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有翼之闇 麥卡托鮎最後的事件
當「我」來到座落於京都近郊、宛如歐洲古堡般的豪宅時，悲劇已經開展了。
一具具無頭屍體、匪夷所思的密室、奇妙的模仿殺人、以及死而復生的死者……蒼鴉城成了凶手的表演舞台，堅持著某種殺人美學。
更令人心惶惶的是，凶手竟然能在警方介入調查的同時，繼續在城內肆意犯案，如此大膽挑戰警方的背後動機，是什麼驚人的祕密？
為了解決這起充滿「謎團」的連續斬首殺人案，偵探木更津率先出馬，而在事件達到最高潮之際，麥卡托鮎也登場了——「名偵探」與「銘偵探」反覆交棒推理，各種神推理紛紛出籠，真相不僅沒有水落石出，反而層層疊疊糾葛不清。究竟他們所導出的壯烈結局是……！？
一具具無頭屍體、匪夷所思的密室、奇妙的模仿殺人、以及死而復生的死者……蒼鴉城成了凶手的表演舞台，堅持著某種殺人美學。
更令人心惶惶的是，凶手竟然能在警方介入調查的同時，繼續在城內肆意犯案，如此大膽挑戰警方的背後動機，是什麼驚人的祕密？
為了解決這起充滿「謎團」的連續斬首殺人案，偵探木更津率先出馬，而在事件達到最高潮之際，麥卡托鮎也登場了——「名偵探」與「銘偵探」反覆交棒推理，各種神推理紛紛出籠，真相不僅沒有水落石出，反而層層疊疊糾葛不清。究竟他們所導出的壯烈結局是……！？
- GenresMystery
432 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1991
1 person is currently reading
14 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 6, 2022
I have mixed feeling about this book: Winged Darkness: The Last Case of The Remarkable Detective.
Again, I got mind-fucked by this author at the very end of the story. To be more particular, basically this book and its ending is mind fuck, mind fuck, more mind fuck. I felt like I was going to die when I turned the very last page.
I do like the explanation for the murderer's motives and how some of the characters met their untimely death. I dare say hardly anyone else has come up with explanation such as this yet!
More story about The Remarkable Detective: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
Again, I got mind-fucked by this author at the very end of the story. To be more particular, basically this book and its ending is mind fuck, mind fuck, more mind fuck. I felt like I was going to die when I turned the very last page.
I do like the explanation for the murderer's motives and how some of the characters met their untimely death. I dare say hardly anyone else has come up with explanation such as this yet!
More story about The Remarkable Detective: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...
January 31, 2024
Hmm, it takes a lot to digest a mystery like this. I ultimately did not like it and would give it a 1/5, but I'll bump it slightly because the translation I read was rough, which definitely might've hurt the experience. Lots to breakdown, so I'll explain, starting with a spoiler-filled summary.
The narrator (who is a Watson) and his detective Kisarazu, come to Blue Raven Castle (run by the Imakagami family) to solve a case. Kisarazu got an invite alongside a threat to not come, so of course he comes to find out who sent the threat and why. This is followed by several beheadings, including one in a locked room and an initial double one with the heads/bodies in reversed rooms, followed by Kisarazu making a deduction at the halfway point that the oldest male patriarch was still alive. But exhuming his coffin shows he's been deceased for about 30 days. Kisarazu leaves in disgrace to the mountains, and the great detective Mercator Ayu arrives at the start of the second half.
Not too dissimilar to the first half, more beheadings ensure. Ayu similarly reaches a far-fetched conclusion deducing Kisarazu being the ultimate culprit. At the end of his explanation, Kisarazu returns and denies being related the Imakagami, which was the whole motive Ayu gave. Toward the end, Mercator's head is beheaded and Kisarazu explains about the case.
Each of the beheadings had an item left nearby. Ex powder, orange seeds (scattered from a whole in the locked room's door), a hat, an American album, one in the 30 day coffin, etc...these are revealed to be references to Ellery Queen's nationality item books: American Gun, Chinese Orange, Roman Hat, Greek Coffin, etc. It culminates in a dead Sugahiko on a cross in the church (Eqyptian Cross), and his daughter Kyrie (the "culprit") beheaded by gulliotine. Kisarazu says the motive was partly insanity - Kyrie wanted to deify her father by having him/her be the last Imakagami family and then putting him on a cross as a reference to Jesus, then her own demise, purifying them in death.
