The Mill House Murders (1988) by Yukito Ayatsuji (Trans. Ho-Ling Wong)

Since the end of the month is looking a bit busier for me, I took the opportunity to read this month’s book group choice last week on a train back from London. This is the second book by Ayatsuji that I have read, having reviewed The Decagon House Murders (1987) during my first year of blogging. Yet I must admit that I struggled with its sparse and drier writing style and the effect this had on the characterisation and the sections which did not have much dialogue. So, with some trepidation I started The Mill House Murders. But how did I get on with this book?

Synopsis

‘Every year, a small group of acquaintances pay a visit to the remote, castle-like Mill House, home to the reclusive Fujinuma Kiichi, son of a famous artist, who has lived his life behind a rubber mask ever since a disfiguring car accident. This year, however, the visit is disrupted by gruesome murder, a baffling disappearance and the theft of a priceless painting. The brilliant Kiyoshi Shimada arrives on the scene, but as he investigates the seemingly impossible events of that evening, death strikes again, and again… Can Shimada get to the truth before the killer gets to him? And can you solve the mystery of the Mill House Murders before he does?’

Overall Thoughts

Like its predecessor, The Mill House Murders is another isolated rural country house-set mystery, the house even having been made by the same architect. So, from early on we know this is a house with secrets. I am not sure if all the books in this series use a similar setting, but it would be interesting if they did, as even just the first two mysteries by themselves offer a comment and a new perspective on the country house mystery subgenre.

Fujinuma Kiichi, as the blurb mentions, is one of the main characters of the story and a car accident many years ago left him with facial scarring, among other difficulties. This initially made me think of Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger’ (1927), yet the more I pondered the topic the more it seemed to me that crime fiction, particularly thriller stories, often set up individuals with scars as the villains of the piece. Two examples from the pulp magazines are ‘The Sign of the Scar’ (1936) in The Phantom Detective and The Strange Adventures of the Purple Scar (1941-1943), a series written by John S. Endicott that featured in Exciting Detective magazine. I think Ayatsuji’s narrative provides a less clear-cut response to this existing trope, as arguably some of Kiichi’s unkind choices towards others are fuelled by the insecurity he understandably feels about his face. Yet the story does not justify those wrong decisions. Nevertheless, the narrative as a whole also incorporates the idea of trauma creating emotional scarring too, which means the theme does not become solely concentrated on Kiichi.

However, going back to the villainy stereotype, even if we go outside of the genre, we have The Phantom of the Opera (1909) by Gaston Leroux. Was this a widely read story in Japan by the 1980s? Aside from the similar white mask, Kiichi’s marriage to the much younger Yurie and the way he keeps her locked away from the rest of the world, made me feel there was degree of similarity. This aspect of the plot also had something of a fairy tale component and a bit of a ‘Beauty and the Beast’ vibe. Is there a Japanese fairy tale with similar elements, which Ayatsuji was alluding to? Typical of a fairy tale, the eponymous Mill House is described in the text as a ‘castle’ as well as ‘a Western-style country house’.

This genre or fictional expectation of criminality from someone with a scar, interestingly seems to be a global one, as opposed to being country specific. However, crime fiction does also play around with this expectation, having a character with a scar, draw the suspicions of the other characters and maybe the reader, but who is in fact innocent. A red herring of sorts. There is a Seishi Yokomizo title which does this and Ruth Sawtell Wallis uses a scar to upend hard boiled mystery stereotypes in No Bones About It (1944). Nevertheless, it would be interesting to hear about more positive or less vilifying depictions of characters with scars, so if you know of any, do add them in the comments section below.

Turning my attention to the writing style, I would say there is some sparseness, which is more pronounced in the physical descriptions. But I did not find it dry this time and instead some of the clipped short sentences in the opening of the story, nestled among longer ones, created a sense of urgency:

‘But it was not daybreak that brought them such anxiety. The events of the night had already been enough to feed their fear.

A woman fallen from the tower.

A painting disappeared.

A man vanished under seemingly impossible circumstances.

Could anyone tell where they were heading, where all these events pointed?

The night was drawing to a close. A night that had toyed with them. It was only at dawn that finally, the bizarre culmination of all that had happened in the house would become apparent.’

The opening is good at whetting your appetite for the mystery that lies ahead, revealing to us the incinerator in the basement of the tower, the chopped-up body bits, and the finger on the floor…

The chapters alternate between the same day in September in 1985 and then a year later in 1986. I really liked how this was crafted and I felt it smoothly told us what happened on that day in 1985 and what is happening now on the same day a year later. The two narratives complement each other well and you get a pleasing “Ground Hog Day” feeling at times, as certain events and even phrases repeat themselves. I think the timeline delivers the story in an interesting way, adding layers to the outline (quoted above) given in the prologue.

As I was reading the novel, it occurred to me that there is more than one character with a mask. Kiichi’s is a literal and physical one, but at several points in the story there is an underlying suggestion that faces themselves can be masklike and difficult to interpret. For example, it is said of Kuramoto that:

‘A smile never appeared on his pale, wrinkly face no matter what happened. His loud baritone voice was just as cold as his face, if not even colder. But that was exactly why the title of butler, almost extinct in modern-day Japan, suited him. Silently managing the house with the one goal of serving his master. Able to do his work without letting his feelings interfere. One could call it a talent – if so Kuramoto was a natural.’

Furthermore, Kiichi says that it is hard to ‘read what was really on’ the new house keeper’s ‘mind’. Being able to read others is a really important skill in mystery fiction, so the problems these characters encounter in this area, add to the tension of the piece overall.

Tension and intrigue are also generated by the painting Kiichi refuses to let anyone see. It provides a motive for criminal action, but it also gets you pondering what the painting might show, especially given the fearful attitude Kiichi holds towards it. This aspect of the book reminded me of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890).

I like the way the amateur sleuth Shimada Kiyoshi butts into story/case. He is not invited to solve it and at the stage he enters the tale we do not know all the events that happened the previous year, nor how, or if, they were resolved. Consequently, you are left wondering what his interest might be in the case a year on. Kiyoshi is blunt and not shy about asking for what he wants. He is enthusiastic and almost Tigger like in his energy. This could become unlikeable, but he is honest about his impertinence, which mitigates this, and I enjoyed how his presence encourages those around him to remember details that they had forgotten.

As you can see from my rating below, I enjoyed this book a lot. However, I did have some minor niggles with the book, which I have put into ROT13 Code to prevent sharing spoilers:

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However, all in all, this was a great read. It is a puzzle mystery, but it is one which is illuminated and driven by the characters. Importantly, for me, I found the prose more readable, finding it to be a page turner of a book.

Some will say the puzzle was easier in some respects, but part of me does like a puzzle where I stand a chance of correctly working out some of it and I enjoyed the Christie-like cluing we get in some of the wording in the story. Furthermore, this mystery shows how extended flashbacks can be used effectively and make the reading time feel worthwhile. Whilst The Decagon House Murders didn’t make me want to seek out more in the series, the second book certainly does, and I hope more titles will be translated soon.

Rating: 4.5/5

Source: Review Copy (Pushkin Vertigo)

See also: Brad at Ah Sweet Mystery, Janet at From First Page to Last and Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings have also reviewed this title.