California Dreamin'

During what was, perhaps, the only Dungeons & Dragons session I have ever participated in, a friend of mine made a pitch for me to jump on the science-and-fantasy fiction bandwagon. Said friend introduced me to the 'Dying Earth' subgenre, which also happens to be a common theme and setting in Dungeons & Dragons games. It has a long lineage, featuring works from Mary Shelley and H. G. Wells to those by Gene Wolfe, but my friend particularly recommended stories and novels by Jack Vance. As it turns out, the subgenre is named as a tribute to Vance and his Dying Earth series (1950–1984).

I never did explore the 'Dying Earth' subgenre or Vance's series. My loyalty and devotion to crime fiction proved to be far stronger—and a cursory dive into Vance's bibliography showed that he wrote and published a number of crime and mystery fiction works, including a few under the Ellery Queen pseudonym. Last year, on a whim, I decided to read what sounded like one of the more interesting titles in his oeuvre—The Fox Valley Murders (1966). It is safe to say that I hit the jackpot in my first encounter with Vance's works.

Lived experiences of authors loom large over books I have read (or reread) in recent years. The descriptions of numerous fictional locations (villages, towns, hotels, buildings, among others) in Agatha Christie's novels, such as Peril at End House, Evil Under the Sun, and The Body in the Library, for instance, are said to draw inspiration from her travels and stays particularly in Devon and Torquay. In Seishi Yokomizo's Kosuke Kindaichi series, on the other hand, Yokomizo's wartime experiences in the Japan's Okayama islands mould the settings, the narratives, the politics as well as the way characters act and interact with each other—particularly in works such as The Honjin Murders, Death on Gokumon Island and The Village of Eight Graves.

In The Fox Valley Murders, Vance draws upon his childhood experiences in his beloved Californian countryside in a more personal and intimate manner than Christie or Yokomizo. The result is a work where the geography and the cast of characters emerge as something resembling picture cut-outs from a photo album. It is, therefore, not surprising to note that the novel is propelled by an effective combination of nostalgia, and the use of well-defined, believable characters, crisp, entertaining, and humorous conversations, as well as vivid, evocative descriptions of locales. Employing a very American diction, The Fox Valley Murders is, in my opinion, one of the finest specimens of a 'regional mystery' I have ever encountered.

Events of the past cast long shadows—and these shadows re-emerge when Ausley Wyett ("tall and awkward, with lank brown hair, knobby knees and wrists, a good-natured, if somewhat moony, face") steps into the town of Marblestone in California's San Rodrigo county after serving a 16-year-long jail term. If there's one thing that unites Marbletown's residents otherwise divided by petty jealousies and rivalries, it's a profound hatred for Ausley ("A lot of people around here don't feel too Christian about Ausley Wyett"), who was convicted of raping and killing 13-and-half-year old Tissie McAllister (who "loved her parents and was loved in return"). Ausley maintained his innocence at the inquest, but even though the evidence leading up to the crime—a number of people having witnessed Ausley and Tissie walking together but not the crime itself—is pretty much circumstantial, Ausley's own actions after the murder ("I lost my head and did the foolishest thing I could have done”) drove a nail in his coffin. Some miles away from the town, he had been spotted, "digging a hole, with close at hand the body of Tissie McAllister." However, even a prison term fails to cure his hardheadedness, because after returning to Marblestone, the first thing he does is to send a letter to the five persons who had testified against him:

"Dear Sir:

I am now out of jail, where I have served sixteen long years. I could write a long book on the dreadful experiences I have witnessed. How do you plan to make this up to me? I await your response with great interest.

Very truly yours,
Ausley L. Wyett"

It is this letter that sets in motion the events of The Fox Valley Murders.

At around the same time that Ausley sets the cat among pigeons on his return to Marbletown, Joe Bain becomes the acting-sheriff of San Rodrigo county, after his predecessor Ernest Cucchinello ("Cooch") dies of pneumonia. 16 years ago, Joe had been "the tall hell-raising lad from Castle Mountain, who had run away from home and now lived in San Rodrigo where he consorted with Mexicans and fruit tramps." However, life soon served several curveballs. His wife elopes with a band's guitarist, leaving him with "his nineteen-month-old daughter Miranda standing in the play-pen, diapers dripping, milk-bottle empty, quietly philosophic about the whole sad situation." Leaving his child in the care of his mother, Joe  then joined the military, saw action in Korea, transferred to the military police, and used his GI benefits to study criminology. He then became a deputy-sheriff under Cucchinello, but the sheriff's death adds more responsibilities on Joe's shoulders. On a day-to-day basis, he also has to deal with the sly opposition of Mrs. Rostvolt, "clerk, matron, office manager and power behind the throne", who continuously undermines Joe's authority, and acts as the eyes and ears of the next likeliest sheriff candidate—Lee Gervase, "a vigorous and progressive young lawyer, formerly of San Francisco." Joe ultimately throws his name into the sheriff candidacy hat, partly on a whim, and partly to keep the old-school nature and identity of San Rodrigo county alive.

Despite his daily frustrations, Joe never lets go of his keen, wry sense of observation, and makes himself available to most of the needs and demands of the residents:

"Charley Blankenship never seemed to change. He was a tall, pale, horse-faced old man with long arms and legs, soft gray hair, watery blue eyes, a pendulous pink mouth. He lived the life of a gentleman farmer, with a forty-acre cherry orchard and a white two-story house on Destin Road, south of Marblestone. Joe Bain had known him for as long as he could remember. During May, a favorite recreation among the local young people was stealing Blankenship cherries. Joe retained a vivid recollection of Charley Blankenship’s pallid face peering down the rows. He often carried a shotgun loaded with rock salt, and on one occasion had shot his nephew Walt Hobius. Opinion was divided on whether Charley had recognized Walt. Walt thought that he had, though Charley denied it to Walt’s mother, Dora. For the last ten years Charley leased the forty acres to a Japanese family, who during cherry season maintained a patrol even more vigilant than Charley’s had been."

Joe's common sense and troubleshooting skills are soon put to the test, as he has to balance his duties as  an acting-sheriff, as well as that of a candidate looking to win the upcoming sheriff election:

"Charley Blankenship turned him a look of more yellow malevolence than Joe would have thought possible from so rheumy and dew-lapped a face. There goes a vote, he thought in alarm. He jumped to his feet. “I’ll sure look into it, Mr. Blankenship. I believe in striking the iron before it gets hot. That way nobody gets burned."

Things do not get easier when a series of murders soon rocks Marblestone, claiming the lives of nearly all who had testified against Ausley. Former bus driver Bus Hacker dies in front of Joe, just as he opens the door to his house. Later, his house is burned down. Mushroom lover Charley Blankenship dies after eating a dish mixed with commonly known poisonous mushrooms which he picked himself. Willis Neff, another testifier, is shot dead, presumably in a hunting accident, in an open glade in a neighbouring county (warning: there is a glaring error in the timeline of death in this case, possibly due to a printing mistake). Oliver Viera falls off his ladder and plunges into a ravine while trying taking down a can of paint from the edge of the roof of his house. Towards the end, Cole Destin also has a very close shave in a traffic accident, but he survives. As Joe admirably puts it: "You feel a fool saying ‘accident’, you feel a fool claiming foul play. So what do you do?”

Investigator Joe comes across as a hardworking gumshoe, but much of his instincts are steered by his astute understanding of the residents of Marbletown and the relationship he shares with them. This same astuteness serves him well when he campaigns for votes, and it is amusing to see him switch between sleuthing and campaigning every so often:

Two elderly women came up to him. One asked in a bantering tone, “Can you be Joe Bain, the young rapscallion who was the shame of the neighborhood?”

Joe grinned. “I guess that’s me. And you’re Mrs. Mathews, my old third-grade teacher.”

“So you remember me after all these years!”

“How could I forget?”

The other lady said archly, “I don’t imagine you remember me!”