Then this false solution is overturned by the Watson when he enters a secret passage to an underground jail, where he confronts the true culprit, the maid Hisa, who is revealed to be Sugahiko's grandmother and almost ninety years old. She was Russian and fled Russia for political/other reasons and married a Japanese man and started the Imakagami family. But she felt she was impure, mingling her Russian blood with the yellow Japanese and wanted to cleanse them all by murdering her descendents. For a long time, she held off because she was still a mother, but eventually someone else (a Russian composer I believe) was found who would lead eventually back to the Imakagami Family.
After this revelation, the narrator leaves to marry one of the females of the family (an adopted daughter, she didn't share the Russian blood), and it is suggested that the old culprit commits suicide. Hisa/Kinuyo the old lady culprit also sent the original invitation to the detective as well as the threatening letter, as she knew it would entice him to come. She knew the detective would read into the fake clues she planted and arrive at the false solution. (Later, she invited the detective Mercator, since Mercator was also related, and she wanted to purge him too.)
Trick-wise, a lot of swaps were used. Hisa claimed to get the key from a dusty box to open the locked room that had the bodies. But the thing wasn't actually dusty, it was just a duplicate key. Similarly, a head was seen in a room belonging to Unebi. In reality, it was Tajima (Unebi's father)'s head, and Hisa/another guy discovered it. Hisa pretended to faint while the other guy got help and Hisa swapped Unebi/Tajima's heads. There's also some false solutions like having an accomplice and a woman carrying a head upstairs in her skirt, etc. Hisa also intentionally left clues suggesting the culprit couldn't read Japanese, like leaving a letter or writing an invitation to the twin children in very simple English, which all pointed to Kyrie who had been in America until a few months ago.
There's also some mindfucky twists, like the narrator being Hisa's granddaughter and being the twin brother of Mercator. All of this is actually clued at least to some extent as Kisarazu mentions to the main character that he looks similar, and there's discussion of the Russian composer, etc.
============
Alright, now that the summary is out of the way, my own opinion is that this isn't a particularly good mystery. I think some of the logical jumps for the false solutions sucked. False solutions should be believable and reasonable, not incredulous.
Mercator says Kisarazu was the one to throw the head to the upper floor, for his accomplice Sugahiko. But that could be anyone throwing the head up. The idea that Kisarazu is the first to discover the key in the left hand and hence placed it is plausible, but it is equally plausible there's a duplicate key, which is the true solution and is just bland. (This idea is referenced by the detective near the start of the case, but he dismisses it for no reason whatsoever.)
Similarly, Kisarazu's false solution has Kyrie cut off Ito/Arima's heads at the same point, so close together that the nerves of each body interlink by chance. So Ito in Arima's body and Arima in Ito's body happens, and the one left-handed guy runs to the side room to escape the weaponed attacker, locks the door, and passes away. It doesn't mention how the head got on the coat rack hook at all by the way, and it acknowledges this is a one in billions chance for this solution and is unlikely (I'm fairly certain this is BS science anyway). Similarly, there's not really any evidence that Kyrie would want to deify her father or is that crazy.
Then the true solution. I actually DID clue in on how it discussed that Hisa's head looked like a different person. But I didn't know WHO it was, as the idea that Hisa/Kinuyo kept her daughter in a hidden jail for 20 years is very hard to believe. Then she murdered that daughter and substituted the body is just insane. It's 20 years of imprisonment, and she was 90+ years old to be doing all these beheading stunts, getting the jump on everyone, plus cleaning up all the blood that would splatter on herslef.
It felt like the novel was going for shock value more than actual quality at times, especially toward the end. That shock may have worked, but I sure as hell don't like that. I'd prefer a more complete, plausible mystery that isn't so farfetched. Some of the solutions are also pretty bland, like basic "duplicate key", and I don't love the motive either honestly. There's not much we can know to tell that Hisa is a racist against her own family's people. There's definitely things that suggest the Russian connection like the CD/LD/etc and the red carpet, so I do appreciate that, but still, the mystery focused on shock than quality.
The Ellery Queen book references are a neat idea, but that also requires the reader to know EQ's titles. The narrator reads Dutch Shoe, but otherwise, I don't like requiring that knowledge since it's not as well known as, say, children's tales.
