Animal Instincts - The Greek Coffin Mystery (1932)

"Work hard in silence, let your success be your noise"

- Frank Ocean

I am tired after reading this little piece of work... In a damn good way, though! It's the first time ever that a book has ever fallen from my hands - I literally was on the John while reading the book and then, when the final revelation came, the book just fell from my hands and I was sitting there shocked down to the bones with my eyes closed for a good 10 minutes until I managed to continue reading, albeit really slowly, with a lot of re-reads of those few pages. How, why, what... Those types of questions filled my mind. Queen really got me this time and I'll be proud to make a post of this novel for my 50th post milestone on this blog.

"Ungentle reader, you now have in your possession all the facts pertinent to the only correct solution of the... problem. ...I say with all good will and a fierce humility: Garde à vous, and a pox on headache!" - One of the greatest lines and works of a Challenge to the Reader that I've ever seen, most certainly; you can theorize to your hearts content, you will be trapped, you will be shocked - and THAT is actually a promise straight from an extremely optimistic and almost arrogant author known as one of the greats from the Golden Age, Ellery Queen, on one of his greatest works: The Greek Coffin Mystery.

I made a review on Ellery Queen's the The Dutch Shoe Mystery earlier this year and found it to be entertaining but not too special in the modern days, although the hospital setting for that story is very intriguing. I definitely understand how much the trick done in that story has inspired and been utilized in modern mysteries all the way to Ace Attorney, Detective Conan, Kindaichi and Danganronpa manga and game franchises.
However for this one we'll be talking about an entirely new kind of beast that you don't see every day as there is no mere one trick here that can be used as a trope to shock the readers, no, this is a one single long story that has been professionally crafted.

To put it simply The Greek Coffin Mystery (1932) - TGCM for short - is a traditional golden age detective novel which is even hyped by the author Ellery Queen, the writer name of one of the greatest known orthodox mystery writers, to be one of Ellery's (the character's) greatest cases - TGCM is a case that deserves to be called a well-written story due to the meticulous amounts of planning put into the story and how everything comes together. While it's not a work of perfect synergy, it does a good job to make it all flow together from the very beginning. The story takes place during Ellery's earlier years so the character Ellery, in the "present" of when the book was published, didn't want to publish the story until the fourth book because he himself felt that it was one of his weaker cases, which is quite opposite from reality. Ellery obviously had later thought of how he saw himself constantly messing up during the case instead of the case itself, basically he saw the trees but not the forest. In the novel he's a novice on the crime scene but he has still managed to make a name for himself, still, he's going to have to put in work in order to make the police and his father, the leading inspector Richard Queen, to accept him as part of the investigation squad. The same policemen and attorneys from the earlier stories are all present as well from the muscular inspector Velie and his squad to the district attorney Sampson.

The story begins with a funeral. The words 'tense atmosphere' are brought up multiple times by the story and characters in the beginning - the tensity is in the air up to the point when the coffin is buried as the funeral goes on, but no one is shedding tears. The presentation of the case in this book seems somewhat more gruesome than usual. by the way. The funeral is due to a man named Khalkis, a rich person who was known to handle art. The Case of Khalkis, a name it's given despite Khalkis dying a supposedly natural death, is due to the fact that during his funeral his new testament was stolen. Although there was only a five minute time frame between when the metal box in which the testament is in was last seen and when it was gone from the safe. The case begins with inspector Velie under Queen investigating every nook and cranny - every person who was in the funeral and even the ones who did not attend were listed and everyone's still in Khalkis's house which' area happens to be locked from outsiders; everyone is known and investigated multiple times, however... The metal box is never found. Due to it being locked and with only one key existing there are not many ways to get rid of the testament (such as flushing down the toilet), so the case is pretty well handled in both its limitations and its ridicilousness due to this metal box disappearing impossibly.
Ellery Queen appears on the scene. The police think of him as more of a nuisance during this time in the past when the case took place, and he makes a deduction: if the person who claimed that the testament was still in the safe between those five minutes, and the testament really was stolen then despite the butler of the house not seeing anyone go to the room, then there is only one place where the testament should be, and that place is...! Well, the coffin of Khalkis. As the coffin is lifted from the grave the police medical worker assistant happens to smell something off. Almost as if there was no embalming used on the corpse? On top of the body of Khalkis they witness as rotten corpse of another person who was strangled to death with some kind of rope, and to Ellery's surprise, there's no metal box to be seen, and that's the basis of the story with many twists to it.

When you look at the story structually, you have a book that contains over 400 pages, has a slightly smaller font than the usual novel and quickly in the pages goes expertly over events that would make a novice writer intentionally write chapters about to fill the pages; in the hands of a bad writer this would easily be over 600 pages. You have such an information packed story planned to such lengths and it only focuses on the important aspects of the case so much that it has to be pointed out. There are actually four answers to this case and it's bound to shock any reader at the very end. A complete opposite of Queen's own Kill as Directed work which was a mediocre-at-best short novel that stretched out every little detail.
As I was reading the story the third answer has an important detail that can only be figured out by people who are in possession of certain equipment - an equipment that many had in the past but barely anyone has anymore - so I was kind of down in the mood due to that fact being the way to expose the culprit, even though I was shocked by that one already, but the book did not disappoint in the end as it went beyond my expectations of how shocking it can be.
This is truly an impressive piece of work but not in a way that everyone can appreciate it, no sir, as it has nothing to relate to - you can't get emotionally attached to the events or the characters; emotional impact is sadly a likened to always be a sign of "good writing" for most people these days despite that not being true, sure you all know the drill. What makes this story so impressive is the plot weaving and handling of more and more raw information one after another.

So. TGCM is a grand murder symphony, it's a tale about a certain stolen painting and the lives that disappear with it. It's a story that - and I will take liberties of coming up with this kind of solution to how this story originated from what Queen mentions of the story and his fans in the Challenge to the Reader page - Queen created specifically for the fans who claimed that they could 'easily' see right through his plot weavings of the previous stories.

Note: It's preferable to read at least one other Queen work before this one though, for multiple reasons that I will not talk about here, not many of them are exactly spoilers but reading at least The Dutch Shoe Mystery before heading to this one is an advice that I will give to all the Ellery Queen fans in the future.

The Window to Truth - The Dutch Shoe Mystery (1931)

“The girl was kind in a special way; when you spoke to her, she seemed to stop thinking of whatever she had been thinking and listened to you altogether.” 
― Ellery Queen (The Player on the Other Side)

This post is going to be a spoiler filled overview as well as my thoughts on the Dutch Shoe Mystery (1931) by Ellery Queen (the writer name of Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee). This is the third story featuring the main character Ellery Queen solving mysteries. In general the story belongs to the original and highly praised Ellery Queen's Nationality series and it's a classic detective fiction case with a setting fitting for even more modern suspense stories.
The story of the Dutch Shoe Mystery deals with the case of Abigail Doorn which happened in the 1920's. A diabetic millionaire dies in a modern hospital that has been designed full of sound proof rooms, soundless doors, sterilized environment, electrical creations such as X-rays, as well as automatic lamps which are automatically lit when people enter a room. These hints go to showcase for example when a room is being used, and the writers make the entire thing feel enjoyable to read, so these things don't feel like information dumps in the story at all.

Backstory on our main character

Ellery Queen, the character, is known as a writer, an unofficial detective, and the son of Richard Queen, a highly ranked inspector. Ellery is a man who has been raised on crimes and who has learned the art of solving them, and he's a man who find excitement from solving gruesome crimes, but even then, he's no superman: he feels sick to his stomach from seeing cuts on living, breathing and warm flesh. However, when the corpse gets cold, that's when Ellery Queen's emotions completely shift elsewhere and his eyes start to gaze towards finding the truth. That is the king of person that the main character of the Ellery Queen stories is, and I truly believe that he's a great one much like Christie's Hercule Poirot. 

