Escape from Yokai Land by Charles Stross

Published by Tordotcom on March 1, 2022

Escape from Yokai Land (originally titled Escape from Puroland) is a novella set in Charles Stross’ Laundry Files series. The events in the story take place just before the novel The Delerium Brief. Bob Howard is the featured character. Readers who are unfamiliar with the series will probably want to start elsewhere, as the story might otherwise be unendurably puzzling.

The Laundry Files series is set in an alternate universe in which magic is a function of mathematical equations. Between the two world wars, Great Britain (and eventually other countries) developed clandestine departments to protect their countries from incursions of various demons and monsters that are entering the universe through portals or bridges created by computational pollution. Great Britain’s organization is called the Laundry.

Different characters are featured in different novels, but Bob Howard is the first series protagonist and still my favorite. At this point in the series, Howard has risen through the bureaucracy and inherited the powers and duties of his deceased boss James Angleton, including Angleton’s status as the Eater of Souls. Howard is dispatched to Japan, where the counterpart to Howard’s agency viewed Angleton as less than woke in his interaction with the Japanese. Howard tries to do better.

The story is basic. An unusual number of threats have been entering Japan. Howard deals with them while maintaining diplomatic relations with the Japanese. As is often the case, the story’s primary interest lies in the observations that Stross makes as the story unfolds. I particularly liked the notion that Howard doesn’t go to church because he knows that gods are real, far from benign, and gain their power from worship. An amusement park in Japan has become the epicenter of extradimensional intrusions because children worship Hello Kitty, allowing the evil intruders to feed on their quasi-prayer.

The novella isn’t essential to series readers — nothing happens that advances the overall story — but it’s fun. I would recommend it to Stross fans for that reason. Readers who are intrigued by the concept of magic as computational fallout might want to start with the first novel and work their way forward.

RECOMMENDED

Silent Parade by Keigo Higashino

Published in Japan in 2018; published in translation by Minotaur Books on December 14, 2021

American mysteries tend to feature outlandish plots or brilliant but unrealistic forensic scientists or tough guys who solve the mysteries with their fighting skills or self-aggrandizing protagonists who can’t stop reminding the reader how much they care about victims. The age of clever but plausible plots and deduction that doesn’t depend on CSI gadgetry has largely passed. Fortunately, readers who enjoy the challenge of puzzling out the solution to a complex mystery can turn to Japanese mystery writers. Whodunit and how’d-he-do-it plots are plentiful in Japan, where fictional detectives use their wits rather than their weapons or crime labs to solve mysteries.

Saori Namiki is a teenager working as a waitress in her parents’ restaurant when she begins taking voice lessons from Naoki Niikura. His wife Rumi encourages Saori to pursue a career in music. Saori sees the appeal of pursuing stardom, but she also enjoys being pursued by one of the restaurant’s customers, Tomoya Takagaki.

Saori disappears one evening without explanation. Three years later, a house burns to the ground. Saori’s body is discovered in the rubble. The body of the old woman who owns the house is also discovered, but she died years before Saori, who died soon after she disappeared.

The old woman’s son, Kanichi Hasunuma, was a customer at the Namiki restaurant who took an unwholesome interest in Saori. Hasunuma’s ties to the house and to Saori make him the prime murder suspect. Two decades earlier, Hasunuma was suspected of killing a 12-year-old girl. Despite abundant circumstantial evidence, Hasunuma resisted the cultural urge to confess, having learned from his cop father that convictions are difficult to win without the suspect’s confession. True to his father’s teachings, Hasunuma avoided a conviction and even received compensation for his detention.

The investigation of Saori’s murder is led by Detective Chief Inspector Kusanagi of the Toykyo Metropolitan Police. Kusanagi was a young detective when he worked on the first case against Hasunuma. Kusanagi hopes he can bring Hasunuma to justice this time. The novel’s true star, however, is Kusanagi’s college friend, Professor Manabu Yukawa, a/k/a Professor Galileo, a character who first appeared in The Devotion of Suspect X and has solved crimes in three other novels, including Silent Parade.