“I certainly do,” said Joe. “You’re Mrs. Beasley, at the post office. When I was ten years old I kissed your daughter. You caught me and whacked me good.”

“Think of it,” Mrs. Beasley marveled to Mrs. Mathews. “Ten years old he was, and kissing Arla bold as you please. Ten years old! And Arla pretending it was just an everyday occurrence. Oh, the little rascals. I hate to think what went on when my back was turned.”

“It goes to show that you never can tell. Arla’s married with four children, and Joe’s sheriff of the county.” Mrs. Mathews beamed roguishly at Joe. “How we used to pity your poor mother, coping with a pair like your father and you!”

“I imagine she felt sorry for herself at times,” said Joe.

The same Mrs. Beasley turns out to be a voter for Joe—and more importantly, provides a hint to the one existing, material evidence that would turn the case on its head, and indict the real criminal.

Reading the several conversations Joe has in sticky situations—and the way he inevitably exploits them (and the relationships he shares with antagonistic characters) for his benefit—makes one appreciate what a master manipulator he is. For instance, Joe is almost ensnared in a cartoonishly false rape allegation by Mary Destin, wife of Cole Destin and Tissie's elder sister—something that could have had serious implications on Joe's bid to be a sheriff. However, instead of being drawn into a long-drawn battle, Joe confronts the case head-on, lays out all his cards in front of Mary, and 'convinces' Mary that the implications of this case could be even more harmful for her—all in the presence of a hostile but influential local newspaper editor who agrees to drop the sensational article that would have demonized Joe even further. 

The conversations, interactions, and rich character portraits further reveal what a closed world Marblestone really is—where, barring a few exceptions, grudges are hard to forget, and meanness comes naturally to most, and whose prettiest pictures possibly exist only in the photos of an album. No wonder then that the real culprit's motives stem from an intense psychological pettiness and hostility towards their fellow residents. It is as though the town's atmosphere invisibly influences the culprit to carry out their deeds. 

Navigating such a familiar but unfriendly terrain, Joe pulls off an impressive double act—solving a devilish case and winning the sheriff election. To achieve this, Joe is constantly on the move, across the length and breadth of Marblestone and even beyond. These travels allow readers to immerse in some picturesque descriptions of Marblestone, its environs and neighbouring counties, as well as partake in some offbeat sights and sounds in and around the town: a church fight, a farmers' market, a political rally, a clash between a religious community and city folks, and more. 

The journeys also allow Joe to travel into his past and occupy himself with reflections:

This was Slough-house, an institution at its heyday during Prohibition, when it acquired a reputation for picturesque vice which it never quite outlived. Slough-house was now relatively respectable. True, there were rooms to be rented on a casual basis; complaisant ladies could generally be found at the bar. On summer Saturday nights there was dancing at an open-air pavilion beside the slough. Some of the most fragrant memories of Joe’s youth were connected with these Saturday night dances. The orchestra played romantic old tunes like I’ll See You in My Dreams, Whispering, Three O’Clock in the Morning; the weeping willows changed color as the floodlights shifted through red, blue, green, and gold. After one such dance occurred the incident which culminated in Joe’s marriage … Joe heaved a sigh for his lost youth. A dozen cars were parked in front of the bar. Luminous medallions advertising beer winked a cheerful invitation, but Joe drove past. It might not be too good an idea to be seen here. Not till after election, anyway.

In another instance, Joe thoughts take on a level-headed, morbid tinge:

Joe drove south along Destin Road to the ruins of the Hacker house. The fence smothered in red roses still stood. Joe leaned on the gate and considered the black rubble beyond.

The sun was gone; twilight blurred the mountain slopes, lights began to sparkle up and down the valley. Joe listened. Silence except for the warm wind in the poplars. A bat flew twittering past. The ashes of the Hacker house seemed more melancholy than ever. Joe thought of Millie’s letters to Bus, written long ago when the world was young. He looked down into the rubble where the exploded glass of Millie’s jams and preserves still reflected a few sullen lights from the sky. Life was a funny thing, thought Joe. You just reached the stage where you could appreciate it when you had to start worrying about how it would end … He walked back to his car, drove into Marblestone.

It all leads to a most unusual and entertaining climax where Joe eliminates his political rival, Lee Gervase, by implicating him in the case Joe is trying to solve for witholding vital information. In the same rally, much to the glee of the audience, the high-level delegates and organizers are left with eggs on their faces when Joe proceeds to reveal the truth behind the current spree of murders, as well as the killing of Tissie McAllister. All loose ends are tied up—and, for all its darkness, the novel has a happy ending.

Where the novel does subvert the classic detective fiction mould somewhat is in its choice of Joe as the protagonist, and a further definition of his role. In the grand old game of cat-and-mouse, as seen in Christie's Poirot and Yokomizo's Kindaichi series, the great detective often participates in a case in the capacity of a visitor, where they travel to places and glean information, background, and context from often untrustworthy and unwilling locals. The result is a view of the politics and mechanics of crime from the lens of an outsider. In The Fox Valley Murders, however, we are privy to the complexities of crimes, their impact on a town's residents and politicians, and the process of solving them, through the eyes of a local: Sheriff Bain. This makes for a more realistic portrayal, in so far as Joe's mastery of a crooked game is concerned—Joe has to manipulate his way through a corrupt rival, a sly subordinate, hostile and prejudiced inhabitants of the town, as well as media-persons and political dignitaries dead set against him as a candidate for the sheriff's position.

Seen in this light, The Fox Valley Murders has more in common with Murder, She Wrote (1984–1996), that wonderful series set in (mostly) smalltown America. The series introduces writer Jessica Fletcher, hailing from Cabot Cove, Maine, in the role of a sleuth. In my opinion, Jessica straddles the insider-outsider dichotomy perfectly. In the cases set in, say, Boston or New York, she fulfils the role of an inquisitive guest or trespasser, rising above circumstantial difficulties and solving the cases while being mocked and frowned upon by the suspects in the case. However, when incidents happen in Cabot Cove, things get a bit too personal, and Jessica performs a role akin to what Joe does in The Fox Valley Murders. While the modus operandi may not be as gritty and manipulative as seen in Vance's work, Jessica does call upon favours from his companions (Dr. Seth Hazlitt and Sheriff Amos Tupper), and relies on her knowledge of Cabot Cove's residents, the relationship she shares with them, the city's history and evolving political climate, to dispense her own brand of ratiocinative, but ultimately sympathetic, justice—just as Joe Bain does.

Vance would go on to write another full-fledged Joe Bain novel, The Pleasant Grove Murders (1967), and a fully-sketched outline of a third novel, The Genesee Slough Murders. As someone previously relatively unaware of, but now keen to explore, American countryside mysteries of the kind seen in The Fox Valley Murders, I can only imagine the kind of complexities and tricks Vance cooked up in his latter two efforts.

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.

Hard Times

If there is one year I wouldn't want to relive in the future, it would probably be 2021. The deaths of dear friends and numerous casualties among my near and dear ones owing to COVID-19, some recurring health issues (both physical and mental)—this year, the losses have been too many to count and bear.

By November, I thought I had left all of these behind, but then came the calling of a new job and, with it, the shift to a new city that left me severely ill. Settling at a new place and figuring out the logistics of my new workplace also took up a fair amount of time, as a result of which I wasn't able to pay any attention, whatsoever, to this blog for a month-and-a-half.

Amidst all these hardships, I suppose I owe a debt of gratitude to one of the most hilarious parodic one-shot mystery manga I have had the pleasure of reading which brightened many a dull and dreary evening. Kumeta Kōji's Shitauke Tantei Nokori Kasuhiro (The Cases of Contract Detective Nokori Kasuhiro: Foreign Student in a Locked Room) was the first entry in a collaboration series between art magazines Mephisto and Magazine on the theme of 'locked rooms'. Kōji is well known for his work on Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, a manga series with a suicidal teacher as the protagonist (and his 'students' as the cast), known for its whimsical absurdism, running gags, dark humour, literary references as well as the eccentric analysis of Japanese society and culture.

