Fantastic book, great translation. I could not put it down. Finished the book in two sittings, yes, its that good.
and the story and characters stick with you long after you put the book down. And to me those are the best stories.

The publisher's summary gives the impression that this is a complex philosophical and psychological rumination on the nature of identity, memory and guilt. and the commentary by Matthew Cheney exaggerates that interpretation further. It's nothing like that. It's a satisfying layered mystery concerning a murder, a novelist's attempt to go deeper than the police investigation and news treatment and a surrealistic experimental treatment in a mental institution. It will remind readers of books like [[ASIN:1501143778 The Dark Half]], [[ASIN:0446607207 Tell Me Your Dreams]], [[ASIN:0393327345 Fight Club]] and [[ASIN:1573227951 An Instance of the Fingerpost]].

The novella consists of daily "experimental treatment" sessions in a mysterious mental hospital room with an amnesiac and a mysterious "treatment specialist." The room has a large mirror behind the specialist, which the patient suspects is one-way, with observers on the other side. The treatment consists of the patient reading news accounts of a gruesome murder, along with research notes and drafts of a novel being writing about the crime. The murder was committed by an unhappy introvert who becomes obsessed with controlling a young woman. The notes show a writer struggling to maintain his identity as a novelist as his career pulls him into investigative reporting. He is determined to understand the feelings of the murderer rather than the facts of the case, and begins a downward spiral that threatens to make him the murderer's alter ego (I was reminded of Truman Capote's challenges while writing [[ASIN:0679745580 In Cold Blood]]).

So does the mirror mean that both patient and investigator are one person? Is either one the murderer or novelist, or are the murderer or novelist watching from behind the mirror? Is everything taking place only in someone's head (there is an extended surrealistic scene that could only be imaginary)? If the murderer cannot remember anything about the crime, and the writer has become so obsessed that he believes his was the murderer, who or what is guilty?

If these questions were treated in any depth, this could be an interesting philosophical or psychological work. But they're merely clever devices to consider a crime from multiple angles with only minor differences of fact but massive changes in perspective. It works well as entertainment, like the movie [[ASIN:B004FHCH96 Memento]], and it will make you think a little bit, but don't expect any revolutionary insights. The author actually has more serious things to say about the generational nature of society and sensationalist news coverage than about the nature of being.

The translation is a bit odd, using uncommon and formal English words like "depravation" instead of "depravity," "intrusion of my rights," instead of "violation of my rights," "emulous" instead of "imitative." There is also a confusion with the imperfect tense common among speakers of languages like Japanese that use present tense for habitual action (also among speakers of languages with a true imperfect tense like French); and some trouble with negatives. "After he failed his first entrance exam. . .my brother stop talking to anyone," instead of "stopped talking to everyone," illustrates both. I'm not sure if the translator is attempting to convey subtleties from the Japanese, or is a non-native English speaker working from a dictionary. In either event, the translation is always clear.

One good aspect of the translation that is much too rare is notes explaining points likely unfamiliar to many English readers. For example when detectives search a suspect's room they find, "the floor was covered with trash--leftover food and comic books--expect for a spot where his futon was laid out." The note explains that futons are normally put away in closets during the day, so this description suggests the suspect was not just messy but laid around on his bed all day.

Overall this is a fine layered mystery. The crime itself is solved quickly and easily, this book is concerned about the ripples afterwards.