The 8 Mansion Murders by Takemaru AbikoMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
This is another novel by one of the writers of the so-called Shin-Honkaku group - young writers who as students in Kyoto had already dabbled in mysteries via "detective clubs" and who in the late 1980s, under the auspices of Shimada Soji, and sponsored by two large publishers, started a high production of puzzle mysteries. It was another try for me, for I was not very enthusiastic about The Moai Island Puzzle by Alice Arisugawa, nor about Murder in the Crooked House by Shimada himself.
The title of the present novel, published in 1989 by Takemaru Abiko, immediately makes one of the problems I have with this type of mystery clear: in order to create a "locked room," the authors bend over backwards to devise the strangest locations: in the shape of a decagon (The Decagon House Murders), as a crooked house built like the Tower of Pisa (Murder in the Crooked House), or, as here, a mansion in the shape of an 8. Now, contrary to the United States where Van Dine, Queen and Dickson Carr had an ample choice of strange mansions, in Japan large mansions are very rare and mainly limited to a few historical houses from the early part of the 20th century. So this setup is highly unrealistic. In that respect authors like Yokomizo Seishi (The Honjin Murders) and Akagi Takamitsu (The Tattoo Murder Case) did a better job, for - although their "locked room" solutions are just as implausible - they at least used normal Japanese houses, the one traditional and the other modern.
The second problem is that the types of murders possible in a locked room are limited - the writers of this sort of puzzles soon start repeating themselves or copying other, older writers. That is the case with Abiko, for this mystery with a crossbow and a mirror sounded rather familiar - you, too, may soon be able to guess the solution. And then there is little left, for you can forget about fascinating characters, an interesting way of writing like Hammett or Chandler, or good descriptions of atmosphere.
What is new with Abiko is the humor, here especially in the person of the assistant of the police inspector, but humor travels badly between cultures and anyway, Abiko's type of humor is rather childish. And that brings me back to the complaint I also had about The Moai Island Puzzle: the feeling that you are reading a book for kids rather than a novel for grown-ups. In any case, to my regret there is nothing "path-breaking" about either Abiko or the few other Shin Honkaku writers I have read so far.
Two stars because I applaud translations from the Japanese.
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