The Dutch Shoe Mystery focuses a lot on diabetes at first: we learn about the intricacies of sugar count in blood for diabetics and how doctors lessen the amounts of sugar temporarily for a surgery, and how even the slightest surgeries done on a toe can kill a diabetic. There's even a mention of how the doctors would rather avoid anesthesia on a diabetic for a surgery. There's a part in the story in which Abigail Doorn, who is a diabetic, happens to be found in a coma in the hospital and due to the natural  coma, the doctors avoided putting her into a medically induced coma for the surgery (of course in the surgery room there is always going to be a person ready to add anesthesia if the patient were to wake up from their naturally induced coma).
Just to mention I felt that this is one of those books that kind of stick with me for no explainable reason, and I can definitely appreciate the enjoyable, cold-water-to-the-face -like, really fresh-feeling writing style of Ellery Queen from 90 years ago.

(Notes: I felt that there was an iffy part in the story about information dump at first as the story explains that due to Abigail Doorn having high blood sugar, her levels were 180. It was stated to have dropped down to 135 at the beginning, and they stated that the surgery can only be done when the sugar levels in 100cm^3 of blood are between 110 to 120. Luckily it's not necessary to remember these facts for the story.)

The story itself has three parts. Introduction, investigation and resolution. The case can be figured out by the reader in the parts before the resolution, as Ellery Queen (the writer) is known for originating the Challenge to the Reader -type of writing in which the writers challenge the reader to solve the case before finishing the book. The books contain a challenge usually about 2/3 of the way in, before the resolution part starts.

First part - welcome to the Dutch hospital
 
It's a chilly monday morning of January. The story begins as our main character Ellery Queen arrives at a Dutch hospital in New York to personally ask a question or two from Dr. Minchen, a friend of Ellery who happens to be a surgeon and the leading medical superintendent of the Dutch hospital. Ellery asks Minchen about "whether or not you it is possible to fake the time of death," and due to Minchen bringing up the effects of speeding up the time of the death of  diabetics, Ellery manages to crack a certain case right at the start of the story, but will that question be used as a foreshadowing for this case as well? maybe.

The beginning of the story alone has a very important purpose in the story of the Dutch Shoe Mystery as one would guess, although I didn't even think much about it until starting to write it now though. Every word for the story seems to be carefully thought out for the purpose of it being a mystery novel - you can immediately tell that the novel is made purely for mystery solvers, leaving out all the unnecessary fluff that would enhance the storytelling itself but stretch out the novel in a way for the kind of target audience that the author does not write for. In that sense Ellery Queen (the writers) know exactly who they are writing for, which is commendable, as in the real world you just can not please everyone.
Now the structure for the case itself can seem to be simplistic side on the hindsight but once you start actually thinking about all the plot lines that lead up to the end, instead of just thinking about the main string of event which is Abigail Doorn's death and the time of the crime when the killer, so called "Mr. Janney," was in the room, the story becomes more complicated.

The basics of the case are simple and to the point. On the steps of the 3rd floor of the hospital, the creator of the entire hospital building as well as a millionaire, Abigail Doorn, fell into a sudden diabetes coma. Her muscles gave up at the steps and due to the impact from her fall, her gallbladder had gotten severely injured. The injury on the gallbladder is what the surgery of the story is about; and it has to be done immediately. Ms. Doorn was confirmed dead at 11:05, after 15 minutes of trying to save her life since the situation being noticed at 10:50, as Ellery Queen looked at his watch mechanically and said one word: Murder. According to Janney ms. Doorn was strangled with a wire and the rigor mortis had already kicked in when she was taken into the surgery room.

More of the basics:
Doctor Janney was called to the 3rd floor's stairs all of a sudden during his day's first patient check-up, at 8:04. Dr. Janney found Abigail Doorn at the stairs then.
Doorn was taken to one of the third floor's patient rooms, stripped naked and put to bed - as even the slightest surgeries can kill a diabetic, it was a must that they lower her blood sugar levels with insuline shots before the surgery, and the surgery had to be done ASAP. An artificial coma via anesthesia makes the surgery on a diabetic all the more complicated, hence why the natural coma she fell in was a positive turn of events.
Dr. Janney went to surgery room A when they got Doorn's sugar levels to stabilize. In SR A, Janney had another patient to perform surgery on quickly, as that was going on, Doorn was already taken to the first floor surgery room's preparation room.
As Janney was performing surgery in room A, Dr. Leslie took care of Abigail Doorn. However due to the state of the body, the rigor mortis, Janney could tell that Doorn would have been alive at 10:20.
Surgeon Leslie was with Doorn up to the point when she was taken to the preparation room. Leslie investigated Doorn and could confirm that she was alive and her heart was pumping. Doorn was taken to the preparation room at 10:20, pushed to the third floor's elevators that goes straight down into the preparation room of the surgery room. The elevator is used only for taking patients in and out for and from surgeries.
Along with Leslie came ms. Price, Dr. Janney's secretary, and ms. Clayton, a nurse.
Dr. Leslie went to the surgery room to prepare for the surgery as ms. Price was left with Abigail Doorn. Ms. Clayton left for other works she had to do, so she's almost certainly not necessary to the case.
Because the murder method was strangling, the question for ms. Price is: Who came to the preparation room when Dr. Leslie and ms. Clayton had left?
"No one. Well, no one, except Dr. Janney..."

As Dr. Janney had just finished a surgery on the third floor, and had spoken with Ellery Queen himself around at 10:30 after the surgery on the 3rd floor, as Janney was moving with the doorkeeper Cobb.
Ms. Price "saw" Janney - or his eyes atleast, behind a doctor's mask, completely dressed in white (as with all the workers at the hospital, white from top to bottom), at 10:30. The same time Janney had met Ellery Queen at the hallway.

-A mysterious person, mr. Swanson is mentioned early in the story, he wants to meet dr. Janney.
-Dr. Minchen, Ellery's friend, has a book he's been writing about allergies from birth, which he doesn't want to share to Ellery due to his co-author, Janney, not wanting to share the information to anyone, well, anyone except his secretary ms. Price.

So the mystery of the culprit is: Ms. Price saw Dr. Janney - or believed she did, because Price had known Janney for many years; a small man who limps with one of his legs. "Janney" who had arrived at 10:30(+), was he real or an imitator? Was the culprit trying to frame Dr. Janney?
The culprit could only have killed Abigail Doorn in the preparation room, around 10:30?!

It's nice to see how every small detail that was presented matters, how a mention of a business card or a cheque can bring forth multiple actions from Ellery Queen, as well as the hints when there are multiple doors to the preparation room, how these characters in the other rooms saw the things; all very similar this time around, though, could have been done more cleverly, bring different kinds of testimonies from different people who saw or heard things from different rooms. The anesthesia room, the hallway, the elevator in the preparation room and the surgery room, all around the preparation room where the murder supposedly took place and where many people supposedly saw the murderer, Dr. "Janney" go to and leave from. They even saw what was supposedly the moment of the crime and tried to communicate with him!

Questions that arised to me personally:
- Janney never said who called him to the 3rd room's stairs all of a sudden.
- How did the wire appear on him, how come it was never noticed?
- The sugar balance should have been stabilised. Is the time of the death accurate, or does the temporary balancing of blood sugar not affect how fast rigor mortis begins for diabetics? It was confirmed that the blood sugar levels was "down from 180 to 135." The surgery can only be done when it's 110-120.