The writing itself was eh, and I suspect it's not just because of the translation. A lot of Japanese and Golden Age mysteries are dry, and even shin-honkaku ones from the 80s/90s tend to often be as well. Then I don't care for the characters either - ex, I didn't even realized the main character cared that much about Yugao until it talks about him proposing/marrying her. Yeah, it was partly for the inheritance, but I don't like mysteries that shoehorn marriages/romance in.
I probably have some other nitpicks, and there's definitely some uninteresting sections, but I think that's most of it. Overall, not a mystery I particularly care for. The things I look for in a mystery are to a) well written b) fair play c) hopefully wow me in terms of deduction/impossible crime. This at most scratches just b), and some of the fair play is questionable. And the false solutions are just a waste of time given how dumb they are.
The narrator (who is a Watson) and his detective Kisarazu, come to Blue Raven Castle (run by the Imakagami family) to solve a case. Kisarazu got an invite alongside a threat to not come, so of course he comes to find out who sent the threat and why. This is followed by several beheadings, including one in a locked room and an initial double one with the heads/bodies in reversed rooms, followed by Kisarazu making a deduction at the halfway point that the oldest male patriarch was still alive. But exhuming his coffin shows he's been deceased for about 30 days. Kisarazu leaves in disgrace to the mountains, and the great detective Mercator Ayu arrives at the start of the second half.
Not too dissimilar to the first half, more beheadings ensure. Ayu similarly reaches a far-fetched conclusion deducing Kisarazu being the ultimate culprit. At the end of his explanation, Kisarazu returns and denies being related the Imakagami, which was the whole motive Ayu gave. Toward the end, Mercator's head is beheaded and Kisarazu explains about the case.
Each of the beheadings had an item left nearby. Ex powder, orange seeds (scattered from a whole in the locked room's door), a hat, an American album, one in the 30 day coffin, etc...these are revealed to be references to Ellery Queen's nationality item books: American Gun, Chinese Orange, Roman Hat, Greek Coffin, etc. It culminates in a dead Sugahiko on a cross in the church (Eqyptian Cross), and his daughter Kyrie (the "culprit") beheaded by gulliotine. Kisarazu says the motive was partly insanity - Kyrie wanted to deify her father by having him/her be the last Imakagami family and then putting him on a cross as a reference to Jesus, then her own demise, purifying them in death.
Then this false solution is overturned by the Watson when he enters a secret passage to an underground jail, where he confronts the true culprit, the maid Hisa, who is revealed to be Sugahiko's grandmother and almost ninety years old. She was Russian and fled Russia for political/other reasons and married a Japanese man and started the Imakagami family. But she felt she was impure, mingling her Russian blood with the yellow Japanese and wanted to cleanse them all by murdering her descendents. For a long time, she held off because she was still a mother, but eventually someone else (a Russian composer I believe) was found who would lead eventually back to the Imakagami Family.
After this revelation, the narrator leaves to marry one of the females of the family (an adopted daughter, she didn't share the Russian blood), and it is suggested that the old culprit commits suicide. Hisa/Kinuyo the old lady culprit also sent the original invitation to the detective as well as the threatening letter, as she knew it would entice him to come. She knew the detective would read into the fake clues she planted and arrive at the false solution. (Later, she invited the detective Mercator, since Mercator was also related, and she wanted to purge him too.)
Trick-wise, a lot of swaps were used. Hisa claimed to get the key from a dusty box to open the locked room that had the bodies. But the thing wasn't actually dusty, it was just a duplicate key. Similarly, a head was seen in a room belonging to Unebi. In reality, it was Tajima (Unebi's father)'s head, and Hisa/another guy discovered it. Hisa pretended to faint while the other guy got help and Hisa swapped Unebi/Tajima's heads. There's also some false solutions like having an accomplice and a woman carrying a head upstairs in her skirt, etc. Hisa also intentionally left clues suggesting the culprit couldn't read Japanese, like leaving a letter or writing an invitation to the twin children in very simple English, which all pointed to Kyrie who had been in America until a few months ago.
There's also some mindfucky twists, like the narrator being Hisa's granddaughter and being the twin brother of Mercator. All of this is actually clued at least to some extent as Kisarazu mentions to the main character that he looks similar, and there's discussion of the Russian composer, etc.
