has to take the help of the prisoner, Kanbei, despite his unwillingness. Ultimately, the solution, which makes great use of the positional awareness of the culprit, the details provided by the author regarding the weapons stored in the castle, and some inspired ingenuity on the culprit's part, is one that could only have been employed in the special setting of a besieged castle at its time of occurrence. In the second story, religious beliefs and the 'insider-outsider' dichotomy take centrestage, as the missing head of the commander becomes a flashpoint that ignites tempers between the members and followers of a clan subscribing to Buddhist faith and the adherents of another clan which has taken up Christianity. Once again, Yonezawa describes, in minute detail, the circumstances of the ambush and the sequence of events leading both to the replacement of heads and the commander's head going missing, paving the way for a simple, logical reveal. Additionally, the beliefs and religious alignments of the masses, the samurai and the clans are outlined with great care, providing more motives to a larger cast of characters. Then, there's the larger picture, with rumours and gossip about more potential defections among Araki's allies—and once again, Murashige finds himself besieged by too many enemies and wars to fight.

But, there are undercurrents to the novel as well. It can be read at several levels—but, for me, there are at least two major ones. One of them is, of course, the constant intrigue surrounding wars, battle strategies, potential alliances, betrayals—and this is mostly limited to the samurai class. Considerations of honour, prestige and status inform this level of narrative and its underlying rules—the interactions of Murashige with his commanders, guards and soldiers (both personally as well as in the war councils) and with Kanbei are representative of this. The other major level is the religious subtext, that assumes greater significance further into the novel. In the limited confines of the castle, the interplay between three major religious sects/practices—True Pure Land Buddhism (also known as Jōdo Shinshū or Shin Buddhism), Zen Buddhism and Christianity—propels the narrative in subtle ways. It is this subtext that unites the other spectrum of the population (the masses) through the promise of salvation and fear of divine punishment. Seen in this light, despite the overall chaotic atmosphere of doom and gloom, an uneasy peace does exist in the midst of the town's populace outside the inner citadel and the samurai quarters. In his quest to unearth the rational nature of the truth behind the incidents, Murashige fails to read the pulse of the people until late into the novel. For the common people, the deaths and the mysterious incidents could be attributed to a form of divine justice or the Buddha's wrath, reinforcing their faith in the real existence of these concepts, however abstract they may be, and providing solace to them in the face of a doomed war, unceasing brutality and killings, by suggesting that even the Oda and their allies will not be spared from such justice and that they would have to pay for their sins, sooner or later. This also explains why the sentiments of the masses are best seen after the murder of the revered priest and the subsequent divine punishment meted out to the perpetrator (a perfect cause-and-effect, or 'reap what you sow', scenario for the observers), and why passions rise against an 'outsider religion' like Christianity. Unfortunately, for Murashige, he is unable to bridge the gap between these two levels, ironically due to the lack of an introspective view of his own fiefdom. As a result, he is unable to stay true to his own tenet that the people make the castle, and finds himself, unwittingly or driven by circumstances, walking a path similar to that of Nobunaga Oda—a fact he rues late in the novel. The reason for his failure, as pointed out by his concubine Chiyoho, lies in a fundamental difference in the faith and creed of a samurai and that of a simple, god-fearing, common person, in those times. For a samurai clothed in armour and wielding weapons, the bravery and valour embedded in their being makes it impossible for them to understand that fabricated omens and concepts such as divine retribution could honestly be 'believed' by one. After all, the question of their survival depends on their cunningness on the battlefield and how attuned they are to their immediate reality and surroundings. Above all, as stated by Murashige, samurai fear death the most. For common people not protected by any armour or weapons, who are constantly on the receiving end of massacres by warlords, the reality is not so straightforward. It is possible to engender hope among them through talk of fabricated omens and the spread of ideas such as divine miracles, punishment and retribution, especially as they need something to hold to at a time when they are subjected to unending torture. And, that is why, as stated by Chiyoho, they fear not death itself but the fact that they may not achieve salvation or reach heaven even after dying. Besides adding another layer of historical authenticity (with events such as the Ikkō-ikki rebellion and the subsequent massacre of the sect at Ise-Nagashima serving as one of the backdrops), the religious subtext therefore also opens up a wealth of theological discourse of an admirably high quality, through the conversations between the characters who fulfil the role dictated by the needs of the mystery plot while staying true to their historical personas—a very difficult act to pull off, in my opinion.

A quick note about the translation—it is slightly inconsistent (words like 'damn' sharing space with archaic terms like 'prithee' and 'ye' feels anachronistic, to put it lightly), the setting may need some time to sink one's teeth into, and the need for footnotes is sorely felt. But it is well worth the effort, time and money to procure a copy. Yonezawa does not rewrite or reinvent history in this book—the Itami Castle siege ended in November 1579, and a total of 670 people (women, men and children included) were executed by Nobunaga, in Itami, Kyoto and Nanatsumatsu (near Amagasaki, in Hyōgo prefecture). No further worthy deeds of Murashige Araki have been recorded either. However, what he does most skillfully is weave in tales of mystery and intrigue into the seams of Arioka Castle—tales that elevate the work from the status of simply being a work of only mystery or historical fiction. By using real-life figures and events, Yonezawa bestows life upon his craft, turning it into a living, breathing, plausible document of the times that shares an extraordinary synergy with its mystery and historical elements, and its many other subtexts.

The Rain Song

I had initially planned to discuss Suishakan no Satsujin (1988; translated and published as The Mill House Murders by Pushkin Vertigo in 2023), the second novel in Yukito Ayatsuji's Yakata series, alongside The Decagon House Murders, but my fanboying of the latter turned too long for my taste. Hence, the decision to write about The Mill House Murders in a separate post.

The way things ended in The Decagon House Murders, it was hard to envision a sequel to the work. The Mill House Murders, while not exactly a sequel in the truest sense of the word, serves as a great example of how even a minor, almost inconsequential, detail can serve as the basis of a series in continuity — in my very limited reading of the Yakata series (only two works in English translation so far), the two connecting threads would be that they share a common detective and that they are all set in mansions and buildings constructed by the eccentric architect, Seiji Nakamura, introduced and killed off in the first novel itself. The result seems to be a series whose works can be enjoyed both as standalone entries (featuring the odd tribute to previous masters of the craft) as well as part of a loosely-connected chronological set. And on that note of continuity, The Mill House Murders is a work that is fascinatingly similar and dissimilar to The Decagon House Murders, in ways both good and bad.

My first impression of the second entry in the Yakata series was that the sprightly, breezy nature of the first novel had been replaced with a heavy, brooding atmosphere. While The Decagon House Murders had a lightness of touch to it, replicating the essence of an Ellery-Queen puzzle plot, The Mill House Murders is heavy-handed in its execution, doffing its hat instead to the works of another master, John Dickson Carr. However, the main trickery employed here makes it another Christie tribute novel, in my opinion, even though it may not be as evident as seen in The Decagon House Murders.

The Mill House Murders is narrated from the perspective of one of the characters, a resident of the eponymous Mill House (named so after the mill wheels generating power), another strange creation of Seiji Nakamura. The narrator is introduced as the current owner of the Mill House — and is the son of a 'visionary' painter who drew a number of remarkable surrealist scenes and landscapes before dying. Every year, he hosts a diverse group of guests — a disciple of the deceased visionary painter, an art dealer, a professor of art history, a director of a surgical hospital, and a few others — all of whom gather to marvel at the painter's works and to chance their luck at buying one of the masterpieces (particularly The Phantom Cluster, a painting that no one has seen). However, tragedy struck when the group met a year prior to the events of the novel — "a woman fallen from the tower", "a painting disappeared", "a man vanished under seemingly impossible circumstances", and "another man ... killed, cut up in pieces and burnt in the incinerator". The novel does a great job, straight-up mentioning the past mysteries in the prologue itself. And, thrown into this mix is the series detective, Kiyoshi Shimada, who arrives to the mansion in the present day, to solve the mystery of his friend's impossible disappearance the year previous. 