While Saori’s death is the novel’s initial focus, the fun starts with Hasunuma’s death. Was he murdered? If so, how? He appears to have died from natural causes, but Yukawa isn’t so sure. If he was killed, how did it happen? Yukawa propounds one hypothesis after another. Kusanagi dutifully sends officers to look for evidence that confirms or refutes the evolving theory. Many of the obvious suspects have an alibi involving a parade, complete with helium balloons, that the entire community attended.

Once the police settle on a likely means of Hasunuma's death, the mystery requires the killer to be identified. Revenge is the obvious motive, but Saori was beloved by her family, their friends, her lover, and pretty much the entire neighborhood. Just when it seems that the police have identified a killer, Yukawa mentions a fact that isn’t consistent with their theory and forces the investigation to reboot. By the novel’s end, everything the police (and reader) think they know is cast into doubt. The truth is out there, but like any good scientist, Yukawa knows that the truth is found by accounting for every fact rather than jumping to conclusions that are consistent with only some of the facts.

Keigo Higashino’s complex plots are among the best in modern mysteries. Nearly every character in Silent Parade, apart from Yukawa and the cops, is a potential suspect. Higashino gives each character, from Hasunuma to Saori to the various suspects, a sufficiently detailed background to explain why they behave as they do. The unfailing politeness of everyone except Hasunuma makes Silent Parade a relaxing departure from American crime fiction. Mystery fans who appreciate a challenge should appreciate Higashino's work.

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Creative Types by Tom Bissell

Publsihed by ‎ Pantheon on December 14, 2021

It is difficult to identify a unifying theme in this volume of Tom Bissell stories. That’s one of the pleasures of reading the seven diverse stories in the collection. No story is similar to any other story. If they have anything in common, it is the suggestion that the choices we make about living our lives always merit examination.

My favorite story, “The Fifth Category,” is rooted in recent history. A man named John wakes up on a flight and discovers he is the only person on board the darkened plane. The man is a former government lawyer who wrote memos justifying the torture of American prisoners who were arbitrarily classified as enemy combatants, a lawyer who refuses to acknowledge his role in crimes against humanity. We aren’t told his last name but the character is obviously modeled upon John Yoo. The flight forces him to confront a reality that he had only considered in the abstract. The story is nuanced and somewhat sympathetic to Yoo without whitewashing his willful failure to anticipate the foreseeably ugly consequences of his work.

Four of the stories are, like “The Fifth Category,” smart and provocative:

The Jewish women who want to worship in an Italian synagogue are allowed to sit in a cage “if there’s room.” A tourist protests religiously inspired social injustice by removing his yarmulke, provoking a confrontation with the tour guide.

A writer whose older brother was killed while trying to prevent a crime eventually writes a critical article about a New York City vigilante who calls himself the Avenger. When the Avenger agrees to be interviewed, it is the writer who must answer questions about his failure to engage with his brother’s death.

Two men who were high school bullies together in the Midwest reunite in New York City. One of the men, now working as an editor, has changed. His visiting friend is still an ignorant, bullying bigot, a fact that triggers the editor as he’s forced to remember the person he once was.

An American makes friends with a Greyhound that attacks him in Estonia, then invites the Greyhound’s owner (the wealthy daughter of a criminal) to do coke. The daughter expects to make out with the American, but he’s more interested in discussing the philosophy of existence, an interest that forces the woman to think about the emptiness of her life and encourages a non-sexual bond of friendship.

The final two stories were less interesting to me, although they might resonate with (in the first case) couples with young children or (in the second) fans of Hollywood celebrities:

A hooker talks about her life with a Hollywood couple that hires her to spice up their post-baby sex life. The reality of life intrudes on the fantasy of spice.

An assistant to James (obviously James Franco) ponders his life before and after he makes an innocent mistake as Seth (obviously Seth Rogen) and James wrestle with a Saturday Night Live monologue.

