Panic Party: Case Closed, vol. 97 by Gosho Aoyama

Gosho Aoyama's 96th volume of Case Closed starts out, as is tradition, with the conclusion to the story that closed out the previous volume when Conan, Rachel, Sera, Serena and Makoto wandered onto the set of 48 Detectives – confusing a hostage scene for the real thing. Makoto, a karate champion, disabled the stuntman playing the hostage taker and obliged to take his place to finish the shoot.

However, the shoot ends with two murders. The first murder is when one the actors falls to his death from a top floor window of an abandoned building and a member of the crew is mysteriously poisoned with cyanide. There is, of course, a trick that allowed the murderer to pull off both murders with an alibi in the pocket, but this time the tricks aren't the stitched together Frankenstein-tricks bugging some of the stories from these later volumes. They're simple, somewhat elegant and satisfying, especially the first one. Even more fun is what's happening in the background of the story. Sera is convinced Conan and Jimmy are one and the same person. She has been poking and prying for information, which doesn't make it easier for Conan to solve the murders and has to use Serena ("...deduction queen Serena in action") to pull his "Sleeping Moore" act with Sera watching ("he uses Serena when Moore isn't handy"). I also liked how Makoto and Rachel prevented the murderer from committing suicide with Rachel echoing Conan's sentiment ("no matter whose life it is, it's too precious to take"). Conan has always disapproved of detectives turning a blind eye to murderers intending to take the easy way out. A fun and, plot-wise, decent story.

The second story is a good, old-fashioned closed circle whodunit. Richard Moore receives a letter from a client, named Taisei Nichihara, who included a code, a 500,000 yen retainer and four train tickets – destination an abandoned, mountaintop church in Nagano Prefecture. A friend of the client hanged himself in the old church and wants it investigated. But why did Moore need to bring three other people along for the case? The three others include, naturally, Conan, Toru Amura and the sushi chef the mystery loving sushi chef from vol. 92, Kanenorih Wakita. When they arrive at the church, they find a group of five people ("we went to high school together") and discover Moore's client is the man who hanged himself. So they have been all lured to the church under false pretenses and, as to be expected, a blizzard traps them inside church for a day. All they can do trying to figure why they were brought to the church, decipher the coded message and hunt around for clues. Only for one of them to walk straight into a booby trap and another is found poisoned.

Similar to the previous story, the tricks used to build up this story aren't the Frankenstein stitch jobs from recent volumes and wonder if the original Japanese volumes received similar criticism for it. The tricks here are simple, but not too simple and possess a kernel of elegance. Such as how the murderer picked the victims and a good booby trap every now and then is to be appreciated, but it has to be admitted that it also makes for another fairly minor chapter in the series. Very enjoyable nevertheless, if only because it has been a while since this series featured such a classically-styled mystery story.

The third story is short, two chapter inverted mystery in which the killer rigged up a daring, seemingly unbreakable alibi. Maika Zenda, a school teacher, discovers that her fiance, Toji Fukikoshi, is a marriage swindler who has another girlfriend stashed away in luxurious summer house – which throws her in a murderous rage. She stabs him and then have the body appear during a school trip to the woods to forage for wild vegetables. Zenda worked it in such a way proving she could not have dragged the body and propped it up against a tree backed by photographic evidence. Only problem is that the children on the trip are Conan and the other members of the Junior Detective League. This story actually felt more like one of those earlier cases than the previous story nicely balancing the central trick with the characters and story. Not to mention the clueing is surprisingly sharp as Conan reasons the truth from a missing four-leaf clover and mud stains. So a very well done, completely solvable alibi cracker.

The last, incomplete, story being setup here will be concluded, as is tradition, in the next volume and begins with a callback to a case from vol. 12! In that case, Doc Agasa brought the Junior Detective League to the house of his late uncle, "the guy with the sun, star and moon code built into his house," where he found a wooden box containing a small antique plate. A black lacquer tray, to be precise, recently featured on an antique TV show where its value was an estimated 100 yen ("about $1 million"). Doc Agasa was not the only person who had the idea to have his tray appraised, but the appraiser had received three other trays and, to his surprise, "all three trays turned out to have the same carving" ("...at least two are counterfeit"). Doc Agasa is invited, along with the other owners, to the home of the appraiser, but there the appraiser is attacked with a spear. When Doc Agasa goes to get help, the attacker returns to finish the job. So a who-of-the-three whodunit that will be concluded and resolved in vol. 98.

So, all in all, the cases making up vol. 97 aren't the most spectacular this series has produced during its long run, but they had pleasing consistency, purely as detective stories, while the red threads and character-arcs of the main storyline continue to move and develop in the background. A great volume in a small, modest way on way to vol. 100. Just two more to go!

Best Served Cold: Case Closed, vol. 96 by Gosho Aoyama

This is probably going to be a slightly shorter review than usual, because Gosho Aoyama's 96th volume of Case Closed only has one completed story, book-ended by the conclusion and setup to stories from the previous and next volume – which doesn't make for a great reading experience. Ho-Ling Wong noted the same problem in his 2019 review of vol. 96 ("...one of the worst volumes of the last decade or so"). The reader has been warned!

So this volume begins with the conclusion of the "The Female Officer Serial Murders" setup in the last two chapters of the previous volume. Normally, that's done in the opening chapter, but there three more chapters. Had it been tidied up in one, or two, chapters it would have been like any other volume in the series with one conclusion and two complete stories. Maybe even a one-chapter setup for the opening story of the next volume, but I'm padding now.

Yumi Miyamoto and Neako Miike, officer of the traffic department, get drag into the case when two of their colleagues are murdered. First victim was Sergeant Momosaki, found in a park, who "used her last moments to point at a swing set" as a dying message and killer struck again later that same day – throwing Lieutenant Shiori Yagi out of a building. She also used her last moments to give her colleagues a clue to the killer. But the killer left a calling card behind at both crime scenes: a bent 200-yen coin that has a depiction of cherry blossom ("...emblem of the Japanese police") engraved on it. So the murderer obviously has it out for female officers of the traffic department. There are three suspects who were involved in traffic incident, days before the murders, during which they had a heated argument with several female traffic officers. So pretty much one of those familiar who-of-the-three stories, but disliked how very similar, somewhat specific motive was tacked on all three suspects. On the other hand, I liked the idea how every cop in trouble, whether they died or survived, tried to transfer information to their colleagues in the form of a dying message. The meaning behind those dying messages form a pleasing thematic pattern, but an idea that needed a better, longer treatment than it received here. By the way, this story also provides a resolution for the Detective Chiba and Neako Miike story-arc going all the way back to vol. 75.

The first, only complete story in this volume is a self-parody of the Wile E. Coyote vs. the Road Runner feud between Jirokichi Sebastian and Kaito KID. I started out as a big fan of Jirokichi trying to ensnare KID with his elaborate, expensively baited and widely publicized traps. Their first few duels from volumes 44 and 61 were series highlights, but suppose they were hard acts to follow as their last few encounters have been a little underwhelming. So not a bad decision to go for a self-parody, because it would have been worst Jirokichi/KID caper to date. Jirokichi has new bait to tempt the KID, the Fairy's Lip, "one of the biggest conch pearls in the world," but how to present and protect it poses a problem. Fortunately, a familiar face turns up, Inspector Takaaki Morofushi, who advises to have the conch pearl exhibited frozen inside a block of ice and placed in a guarded, makeshift room of tempered glass. And some other high tech precautions that should prevent KID from getting out of the glass room with the pearl.

So far, a fairly typical setup for a Kaito KID caper, but this time you get to see KID at work and he's not disguised as Inspector Takaaki Morofushi. KID has hidden himself among the guards posted around the glass room with the block of ice, but is having second thoughts when notices "those two sleuths," Conan and Harley, "plus a cop who's not a total dummy," but an incident makes him decides to go ahead with the heist. From the start, KID is nearly caught out, but things get farcical when he takes the place of someone in Conan and Harley's group. You can see one scene coming from that very moment and this gag, sadly enough, carries the story. KID steals the ring and solution is OK-ish, but still no idea how he could have pulled it off, under those circumstances, within ten minutes. So fun enough, but nothing more than that.