============
Alright, now that the summary is out of the way, my own opinion is that this isn't a particularly good mystery. I think some of the logical jumps for the false solutions sucked. False solutions should be believable and reasonable, not incredulous.
Mercator says Kisarazu was the one to throw the head to the upper floor, for his accomplice Sugahiko. But that could be anyone throwing the head up. The idea that Kisarazu is the first to discover the key in the left hand and hence placed it is plausible, but it is equally plausible there's a duplicate key, which is the true solution and is just bland. (This idea is referenced by the detective near the start of the case, but he dismisses it for no reason whatsoever.)
Similarly, Kisarazu's false solution has Kyrie cut off Ito/Arima's heads at the same point, so close together that the nerves of each body interlink by chance. So Ito in Arima's body and Arima in Ito's body happens, and the one left-handed guy runs to the side room to escape the weaponed attacker, locks the door, and passes away. It doesn't mention how the head got on the coat rack hook at all by the way, and it acknowledges this is a one in billions chance for this solution and is unlikely (I'm fairly certain this is BS science anyway). Similarly, there's not really any evidence that Kyrie would want to deify her father or is that crazy.
Then the true solution. I actually DID clue in on how it discussed that Hisa's head looked like a different person. But I didn't know WHO it was, as the idea that Hisa/Kinuyo kept her daughter in a hidden jail for 20 years is very hard to believe. Then she murdered that daughter and substituted the body is just insane. It's 20 years of imprisonment, and she was 90+ years old to be doing all these beheading stunts, getting the jump on everyone, plus cleaning up all the blood that would splatter on herslef.
It felt like the novel was going for shock value more than actual quality at times, especially toward the end. That shock may have worked, but I sure as hell don't like that. I'd prefer a more complete, plausible mystery that isn't so farfetched. Some of the solutions are also pretty bland, like basic "duplicate key", and I don't love the motive either honestly. There's not much we can know to tell that Hisa is a racist against her own family's people. There's definitely things that suggest the Russian connection like the CD/LD/etc and the red carpet, so I do appreciate that, but still, the mystery focused on shock than quality.
The Ellery Queen book references are a neat idea, but that also requires the reader to know EQ's titles. The narrator reads Dutch Shoe, but otherwise, I don't like requiring that knowledge since it's not as well known as, say, children's tales.
The writing itself was eh, and I suspect it's not just because of the translation. A lot of Japanese and Golden Age mysteries are dry, and even shin-honkaku ones from the 80s/90s tend to often be as well. Then I don't care for the characters either - ex, I didn't even realized the main character cared that much about Yugao until it talks about him proposing/marrying her. Yeah, it was partly for the inheritance, but I don't like mysteries that shoehorn marriages/romance in.
I probably have some other nitpicks, and there's definitely some uninteresting sections, but I think that's most of it. Overall, not a mystery I particularly care for. The things I look for in a mystery are to a) well written b) fair play c) hopefully wow me in terms of deduction/impossible crime. This at most scratches just b), and some of the fair play is questionable. And the false solutions are just a waste of time given how dumb they are.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 27, 2023
凶手是向奎因国名系列致敬，但是最后华生找到摩斯坦小姐的同时揭露的真凶实在难让人信服，凶手谋杀的都是与之有血缘关系的亲人，最后让一个外人娶走夕颜不说，遗产也落入外人手里。二来凶手是否有足够体力完成这些罪行？如果有共犯还好说，没有共犯的话仅凭一个人着实不易，光是菅彦钉上去就很费力气了，被栽赃的雾绘也是一样，麻耶在考虑诡计时过分模仿十日惊奇却忘了考虑合理性。可怜的麦卡托成了华生的替代品，他们的身世在书中铺垫不够，尤其是日纱被杀时香月的反应太正常了，还不如麦卡托鲇，此外，凶手玩的手法居然瞒过了一家人仅除了椎月外，这也不够合理。
January 29, 2022
共匪你造了多少孽啊！
March 27, 2022
第一重偽解答麻神自己複製自己，笑死我了。利用國名系列解答太精彩了。
December 30, 2022
我真的搞不懂日本人或者说日本“推理作家”
December 20, 2024
First & best from Yutaka Maya. Read the Chinese version but if anyone knows where I can read Yutaka Maya in English I'd really appreciate it !!
October 15, 2025
Ehhhh
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews