The Tragedy of 1 / 一の悲劇

I assume most people reading this blog know who Ellery Queen is, but for who don’t, he (actually the joint pseudonym for two cousins) is one of the most influential writers from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. He was famous for novels resolved by a chain of deductions from physical clues, used to narrow down the suspect list to one candidate. While there aren’t many authors writing mystery stories with that style of plotting in English nowadays, there are plenty of Japanese writers who have adopted the style, including Alice Arisugawa and Yuugo Aosaki (who was marketed as “Queen of the Heisei period” with quite unfortunate timing since Japan’s emperor passed shortly thereafter, ending the Heisei period).

But another author who writes in the Queensian school is Rintarou Norizuki (which, like Ellery Queen, is both the author’s pen name and the name of his fictional detective), author of The Tragedy of 1, which is clearly a reference to Queen’s Drury Lane series. To be honest, I’m not sure why I read this book. As you may have noticed from my blog, I usually play a series or read an author’s work in order unless there’s a particular reason to start with a different work. The Tragedy of 1 is not Norizuki’s first novel, and I can’t remember what (if anything) prompted me to buy it... but I suppose it’s a decent choice to read “1”st.

(Following the same convention as my Alice Arisugawa reviews, Norizuki will refer to the author and Rintarou to the character.)

The Tragedy of 1 revolves around Shirou Yamakura, his wife and son, Kazumi and Takashi, and their neighbors, Kouichi and Michiko Tomisawa and their son Shigeru. On the surface the Yamakuras and Tomisawas appear to be normal, upper-middle-class Japanese families, but underneath they’re anything but. To start, Takashi is not Shirou’s son, but Shigeru is. Takashi is the son of Kazumi’s late sister and was legally adopted by her and Shirou, so that’s above-board and not a secret, but Shigeru is the result of an affair between Shirou and Michiko. Shirou regretted his infidelity and tried to get away from Michiko, but she followed him, moving into his neighborhood and enrolling Shigeru in the same school as Takashi.

Everything begins to crumble when Shirou receives a call from a hysteric Kazumi at work. Kazumi tells Shirou that she received a call saying Takashi had been kidnapped. Shirou asks if Takashi is safe, and Kazumi explains that he’s taking a nap in his room, since he stayed home sick from school. Not understanding what Kazumi is saying, Shirou rushes home to discover—Takashi is indeed safe and sound. It turns out the kidnapper abducted Shigeru; the two boys walked to school together, but since Takashi stayed home that day, Shigeru went alone. The kidnapper must have seen Shigeru leave the Yamakura house, assumed he was Takashi, and taken him by mistake. So, in a grand twist of dramatic irony, by failing to kidnap Shirou’s son, they managed to kidnap Shirou’s son.

Shirou resolves to do whatever it takes to rescue Shigeru, including putting together the ransom money. He claims it’s to help his neighbors, and because it was supposed to be Takashi that was targeted, and because the Tomisawas and Shigeru simply got drawn up into what was supposed to be the Kurayamas’ issue... but we know why he’s really doing it. The kidnapper has Shirou go on a wild goose chase with the ransom money (to ensure he isn’t being followed), warning that “Takashi’s” life is forfeit if Shirou disobeys. Shirou is ultimately directed to a public pay phone in a park (this book is from the 90s), and is then told that he only has five minutes to make it to the final drop-off point on the other side of the park. He makes a mad dash across the park—and trips going down a set of stairs. When he comes to, the drop-off time has long passed. He goes to the drop-off point, but nobody is there.

Shigeru’s corpse is found later that night.

I hope that summary made sense, because the first act of the book is actually a bit tough the follow. The book opens with Shirou, Kouichi, and Michiko going to identify Shigeru’s corpse, and then flashbacks to the beginning of the day, with further flashbacks as needed to explain the context of the relationship between the Yamakuras and Tomisawas. But after the first act the book proceeds as normal. Shirou becomes convinced that Takashi’s biological father is the one behind the kidnapping and murder, but he ends up dead in a locked room, and things just deteriorate further from there.

The opening act of the book is a bit confusing, but I think I get why it was done that way. The victim is a child, which is pretty heavy, and might turn off some readers. Presenting this up front means that anyone who doesn’t want to read a book about child murder can drop out before they get too invested. Also, having the adults go through everything they do just for Shigeru to get killed in the end feels bad, and I’m sure it would’ve felt even worse if we hadn’t known it would be coming.

Anyway, the kidnapping angle sets The Tragedy of 1 apart from most other mystery stories. Obviously it’s not the only murder mystery to incorporate a kidnapping, but it’s still uncommon. Many Golden Age-style mysteries feature a closed circle, or at least an interesting location or way to narrow down the suspect list to a select few, but the kidnapper in The Tragedy of 1 could have been anyone, and the murder itself isn’t tied to any particular location.