The last story begins with Conan, Rachel, Sera, Serena and her boyfriend, Makoto, coming out of the theater having just watched The Avengers The Amazers movie when they stumble into a hostage situation. Makoto, a karate champion, jumps to the rescue only to discover he interrupted a shoot for the TV series 48 Detectives. And the gun toting criminal he kicked into next week was a stuntman. So now they need a stuntman and they immediately see potential in the karate champion, but Makoto's stint as a stand-in stuntman ends with two murders on set. And, according to tradition, will be concluded in the next volume.

So not much to say, except Sera trying to pry the truth out of Conan and even asks Rachel if she's ever seen Conan and Jimmy together. Very much to her surprise, Rachel tells Sera how Conan went to a school play Jimmy was in ("...Jimmy solved a mystery during the play, while the brat sat in the audience pouting"). I believe this is a reference to a story not reviewed on this blog and barely remember it, but how it's describe here makes it sound like a hilarious case of bi-location in close proximity, especially from Sera's perspective – who's convinced Conan is Jimmy ("...Conan and I picked Jimmy up from his house the next morning").

There's not much else to say about this volume, except how this series structures its serialized chapters and volumes worked against it. I simply recommend everyone reading this in the near of distant future to read volumes 95, 96 and 97 without big gaps of time between them.

Straight to Your Heart: Case Closed, vol. 95 by Gosho Aoyama

Gosho Aoyama's 95th volume of Case Closed picks up where the previous, absolutely packed volume ended that was crammed with familiar faces, storyline developments and a cliffhanger to a tantalizing murder case featuring two imaginative impossible crimes – apparently committed the long-nosed Tengu of Japanese folklore. First a short recap. Conan has temporarily returned as Jimmy Kudo to attend a class trip to Kyoto to link up with Rachel complete with will-they-won't-they overtones, but their class trip runs into a class reunion of a university film club that quickly ended in bloody murder.

Their screenwriter is brutally murdered in his hotel room with a big pool of blood and bloody footprints staining the ceiling, which suggests the killer yanked the victim up in the air to kill him and then casually walked across the ceiling. And walked, or flew, out an open window on the 15th floor. A second murder is committed in the open street with another trail of bloody footprints walking sideways along the wall. In this closing chapter, the murderer attempts a third murder with footprints from an apparently invisible man approaching him on a bridge, but, by that time, Jimmy had already closed the net around the killer.

I think this story is far better for its long-awaited developments in the overarching storyline with all its character-arcs than the fantastically-staged series of impossible slayings, which are excellent in presentation, but poor and unconvincing in execution – especially the first murder and the last attempt are unconvincing. I suppose the trick for the first murder could have a whole lot more convincing in a smaller, more intimate setting, but not here or on this scale. I didn't think much about the other impossibilities with the inexplicable appearance/disappearance of the Tengu (SPOILER/ROT13), fbeg bs, tvivat njnl gur zheqrere, orpnhfr gur crefba jub jnf greebevmrq ol vg unq ng yrnfg gb or va ba vg. Lbh pna'g uvqr fhpu n guvat vafvqr fbzrbar'f ubgry ebbz, fhqqrayl fpner uvz jvgu naq znxr vg qvfnccrne, hayrff gung crefba vf chyyvat gur fgevatf be vf na nppbzcyvfu. A commendable attempt to weave four impossible crimes into a fairly short story, but again, far better for the storyline-and character-arc developments.

The second story deals with the direct fallout of the previous story, because Jimmy Kudo, "the top teen detective of the east," resurfacing to solve a murder case involving well-known filmmakers has started a buzz. Kudo's return ("Rumors of His Death Debunked") trended on social media, became the top news story online and attracted the attention of the news media. So now Conan is in deep trouble as reporters with camera crews besiege his home and everyone who knows Jimmy Kudo, which is bound to get noticed by the Black Organization. Meanwhile, Anita and the Junior Detective League go to the home of classmate who failed to show up at school that day. When they enter the home, they find the first of a trail of clue to an indoors treasure hunt and they fear the little girl might have gotten trapped somewhere while following the clues. So they retrace their girl's step by following the clues her grandmother left behind. Yes, a very minor story intended to break away from Conan's precarious situation and the growing interest in Jimmy Kudo's return, but by no means a bad story. Where, and how, they discovered the girl involves something I always imagined would make for a first-rate locked room-trick, but, to my knowledge, it has yet to be used. So overall a better story than the previous landmark story and Conan learns the name of the Black Organization's boss. We all know who he really is, right?

The fallout from Jimmy Kudo's headline grabbing return continues into the third story, but also has a pretty good, self-contained detective story to offer.

Richard Moore netted an aristocratic client, Gunzo Morooka, who received a threatening note to stay clear of the Black Bunny Club ("...if you value your life"). So they meet at the Black Bunny Club to discuss the case. Black Bunny Club is a "gentleman's club" where hostesses are dressed as scantily-clad bunnies raising the question how Conan and Rachel were even allowed on the premise. When food and dinner arrives, one of the bunnies is poisoned and hospitalized with only three suspects who could have poisoned her drink. So, on the surface, it's the customary whom-of-the-three-did-it staple of this series, but how the drink was poisoned is rather ingenious and makes the story standout. Case Closed is going to be interesting study material in the future for how the traditional 20th century detective story adapted itself to the 21th century. So good story that also has Toru Amuro as Moore's disciple to look over Conan's shoulder with a cliffhanger that would been a perfect conclusion to this volume.

The last two chapters begins a story that will be concluded in the next volume and deals with "a serial killer who targets female cops." More precisely, the female cops of the traffic division and colleagues of the series regulars Yumi Miyamoto and Neako Miike. At the end of the last chapter, the serial killer left three bodies behind and his second victim left a cryptic dying message: a bloody finger pointing towards a swing set on a child's playground. So we'll find out what that's all about in the next volume.

So, when it comes to the individual plots, this volume was a mixed bag, but very rewarding for long-time fans of the series as the game finally appears to be afoot. Like Ho-Ling said in his 2018 review, the stories show "Aoyama is busy moving his pieces for an event which might very well be the ending of this series." It really comes across like that, but then again, this volume was originally published in 2018 and vol. 107 was published earlier this year. So maybe not yet, but look forward to the next volume.

Scarlet Skeins: Case Closed, vol. 94 by Gosho Aoyama

The 94th volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed series represents a milestone as the chapter opening the all-important last story in this volume is chapter 1000, but, more importantly, the story itself is a milestone when it comes to the Conan/Jimmy and Rachel character-arc – which should please fans frustrated with its lack of progress over the years. Firstly, this volume traditionally opens with the conclusion to the story that closed out the previous volume. A crossover story!

Harley Hartwell is participating in a high school kendo tournament and a favorite to come out on top, but the competition is rudely interrupted when one of the referees is slashed to death near the bathroom stalls. The murderer, wearing a kendo mask and gear, was heard by a blind witness going into the bathroom. Nobody was heard coming out since then. But the three people found inside didn't have a drop of blood on them. Conan and Harley have to make quick work of the case, before Harley has to appear in the semi-finals of the tournament. There's also a crossover appearance of a character from Aoyama's pre-Case Closed adventure-comedy series Yaiba. Soshi Okita inserts himself into the investigation ("let me have a go first") with an amusingly dumb, not entirely incorrect false-solution. Interestingly, this volume also reveals Okita is a classmate of Momiji Ooka. She has romantic designs on Harley Hartwell and always refers to him as "my future husband."

The actual solution is deduced from an array of kendo-themed clues, red herrings and red herrings doubling as clues, which regrettably diminishes the fair play aspect for the average reader not intimately known with kendo – otherwise a technically sound, fair play detective story. I was really glad the ending didn't trot out another stitched together, Frankenstein-like solution or trick marring so many of the individual cases in later volumes. The next story continues this trend as well as setting everything in motion for the big story.

