密室黄金時代の殺人 雪の館と六つのトリック

by Danro Kamosaki, 鴨崎 暖炉

「連発される密室トリックの中ではドミノの密室がイチ推し。本格ミステリ刊行ラッシュの中に割って入るだけの力はありそうだ」大森 望(翻訳家・書評家)
「密室殺人づくしの趣向が楽しい。主役の二人をはじめキャラ設定もいかにもマニアックかつ軽快」香山二三郎(コラムニスト)
「これでもかというくらい密室ネタを盛り込んで、遊び心たっぷり。探偵役となる少女も謎めいていて魅力的だ」瀧井朝世(ライター)

「密室の不解証明は、現場の不在証明と同等の価値がある」との判例により、現場が密室である限りは無罪であることが担保された日本では、密室殺人事件が激増していた。
そんななか著名なミステリー作家が遺したホテル「雪白館」で、密室殺人が起きた。館に通じる唯一の橋が落とされ、孤立した状況で凶行が繰り返される。
現場はいずれも密室、死体の傍らには奇妙なトランプが残されていて――。

Genres: Mystery

411 pages, Paperback

First published February 4, 2022

Reviews

[H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review of House of Snow Locked Room

There's things I like and dislike.

Liked:

- Many of the tricks were clever, like the sliding panel to a secret passage tthat is used inside a room to stab/murder someone in the locked room with remote control or the door swap (similar idea to key swap but bigger) or ice to set up dominos, etc. I think some of these are a little implausible - ex, its not that easy to carry an entire door by yourself and not make a lot of noise and set it up perfectly, but I think the ingenuity is there.

- The evidence was presented upfront like Fenrir Alicehazard being only one to go out in the snow, and thus she was the only one who could've seen Riria open her phone in her special way in order to get the special murder playing cards to leave at scene. Same with the tape left on the door that disappeared once the door was swapped back or the knife in the earlier locked room used to slice off the band or the sound recording playing masking the sound of the bottle sliding across the room.

Disliked:

- I don't know if it's the fan translation or the author themself (I suspect the author), but there's many times when the book repeats the same line or idea excessively.

Let me give an example in the final chapter, during the discussion of the window used to look and see Riria the murder idol's hiding spot of the card: "Because there is only one person who was able to look into Miss Riria's room...There was only one person who could look through the window. That was the same as saying there was only one person who could have murdered Yashiro...There was only one person able to look into Riria's room?...Strictly speaking, there was only one person able to look into Miss Riria's room."

So basically the same sentence is repeated 4 times and this was only in about 2 pages of space. That's VERY unnecessary and could've been pared down/edited to flow better. There's also the sentence that explicitly says it's Yashiro's murderer that was obvious and could've been written in smoother. So reading this is kind of like Ellery Queen where ideas are clever, but the writing is clunky and verbose.

This was only one example by the way, the book does this in other sections too.

- Toward the end, there's the 15 Methods for Locked Rooms, and the main character goes through all of them for the final locked room. I don't think this added much, and some of explanations for them could've been condensed. Ex, he says #X doesn't work for the same reason as #5 or so, so he could've just said #X and #5 don't work because of Y reason and left it there. In general, I think it wasn't necessary, and he could've just said "It doesn't fit any of the 15 methods because X/Y/Z reasons, but here's this 16th method, etc", and that would've sufficed and been a lot shorter and succinct.

- Flashbacks.

I hate flashbacks because they take you out of the moment of a story - nothing in them has impact on the present, and if there is a flashback, I prefer it to be abridged. Some of the flashbacks aren't THAT long with MC Kuzushiro reminiscing about his school days with his old genius friend Mitsumura, before she committed Japan's first locked room that entered a court case, but they still feel bogged down, esp when there's SO many flashbacks.

I think there was one flashback every 3 chapters or so. I hated that and wish it was either taken out or abridged. I get why its important for setting up FMC and her relationship with MC, but I don't think there enough payoff for how much time we spent in the past. I always dreaded the flashback scenes because who cares what they did in school with books and board games? Ugh.

- Some tricks are hard to picture or a smidge mechanical.

I understand the general premise of how the locked rooms were committed, but some like the bottle initially with the band and knife and music player and window are still hard to picture. Same with other trick where liquid nitrogen was used to freeze a bunch of stuff. It works, but it took some thinking.

Also, I am not certain about the bottle one where it was hidden by the carpet at the door. So the MC and others don't see the bottle at the bottom of the door because of the carpet? I am not sure how fair that is.

But eh, it's extremely fair and comprehensive (eliminating other possibilities) in other places, far more than western mysteries.

Overall:

The idea of a Japan where Locked Rooms become a common murder method to escape the law and commit murder is interesting, same with having legitimate Locked Room Experts who analyze them or Locked Room Detectives who solve them. A lot of the tricks are really clever, and the mystery does a good job of being fair and giving readers a chance to solve many of them.

The writing holds this back, though I'm not sure if that's partly due to translation - I suspect it's the author though since the book does this a lot, and the translator is very good and experienced. The characters are nothing to write home about, though there's some lingering humor like Yozuki coming to the place to look for bigfoot or everyone making fun of Kuzushiro's intelligence, saying it doesn't fit him when he looks smart, etc.