Kōji's brand of morbid humour and his use of running gags are made evident in this one-shot manga at the very outset of Shitauke Tantei Nokori Kasuhiro. Kasuhiro Nokori is introduced as a contract detective who takes up cases that are simply too 'annoying' for other well-known detectives such as Conan, Kindaichi and Sherdock to solve. It is his assistant Shiyori Jigo who accepts the case the great Nokori will solve within 20-odd pages. From here on, Kōji pokes fun at crime fiction tropes and conventions in side-splitting fashion. To achieve this, Kōji 'elevates' the tropes and conventions to ridiculous, parodic extremes. For instance, in the narration of Kasuhiro's achievements, Shiyori mentions 'legendary' cases which Kasuhiro has solved by (i) making a hundred round trips of the same train route, (ii) adopting a De Niro-like approach and losing 20 kilograms of weight to solve an incident that happened via an opening too narrow for anyone to pass through, and (iii) diving into a barrel of grated yam that left the detective filling itchy for the following two months. Then, there's the introduction of the stock inspector character, who rules everything as a suicide and is thus named 'suicide officer' Shintarou Mizukara.

Perhaps, even more ludicrous is the setting of the locked room. Surely, it has to go into the annals of crime fiction as the largest locked room—a square, five-kilometre-by-five-kilometre room where the victim, the suspect, the witness and the murder weapon lying at each of the four corners of this gigantic room. At this point, Nokori starts to realise why the other detectives may have given up on this case (there's a hidden meaning to this, though, and things are not what they may seem at first glance), and indeed, it is possible for one to feel sorry for the detective having to travel to each corner and back, multiple times, to connect the threads of information gleaned from the respective corners. But Kōji never lets go of his sense of humour, and the way he portrays the deduction scenes, especially how a 'runner's high' helps solve the case, will more likely leave you doubled up in laughter than feeling sorry.

Ladies and gentlemen, the world's largest literary locked room, courtesy Kumeta Kōji and Shitauke Tantei Nokori Kasuhiro

But, laughs aside, Shitauke Tantei Nokori Kasuhiro is an extremely competent mystery with a killer ending, even though it may seem to come slightly out of left field. Admittedly, the clueing and background information are a bit lacking, but there's only that much you can do within 20 pages. These shortcomings are more than compensated by the first-class deception and misdirection that leads directly into the devastating ending which hits the reader like a ton of bricks. What impresses me most about this one-shot is that nearly all the visual elements (the settings, the characters, the material evidences) that are so ruthlessly parodied also hide sinister meanings and implications behind their apparently ludicrous presence. One can sense Kōji's love and faithfulness towards the parody and crime genres, and it is to his immense credit that he is able to successfully merge the two in such a packed space. Ultimately, he pulls off a sensational and brilliant subversion of the locked room sub-genre using the duality of the synergistic elements he portrays—one where the mystery 'inside' the room matters little in comparison to what's happened 'outside' the room, even though the clues to realise the 'outside' events are all locked 'inside' the massive room.

In the last page, Kōji mentions that he would have loved to make this into a series, but this one-shot already seems to be the last chapter. A lost opportunity, I am sure, for us crime-fiction lovers, but I can sense a kind of resonance between my blog's plight and Kōji's unfulfilled manga series featuring the eccentric Kasuhiro Nokori. Moving forward, I am not sure how regular I will be with my writing on this blog, but as long as fulfilling reads such as Shitauke Tantei Nokori Kasuhiro come to my notice, there is always hope. Never say never, as they say.

A Note on Crime Fiction Publishers

For better or for worse, global crime fiction has, in recent years, become increasingly synonymous with thrillers (psychological or otherwise)—a sub-genre that focuses largely on shock value and action set-pieces to attract readers, while the mystery element itself may be subdued or muted. There are exceptions, of course, and there's really no rule that states thrillers cannot have a solid mystery quotient as well. But, should you be on the lookout for modern mysteries with memorable instances of analytical, rational deduction, you are not likely to find them with the frequency you might have expected a century ago.

What's equally true, however, is the fact that the decade has seen a renewed interest in unearthing and republishing little-known titles and classics from years past. It's an unenviable position for a crime fiction aficionado—to be able to enjoy the best the genre has to offer from eras old and new. And rarely has it been easier (and harder, at the same time) to find a niche for yourself in the vast world of crime fiction.

If you, like me, prefer page-turners and little-known gems going back several decades, there's good reason to be excited. A number of publishing houses have been reprinting these lost or forgotten works—and, in the process, are doing yeoman's service in chronicling and telling the story of the evolution of this much-loved genre. While this is, by no means, an exhaustive list, here are a few publishing houses and imprints that deserve a mention:

• Pushkin Vertigo: In the five years since its inception, this imprint under Pushkin Press has been making all the right noises. The nearly three dozen titles it has published so far represents the best of both contemporary and classic crime fiction from around the world. Immensely global in its outlook, the Pushkin Vertigo collection features writing from Argentina, France and Italy to Australia, Japan and Russia. The books also showcase the diverse charms and topics the genre encompasses—from puzzle plot, cosy mysteries and psychological and literary thrillers to historical crime fiction and ones that have more social, realistic underpinnings. One of the things that I would love to see from Pushkin Vertigo though is an introduction to the works they publish—with its addition, I believe the series can be a wonderful entry point into the genre for the uninitiated.
• Locked Room International: Publisher and translator John Pugmire's brainchild, Locked Room International (LRI), will probably appeal to a specific subset of crime fiction fans. As the name rather obviously suggests, LRI publishes obscure gems in the world of locked room and impossible crime mysteries. Having carved a name for themselves with their series, in translation, of Paul Halter's works, LRI's collection, so far, has centred predominantly on Japanese and French mysteries. Highly recommended for those who care for the mystery more than the name or pedigree of its author. While there's definite scope for improvement in the copyediting and proofreading departments, the detailed footnotes and the informative introductions that provide the relevant contexts into the authors, their works (as a whole) and the book in question should make it worthwhile, if you can go that extra bit with your budget.
• Detective Club Crime Classics: Striking, pulpish book jackets steal the limelight for this set of hardbacks published by HarperCollins Publishers. The line of books (apparently, a resurrection of an old, pre-1930 Collins list) with a wonderfully old-school feel to them are reprints of crime fiction classics from France, the US and England. Featured authors include pioneering old-timers such as Anthony Berkeley Cox, E. C. Bentley, Wilkie Collins, Philip Macdonald, Hugh Conway, John Rhode. Edgar Wallace, Gaston Leroux, Anna Katherine Green, Émile Gaboriau, among many others.
• British Library Crime Classics: The resurgence of interest in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction owes much to the efforts of organisations such as the British Library. Its publishing arm brings out the British Library Crime Classics, a series of forgotten British crime books from the aforementioned period that has revived interest in the contributions of lesser-known authors (such as Anthony Rolls, John Bude, Mavis Doriel Hay, E. C. R. Lorac, Mary Kelly, Margot Bennett, among others). These selections from the British Library's enormous collection are a true treasure trove for students of the genre—and you should not also miss out on the several fascinatingly themed short-story anthologies curated and edited by Martin Edwards, the president of the Detection Club. And similar to the Detective Club Crime Classics, the richly illustrated covers of the British Library Crime Classics books are a sight to behold.
• American Mystery Classics: In some ways, American Mystery Classics is the American equivalent of British Library Crime Classics. The line of books, personally selected by respected scholar and editor Otto Penzler, consist of reissues of classics from the annals of American mystery fiction, many of which had long gone out of print. The collection is shining a long-awaited light on authors such as Mary Roberts Rinehart, Dorothy B. Hughes, Anthony Boucher, Vincent Starrett, Todd Downing, Craig Rice, and many more.
• Ananda Publishers: Crime fiction in Bengali has a long history, stretching back more than a century. You may be familiar with Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay's Byomkesh Bakshi or Satyajit Ray's Feluda series, but these are merely the most popular among the scores of titles that were (in many cases) written by individual writers throughout the 20th century. As with its evolution elsewhere, crime fiction in Bengali was a derivative of the form that developed in Britain and the US but later came unto its own, using and building upon the very rules that governed their inspirations abroad. For those interested in exploring most of what Bengali crime fiction has to offer, they probably wouldn't need to look any further than Ananda Publishers, a publishing giant in Bengali literature. Your quest will be made easier by the fact that Ananda Publishers brings out anthologies in several volumes that cover the entire body of an author's work, which means that you don't need to go hunting for individual novels.

