And so we arrive at the third book in the Genya Toujou series. The previous two books provided a wonderful blend of J-horror, murder mystery, and folklore, and Those Who Cast a Curse Like the Headless is supposed to be a contender of the peak of the series. So does this book have enough to take the crown, or is it getting ahead of itself?
The short answer is yes, it lives up to the hype.
The book takes place in Himekami Village, which is built around Himekubi Mountain, and primarily stars the Higami clan. The Higami clan is divided into three families, and is plagued by a curse from the local god Aokubi-sama, which causes the male heirs to the family to be sickly and often die young. (For the record, "kami" and "kubi" mean "head" or "neck" in this instance, because it's not Genya Toujou without a creepy, cohesive naming scheme.)
The first murder in the story takes place during a rite that members of the Higami clan perform at three and thirteen (and sometimes twenty-three and thirty-three) years old to help assuage Aokubi-sama's ire. The second incident occurs ten years later, during a ritual meeting between the heir to the Higami clan and potential brides. There are impossible circumstances abound but—as the title of the book suggests—very few heads.
Part of the reason the first incident becomes so complicated is that a servant-boy of the Higami clan sneaks onto the mountain and witnesses the kubinashi, or Headless, a monster without a head, as well as the apparent disappearance of the victim from inside a building, only for their corpse to turn up at the bottom of a well. All entrances to the mountain are watched, and the servant-boy keeps watch on the building, plus the building is surrounded by gravel that would make noise if somebody stepped on it, which makes it seem impossible for anyone to have entered the building or moved the victim to the well. (They actually call the mountain "quadruple-locked," but I have no idea what the fourth layer is supposed to be.)
There are some mysterious circumstances to the second murder as well, but the biggest mystery might be the fact that the heads were cut off. The victims are different genders, and nobody else in the area has gone missing, so the identity of the victims seems pretty obvious. (The victims are also identified via body markings and fingerprints.) So that closes off the most typical and straightforward reason for decapitating the victims, and... doesn't leave much remaining. (This is obviously a big departure from that Ellery Queen novel, where the "twist solution" is merely that initial question.)
I’m not a huge fan of John Dickson Carr’s The Three Coffins. I think the solution is contrived, unrealistic (even by mystery novel standards), and poorly clued. I’m a firm believer that if it didn’t have the locked room lecture it’d just be another forgettable Carr. But one of my friends told me that one of the things that makes The Three Coffins fun is the fact that it can give the locked room lecture but still fool you as to the locked room solution.
Just like Bird of Ill Omen had a lecture on impossible disappearances, Headless has a lecture on decapitations. And despite laying out all the possibilities and permutations, it still manages to slip by undetected. The fact that Mitsuda plays with his cards on the table highlights the strength of Headless' plot.
Headless also repeats the practice of providing a huge list of all the mysteries presented by the story near the end, which is great for setting the rules of engagement with the story. Part of the horror is leaving some bits unexplained, so clearly laying out what is and isn't expected to be solved keeps the game fair.
The book is presented as a serialized novel written by the wife of a police officer who took an interest in the case, and alternates between the viewpoint of that police officer and the servant-boy who served as a witness to the first murder. This structure, and the entire length of the book, is used beautifully. (I dare not say more.)
This is my own little pet theory, but something I noticed is that many components of Headless seem evocative of Seishi Yokomizo's The Inugami Curse. For instance, the first victim is discovered with their legs sticking up, the servant-boy's name is Yokitaka, there are scenes where the three-family clan has gathered to discuss inheritance.... It felt like a bunch of fun nods, but without ever intruding on the story.
However, while Headless might be the best mystery in the series, it’s only best as a mystery. Which is fine, because mysteries are great, but what made the previous Genya Toujou books so special was the way horror and folklore were blended into the story. I loved hearing Genya Toujou’s theories for how local customs and myths could have evolved, or the etymological origins of various terms. For instance, the three families of the Higami clan are the "Ichigami", "Futagami" and "Mikami" families, and near the beginning of the book it is pointed out that only the Mikami family’s name is hardened from a "g" to a "k". I thought for sure we’d get some of sort of explanation of that from Genya later, but… nope, nothing.
The horror is also much tamer. The Headless just isn’t threatening. We're told the Headless is bad, and that's it. All it ever seems to do is show up and then leave without doing anything. We need something to make the monster scary and threatening. It doesn't need to be unique—mauling us to death is fine—but being freaky isn't enough. Maybe the horror is supposed to be baked into the "curse" of Aokubi-sama that has alleged ravaged the Higami clan, but vague superstition of that sort just didn't cut it for me.
It's a particular shame the Headless is such a weak monster, since the fact that it's actually witnessed at the scene of the incident ties it closer to the mystery than the monsters in Evil Spirits and Bird of Ill Omen. And even beyond the Headless, we don't get horror vignettes like we did in Evil Spirits.
This is really just quibbling on the horror component, because it doesn’t change the fact that Those Who Cast a Curse Like the Headless is a fantastic mystery novel. It’s complex and intricate, yet tightly wound around a central core. Like the previous book is features multiple theories in the denouement, but this time they don't merely exist in parallel, they build upon each other and serve as stepping stones to the ultimate solution. I can't award Headless Best in Show since I liked the horror in the previous books better, but if you want to watch Mitsuda show off his skill in mystery plotting, this book will do it.
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