Welcome to the 
黒死館殺人事件 Book Club !
Start Date: 2025-11-16T15:00:00Z
黒死館殺人事件 Reading Book Home Thread
| Week | Start Date | Pages | No. of Pages | % | Chapter |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 17 | 314–357 | 44 pages | 57% | Ch 5.1 一、犯人の名は、リュッツェン役の戦歿者中に | |
| Participation |
Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.
Our heroes are back at Norimizu’s office, and devise about the case. Kumashiro and Hasekura are rather down-hearted, because it seems their mundane protections are doomed to fail, however, Norimizu sees something in the fact that the latest line from the Faust malediction, Salamnder sich glühen, didn’t have a gender change. So far, the first case has been linked to water (to open and close the door), and ondines are water spirits; the second case had to do with harmonics, and sylphes are wind spirits; Norimizu thinks that since there hasn’t been a gender change in Salamander this time, the thinking behind the third case will be completely different, probably much more straight-forward. Norimizu thinks that the solution to the case can be found in european mythology and history.
Norimizu tries to clarify all the different salient points in the case, using, the list of question Hasekura wrote at the beginning :
why were the four foreign children sent to Santetsu ?
is there a link to the previous suicides ?
what is the link between Digsby and Santetsu ? Their relationship seems to have soured, Digbsy even threatening to curse Santetsu.
Santetsu remodeled the house 5 years after it was built, and the several traps and tricks already seen were probably added then. there may be more, and there might be a link to black magic, especially considering that Santetsu burned his sorcery books just before dying
The present cas seems to have started more or less after the matter of Santetsu’s will was brought forward. Couldn’t this be simply a matter of inheritance ?
Four suspicious things happened around the time of the séance : Grete Danneberg shouting out Santetsu’s name before collapsing, Ekisuke seeing a suspicious figure, the strange footsteps in the garden, and the photographic plates. None of these can be explained so far.
How did the poisoned orange get to Grete Danneberg ? And what about the glow ? and why did Grete incriminate the Therese doll ? though it is technically possible that it was there, it makes a special noise, and nobody heard it
The prediction about each person’s death isn’t always consistent; and Norimizu is sure there must be a second part to the diagram
The Faust incantation
Regarding Ekisuke’s murder, Nobuko is the most likely suspect
What exactly happened to Tsutako
Might the mysterious male figure be Hatarō ?
What is the motive ? Since the two blood heirs, Tsutako and Hatarō, have been either discarded or forced to share their inheritance, this seems to be the most obvious motive. But Hatarō and Tsutako do not seem to be the culprits, and Nobuko, who does, doesn’t have a clear motive.
Considering the various hallucinations, Norimizu thinks they might have been induced during the séance by the way the candles were used; and links that to jewish funerary customs, and also to a case involving a jewish miller. He also thinks some may have been caused by the special architecture of 黒死館, something that had been observed in Germany and Spain, where a catholic scholar and an Inquisition interrogator both suffered hallucinations when they were in specific buildings, and only then.
Norimizu also theorizes that Nobuko was hypnotized as she was playing the carillon using the dagger (Ekisuke’s murder weapon), and that the dagger was held by a loop in such a way as to indicate the culprit was Jewish. He is certain, therefore, that the true culprit must be Olga Krivoff; because of how she looks, how she dresses, but also because of what she says she saw. Other evidenc includes qupting fragmentd of Alexander Pope’s “the Rape of the Lock” in her previous poetry battle with Norimzu, as four spirits very much like those of Faust’s incatation appear, and corresponds to what Olga Krivoff describes when she saw the shadowy figure in her room.
Finally, Norimizu applies cryptography techniques from the Kaballah to link the to zodiac diagram. As far as he is concerned, this case revoles around two jews : Claude Digsby and Olga Krivoff.
However, the phone rings and… his whole theory crumbles, as we learn that Olga Krivoff has been shot.
Thoughts on the chapter :
I am very uneasy about all this. I realize, of course, that as a period piece, using religion, and especially judaism, as an excuse, was a rather common thing. And that the perception in Japan was probably different from a western perspective. Still, that doesn’t sit well with me.
(to be honest, I almost stopped reading at that point. I didn’t, and I don’t regret not stopping, but I understand this is a big problem, one that I haven’t seen mentioned in previous reviews, and that should be mentioned, I guess, in pros-and-cons and warnings)
As for the chapter itself, while it is once more overabundant in detail, things start to coalesce, and what seemed to be, before that, unrelated trivia has begun to take shape, and that is exciting !
I skimmed through the book and ignored most of the details, citing various sources. I felt these were just added by the author to confuse the reader, as this pattern repeats throughout the book. Furthermore, the sources quoted seemed heavily biased. The writer wrote this story in an era before the internet so readers are unable to verify the examples quoted.
It’s frustrating that even the concepts of using hair and water expansion were so fake that I can’t believe Norimizu anymore when he keeps on talking about them.
I kinda did the same, but the real references actually do seem to come back later on; the main problem being filtering out what is real and what isn’t.
I don’t think it’s fake per se. Just far too minute to actually be used as he says….
I’m very late and catching up on your summaries, but I thought I would mention how I interpreted this unfortunate part of the book. The whole premise of the book is taking every classic theme and trick from all detective novels and smashing them into one epic masterpiece. Even when Oguri decides to take a foray into science, math, literature, architecture, etc., he is drawing from the popular sources at the time and demonstrates just enough understanding to tie them into the story.
One side effect of this is the antisemitism, references to phrenology and so on. It is no secret that classic British detective novels had an insane amount of antisemitism and that transferred to Japanese detective literature too.
The main reason I didn’t include a mention of it in my review is that I think it is more a reflection of the themes of the times rather than a result of Oguri’s personal beliefs. That’s not necessarily a justification for including it in the book, but it at least made it bearable enough for me to continue reading it. I wouldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to read about that stuff, and I think a warning could be helpful to some readers as you said!