In chapter 17 we get to hear how things have not  progressed an inch. It's the evening, Papa Queen has caught a flu and the night begins to turn to day as chapter 18 opens up with testimonies from everyone on what happened in and after the hospital incident. That chapter is used to transition the story to its next part as New York and many other areas have begun to fall into utter chaos. The scale of this story gets massive. Abigail Doorn's murder affects everyone from famous people and politicians to the Wall Street shares. The police does all they can - that the mayor and the police chief have to admit - however, the newspapers make up their own stories and the masses NEED answers right away.

The second part - another case happens

Right now Dr. Janney is the person that was supposedly being imitated during the time of the crime as well as the person most suspicious for being the culprit due to him keeping secrets that the police think might be important in solving the case: the mysterious mr. Swanson.
 As the world is in uproar, Mr. "Swanson" makes his move and appears at the district attorney's office. He claims to be Dr. Janney's stepson, Thomas who took her mother's maiden name years ago due to a failed surgery while he was working in the Dutch Hospital years ago. On monday morning, the time of the crime, Thomas borrowed a cheque of $50 from his father and was hiding ever since due to avoiding journalists digging up his past as a failed doctor. He had lost his doctors license but was making his way back up in other career's. 
Inspector Queen makes a call to the hospital for Janney to confirm mr. Swanson's statement which will confirm Janney's alibi at the time of the crime, when they were at the office, as well as Swanson's true identity, however. . . Ellery answers the phone.
10:35. "It's been about half an hour since Dr. Janney was murdered!"
And so the plot deepens.


The second case of the book is certainly interesting, but the story is rather quickly heading towards its conclusion.
Dr. Janney was found dead by Ellery Queen and Dr. Minchen at 10:35.
At the time of his death he was writing about allergies since birth, co-author of it being Dr. Minchen.
The time of death according to Minchen and Ellery is between 10:00 and 10:05 am.
In his room there is one door and one large window opposite of it. Janney was sitting on his table, Ellery remarks that it's weird how the table was not positioned in front of the window. He also notices that, after being told by Minchen, about a few weeks ago the floor of the hospital's offices had been renewed.
Dr. Janney was hit from the back with a blunt object that is nowhere to be seen; the killer must have taken it with them, and after falling unconscious,  he was strangled to death with a similar electrical wire as what was found on Abigail Doorn's throat. Stuck so deep on his throat that it was barely visible.
Now, the mysterious part is that the culprit managed to do this while the hospital was filled with police.

Police superintendent and the police sergeant had already been in hot water before this - the newspapers claim that they, especially Queen, are not fit for the job as they haven't figured out a thing, and now, under the police's watch a murder has happened! The noose is tightening on inspector Queen's neck as, if he doesn't figure out the case by the end of the day, he and his superior will be shelved from their duties for good.

This particular book is no prime example of great plotting but let's go over a list of how well Queen managed to tango with these plotlines in this one particular book just to make a point, shall we? 

There are 37 listed characters are some more such as nurses and detectives and many other people like that in the story. I will not go over the list of all of these characters but the ones that everything culminates to in a list from Least (still very important) to Most.

 The second part mostly focuses a bit on the second, Janney's, case and the Queen household and them not being able to figure anything out about the crimes - Ellery claims that instead of perfect crimes they were impossible crimes! We can also read about Ellery going through the crime scenes again and figuring out information we had no known yet, things that had been changed. He found an unexplained item which is an important clue he could figure out how to find it after figuring out the case.

And that's when we get the 
 Challenge
 TO THE READER! 
Which Ellery Queen stories are known and praised for. The second part of the story ends up with this claim: All the clues have been laid. You can figure the case out. You don't need "that" and "this" (the information of both the Item and Intel which Ellery did not share with the reader but did with a few case characters) to solve the case, as Ellery himself figured the case out before knowing them as well!
 Now, crack the case!

Dr. John Minchen - Ellery's friend. Has a revolutionizing (from medical standpoint) writing project with Dr. Janney.
Hendrik Doorn - "Someone will probably kill me if I speak." A person who's been living under Abigail's wing since she became rich. Her brother. An extremely overweight man with addiction to gambling and women. Has no money despite getting it from both Abigail and ____.  
Abigail Doorn - The victim, in her 70's. Very rich, created two testaments but only one thing changed: Kneisel's project is out.
Sarah Fuller - Despite her high position in the servant's of Doorn household for many years, she hates Abigail and Abigail hates her, never to kick her out. Sarah's a religious person to the core and claims to have foretold Abigail's death in a sense.
Dr. Florence Pennini - Has hate towards Dr. Janney due to losing her high position in the delivery ward.
Dr. Dunning A man who met ms. Fuller for half an hour after the murder. Neither want to tell what the meeting was about.

Lucille Price - A nurse and Janney's secretary. Janney atleast shares the project with Minchen with ms. Price.
Hulda Doorn - Daughter of Abigail. 18's, mysteriously young.
Philip Morehouse - Victim's family lawyer. There are very short chapters about him and Hulda since the very beginning. The chapters don't go to explain anything they are just... Weird to read because you know they foreshadow something. Morehouse claims to have had a testamented order that when Abigail were to die, important papers should be gotten rid of. Philip destroyed them before showing them to the police. 
Moritz Kneisel - A labrat who is 2 years late in creating something "much better than steel" along with Dr. Janney who got Abigail to pay for the project in turn that it would be finished in 6 months.
Michael Cudahy - "Big Mike" a crime gang leader boss of small-time guys: Joe Gecko, Snapper and Little Willie. Mentioned about killing Abigail Doorn.
Dr. Francis Janney - Alot of the plotlines in the story seem to culminate up to him. He's the victim's favourite. Through the victim, Abigail, he got the position of dr. Pennini in the labour ward. Through the victim he got the money for Kneisel's project. He won't allow others to learn of the identity of the mysterious man he met before the crime; "mr. Swanson." He shares a writing project with dr. Minchen and won't allow others to know what they are all about.  


This part can be skipped; it does not have to do with the case characters. It just goes over the cast of main and overarching characters: Ellery Queen (I'd like to call him a daddy's boy version of Hercule Poirot), Richard Queen the police sergeant, Pete Harper a trusted journalist whom has helped the police on multiple cases, Richie the lieutenant, Detectives Flitter, Piggott, Johnson and Hesse, sergeant detective Thomas Velie who is mentioned many times, he works on most of the clues by bossing other police around to figure out impossible to figure out things such as where the electrical wire used to strangle Abigail Doorn was bought from, who is the real owner of the killer's doctor's clothes that were abandoned - as the shoes are both worn as badly, Ellery figured they can't have been the real Janney's clothes, etc. As well as the police doctor Samuel Prouty as well as Henry Sampson and Timothy Cronin the district and assistant district attorney's.   

The third part - the culprit

This is the part which contains all the answers to this rather mind boggling case but even I, with my keen eye for detail, have yet to unravel the truths of this case. By the time of reaching the last two dozen or so pages which contain the final part of the story, I must admit this: I know nothing, what I did guess is the information-twist that Dr. Minchen gave about Hulda Doorn, but that was revealed at the end of the second chapter. Jesus... Just how far ahead can this author be. There are a ridiculous amount of unsolved mysteries that my mind can't focus on solving the main ones.

Okay, now that the novelty of being outwitted by the writer has worn off, let's talk reality.

The murder cases #1 and #2 are both genius in their simplicity - I always had a feeling that a certain "door" was obviously used for something but never brain stormed it through that what it could be - the obvious answer. I realized that I was being confused by the numerous mysteries focusing on each individual character, instead of the crimes themselves.

Not to be seen.
Not to be heard.

In other words visualization. That is what I was lacking when reading this story as, well, I was simply reading the pages. To solve the case in ridiculously simple ways you have to be able to visualize the text, what does the moment of the crime actually show you? 
Had I visualized either of the cases it would have been a wrap, however, the identity of the killer, is something I subconsciously blocked out - the opportunities for this person were obvious. It makes too much sense for this person to be the culprit! So I thought. 

Had this been done in comic book format akin to Detective Conan, there would be no excuses for not figuring out the culprit - it`s the side plots of the numerous characters which lead you astray from being able to point the finger at that person, it's them which make you question your objective thinking.


Now let's go over the few problems I have with the story: 
the motive for the first murder, Abigail Doorn's, is all fine and dandy, however how could they have known that the surgery for her broken intestine would have to be done after falling the stairs? That makes no sense, there's no proof that she would have gotten injured like that. It seems like a case of plot induced stupidity.
Second problem. The second murder, case of Dr. Thomas Janneys - the motive makes no sense, it was brushed aside but come on now. The culprit/s have no reason to kill off this particular man due to his personality and connections with them. What's worse - had they not done that, they would have gotten away. The second case helped Ellery pinpoint who the killer was. Although looking at it, had I visualized Abigail's murder, I would have figured it out then and there - though, then again, I would have questioned the amount of killers when the police brought that up and my thoughts would get mixed.
Also I did not really like how most of the characters were brushed aside. The clues for the first case are questionable as the culprit could have faked Ellery to think that way about the shoes. That could have been set-up - but I do understand that going through his line of thoughts will still lead up towards the culprits. It's just a way of giving more proof than just obvious theories on who the culprit could be.
The second case is pretty simple but due to not figuring out the first one, my thoughts & the story were not really focused on that. It was in the back-seat to the first murder.

Rather than just tension there's some comedy in the story as well when it comes to the more overarching characters of the Perry Mason stories; the police, the district attorney and especially the police doctor. Doing things like constantly kicking the hospital doors and making a lot of noise, spitting a piece of cigar on the hospital floor and going to check up a corpse as well as everyone eating sandwiches, in what I believe to be the preparation room. were presented in a pretty funny way, that along with just some dialogue here and there for some mysterious reason gave me a chuckle. They just seemed kind of stupid or misplaced I guess, considering the tense moments. Many of the random remarks for almost no reason gave me a good chuckle.

So as a detective story it was solid. I had barely any idea what was going on while reading despite its, by now, simplistic nature which was presented as something far more grand and complex than what it really was. In a comic book this case would be extremely easy so solve, but as a novel story, it was good.

I have another Ellery Queen book that I've bought and will read soon enough - it's the one that was created right after this one, and it's twice as long as The Dutch Shoe Mystery. 
But maybe I want to experience some Carr first before moving onto that one.
Oh how mysterious. At the corner of a table I also just happened to find another Ellery Queen book I've had for years - but only now I've realized it was a Queen book in the first place! Think it's time for a quick reread and blog post. Or not so quick if I can't remember anything about it.

Deepest of Dreams

"Failure is never a reason not to try again."
- Martha Albrand 


I was just like how a well-dressed private detective should be. I was on my way to meet up with four million dollars.

Philip Marlowe, a tough-guy private eye from Los Angeles goes to meet up with Guy Sternwood, a man who could as well be a mummy or a vampire without blood, to talk business. Guy Sternwood is being blackmailed by a person named A.G. Geiger whom he has not heard of before. It's not a big sum of money for a rich man, 1000 dollars, but it's a matter of pride for mr. Sternwood, to hire a guy for 25 dollars a day + expenses, to solve the case. And so Marlowe does.

Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep (a hardboiled crime novel, 1939), his first book to introduce detective Marlowe, while not something that I can call exciting, is one of the more consistent stories that I've read in a while. There are some small mysteries that our detective Philip Marlowe comes across, and it all comes a full circle back to the family of Sternwoods, Arthur Gwynn Geiger and the big bad of the series who is not part of the case but is connected to the investigation of Marlowe. I won't spoil that person but it's not hard to guess early on who he is - the law is not one that can reach that kind of person.
The Big Sleep contains two parts, while they are not named, they are visible to the reader. The first part of the story reads akin to a generic mystery story while the second part expands on the story while the pacing slows down, but it's still its own thing, not enough was set up at the beginning for it and it should have been more overarching throughout the first part I feel.

A list of mysteries: 

 Everyone's interest in wanting Marlowe to find Rusty Regan, a person known to have sold alcohol under the table, whom had disappeared without a word. Throughout the story everyone wants Philip to find Rusty. The man is assumed to have ran away with another woman. Regan is the (ex-)husband of Vivian Regan/Sternwood, one of the two daughters of Philip Marlowe's client. What's the fate of Rusty Regan?

 A few threatening letters to the old general Guy Sternwood about a year ago, general is Marlowe's client. Pay $5000 to a man named Joe Brody.

 A. G. Geiger, a bookstore owner, sending a letter to general Sternwood about Carmen Sternwood where he tries to get money from mr. Sternwood.

 A murder case with a disappearing corpse and letters with secret coding in them. Carmen Sternwood, a frankly stupid girl, gets stuck to it.

 A potential suicide of Owen Taylor, the driver of the Sternwood household, that neatly ties into the case which takes up the first half of the book. Owen had done known criminal acts but was still kept working in the Sternwood's as they claim he's a good man just like Rusty Regan. 
About a year ago Owen had driven the younger sister, Carmen, to a place called Yuna and the older sister Vivian went to get them both back, very child-like acting from both of them - that being a very important clue despite not seeming so at first.

There are some weird almost negative parts in the book as well as; it's kind of annoying how everyone, for no apparent reason, acts aggressive towards almost everything that our protagonist detective Marlowe has to say. 
And the Sternwoods are weird to disappointing levels - the biggest twist at the end of the book and some of the mysteries are not explained well enough as they just are how they are because the family is weird - effectively giving disappointing answers to the reader's question. It's also kind of annoying to read about the two girls be purposefully annoying towards Marlowe. 
 Just a note but the name of the book only has to do with the last line of the book. The name of the book is being used as one of its selling points. At the back of the book this final line, how the story ends completely, is repeated for people to read before they even open the book up, yet the Big Sleep is only about that line which has very little to do with either parts of the story. It has only to do with the second one and you can I guess try to link it to the part in the book with a boy who loved A.G.G. I'm talking about the bed part. 
People care how the bodies are handled after death; Philip thinks it mostly doesn't matter.

Now I was very fascinated by the name of one of the policemen that mr. Chandler had come up with; Cronjager. Cronjager. "Cronjager." I don't know why but that's such a powerful name, worthy enough to be in a list of names that stay in the reader's mind to make a story more memorable, and worthy enough to have a part on this blog - Cronjager, a simple, powerful name representative of the personality of the guy himself. As a character, however, he was disappointing. He was supposed to be this effective detective but mr. Marlowe solved his cases for him. Well, that's ofcourse only natural as he was the person who got stuck to the cases on-scene. Anyway, I hope our Cronjager is an overarching character in the series with more scenes to him in other books from Chandler.

Another thing to point out is that the book at times does an excellent job at telling the readers the inner thoughts of Philip Marlowe - page 67 of my own translation from Finnish:
Again that expressionlessless face. My pace was too quick for her. Any pace would have been.
"Are you willing to tell the police that it was Joe Brody?" I asked while feeling the ground.
A sudden sense of fright flashed on her face. 
"So that I can get those nude photos out of the game," I added calmingly.
She giggled. That felt awful to me. If she had screamed or started to cry or even fallen face flat on the ground while unconscious, that would have fit the picture. She just giggled. All of a sudden everything was so very funny. She had gotten a photo taken of herself naked and someone had stolen it and someone had popped the life out of Geiger in front of her eyes and she's drunk worse than a company of gunmen, and all of a sudden it was very funny and nice. And then so she giggled. How sweet. Her giggles got stronger in noise and traveled across the corners of the room like rats behind the walls...