Conan and Richard Moore notice Rachel has been having strangely lately, acting secretive and generally being a Miss Sunshine, which is why they decide to shadow her. So they follow her around town, ending up a cafe, where Rachel meets up with Serena and Sera to plan a trip to Kyoto for spring break. They, of course, get caught and Rachel tells Conan their trip is not an ordinary one, but before she can explain, someone screams. The unpopular waiter of the place, Daiki Saraie, is found dead in the staff room. Whoever killed him demonstrated some extraordinary feats of strength.

First of all, Saraie's skull had been crushed with a huge, heavy vase, "even empty, it weighs a ton," but it was filled with water. Secondly, the murderer opened Saraie's locker by apparently tearing away the padlock ("how could a human being break a padlock open like this?") and the toolbox contained nothing that could have been "used to smash a padlock." So who killed him and how was it done as none of their suspects appears to have had the strength to lift the vase or tear off a padlock. Admittedly, the solution is not too difficult to anticipate as it also sets up the next two stories, while Conan being seriously distracted by trying to figure out what's so extraordinary about Rachel's trip to Kyoto, but appreciated this little, very well-done borderline impossible crime story. No stitches between the two tricks or between the tricks and the whodunit. Just a well-done (borderline) impossible crime/howdunit story reminiscent of certain short stories by Arthur Porges like "The Puny Giant" (1964).

The ending to this story directly sets up to the next story when Conan learns the trip to Kyoto is not a secretive, all-girls outing, but simply their high school class trip and everyone, especially Rachel, expects Jimmy to finally show his face – which is going to be tricky. Conan asks Anita to give him some of the temporary APTX 4869 antidote, but Anita refuses to hand multiple doses "so you can tour Kyoto with your girlfriend." So time to butter her up! Anita is a big fan of Big Osaka's star football/soccer player, Ryusuke Higo, but she lost her Higo plushie phone charm. Anita considers the charm unique, because Higo touched when he met her in the stands. So she's left emotionally devastated at its lost and Conan is determined to find it. But retracing it proves to be trickier than anticipated. Aoyama skillfully spun a great deal of believable complexity out of a very simple, straight forward story. Still a very minor story, plot-wise, which has its main purpose in getting Conan to the school trip as Jimmy. Nonetheless, a very well done retrieval story.

So the last story brings Conan, as Jimmy, to Kyoto to finally reunite him with Rachel and his class mates. The relationship between them appears to have gone from childhood friends to high school sweet hearts, only for Jimmy to run into an old friend of his mother, Keiko Kurachi. An award-winning actress who got her break through a university film club project ("...they're all big names now") and they have reunited to remake their first movie, but one of them received a weird, coded message with a dried leaf. She wants Jimmy to take a crack at the coded message.

Ho-Ling was not kidding when he said this story is "absolutely packed." Jimmy barely got a chance to glance at the code when their screenwriter is bizarrely murdered in his hotel room. A bloodied Taro Nishiki is found lying on the floor, but the big, ugly bloodstain with a trail of bloody footprints aren't found on the carpeted floor. But on the ceiling! So it looks as if "the killer yanked the victim into the air, stabbed him to death" and "walked across the ceiling," before flying out of 15th floor window – suggesting the handiwork of the Tengu ("...killer clearly wanted us to think it was Tengu"). A second murder is committed in the streets with a similar, bloody presentation, but the question here where the murderer found the time to create the scene. And, in between murders, a giant Tengu appeared in a hotel room witnessed by Jimmy. Jimmy also has to manage his “breaks” when reverting back to Conan with Harley secretly "helping" him out. There are other guest appearances, notably Inspector Fumimaro Ayanokoji and his pet chipmunk, originally created for the Case Closed anime movies, but they have now crossed over to the main manga series. So look forward to its conclusion in the next volume!

So, on a whole, a rock solid, thoroughly engaging volume of stories with the quality of the individual cases representing a return to form, while the quickening pace of the Jimmy/Conan/Rachel storyline rekindled the spirit of an earlier period in the series. Unabashed, quality fan service!

Background Details: Case Closed, vol. 93 by Gosho Aoyama

The 93rd volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed traditionally begins with the conclusion to the story that started in the previous volume, which finds Conan and Harley Hartwell at Coffee Poirot during a brief blackout – used as a cover for an attempted murder. When the lights turn back on, they find one of the customers crumpled up on the floor with a serious knife wound. A messy job spattering both Conan and Harley with blood. So the culprit must also be covered in blood, but none of the four suspects have so much as drop of blood on their hands or clothes. And how could the murderer have navigated a pitch-dark cafe to find the victim?

Plot-wise, the story is typical for this period, in the series, written around a trick-of-the-week which tend to have mixed results. This trick is hampered by its Frankenstein construction. I liked that the problem the stabbing presents is halfway between an impossible crime and an unbreakable alibi, but only the method the murderer employed to locate the victim is really good. I found it pleasantly surprising and had no idea that's actually possible. If you're interested, this YouTube video demonstrates it (spoilers, of course). However, it feels wasted on this story and the trick used to avoid blood splatter is clever in theory, but, considering the amount of evidence the would-be killer left behind, it comes across as delaying tactic rather than a serious attempt to get away with it. Inspector Meguire and his forensic team eventually would have stumbled to it without Conan, Harley or that barista detective.

It honestly would have made for a better, more satisfying, detective story had the murderer just used the location-trick/alibi to slip or inject the victim some poison. That being said, the story is not only about a strange stabbing at a cafe, but sets the tone for the overall volume as the individual cases basically function as stages for the bigger storylines, character-arcs and introducing new faces. This first story introduces two characters tied to a new storyline involving Harley. And it helped this otherwise average, uneven story.

Only exception is the next and best story from this volume. I mentioned in previous reviews I dislike kidnap plots, because they make for lousy detective fiction or paint-by-number thrillers, but Case Closed has delivered a couple of surprisingly good, original even, mystery-thrillers with a kidnap plot – e.g. vol. 72. The kidnap victim this time is Richard Moore's ex-wife and Rachel's mother, Eva Kaden, who's a successful attorney at law with enemies. Some of her enemies banded together, kidnapped her and brought her to an abandoned building to do some uncharacteristic heinous things (for this series) to her. Fortunately, Eva manages to escape and hide somewhere in the building to contact Rachel through a messenger app on her phone, but one of kidnappers joins the group chat under Eva's name ("mom is multiplying"). So now Conan, Rachel and Richard Moore not only have to find out where Eva is held captive, but how to separate Eva's real messages from the false ones. What ensues is a three-way cat-and-mouse game between Eva, her kidnappers and Conan & Co.

Admittedly, the setup is a little bit contrived, tech-wise, as the kidnappers had to strip down their phones (removing sim card, disabling GPS, etc.) to the point where they can make calls or use an app over the internet ("a police station antenna can't pick up WI-FI signals"). But it made for an incredibly fun story. I really liked how the messenger app was used to drive and direct the story, which in turn also provided a neat twist on the related code cracking and dying message stories from this series. Loved it!

Interestingly, Conan had to take charge and direct a panicked Richard and Rachel, which forced him to act more like Jimmy Kudo than Conan Edogawa. Rachel notices Conan's deduction skills aren't "those of an ordinary first grader" and finally demands answers from Conan. The ease with which Conan sidetracks Rachel is just ridiculous so close to vol. 100. We have reached the point where Rachel can catch Conan doing the "Sleeping Moore" routine and all he would need to do distract her is flash a laser pointer or jingle keys with his free hand.

