“Setagaya ward, Tokyo
Inspector Kosuke Iwata, newly transferred to Tokyo’s homicide department, is assigned a new partner a
nd a second-hand case.
Blunt, hard as nails and shunned by her colleagues, Assistant Inspector Noriko Sakai is a partner Iwata decides it would be unwise to cross.
A case that’s complicated – a family of four murdered in their own home by a killer who then ate ice cream, surfed the web and painted a hideous black sun on the bedroom ceiling before he left in broad daylight. A case that so haunted the original investigator that he threw himself off the city’s famous Rainbow Bridge.
Carrying his own secret torment, Iwata is no stranger to pain. He senses the trauma behind the killer’s brutal actions. Yet his progress is thwarted in the unlikeliest of places.
Fearing corruption among his fellow officers, tracking a killer he’s sure is only just beginning and trying to put his own shattered life back together, Iwata knows time is running out before he’s taken off the case or there are more killings . . .”
I feel rather conflicted about this book, as I liked aspects of it but struggled with others.
I was intrigued by the premise of a serial killer with a link to a religious cult, but I found the plot too slow, as I do like a fast paced crime novel. I found it hard to get to know the main character Inspector Iwata, as he felt too distant and his many mixed up memories really confused me at times.
I struggled to keep with all the different minor characters and where they fitted into the plot. Fortunately because I was reading this on my Kindle App I was able to search within the text to discover who different characters were and when they’d been mentioned before. I’ve never had to do this before so this came in very handy.
Having never visited Japan nor Tokyo and other places mentioned throughout, I found it hard to imagine where scenes were taking place.
I did think about giving up on it but I wanted to find out what happened.
Would I read something by the author again? Maybe, but I’d borrow it from the library instead. Would I recommend it? Only if like you like a slow paced police procedural.
Thanks to NetGalley, Penguin UK – Michael Joseph for my free digital copy.
Secret Library Book Blog 