The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters

The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Last Policeman is a commentary on how a lack of hope for the future affects people and, by extension, society. Oh, and it's also a detective story.

It takes only a few pages for The Last Policeman to paint an extremely bleak picture. There's an apparent suicide, taken in stride by almost everyone because it's such a common occurrence. Before long we learn this attitude is due to the end of the world, in the form of a massive object from space on a collision course with Earth. With no future to look forward to, many people have abandoned societal norms and gone on huge benders, or flown off to pursue "someday" dreams, or buried themselves in religion. Or simply decided to end their lives early.

Our hero, Detective Hank Palace, is not one of these people. He's sticking to society's rules, and investigating the case of the suicide. Which he believes could be a murder, and that investigation leads him to all sorts of unexpected people and places.

As a detective story, The Last Policeman hits a lot of the standard plot points. A few physical altercations, pushing a snitch for information, mysterious beautiful girl, stereotypical fellow detectives, uncovering deeper mysteries in the course of the investigation. By itself, it would seem formulaic. But set against the backdrop of the end of the world, the mystery aspect works to keep the story moving and the characters motivated.

This is only the first book in a trilogy, so it's no surprise that The Last Policeman ends with a lot of big questions unanswered. But I think it still works on its own, wrapping up the smaller story of the suicide investigation while setting up for later books to expand on the larger picture. I look forward to reading the next one to continue the story.

Another

Another is a mystery-horror anime series. It came up when I was browsing recommendations for mystery series, and though horror isn't really my thing, it looked interesting enough to try.

Another revolves mostly around a boy named Koichi Sakakibara, who goes to live with his mother's parents in a small town when his father has to go out of the country for work. He transfers into the local middle school, and it just so happens that the class he joins is affected by a strange "calamity"(which is carefully not called a "curse"). People associated with the students in that class die on a monthly basis. As the story progresses, the viewer learns about how this ties into the history of the town, as well as that of Koichi's own family. There's plenty more in the way of interesting details, but I won't talk about them here. There's not a lot you can say about the story of a series based around a mystery without spoiling it.

From a mystery standpoint, I thought Another was fairly well done. Once you start from the premise that there's truly something linking the class and the deaths, the way the story plays out is fairly logical. It's got plenty of twists, which for the most part weren't telegraphed too obviously. There's no random plot devices added without explanation, and new discoveries make sense in the context of the world. The last couple of episodes have a decent amount of action (much of it gory) and wrap up the story nicely. We never get a full explanation of exactly how the calamity works, but that's to be expected...it's supposed to be supernatural and mysterious.

As for the horror aspect, I felt that Another under-delivered. I admit that I tend not to allow myself to get sucked into really creepy stuff for the most part, because I'm not a big fan of being scared. (Weird, right?) But in this case, I think even a serious horror fan would have had a hard time getting immersed in the fright factor. In the first few episodes, the director uses a lot of the standard "set up a scare" tricks (creepy music, pictures of weird dolls, long significant pauses in conversations) without there being anything really frightening happening. Some parts are almost laughable...those set-up tricks are used in scenes where Koichi is doing or talking about completely mundane things. Add to that the use of over-the-top blood-spatter-everywhere visuals when someone dies on-screen, and the early episodes seem almost like a parody. This does improve as the series goes on; by the big wrap-up in the last two episodes, there was definitely some tension. It still suffers from the way things were done in the early portion of the series, though.

Another is a nice mystery story, and at only 12 episodes it's short enough that you won't be in suspense for long. Just don't watch it for the horror aspect.

Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation

When you look at the name and read the description of Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation, it appears to be a detective story with a focus on scientific bone knowledge. (Perhaps along the same lines as FOX's Bones.) That's one aspect, but it spends a lot of time on other themes. Perhaps too many themes for a 12-episode series.

Shōtarō Tatewaki is the main viewpoint character, a high school boy who has become friends with an osteologist named Sakurako Kujō. That's a scientist who studies bones, and she's an odd one - lives alone except for her housekeeper, tends to assemble skeletons and keep them around the house, and doesn't much like other people. She tolerates Shōtarō, though, and they often end up finding bodies or otherwise being pulled into investigations of disappearances or homicide.

On the one hand, the series feels like it's modeled on Sherlock Holmes. Sakurako gives off the Holmes vibe, noticing things that others don't and inferring various conclusions before anyone else. Shōtarō plays the Watson role, keeping her grounded and curbing the worst excesses (such as taking home human remains instead of turning them over to the police). And there's a mysterious figure in the background much of the time, playing the Moriarty role.

On the other hand, the actual mystery-solving feels secondary much of the time to the struggles of the characters involved. While Sakurako herself isn't particularly concerned with the people involved, the viewer is clearly meant to understand and empathize. The girl worried that her grandmother committed suicide, trying to understand the real circumstances around her death. The husband worried about the fate of his wife and daughter because of a "family curse" that causes men to die early. The young women who were best friends in high school, before one of them disappeared, and now another is gone missing. There's much more time spent on how the people are affected than on the minutia of the clues that Sakurako puts together to solve the mystery. While all of these are interesting, the fact that there are so many different characters in such a short series means that all of them feel a bit shallow.