The third story takes place during one of the regular, not always bloodless, camping trips of the Junior Detective League, but Doc Agasa is sick in bed and Rumi Wakasa takes his place – who has been behaving suspiciously since her introduction in vol. 91. She has caught the eye of Superintendent Hyoe Kuroda, of the Nagano Police, who also caught on the fact Conan is pretty much "Sleeping Moore's brains." So he right there at the camping ground alongside the Junior Detective League and a small group of college basketball players. Needless to say, the last group end up providing the story with a body and murderer. One of them burns to death while alone in his tent that had been tightly "zipped and locked shut" from the inside. More importantly, the victim was seen by everyone doing squats in his tent before the tent caught fire. It appears to be an tragic accident, but Conan believes it was murder. And proves it!

Just like the first story, the answer involves a two-part trick. I liked the simple, uncomplicated solution to the locked tent and the elaborate, maybe overly elaborate, fire-trick is undoubtedly very clever, but feels entirely out of place in this story with its outdoors setting. So not bad, on a whole, but it feels very uneven. I think the presence of Hyoe Kuroda and Rumi Wakasa added more mystery to the story than the quasi-impossible murder in a locked tent. Both fit the description of a high-ranking member of the Black Organization.

This volume ends with the setup of a story that will be concluded in the next volume, but setup is a good one with a crossover bonus. Harley is participating in a high school kendo tournament with a good chance of taking home the gold, when the tournament unsurprisingly becomes the scene of a gruesome murder. Someone dressed as a kendo fighter with mask, face covering and knife slashes one of the referees to the death in front of a blind witness – who heard the murderer go into the public restroom. And he heard nobody coming out since then. So the three people inside the restroom form a nice, tight closed-circle of suspects, but they're all free of blood? The solution to that problem will be presented in the next volume, but note that the story has two cameo crossovers by characters from Yaiba ("a hit comedy-adventure series which Aoyama created before Detective Conan").

So not a terribly bad or below average volume, especially not the excellent kidnapping of Eva Kaden, but overall, the stories are very uneven and an undeniable step down from the previous volume. What happened in the background of the stories really is what helped to keep this volume above average by preventing from it becoming terribly uneventful or worse.

Memory Reboot: Case Closed, vol. 92 by Gosho Aoyama

The 92nd volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed series customarily begins with the conclusion to the story that closed out the previous volume. Conan gets dragged along to the shopping mall to pick out new swim suits, but Rachel, Serena and Sera's shopping spree is rudely interrupted when even ruder customer of a clothing boutique is murdered – strangled to death in a fitting room. Plot-wise, the story is a howdunit with a dying message and a couple of suspects, but not a very good or memorable one. Another case of a late-period story written around ideas/trivia for tricks, which can and has worked in past stories. This is just not one of them. It felt too contrived to me. Nor did it help that every other story in this volume is so much better with much simpler, better played out plots.

However, this story serves as an introduction or lead-in for the next story, which is an important one. Masumi Sera has been trying to jog Conan's memory and seeing her in a specific swim suit finally dislodged a childhood memory of an eventful day at the beach ten years ago.

So the next story is a flashback when an actual six-year-old Conan, or Jimmy Kudo, visited the beach that day together with his mother and Rachel, which is where they meet a six-year-old Sera – who's at the beach with her mother and two older brothers. It goes without saying their identities, and backstories, tread neck deep in spoiler territory as it answers a lot questions posed since Sera's introduction all the way back in vol. 73. Fortunately, this important character-arc is complimented by an excellently handled, neatly executed and clued side-puzzle.

While the beach goers are enjoying themselves, a speeding car crashes through a guardrail of a cliff and plunges into the sea. The body of the driver is pulled out of the sunken car with a broken neck and a bag full of expensive, stolen designer watches complete with price tags. Someone was sitting in the passenger seat, but got out of the car and appears to have blended with the beach goers. So the police find and detail three people who bought new, dry clothes after the car crashed into the sea. They all have an explanation why they bought new clothes, but the stories prove hard to verify and they have to fall back on some good, old-fashioned Ellery Queen-style detective work. Not just the excellent clueing and sound reasoning from those excellent clues, but how the clues dovetail and logically click together. A perfect demonstration of how the visual detective story can show without telling or muddling certain details. Not to mention that a minor detective story can still be great and it was fun seeing Conan/Jimmy as an actual child with his deductive abilities still very much underdeveloped. So it's not him who solves the case, but a fantastic story all around.

The next story can also be described as a fairly minor, but still excellent, story beginning with the famous private eye, Richard Moore, winning a million yen (about $10,000) on a horse race bet. So he takes Rachel and Conan to the sushi restaurant next door to celebrate his lucky win. This time, the case interrupting their dinner is a woman who storms into the restaurant to retrieve her stolen carry-all from the toilet. She had been robbed of her carry-all on the train and traced it back to the sushi restaurant with a tracking app, but the pickpocket took "a winning slip from a horse race worth one million yen" before dumping it in the toilet. Fortunately, she had to opportunity to mark the pickpocket's white cuff with her bloody tumb, however, the three suspects in the restaurant have clean sleeves. So who did it?

Not a terribly complicated case, but a very well-handled, reasonably clued and fun little detective story. One that served to introduce a new, fun character, Kanenorih Wakita, who's a buck-teethed, eye-patched "wandering chef" and a mystery fan since he was "yea high" – who greatly admires the famous "Sleeping Moore." Wakita tries to impress Moore with his deductions and even provides a false-solution to the story, which immediately sets Conan on edge ("...Rum has one eye"). Another story I really enjoyed.

The next, last complete, story of this volume continues the trend of minor, but excellent, stories with a modern take on the Columbo-style inverted mystery.

Rumi Wakasa was introduced in the previous volume as the new assistant, clumsy assistant teacher at Teitan Elementary School, but, as often is the case with these newly introduced, recurring characters, something is off. This story hammers that fact home. Wakasa invited Conan and the Junior Detective League to her apartment to help paint a tiger screen for the school play, but trouble comes knocking when a murder is discovered next door. A rising and promising golf player, Teigo Banno, is found unconscious next to the bludgeoned body of his girlfriend, Kurumi Iyama. Banno claims all he can remember is some weird, pale-looking woman tased him when he opened the door. This woman apparently left trace evidence behind of her presence. She wrote "I love you" with a marker on Banno's cheek and photographed the act as she left behind a Polaroid picture showing her pale, white hand writing on his cheek with Iyama lying dead in the frame. Just as importantly, it shows his right hand under his head that eliminated the possibility of the imaginary-girlfriend-photo-trick.

Practically shackling yourself to a corpse, instead of creating the illusion of distance in time and/or space, is quite the dare devil alibi. The solution shattering his audacious alibi is not half bad. Simple, satisfying and a cleverly makes use of (ROT13) gur cevapvcyrf bs gur pbecfr-chmmyr jvgubhg qvfzrzorevat gur ivpgvz. This story is not only a good inverted mystery, but throws Rumi Wakasa in an uncomfortable new light. Wakasa had overheard Banno and Iyama fighting that morning when Banno tried to end their relationship, but she disagreed and demanded a one-hundred million yen (about $1 million) heart balm – which would clean him out. Iyama threatens to call in her daddy lawyer, if he doesn't agree to the payout. Banno gets her to agree to discuss the matter of dinner, but as Iyama was walking away, Wakasa him mutter, "this is gonna be your last supper." Not only did she nothing to prevent the murder, but she invited Conan over to become involved in the murder! Things are getting interesting en route to vol. 100!

This volume closes with the first chapter of the story that will be continued, and concluded, in the next volume, but the setup is already promising. The story brings Conan and Harley Hartwell to Coffee Poirot, where Toru Amuro works, when a customer is stabbed during a brief blackout. Not much more to say about this story, so far, except that the mysterious, nameless customer is more intriguing than the setup of the murder. When a new character appears, recurring or one-off, they always get a box with their name, age and occupation/role. All we got for this character is "???? (?) CUSTOMER." Like I said, things are getting interesting!

I ended the review of vol. 91 that the stories tended to be more entertaining than good, first-rate mysteries and primarily served to setup new pieces for the ongoing storyline, but the stories making up vol. 92 pulled off both (and more) to full satisfaction. The cases that were intertwined with the main story-threads are solidly constructed, often admirably clued stories, while the character-arcs and plot developments added an edge and subtle suspense to the overall volume. Maybe one of the best, certainly one of the most important, volumes in a while. I can't wait for vol. 93 to be published in January!