The best part of all this is that this list barely scratches the tip of the iceberg. Notable exclusions here include Vintage's collection of crime titles (the complete set of Margery Allingham's books and Cecil Day-Lewis' Nigel Strangeways series, for instance), Picador and Pan Macmillan (whose catalogues include the likes of Andrea Camilleri and Walter Mosley) and Mysterious Press (another offering from Penzler that has previously republished the works of authors such as Brett Halliday and the excellent Christianna Brand). Then, there are publishers that rarely come to our notice unless expressly pointed out. One such example is Dean Street Press, which has been painstakingly republishing the works of authors such as Christopher Bush, Brian Flynn, Annie Haynes and Anne Morice (all of whom were once popular but have since been largely ignored), thereby rescuing them from oblivion.

As mentioned earlier, this is not a go-to list—and the fact that several other options exist just goes to show that finding the right crime fiction book for yourself can be quite a challenging task. In such a scenario, it always helps to know where exactly you need to look to find what you want. I hope that this write-up has been a small guide in that regard.

Above all, what I am most eager to find out are the efforts crime fiction publishers will take to bring the genre to a new era altogether—one that looks as much to the past as it does to the present and future.

The Kwaidan of Keikichi Ōsaka

In her seminal work, Murder Most Modern: Detective Fiction and Japanese Culture, Sari Kawana quotes author and essayist Yumeno Kyūsaku from the latter's 1935 essay. Kyūsaku employs an unusual, pathological metaphor in that work to explain what detective fiction is:

"Detective fiction is like the serum for diptheria. Injecting a patient with the antidiptheria serum works like a miracle. I hear that this remedy kills the disease without fail. Yet, even though we have the treatment, the etiological cause for diptheria has not yet been found. We have not been able to identify it even with the incredible power of modern medicine. The cure has been found, but the cause has not. It is as if the verdict for a crime has been rendered, but the accused is still on the loose. It is a nonsensical situation. [Although we know that detective fiction is popular], the identity of its charm too remains at large. To decipher the psychology that desires detective fiction is utter nonsense itself: detective fiction is nonsense, humor, adventure, grotesque, mystery ... it is all of these things and more."

Undiagnosed and uncured diseases, disorders and ailments (of the soul, mind, body and society) also persist throughout The Ginza Ghost, a translated collection of short stories from short-lived author Keikichi Ōsaka: tradition and modernity, filaria, infidelity and other complications in love relationships, mental disorders, exploitation of nature and more. In 1930s Japan, Ōsaka was one of the founding and leading lights of the honkaku school of mystery writing (a subject I have touched upon in my previous blogpost), hailed by Edogawa Rampo for his "profound mastery of the intelligent detective story." Unfortunately, he passed away tragically during World War II—and over the next few decades, his works remained largely forgotten. It is only due to the efforts of later honkaku practitioners such as Tetsuya Ayukawa that they started seeing the light of day once more. In fact, Ayukawa would reportedly express his frustration and rage at the fact that Ōsaka's "pure, honkaku short stories" had been neglected in the first place.

I must say, for a honkaku collection, the stories are worth much more than the puzzles they present. There's a fascinating, almost unreal, bizarreness in most of the tales that hints towards deeper-lying unease, malaise and pessimism which, in turn, threaten to undo whatever little positivity and fulfillment you can glean from seeing a puzzle solved. And in my opinion, the stories are best read in light of the erstwhile social contexts, of which author Taku Ashibe provides aplenty in his detailed introduction to the book. 

The first story, "The Hangman of the Department Store" (1932) introduces readers to one of Ōsaka's many detectives, Kyosuke Aoyama. The scene of crime is an alley beside a department store—one of the many products of a modernising, urban Japan in the time between the two World Wars and a space that was not only a locale "where tradition butted up against modernity, or high culture encountered low" but also one of the "contact zones where the firm lines separating the quotidian, bourgeois realities of daily life from the realm of dreams and unconscious desires terrifyingly blurred and disappeared" (as translator Seth Jacobowitz mentions in his note in The Edogawa Rampo Reader). Here, a man is discovered with telltale signs of violent strangulation and an expensive pearl necklace beside him. With this find, the store no longer remains a space for entertainment and consumer culture, it also becomes a vessel for the eerie and the grotesque, because, by all accounts, it turns out to be impossible for anyone inside or outside the store to have committed the crime. The logical conclusion Aoyama comes to has a disconcertingly illogical taste to it, but more scarily, it depicts humans as not being in control of their fates or even the outcomes of what they consider to be their surest actions. Perhaps, this also serves as an ominous portent for a Japanese society in flux, not sure of the direction to pursue in its quest for modernity.

In "The Phantasm of the Stone Wall" (1935), one is witness to a timely illusion.  On a hot, uncomfortable summer afternoon, a woman is murdered outside a traditional Japanese house with a stone-walled boundary. Her shrieks bring a stranger and a postman to the scene, who witness two identically built men in white yukatas flee in the immediate aftermath and turn a corner into a blind alley. The stranger pursues the two figures, but to his surprise, he meets a salesman who says that no one entered the alley all this while. Eventually, suspects emerge when footprints and fingerprints are discovered that implicate twin brothers living in the house outside which the crime occurred. But, to the witnesses, these seem to be red herrings to throw the police off the track. Detective Aoyama discovers the elementary truth which, in all honesty, really belongs to a physics textbook more than anything else (a mirage-like phenomenon due to excessive heating of the air). But what really elevates the story is Ōsaka's expert handling of the story's atmosphere, and the addition of the planted evidence that lends an extra layer of misdirection to what may seem to be an excessively fair and simple story when seen through modern lens.

"The Mourning Locomotive" (1934) raises the bizarreness quotient to the extreme. Sample these diverse threads for a puzzler: workers at a factory having to repeatedly clean the remains of pigs from the wheels of the same locomotive engine, repeated thefts at a farm in an adjoining town, a strange girl in a funeral shop suffering from a debilitating disease and her relationship with her father and an engine driver who visits the shop occasionally. Ōsaka manages to tie all these elements in a singular narrative where the truth is almost outlandish but should also tug at your heartstrings. In the end, the resolution becomes a footnote to the heavy, pathos-inducing themes explored here: the devastating effects of suffering from diseases and extreme penury, the absurd extents to which parents can be driven by filial love and the harrowing, tragic consequences of forbidden love and other 'indescribable feelings' not being expressed. I may not agree with Ashibe's contention that this is a 'crimeless tale', but I do realise why many would consider this to be Ōsaka's masterpiece.

