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april_does_feral_sometimes 's review for:
The Tokyo Zodiac Murders
by Sōji Shimada
Quoted from ‘The Tokyo Zodiac Murders’:
“FOREWORD
To the best of my knowledge, the case of the serial murders which took place in Japan in 1936 - popularly known as ““The Tokyo Zodiac Murders”” - is one of the most peculiar and most elusive mysteries in the history of crime....
....Readers may like to attempt to unravel the puzzle themselves, just as we - my good friend Kiyoshi Mitarai and I - set out to do on that fateful day in the spring of 1979.
I can assure you that I have included all the necessary clues - the same clues we had to work with.
Kazumi Ishioka”
Kiyoshi Mitarai is the Sherlock Holmes of this Japanese novel and Kazumi Ishioka is his Watson. Mitarai is an astrologer, and Ishioka is a freelance illustrator. They both had studied art in college. (An amusing - !?!?- fact is Kiyoshi Mitarai means ‘clean toilet’ in Chinese, a revelation which the author tosses in on page 118. I think this is a hint why Kiyoshi, naturally brilliant, is also an original thinker. He appears to have had a bad relationship with his father who named him - clearly an impetus for many iconoclasts, including me.) Kiyoshi is moody, upbeat one day, depressed the next. He is coming out of a prolonged depression, and Kazumi decides he is going to cheer his buddy up.
Kazumi wants to solve the Tokyo Zodiac murders, which really are three linked murder cases. These murders are famous in Japan (in the plot), and many books and magazine stories have been printed for decades guessing what could have happened.
The first incident was the murder of patriarch Heikichi Umezawa on February 26, 1936, found in a room mysteriously locked from the inside. The second was of Heikichi's stepdaughter, Kazue Kanemoto, found a week later in her own home. The six cut-up bodies which became known as the Azoth murders were discovered during the next year at various locations. All six dead women were daughters, step-daughters and nieces of Heikichi. The name Azoth came from an insane letter found next to Heikichi's body, which detailed a mad scheme of his to create a goddess from the flesh of the six women, cutting off those parts he believed their best bits to form the goddess Azoth. The letter was dated five days before his death.
How did Heikichi kill his relatives after he died? Was his death faked? If he really was murdered, how was the murder done in a room locked from the inside? Who killed the women and Heikichi, if Heikichi wasn't the murderer? Why? In author Soji Shimada's story within a story, within a story, readers are challenged to solve the murder mystery before Kiyoshi tells all. We readers learn every fact and clue of the cases along with the amateur sleuths. Just before the chapter Kiyoshi tells how and why it all happened, the author stops the tale with a letter to readers on page 231:
"Gentle Reader,
Unusual as it may be for the author to intrude into the proceedings like this, there is something I should like to say at this point.
All of the information required to solve the mystery is now in your hands, and, in fact, the crucial hint has been provided already. I wonder if you noticed it? My greatest fear is that I might already have told you too much about the case! But I dared to do that both for the sake of fairness of the game, and,of course, to provide you with a little help.
Let me throw down the gauntlet: I challenge you to solve the mystery before the final chapters!
And I wish you luck.
Yours sincerely,
Soji Shimada"
This novel is of a type of mystery which was really popular off and on in past decades:
The Who Done It, or as Americans popularized it, the Whodunit:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whodunit
which was often combined with The Locked Room Mystery:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-room_mystery
One of the books in the occasional waves of public interest in these novels I first caught were the Philo Vance mysteries. Searching through a bin of used books in my local Salvation Army store, I picked up [b:The Benson Murder Case|1094330|The Benson Murder Case (A Philo Vance Mystery #1)|S.S. Van Dine|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1267916172s/1094330.jpg|1081147]. I was a teenager, and these novels were old-fashioned to me. Nonetheless, I thought they were interesting enough for an occasional read.
