Gwen Moffat lives in Cumbria. Her novels are set in remote communities ranging from the Hebrides to the American West. The crimes fit their environment, swelling that dreadful record of sin in the smiling countryside cited by Sherlock Holmes.
Yukito is a Japanese author enthralled by both the Golden Age and Greek myths while still paying lip service to the traditions of his own country. This plethora of interests has produced a plot of such complexity that a reader more accustomed to authors striving for originality, is left gasping at familiar references round every corner.
It’s a trick. Here the familiar is constantly skewed, starting with the wealthy old crime writer throwing a party for younger colleagues in his mysterious house – so hackneyed – but voicing his regret that, despite all his best sellers and his fictitious murders, he has always wanted to kill someone with his own hands. Surely a declaration so obvious that it’s superfluous?
And, following the golden rule, the setting is remote and bleak: a huge house built into the rock, an underground labyrinth of chambers with every convenience of food and drink (an awesome superfluity of whisky), an aged, taciturn housekeeper, and the maestro’s secretary: an autocrat from the moment of his belated appearance after the guests’ arrival to inform them that his employer has committed suicide. He is accompanied by the doctor who was present at the time.
The consternation that follows this announcement is intensified by an audio recording of the celebrated author reading his own Will. Enormously rich, it appears that he has devised an inheritance contest for the young writers at the party. Under strict provisions each is to produce a novella within five days. The judges will be other guests: an editor, a critic and an afficionado (who turns out to be both priest and detective).
Reactions among his hearers vary between outrage, ridicule and total abstention. A solicitor among them confirms that both Will and contest are legal. The company clamours for more information. Why the deadline of five days, during which the police must not be informed? How impartial are the judges? There is the question of value judgements, of preferences, of the contest being invalid if one person breaks a rule. A fortune is at stake. Murder is presaged.
And murder occurs very shortly. But why do so many people have to die? Can this be an echo of Christie’s And Then There Were None? We are back in the familiar world of locked rooms and cryptic messages but this novel is furnished with increasingly odd embellishments that may raise eyebrows in our current climate where anything goes. Yet still below the anomalies there is the traditional format: the crime and the suspects; there is the investigation, the climax and denouement.
And there is the plot - which is in fact a convoluted puzzle with clues on every page. The challenge for readers who think they know their stuff, is to distinguish between clue, red herring, double bluff and even deliberate spoiler.
A clever and intriguing book: top of its class.
Editor’s Note: Translated by Ho-Ling Wong.