Murder Most Monstrous: Case Closed, vol. 91 by Gosho Aoyama

The 91st volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed series opens, traditionally, with the conclusion of the story that was setup, and closed out, the previous volume bringing Conan, Harley and the gang to the remote of village of Yadori – invited by the mayor to participate in a treasure hunt. They're not the only one who received an invitation to hunt for the legendary treasure at the abandoned hotel. A party comprising of a disgraced archaeologist, Michiki Tanzawa, a horror novelist, Fumie Masuko, a historian, Yasukatsu Someji and a young reporter, Hajime Tsurumi. Someji is killed under bizarre circumstances ("...killed by the legendary monster").

Yadori and surrounding area is the home of the legendary monster from Japanese folktales, the Nue. A creature with the head of a monkey, body of a tanuki, legs of a tiger and the tail of a snake. The previous volume ended with the Nue making an appearance.

When they arrived at the abandoned hotel, Rachel and Kazuha hear "this freaky cry" as the lawn around them catches fire. Next thing they see is the enormous monster coming around the corner of the hotel, "high as the second-floor windows," who sank its teeth into "DANGER, DO NOT ENTER" sign and pulled it out – before wandering back into the forest. The sign is found along the path the beast created with bite marks on it. Nearby the sign is the claw-marked body of the historian, Someji. Both the bite marks on the danger sign and claw marks on the victim's back are huge. This is only the beginning as this volume continues the story with a second, neatly-posed impossible crime.

The group is informed that the arrival of the police can take a while. So it's suggested everyone retreats to their rooms, until they arrive, but Conan, Harley and the Mayor remain behind on the lawn to discuss the case. Shortly thereafter, the people who retreated are hanging out of their windows to listen to their conversation or tell them to keep it down. While this little scene plays out, the strange cries are heard again, patches of grass started to catch fire and a scream is heard from the open, third-floor window of Tanzawa. Conan and Harley find Tanzawa dead from poisoning and "marks under his chin that looked like a snakebite," but the door was locked from the inside and the open window watched by Conan and Harley. So were the other suspects hanging out of their windows.

Needless to say, I enjoyed this despite one, or two, shortcomings. Firstly, the plot is a bit patchwork, which is not uncommon for this period in the series, but, this time, it didn't feel like a story written around a trick or plot-idea. Secondly, while it feels like a cohesively-plotted detective story, some parts work better than others. The poisoning in the locked room is the part that works the best and liked how (SPOILER/ROT13) gur gjb fhttrfgrq snyfr-fbyhgvbaf unir na ryrzrag bs gur gehgu. The appearance of the Nue in the story's opening-act certainly deserves points for its creative presentation and original solution, but not wholly convincing under these circumstances and the clueing is not as crisp as the story would like you to believe. So how the hulking, two-story high Nue appeared is not really solvable. But, visually, still a very appealing trick to see play out. Oh, and the last panel introduces a new character setting up a story-arc for Harley involving an obsessive fan/stalker. I've rambled on enough about this one story.

The second story marks the return of Jirokichi Sebastian, head of the Sebastian Conglomerate, who has been chasing Kaitou KID, a modern-day Arsène Lupin, since the events in vol. 44 and their rivalry has been the detective genre's version of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner – complete with ridiculously elaborate, baited traps. It's what help make Jirokichi my favorite recurring character for some time, but their rivalry perhaps peaked after vol. 61 as the quality of heists began to taper off with each subsequent appearance of the two. This story has not convinced me their rivalry has not run its course.

An elderly widow, Kimika Tomoyose, reaches out to Jirokichi with an antique puzzle box, called "The Wooden God," made by the legendary craftsman from the Bakumatsu era, Kichiemon. A historical, in-universe figure whose various, nineteenth century mechanical marvels appeared in previous stories like the Iron Tanuki (vol. 65) and the hungry store house (vol. 66). The puzzle box was left to her by her husband, but the instructions to open the box is hidden somewhere in his rare book collection. A collection counting over ten thousand books! Mrs. Tomoyose offers to donate the collection to the Sebastian Library on the condition Jirokichi finds the instructions. Inside the box is the world's largest moonstone, Luna Memoria, "one of the big gems sought by the Kaito KID." Jirokichi smells an opportunity to let KID figure out how to open the box and catch him at the same time. So a public challenge is issued to Kaitou KID as Jirokichi begins to prepare another fail proof, tightly secured trap with past experiences in mind.

However, the story is not really about how to open the puzzle box or moonstone, which become something of an after thought to the story, but three mini-puzzles, of sorts. Firstly, Conan's aware Kaitou KID is already in the building and likely disguised, but whose identity and face did the master of disguise "borrow" this time? After realizing KID is inside, Conan notes that everyone's "starting to look suspicious." This mini-puzzle has clearest clueing in this volume. Secondly, the location of the piece of paper with instructions on how to open the box, which is tied to the third, more personal memento left behind in the box. So, on a whole, the story is not a bad one, but feels very slight for one featuring both Jirokichi and KID. If you remove them, the story would have been one of those character-oriented, heart-shaped puzzles Motohiro Katou does so well in Q.E.D.

I've been looking forward to the third story of this volume for years. A new assistant teacher, named Rumi Wakasa, is introduced to the class of Conan, Anita and the Junior Detective League at Teitan Elementary School. Conan and company accompany Rumi to the old, creepy looking storage shed on the school grounds to get powdered limestone for the dodge ball court, which turns out to have a cellar. At the bottom of the cellar stairs, Conan finds a decayed skeleton in a pile of powdered lime. The police assumes the man died as the result of an unfortunate accident, but is there a link between the skeleton and a gang of burglars who disappeared with two-hundred million yen in gold bullion. And in the mean while, Conan and the Junior Detective League go to work on an old, coded message they discovered in the cellar. But the key to code is not as easily cracked as Conan first assumed. Japanese code cracking stories rarely translate into English as they were intended and this one is no different, but the main point of the story is to introduce a new character. She's naturally not who she seems to be, but a klutz who's not who she appears to be gave me déjà vu.

The last two chapters setup a story that will be concluded in the next volume in which Conan gets dragged by Rachel, Serena and Sera to the shopping mall to try on and buy swim suits ("this must be boring for you, Conan"). While shopping, they meet a thoroughly unpleasant costumer and Sera remarks, "just the type of person who's get offed in a mystery novel" ("you'll jinx things and make it come true"). That customer is found strangled to death in a dressing room moments later. Only clues are a smear of lipstick on the victim's thumb and a dying message. Not to be overlooked, Conan began to recall dim childhood memories of meeting Sera at the beach after seeing her in a bathing suit. That always does the trick when you need to jog your memory. Apparently, answers are forthcoming in the next volume.

So, on a whole, the stories in this collection are more entertaining than good and mainly served to setup new pieces of the on-going storyline than posing first-rate, standalone mysteries. Yes, the ending is not yet in sight as the Japanese releases have reached, as of this writing, volume 105. That makes me very curious what Viz is planning to do once they catch up with the original releases. Hopefully, it'll open the door to translations of other Conanian adjacent media/spin-offs/novels.

Back in Black: Case Closed, vol. 90 by Gosho Aoyama

The 90th volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed series is a star-studded affair with many familiar faces and plot developments furthering the ongoing storyline of the Black Organization, Men in Black and the character-arcs tied to them, but traditionally begins with some tidying up – concluding the story that closed out the previous volume. Previously, Conan and Anita began to probe a 17-year-old murder case of a shogi champion, Koji Haneda, who died under questionable circumstances in a hotel room during a tournament in the United States. A fresh case presents itself when the body of a real estate president is found beaten to death in his outside guesthouse. The victim was holding a pair of novelty scissors, honey is discovered in the head wound, shattered glass is on the floor and the water was left running ("what an odd case"). Doc Agasa created the novelty scissors, which is why they were called to the scene.