Re:translation itself - the core translation, editing, polish, etc are all top notch for a fan translation.

Anyway, overall, I'd say the book is a good locked room mystery if you're into the subgenre or if you like clever fair-play tricks and such. There's issues, but it's a smarter mystery than any western mystery I've read this year by miles.

3/5 stars which is a good score for me.

[Gael Alimurung · Rating 5 out of 5]

Murder in the Golden Age of Locked Rooms - The House of Snow and the Six Tricks is an absolutely brilliant reimagining of everything we know and love about mystery fiction.

After seeing it be recommended to me in a blog post, I read the unofficial translation by Mitsuda Madoy.

The book features no less than SIX locked room murders (well 5 with a slight variation) and all pride themselves on being solely mechanical and techncial tricks using nothing more than the laws of the sciences. (no cheap psychological killer-was-hiding-in-the-room-the-whole-time mumbo-jumbo here!)

The way the tricks were explained were super intuitive and made complete sense to me. The second and fifth in particular were beautifully done, and I could easily see them occurring in real life. That being said, trying to fit so many locked rooms in one book means not all of them are perfect. But i can forgive a book that manages to include so many in the first place.

The whodunnit itself is actually more fun than the howdunnits, employing Ellery Queen style suspect-identification techniques with process of elimination. All in all, no qualms about the mystery.

The main plot itself imagines a neo-age world where locked room murders run rampant, after the suspect for Japan's first ever real life locked room mystery was acquitted after their trick was unsolved. Its a fun setup but ultimately falls to the wayside as we venture into yet another closed circle snow mansion serial killing involving idols, religious preachers, corrupt company presidents, and the protagonist's childhood friend with whom there is definitely a hidden spark.

The characterization is obviously not as big a focus here, with some characters falling into predictable archetypes, but it is serviceable nonetheless, and knows to let the plotting do the talking.

If if you're just getting started with the genre, I'd say save this for when you have more experience. The sheer amount of trope-subversion and meta-mystery exploration absolutely rewards honkaku and Golden-Age connoisseurs and it can be rather overwhelming to begin with.
However, if you're an uber locked room mystery nerd, this is the book for you.

[Erika · Rating 3 out of 5]

流石「このミステリーがすごい」の文庫グランプリ。（「大賞」以外にこういう賞があると今回初めて知ったけど）
「密室の不解証明は、現場の不在証明と同等の価値がある」の判例が出て、日本で密室殺人が急増っていう設定は面白いけれど、物語そのものは不自然でイマイチ。

ミステリにありがちな登場人物の多さも、名前をあからさまに変なのにする（支配人を詩葉井って名前にするとか）で面白く解決してるし、それぞれの密室や事件現場の描写も丁寧で分かり易い。
推理をするのも一人だけでなく色んな人がするのが新鮮。

けれど、やはり、「今までためてきたネタを全てこれに入れたんだろうな」と思われる詰め込みっぷりで、ちょっと不自然に感じる所が多かった。
そして、探偵役の一人の「謎の過去」も、思わせぶりな感じで終わってるし、ちょっと消化不良。
最後の最後に大きな驚きが待ってるのかと思ったけれど、それもなくてちょっと残念だった。

この回の「このミス」は大賞が「特許やぶりの女王 弁理士・大鳳未来」らしいが、この二つがTOP２って事は、他の作品はもっと素人っぽいい不自然な物語だったという事か。
だが、私的には「特許～」よりこちらのほうが楽しく読めた。
この作家の次の作品が気になるので、星３つ。
（賞を取ったのは「館と密室」という名前で、著者名も金平 糖だったらしい（笑　金平さん。ありだ。巻末に載ってる、著者の好きなミステリ作家の本、私も色々チェックしてみようと思った。）

[Jenny Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started a little bit on this book back in April, and finally deep dive into it from last week till today.

The plot was amazing for me, as it made me think multiple times about how did the victim get murdered in locked room without anyone knowing about it?

Not only that, the main detective or case solver is 👌 though, the attitude might seems rude, but she is amazing!

I would love to know more on the last locked room solution, whether what 香澄’s explanation is the right answer for it or not(?)

[Joseph Chung · Rating 4 out of 5]

不要求劇情吸引、精彩的話，這是一本極精彩的密室推理小說——只一本書能滿足你六個願望，因為作者準備了六個密室，詭計各各不同，對喜歡密室推理的人來說，是場推理的盛宴。既然要打造六個密室，劇情只能停留在玩味十足、不要深究的層次了——這也是我把評分扣掉了一顆星的原因。

[Joyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

怎么说呢，看得出来作者真的非常喜欢密室。对于这本小说，就别对人物动机、整体故事结构什么的抱太大期望了。读这本书，就单纯是为了看各种不同的密室。

[Goosy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5星。喜欢的地方：1.几个密室手法大放送，尤其最后一个很惊艳。2.系统梳理了密室解法，几乎每个都能想起我以前看的书，信息给的很爽。3.塑造的女主蜜村我特别特别喜欢。不喜欢的地方：1.bug还是太多，靠一些巧合完成案件，比如所有被害人就这么巧聚集到这里了？2.在本格推理下安排了自己的设定系，比如那副扑克牌，太牵强。