I don’t know if I was not it the right mood to completely enjoy the book, or if it really was a bit slow, but even though I think the story is great, I also never felt entirely involved in the story and I didn’t really care about finding out the truth.
I found the story and tragedy very good, and even though I found the novel a bit slow and repetitive at first, it does build a good foundation to make revelations of the last parts more impactful. The end was also excellent and scary. Maybe the problem to me was that characters lack substance, our author Kobayashi, persons who join the investigation mid-way and the characters more deeply related to the case… I felt like in the end we never really get to know any of them. I guess it’s probably intended, to focus more on the investigation and documents gathered, but to me maybe the story was a bit dry? maybe it lacked something to make it more compelling? Or again, maybe this choice is perfect for the intended purpose, and I was just not being the best reader for it.
I’m impressed that it is a debut novel, and I’ll definitely be on the lookout for author’s next publications.