Conan and Subaru Okiya know who the killer is, but not how he was killed or what (i.e. murder weapon) killed him. However, the solution is dissatisfying for two very different reasons. The explanation for the method and weapon is clever, in theory, but unconvincingly executed and a good example of a late period Case Closed story where the trick came first with a story written around it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. On the other hand, the idea behind the (hidden) dying message involving the novelty scissors had potential, but was lost in the tangle of plot-threads. Aoyama should have scrapped the how-dun-it angle to focus on piecing together the dying message, explaining why Agasa's scissors are a novelty item and how it could have been used to create a dying message. I think the result would have been a better, tighter plotted detective story giving a bit more room to the character's storylines ("who are you, Conan?").

Anyway, the solution to the dying message here provides new insights in the death of Koji Haneda and the second-in-command of the Men in Black, "Rum." That neatly leads into the next story.

Richard Moore is asked to attend a late night TV broadcast in which Gaito Hotta, "the Spirit Detective," is going to summon the ghost of Haneda to get the truth of his mysterious death nearly twenty years ago – naturally Conan invites himself along for the ride ("why'd you have to tag along, brat?"). When they arrive at the hotel to meet the ghost-whisperer, they hear the sound of plates and glasses smashing coming from Hotta's room. So they run in and found "a trail of footprints from some spilled wine leading to a bedroom in the back" and saw someone jumping from the balcony unto the balcony of the room next door. Hatto is lying on the bloodsoaked bed. When they go check the room next door, the door is opened by Masumi Sera! She's hiding someone in her hotel. Just not the murderer, but a mysterious little girl.

The problem of Hotta's murder plays second fiddle to the overarching storyline developments and Sera's sticky predicament. She has to play detective and solve the case promptly, while trying to hide the little girl or risk the police finding evidence of her presence. Even worse, they find her! That's easier said than done when Conan's hanging around the place ("What did I tell you? The kid's good, isn't he?"). But who's the little girl? A tremendously fun, exciting story that actually feels like some progress is being made, storyline-wise. I also enjoyed Conan screwing up the "Sleeping Moore" act by losing his voice modulator and only finding out after he already stunned Moore.

The detective plot of the third case is even more inconsequential to the story than in the previous one. Conan and Okiya learn that a famous rock star, Rokumichi Hado, is finally going to debut a song he composed seventeen years ago – titled "Asaca." So there are two potential leads to the Haneda case and Black Organization. However, the rock star ends up dead, hanging from the rafters with a guitar strapped to him, but was it suicide or murder? However, the plot has to be thinnest, least interesting since the first handful of volumes in the series with all the interesting stuff happening in the background. Conan and Okiya aren't the only ones looking into the rock star's hanging. Toru Amuro is present as well ("...no shortage of detectives on the case"). Someone from the Black Organization is keeping a close eye on them. So still a great story despite it not being a particular good detective story.

Finally, the last two chapters setup the story that'll be played out further and concluded in the next volume, but the beginning is very promising and apparently a return to the detective story proper.

Harley and Kazuha turn up in Tokyo to drag Conan, Rachel, Serena and Richard Moore along on a treasure hunt. The mayor of the small, remote village of Yadori wrote to Harley that a clue to the location of the legendary Yadori treasure has been found and invited the young sleuth to test his detective skills by finding the treasure. They accept and find themselves staying at an abandoned, rundown hotel in the middle of nowhere. It used to be a popular tourist destination, until an archaeologist digging from treasure died in a rock slide. The dying, half-buried man left a note with the word "Nue" on it. Nue is the name of a monster from old folktales ("head of a monkey, body of a tanuki, legs of a tiger, an' tail of a snake") who makes a fiery appearance and leaves a body in its wake. So look forward to the rest of the story and its conclusion in the next volume.

So, all in all, a somewhat odd, but not bad, volume playing out like a regular volume with separate cases, but they all take a backseat to the main storyline developments – which is usually reserved for the longer, volume-spanning stories (e.g. vol. 58 and vol. 78). While the individual plots were slighter than usual, the stories felt big and important because of who were involved in them. And what was revealed. So this volume can be summed up as a definite fan pleaser as the series begins its trek towards vol. 100.

The X-Files: Case Closed, vol. 89 by Gosho Aoyama

The 89th volume of Gosho Aoyama's long-running Case Closed series begins, as so often, with winding up the story that started in the previous volume. Rachel, Serena and Masumi wanted to try their hands at an all-girl band and go to a sound studio to practice, where they bump into another amateur girl band, but quickly turns into a full-blown murder investigation – when the drummer of the other girl band is murdered. Strangled with a weapon that cannot be found on the closely searched and guarded premise. And, to make things even more difficult, the security camera had been partially covered with a phone on a selfie-stick at the time of the murder. Inspector Meguire humorously observed in the previous volume how every amateur sleuth in town is on hand to solve this case. Everyone from "the kid detective" (Conan) to "the barista detective" (Toru Amuro) and they make short, efficient work of this tricky murder case.

I ended my previous review with the remark the story could go one of two ways, pretty average or surprisingly good. Fortunately, the story ended up being mostly good with a plot hinging primarily on how the murderer simultaneously created an alibi and managed to spirit away the murder weapon. Only the tinkering with the motive somewhat cheapened the overall story a little bit (ROT13): gur niratre zbgvir vf n jryy-jbea, phygheny gebcr bs Wncnarfr qrgrpgvir svpgvba, juvpu V pna npprcg, ohg qvfyvxr guvf nggrzcg gb fcvpr vg hc ol univat gur zheqrere orvat jebat nobhg gur ernfba gurl qrpvqrq gb gnxr fbzrbar'f yvsr. Va guvf pnfr, gur zbgvir fhqqrayl orpnzr n pbagbegvba npg jurer abar jnf ernyyl arprffnel. That minor complaint aside, this is on a whole a pretty good story.

The background decoration on the cover already gave it away, but the second story is indeed a now out-of-season Christmas mystery story and a good one at that!

Doc Agasa takes Conan, Anita and the Junior Detective League to the department store, "all Christmassed up," to cash-in his coupon for a lunch at the gourmet restaurant at the top of the department store – before the kids scatter across the place to hunt for presents ("...texting me about presents they've found for themselves"). But while they're amusing themselves, the gourmet chef is stabbed and wounded outside the restaurant where they just ate. And the assailant ran down the staircase. Conan alerts the Junior Detective League to "get to the nearest staircase and keep an eye on anyone who emerges." The police detained three customers who were caught hurrying away, "all covered in sweat," but all have ready-made excuses. So the testimony of the Junior Detective League should settle the matter, however, when they regroup they all give a different description of the fleeing attacker ("all our eyewitnesses disagree").

Conan begins to reconstruct their movement, talk with other potential witnesses in order to prove that not only the three different descriptions were correct from the start, but "that all three testimonies point to the same person." Very well played and an excellent treatment of the one-of-three suspects-type stories that features regularly in this series, which this time felt completely fresh and invigorated. This is also how the Junior Detective League should be used.

The third story is something really special. Last year, I reviewed The Case of the Little Green Men (1951) by Mack Reynolds in which I remarked that the potential puzzles posed by flying saucers, space invaders and futuristic technology would make a nice change from haunted houses, dodgy seances and lingering curses – which normally haunt the impossible crime genre. A locked room mystery, impossible crime or simply a straightforward detective story presented as something straight out an episode of The X-Files is not entirely unheard of, listed half a dozen examples in the review ranging from Fredric Brown and Clayton Rawson to Q.E.D. and Jonathan Creek series, but the plotting potential of UFO sightings and alien interlopers remains largely untapped even today. I'm really glad I can add the third story from this volume to that very specialized list of (impossible crime) stories.