The diversity of subject matter and the qualify of Bissell’s writing assures that most readers will find something to like in this collection. I found nothing to dislike. Five of the seven appealed to me, a pretty good batting average for any writer.

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Her Second Death by Melinda Leigh

Published by Amazon Original Stories on December 7, 2021

“Her Second Death” is part of the Amazon original short story series. It is billed as a prequel to the Bree Taggert series. The story has the feel of something that was dashed off in a couple of hours.

Detective Bree Taggert, newly assigned to homicide, investigates a shooting death. The victim was found in his car. When she contacts the victim’s wife, she learns that the wife was living apart from the victim and that he had their daughter for an overnight visitation. The missing child is a little blonde girl because of course it is.

Bree has empathy for the little girl because she hid under the porch during her parents’ murder-suicide. Because of course she did.

The police perform a bit of obvious police work that leads them to an obvious conclusion. The story generates no suspense because of course a little blonde girl isn’t going to be harmed in a story like this. Melinda Leigh makes no effort to make the reader feel she’s even at risk.

Nor is Bree ever at much risk, although weapons are pulled on her a couple of times. Her complete absence of situational awareness would be distressing if she were a real cop.

Like most missing child stories, this is a lazy effort at storytelling. If you really want to read about a missing kid, check out the review before this one. Winter Water tells a clever story. “Her Second Death” just isn’t interesting.

NOT RECOMMENDED

Winter Water by Susanne Jansson

Published in Sweden in 2020; published in translation by Grand Central Publishing on December 7, 2021

Winter Water straddles the border between crime fiction and horror. The story begins with a missing child, an overused crime fiction concept that challenges writers, usually without success, to take a fresh approach. Susanne Jansson meets the challenge by using ambiguity to create the suspense that most missing child novels lack. Did four-year-old Adam fall into the ocean and drown? His bucket at the water’s edge and the discovery of his boot in the water lend support to that theory. But Martin, Adam’s father, has been receiving anonymous threats, perhaps related to a property dispute with his neighbor. Is it possible that the neighbor, or someone else, kidnapped the child? And what should we make of other children who have disappeared in the same location and on the same day, January 11, during the last half century?

Martin theorizes that a little girl who drowned in the 1960s is calling other children to join her. He finds some evidence to support that view and even feels the pull himself, heightening the supernatural theme. A woman named Maya who befriends Martin as he struggles with loss and despair pursues the theory that the child was kidnapped. Maya has done some part-time police photography that has fueled her investigative instincts. She uncovers ambiguous evidence to support her kidnapping theory, although she nearly dies in the attempt to prove she’s right.

Uncertainty builds suspense as Martin tries to go about his life during the year following the disappearance, always wondering about Adam and occasionally feeling the temptation to join him if he, in fact, accepted a drowned girl’s invitation to meet her beneath the waves. Maya’s investigation, on the other hand, seems to reach a dead end until new information helps her pull some clues together. Even after Adam’s fate is revealed, suspense continues to drive the story.

The characterization in Winter Water is more subtle than a reader might expect from a missing child story. Martin understandably falls apart, feeling the guilt of failing to prevent his son’s disappearance. His wife holds it together for the sake a new baby until their roles reverse and she falls apart. All of this is handled with admirable restraint. Where an American writer might have turned out horribly weepy scenes, Scandinavian writers seem to take tragedy and depression in stride, regarding them (as they often are) as a natural part of life that can be depicted without melodrama. Maya also gains sympathy in a relationship subplot as her investigation impedes a blossoming romance.

Jansson skillfully blends the conventions of crime fiction and horror stories to keep the reader guessing about Adam for most of the novel. Both theories about Adam's disappearance are plausible (at least for readers who suspend their disbelief in the supernatural for the sake of a good story). Without spoiling the clever plot, I can say that in some sense, both theories are valid. Jansson’s ability to balance the genres should make Winter Water appealing to horror fans and crime fiction fans, or to any reader who enjoys a good story.

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