First published 2025
Ryota Uetsuji's body surfaces in Tokyo Bay with a bullet wound. His girlfriend Sonoka Shimauchi reported him missing days earlier, but when Detectives Kusanagi and Utsumi arrive to question her, they find an empty apartment. Her clothes are gone. She has stopped showing up for work. The evidence points toward murder, and Sonoka becomes the prime suspect. The case seems straightforward until her alibi checks out. She was in Kyoto when Ryota vanished, hundreds of miles from the crime scene. If the abused girlfriend didn't kill her violent partner, someone else pulled the trigger. The detectives turn to their most reliable consultant, the brilliant physicist known as Detective Galileo. He must unravel the mystery of who wanted Ryota dead and why Sonoka disappeared. The investigation forces them to dig deeper into the couple's troubled relationship and discover secrets that complicate everything they thought they knew about the murder.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: dark, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Tokyo Bay, Kyoto
276 pages · Paperback · Abacus Books
Content warnings: violence