James Nicoll Reviews

2015’s Usotoki Rhetoric Volume Four is the fourth 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 Four was published in 2023.

Kanako Urabe is a young woman with the gift of knowing when other people consciously lie. Her gift is useful to her employer, private detective Iwai, although not so useful as to keep the pair from the brink of poverty.

This volume covers three unrelated cases ranging from the ludicrous to the tragic.

First the ludicrous.

First case: Iwai’s friend Chiyo provides an lesson in the utility of Occam’s Razor; she fanaticizes lurid scenarios when she finds Iwai’s home empty and unlocked. In fact, Iwai simply forgot to lock his door on the way out. Thanks to convenient timing, Iwai will never learn what Chiyo got up to in his home during Iwai’s absence.

Second case: Iwai and Kanako have been invited to dinner by their policeman friend Hanasaki Kaoru. Kaoru has an errand to run, but he assures them that he’ll be home in time to feed them. But he doesn’t show up.

Iwai is worried. It is out of character for policeman Kaoru to fail to keep a promise. There must be a good reason Kaoru did not return … something that must have prevented Kaoru from sending a message putting off the dinner.

Nothing for it but to retrace Kaoru’s steps, with Kanako in tow to play living lie-detector. Kanako’s infallible ear reveals that at least one of the people questioned is lying about having met Kaoru. Is this significant or is the lie unrelated to Kaoru’s disappearance? More importantly, can the detective and his assistant find Kaoru in time to enjoy a delicious meal?

Third case: having resolved the matter of Kaoru’s no-show, Iwai and Kanako are hired to look into a mysterious death. Police aren’t sure whether Mineo was murdered or whether he died by tragic mishap. He died while taking a walk on Toma Island. There was only one non-resident on the island at the time, a certain Kirino Kanji. The police questioned him but let him go. Kanji would like the matter cleared up (to remove any lingering suspicion and also to help his hosts, who seem heartbroken over the death of their relative). He asks Iwai to investigate.

Iwai discovers many things, not least of which is that Kanji would have been happier if his questions had not been answered.

~oOo~

In previous volumes, Kanako sometimes acted unwisely, having assumed that falsehoods indicated guilt. Readers will be happy to know that she’s learned from her experience. Instead it’s Chiyo who spins wild scenarios on next to no evidence. The author’s purpose seems to be adding some comic relief between darker episodes. As Chiyo does not learn anything from her little adventure, presumably she will continue to fill the role of amusing ditz.

Previous volumes in this series have established that private detective Iwai has few clients. Iwai and his assistant Kanako are always desperately poor. I found myself wondering why Kanako has never tried her hand at gambling; that’s an endeavor in which being able to read the other person would be a significant asset. But on second thought, Kanako is too pure-hearted and unworldly to even consider cheating at cards.

For the most part this manga is light-hearted. No epic struggle to defeat evil, just a struggle to pay rent and eat well. But the tone changes whenever there is an actual death¹. Death, whether by natural causes or murder, is always serious business. Even if the deceased was not particularly likable, Iwai and Kanako always do their sober best to solve the mystery.

The manga is episodic; it’s just one mystery after another. The episodes are slight but enjoyable. They remind me of the Ellery Queen short stories I remember from my childhood². For that reason, the stories cloy in quantity. Read a few and then take a break. It’s probably best not to binge on the series … not that that this will be an issue for Anglophone readers. As far as I can tell, only four volumes have been translated and I don’t know when (or if) Volume Five will be released.

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

1: As is established practice for cozies, violent deaths occur off-stage.

2: He said, not having read an Ellery Queen since Q.E.D.: Queen’s Experiments in Detection was released in mass market paperback (1969).