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Content warnings: Some graphically violent scenes, suicide is discussed in detail
Basic plot: There is a serial killer who is murdering bright and successful high school girls by strangling them and shoving scissors into their neck
Language learning: The first few sections are a bit heavy on unusual vocab, but by the time you reach chapter one it mellows out and is pretty easy to follow. I'm a bit leery of the rating (L35 feels high as of July 2023) but looking at comparable books perhaps it's fine. There are speeches by one character that another character describes as 小難しい, and some sections are intentionally confusing although those don't come up too often.
This book was written in the late 90s so do be aware that some of the vocab will no longer be 'modern' if that's a concern for you.
Review: This book showed up on lists of ベストどんでん返し and it deserves it! I reached the final twist and just had to sit there for a minute reordering the entire book in my head. Loved it! I actually even scented the twist early on due to a quirk in the writing style, but dismissed it later as the author artfully wrote around the seeming inconsistency. As far as mysteries go it's an incredibly satisfying read.
If you like dark humor I especially recommend this book as it has multiple darkly humorous scenes.