Specs
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(3.17/5)For language difficulty this book is pretty standard for grammar, but the vocabulary is fairly extensive especially as relates to both finance and real estate (the murders take place in a luxury condo). Despite technically being a book about murder, there is relatively little crime vocabulary used.
This book has many, many characters and I suggest taking notes (or using the ones I wrote for the book club) to keep track of them. Often, however, people are introduced, given extensive background, and then never mentioned again after they share the one piece of information relevant to the plot that they have.
Some chapters of this book dive deep into financial / real estate details, which I personally didn't find very engaging, but if the topics are of interest to you perhaps those won't feel so dreary.
I found the extreme level of detail about every character to be a bit exhausting to read, and it wasn't really my cup of tea. I also wanted the mystery to develop more and it felt like it was one dragging step after another on that front. This is not a fast paced book - if that's your taste look somewhere else.
I think if you like character studies and/or have an interest in immediate post-Bubble Japan this might be a good choice.
I enjoyed it but I would not recommend it which is an odd feeling. It comes down to simply being way too long for what it is.
At least I now understand why the title is what it is. 😅
Read something else by this author instead...
The problem with this book I think is that it's just too long (nearly 700 pages of densely printed text in my copy) and it feels like a slog to read through. It's an interesting idea to structure the novel as a sort of journalistic examination of the mystery with interviews with lots of people who were affected by it, but in practice it means that the author keeps introducing new groups of characters, giving them massively overdetailed backstories, and then moving on to a new group of characters in the next chapter, never coming back. I stalled out reading this the first time through, and I'm pretty sure if I hadn't had the book club schedule to force me to read a chapter or so a week I would have stalled out again the second time.
Miyabe has written much better books than this one: try レベル7 for "what the heck is going on" mystery, or 火車 if you want a side order of commentary on social issues.