The ending didn’t really work for me. I don’t think there was enough character development for the relationship stuff to feel impactful, and it’s disappointing that Makabe’s plan for an evolution of the mystery novel or whatever didn’t matter at all.
That’s just the last ~10 pages though, and I did enjoy the rest of the book.
I was also extremely whelmed. The locked room trick is… fine? The main/best bit of misdirection was placing the empty can in the basement beforehand. I also would never have remembered that Alice wore his slippers outside. I was basically spot on at the beginning with “the powder could give Ishimachi an alibi… unless he starts walking around the house at night,” but when did he put the slippers back on? Himura said he took them off after walking to the bathroom (which makes sense), but he then went downstairs, met and killed whatshisface, knocked out Alice, locked the room, and then he said he stayed by Alice because Alice started to wake up and he didn’t want him to see Ishimachi walking away… so when did he have time to go back upstairs and get his slippers? I think I liked the Kouji version of the trick better. Also wow Ishimachi gave up fast, and the reason for locking the study felt kind of weak. I think a big issue with the book is that so much of the pagecount is spent on the motive and the origin of the trick, and it feels drawn-out and pointless at the time, and turns out to in fact be pointless.
Anyway, the moral I’m taking away from this book is don’t date women