After Marlowe figures out the intricacies of the past mysteries; the case of the first part of the book, he gets once again stuck with his thoughts of Regan. Everyone wanted him to find Rusty, but it was not his job- however in the second part of the story, without askin, he tries to find the man himself. Although finding Rusty was not what he was supposed to be doing, it does connect back to, maybe not everything but many plotlines in the story. The mystery of the Sternwood family. A woman who had gone missing at the same time as Regan with his $15 000, which is a sum Regan for some reason always had with him. The woman which Philip comes to call the Silver Wig, is part of a plan to lure police away from the truth. The police during the second part of the story assume that Regan and the Silver Wig are hiding somewhere with new identities but will be found in due time. Marlowe assumes that they are sleeping in the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

Halfway through the book you, the reader, are basically left with an aftertaste of reading an O.K. mystery story with an acceptable murder case as Philip is one of those characters who has nice wits for a more realistic approach to the cases than what you'd be normally used to. The story halfway through gave couple of chuckles here and there as well. Afterwards it takes its time slowly getting to the end of the story, dropping the aspect of dealing with many characters and plots and becoming more focused on just one thing, and becoming more emotional, not in the sad sense, but in the sense that you can feel something while reading, especially tension, but it does drop off things that make the story better as well that were in the first part, such as Philip's quick wits being shown off as there's less planning involed in the plotting of the chapters.

Philip is taking a walk outside of a rich man's, Eddie Mars's, building which contains a casino in it where Vivian regan just won a pot against Eddie himself for her last game of the day. A masked man with no visible facial expressions to be seen is seen to be walking behind Marlowe as the sense of suspense and tension finally builds up for the first time during this story.
The second part of the story is spent dealing with a man named Harry Jones, Rusty Regan's mystery and Eddie Mars but it may not end up like one would have liked it to from many aspects. (hint: Eddie, truth behind Rusty.)

Raymond Chandler seemed to be trying to do an overarching story and a case story in this novel but it didn't come out as well as it should have in my opinion. It's still a fine story for what it is.



This book seems to flow better on a re-read when you know the style of dialogue Chandler uses for these characters, it somehow felt kind of off-putting to read how they were talking about things at the beginning, I don't even know why, but parts such as talking about A.G. Geiger's threatening letter never stuck in my head until I reread it; because I had gotten used to Chandler's expository writing style, after about 2/3rd to the story I had become used to it I guess, never really bothered to think about that there even was something to get used to in the first place but looking back, somehow there was. Maybe it's not something most people get stuck on - as for me, I think that multiple times I had thought that the pacing is too slow - that nothing's going to be going on and all that text about how things look, how things almost look like and how things could be like, just felt like filler to stretch out the pages. However I don't think that ever actually happened. The pacing was actually fine considering the amounts of mysteries and how quickly they were dealt with. It felt like more of a traditional golden age detective story in the first half, and the second half felt more broad - more free, so it was both slower but felt more fresh to read in comparison, I guess. Certainly some tension at one point that there was not earlier though Marlowe didn't manage to show off his ability to read ahead many things at once in the second half all too much.
 

The Case of a Greedy Woman

 "A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it's in hot water."
- Eleanor Roosevelt


The Case of the Velvet Claws (1933, Translated as Murhaajan Ääni/The Voice of the Murderer in finnish) is the first Perry Mason story of many by Erle Stanley Gardner. A murder mystery story starring a character known as, surprise, surprise, Perry Mason. Mason is a man who appears in many of Gardner's stories as the "detective," or better said, the main character. because he's not a detective, he's an attorney. An old school criminal defense lawyer who does all he can for his clients, even if he has to throw them to the wolves first to achieve it.

Characters:
Perry Mason, an attorney
Della Street, Perry's secretary 
Paul Drake, a detective
Eva Belter, a menacing woman
George C. Belter, a powerful man from business standpoints
Frank Locke, a journalist for Bitter Pieces
Harrison Burke, a politician

Eva who claims to be named Griffin arrives at Perry Mason's office where Della Street, his secretary and a woman with keen eyes for suspicious women, and the main man himself, Perry Mason, are ready to take on a mission to fulfil the client's wishes.
The story starts off as a look for the person behind a blackmailing magazine translated as Bitter Pieces (from "Katkerat Palat") however that plotline is already finished around 35/204 or so pages into the story. Eva was caught by them on a photo with a famous politician Harrison Burke - photo with a potential for a scandal, and what's more, the photo of them was taken at the time of a crime! Eva needs help to deal with Bitter Pieces, stop them from publishing that photograph and for that he needs a person who is not afraid to do things the rough way - which is what Perry Mason is known for. As mr. Mason manages to track down the mastermind behind the magazine, he arrives at a place with a name. George Belter, Beechwoods house, where he meets up with mr. and ms. Belter. Surprisingly enough, Eva Griffin's true identity was out in the open for him as Eva was ms. Belter. She never suspected that Perry would track her husband. So the magazine with the pictures of her potentially cheating with a politician happens to work for her husband - a tricky situation indeed. 

Yes, a murder happens in the story. In the Beechwoods house where Belter's live in, George C. Belter is murdered. The case focuses on the people who live with Eva and George as Carl Griffin, a young drunkard man, a family to the Belter's, supposedly had a motive while the others in the house did not.  The story continues to looking for an owner of a gun, a colt P92, and questioning the statements of two women who work for the Belter family, as they hide secrets of their own.
All in all it's a case about a mysterious gunshot and a bathtub.

Eva is a manipulative woman and the story constantly stays on top of that fact, yet somehow Mason gets caught in a few of her tricks despite carefully trying to avoid whatever she might have in mind: when Mason goes to the crime scene, he carefully tries not to leave fingerprints and such. I guess him getting caught feels kind of unnatural, even though all I can think is, "what can you do? this woman just tries to use others and that's all she does" as Eva tries to claim she heard Perry Mason's voice during the time of the crime; after she had called him to the crime scene (potentially to leave fingerprints and such).

Throughout the story Perry has to keep exposing Eva's words for whether or not she's telling the truth or deliberately lying, or just avoids telling the truth -  the usual habit of "because you didn't ask!" which liars have.
Eva starts to claim Perry "may have been" the culprit as she claims to have heard his voice.
There is nothing really that clever in this story when it comes to plot twists or twists in general. There is somewhat of a trick from the author, I think, when it comes to figuring out the culprit from the events happened as you focus on the bullet shots in the bathroom.
There are not that many standout events in the story either. Nothing that original or unique from a writing standpoint that can make you tell "this is totally Gardner's handprint right here!"

However small things I do have to point out such as:
- On page 14 there is a decent usage of adding the newspapers articles onto the page.
- I noticed how many of the chapters seem to begin in a similar style - someone is sitting in their office, and. . .
- New ideas and characters get introduced at a decent pace, so the story doesn't feel completely incomplete in a way that you'd be left feeling that it has a lack of any actual content with substance.
- The case itself is simplistic and the hints feel sort of lackluster. There is not as much focus on the case as there should be.
- There is some kind of battle of wits type of storytelling going on between Perry Mason and the journalist Frank Locke, but it's all written in a way that it feels rather unimpressive.

So basically there is nothing that interesting from the perspective of looking at the mystery, characters or storytelling style, but for what it is, the story does flow decently enough to be passable. The pacing of the story is alright. A mysterious woman, a recent case, a mysterious boss behind a fraudulentish newspaper company, a new case in present-time, little "mysteries" happen throughout the story when mr. Mason has to keep questioning about "what exactly is Eva lying about this time and how can I go about making her admit it?" 