Ōsaka uses the same combination of the bizarre and the heartwrenching to a chilling degree in "The Monster of the Lighthouse" (1935)—a story which seems to have a distinct primal appeal. Another of Ōsaka's sleuths, Saburo Azumaya, also the director of a marine laboratory, is called to a lonely lighthouse—the site of a monstrous, 'supernatural' incident. One of the lighthouse keepers has been found battered to death with a rock that also manages to damage the top of the lighthouse and its essential equipment. There's blood all over the lighthouse, but what's even more baffling is the admission by the other lighthouse keeper, supposedly a man of science, that he first heard an infernal cry followed by the sight of a red, ghostly, octopus-like creature jumping into the sea. The discovery of a blood-stained hatchet and a long rope finally clues Azumaya to what really happened, but once again, the human element to the story overshadows everything else from this point on. While the presentation of the tragic backstory and motives may be a tad bit unfair to the reader, they are central to the narrative and further developments. What happened to the other lighthouse keeper's daughter? What was the cry all about? How and why did a believer of science come to espouse superstitions and ghosts? How did the cape and the lighthouse become erratic and a graveyard for the ships in the first place? Just like the previous story, the answer to these interconnected questions leads Ōsaka to ponder on and explore heftier themes as the story unfolds tragically with a twist you are not likely to see coming: the pitfalls of an insular, isolated, excessively strict parenthood, the results of pure, innocent love turning bitter and sour, the boundaries between sanity and insanity and the obscure, visceral, unpredictable nature of the primaeval emotions that regulate these boundaries.

"The Phantom Ghost" (posthumously published in 1947) is an odd one. It bears resemblances to older Japanese tales that portray vengeful spirits of women and wives inflicting pain or seeking retribution for the wrongs committed by men and husbands—stories such as Yotsuya Kaidan or The Peony Lantern (mentioned in this story) for instance. Here, a scholar dies after being haunted by the spectral figure of his ex-wife who took her own life after being divorced by the scholar on the charge of infidelity. But, the way a rational link is made to explain the otherworldly apparition the scholar sees and the mystery of his death comes across as too abrupt and rushed. Not even an improvised bit of gender role-play (appropriate for the time in which it is set) and ruminations on topics such as the innocence and purity of relationships (as well as its perceptions) and the lengths to which people can go to protect or prove it, and the strict, almost feudal, codes that constituted honour in that age can save this one. Definitely one of the weaker efforts.

By this time, it should be evident that besides excelling in creating atmosphere, Ōsaka also uses what would, in usual circumstances, be normal environs to set up incredible, extraordinary scenarios which are ultimately solved rationally. He sets his stories against a wide variety of backdrops—department stores, locomotive factories, lighthouses, mines, asylums and many others. "The Mesmerising Light" (1936) is no different. It starts in a most vivid, thriller-ish way: a car winds haphazardly up a mountain road closed on both ends by toll gates but then mysteriously disappears. On to the scene arrives, quite coincidentally, an attorney Taiji Otsuki, another of Ōsaka's investigators, who soon gets embroiled in a police investigation in the matter. Meanwhile, a murder incident far away may have links with the car's disappearance, but the decisive clue that reveals the culprit is a bit too elementary for my taste. When it comes to the core mystery of the car's disappearance, though, the explanation resembles "The Phantasm of the Stone Wall" in that here too a freak optical illusion (again, one you may have encountered in school textbooks) is at play. It would seem that Ōsaka really liked to tease readers with these settings that made the impossible possible without human intervention.

If I had to pick my favourite from the collection, it would be "The Cold Night's Clearing" (1936). The book blurb mentions the stories as having "an unreal, almost hallucinatory quality to them"—and this tale is possibly the best example. Tragedy strikes the family of an English teacher on Christmas Eve against the backdrop of a cold night's clearing—a meteorological phenomena in the very cold days of winter during which skies remain overcast during the day, then miraculously clear up at night. In the absence of the teacher, his wife and her nephew are found violently beaten to death with an iron poker, while their child is nowhere to be seen. The teacher's best friend and one of his students find ski tracks leading away from the house into an empty field where they grow fainter and fainter until they completely disappear, as if both adult and child had been spirited away—the classic 'footprints in the snow' problem with the added caveat that unlike shoeprints, it is difficult to know which direction people are headed towards, by looking at ski tracks. The resolution to the case is a great example of why it is important to make the right interpretation of visual clues (out of many probable ones), especially at the start of a chain of deductive reasoning. Thematically, this is familiar ground for Ōsaka who once again shows his preoccupation with exploring the fickle nature of human relationships and the thin line between sanity and insanity that allows a person to switch between the two almost instinctively. Above all, there's a funereal brilliance to this classically modern tale of a simple man who falls into hell which is further enhanced by its bleak, unforgiving atmosphere. Not recommended as a Christmas read unless forgiveness doesn't happen to be your cup of tea.

In "The Three Madmen" (1936), we are introduced to three inmates of a private mental institution which has clearly seen better days. There's an ambience of decline and decay in the institution, the eeriness and loneliness of which is only broken by the unique but harmless tics of each of the three occupants. However, the attitude of the hospital's director and other authorities towards the three leaves much to be desired and runs the risk of exacerbating the patients' conditions. Things come to a head soon enough, and a body (apparently, of the director) is found with a hole in its head and its brains missing. The three inmates are found missing on the institute's grounds, but two of them are traced at different locations, while the remains of the third are found by the rail tracks after being run over by a train. But, greed and 'disguised' intentions (involving the clever realisation of the 'fancies' of madmen) are at the bottom of the case here. The inversion of perspectives and roles that Ōsaka employs here challenges people's conventional notions of sanity and insanity and invites readers to ponder on the following question: who is the one that is really (criminally) insane here?

"The Guardian of the Lighthouse" (1936) forms an interesting counterpoint to the other lighthouse story in this collection ("The Monster of the Lighthouse"). Both stories feature unthinkable acts committed by central characters. But whereas in "The Monster of the Lighthouse", the actions of said character imperil the lighthouse and the ships and sailors it serves, the ultimate sacrifices made by the central figure in the midst of a raging storm save the lighthouse and those dependent on it from impending doom. A grotesque, tragic fate awaits this character, but that is offset by the undeniably noble and heroic tone of this story of a boy who is dutiful to an extreme fault.

Greed takes centrestage in "The Demon in the Mine" (1937), set in a mine with nearly non-existent safety standards. A death occurs, following which other miners also die in closed tunnels—supposedly the action of the spirit of the first miner who died. Similar to "The Three Madmen", behind the claustrophobic atmosphere in the mine's tunnels are the 'disguised' intentions of a supervisor that turns fatally stifling for the innocent. This "locked room" story set in the backdrop of nature explores how human and corporate greed spare none—be it fellow beings or natural resources, all are 'sacrificed' at its ruthless, unfeeling, devilish altar. Fittingly enough, the story ends with the mine's collapse.

After the heavy feel of the preceding stories, "The Hungry Letter-Box" (1939) feels like a breath of fresh air. A thinly-veiled detective-cum-spy story, the tale shows Ōsaka's mastery over romance and comedy genres—genres he took to after crime fiction took a hit after the onset of World War II. The story of a young, lovesick barber who goes on an 'adventure' to find the letter for his beloved that disappeared along with the post box in which it was posted has a chirpy, humorous feel to it. It has a nifty trick at its heart and a decidedly happy ending too. A refreshing change, indeed.

In some ways, the concluding, titular story, "The Ginza Ghost" (1936) brings this collection full circle. For one, it is set in a tobacco shop in Tokyo's Ginza, an entertainment area both in the past and the present, forever situated in the crossroads between tradition and modernity—bringing back to mind the department store of the first story. A crime in a tobacco shop is witnessed by the waitresses of a bar on the other side of the road. The striking pattern of the kimono worn by the assailant allows them to identify the culprit quickly, and soon, two bodies are discovered in the shop. However, once the medical examination is completed, the people and the investigators are shocked to know that the person they had considered to be the killer had died some time before the victim. The bartender of the bar, however, has a different take on the situation. And once again, an optical phenomenon (you may have encountered this one not just in textbooks but also in other series such as Detective Conan or The Case Files of Young Kindaichi) has taken place unbeknownst to the witnesses, baffling them. But it does not evade the sharp-sighted bartender who is acquainted with it on a regular basis—and it is he who brings the case to an elegant close by demonstrating, first-hand, what actually happened.