But then, it starts to suffer from a few design issues. Unlike The Decagon House Murders, the division of the narrative in The Mill House Murders is mostly time-based as the movements of the characters are limited to the confines of the mansion and its tower. What this essentially means is that most of the action in the novel consists of a cast of mostly familiar faces roaming over the same grounds in different combinations and circumstances. While this is not a bad thing by itself, the novel goes out of its way in the early stages to demonstrate how eerily the events of the present day and the previous year parallel each other. Consider, for example, the two opening sections of the first two chapters:

I woke as I usually do. The amber curtains were drawn over the windows facing the courtyard to the east, but the bright morning sun shone right through them into the room. It was quiet outside, but if I listened carefully, I could just make out the faint chirping of the mountain birds, as well as the distant sound of flowing water. I could also hear the heavy rumble of the mill wheels, always revolving by the western side of this house. It was a peaceful morning.

We’d had good weather ever since September came along, but the news last night had reported an approaching typhoon. The forecast said it would start raining in the Chūgoku region this afternoon. This morning was thus, truly, the calm before the storm.

I slowly sat up in the spacious bed. The clock on the wall showed half past eight. The same time I always woke up.

Leaning back against the headboard, I reached for the nightstand with my right hand, picked up my old briar pipe and packed it with tobacco. Soon a mellow scent filled the room, accompanied by cream-coloured smoke.

“A typhoon, eh?” I mumbled out loud to myself. My voice was unnaturally hoarse.

I had to think back to exactly one year ago, 28th September. The morning of that fateful day had been the same as today. There’d been reports of an approaching typhoon then too. And it arrived just as forecast.

One year… A whole year had passed since that blood-soaked night.

I became lost in thought, my hand swaying with the pipe. The tentacles of my mind crept towards the events of that night one year ago, to everything that occurred the following day, and even to what happened afterwards.

I stole a glance at the door in the corner of the room, the bronze doorknob and dark mahogany panelling. That door, which led to the study, would never be opened again…

My lean body suddenly shuddered. An indescribable, inescapable shiver welled up from deep within and ran through my whole being.

It was a quarter to nine now. The phone on my nightstand would ring soon, softly signalling the start of another day.

“Good morning, sir.”

The familiar voice on the other end of the line sounded calm. It was the butler, Kuramoto Shōji.

“I will be bringing you your breakfast right away.”

“Thanks.”

I placed my pipe on its stand and started getting dressed. I took my pyjamas off, put on a shirt and trousers, and a dressing gown on top. When I had managed to do all of this, I put the cotton gloves on both my hands. And finally, it was time to put on my face.

My mask.

That mask was a symbol of my whole life at this time, a symbol of everything that Fujinuma Kiichi now was.

A mask. Indeed, I had no face. I wore that mask every single day to hide my accursed features. The white mask was now the real face of the master of the house. The rubber clung to my skin. A cold death mask worn by a living man.

and

He woke as he usually did. The amber curtains were drawn over the windows facing the courtyard to the east, but the bright morning sun shone right through them into the room. It was quiet outside, but if he listened carefully, he could just make out the faint chirping of the mountain birds, as well as the distant sound of flowing water. He could also hear the heavy rumble of the mill wheels, always revolving by the western side of the house. It was a peaceful morning.

The news last night had reported an approaching typhoon. The forecast said it would start raining in the Chūgoku region on the afternoon of the 28th.

He slowly sat up in the spacious bed. The clock on the wall showed half past eight. The same time he always woke up.

Leaning back against the headboard, he reached for the nightstand with his right hand, picked up his old briar pipe and packed it with tobacco. Soon a mellow scent filled the room, accompanied by cream-coloured smoke.

Three days ago he’d caught a cold and ran a fever, but he’d recovered now. He could savour the scent of tobacco again.

He slowly closed his eyes as he puffed his pipe.

28th September. Ōishi Genzō, Mori Shigehiko, Mitamura Noriyuki and Furukawa Tsunehito. Today was the day the four of them would visit him in the afternoon, just as they had done in previous years.

Their annual visit was not a joyous occasion for him, living as he did in this house deep in the mountains, hiding from the outside world. He honestly felt their visit was a great annoyance.

Yet he was also in denial about his feelings. He could easily tell them not to come if he genuinely did not want them to. But his inability to turn them away all these years was perhaps partially due to guilt.

He kept his eyes closed as a low sigh escaped his cracked lips.

Anyway, they’re coming today. It’d all been decided, so nothing could be changed now.

He had no intention of making a detailed analysis of his own contradictory thoughts. The visit plagued him, but he also welcomed it. That was all there was to it.

It was a quarter to nine now. The phone on his nightstand would ring soon, softly signifying the start of another day.

“Good morning, sir.”

The familiar voice on the other end of the line sounded calm. It was the butler, Kuramoto Shōji.

“How are you feeling, sir?”

“Better now, thanks.”

“I can bring your breakfast immediately if you wish.”

“I’ll come down myself.”

He placed his pipe on its stand and started getting dressed. He took his pyjamas off, put on a shirt and trousers, and a dressing gown on top. When he had managed to do all of this, he put the cotton gloves on both his hands. And finally, it was time to put on his face.

His mask. 

The mask could be considered the symbol of the last twelve years of his life, a symbol of everything that Fujinuma Kiichi was.

Indeed, he had no face. He wore this mask every single day to hide his accursed features. This white mask bearing the features of Fujinuma Kiichi, the master of this house. The rubber clung to his skin. A cold death mask worn by a living man.

There are important reasons, both stylistic and plot-based, behind such a narration, which are revealed towards the end of the novel. But, I am not sure that this style of closely mirroring prose over long stretches and/or entire chapters is necessarily in the best interests of the book. If nothing else, it invites the allegation that the narration is lazy, long-drawn and stretched—an allegation that is justifiable for the first half of the novel. Even more infuriating is the fact that the repetition spills over into the conversations between the characters during this stretch, with the result that, time and again, readers are forcibly reminded of the multiple events that occurred in many of the characters' pasts, to the point of memorising them. Even though a sense of unease (that things are not as they seem) persists—and despite Shimada's constant needling—any fair, outright indication of the deception behind the events of the past is not explicitly revealed till a much later period in the novel.

The experience of reading the first half/three-fourths of the novel is akin to that of playing a challenging, laborious dungeon-crawler game where one knows the entry- and exit-points of the maze and, seemingly, the major boss to be overcome. However, they still need to explore the same dungeon time-and-time again to unravel different secrets (spaces, quests or resources) that reveal themselves only during a replay and which have a bearing on the game and its completion, and can potentially change the nature of the dungeon-space itself. In the case of The Mill House Murders, readers are likely to retread the same incidents, stories from the past and developments in the present time from the mostly similar perspectives of multiple characters—and each time, they are likely to have to refer to the previous mention of said incident to spot the critical difference/change in viewpoint. Besides not making for a smooth, fluid read, this is, indeed, an excruciating exercise in patience—not unlike taking on and staring at an extremely difficult spot-the-difference challenge where the differences are microscopic to a visible eye.