Despite being a series with an attorney protagonist, the cases of this story never go to the court - Perry is an active on-foot attorney that is closer to a detective with an attorney's badge, a hardboiled one. I'm not sure how Gardner writes his other Perry Mason stories as I haven't read them yet - however I'd like to see a story that goes to the court. Ace Attorney style. This particular book, from a comparative attorney series' standpoint, is the Gyakuten Kenji equivalent as instead of Phoenix Wright, Perry Mason works like Miles Edgeworth. Although he's not quite as quick-thinking.

The Case of the Velvet Claws is the first Perry Mason story I've read, and I'm both glad and somewhat not glad that it was. It's a story I would say is "to the point, leaving not much else to think about" from the first page to the very last page of the epilogue of the case. The last scene of the book includes how the current case and the woman named Eva Belter get dealt with and half-literally shelved away by Mason and the day continues, and we get a small mention of the next case that Gardner had planned at that point in time as if the book is saying; "the story goes on..."

Now Gardner gives me off the impression of a person who likes to add ominous women in his story. Just from looking at his other works they all seem to contain an idea for "there's that one potentially dangerous woman that lures you in." Well not like it matters I guess, anyone can be dangerous.

Nothing is impossible - Kubikiri Cycle

 

"Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later."
- Og Mandino


Kubikiri Cycle: Aoiro Savant to Zaregototsukai is an 8-episode OVA adaptation of a light novel series called Zaregoto Series, written by Nisio Isin who happens to be famous for his Monogatari series, and as Kubikiri Cycle is also animated by the same studio, Shaft, which is a known group of people for their consistently high quality frames and fluid animation in their Monogatari series's projects.
This post will be rather long as the series is short, it's one of those series that can be gone in depth into without it feeling like I'm doing too much. Sometimes it's good to take time to analyze .

The story begins with two people, a young boy and a woman, sitting beside each other in some kind of metaworld, pondering questions about what matters really in the world and to a oneself.

The setting of the story takes place in Raven's Feather Island where the Akagami family residence resides in. The mansion along with the entire island is owned by a person named Akagami Iria, a person who reeks of "magical girl" with how she dresses and acts (but not too much for anyone to feel the same as I) who happens to be the granddaughter of the head of a succesful Akagami business company but who was banished from the family for some reason and got the island for herself as a place of exile where she's forbidden to ever leave from.

 "First floor - Storage room (my room)" yes, that's where our nameless main protagonist resides in, in the mansion where a silver-haired maid, the head maid Handa Rei, walks along the spiral staircase of the mansion with white flowers in her hand. In the mansion three maids that work under Handa Rei, a family of three women, the middle sister, darkish green-haired Chiga Hikari, a brown-haired oldest sister Chiga Akari as well as the youngest sister, the dark-haired Chiga Teruko, also work in the residence as maids. Our main protagonist considers himself as an accessory to the mansion owners, and accessories don't have names. He's however always called Li-chan by Kunakisa Tomo. He's quickly shown to be an extremely fast thinker capable of reading ahead to the end-point of Sonoyama Akane's shadowgame of shogi.

The soundtrack for the anime is pretty decent. It's fitting but nothing stand-out. The opening looks nice, with the introductory names for the characters being visible (as is with the name boxes you can see in other manga series; boxes that introduce the names and sometimes the ages and occupation of the character that is shown), but the song itself is mediocre. The ending song is nice. The best part of the series however is the presentation of the frames. The world of the crime scene feels sort of abstract - not realistic at all, characters make serious faces which bend to the back in Shaft's style familiar from Monogatari-series, as they talk about abstract things without much purpose, which seems kind of popular to do in light novels these days - anyways, it's a way of presentation which is off the walls hit-and-miss for me personally not really focusing on anything important at times. Murder mystery series should have good presentation if it makes the watcher feel emotions. Also I'm a firm believer that the genre is more often than not more suited to being about substance over style - as in, that would be necessary for a decent case - a self-contained story with a fitting pacing. Style is more filler for these types of series I feel. I just don't feel more into it even though it has such a different style and way of presenting simplest of things; there's probably not enough punch in how these stylistic changes flow. Music does not change with the frames, frams jump left and right and center along with computer generated effects and plenty of different colors etc without it taking its time to set up a certain mood within that one frame. I can tell the mood that's going on during the events, but I don't think the stylistic effects and effort from the animators enhance the series at all.

The characters of Kubikiri Cycle are very quirky but I feel as if they are lacking in personality.
Genius engineer Kunakisa Tomo, a light blue haired young girl who doesn't like to take showers. She's a long-time "friend" of our main character whom she calls Li-chan. Her real purpose on the island is to find more out about a past case. Capable of quickly upgrading computers two generations ahead. She's a person who claimed to be hard to speak to as she rarely listens. Our main character's known her for about five years.

The Genius cook Sashinori Yayoi who likes to cook in the kitchen, but as she's a Genius visitor, she's not a servant. It's said that she can make any dish taste better than anyone else who's alive is capable of making. Her taste and smell are superior to other people's as she's capable of telling a person's blood type from licking their skin - through the sweat. She claims that she's able to tell between 200 000 different tastes at 12 levels of intensity and her nose most likely tell the smell from half of that.

Sonoyama Akane, presented just as a "Genius - One of the Seven Fools" who likes to shadow play shogi, she's a person who tends to use the wrong words and has to be corrected often. She hates painters in general - and has that against Ibuki Kanami who happens to be a painter.

Himena Maki. A genius diviner with greenish-yellow hair. Her customers are important people. She's called a psychic who knows and sees everything, she's supposedly even capable of reading people's minds - but she's not capable of doing that to "incompatible people." Our main character considers her creepy. She hates our main character for being a person that lets other people's opinions affect how he thinks.

Ibuki Kanami a genius painter girl who likes short-lived things and was born with a defect in her legs and so, has to use a wheelchair to move around, and she was supposedly also blind until couple years before the story begins. She claims that she commits everything to her memory before painting it, and she paints everything when she's alone. So if she paints a person - she will memorize the person and then paint later when she's alone.

As well as Ibuki Kanami's attendant Sakaki Shin'ya and mr. Aikawa, a genius whom gets called to the island in later episodes.

The Seven Fools - geniuses among geniuses that are claimed to be able to "solve the world." (as in mysteries of the world and existence of the universe probably?)

The idea of the series - a rather generic and average murder mystery sortofinnercirclecase etc. (you've surely seen it a million times in golden age detective fiction) with somewhat forced motives for everyone's reasoning to stay at the Raven's Feather Island - is not episodic despite its OVA nature of animation. The pacing of the story is rather slow for the amount of information that we're shared as the animators put their focus on showing different perspectives of the same thing many times. But keep in mind that it is an adaptation, not the source material.

Every episode starts with a random quote from whoever.

The first episode of the eight focuses on setting up the island and it's current inhabitants as well as the people called the Geniuses who have been called there as visitors. They all used to be a part of a project for geniuses called the ER3 System, our "accessory" main character Li-chan included (though he dropped from the project before completing it). It's the third day of "Li-chan's" stay at the island. We get couple of hints about hostility between some of the people and the episode is quickly over. The presentation is very interesting but it does not try to show or flesh out how the mansion and the island look and how they're supposed to work. We just get mentions of "who" and "which floor this person's room resides in" without any sense of direction in the building. There's a lack of foreshadowing that should be set up in the very beginning just having a "suspicious building and setting" is not enough sadly.