In tributes, Ōsaka has been described as an author whose "dreams were made out of tricks and logic". That may well be true, but it only shows a part of the whole picture. Considering this collection to be representative of Ōsaka's entire oeuvre, I think he shines best when he seamlessly blends his tricks with deeper philosophical meditations on the puzzling nature of human existence itself—and, as is evident from most of these stories, he undoubtedly harbours a pessimistic outlook to this larger conundrum. Kyūsaku may have posited a 'serum' to a disease as a likely, if not illogical, metaphor for detective fiction, but Ōsaka doesn't even afford that hope. His investigations into the various diseases and ailments of a society in an indeterminate flux provide no easy, curative answers—the narratives often end in tragically fatal manners, and the act of detection comes as no relief to this overshadowing problem, especially as it is unable to prevent these outcomes.

(This post was published on the Scroll website with the following title: How Keikichi Ōsaka blended crime with philosophical meditations on the puzzling nature of existence)

They Do It with Mirrors

"A queer thing is a mirror; a picture frame that holds hundreds of different pictures, all vivid and all vanished for ever."
—Father Brown in "The Mirror of the Magistrate"

Mirrors, in literature, often serve dramatical, theatrical functions—that of exposing the vanity of characters, showing the true face of people or revealing a side to a person's nature (an alter ego, if you will) that was hitherto unknown. In crime fiction, however, these props are used for a different, more practical, purpose—cleverly used in the right circumstance, it allows culprits to mislead readers and investigators, allowing them to obtain an alibi, or even more, the means to establish their innocence.

There are a number of tools and tricks criminals employ to wriggle out of a tight situation and to cast suspicion on others. Altering clocks and manipulating the observer's perceptions of time. An alternate location (the real scene) identical, in all respects, to the perceived 'crime scene'—a spatial red herring, so to say. A mutual 'exchange of victims' between conspirators. Bribing witnesses or making use of a 'stand-in' to buy false testimony. Another character willingly or unwittingly covering up for and shielding the mastermind. Stories generally use one or a combination of these devices to further their own ends.

To this list, we must add the simple but effective tool called the mirror as a major player in the misdirection department. Used on its own, the mirror is, perhaps, not a tool to distort your perception of time; instead, it skews your spatial awareness. This is an especially effective trap for those who rely on their keen sense of sight—with a mirror around, nothing is quite what it seems and things that shouldn't be present in a particular place come into view. The best part about 'mirror magic' is its fleetingly permanent nature, used almost in an instant but having a long-lasting, illusionary effect on the eyes and minds of those witnessing it. The challenge lies, firstly, in the creation of the correct conditions for its effective use and then devising ways to break the illusion in a believable, decisive manner.

***

In a previous post, I spoke about Detective Conan, one of the pillars of modern Japanese detective fiction. Predating it by two years is another ongoing crime manga and anime franchise that has had an equally lasting effect on the genre. Kindaichi Shōnen no Jikenbo (The Kindaichi Case Files or The Case Files of Young Kindaichi) started in 1992 as a chronicle of the adventures of 17-year-old high school student Hajime Kindaichi (introduced, non-canonically, as the grandson of Seishi Yokomizo's great detective Kosuke Kindaichi) who continuously gets embroiled in and solves impossible and locked-room crimes—a fate that even the 37-year-old Hajime hasn't been able to escape in the new seinen series, Kindaichi 37-sai no Jikenbo (The Case Files of 37-Year-Old Kindaichi). Apart from the sheer wealth and variety of impossible and locked-room crime scenarios devised by the authors, the series is famous for two other eccentricities—young Hajime's iconic catchphrase (unfortunately, no longer a staple) and the laughably cartoonish names Hajime bestows upon his opponents that would give Scooby Doo a run for its money.

The first three episodes of the first season of the anime, "Gakuen Nana Fushigi Satsujin Jiken" (The School's Seven Mysteries Murder Case), are set in Hajime's alma mater, Fudo High School. The story makes excellent use of urban legends and the 'forbidden', 'prohibited' areas in the school to deliver a mystery whose roots and motives are surprisingly dark for a young audience. The body count, both in the past and the present, is notoriously high—and death visits those who try to uncover the seven mysteries (especially those in the older school building) and the truth behind it all, courtesy of the 'After-School Magician'.

The After-School Magician enacts a bloody ritual

The centrepiece of the story is the 'execution' of a student that happens in the biology laboratory in the old building. Hajime and the others around him—all present in the new building at that time— are afforded only a glimpse of the scene but the impossibility of the crime strikes home when they find the doors and windows of the laboratory to be locked with no trace of the candles and other creepy ritualistic decorations they had seen. The old wire trick is found to be applicable for the windows but that soon turns out to be a red herring. More attempts to murder follow, and the case becomes a real puzzler in no time.

The elegance of the entire case lies in the use of a single mirror in brilliantly fitting surroundings in the first case. The conditions for employing a mirror are all there: long corridors in almost pitch-black darkness, the setup the culprit uses to direct the observers to exactly where he wants, the positional awareness of the culprit regarding the witnesses' viewing spot and what their linear line of sight will lead them to believe, an exceptional use of the advantages of the building's layout especially with its sharp corners and ultimately, the absolutely brief period of the view offered. 

These elements make for a stimulating setup, but I am also happy to note that it is resolved in a satisfying manner as well. What leads Hajime to unravel the deceit is a chance observation by his childhood friend Miyuki, hospitalised following an attack by the 'After-School Magician'. It is an innocent request, and believable too on her part—asking him to draw the curtain so that her eyes can be shielded from the blinding sun, reflected by a building with a glass exterior. But, it is also one of those genuine 'aha' moments that allows a precocious detective like Hajime to completely turn the case around on its head, while offering clarity and joy for the reader too. More brownie points for you if you managed to deduce what had happened, before this point.

When it comes to the resolution of mirror illusions, the same, unfortunately, cannot be said of a rather slow-paced Detective Conan story, "Konan Heiji no Suiri Majikku" (Conan and Heiji's Deduction Magic)—which is a shame because it presents an absolutely compelling, mouthwatering conundrum. After attending a magic show, Conan and his detective-rival Hattori Heiji, along with their girlfriends Ran and Kazuha, are invited by some magicians to the house of their mentor who disappeared 10 years ago. The girls are being given a tour of this house filled with tricks when, fittingly enough, a case occurs. The girls and their guide are in a narrow, dark corridor with rooms on either side when a blackout occurs. When the lights return a moment later, they are shocked to find the corpse of one of the magicians they had met earlier in the dead end of the passage, when the moment before there had been none. The solution is ingenious and makes good use of the magical nature of the house—two identical-looking passages at right angles to each other separated by a double-layered, thick door split in the middle with facing mirrors on the back side of both parts of the door. But, I am afraid that the way the detectives are clued on to this trick is quite the stretch—it relies on the girls observing, in an instant, the changing position of a vase's shadow before and after the incident, at a time when they must have been shaken and scared out of their wits.

The discovery of the magician's body in a dead-end corner—or is it?

In crime stories, when it comes to incorporating believable, optical, mirror-based illusions that do not stretch the limits of 'suspension of disbelief', I believe less is more. Too many mirrors do spoil the broth—as is the case in the Kindaichi story, "Majin Iseki Satsujin Jiken" (Demon God Site Murder Case) where an excessive number of mirrors intricately arranged in the lower floor of a mansion, deliberately smashed, seems extremely forced (even though it have been necessary) when the floor plan still exists and becomes too glaring a clue to decipher a cryptic cipher and discover the location of the treasure at the centre of all the incidents. 

Instead, an elegant simplicity can be incorporated by relying on natural optical phenomena made visible by a single mirror. This is evident in another story in the Kindaichi canon, "Kindaichi Fumi Yuukai Jiken" (Fumi Kindaichi Kidnapping Case), a compact case involving the kidnapping of Hajime's cousin, Fumi. Hajime relies on Fumi's descriptions, relayed unbeknownst to her captor, deduce her whereabouts but that is not enough to pinpoint the exact location even though four buildings, not exactly close to each other, become probable suspects. In a nice turn of events, ironically, it is Hajime's realisation of the 'impossibility' of Fumi's descriptions, and his awareness of the sun's position in each of the suspected locations and the presence of a certain building with glassy, mirrored exteriors that finally helps Hajime find the right location just in the nick of time. The modus operandi of the revelation has parallels to the hint the Miyuki unwittingly provides Hajime in the first story of the anime series, and is, therefore, a kind of in-series commentary and meta-tribute in its own right. For longstanding fans such as myself, these touches are, indeed, most rewarding and satisfying to spot.

