Newly transferred to a precinct in the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo, Detective Kyochiro Kaga, while investigating the puzzling murder of a woman, soon discovers that nearly all the people living and working in the business district of Nihonbashi are suspects.

"From the acclaimed author of Malice and Newcomer, a confounding murder in Tokyo is connected to the mystery of the disappearance and death of Detective Kaga's own mother. A decade ago, Tokyo Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga went to collect the ashes of his recently deceased mother. Years before, she ran away from her husband and son without explanation or any further contact, only to die alone in an apartment far away, leaving her estranged son with many unanswered questions. Now in Tokyo, Michiko Oshitani is found dead many miles from home. Strangled to death, left in the bare apartment rented under a false name by a man who has disappeared without a trace. Oshitani lived far away in Sendai, with no known connection to Tokyo - and neither her family nor friends have any idea why she would have gone there. Hers is the second strangulation death in that approximate area of Tokyo - the other was a homeless man, killed and his body burned in a tent by the river. As the police search throu