It does not help that a superior treatment of this narrative style, in my opinion, is seen in Taiwanese author Szu Yen Lin's Death in the House of Rain (translated and published in English by Locked Room International, 2017)—a far more fluid, fast-paced read than The Mill House Murders because of the simple fact that the individual incidents do not overstay their welcome and the characters are hardly given time to obsess endlessly over past events. Even more damning is the fact that The Mill House Murders itself does not really provide a framework with which one can appreciate the narrative style employed (even though it is tepid and off-putting in its execution), or a solid rationale for its application. For instance, a recent chapter of Motohiro Katou's manga, Q.E.D. iff, employs two legal principles that may be used to cultivate a somewhat begrudging admiration of the way things unfold in The Mill House Murders. In chapter 46 of the manga series (a story titled "Legal Realism"), a character provides a beginner's introduction to the judicial principles used to resolve civil and criminal cases—namely, 'legal realism' and 'legal formalism', respectively. In 'legal realism', which is employed in civil cases, the 'matching parts' of conflicting testimonies are upheld as 'the truth', even though they may oppose each other completely in other respects. However, in 'legal formalism' (used in criminal cases), the minutest details, facts, testimonies, perspectives and discrepancies are gathered and thoroughly investigated to establish and verify 'the truth'. Analysed from this perspective, it can be argued that the opening half of The Mill House Murders adheres more to the 'legal realism' principle, whereby certain core 'facts' are established to be 'the truth' through their constant repetition, whereas the other half goes about subverting, unravelling and undoing the aforesaid, established 'facts' and the core 'truth' by employing 'legal formalism' through the disruptive activities of the detective, Kiyoshi Shimada.

It is a shame then that the first 150-odd pages are so challenging to get by, because when the revelations emerge in the latter half, they come in fast and hit real hard. Architecture plays a greater and more central role in this story than it did in The Decagon House Murders, with one particular resolution evoking the spirit of Gaston Leroux's Le mystère de la chambre jaune (The Mystery of the Yellow Room, 1907) in a wonderful way. Ayatsuji also shows a marked improvement in certain aspects of his craft—the characterisation, in particular. He fleshes out the characters of his cast well, and gives them motivations and more pronounced roles than he did in The Decagon House Murders—from the very young, Rapunzel-esque wife of the narrator who is confined in the fairy-tale setting of the tower, to the brash and extremely forward hospital director, to the meek and subdued art professor, all of whom have different reasons for their presence at the Mill House, that are independent of the motives of the protagonist or antagonist. Personally, I also like the atmosphere here, with its constant evocation of the rainy, drenched and soaked weather in both of the years the work traverses between, particularly as I find it conducive to the setting up and maintenance, throughout, of a brooding, overwhelming mood that is appropriate for the story.

But alas, I cannot help but feel that The Mill House Murders would have been far better served as a novella (with better design choices, less narrative repetition and experimentation, and more impact) rather than as a full-blown novel. There are cases in which the saying 'less is more' rings true—this is certainly the case with Ayatsuji's second outing as well, despite him showing definite improvement as a writer.

Killing Floor

Yukito Ayatsuji's Yakata (literally, mansion) series, starting with the 1987 novel Jukkakukan no Satsujin Shinsou Kaiteiban (translated and published in English as The Decagon House Murders by Locked Room International in 2015, and republished by Pushkin Vertigo in 2020), is widely considered to have heralded the much-revered shin-honkaku (new orthodox) school of mystery writing in Japan. At the heart of this sub-genre was a shift to a more classical style, in sharp contrast to the social-commentary-on-crime approach that was more prevalent back then.

In many ways, The Decagon House Murders marks a break from pre-existing conventions and reads like a mission statement for a new, upcoming era. In a previous post on Alice Arisugawa's The Moai Island Puzzle, I quoted a segment from the early sections of The Decagon House Murders that reads like a statement of authorial intent:

"In my opinion, mystery fiction is, at its core, a kind of intellectual puzzle. An exciting game of reasoning in the form of a novel. A game between the reader and the great detective, or the reader and the author. Nothing more or less than that.

So enough gritty social realism please. A female office worker is murdered in a one-bedroom apartment and, after wearing out the soles of his shoes through a painstaking investigation, the police detective finally arrests the victim's boss, who turns out to be her illicit lover. No more of that! No more of the corruption and secret dealings of the political world, no more tragedies brought forth by the stress of modern society and suchlike. What mystery novels need are—some might call me old-fashioned—a great detective, a mansion, a shady cast of residents, bloody murders, impossible crimes and never-before-seen tricks played by the murderer. Call it my castle in the sky, but I'm happy as long as I can enjoy such a world. But always in an intellectual manner."

Ayatsuji faithfully sticks to the essence of this declaration throughout the novel—a fact evident from the premise itself. Seven university students, all members of a mystery club, head to Tsunojima Island to solve an unsolved case involving the death of an architect who built the only two places of residence on the island (the Decagon House and the Blue Mansion), and the members of his household (including the gardener and the servants). The students—Agatha, Carr, Ellery, Leroux, Orczy, Poe and Van Dine—put up at the Decagon House, the Blue Mansion having burnt down during the murder incident, six months ago. The members are however unsettled by a number of strange events that happen soon after their arrival and sow discord and doubt between them. Soon, the events turn out to be too ominous as, one by one, they are all killed in different ways—strangulation, poisoning, a blow to the head and burning. It all ends in a manner eerily reminiscent to what had happened six months earlier—just like the Blue Mansion was burned to the ground back then, this time, the Decagon House is set ablaze by the culprit, with the "extraordinary light even visible in S— Town across the sea."

Back in the mainland, Taka'aki Minami, a former member of the mystery club, and Kiyoshi Shimada, a self-styled investigator, find themselves entangled in the case of the death of the aforesaid architect, Seiji Nakamura. They indulge in a bit of sleuthing, armchair and on foot, with the occasional help of Kyōichi Morisu (another member of the mystery club who didn't make the trip to Tsunojima), hoping to uncover the truth of the previous incident. The reason for their sudden interest is that both Taka'aki and Kyōichi receive an anonymous letter accusing them of murdering Chiori Nakamura, a student who passed away during a New Year's party the previous year. Incidentally, Chiori happened to be the daughter of Seiji Nakamura. With the incidents all intertwined, will Shimada and company be able to solve the mysteries of the deaths of the Nakamura family members, as well as those of the university students condemned to a fiery funeral?

It goes without saying that many individual elements of this work are a nod to the Agatha Christie classic, And Then There Were None: the isolated island setup, the modus operandi of bumping off characters one after the other, the bottled 'confession'. But, what Ayatsuji crafts with these elements is something refreshingly original, in which the sum of the parts is larger than the individual elements. The Decagon House Murders is a sprightly, breezy read driven by a narrative structure that moves across space and time. The chapters place the reader either on the mainland or the island—almost always at the spot of (potential) crime and the investigation occurring in parallel—for each of the days, spanning from when the mystery club travels to Tsunojima till the day the Decagon House ends up in flames. The flowing narrative always clues readers in on the action—whether it be the increasingly pointed dialogue signifying increasing tension and suspicion between the club members or the intricacies of the investigation on the mainland that uncovers hidden truths. And yet, Ayatsuji finds space enough for subtle trickery that subverts reader expectations. As astute observers will point out, Ayatsuji fleshes out several important but minute background details, that may slip by unnoticed, to strengthen plausibility and the logical foundations of the work.    