***

This has been quite a long, rambling post on some thoughts I have had over the past week on the use of certain tools in detective and crime fiction. In fact, the post turned out to be very different from what I had originally intended. I quite like the approach I took here, though—and, moving forward, apart from reviews, I will perhaps publish more write-ups that analyse the elements of the genre and the ways in which they function or are employed, both minutely as well as in a more generalised manner. After all, the genre owes a hefty debt to these elements that have made it so addictive in the first place.

Living on Borrowed Time

In many ways, crime fiction is a very demanding genre. It is bound and defined by 'rules' that the author devises (though they may be broken by others later on). It also has to pander to popular demands—a gripping plot, solid, plausible motives, believable characters, social commentary, appropriate settings and atmosphere, and so on.

One of the criticisms levelled against the genre is that its practitioners sacrifice one of these elements excessively to enhance the effect of another. If the whodunnit aspect is brilliant, the motive can turn out to be pretty weak. If the howdunnit bit of the mystery is genius, the portrayal of characters may well be a dud. The result, in any of these cases, is likely to attract detractors more than admirers. Striking the right synergy or balance between these disparate elements is often difficult and tricky and the subject of much head-scratching among mystery authors. However, should this miracle be achieved, the end product can be a sheer delight.

Hong Kong's Chan Ho-Kei is a man who has donned several hats—he has worked as a software engineer, a game designer, a manga editor and a lecturer. As such, his name may have stayed unfamiliar to me forever were it not for the fact that he also happens to be the author of one of the most superlative efforts in detective fiction in recent years which I've had the pleasure of reading.

Ho-Kei's 2014 offering, 13.67 (a clever nod to the period the work spans—between 1967 and 2013), received a translation in 2016 with the rather ambiguous title of The Borrowed. In the book's six interlinked tales, Ho-Kei gives readers a retrospective look at the evolution of Hong Kong and its society over six decades—through the lens of crime, politics, detection and its police force. What's most striking is that this is one of those rare gems that successfully bridges the gap between the social school of mystery writing and the classic puzzle plot mystery that are so often at odds with each other. There's a lot of diversity in the stories too, sufficient to keep you hooked for many a day—besides the logical puzzle plot, there's something on offer for fans of police procedurals, hardboiled stories and those who like a hint of socio-political commentary in stories as well.

The protagonist of The Borrowed  is Kwan Chun-dok, former Superintendent of the Hong Kong Police who later became a consultant for the same. Renowned for his exceptional crime-solving abilities, he was bestowed many nicknames—'Crime-Solving Machine', 'Eye of Heaven', 'Genius Detective' (and Kwan's pick of the lot, 'Uncle Dok'—also a common Cantonese name for very miserly people). But, reading the first story ("The Truth Between Black and White", 2013), you'll be hard-pressed to believe that he could be that 'grand detective' from legend. For we first encounter him on his deathbed where he doesn't even have the ability to speak or write. Instead, Kwan's protégé, Inspector Sonny Lok, employs his services (as an 'armchair detective' of sorts) in a tricky case where an 'inside job' (a murder) is made to look like a robbery gone wrong. Kwan is able to deceptively 'solve' the case after he is hooked up to a device that analyses his brain waves, through which he is able to respond only with a YES or a NO to questions asked. It's a device I have seen once in an episode of that meme-worthy excuse of a detective show called C. I. D.—but rest assured, it has been executed with far greater finesse here.

One of my most favourite things about this book is that it actually follows up on threads and hints that are left dangling before the reader in another story. Characters and locations reappear in multiple stories—and it may perhaps be possible for those truly curious to chart a map of Hong Kong and its changes through the decades, relying on the descriptions here. Apple, the brains behind the unique medical instrument in the first tale, is a central character in the second story ("Prisoner's Honour", 2003). Set in the midst of gang warfare and featuring triads, "Prisoner's Honour" takes a harrowing look at the Hong Kong underworld and also reveals the seedier aspects of the entertainment world. It takes a hardboiled approach but delivers a surprisingly logical conclusion that also carries with it an element of hope for a better future. With its message of hope and elements of social realism, this story is similar to the fifth story  ("Borrowed Place", 1977) where Kwan has to solve the case of the kidnapping of a British child (apparently for ransom money) while also having to deal with rising tensions between the police and other law enforcement agencies, as well as the increasing conflicts between the local and international cadres among the police.

Lok's beginnings and his relationship with mentor Kwan are explored in the third ("The Longest Day", 1997) and the fourth story ("The Balance of Themis", 1989). Both plots focus on Kwan's relentless pursuit of his ultimate nemesis, Shek Boon-tim, and are, arguably, the crème de la crème of the lot. Set against the backdrop of the British handover of Hong Kong, "The Longest Day" opens with convict Shek Boon-tim evading and escaping guards en route to the hospital. As if this wasn't disastrous enough for his last day in the police force, Kwan also has to help his disciple Lok in solving the case of acid bomb attacks before more damage is done, both to innocent bystanders and the police force's image. A number of curious but seemingly unrelated incidents may grab the reader's attention, but the neat, rational manner in which Kwan ties it all, with one central incident as the focal point, is testament to Ho-Kei's consummate skill as a plotter of the highest order.

At this point, it should be evident that Ho-Kei expends much of his efforts unravelling the fraught nature of relations between Hong Kong's various law enforcement agencies and the extent to which they become mired in corruption in each decade. Nowhere is this more apparent than in "The Balance of Themis", perhaps the darkest story in this collection. A stake-out mission to capture one of the Shek brothers, Shek Boon-sing, and their gang, goes horribly wrong in the enormous residential building, Ka Fai Mansions, where they are holed up, leaving six bystanders and three criminals dead, and several policemen injured. But all is not what it seems and a message on a pager warning the criminals suggests the presence of a mole within the police team. The way in which Kwan subverts the established sequence of events completely and unearths the real motive behind all that happened should be a lesson for crime-fiction writers in the art of judicious clue- and information-management and revelation at the correct juncture. Above all, the helping hand that Kwan extends to the rookie Lok (after the events of the failed mission) and his solemn vow to capture the other Shek who escaped and clean up the police force make it hard for one to not root for Kwan Chun-dok.

In the last story ("Borrowed Time", 1967), the reader is transported to 1967 Hong Kong, a summer that saw violent protests and riots in the region. Here, the rookie Kwan, as a beat/patrol cop, is able to thwart a few planned bomb attacks with the crucial help (and brains) of a 'stranger', who becomes a person of interest and whistleblower. The socio-political setting is vibrant and it thrives in atmosphere, but this is, by no means, a traditional puzzle plot story. Kwan even becomes an unwitting 'criminal' towards the end. Still, it is a vital chapter in Kwan's life and career that has a curious circularity about it, when one thinks, retrospectively, of the characters he keeps encountering. You'll of course need to read till the last page to figure out its surprising connection with the first story which is set nearly five decades apart.

The one sore note in the book is the uneven portrayal/representation of women in the stories. The first two stories have strong, empowering women who have their own arcs of redemption and play influential roles in the events of each. However, the fourth and fifth stories have women who have downright tertiary roles. Worse, they are stereotyped and fulfill patriarchal roles and functions that will strike a nerve among many readers today. I do not know if Ho-Kei was trying to say something about the way Hong Kong's society treated women, even those from the upper middle class, in those days, but it could have definitely been handled with more sensitivity and maturity.