I had always thought these 'locked door' mystery conventions were either of British or American invention, but it seems the Chinese and even the ancient Greeks ([b:Oedipus Rex|1554|Oedipus Rex (The Theban Plays, #1)|Sophocles|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388182316s/1554.jpg|3098166]) may have first written stories which could be earlier mysteries of this style with some of these elements:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detective_fiction
Gentle reader, when I was very young, American families used to sit around the single TV set console in the living room and watch TV shows together. Sociologists called us “nuclear families”, which, considering the arguments and physical grappling between tots and siblings, with the resulting parental grappling of the kids separating them saying “If you kids can’t watch TV without fighting then all of you will go to your rooms without any TV NOW!” was more apt of a description than the sociologists meant.
Once families stopped going nuclear and settled into the more peaceful quiet of ‘being’ a nuclear family in the manner sociologists actually meant, i.e., the basic community of mom, dad and children sitting peaceably together enjoying each other's company, most Americans would watch TV in one room at night after dinner. TV networks and producers, knowing this, often hoped to attract such viewers by TV shows considered 'family entertainment'. (These type of shows are very rare today, imho.)
Thankfully, since my family was more into going nuclear than being nuclear, I had my own apartment and TV set in 1975. One of the family entertainment TV shows which enchanted me was ‘The Ellery Queen Mysteries.’ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellery_Queen_(TV_series). The viewer was given the opportunity and a minute to solve the episode's mystery during the show! Jim Hutton in the character of Ellery Queen would turn to the audience after about 45 minutes of the hour-long show, breaking the fourth wall, and ask us did we figure it out? Every fact and clue of the murder had been aired during the preceding minutes. I admit I had a slight crush on Jim Hutton, so in not paying attention to the mystery closely, I never solved these TV mysteries (that is my excuse).
Anyway.
'The Tokyo Zodiac Murders' is a homage to this old classic form of mystery novel, especially popular in the 1920's. Every convention common to these novels is included in this book - locked-door murder, astrological signs strongly hinting at a paranormal element, psuedo- and real scientific methodology, a zillion possible suspects, detailed drawings of the murder scenes, and a genius amateur sleuth who figures it all out. The Asian version of the early 1920's detective story has more violence and gore, but nonetheless, they are obviously as satisfying to read as the more sedate polite English versions of this mystery format I have read.
“FOREWORD
To the best of my knowledge, the case of the serial murders which took place in Japan in 1936 - popularly known as ““The Tokyo Zodiac Murders”” - is one of the most peculiar and most elusive mysteries in the history of crime....
....Readers may like to attempt to unravel the puzzle themselves, just as we - my good friend Kiyoshi Mitarai and I - set out to do on that fateful day in the spring of 1979.
I can assure you that I have included all the necessary clues - the same clues we had to work with.
Kazumi Ishioka”
Kiyoshi Mitarai is the Sherlock Holmes of this Japanese novel and Kazumi Ishioka is his Watson. Mitarai is an astrologer, and Ishioka is a freelance illustrator. They both had studied art in college. (An amusing - !?!?- fact is Kiyoshi Mitarai means ‘clean toilet’ in Chinese, a revelation which the author tosses in on page 118. I think this is a hint why Kiyoshi, naturally brilliant, is also an original thinker. He appears to have had a bad relationship with his father who named him - clearly an impetus for many iconoclasts, including me.) Kiyoshi is moody, upbeat one day, depressed the next. He is coming out of a prolonged depression, and Kazumi decides he is going to cheer his buddy up.
Kazumi wants to solve the Tokyo Zodiac murders, which really are three linked murder cases. These murders are famous in Japan (in the plot), and many books and magazine stories have been printed for decades guessing what could have happened.
The first incident was the murder of patriarch Heikichi Umezawa on February 26, 1936, found in a room mysteriously locked from the inside. The second was of Heikichi's stepdaughter, Kazue Kanemoto, found a week later in her own home. The six cut-up bodies which became known as the Azoth murders were discovered during the next year at various locations. All six dead women were daughters, step-daughters and nieces of Heikichi. The name Azoth came from an insane letter found next to Heikichi's body, which detailed a mad scheme of his to create a goddess from the flesh of the six women, cutting off those parts he believed their best bits to form the goddess Azoth. The letter was dated five days before his death.