Perhaps, the fact that Ayatsuji does not really try to overdo the mysteries works most in favour of the novel. Neither does he go out of his way to pile on twists and red herrings just for the sake of adding them. As a result, readers are invited to think for themselves and make deductions for themselves. For instance, after a certain point, the distance and the connecting bridges between the two key mysteries become evident—and despite the actions, thoughts and obsessions of a certain 'detective' on the island, perceptive readers should be able to fathom the extent of his mistaken perceptions. And, though the persistence of said character does end up solving an enduring puzzle, it ultimately provides little relief for him and the readers. What the novel also does really well is to present the execution of a flexible murder scheme—even though the rough outlines are in place, the culprit always manages to find a way to tweak and make minor adjustments depending on the circumstances, to avoid detection. However, my only minor gripe is that The Decagon House Murders does not really make use of architectural elements in the story. They become a footnote and are used to resolve a side-plot too late in the story. Furthermore, some of the impossible situations set up in the Decagon House are pretty much explained by the first, commonsensical thought that's likely to occur to people when faced with such a conundrum.

Despite the clever little puzzles and tricks and the overall playfulness of the narrative, The Decagon House Murders is not a bombastic read by any means. It also doesn't pass judgement on the culprit or their actions. In fact, the conventional 'denouement scene' where the sleuth exposes the criminal before an audience is entirely absent in the novel. This makes for a sombre and subdued atmosphere, marked by a rather tender prologue and epilogue that adds unexpected depth to the culprit's character. Consider, for instance, the following soul-searching internal conversation at the very start:

"The sea at night.  A time of quietude. 

No flickering of the stars, no light of the ships off-coast could disturb the darkness into which he gazed. He contemplated his plan once again. 

Preparations were almost finished. Soon they, his sinful prey, would walk into his trap. A trap consisting of ten equal sides and interior angles. 

They would arrive there suspecting nothing. Without any hesitation or fear they would walk into the decagonal trap, where they would be sentenced. 

What awaits them there is, of course, death. It is the obvious punishment for all of them. 

And no simple deaths. Blowing them all up in one go would be infinitely easier and more certain, but he should not choose that route. 

He has to kill them in order, one by one. Precisely like that story written by the famous British female writer—slowly, one after the other. He shall make them know. The suffering, the sadness, the pain and terror of death. 

Perhaps he had become mentally unstable. He himself would be the first to admit to that. 

I know—no matter how I try to justify it, what I am planning to do is not sane. 

He slowly shook his head at the pitch-black roiling sea. 

His hand, thrust into his coat pocket, touched something hard. He grabbed the object and took it out, holding it in front of his eyes. 

It was a small transparent bottle of green glass. 

It was sealed off securely with a stopper, and bottled inside was all he had managed to gather from inside his heart: what people like to call “conscience.” A few folded sheets of paper, sealed. On it he had printed in small letters the plan he was about to execute. It had no addressee. It was a letter of confession. 

I know Man will never become a god.

And precisely because he understood that, he did not want to leave the final judgment to a human to make. It didn’t matter where the bottle ended up. He just wanted to pose the question to the sea—the source of all life—whether, ultimately, he was right or no."

Or, for another example, the culprit's futile attempt at gaining emotional closure:

"The sea at dusk. A time of quietude.  

The waves shining red in the setting sun came from far away to wash against the shore and retreat back from whence they came. 

Just as once before, he was sitting alone on the breakwater, staring at the sea at sunset. 

Chiori…. 

He had been repeating her name in his mind for a while. 

Chiori, Chiori…. 

He closed his eyes and the fire of that night came back vividly alive. A giant fire of remembrance, which enveloped the decagonal trap that caught his prey and burnt through the night. 

Her image joined that sight in his mind. He tried calling out to her. But she was looking away and did not answer him. 

What’s wrong, Chiori? 

The flames danced more furiously and burnt brighter. The image of his love was caught in the fire, until its contour was swallowed completely and she disappeared. 

Silently he stood up. 

Several children were playing in the water. He stood there, staring at that scenery with narrowed eyes. 

‘Chiori.’ 

He muttered her name once again, this time out loud. But she did not appear anymore, whether he closed his eyes or looked up at the sky. A fathomless sense of emptiness tortured him, as if something had been ripped away from his heart. 

The sea was about to blend in with the night. The waves carrying the last light of the setting sun resonated silently."

It is a narrative device that one sees in a number of storylines in the far more dramatic series, Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo, especially in segments following the climax. In fact, there are more than a few interesting similarities between the two. And, just as And Then There Were None served as a template here, I would argue that The Decagon House Murders also serves as a prototype for future mystery works across different media. For instance, the Kindaichi series shares a penchant for island mysteries (Uta island and Seiren island being cases in point). Additionally, and more specifically, the 'Lake Hiren Murder Case' (in the Kindaichi series) employs a variation of the trick used to 'connect' the mainland and Tsunojima in The Decagon House Murders. On the other hand, the entire motif of a certain architect's creations as the setting for a series of murder mysteries has been replicated in manga such as Tantei Gakuen Q (Detective School Q) and Tantei Xeno to Nanatsu no Satsujin Misshitsu (Detective Xeno and the Seven Locked Murder Rooms).

Its narrative credentials aside, The Decagon House Murders proved to be a watershed moment for a new, emerging style of mystery fiction in literature, the success of which then led to its widespread popularity in popular culture (manga, anime and films) within a decade of its publication, and the influence of which can be seen in this decade as well. From a literary and cross-media perspective, it is a work of monumental importance for scholars and aficionados of the genre—and it rightfully deserves every bit of the reputation it has earned and continues to, to this day.  

Crazy Train

"Later, one summer night in 1949,
again the Buddha appeared to me,
in my cell, beside my pillow.
He told me:
The Shimoyama Case is a Murder Case.
It is the son of the Teigin Case,
it is the son of all cases.
Whoever solves the Shimoyama Case,
they will solve the Teigin Case;
they will solve all cases."

—"Sadamichi Hirasawa", a poem, from Natsuame Monogatari, by Kuroda Roman, translated by Donald Reichenbach 

Two of the cases mentioned in the verse above, the Shimoyama case and the Teigin case, form the basis of two out of the three novels David Peace's now-complete Tokyo trilogy—the works in question being Tokyo Redux (2021) and Occupied City (2009), respectively. One of these, the Shimoyama incident, concerning the death of Sadanori Shimoyama, the first president of the Japanese National Railways, is officially listed as unsolved, even after nearly 74 years of its occurrence, while the other, the Teigin Bank Massacre of 1948, was a highly contentious affair, with the accused (Sadamichi Hirasawa) serving a death sentence for over 30 years, despite several retrials and no minister of justice ever signing Hirasawa's death warrant. Given the nature and legacy of the two cases, it is no surprise that both of them captured the imagination of the country's masses for decades, and continue to do so to this day.

Let's not bury the lede here—Tokyo Redux is an extremely clever feat of narration that blurs the boundaries between reality, history and imagination supplemented by the former two. It is also, stylistically, an incredibly accomplished work. But, a lot of the credit also goes to its subject matter, the Shimoyama case, the ambiguous and unsolved nature of which invites intelligent, well-measured speculation and manipulation. Tokyo Redux promises to be a great read for anyone sufficiently invested in detailed and well-researched conspiracy theories (paradoxical however it may seem).

Peace may be best known for his football books, The Damned United ("a fiction" based on Brian Clough's ill-fated managership of Leeds United) and Red or Dead (detailing Liverpool legend Bill Shankly's stewardship of the club between 1959 and 1974), but in crime-writing, particularly noir fiction, circles, he is hailed as an exceptional prose innovator and stylist. In Tokyo Redux, Peace displays the aforementioned virtues and much more. The novel begins with the discovery of a body on the outskirts of Edinburgh in the late 1980s (circa 1988–1989). Certain items found at the scene of the crime—an alarm clock, a newspaper clipping, a photograph and a picture postcard with a certain message scribbled behind it—connects this incident to the death of president Shimoyama on July 5, 1949. It also leads readers directly into the first of three neatly demarcated sections, each possessing identities of their own.

