Treasure Island

Introduction: Goodness me, it has been a very long time since I last reviewed a book, not since late August of 2015!! Unfortunately, the demands on my time during the school year have made reading fiction nearly impossible. Indeed, during the 2016-17 academic year, as I ended up writing over 160 pages worth of essays, I was only able to read one work of fiction – Shusaku Endo’s Silence – but it was a book I felt I should not review on the blog. Now that summer is upon us, I can take a deep breath, step back from academia, and read a little bit more fiction. So I decided to treat myself with some mysteries. My reviewing may be a little rusty, so I please ask you to forgive me in advance.

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As Alice Arisugawa’s The Moai Island Puzzle begins, we are introduced to a group of students at Kyoto University who are on their way to Kashikijima Island in order to solve a puzzle leading to hidden treasure. One of these students is the author, Alice Arisugawa, who along with his friend Mr. Egami is heading to the island on the invitation of their friend Maria. (Alice, by the way, is a male name here.) Maria’s grandfather, Tetsunosuke Arima, hid a collection of diamonds somewhere on the island, but neglected to tell anyone the location of the treasure before dying. All that is known is that the moai statues all over the island, inspired by the Easter Island statues, are the key to solving the puzzle.

It doesn’t take long for the murders to begin, as two bodies are discovered. The victims were shot, but the rifle used is nowhere in the room, and all potential exits (the window and the only door) were locked. More mysterious events occur, and it is up to Mr. Egami to solve the puzzle, with Alice acting as his Watson.

The Geometry of Murder

A group of people is stuck on an island, with no way off. Stuck on the island with them is a mad, cunning killer, determined to pick off the group members one by one. It’s a race against time, a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. No, I’m not talking about Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Rather, I’m talking about a recently-published translation of a Japanese detective story: The Decagon House Murders.

The titular Decagon House is, of course, shaped like a decagon, and the island upon which it sits was recently the site of a gruesome series of murders. Naturally, a university’s mystery club (modelled on such a club at Kyoto University) decides the island is a great place for a club excursion. Thus the members meet up, each of them known by a pseudonym taken from one of the great Western Golden Age writers: Agatha, Orczy, Van Dine, Leroux, Ellery, Carr, and Poe. It doesn’t take long for murder to occur, and as the body count rises, the list of suspects gets shorter and shorter…

Clash of Clans

In 1940s Japan, just after the end of the Second World War, the wealthy entrepreneur Sahei Inugami dies at his villa. Don’t get your hopes up – his death was a natural one. The “Silk King of Japan”, the late Mr. Inugami lived a long and prosperous life, and his will is to be read aloud when the entire family is gathered together. The only missing member is Kiyo Inugami, a soldier and the son of Sahei’s eldest daughter, and thus the reading of the will is postponed for a few months until Kiyo returns home.

Just before the will is to be read, the famous detective Kosuke Kindaichi is summoned to the Nasu region by Toyoichiro Wakabayashi, an employee at the Furudate Law Office which drafted the late Inugami patriarch’s will. Wakabayashi’s summons is ominous—according to him, the Inugami clan will be faced with “a grave situation … events soaked in blood.” Unfortunately, before Kindaichi can get the man to elucidate just what he means by this, he drops dead from a poisoned cigarette.

Kindaichi discovers that a central figure in the Inugami household, Tamayo Nonomiya, has been the target of multiple attempts on her life. The late Sahei Inugami always favoured Tamayo because he owed a debt of gratitude to her grandfather, who rescued him from poverty. Unfortunately, his warmth towards her was never reciprocated by the rest of the Inugami clan. Tensions reach a boiling point when the will is read aloud, and it is discovered that it hinges on Tamayo and her choice of a husband. And then, the murders start in earnest…

Nothing is Impossible

Last year, I reviewed The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino. A translation that was published in 2011, it was the first “new” novel that I had read for the blog and when I found out that a second novel was about to be translated, Salvation for a Saint, I perked up and kept track of the publication date. On the day of this novel’s release I purchased an audiobook. I loved The Devotion of Suspect X, and was hoping to once again get a clever story with good characterization.

Well, Keigo Higashino has done it again. This is an improvement over The Devotion of Suspect X. Once more, it’s an inverted mystery, and once more you know who the killer is. But the author turns it into an impossible crime novel, and manages to pull off a daring piece of sleight-of-hand! The plot is a simple enough one: a wife, Ayane Mashiba, decides to poison her husband Yoshitaka, a man so selfish that he was going to divorce his wife because she hadn’t given birth to a child. But, trickster that he is, Keigo Higashino forgets to tell you just how she murders Yoshitaka, who meets his Maker thanks to poison in his coffee.

What a Trick!: The Tricksters Return

Back in April, I reviewed the entire first season of the Japanese TV show Trick. I found it a delightful series. Although the plots often came with more holes than Swiss cheese, the comedy was fairly decent and the chemistry between the two leads was absolutely terrific. And so it was just a matter of time before I got around to season two.

Overall, I thought season two was a major improvement over the first season. There are still plot holes, but these aren’t quite as jarring as those from the first season—and to be honest, it forms part of the series’ charm. The subtitles also markedly improved, and so I got to appreciate a lot more of the jokes. The production design also improved—season one at times looked like a low-budget 70s TV show. Season two now feels like an okay-budgeted 80s TV show. (Okay, pardon the bad joke.) Finally, the stories in season two have got even more intriguing premises than those of season one, and in general, the plots are a lot more satisfying. Plot-wise, season one only had a few minor successes. Season two, on the other hand, is mainly composed of successes.

Some things have changed in season two. Professor Ueda is now well-known, with a successful TV show and a bestselling book called “Come Over, Spiritual Phenomena”. Naoko Yamada, meanwhile, is still at the same apartment with the same landlord, and she still performs magic tricks. Only now, she resents how the Professor keeps taking credit for the cases she helps to solve. The two police officers, Yabe Kenzo and his assistant Tatsuya Ishihara, play bigger roles than they did in the first season, and continue to admire Professor Ueda while showing nothing but disdain for Naoko.

Keep in mind that my plot summaries will try to avoid spoilers, and so I won’t describe many of the scams that are exposed on the side. The episodes really like that kind of thing, where a psychic or medium or whatnot will try to prove their authenticity with a bold trick. Describing them all would be a major chore, however, and would probably make this review far too long. So, without further ado, here are my thoughts on season two of Trick.

The Girl With the Sorcerer Tattoo

There is a legend about three powerful sorcerers who once lived in the Nagano prefecture. They were known as Tsunedahime, Jiraiya, and Orochimaru, and have been the subjects of numerous legends, plays … and tattoos. Akimitsu Takagi’s The Tattoo Murder Case involves the story of three such tattoos.

Mysteries in Japan have evolved in a completely different direction than those in the Anglo-Saxon world, at least from what I can gather. I don’t know Japanese, nor am I too familiar with the culture, but the translations we get into English only seem to confirm the idea. It seems that in Japan, the “game” is still highly respected—you give the readers all the clues and you tell a story instead of wallowing in angst and self-pity. In other words, a Japanese detective novel is about a mystery, and not about telling readers how awful society is. (Honestly, though, you're better off asking an expert to explain.)