The second episode starts off with the rules set to the visitors by the owner of the manor Akagami Iria - People are free to do what they want mostly, but everyone absolutely has to attend the supper together in the first floow's dining hall. We're set up a clockwise showcase for how the every person around the table has gathered. As with clock's hours - 12 people sit on the table. "The twelve on the island." As Kunagisa is about to leave in four more days, Iria tells that she's decided the next genius who will be called to visit named Aikawa. Iria claims that she considers "Aikawa" her hero. There's some conflict between the diviner Maki and our MC "Li" and between the painter Kanami and Akane (the person who likes shogi) but it's mostly fluff dialogue that you'd wonder why they get so agitated about it. As the day turns to night the second half of the episode picks up the interest a bit when an earthquake hits. The entire situation seems pretty generic and a bit cliche however - people talk about their mysterious purpose in being in the island but before they can answer, an earthquake happens. The fourth day begins at the end as the episode ends with a cliffhanger-ish moment that's shown quickly; naturally, the first death of the series.

The third episode. Li's (the MC) and  4th day on the island, and everyone on it has gathered around a crime scene with paint on the ground. Despite the earthquake a day before, the paint is still dry. Despite all these geniuses in the room, our MC (who's supposed to be sort of a genius himself) is the one that goes to the body. Afterwards everyone gathers at the dining hall around the table. There's a mention of a "yet another death" and we check out everyone's alibis before and after the earthquake when the painter Kanami was still supposedly alive. There is no mention of police, only theories of the time of death despite it happening in the modern age. It makes the case feel rather artificial as people don't act naturally - it does feel a bit forced. A set up necessary to make logical and sound theories about what could have happened; there's still the bare minimum but the author Nisio Isin is clearly not that experienced with the genre to write it expertly enough.

The setting of the case is this: Kanami is dead and her head is missing for reasons unknown. The time of death is assumed to have happened either before or after the earthquake that happened in the evening on our MC's 3rd day on Raven's Feather Island; Kanami's attendant Sakaki Shin'ya had called Kanami after the earthquake, telling that she's okay but the paint had fallen which makes our characters theorize the time of death despite it being set in the era of internet, and there's an artificial set up for why they won't call the police which honestly makes no sense, it doesn't matter to the others what kind of history Iria has.  Since there's a pool of paint around between the door and the victim, so much of it that it seems very hard to jump past, as well as the fact that Kanami's room is on the 2nd floor where it is very hard to get to along with its windows being locked, the case becomes a locked room case as no one could have reached her. The characters focus on the fact that the head is beheaded making it so that you'd usually change places with another corpse to make it seem as if the places are changed but it does not seem likely due to there being 11 left of the 12 at the dining table. The lack of realistic portrayal of how things could possibly have been done is not theorized; the way of the beheading is not just something that can be done just like that, despite that, it's simply just excused. The killer is no Dexter there would be should be plenty of clues, flow of blood splatters and such, to investigate.

As we don't come any closer to figuring out the answers to the time of death, Li comes up with a plan with the lightblue haired Tomo where they lock the prime suspect of this case, Akane whom hates painters, into a room that can't be escaped from the inside to avoid more potential murders. But the owner of the island will not allow the inference of the police and the geniuses on the island have to solve the case themselves. The arriving Aikawa, whom is heavily praised by the owner of the island Akagami Iria to have an unparalled mind capable of solving any case in the blink of an eye, arrives in six days on the 10th day and is going to put the case into rest. The characters bury the victim without telling the police, conducting in illegal activity of handling a corpse.

The fourth episode explains that Kunakisa Tomo and our MC, the narrator Li, are conducting in more illegal activity, prying intel on the people who are on the island - whatever connections they have together. As well as talking about the illegal activity of why Iria won't allow the police on the island - she claims that she doesn't believe geniuses are equal to other people -  that they are superior beings that shouldn't be soiled with being in contact with the police. Two of the three maids, Akari and Teruko, have left the island in search to contact the notoriously-hard-to-contact extragenius Aikawa-san. There's a mysterious mistake on the painting of our MC created by the victim Kanami that shouldn't be there for a painter of such high talent. We learn that the current suspect Akane is for reasons unknown ready to get killed at any time at her own free will. The second half of the episode focuses on the MC's conflicting thoughts about Tomo and feels mostly filler that has nothing to do with the case.


The fifth episode. The start of the fifth day on the island for our protagonists. One of the three maids, Chiga Akari comes to our MC and screams that something has happened and to come to the first floor storeroom where Akane was held in. Another locked room case has taken place in the same household. Yet another headless corpse, with the head missing somewhere. There's a locked door with no entry and an opened window that can only be opened from inside of the house with a switch, a window which is too far high up. Everyone's alibis are focused on and they, in the classic way, talk about how being alone was too dangerous and it would be much better to move in teams.

 Team A is the current suspect who had the key to the storage room, maid Hikari, Tsunagisa and our
MC.

Team B forms from the maids Rei, Akari, Teruko and the boss Iria.

Team C is the group of Maki, Shinya and Yayoi.


As the groups have been set up, team A has things to do. As they arrive back in Kunagisa's room, they find her computers all destroyed by the culprit whom most likely wanted to avoid them seeing what was in the photographs that Kunagisa had taken after the first case, photos she had moved to her computer's drive files. I guess she doesn't have an online cloud app on those computers despite their advanced technology. The mystery is: since the computers were fine when team A woke up, and they were the last ones to arrive in the dining room, none of the 10 there could have destroyed the computers. The group check out the window of the storage room from the inside which is open - and despite being so high up in the inside, it's very low on the mountain side outside, however it doesn't seem likely that the culprit could have done anything through the window with the victim Akane on supposedly guard.

The sixth episode begins with showcasing both of the crime scenes without narration. Our MC goes to team B's room alone. One of the maids Teruko whom likes to play around explain that ms.Iria is on the island because she's a criminal supposedly with wounds on her wrist despite not having any when Li saw Iria almost naked before, putting clothes on.  She's a person with an Abusive Behaviour System, D.L.L.R. syndrome. Iria had a twin sister named Odette whom she had supposedly killed. Our MC mentions what was wrong with the paint of himself - his watch was being fixed when he was with the painter Kanami and in that painting it was there. A weird mistake. There's theorising that Iria might be the culprit or the person who ordered the murders. At this point our protagonists claim that they have all the clues and have practically solved the case, and it's time for a counterattack.

The seventh episode starts with narration of some meaningless woo abstract stuff about how people can reach deep ends.. Or something. It's one of those series similar to Subete ga F ni Naru which constantly uses random talk about meaning of existence or such to try to sound deep, but it has no point in this story and case. The genius chef Yayoi acts shocked and calls everyone crazy. The sad part of this is that it's nothing but acting as later confirmed, it's sad because it seemed like the first realistic reaction that should have happened a long time ago.

The plan is set into motion to catch the killer. There's a very nice action sequence in a dark room between one of the maids, Teruko, and the a certain woman, and the maid gets shot but the shot apparently misses.  Narration about how the main character won't care if he dies. There's one cringy moment in the moment with both of the MC's. We get an important moment for the case; the realisation of two culprits. Which makes sense considering that the computers couldn't have been destroyed by one. The logical cluing for why a person is a culprit; has to do with a stretcher and a sleeping bag. In this part you could have added mud as a clue. One of the two reasons why the body was beheaded uses rigor mortis as a way to escape a locked room in a way that was planned from the beginning with the first murder, the proble arises from the fact that there was no reason for the events to reach that point that perfectly, I doubt that "trick" even works that well despite it being simple. It's an unnecessary addition, you could have literally had the accomplice help the killer out the window. Nothing stopped that from happening. The culprit claims that they had no real motives but ofcourse there will be something hidden there. There was not much going on in the second to last episode all things considered.

