For as long as he can remember, 16 year-old Hisataro Oba has found himself randomly, several times a month, caught in a time loop he dubs The Trap: waking up on the same day nine times in a row, with only the events of the final day of the loop becoming the canon version of the day for everyone else in existence. Having realised this, and in part as a coping mechanism, he has been able to exploit The Trap — cheat on a test, win a bet, etc. — but now things are different. Because now a murder has been committed and he would like, if possible, to avert it in the ninth and final version so that it does not become the reality for everyone else.

There’s an interesting idea at the heart of The Man Who Died Seven Times (1995) by Yasuhiko Nishizawa in that the murder, of Hisataro’s grandfather, didn’t happen on the original version of the day, and it’s only when he wakes up and realises that he’s in The Trap that anyone dies. So, since only Hisataro can affect the fundamental structure of the day (everyone else would, with the same prompting, behave exactly as they had before), what was different enough in the second loop to provoke homicidal feelings in someone? And why does it keep happening?

This Pushkin Vertigo edition is 285 pages long, and it’s interesting that the first 85 pages are devoted mainly to explaining the dynamics of the various arms of the family gathered at grandfather Reijiro Fuchigami’s house for a traditional new year celebration. It helps cement the various characters and their attitudes towards each other in a way that will explain much of the later actions, and it allows the mystery, once it begins, to fall into a fairly traditional pattern, with events moving quickly because we understand the people involved. In many ways is a very traditional whodunnit — all the way down to the first cousins who are, er, romantically involved, yeuch — and while it may feel like it takes a while to get going, I rather enjoyed the decision to front-load in this way.

The key tension behind events is that Reijiro, owner of a highly-regarded restaurant business, has made it clear that he intends to pick his successor and heir from among the family and employees present, so when he ends up dead there’s plenty of motive to go around. Hisataro’s aunt Haruna would do anything to secure the legacy for her daughters…but then the same could be said of Hisataro’s mother, Kamiji, with regard to her three sons. And this relatively simplistic background allows the little puzzles of the present — why, when the killer seems to vary from loop to loop, does everyone seem to use the same murder weapon? — to really compel.

As a fan of the time-loop conceit, I was almost a little disappointed that more wasn’t done with the successive days: Hisataro, intelligently working out who the killer is on loop 2, keeps them busy in loop 3 only for someone else to commit the murder, so he tries to keep them all busy on loop 3, etc., etc. When you think of the imbrications that the similarly-themed The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (2018) by Stuart Turton threw in, Nishizawa could be said not to really be exploiting the setup to its fullest. But, well, it’s entertaining enough, and Jesse Kirkwood’s translation reads incredibly smoothly (Pushkin really have found some amazing translators in the like of him, Bryan Karetnyk, Louise Heal Kawai, Jim Rion, and Ho-Ling Wong, because all these Japanese mysteries are so damn readable in English):

There was a dangerous glint in her eyes: that of someone half drowning in the joy of discovering that hurting other people might just be the key to her own happiness.

And then the ending hits and I realised I’d been far too quick to dismiss this as not exploiting its core idea. And Nishizawa really does lay out some fabulously blatant clues for you…clues which I had read and given an entirely different interpretation. I sincerely doubt anyone is going to be able to say they solved this ahead of time, but equally, when you realise what it’s been working towards, it would be a hard heart that couldn’t enjoy the chapters in which everything is laid bare.

And then the final chapter hits and, oof, I could have done without that. Not only do the events seriously undercut what we’ve just read, I also don’t believe — given what we know about the frequency and nature of Hisataro’s condition — that he wouldn’t at some point have the opportunity, as here, to alter the course of events. I mean, that’s exactly what the previous 280 pages had set up, and I just don’t buy the slight downer that this seems to want to end on.

This is, then, a largely wonderful experience of a novel: told in a way that keeps its various threads distinct, slowly and casually leading you into a misdirection that’s so enjoyable to have explained in the final stretch, complex without being elaborate, and great fun. I am here for exactly this type of fiction, dodgy final few pages aside, and I hope that Pushkin Vertigo’s scouts are out finding much more of this sort of thing for our reading pleasure, and putting it into the excellent hands of the few talented people who are doing such sterling work bringing it all into English for our collective enjoyment. Long may everyone involved in this endeavour continue!

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See also

Aidan @ Mysteries Ahoy: Information rarely brings clarity, and the situation becomes increasingly confusing with each new iteration. And yet, there’s a sense we are continually moving towards the truth. Nishizawa peppers his story with intriguing secondary questions to answer. It is these story threads that are answered fastest, and happily I can say those answers are routinely excellent. Hisatoro’s family are a fascinating and dysfunctional bunch, and their secrets are worth discovering. While some answers were easy to come by, some other details take much more work.