It has taken me some time to write down how I felt while reading this book. I will aim to keep this review as spoiler-free as possible. Natsuo Kirino's writing style is by far some of my favorite in the Mystery Fiction genre. I truly enjoyed reading how the author was able to connect each character to each other while making the supporting characters apart of the main story. There was no character too small or too large for the overall plot. 

This a story that follows four women who worked at a factory; Yayoi, Kuniko, Masiko, Yoshi (I hope I am spelling their names right). Each of these women had a very different outlook on life that often lead to them misunderstanding or overestimating each other. A death happens in this book and all of them made an unlikely alliance to get the job done. The job is in regards to the dead body. 

In addition to these four women working at the factor, another main character the club owner ( I would add the man who is half Japanese and Brazillian as well) role was particularly intriguing. I can not go too much into the club owner's role or it would be spoiling the book. Just KEEP YOUR EYE ON HIM. As the story progress, greed becomes Kuniko, Yayoi becomes more naive and overly trusting, Yoshi becomes stronger and weaker in a sense, and Maskio unravels things about herself that she didn't know before. 

With each of the four women, their perspectives give you an insight into their family systems and moral values. These women seem to be capable of anything given the right price. Yayoi is in a marriage with a man who doesn't deserve her and has little boys to take care of. Masiko is in a loveless marriage with a man who ignores her and a son who appears to not speak. Kuniko is in a marriage with a man who criticizes her, constantly gets fat shammed throughout the book, greedy, and lives beyond her means. Yoshi is timid, shy, lets people walk over her, has two daughters who use her, and a mother who abuses her. They have to deal with all their personal problems while trying to clear their names of an unmentionable crime. 

The best part about this book was the slow burn in my opinion. I truly enjoyed how the author planted seeds of paranoia into most of the characters and didn't connect those seeds until the last few chapters. I love seeing a theme and not understanding it and having it be revealed in such a genius way. I thought the layout of the mystery traps in this book was perfectly written. 

I thought I knew what was going to happen a few times and almost every time the author made a different decision and direction for the plot. This was a wonderful book. The reason why I rated this book a 3.75 was because overly annoying characters take me away from the overall point of a book. Those characters for me were Yayoi, Yoshi, and Kuniko. There were multiple scenes of incessant whining from these characters and it almost made me want to skip their perspectives altogether. 

My biggest thing is that I wish I read reviews of this book BEFORE reading it. I still would have read it but I wish I warned myself and OTHERS! There is a lot of sexual violence and I don't think I was ready for it (A lot to me is more than one time.) Although this book is classified as a Mystery, it felt very much like a Thriller to me.