Bad Player's Good Reviews
Who's the Shadow? / シャドウ
The Devotion of Suspect X / 容疑者Xの献身
Fortunately, The Devotion of Suspect X is much, much better than the Detective Galileo stories, structured as an actual mystery novel and not a series of cheap science fair experiments. I didn’t love it, but I did enjoy it.
The Maid
It Walks By Night
It Walks By Night / 夜歩く
It Walks By Night is an awful book that no one should read. This isn’t going to be a roast, because it’s not that kind of awful, but I think the tone of this review has been set. It Walks By Night takes place almost immediately before The Village of Eight Graves and features a fantastic atmosphere involving sleepwalking, a supremely dysfunctional family, and a cursed sword, but wastes it all.
Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane
Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane is, as you might surmise from the title, an Ace Attorney-inspired murder mystery video game. (Games in that sub-genre are never particularly subtle about their inspiration.) The main feature that differentiates Tyrion Cuthbert is the fact that it takes place in a fantasy world with magic. Well, I suppose technically Ace Attorney has already done that, but unlike that game, where the use of magic itself was the crime, here we’re solving crimes that just happen to take place in a world with magic.
Triangle Strategy / トライアングルストラテジー
Replaceable Summer / 夏のレプリカ
Illusion Acts Like Magic / 幻惑の死と使途
Special Report Division / 特殊報道部
Medium - The Medium Detective Hisui Jouzuka / メディウム 霊媒探偵城塚翡翠
At the meeting Hisui demonstrates her powers, warns Yuika that she’s in danger, and asks to make a home visit to investigate further. However, when Hisui and Kougetsu go to visit Yuika, it’s too late—she’s been murdered in her apartment. The police suspect a break-in gone wrong, but Hisui tells Kougetsu that the culprit is a woman. Thus begins a partnership between medium and novelist: Hisui forms a conclusion using her power, and then Kougetsu uses his knowledge and experience as a mystery novelist to find evidence to back up Hisui’s findings (since they can’t just go to the police and directly report Hisui’s magic powers).
As Kougetsu and Hisui solve cases, we see interludes from the perspective of a serial killer who has been abducting and murdering beautiful young women. He’s extremely methodical and careful, and thus has avoided leaving any traces or clues for the police so far. He’s convinced himself that the only way someone would be able to catch him is with supernatural powers….
I hated Medium when I was reading it. I loved Medium when I finished.
And Then They Never Die / そして誰も死ななかった
Ten years later, Ushio is a financially stable sleazebag. He works for an at-home health (read as: prostitution) company. One day he receives an invitation from a mystery novelist to a party on a private island celebrating the novelist’s career. (Despite being a one-hit wonder, Ushio is still known to the world as an author.) Ushio brushes off the invitation until he discovers one of the girls at his company moonlights as a mystery writer—and also received an invitation.
The pair and three other mystery novelists set out for the island, which contains nothing but the host's mansion and studio. However, when they arrive, their host is nowhere to be found, and five dolls have been set up in the dining room. With five four mystery writers (and one sleazebag) present, it doesn’t take them long to figure out what the dolls mean. The group is essentially stranded on the island (their boat lost some fuel on the ride over and doesn’t have enough for the return trip), so they resolve to take precautionary measures that night and figure out what to do tomorrow—which is not cautious enough, since someone massacres all five overnight.