***

The first section, titled The Mountain of Bones, takes one back to the Tokyo of July 1949—a period when the American Occupation was in full force. Even with the challenge posed by criminal gangs and the protests by the communists, the administration is rudely jolted further more when president Shimoyama goes missing on July 5. The Public Safety Division (PSD) springs into action especially as its lead investigator, Harry Sweeney, receives a mysterious call just before the news of Shimoyama's disappearance breaks out. What follows next is a rigorous but speculative retracing of the steps Shimoyama took and the places he visited (for instance, the Mitsukoshi Department Store in Nihonbashi and the Chiyoda Bank near Tokyo station); however, Shimoyama's dismembered corpse is discovered after midnight, apparently having been run over by a train on the  Jōban Line near Ayase station in Adachi in north Tokyo.

The course of investigation over the next few days, besides throwing Sweeney's life completely off-kilter, also takes Sweeney and his team over a vast cross-section of Tokyo's landscape, not just in a geographical sense but in socio-economic terms as well. Shimoyama's death is more than it seems—and the more the PSD investigates, the more the number of threads emerge. Investigating these threads leads Sweeney and his team to various locations—from the posh neighbourhoods of Tokyo to the seats of administrative power, department stores, banks, railroad shanties, red light districts and seedy joints frequented by the underworld. Due to the large web spreading out of Shimoyama's influential connections and interpersonal relationships, Sweeney ends up visiting a large, diverse cast of characters—Shimoyama's assistant, family members, members of the upper echelons of the General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (GHQ-SCAP), an underworld don, a shamaness, Shimoyama's ex-mistress. Most of these interactions provide brief snippets not only into the lives of the characters, but also constitute pieces, earned painstakingly, of what would ultimately prove to be Sweeney's fruitless investigation. Needless to say, while this section has something of a hardboiled edge to it, it is also easily that portion which resembles a whodunnit the most. Sweeney faces challenges and pressures from both seen and unseen quarters—the GHQ-SCAP is more than willing to lay the blame on the communists, especially since members of the party, besides organising citywide protests against the railways' decision to fire several thousand employees, had also sent threats to Shimoyama, while a section of the police is happy to close the case as a suicide; an underworld don, on the other hand, pulls strings behind the scenes to incriminate Korean immigrants (one of whom also turns out to share a link with the infamous Zed Unit, an international covert ops organisation that saw action mainly in China and Korea).

Sadanori Shimoyama, the ill-fated,
first president of the
Japanese National Railways

The spotlight, however, shines solely on Sweeney, from an individualistic point of view. The case takes a heavy toll on Sweeney, the sordidness of which is laid out in excruciating, all-too-literal detail. The microscopic focus extends not only to his actions, but also to Sweeney's thoughts. For instance, the section after Sweeney returns to a hotel at the end of a particularly long, tiresome day reads as follows:

"Harry Sweeney put the key in the lock of the door to his room in the Yaesu Hotel. He turned the key, he opened the door. He shut the door behind him, he locked the door behind him. He stood in the center of the room and he looked around the room. In the light from the street, in the light from the night. The screwed-up envelope, the torn-up letter. The open Bible, the fallen crucifix. The upturned suitcase, the empty wardrobe. The pile of damp clothes, the bundle of soiled sheets. The bare mattress, the empty bed. He heard the rain on the window, he heard the rain in the night. He walked over to the washstand. He looked down into the basin. He saw the shards of broken glass. He looked back up into the mirror, he stared at the face in the mirror. He stared at its jaw, its cheek, its eyes, its nose, and its mouth. He reached up to touch the face in the mirror, to trace the outline of its jaw, its cheek, its eyes, its nose, and its mouth. He ran his fingers up and down the edge of the mirror. He gripped the edges of the mirror. He prized the mirror off the wall. He crouched down. He placed the face of the mirror against the wall beneath the window. He started to stand back up. He saw spots of blood on the carpet. He took off his jacket. He threw it onto the mattress. He unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt. He rolled up the cuffs of his shirt. He saw the spots of blood on the bandages on his wrists. He undid the buttons of his shirt. He took off his shirt. He tossed it onto the mattress. He took off his watch. He dropped it on the floor. He unhooked the safety pin that secured the bandage on his left wrist. He put the pin between the faucets of the washbasin. He unwound the bandage on his left wrist. He threw the length of bandage on top of his shirt on the mattress. He unhooked the safety pin that secured the bandage on his right wrist. He put it next to the other safety pin between the faucets. He unwound the bandage from his right wrist. He tossed this length of bandage onto the other bandage on top of his shirt. He picked up the trash can. He carried it over to the basin. He picked out the pieces of broken glass. He put them in the trash. He turned on the faucets. He waited for the water to come. To drown out the rain on the window, to silence the rain in the night. He put the stopper in the basin, he filled the basin. He turned off the faucets. The sound of the rain on the window again, the noise of the rain in the night again. He put his hands and his wrists into the basin and the water. He soaked his hands and his wrists in the water in the basin. He watched the water wash away the blood. He felt the water cleanse his wounds. He nudged out the stopper. He watched the water drain from the basin, from around his wrists, from between his fingers. He lifted his hands from the basin. He picked up a towel from the floor. He dried his hands and his wrists on the towel. He folded the towel. He hung the towel on the rail beside the basin. He walked back into the center of the room. In the light from the street, in the light from the night. He held out his hands, he turned over his palms. He looked down at the clean, dry scars on his wrists. He stared at them for a long time. Then he knelt down in the center of the room. By the screwed-up envelope, before the torn-up letter. The scraps of paper, the scraps of phrases. Betrayal. Deceit. Judas. Lust. Marriage. Sanctity. My religion. You traitor. Will never give up. Give you a divorce. I know what you are like, I know who you are. But I forgive you, Harry. The children forgive you, Harry. Come home, Harry. Please just come home. Harry Sweeney brought his palms together. Harry Sweeney raised his hands toward his face. He bowed his head. He closed his eyes. In the middle of the American Century, in the middle of the American night. Bowed in his room, his hotel room. The rain on the window, the rain in the night. On his knees, his stained knees. Falling down, pouring down. Harry Sweeney heard the telephones ringing. The voices raised, the orders barked. The boots down the stairs, the boots in the street. Car doors opening, car doors closing. Engines across the city, brakes four stories below. Boots up the stairs, boots down the corridor. The knuckles on the door, the words through the wood: Are you there, Harry? Are you in there?"

The reason I have quoted this section in its entirety is to illustrate the numbing effect of this immensely hardboiled piece of narration and characterisation here. The blow-by-blow account of every single one of Sweeney's actions and thoughts beats one's mind into submission, not unlike the effect produced by blunt-force trauma. This treatment is extended all through the novel, whenever Sweeney takes centrestage. In another instance, while strolling along the Sumida river, Sweeney's mood, ruminations and the surrounding cityscape come together and supplement each other as follows:

"Harry Sweeney turned and started to walk away from the station, away from the store, across Avenue R, toward the river, the Sumida River. He walked into the park, through the park, the Sumida Park. He came to the river, the banks of the river. He stood on the bank and he stared at the river. The current still, the water black. There was no breeze, there was no air. Only the stench of sewage, the stink of shit. People’s shit, men’s shit. The stench always here, the stink still here. Harry Sweeney took out his pack of cigarettes and lit one. By the river, on her bank. The streets behind him, the station behind him. All the streets and all the stations. He stared down the river, into the darkness, where its mouth would be, where the sea would be; across the ocean, there was home. A dog barked and wheels screamed, somewhere in the night, somewhere behind him. A yellow train was pulling out of the station, the yellow train crossing an iron bridge. The bridge across the river, a bridge to the other side. Going east, going north. Out of the city, away from the city. Men disappearing, men vanishing. In the city, from the city. On its streets, in its stations. Their names and their lives. Disappearing, vanishing. Starting afresh, starting again. A new name, a new life. A different name, a different life. Never going home, never coming back. The train disappearing, the train vanishing. 

