[Simple Synopsis] The Detective's Sacrifice (Minor Spoilers) [Tomoyuki Shirai / Shinchosha]
"Please hire me."
Until Ririko Arimori, who was a college freshman at the time, began working at the Otoya Detective Agency, Takashi Otoya was a "normal" detective who focused mainly on infidelity investigations.
However, Ririko's performance after joining the firm was extraordinary, and as a result, various requests began to pour in from police officials, which Ririko would then go on to solve as well.
Before they knew it, the Otoya Detective Agency was no longer a "normal" detective agency.
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"Introduction" I am a self-confessed homebody. Furthermore, I feel the winter cold acutely and my frequency of going out has decreased, but in inverse proportion to that, my amount of reading has increased.
Therefore, I would like to write my impressions of books I have read recently that left an impression on me, or books I bought and left in my to-read pile.
I am writing this in the hope that reading this review will make you even slightly interested in the work or the author, but please be aware that it contains "minor spoiler elements" such as characters and vague plot summaries.
This is the winner of the 4th Hontame Literature Award (second half of 2022).
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The era is 1978 (Showa 53).
Takashi Otoya, the head of the Otoya Detective Agency, and his subordinate, Ririko Arimori, take on murder cases that occurred in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, and Jordantown in San Francisco, USA.
The story progresses based on a background different from the modern day, where, in a chaotic era and with a religious group involved, there is a danger that people can be killed easily, without any logic or reason.
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In this work, for a single murder, the detective character carefully considers various elements such as 'positions, perspectives, and outcomes' to present several types of deductions.
While contradictions arise in one deduction, those contradictions are resolved in the next.
However, since resolving them leads to various other problems, the detective intentionally makes deductions from different perspectives...
Because so many pages are devoted to the deductions themselves in this way, it is truly a work that can be called a 'detective novel'.
It not only includes foreshadowing hidden within the descriptions of daily life, but also carefully resolves all the foreshadowing (i.e., mysteries) generated by certain deductions, making it a perfect work for reading thoroughly.
That said, the story speeds up rapidly from the murder that occurs in Jordantown, which in turn increases the reader's pace, and the final few dozen pages in particular are a whirlwind of developments.
In other words, it is also a work where it is difficult to catch every fine detail, so there is no doubt you will end up reading it over and over again.
The way the 'meaning of the title' is revealed at the end was also very much to my liking.
I am very much looking forward to the next work.
★Other Novel Reviews★
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