Kanae Minato presents a murder mystery in one of the most unique narratives I have ever read. (I read the translation by Stephen Snyder). There were so many things that made this book so amazing. First of all, this story is narrated in a very stark, even simplistic manner - yet, somehow the bare boned monologue is surprisingly intricate. The story starts with Yuko Moriguchi's final lecture to her class. The lecture starts with a comment on the new milk programme at school. Mundane enough. At some point it moves to an announcement of her upcoming retirement. Also ordinary. When the topic moves to details about a colleague's life after being afflicted with AIDS, it gets just a little uncomfortable. Weaving in and out of the tale with deep comments on life, the lecture suddenly crashes into the recent death of her four-year-old child, Manami. Before we know what happened, a revenge plot for the two murderers, Shuya and Naoki, is announced right there in the classroom.
That story told in that chapter becomes the framework of the rest of the book as each chapter becomes a confession by a different player in this gruesome drama. What made Shuya invent that electrically charged purse - and then want to try its effects on someone? Why did Naoki decide to support a murderous plan? How does something like this affect the people in their lives - the mother, the sister, the girlfriend? What is really fascinating about this narrative is that we see the exact same series of events from different points of view - and those dramatically different perspectives move the story forward.
I was also really moved by the different comments on life and society - comments that I would actually like to see someone address! Questions of troubled kids and juvenile laws, peer pressures and social stigmas intersperse an already dark tale.
One story. Different voices. Constant twists ... that led to a grand act of vengeance. This was not really horror or crime in the traditional sense of the genre - rather it was a layer by layer exposé of some very dark and disturbing sides of human nature.
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