Harry Sweeney looked away from the bridge, stared back down at the river, the Sumida River. So still and so black, so soft and so warm. Inviting and welcoming, tempting, so tempting. No more names and no more lives. Memories or visions, insects or specters. So tempting, very tempting. An end to it all, an end to it all. The pattern of the crime precedes the crime. The end of his cigarette burning his fingers, blistering their skin. Harry Sweeney threw the butt of his cigarette into the river. This dirty river, this stinking river. People’s shit, men’s shit. He turned away from the river, walked away from the river, the Sumida River. Back to the station, back down the steps. Away from the river, the Sumida River, and away from temptation, away from temptation. The pattern and the crime. Disappearing, vanishing. Into the night, into the shadows. Under the city, under the ground."

Once again, a constant hypervigilant focus on and repetition of key patterns, thoughts and associations creates a numbing, sombre mood for Sweeney and the readers—a mood that rarely lets up through the novel. However, the flipside of this highly stylistic exercise is that Sweeney's colleagues (such as Bill Betz and Susumu Toda) and the rest of the supporting cast are not even afforded a third of the limelight Sweeney gets in the first section. They keep appearing and disappearing, flitting around like phantoms which only adds, perhaps, to one key essence of the novel—that of events and ghosts of the past casting long, sinister shadows.

***

If The Mountain of Bones presented post-War Tokyo in all its dirtiness and filth through an exploration of its geography, socio-economic conditions and characters, the second section titled The Bridge of Tears achieves the same effect through different means and in a far more sinister fashion. The scene shifts to 1964 Tokyo during the time of the Olympics—a period that Peace, in the voice of one of the characters, succinctly describes as "Edo stench, Olympic noise". To achieve its purpose, this section employs the trope of a detective lost in the maze of a rapidly modernising city (with a dark underbelly) to devastating effect—a trope that has been quite popular, in a postcolonial context and era, in Japan and the world over.

President Shimoyama's remains being
removed from the Jōban Line

Murota Hideki, a somewhat down-on-his-luck, crooked policeman-turned-private detective is handed a missing-person investigation by a publishing house. The author in question is Kuroda Roman, who had apparently pocketed some advance fees without furnishing the requisite manuscript. Kuroda Roman, it turns out, was a popular author for some years during the post-1945 Shōwa era, at which time he gained some notoriety before disappearing completely from public view. What seems to be a routine investigation turns on its head when Hideki finds out that Roman had penned a pretty revelatory entry on Hideki himself, dating back to his days as a policeman, in one of his books. Furthermore, in Roman's address book, Hideki finds out that his residence and contact detail have also been listed, without him being none the wiser. What finally signals Hideki's spiralling descent into madness and a sinister plot far beyond his ability to comprehend and his ability to fight back is his discovery of a manuscript titled Natsuame Monogatari, or Tales of the Summer Rains, written jointly by Kuroda Roman and Shimoyama Sadanori. It is a development that inextricably ties the events of 1964 with the Shimoyama Case of 1949.

Partly because it is framed as a narrative portraying a person suffering from personal nightmares, while being trapped in the machinations of others, The Bridge of Tears reads faster and features more tighter prose than The Mountain of Bones. It also helps that much of the groundwork, in terms of key themes (vis-à-vis corruption, abuse of socio-political and economic power, racial tension, among others) is painstakingly laid out in the first part. So, how does The Bridge of Tears go about reinforcing an already dark and depressing atmosphere, other than the plot itself? One of the more interesting ways it does so is by a rhythmic repetition of certain sounds that also act as particular signifiers. If The Mountain of Bones saw a geographical mapping of Tokyo, The Bridge of Tears introduces a novel onomatopoeic mapping. For instance, 'ton, ton' represents sounds of construction, 'shu, shu, pop, pop' stands for the sound of a train's steam engine, the 'murder weapon' in Shimoyama's death, while the sounds signifying ghosts and phantoms of the past inhabiting and passing through empty, shadowy, dilapidated spaces is dramatically represented as 'sā, sā, rei, rei'. The repetition of these sounds at key intervals creates an effect similar to the chanting of Buddhist sutras in monasteries, as far as the setting of particular moods is concerned. 

The postcolonial nature of the narrative here also plays a major role here. For Hideki, the deep-dive into the past and the search for the remnants of Roman's presence transforms the Tokyo of 1964, caught in the crossroads of modernity and tradition, into an unfathomable monster whose inhabitants ambush one at every conceivable corner. Despite his training as a policeman and a private detective, Hideki is unable to see the dangers as they approach him—the deceitful clients, the lying people he interviews in course of the investigation and an unseen, powerful enemy that traps him leaving him no room for escape. As a result, he finds himself indicted in a murder case, two cases of assault and the disappearance of his own common-law life. It's a fate that, in its inevitability and hopelessness, closely and curiously resembles that of Kuroda Roman from a decade-and-a-half ago. As is revealed, after realising the extent of his participation in the Shimoyama case, Roman too found himself utterly helpless despite appealing to the police and the institution of Mystery Writers of Japan, ultimately being threatened and manipulated like a puppet in the hands of insidious forces whose presence he is constantly aware of but can do nothing about. And, it is here that the book-in-book structure that is employed half-way into the section displays its full utility. After Hideki discovers the manuscript of Natsuame Monogatari, Peace intersperses the action, unfolding in real time, which Hideki is involved in with excerpts from the book detailing Roman's surprising and deep-rooted involvement in the 1949 Shimoyama case from its earliest days, way before its commission. The purpose is perhaps to draw parallels between Roman's plight in the past and Hideki's fate unfolding in real time, but these passages also reveal much about the Shimoyama case that was left unsaid and unrevealed in The Mountain of Bones. Some characters with an almost shadowy, transient presence in the first half, who reappear in The Bridge of Tears, are also revealed to have played very important roles in the lead-up to and in the aftermath of the Shimoyama case.

The resulting effect is that Hideki not only finds himself caught in the web of a nightmarish conspiracy that extends from the past to the present, he also ends up as a victim of Kuroda Roman's and Sadanori Shimoyama dark legacy—the book, Natsuame Monogatari, which, if published, was, ironically, meant to be a tell-it-all account and a means to escape the clutches of the perpetrators of the Shimoyama murder case. Perhaps, Hideki's and Roman's fate do not exist on parallel tracks; they converge with only one possible outcome—madness, that hits both characters with the speed and force of a freight train. The element of madness adds yet another dimension to an already dark narrative, and it all culminates in a frighteningly spectacular scene in a mental asylum under the aegis of the 'Department of Psychic Seances'. The seance held at the end of The Bridge of Tears—akin to a lucid, fever dream which would have been completely at home in a novel like Dogura Magura (1935), author Yumeno Kyūsaku's surrealistic tour de force—sees an uncomprehending Hideki gliding through the spectres of cases past in a pantomime of a performance conducted for supposedly 'scientific reasons'. The figures in this performance include Kuroda Roman himself, Sadamichi Hirasawa (of Teigin Bank Massacre fame), and perhaps, most significantly, the figure of Harry Sweeney who clutches a broken teddy bear and softly whispers "It's too late" (a recurring motif and statement seen throughout the novel) just as the 15-year statute of limitations expires for the Shimoyama case.