The drama, tension, and stress caused by the kidnapping, Shigeru’s deaths, and Shirou’s attempts to keep his affair (and Shigeru’s true father) hidden feel much more like plot elements for a suspense story than a mystery story. I think the most unique element of The Tragedy of 1 is the way it manages to actually balance a dramatic suspense story with a Queensian puzzle plot, in a way that other suspense stories I’ve reviewed have not.

To be honest, I forgot that this was a Rintarou Norizuki story until he actually showed up, which is fairly deep into the book. He is the person who provides an alibi for Takashi’s biological father for the kidnapping! It’s actually rather humorous, since this causes Shirou to immediately distrust and suspect him. When Shirou hears that Rintarou has reportedly solved several complex crimes and is known as a great detective... Shirou just becomes convinced that Rintarou is an arrogant loon. The detective is usually someone we are intended to respect and admire, so it’s fun watching Norizuki poke fun at “himself.” Rintarou does begin to suspect something fishy is going on after hearing Shirou’s story and starts looking into the events.

Rintarou is the son of a police inspector, just like Ellery Queen, and, like Ellery Queen, many conclusions are based on logical inferences from physical clues. While Queen would often have one long, grand deduction at the end, The Tragedy of 1 features several shorter deductions over the course of the story. While deductions can rarely be completely ironclad and I’m usually willing to go along with a novel’s logic, some of the deductions in The Tragedy of 1 felt a bit too loose. For instance, Rintarou concludes that a manuscript was never proofread because it has a typo... without considering the not too farfetched possibility that the typo was simply overlooked in editing.

Still, the book manages to provide a compelling mystery with fun deductions. Some of the plot reveals are not particularly surprising, but overall the story is clever and well put together. The cast is quite limited, but the book still manages to operate well within those confines.

The Tragedy of 1 is sad, but that might not be saying much, since murder mysteries are usually sad. And it’s more than that: it’s tragic. I suppose that might not be too surprising either, since the story opens with child murder and literally has “tragedy” in the name. Shirou is not a good person, and while Shirou tries to convince himself he is, the book never gives him a free pass. As a result, the tragedy doesn’t feel like pointless, needless suffering—it’s the culmination of awful choices made by a dysfunctional group of flawed people. And, while sad, it’s not without hope, making it feel almost cathartic.

Speaking of the title, there are actually two meanings behind it. The first is a reference to the fact that the book is written in first person. Which is not particularly exciting to me, since there are plenty of other novels (and murder mysteries) written in first person, and the first person perspective doesn’t inform or affect any component of the novel. (Norizuki has a novel called The Tragedy of 2 which is written in second person, and that seems much more interesting.) The other reason relates to the dying message in the book. As another coincidence, I’ve seen the same idea in another “Tragedy” novel. It’s not an idea I particularly like, since I feel like it requires the reader to rely too much on conjecture to solve, and seems like an unlikely situation given the characters’ actual lives. (For reference, I’m referring to (rot-13, abgr gung guvf vf fcbvyref sbe obgu obbxf) gur ivpgvz yrnivat na vapbzcyrgr qlvat zrffntr onfrq ba gurve vapbeerpg haqrefgnaqvat bs gur fcryyvat bs gur xvyyre’f anzr.)

The other part of The Tragedy of 1 that gives me pause is the fact that there’s a strong undercurrent of paternalism throughout. There isn’t a tidal wave of misogyny like in Yokomizo‘s works, but... there’s at least enough for me to say something here. The men are the breadwinners and see protecting the women as their job. Both the male and female characters have agency and flaws, so it’s not like Yokomizo stories where the women are nothing more than beautiful dolls who exist solely to be abused by men, but the men here are undeniably paternalistic. (For instance, as I explained in the plot summary, when Kazumi gives Shirou seemingly contradictory information about “Takashi’s” kidnapping over the phone at the beginning of the book, rather than trying to figure out what she means Shirou just decides that Kazumi has no idea what she’s talking about, hangs up, and rushes home to deal with it himself.)

If I were to give Norizuki the benefit of the doubt, I would say that the novel was published in the early 90s and revolves around two “normal” Japanese families, and thus is attempting to reflect standard societal views regarding women rather than necessarily displaying Norizuki’s personal views. But who knows, maybe Norizuki is a raging misogynist too.

Overall, I liked the book a lot. The combination of Queensian fairplay and modern thriller is handled skillfully, successfully tapping into the strengths of both genres. The book leans into the melodrama and dysfunction caused by its characters and doesn’t shy away from the resulting tragedy, but is never depressing solely for the sake of it. The Tragedy of 1 may still not have quite enough to rank number one, but it certainly places up there.