The reverse-chronological narrative adds a distinct charm to the book—in many parts, it feels like viewing a vivid, historical and socio-political portrait of Hong Kong, only backwards. While that's definitely one way to enjoy it, a more stimulating and entertaining way to read it would be to work out the many refreshing ways in which the stories, occupying certain points in times past, form different pairs, triads (or even more) with each other. The commonalities may be diverse—the themes addressed, concurring character arcs and intersecting storylines, among others—but this singular exercise, I believe, is essential if one is to derive maximum joy from it.

(This post was published on the Scroll website with the following title: Can a detective novel study the evolution of a city through its history of crime and detection?)

A Nosy Affair

When I first conceived of this blog, I imagined it to be a space where I would talk exclusively about Asian (in particular, Japanese) crime fiction. And while the first post is probably a sign that is no longer the case, much of what I plan to write here will be my thoughts and commentary on books, films and series (animated or otherwise) from said region.

I was introduced to Japanese crime fiction courtesy of a television channel called Hungama TV, which once aired 30 episodes of Detective Conan, dubbed in Hindi, over the course of two seasons. It was a curious choice to broadcast them on a channel meant primarily for kids—most Indian parents I have come across have extreme reservations on letting their children see anything that has blood and violence; Detective Conan has copious amounts of both.

Be that as it may, I remember being pretty amused at the sight of genius high-school detective Shinichi Kudo being turned into a kid (literally!) in the very first episode itself. This happens after Shinichi solves a murder case on a rollercoaster while on a date with his girlfriend Ran Mouri. He then overhears a suspicious conversation between a businessman and two men in black and tails them only to be ambushed by said men in black, which finally leads to the predicament mentioned earlier.

The kid Shinichi adopts the name of Edogawa Conan (a tribute to mystery authors Edogawa Rampo and—you guessed it—Arthur Conan Doyle) to protect those near and dear to him as well as uncover the (many) brains and the mastermind behind the nefarious Black Organisation (who are responsible for his plight) and bring them to justice. And to his credit, Shinichi (or Conan) certainly stands out in a world where every fourth or fifth character (friend or foe) turns out to be a sleuth in some form or the other (hey, you can never have enough detectives after all!).

Shinichi Kudo (left) and Edogawa Conan (right) from the early days of Detective Conan

Conan's quest continues to this day. Gosho Aoyama's Meitantei Conan (as Detective Conan is known in Japan) started back in 1994 as a manga series. Conan and company's adventures have now seen over 1,000 manga chapters, 1,000-plus anime episodes, over 20 animated films, several OVAs and television specials. The prolific nature and high standards achieved make it one of the longest-running, most beloved and acclaimed literary-fiction franchises all over the world.

In my early university days, though, when I was first able to appreciate the nuances of Aoyama sensei's work, I failed to see it as anything beyond a creative and faithful tribute to the past doyens of mystery fiction. This was especially true in the case of the first few volumes of the manga and the first 50-odd episodes of the animated series, where I could spot fun, sporting and subtle nods to your Conan Doyles, John Dickson Carrs and Ellery Queens, but not much else besides.

My opinion changed drastically, however, when I saw episode 52—an episode I still believe really helped the series stand out on its own and conveyed the message that it is a masterpiece like no other. This one-hour TV special, ominously titled "Kiri-tengu Densetsu Satsujin Jiken" (The Mist Goblin Legend Murder Case) (an adaptation of chapters 108–110 or volume 11, files 8–10, of the manga series) opens in a relatively peaceful fashion. Ran, Conan and Ran's father, the 'great detective' Kogoro Mouri, are watching cherry blossoms on the mountainside. As evening descends, they try to make their way back home—but as is often the case when Kogorou and travelling are involved, the trio manage to get themselves stranded and lost in the deep forest amidst pouring rain. They are, therefore, forced to take refuge in a temple, with a waterfall running past it, that Conan spots. In the Sandeiji temple, the group meets with the caretaker and head priest Tenei, a long- and sharp-nosed, suspicious-looking figure who agrees to accommodate them for the night for a hefty fee. They also come to know of the legend of the kiri-tengu (the mist goblin, a figure from Japanese folklore), who, in this story, is believed to kidnap young women and feast on their flesh after hanging them from trees.

The four Buddhist monks in training—Kannen, Tonnen, Mokunen and Shunen—take Conan, Kogoro and Ran on a tour of a temple. Here, Conan's attention is drawn to a small room with an extremely high ceiling, a window near the top and a gap near the bottom guarded by a door. On asking, they find out that the room is a 'training room' for monks who isolate themselves to observe penance after being punished. There's also talk of a certain 'incident' in the room some years ago, which seems to have been the handiwork of the kiri-tengu, but Tenei abruptly and angrily brings a halt to all discussions on the subject. All the characters pass restless nights—and the unease deepens further the following morning when the head priest is found hanging from a beam high up in the ceiling of the training room. It's as if the kiri-tengu itself had hung Tenei there—and when the police arrive, Conan and Kogoro learn that, two years ago, another monk Chunen had been found hanging from the very same beam in an identical fashion, a case the police had ruled out as suicide. Can Conan and Kogoro solve the mystery of both murders and unmask the kiri-tengu?

The dastardly kiri-tengu 'hangs' Tenei Oshou

Seasoned readers of Japanese detective fiction will probably realise that this somewhat long and elaborate setup screams 'Seishi Yokomizo' from the get-go. Elements from the works of this master of crime fiction are all here in this episode. A remote location? Check. A case with links to Japanese folklore? Yes. And just as a waterbody plays a major role in Yokomizo's The Honjin Murders (more precisely, the mechanism of a waterwheel on a nearby stream), here too, the waterfall adjoining the temple plays a very influential part here.

And yet, Conan solves the case not in the manner of a Kosuke Kindaichi (the detective from Yokomizo's series) but in his own characteristic way. The 'howdunnit' aspect of the story is a sheer delight, the solution to which will logically lead you to find out 'whodunnit'. It's all fair and above board too—what I like most about the culprit's plan is that it uses the natural features and the 'potential' of the 'training room' to maximum effect by using tools and tricks (none too fancy) that are present in the temple and won't leave you wondering, "Hmmm, how and from where could they have procured these tools in such a short time?" 

The main trick is a variation of one that I have seen executed successfully in a horizontal space (say, a crop field for instance) but never in a vertical space. It is quite unique, but never for a moment does it feel forced or that it does not belong or feels out of place in a setting such as a mountain temple. There is a meticulous yet commonsensical, DIY nature to the physics and dynamics of the tricks here, all of which are neatly tied up and explained in the end.

The episode plays it very fairly with the viewers as well. It invites them to completely immerse themselves in the story being told and pay particular attention to every conversation and scene in order to pick out the select clues that can solve the crime. By the time the deduction starts, you have in your possession all the information, visual and verbal, to unravel the mystery, even though you will probably need to exercise your imagination judiciously to get you started.

The kiri-tengu baffles Conan and the others

The most damning clue that specifically reveals the culprit is also presented in a most human manner. Quite refreshingly, this is not a case of the detectives intellectually outsmarting the criminal hands-down; neither is it an 'oversight' by the murderer. In the course of the episode, both the criminal and the detectives are evenly balanced and look for the same clue—it's just that the sleuths get to it and understand its significance faster than the criminal can hide or destroy it. Perhaps, the only 'unfairness' I can think of comes when the culprit falls into a trap in the first place by incorrectly guessing something that happened while they were busy preparing the scene of crime so elaborately.

In an episode that is a fair-play mystery on so many levels, it is perhaps a tad bit unfortunate that the tragic motive takes a backseat. But it's really a minor peeve, especially when one considers that the episode sets so many of the rules of the game for this series—ones that defined the series and stands it in good stead even today, nearly three decades after its start.

Lastly, there's something really fitting in the use of traditional cel animation in a series such as Detective Conan. The dark tones enhance the atmosphere and feel of the mysteries in the manga so much so that it becomes all the more easier to be invested in them—wouldn't you agree?