Published in the U.S. by Tokyopop
Slugline: Two high school students want to be mystery writers and try to solve mysterious deaths. Yup, just like Murder, She Wrote.
Matsuri Akino also wrote Pet Shop of Horrors, and like that, Kamen Tantei seems to be trying a bit too hard. Clues are tossed around, one or two reasonable questions are asked, the "mysterious" masked detective shows up to say something less than useful, and then the solution spontaneously appears. Only once in the four stories did Haruka get to point a finger at someone, and that time it was the most obvious answer.
I'm not a fan of murder mysteries, and stories like these are part of why. The characters have no stake in the story, no reason to solve the mystery but their own moral indignation or, maybe, bad weather trapping them in the house. The stories are more for showing off the writer's ability to manipulate facts than tell a story, and sadly Akino-san's stories were neither complicated nor original. I doubt a true fan of mysteries would find them interesting at all.
And aside from the lack of tension in the plot, the dialog and characters are flat and the worldbuilding effort amounts to "maybe ghosts are real" with way too many exclamation points.
Pick up Pet Shop of Horrors instead.
- Miranda
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