***

More skeletons and secrets tumble out of the Shimoyama case closet in The Gate of Flesh, the last of the aforesaid three sections. Set towards the end of 1988, only a month or two away from the death of Emperor Hirohito, this concluding part is as much about the passing of an era (the Shōwa era) as it is about displaying the grasp the Shimoyama case had on each of the individuals involved prominently, till the moment of their deaths.

An inspection of the locomotive
that hit Shimoyama

The spotlight this time falls on the hitherto-unseen Donald Reichenbach, a professor and the translator of the verse mentioned at the start of this essay. It is through his eyes and memories that Peace lays forth his interpretation of the facts in the Shimoyama case and posits a plausible solution to the case. While the major perpetrators and much of the main conspiracy are pretty much revealed in act two, Reichenbach and his fellow cast of characters play roles that effectively prevented Sweeney and his team from getting to the bottom of the case in act one itself. In this third act, however, Reichenbach emerges as a rapidly ageing, broken-down, lonely man who is fast running out of friends and company, mainly  due to his refusal and inability to let go of the past, and always returning to the scenes of his past crimes, despite undergoing psychiatric treatment. Through the course of this section, even though his colleagues have moved past the Shimoyama incident and its long aftermath, Reichenbach finds himself unwittingly visiting some of the locations pertaining to the incident, almost like a ghost incapable of setting itself free off a haunted house. Here too, Peace utilises flashbacks into the past, shuttling alternately between 1949 and 1988, to reveal the incidents that the locations were witness too. While in the previous act, the alternating past-and-present narratives focussed more on the characters themselves, the focus of these flashbacks in this act seems to have shifted to the locations themselves, as mute, silent and impartial witnesses. This treatment may just be what the doctor ordered, because once the entire picture emerges, the sordidness, inhumanity and callousness underlining the Shimoyama case, as deduced by Peace, is simply too shocking. Briefly said (and spoilers ahead), Peace indicts the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Zed Unit (and, in close collaboration with it, the Hongō House) and the SCAP to varying degrees, with the unsettling revelation that the upper echelons of each of these organisations were aware of the political moves they were plotting against each other, while many of the foot-soldiers and the bits-and-pieces players were kept in the dark till the endgame, so that they could fulfill their role as scapegoats better. With its focus on secret organisations and internal politics, Tokyo Redux reminds me of Nagasaki Takashi and Kouno Kouji's manga, Inspector Kurokochi (2012), which, even if tonally disparate from Peace's work, takes on another yet-unsolved crime that is often considered to the holy grail of Japanese mysteries—the 300 million yen affair or robbery from 1968—and also indicts a clandestine, shadowy institution in the process. 

It is, perhaps, fitting then that, as the past rapidly catches up to him, Reichenbach is subject to the same terror that Hideki, Sweeney and Roman were subject to—the fear of an unknown, powerful enemy, except that, in Reichenbach's case, the enemy is a vengeful one as well. Ultimately, Reichenbach, fearful of death, is made to bear the weight and responsibility of the Shimoyama case as he meets an ignominious end, falling down a flight of stairs—"down the steps, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down each one, each single one of the thirty-six steps to the ground ... "

***

Tokyo Redux is a hefty novel that is, perhaps, well worth the ten-plus years it took Peace to research and write. In the way it presents conflicting perspectives, it resembles, in my opinion, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's short story, "In A Bamboo Grove"—but only to a certain extent, because, for one, the misinformation and deception is deliberate in a relatively linear story (it's not that the readers see different truths as much as they are made to see manufactured ones), and secondly, at the end of it all, Tokyo Redux provides a concrete solution to the Shimoyama case, and does not leave it to the imagination and judgement of the readers. Besides its stylistic and narrative achievements, it is also an incredibly immersive book and it is easy to lose oneself in the noirish underbelly of the Tokyo of the past, as portrayed here. And, despite his well-documented repugnance towards considering crime fiction as a puzzle game/game of logical reasoning, Peace does employ a bit of the essence of a whodunnit (not a fair-play one though) in this work, bringing the narrative to a well-reasoned-out conclusion. However, the most telling and impressive evidence of Tokyo Redux as a historical, conspiracy thriller of the first order comes in the End Matters portion of the book, where Peace hints that his entire understanding and reasoning of what actually happened in the Shimoyama case hinges upon the singular fact that "the sections for Japan in the weekly intelligence summaries provided by the Office of Reports and Estimates, CIA Far East/Pacific Branch remain redacted for the period around the death of Sadanori Shimoyama. And for only that period."

As my first tentative and experimental stab at Peace's crime fiction, Tokyo Redux proved to be a lot more than I had bargained for—in a good, fruitful way, of course. I will be covering more of Peace's works on this blog in the future, as and when I come across them. For the time being, however, my first order of business will be to complete the Tokyo trilogy—from the back forwards, which will be another first for me.  

Tokyo: A Love Story

Akimitsu Takagi's 1948 novel Shisei Satsujin Jiken (published in English first as The Tattoo Murder Case by Soho Crime in 1999, republished as The Tattoo Murder by Pushkin Vertigo in 2022) happens to be one of the first books that kickstarted my fascination with Japanese crime literature. As it was the only title missing from my collection of Pushkin Vertigo's translated Japanese titles, I recently decided to buy and revisit it after a period of eight-odd years. So, how did the trip down memory lane fare for me this time around?

Eight years are a long time for anyone to forget major chunks of a work, but I must admit I was pleasantly surprised at how much I remembered the setting of this novel. Against the backdrop of a wound as raw as World War II, it must have been difficult for an author to replicate its ambience. But, Takagi pulls it off and evokes the atmosphere of a bombed-out, defeated, post-World War II Japan in a manner that is refreshingly different from Seishi Yokomizo's Death on Gokumon Island, a work that was written and published in roughly the same time period. I keep returning to the opening two paragraphs of the novel that firmly establish the environs where the work will be set in and locates it strictly in a very particular time period:

"It was the summer of 1947, and the citizens of Tokyo, already crushed with grief and shock over the loss of the war, were further debilitated by the languid heat. The city was ravaged. Seedy-looking shacks had sprung up on the messy sites of bombed-out buildings. Makeshift shops overflowed with colorful black-market merchandise, but most people were still living from hand to mouth.

Even in formerly posh neighborhoods around the Ginza, the same pathetic scenario was being played out. During the day, ragged crowds of people with empty eyes would meander aimlessly about the crossroads, mingling with the American soldiers who strutted along triumphantly in their dashing uniforms. When evening rolled around, the rubble-strewn streets teemed with prostitutes, petty criminals, and vagabonds seeking a cheap night’s lodging. The uneasy silence of the night was frequently shattered by the report of a pistol."

Author Takagi's interest in an unfamiliar Tokyo provides fuel for the seedy atmosphere that he sustains for a majority of the novel, and his gaze (which he shares with the readers) has a flâneur-like quality in the opening stretches. Page after page, chapter after chapter, we travel through the charred streets and neighbourhoods of Tokyo to witness the curious, sometimes aimless, movements of the characters whose lives and motivations have taken unpredictable turns after the war. The overall, pointless, arbitrary nature of survival in a post-war period is best illustrated when Akimitsu describes the existing buildings in the several locales spread across the city. For instance, one is introduced to the opulent mansion of Professor Hayakawa as follows: "Professor Hayakawa had married money as well as beauty. He and his tattooed wife lived in Yotsuya in a splendid European-style brick house with leaded windows, wrought-iron balconies, and a classical English garden hidden away behind high brick walls. The house had been spared by some wartime fluke, while both of the formerly elegant dwellings on either side were now bombed-out ruins, overgrown with weeds." This illogical reality of certain settlements surviving with the surrounding ones in ruins persists throughout the novel. And it is against this backdrop that the story unfolds, with many of the key characters relying on the forbidden charms of the underworld and the red-light districts to escape from their mundane, sobering reality of their everyday lives.