Hina Wada is a 17-year-old student and rival of Rachel in the school karate students, but now she come to ask her father, Richard Moore, to take on a most unusual case. She was out jogging in Haido Park with her karate club when she suddenly spotted a decidedly alien-looking craft in the sky ("the classic cigar-shaped model"), which she tried to pursue, but it was gone by the time she reached the top of the stairs. This is incidentally the exact same public park and stairs where the attack from vol. 84 and vol. 85 occurred. Richard Moore advertises his detective agency with the promise he'll "pursue any case to the end of the universe." So off to the park they go to investigate a potential alien presence in Japan ("Yoko Okina is playing a paranormal investigator in a new TV show... so dad's into aliens now"), but find an unexpected twist instead.

In the park, they come across Detective Chiba investigating a truly bizarre, dead end case. Kyogo Nakatsu was the editor of a UFO magazine whose body was found lying face down in recently pored concrete. There was, however, no concrete in his lungs. Nakatsu was suffocated before he fell into the concrete, but it gets even stranger. Next to the magazine editor was his freelance photographer, Yusuke Kuchiki, lying face up in the then hardened concrete. After the police cuts him out, Kuchiki swears "an alien came out of UFO, killed Nakatsu in mid-air, then got back in the UFO and flew away." Strangely enough, the hardened footprints in the concrete and absence of a murder weapon do not contradict his outrageous claim. No drag marks to suggests shenanigans with the body. The two sets of footprints are equally deep and both sets face the same direction ("...no sign that either person walked out"). Conan is not easily fooled, "this crime was committed by a human being," but how exactly was it was done? The solution is good and technically sound, but, where the story really stands out, is how effectively it put everything at work. From the UFO sighting and the suspect's claims of an alien killer to the tricks being employed, which resulted in an inverted detective story with a new take on the no-footprints impossibility that gave the murderer a rock-solid alibi. An alibi while only being an arm-length away. Brilliant stuff!

The last, full-length story from this volume is a continuation, of sorts, of the story from vol. 85 in which Shukichi Haneda, a shogi player, was on the verge of collecting all seven crown titles – seven national shogi championships of Japan. Shukichi Haneda handed his girlfriend, traffic cop Yumi Miyamoto, a sealed envelope with the request to not open it until he has collected all seven titles. Inside is a signed marriage registration to which she only has to sign her name. So, having won all seven titles, she can sign the paper, but she lost the envelope. Fortunately, Conan is on hand to help her finding it, which leads to mean, old caretaker of the building who a shogi fan. The old man finds her unworthy to marry a master of game, but gives her an opportunity to get it back by cracking a code he created. A fun enough story, but nothing particular good or outstanding. Obviously intended as a springboard to the next story.

The story ends with a reference to Shukichi Haneda's late brother-in-law, Koji Haneda, who was a master shogi and chess player before dying under mysterious circumstances during a chess tournament in the United States. Anita recognizes the name as she seen it on the same list with Conan's real name on it. Oh, the plot thickens! So the final chapter begins with Conan and Anita researching the case, which happened seventeen years ago, but they quickly become distracted by a much more recent murder case. That morning, the body of the president of a real estate company was found in the outside guesthouse of his estate holding a pair of novelty scissors Doc Agasa invented. But, as they begin to investigate, they begin to notice a resemblance to the murder of Haneda seventeen years ago. This promising story is going to be concluded in the next volume.

I think it's a fair conclusion to state vol. 89 is not only a huge improvement over the previous one, but can be counted as one of the strongest volume without a longer case, major event or crossover appearances in a long time. It almost read like a throwback to an earlier period in the series. Greatly enjoyed it! And very much look forward to beginning the countdown to vol. 100!

The Living Dead: Case Closed, vol. 88 by Gosho Aoyama

The 88th volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed traditionally begins with the conclusion to the story that closed out the previous volume, which placed two recurring side-characters from the pop-culture world of this series, Yoko Okina (pop star) and Ryusuke Higo (soccer player), on the scene of a murder – an Italian restaurant that was recently opened by a high school teammate of Higo. A body was found in the storage room and the story ended with Conan figuring out the cunning killer made use of a simple tool to create "an instant alibi."

I'll grand that the trick to whip up an instant alibi is clever, in theory, but how it was put to use here comes across as cheap and silly. Almost like it was written around the idea, which is not a recipe for a good detective story. Regrettably, this story is a good example. I found the little side story of Richard Moore and Anita being devastated over the news that their celebrity crushes are dating each other slightly more interesting than the case itself. Inspector Meguire is becoming a very entertaining, quasi-self aware side-character who has becomes tired of the formula and tropes of the series. Meguire is beginning to see Conan as a little grim reaper stalking city's crime scenes and begins to tire of the whole "Sleeping Moore" act (Sleeping Moore: "but you can't overlook how ludicrous that theory is" Meguire (thinking): "not as ludicrous as these performances..."). So mostly a poor showing in the opening story, but the next one is somewhat of an improvement.

The second story returns to the setting of a previous case, Drop-Dead Delicious Ogura Ramen, where Conan solved an impossible murder by poison in vol. 73. This time, Conan is in the company of Rachel, Serena and Masumi Sera when they learn from the owners about "a big crime went down" in the neighborhood – "a woman down the street was robbed and killed." Apparently, the murderer was chased down to the noodle shack and three customers present were questioned, but no arrests were made. However, the two police women who discovered the crime, Yumi Miyamoto and Neako Miike, keep returning to the noodle shack to ask questions. You guessed it. Conan happened to be there are at the same time as the three suspected customers and one of the now regular visits from the two police women. Conan has to deduce whom of the three customers is robber/murderer based on how they over season their food and why that person was seen, shortly after the crime, swinging a garden hose in front of the building ("...like some kind of weird ritual"). There was tape residue found on one end of the hose, but why would the murderer "tape something to a hose and swing it around instead of making a fun for it?"

A good question and the answer is not half bad, better integrated into the story than the instant alibi-trick from the previous story, but both tricks obviously came out of the same brainstorming session. So the plot can feel a bit cluttered, but overall, a small improvement over the previous story with some minor developments of the larger storyline going on in the background.

Fortunately, the third story is a return to form and reads like a parody of Yamaguchi Masaya's Ikeru shikabane no shi (Death of the Living Dead, 1989) and Masahiro Imamura's Shijinso no satsujin (Death Among the Undead, 2017)! Richard Moore takes Conan and Rachel on a "pilgrimage" to a deserted, rundown lodge the woods, which has become legendary as the location where Zombie Blade: Feast of Death was filmed – a "sleeper hit" with horror fans starring Yoko Okina. Harley and Kazuha also turn up at the lodge ahead of the film crew and cast members to shoot a teaser of the long-rumored sequel. Harley tells Conan there was a strange incidents a few days ago nearby, when a couple hit something with their car and when they went to look "a zombie in tattered clothes with its neck all broken" crawled from underneath the car. So they left cartoon smoke. The cast and crew of the film have a haunting, of sorts, of their own.

They all used to be members of the same college horror club. Eight years ago, they came to the very same lodge to shoot a horror movie for the school film festival, but the brother of the current director decided to turn their horror movie into a Scooby Doo-style locked room mystery ("...twist will be that the zombie is a human killer in disguise"). And came up with a trick to make a corpse disappear from a room like "it was revived as a zombie and walked out." Joji Naito demonstrates his trick by disappearing from a room with every exit guarded and observed, but he never reappeared and a subsequent search of the room turned up nothing. Four days later, the group returns to the lodge to discover Joji somehow reappeared in the room, sitting against the wall, dead from dehydration. In the present, the producer unexpectedly commits suicide and filmed it on his phone, which includes Conan and Harley finding the body. So murder seems out of the question, but then the story takes an unexpected turns ("they're coming through the window!") and a second body is found. This death is also captured on video, but shows the victim was attacked and killed by the dead producer! And his body has disappeared!!

An incredibly fun story and the best from this volume, but could have been a series classic had the video-trick been more credible. The idea is solid enough, in principle, but (SPOILER/ROT13) na rvtug-lrne tnc vf gbb jvqr gb pbaivapvatyl hfr byq sbbgntr sbe n gevpx yvxr guvf. The solution to the impossible disappearance from the guarded room (“that's the room with the disappearing corpses”) is good and quite appropriate for a horror-themed detective story. Edgar Allan Poe would approve! So, overall, a pretty good and above all entertaining story.

