James Nicoll Reviews

2003’s Gosick is the first novel in Sakuraba Kazuki’s Gosick Ruritanian mystery series.

St. Marguerite Academy, located in the kingdom of Sauville¹, caters to Europe’s elite. The inter-war era syllabus does not include such modern concepts as ​“tolerance” or ​“diversity.” Thus, Kazuya Kujou finds himself the target for bullying and shunning.

Only two students socialize with Kujou. One is Avril. Avril is personable and friendly, albeit with an alarming keenness for sharing urban legends and ghost stories. The other is Victorique. Victorique has a slight flaw in her character.

Victorique lives alone atop the St. Marguerite Grand Library in a flat accessible via an elevator and stairs. Kujou is not allowed to use the elevator, just the stairs. Every day Kujou trudges up the staircase to spend time with Victorique. His reward is verbal abuse from the brilliant but terminally bored girl.

Victorique’s primary hobby is solving crimes, something at which she excels. For example, on hearing a description of the recent murder of an old lady, she is almost instantly able to identify the killer. As invariably happens, the absurdly coiffed Inspector Grevil de Blois takes the credit, also the reward that should have gone to Victorique. This injustice does not seem to bother her.

Kujou, however, is sufficiently outraged to expose the Inspector’s fraud in public. Grevil buys Kujo’s future silence by offering Kujou and Victorique a yacht trip… on the yacht that was Grevil’s reward for taking credit for solving the old woman’s murder. Being unfamiliar with what happens when detectives take holidays, Kujou accepts.

Unbeknownst to the people boarding the yacht, the ship is the infamous Queen Berry. Ten years ago, just prior to World War One, children of no particular social standing were enticed to enjoy a tour on the Queen Berry. Once out at sea, the children discovered that the ship was a death trap. A murder trap. Only a few children survived. Legend had it the Queen Berry became a ghost ship.

While the Queen Berry does not appear to be a ghost ship, it is most definitely filled with death traps and at least one bloodthirsty killer. Passengers begin to die.

It’s up to Victorique to determine who is responsible and the reason for the murders. It’s up to Kujou to keep her alive long enough to do that.

~oOo~

Gosick was on a list of recommended translated books and as I’d read two other books by Sakuraba Kazuki, I thought I’d give this one a go.

I really need to stop believing online lists of recommended books that I discover with cursory online searches.

Gosick was published during the heyday of brilliant but deeply flawed detectives, detectives useful enough that those around them tolerated their eccentricities. House, Sherlock, Bones and so on and so forth. To know people like House, Moffit’s Sherlock, Bones, and Victorique is to want to beat them with a slipper. Too bad they didn’t have any shoe-wielding aunties.

There are two linked mysteries involving the Queen Berry. The first involves the 1914 incident in which innocent children were murdered. The second involves the 1924 series of murders in which our young heroes are entangled. Readers will not guess the motive for the first as, being rooted in superstition, it makes no sense. That’s not a criticism. People do terrible things for stupid reasons all the time².

Readers can make an informed guess as to who might want to reprise the 1914 outrage with a cast of people old enough to have been adults in 1914.

Readers can further guess that the second round of victims largely deserve their fates, which may be why Victorique seems to slow-walk her inquiries. Another possible factor is that the killer on board is largely immune to their own traps; the reason for that immunity also applies to Victorique as well. The detective is in less danger than those around her, which is a fine explanation for her plot immunity.

Alas. I hated Victorique, the prose was meh, and while the mystery had its points, the book as a whole seemed to be a grocery list of tropes that have to be included in books like this. At least the book was short.

The 2008 Tokyopop translation is out of print.

1: Sauville is a small nation located between Switzerland, France, and Italy. As it has a Mediterranean coast, it must be a thin ribbon of land. It seems to have largely sat out WWI. I expect things went differently in WWII.

Speaking of expectations, Kujou is from a military family. He’s just the right age to have been packed off to China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. His prospects appear to be dismal.

2: USA delenda est.