[DeepL Translation - needs review] Volume 1 Introduction: Japan is in the midst of a super typhoon. Eleven people are suddenly taken to a separate room at the immigration office of an international airport. They are frustrated as time passes. The equipment is unusable due to a massive communication failure. One of the women said, "The authorities believe there is a terrorist mastermind among these people. I want you all to find out who it is. The ten men, horrified, begin to deduce who the t...
This review is for the entire book, not just volume 1.
As far as language difficulty goes this is a pretty standard adult novel. Some vocab stretch in sections, sure, but overall pretty contained during the bulk of the dialogues, especially for something that I'd consider sci-fi. Is it heavy sci-fi with science as a main focus? No. Does it have sci-fi themes and plot lines? Yes. Grammar felt standard, maybe a flourish here or there but not much that will trip learners comfortable reading adult novels.
This story takes place in an airport as people are held back from passing through customs, and the I kept being like 'wow, I'm 100+ pages into reading about people stuck in an airport and I am fascinated'. I know Onda Riku for writing excellent atmosphere and this book is no exception.
I typically find her endings to be a bit weak or dissatisfying though, and this is an exception to that. This felt like a normal book ending with a tidy wrap up. If you usually avoid her work because you don't like her ambiguous style of endings, you may enjoy this one.
Overall I recommend this book - it's suspenseful without being uncomfortable, it has no content warnings that I can think of, a full cast of interesting characters, and a solid pace that makes the length of the book feel inconsequential.