Beautiful Bones: Sakurako's Investigation was an interesting watch, and if they add any more to the existing 12 episodes, I'd be interested in checking it out. It won't be for the mystery-solving aspect, though, but rather for the character exploration in the context of the mysteries.

Un-Go

I found Un-Go when I was browsing around the recommendations on MyAnimeList.net. Find a show you liked, hit the recommendations tab, and see what other people have liked that was similar. I was looking through some of the Ghost in the Shell series pages when the Un-Go recommendation popped up. It was available on Crunchyroll, so that made it easy for me to watch.

"Un-Go Title" by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia

Two things about Un-Go stood out right away to me: it's based around mystery-solving, and the setting is a near-future post-war dystopia where technology is moderately more advanced (most notably AI). The former is appealing to me - detectives solving mysteries is always an interesting theme. The latter explains the Ghost in the Shell link - similar settings, though Un-Go's setting differs in that it makes heavy use of the mystical spirit realm as well as technology.

The Wikipedia page says that Un-Go is based on the Japanese novel Meiji Kaika Ango Torimono-chō. That doesn't mean much to me, but I certainly noticed that the show references Meiji-era stories in almost every episode. I have no idea whether that's all fictional, or if there is actually Meiji-era literature with similar themes. Someone with a background in Japanese literature...or simply a working knowledge of the novel...would probably catch a lot of subtleties that escaped me.

I like the main character, Shinjuro Yuuki, who is nicknamed the "Defeated Detective" since he never seems to get the right answer in his investigation. It turns out that he's often right, but others work up an official solution which bends the truth to protect something: government interests, powerful reputations, or even people's lives. Those others are usually led by Rinroku Kaishou, who gets credit for the "right" solutions to the investigations.

I'm less enamored of Inga, a kind of spirit being who is tied to Shinjuro. Learning about what Inga is and what other spirits may be around is an interesting part of the story-line. What I don't like as much is Inga's ability to force a person to answer a question truthfully, which to me seems like cheating in a mystery investigation. It seemed to me that usually the detective had a pretty good idea what was going on before Inga asked the question, though, so it didn't ruin the investigation concept. It just feels like an unnecessary addition.

There are only eleven half-hour episodes of Un-Go, so it's a pretty quick watch. There's also a prequel short film about the first meeting of Shinjuro and Inga, but I didn't have easy access to that, so I can't comment on how good it is. I can say that the series itself is worth a few hours to watch, if mystery-solving and a bit of commentary on whether revealing the truth is always the right approach sounds interesting.

Elementary

I don't watch a lot of television dramas. Those I do almost always have a link to something else I've enjoyed. (For instance, all the comic-based shows lately.) Three years ago, I started watching Elementary because of its Sherlock Holmes theme, and I've stayed more or less current with it ever since. I was inspired to mention it here after watching last night's episode, the 77th in the series.

There have been a lot of Holmes-themed shows and movies over the years. Lots of folks have said that the BBC's Sherlock is one of the best, but I've not gone out of my way to seek it out. I'll probably watch it someday when I activate Netflix again. Meanwhile, Elementary is on broadcast TV here in the US, easily available via a simple DVR schedule.

In Elementary, Holmes and Watson have been altered quite a bit from the traditional characters. The two most obvious changes are that Watson is a woman ("Joan" instead of "John"), and the setting is New York city rather than London. Sherlock is also a recovering heroin addict, which often plays into their relationship and his character development.

The casting of Lucy Liu as Watson is one of the things that initially appealed to me, as she's one of my favorite actresses. I didn't know much about Jonny Lee Miller before watching the series, but I think he's done a great job as Sherlock. The two work very well together, which is a major reason why I've kept watching all this time. There are several very good supporting roles as well, most notably the NYPD captain and detective that Watson and Holmes work with regularly.

A large portion of Elementary is a fairly pedestrian crime-of-the-week police drama. Holmes and Watson are "consultants" rather than actual officers, but they work with the police department. The actual crimes are, for the most part, the same sort of thing you might see on one of the various CSI or Law and Order franchises. Sherlock's unorthodox methods make an appearance in nearly every episode, of course, which sets Elementary apart somewhat.

But I don't watch Elementary primarily for the weekly crime solving. Both Holmes and Watson are interesting characters, and the show keeps it that way with various struggles and growth. Addiction struggles, career decisions, family problems - there's plenty of themes beyond whatever criminal is on the run this week. I particularly liked the appearances of Mycroft Holmes and Moriarty; two more traditional characters presented in new light. And there are other interesting recurring aspects, such as the hacker collective "Everyone" or Sherlock's interest in beekeeping, that add a bit of spice to the crime-of-the-week.

You can pick up most any episode of Elementary and follow the weekly story, which is fine in itself as weekly crime dramas go. I find the real draw, though, to be the characters and continuing story themes. I doubt it'll ever be considered the best Sherlock Holmes adaptation, but I enjoy watching.