The apathy in the lives of a number of the characters in the novel is juxtaposed with the sinister designs of some others. The result is a transformation of the flâneuristic gaze into a voyeuristic one—the object of voyeurism being a magnificent tattoo of the mythical sorcerer Orochimaru on the body of a certain Kinue Nomura. The tattoo is unveiled in all its glory at the first post-war meeting of the Edo Tattoo Society, an event meant for the recreation of a certain section of Tokyo's people suffering a long and terrible summer. This act of exhibitionism sparks a chain of events that leads different characters to 'tail' this bewitching tattoo and its owner for different reasons: first, Kenzo Matsushita (an aspiring student of forensic medicine), Professor Hayakawa (also called Dr Tattoo), Gifu Inazawa (the manager of the company owned by Kinue's husband, Takezo Mogami), and later, Ryokichi Usui (Kinue's former yakuza lover) and Tsunetaro Nomura (Kinue's brother, who had supposedly perished in World War II). Now, tailing is an essential tool for detectives—and as the late Sari Kawana mentions in her work, Murder Most Modern, it even allowed scholars and researchers in the 1920s and 1930s to put on their thinking caps and step in the shoes of a sleuth (a fact well illustrated in Kawana's encapsulation of a slightly creepy social experiment involving the tailing of a woman in a department store and then making observations based on her shopping habits and buying patterns). Not surprisingly then, the act of tailing became a keystone of crime and detective fiction works in the country—an investigative tool of such sanctity that deductions could safely be made on the basis of these actions and the secrets unearthed consequently.

When it comes to tailing, Edogawa Ranpo usually played it straight in his "ero guro nansensu" (erotic-grotesque nonsense) stories such as "The Stalker in the Attic". However, The Tattoo Murder (which mirrors some of the aesthetics of Ranpo's ero guro nansensu) subverts the role and purpose of tailing by turning it on its head and changing it into a tool of misdirection which fools not only the characters caught in a trap but also the police who draw their observations based on their misguided surveillance and pursuit of the suspects and the testimonies made. From the standpoint of the miscreants, however, it all unfolds perfectly like a well-rehearsed script. Kinue Nomura, the subject of much fascination, plays the role of a damsel-in-distress-cum-femme-fatale, using her feminine charms (and her tattoo, of course) to appeal to men like Gifu and Kenzo ("I feel that I am going to be killed very soon ... A terrible death is stalking me, and I am terrified of what may lie in wait. I fear my days are numbered, and the happiness I’ve found with you will be cruelly snatched away.… You’re the only one who can rescue me, my love."), even making out with them. However, the dismembered body parts of Kinue are soon discovered in the locked bathroom of their Japanese-style house, with her husband having ostensibly disappeared. To add further suspicion, Kenzo, Gifu, Ryokichi and Professor Hayakawa are all discovered to have visited the scene of the crime on the evening or the day after for their own, not-so-honourable ends. One by one, the authorities shift their focus on each of the suspects while simultaneously bringing to light the murky past of Kinue and her family (consisting of her father Horiyasu, an incredibly talented tattoo artist, her mother, a hardened criminal who ran away and died in person, her sister Tamae, who was supposed to have passed away in the Hiroshima explosion and her brother Tsunetaro, who had gone to serve in the Philippines during the  war and was listed as missing in action). It is also believed that Horiyasu had left a curse on each of his offsprings by etching three mythological characters on their bodies (Orochimaru on Kinue's, Tsunadehime on Sanae's and Jiraiya on Tsunetaro's). Such an act is considered to be taboo, because the three are warring magicians who are said to have destroyed each other—and with Kinue's death, the prophecy seems to have been fulfilled. Except, the killings don't quite stop at this point—a few days later, the body of Takezo Mogami is found in the storeroom of an abandoned building, a bullet hole above his right ear. And, in yet another turn of events, Tsunetaro turns out to be alive with a tattoo business of his own, only to soon end up dead (for real, this time) in a burnt-out building with the skin removed from his torso, hands and thighs, after promising to expose the perpetrators. This intense, secretly manipulated tailing and pursuit has no happy, satisfactory ending for any of the parties concerned.

Takagi's love for the art and the culture of the Japanese tattoo shines through the novel—and it is no surprise that the trick behind the case of a mistaken identity revolves around the process of tattoo engraving and removal. A review of the book termed it as "a document of the times", and this is best seen in sections where Takagi reveals, with an almost journalistic flourish, the harsh realities of post-war Japan that people could scarcely believe would have come to pass—women, both elderly and preteen, thrown into prostitution; the intricate and artistic Japanese tattoo as a symbol of superiority over the "unimaginative" American tattoo, providing solace (in a perverse way) to a population hurting from a wartime loss; tattoo parlours in hidden alleys being meeting grounds for the affluent and the downtrodden where skilled but outlawed tattoo artists sketched and imprinted these symbols of national pride and identity, flouting strict rules prohibiting such practices. Takagi paints the underworld and, in particular, the shady, tattooing industry in post-war Tokyo in vivid, sensual detail and in a sensitive, sympathetic manner that should resonate well with the layman reader. The rules, etiquettes and the inner workings of the world of the Japanese tattoo artists too are explained in a comprehensible, but perhaps excessively earnest, way.

Till this point, the narrative develops organically, providing reasons, along the way, for a reader to develop interest in Japanese history and culture. The denouement, comprising the last third of the novel, comes as a bit of a surprise, though. The arrival of the amateur detective Kyosuke Kamizu, who provides the much-needed "fresh point of view" and "miracle", signals the beginning of a significant tonal shift. Hereon, Takagi completely drops the ball on the creepy, seedy atmosphere he had so painstakingly established and rushes towards the endgame with a ruthlessness and clinical efficiency that would have done Freeman Wills Crofts proud. Gone are the discussions on the Japanese tattoo and the importance of mythological stories in the world of the Japanese tattoo; these are instead replaced with conversations on Western philosophies and ways of thought, and deliberations on Kamizu's pet theory of "criminal economics". For a novel that caters so much to Japanese tastes, cultures and sensibilities, The Tattoo Murder sure does proclaim the superiority and triumph of Western perspectives and methods of detection in its final stretches. The locked-room murder is explained satisfactorily and competently but in an uninspired, perfunctory manner, while a final dramatic twist and reveal is perhaps an inevitable development that may be considered predictable by today's standards.

When I referred to The Tattoo Murder as a novel of a very specific time period, I may have subconsciously also been hinting at the unfortunate, excessive cross-pollination of genre aesthetics and mechanics in its final portions—a development that was perhaps inevitable in that era. That is why this treatment is perfectly understandable too—for an author like Takagi writing right after the end of World War II, the challenge must have been to incorporate Japanese aesthetics and sensibilities in a genre that was essentially seen as a Western import. And, make no mistake—The Tattoo Murder as a mystery novel is a gripping page-turner of the first order that also wonderfully explores a city in ruins and offers fascinating insights into aspects of an oft-ignored profession and class of society (at that time). As a Japanese mystery, however, the lack of an organic conclusion stunts its status somewhat and, in my humble opinion, prevents it from reaching the heights of Seishi Yokomizo's The Inugami Curse and Death on Gokumon Island.  

(This post was published on the Scroll website with the following title: The Tattoo Murder’ injects local aesthetics into a post-World War II Japanese crime novel)