Episode eight, the final episode, in which the presentation is very well done atleast, gives me a comfy feel, anyway; a glimpse of a cruiser. Our protagonists travel there as they are leaving the island. The reason why Ilia doesn't have those supposed scars in her arms was revealed. Spoilers Ilia was a fake and the head maid was the real Ilia. She didn't allow them to call police to the crime scenes because it would be no fun at all. Afterwards our MC walks around a library narrating about what's happening with the others. The culprit and the accomplice never got caught because they never called the cops, letting the murders stay as unknown mystery. The long talked about Aikawa Jun makes an appearance with his/her weird car, driving off a cliff onto a boat etc. A weird red-haired person. Aikawa tells that there are a number of things that may not fit. Why would the culprits kill off a person close to them? Motives unknown need explanations that were not given earlier. We go back to the painting - why does it have a watch when he wasn't wearing one at that point? Aikawa claims that he has solved it all. That Kanami did not paint that painting. A fake painter. There's nothing mysterious about this, I had also figured it out in the first episodes. When you don't see someone do what they claim to be able to do, it's likely a trick. Aikawa goes to explain that Kanami became Akane just for kicks before they even arrived on the island and then one had to die for the other to completely become the other.

Aikawa's "truth" behind the case - the motive of murder being only about taking one's identity seems pretty impossible in this current day and age, in which this series has been written to take place in. No one will come look for the murdered person for sure and know this other one is not her? The victim, supposedly Akane and not the real painter Kanami, was said to have born with defects in her legs... The "fake" supposedly used a wheelchair just because, with no real meaning behind it. Not to mention she was said to have been blind before as well. Apparently these don't actually mean anything. If anything I would call these clear plot holes...


The series picks up with the a addition of a few more mysteries to deal with at the same time for atleast something tangible to focus on unlike in Subete ga F ni Naru, and the mysteries definitely are better and more clever than in the first 4 episodes, because that's really hard not to do, but I feel like the tying ups of the loose ends are less than ideal. I can say I did not want there to be two culprits before the second murder happened - thought the author would come up with something more clever for some reason. The 'truth' explained by Aikawa as an infodump instead of it flowing naturally in the story clearly tries to excuse all the foreshadowing and contradictions just to arrive at a set conclusion. There's no sound logic there. The idea of the culprits having a True motive beyond killing is neat, but this one, in reality, is stupid. They knew they just would not call the cops, get investigated and ever caught... Swapping identities without any actual motive... Just an idea the author threw there and didn't bother with making it any more coherent than that, clearly, similar to the unrealistic actions of the characters. Also we got nothing expanded on the reason our protagonists arrived on the island, which is a past case; the murder of Ilia's twin sister. It was never explained in depth by them really despite it being a motive for going there... Hmph.

 A last side rant:
Different styles of presentation alone can make a series readable and watchable - naturally because they would be "fresh" - something "new" to the follower, which is what I hoped this to be like to me, but the funny part here was that it did not enhance the downright mediocre and cliche plotting of story in the slightest. And make no mistake there are many series where I really do like these sort of inner circle cases in an area where the police can't reach due to the world and situations sealing the "world" off - but those series are well written with strong motivations, meaning behind every action - great synergy of the events, atleast a decent cast of characters, decent plotting with an expansive story and so on. The moment they did not allow to call the cops and did shit like hide the corpse - and touch it, destroying the crime scene along with bunch of different problems surrounding the situation from the murder weapon - the possibility of this even happening, the lack of obvious evidence like blood splatters, etc.

We have characters without much of a personality, alot of unnatural/unrealistic acting - a lack of realism considering the genre it's tackling, a pretty damn bad pacing of half of an episode of absolutely irrelevant-to-the-case narration, and the obvious lack of experience this author has with the genre - a true recipe for disaster and a most mediocre case so shallow and badly paced that shouldn't even fit the criteria to be counted as murder mystery. Now I'll head back to finishing some Chandler that I intentionally left unfinished to complete right after this one. Too bad out of those 200 000 tastes the chef can differentiate from, none of them seemed to have been of good taste. Haha. Ha... I'm tired. This series was tiring because I just did not manage to get enjoyment from it. I got more tired the less brains I had to use for this. This took longer than I thought it would I guess... They should have expanded on those backstories, that one case from the past, with all that free time this series had.

Münster's case

 “The ability to read becomes devalued when what one has learned to read adds nothing of importance to one's life.”
- Bruno Bettelheim


"Münster's fall" is part of the Inspector Van Veeteren crime&thriller series created by a swedish writer, Håkan Nesser. The novel was adapted into a 1 hour 30 minute movie in 2005 by a swedish director Rickard Petrelius. 

I will be talking about the film version here.
The movie starts with classical music playing in the backgrounds in the middle of a snowy winter night. A man could be seen in bed with his wife and children, building up with the badly written family drama. He wakes up and answers the phone to go to a crime scene, urgently. As he arrives to the scene, a police car is waiting for him and one of the cops tells him about a wine seller called Waldemar dying by drowning with the time of death being at around 20:00 (8 pm).
Next morning, the investigation continues. Münster, the main character of the movie, was the one who was called to the crime scene and the first inspector there at night. Münster had been investigating the case since 4 am and now the police department wants to replace him with another person, which is the part where the ridicilous work drama starts.
There are couple weird points that come up during the investigation as the murderer put in alot of effort in order to kill the wine seller despite him having a liver cancer, and the anticipated time of his natural death would have been in just a two month's time.
-They spend around 10 minutes asking about alibis from witnesses.
Next day, Reinhart, Münster's boss, is in a very angry mood and wants all good and bad news from Münster to know what to tell the media. This part is stupid throughout the movie as it's the same old cliche drama where the boss blames the worker for not sharing every little thing to him constantly.

 Afterwards they go through all the prime suspects and Münster keeps going with his investigation which leads to couple of stupid twists, basically: Münster gets beaten by a person, Münster gets him in handcuffs and takes him behind bars, the suspect's clothes have the victim's blood and Münster says that he found the murder weapon with the suspect's fingerprints and the suspect confesses to the Mürder and gets arrested. But wait, Münster says that everything was far too easy and that could not be the case. As it turns out, Münster just bluffed about finding the murder weapon. This brings alot of annoying work drama and the suspect simply was too drunk to remember anything so obviously his confession was nothing but a misunderstanding.
From here on out everyone except Münster is after the victimized suspect because of Münsters lie about the murder weapon. Münster's boss is angry. Another investigator "threatens" Münster because of a fake testimony. Münster's partner doesn't want him there. The police department seems to be in "gray area", but in reality it's rotten to the core.
At home, Münster's wife is crying because he doesn't talk with him (which comes out of left field, really forced drama) and the drama lasts for a minute at best and disappears until it appears every quarter of an hour or so for another minute. Dumb. Afterwards Münster keeps with his investigation solo and some twists happen.

The last part of the movie is spent watching Van Veeteren solve "Münster's case" as Münster got too close to the suspect and was left in a garage waiting to die.
Just to mock the watchers, in the end the narration says that "Van Veeteren got the killer's confession in 22 minutes." As we're all left in awe of this huge waste of time that Veeteren could do to save everyone some brain cells and time since the beginning instead of having to come up and save the main character and do his job near the end of the movie, the movie ends in an atmospheric epilogue where the true culprit is in jail, hitting his head to the wall in the jail, reminiscing of his younger days of the moments where his father and sisters danced together, and the moments where he woke up during nights to eerie voices.

The story of Münsters fall is pretty basic in its execution and has certain tropes we've surely seen before such as an impossibly smart mentor-type character that leaves Münster in his shadow. It still manages to have a decent atmosphere you'd expect to find in a crime thriller that's not too far from how things work in real world. Too bad the way the characters acted like idiots throughout the whole thing was just stupid, no one was supporting Münster, his wife started to whine about him using his time to try and solve the case every 15 minutes. The drama at home got annoying quick and was just badly written, and the drama at work was blown out of proportions with every cop just acting like an asshole towards Münster. I wanted to give the movie a 6/10 but after thinking about it, it's 5/10 at best in its weight class, which is above low-tier crime fiction.