On a side note, I can sometimes understand why some part of the Conan fandom, who are not necessarily detective fans, get frustrated with the slow-moving or even lack of development in certain areas – like the Conan/Jimmy/Rachel angle. Rachel hears Conan talking to Harley on the phone recording and notices how similar Conan sounds like Jimmy when talking normally ("was that Conan? It sounded like Jimmy"), but gets easily sidetracked by Harley ("da kid's copyin' me"). I know I drummed on about this twenty, thirty volumes ago, but, now nearly 90 volumes deep into the series, it has to be said Aoyama wasted an important character and storyline. Over the first fifty volumes, Rachel should have become increasingly suspicious, uncertain and worried before trying to figure what Jimmy is up to, who Conan really is and eventually putting them together. That should have been her case to solve. Not wandering around for hundreds of stories in a daze obliviousness with occasional flashes of lucidity.

Anyway, this volume ends with a story that will be concluded in the next volume and begins with Serena suggesting to Rachel and Masumi they form an all-girl band. So they end up at a sound studio that rents space where bands can practice and run into another girl band. And, as to be expected, one of them gets murdered. What should have been a open-and-shut case is wide open, because the surveillance camera was partially covered by a phone on a selfie-stick and a mirror had been covered. Both would have shown the murderer strangling the victim. I loved how Inspector Meguire calmly observes, "we've got the kid detective, the girl detective and the barista detective," who are respectively Rachel, Masumi and Toru Amuro. Not sure what to expect from this story as it could turn to be either pretty average or something surprisingly good. I'll find out next volume which has at least one story that already sounds very promising.

So, on a whole, this volume is slightly disappointing and without the third, zombie-themed story it would have been below average, but, to be fair, there only two complete stories in this volume. Judged only by those two complete stories, it's actually a pretty good, solid volume. Not the best in the series, but good enough and look forward to next few volumes. Hopefully, Saguru Hakuba reappears one of these days, because I'm still unwilling to entirely let go of my pet theory.

Blogging Gone Wrong: Case Closed, vol. 87 by Gosho Aoyama

The 87th volume of Gosho Aoyama's Case Closed series begins, traditionally, with the concluding chapters to the story that left the previous volume, quite literary, on a cliffhanger as the latest victim of the cop-killing serial killer is dragged behind a car with a noose around his neck – plunging over the edge of a ravine. The victims reputedly belong to the Woodpecker Society. A secretive group of Nagano policemen and the latest murder appears to implicate someone from their own ranks, Kansuke Yamato, who disappeared as the evidence against him began to emerge.

This is somewhat of a strange story, because everything except the Woodpecker murders are of interest here.

Firstly, the previous volume introduced the character of Nagano's 1st Investigation Division Director, Hyoe Kuroda, who makes a startling remark, "the brains behind Sleeping Moore, a little boy who collects clues and makes clever observation so Moore can close the case" – "that's the gossip about you at the Metropolitan Police Headquarters, Conan Edogawa." Worst of all, Hyoe Kuroda fits one of the descriptions of the second-in-command of the Black Organization, "Rum." Secondly, Conan role in the story is pretty much that of an observant, well-informed onlooker as the Nagano police need no help identifying and capturing the murderer. So rather a shame the case itself is one of the worst series with the cliffhanger murder revealing a preposterously stupid trick. It also made the murderer standout like a light flare, but scratched my head (like Kosuke Kindaichi) trying to figure out how such a stunt could have been pulled off. I like a good trick as much as the next detective fan and have overlooked some stretching for the sake of a good or original idea, but, even by comic book standards, this solution is insultingly bad, unconvincing and hardly worth the risk. Something that can get the killer killed.

The only way to make such a trick work is to have it go horribly wrong (SPOILER/ROT13): sbe rknzcyr, Nxvlnzn qvrf qhevat gur rkrphgvba bs gur gevpx ol fznpxvat snpr svefg vagb gur fvqr bs gur enivar, juvyr gur cybg pbagvahrf gb hasbyq jvgu nhgbzngvpnyyl fraq grkg zrffntrf. Ohg abguvat unccraf va gur raq. Fb gurl erghea gb gur fprar bs gur ynfg zheqre naq svaq Nxvlnzn qnatyvat sebz gur gerr oenapu jvgu gur urnqyrff znaardhva ba vg. That would have been acceptable. So read this one for the characters and ongoing storyline.

Fortunately, the second story is much better and combines the inverted mystery format with the locked room mystery. Doc Agasa won a trip to an all-you-can-eat cake buffet at a famous hotel and the Junior Detective League is right there with him to share in the spoils of victory. While enjoying their cake, they meet two rivaling TV stars, Saya Kitami and Kyona Shono, who star in reality show competition to have the most popular blog ("...loser has to shave her head"). Anita calls it "trashy fun." Kyona claims to have found out a dirty secret and tells Kyona she better start waving the white flag, if she doesn't want it to go public. So, of course, Kyona is found bludgeoned to death in her hotel room with the key card right next to her. And the doors don't lock automatically. That makes it locked room murder, but Conan knows Saya killed her co-star. But how? And why?

I had to go back to two much earlier volumes to refresh my memory, but this story indeed recycled its plot ideas from a previous story dating back to the late '90s. Everything from the locked room-trick to the motive, but recycled into something entirely new. The similarities are obviously there, however, the way in which this story, originally published in 2015, plays out could not have been done back then. Simply because some things featuring in this story didn't exist in 1998. It would have been better had these new things been used to create something new instead of recreating old plots. One new addition to the plot screams out to be used for an alibi-trick or frame job, but, as it is, this is not a bad locked room mystery overall.

A minor highlight of this story is Inspector Meguire thinking of Conan as "a tiny grim reaper," because he "pops up at every crime scene."

The next story is a flashback to when Conan, then still Jimmy, met Rachel for the first time in preschool and their friendship was not immediately evident. Jimmy is an obnoxious, bratty child who just discovered Sherlock Holmes and tries to impress Rachel with his deductions. Jimmy becomes mightily suspicious of their teacher, Ronsuke Efune, who seems to be playing favorites with Rachel. But why? I expected this to be nice little fluff story showing where their friendship started and Jimmy's shaky beginnings as a detective. Jimmy might have been clever, mouthy brat in preschool who notices things, but clearly lacked the life experience to follow his astute observations to its logical conclusions. And misinterpreted their teacher's action ("I bet he's trying to recruit that kid to be his evil henchman"). But then the story took a slightly darker turn towards the end. A touch darker than the premise warranted (rira gur jbeq tebbzvat jnf hfrq). A good story regardless.

The last two chapters setup a story that will be concluded, traditionally, in the next volume and centers on two recurring side characters from the pop-culture of the Conanverse, Yoko Okino and Ryusuke Higo. Okino is the famous pop star Richard Moore is always drooling over and Higo is the star player of the Big Osaka soccer team. Apparently, Anita is as big a fan of Ryusuke Higo as Moore is of Yoko Okino. Anita and Moore are left devastated when the news breaks on social media that the two stars were spotted jewelry shopping together. Anita asks Moore to investigate ("pro bono, of course") whether, or not, they are dating ("these two are getting unhinged"). That leads them to an Italian restaurant recently opened by one of Higo's high school teammates and a body in the storage room with the next volume revealing how "the killer created an instant alibi by making clever use of a simple tool."

So, on a whole, a pretty good volume of cases, but one carried by the promise and intrigue by the main storyline and the introduction of the character of the Divisional Manager, Hyoe Kuroda – who has noticed the pattern of Conan's involvement in Moore's cases. And the ending of the blogging case reveals Kuroda has transferred from Nagano to Tokyo. So very much look forward how that develops further over the next couple of volumes, but really hope the individual cases will see an uptick in plotting quality.