How did Heikichi kill his relatives after he died? Was his death faked? If he really was murdered, how was the murder done in a room locked from the inside? Who killed the women and Heikichi, if Heikichi wasn't the murderer? Why? In author Soji Shimada's story within a story, within a story, readers are challenged to solve the murder mystery before Kiyoshi tells all. We readers learn every fact and clue of the cases along with the amateur sleuths. Just before the chapter Kiyoshi tells how and why it all happened, the author stops the tale with a letter to readers on page 231:
"Gentle Reader,
Unusual as it may be for the author to intrude into the proceedings like this, there is something I should like to say at this point.
All of the information required to solve the mystery is now in your hands, and, in fact, the crucial hint has been provided already. I wonder if you noticed it? My greatest fear is that I might already have told you too much about the case! But I dared to do that both for the sake of fairness of the game, and,of course, to provide you with a little help.
Let me throw down the gauntlet: I challenge you to solve the mystery before the final chapters!
And I wish you luck.
Yours sincerely,
Soji Shimada"
This novel is of a type of mystery which was really popular off and on in past decades:
The Who Done It, or as Americans popularized it, the Whodunit:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whodunit
which was often combined with The Locked Room Mystery:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-room_mystery
One of the books in the occasional waves of public interest in these novels I first caught were the Philo Vance mysteries. Searching through a bin of used books in my local Salvation Army store, I picked up [b:The Benson Murder Case|1094330|The Benson Murder Case (A Philo Vance Mystery #1)|S.S. Van Dine|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1267916172s/1094330.jpg|1081147]. I was a teenager, and these novels were old-fashioned to me. Nonetheless, I thought they were interesting enough for an occasional read.
I had always thought these 'locked door' mystery conventions were either of British or American invention, but it seems the Chinese and even the ancient Greeks ([b:Oedipus Rex|1554|Oedipus Rex (The Theban Plays, #1)|Sophocles|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388182316s/1554.jpg|3098166]) may have first written stories which could be earlier mysteries of this style with some of these elements:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detective_fiction
Gentle reader, when I was very young, American families used to sit around the single TV set console in the living room and watch TV shows together. Sociologists called us “nuclear families”, which, considering the arguments and physical grappling between tots and siblings, with the resulting parental grappling of the kids separating them saying “If you kids can’t watch TV without fighting then all of you will go to your rooms without any TV NOW!” was more apt of a description than the sociologists meant.
Once families stopped going nuclear and settled into the more peaceful quiet of ‘being’ a nuclear family in the manner sociologists actually meant, i.e., the basic community of mom, dad and children sitting peaceably together enjoying each other's company, most Americans would watch TV in one room at night after dinner. TV networks and producers, knowing this, often hoped to attract such viewers by TV shows considered 'family entertainment'. (These type of shows are very rare today, imho.)
Thankfully, since my family was more into going nuclear than being nuclear, I had my own apartment and TV set in 1975. One of the family entertainment TV shows which enchanted me was ‘The Ellery Queen Mysteries.’ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellery_Queen_(TV_series). The viewer was given the opportunity and a minute to solve the episode's mystery during the show! Jim Hutton in the character of Ellery Queen would turn to the audience after about 45 minutes of the hour-long show, breaking the fourth wall, and ask us did we figure it out? Every fact and clue of the murder had been aired during the preceding minutes. I admit I had a slight crush on Jim Hutton, so in not paying attention to the mystery closely, I never solved these TV mysteries (that is my excuse).
Anyway.
'The Tokyo Zodiac Murders' is a homage to this old classic form of mystery novel, especially popular in the 1920's. Every convention common to these novels is included in this book - locked-door murder, astrological signs strongly hinting at a paranormal element, psuedo- and real scientific methodology, a zillion possible suspects, detailed drawings of the murder scenes, and a genius amateur sleuth who figures it all out. The Asian version of the early 1920's detective story has more violence and gore, but nonetheless, they are obviously as satisfying to read as the more sedate polite English versions of this mystery format I have read.