First published 2026
Detective Godai receives what should be a straightforward assignment: investigate lawyer Kensuke Shiraishi's death after his body turns up on a Tokyo riverbank. The case takes an unexpected turn when Tatsuro Kuraki not only confesses to killing Shiraishi but also admits to another murder from three decades past. That earlier crime had already been solved when a different man was arrested and died in custody awaiting trial. Two closed cases should mean success for Godai, but something feels wrong about Kuraki's confession. The detective's doubts grow stronger when both Kuraki's son and Shiraishi's daughter reject the confession and the motives Kuraki claims drove him to kill. Godai digs deeper into the connection between the recent killing and the thirty-year-old case. His investigation reveals that innocence and guilt intertwine in ways that challenge everything he thought he understood about both crimes and their lasting impact on the families involved.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: Tokyo
Period: 30 years ago
410 pages · Kindle Edition · Minotaur Books