
Manabu Yukawa, a physicist and college friend who frequently consults with the police. Kusanagi is unable to find any obvious holes in Yasuko's manufactured alibi and yet is still sure that there's something wrong. When the body turns up and is identified, Detective Kusanagi draws the case and Yasuko comes under suspicion. Overhearing the commotion, Yasuko's next door neighbor, middle-aged high school mathematics teacher Ishigami, offers his help, disposing not only of the body but plotting the cover-up step-by-step. When he shows up one day to extort money from her, threatening both her and her teenaged daughter Misato, the situation quickly escalates into violence and Togashi ends up dead on her apartment floor. Yasuko Hanaoka is a divorced, single mother who thought she had finally escaped her abusive ex-husband Togashi.


Winner of the prestigious Naoki Prize for Best Novel the equivalent of the National Book Award.
