James Nicoll Reviews

2015’s Usotoki Rhetoric Volume 6 is the sixth tankōbon in Ritsu Miyako’s historical mystery manga series. Usotoki Rhetoric was published in Bessatsu Hana to Yume from June 26, 2012, to March 26, 2018. The English translation of Volume 6 was published in 2024.

Private detective Iwai Soma and his young assistant Kanako Urabe have settled into a comfortable partnership. He provides the deductive and inductive skills needed to solve mysteries. Urabe is a living lie detector, on top of which she prods the otherwise indolent Iwai to find work and pay the bills.

This arrangement is upended.

Iwai receives a letter asking him to come alone to an onsen (a hot-spring inn) for a meeting. The letter is not signed, save for a stylized bird semamori (good luck symbol) that both Iwai and Urabe recognize from a recent case. As they ended on good terms with the client in that case, there is no reason for Iwai not to accept the invitation.

Neither the client Hisa nor her grandson Satsuki sent the letter. They do not show up to speak with Iwai. In fact, nobody shows up. After waiting for a sufficient time, Iwai leaves the inn. The maid who enters the room immediately after is horrified to find a murdered man. Police jump to the logical conclusion and arrest Iwai.

Urabe is certain that Iwai is innocent. Proving that will be difficult. The interval between Iwai leaving and the maid entering was very brief. The corridor outside the room was constantly monitored. There seems to be no practical way that someone could have snuck a body into the room in the time available without being spotted.

No doubt Iwai could easily solve the mystery. Too bad Urabe is the one stuck with the puzzle. Has she learned enough from Iwai to rise to the occasion? Or will she have to rely on help from Shiro, a conman she knows to be duplicitous?

~oOo~

The manga establishes the year as 1926, the first year of Hirohito’s reign. As history fans and manga readers familiar with the Showa era will recall, the coming years will feature exciting events of great import for little people like Iwai and Urabe. At least their offices are not in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. At least, not in 1926.

Unlike previous volumes, this tankōbon has but one case. To compensate, it is a pretty big case on whose outcome the series depends. Can’t have a detective team if one of the detectives has been executed¹.

These mysteries are pretty lightweight, which should not be a surprise. If one were to measure by word count and plot content, one tankōbon would amount to a short story. A novella at best.

Some readers might think it’s a tremendous coincidence that a miscreant from a previous case would happen to be available to assist Urabe in clearing Iwai’s name. Other readers might conclude that plot parsimony suggests coincidence is not in play here, in which case, Urabe herself may be in danger. Which is it? Read and find out.

Usotoki Rhetoric Volume 6 is available here (Amazon US), here (Amazon Canada), here (Amazon UK), here (Barnes & Noble), here (Chapters-Indigo), and here (Words Worth Books). I did not find Usotoki Rhetoric at Apple Books.

1: Leaving aside arrangements like Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased).