For Detective Inspector Hideo Aoki of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, the sprinklings of misfortune have become a torrential downpour. His exhaustive efforts to indict a powerful politician have been aborted by his superiors, and his investigative team disbanded. His father dies, and soon afterward his wife hangs herself.
Ostensibly for compassionate leave, Aoki's boss reserves him a stay at an isolated hot spring which, title notwithstanding, is in a remote part of Hokkaido. Upon arrival, Aoki finds himself in an exceedingly peculiar situation. A woman had mysteriously disappeared in Tokyo seven years ago to the day, and her husband, a corrupt banker, and her former paramour, a finance ministry official, both happen to be staying at the same inn, which by another remarkable coincidence is managed by the woman's daughter. An unseasonable blizzard hits, telephone communications and electric power fail, and as the darkness sets in, hotel guests' heads start rolling in quick succession. Aoki, not only out of his official jurisdiction but also minus his service revolver and badge, is forced to match wits with a melange of suspicious characters, including an enigmatic player of the board game Go.
As this contrived situation develops, Aoki encounters a series of deaths by foul play. I was reminded by turns of Agatha Christie's 1939 classic (the subject of several film remakes) "And Then There Were None" -- set on an Indian island -- and D.C. denizen Lewis "Scooter" Libby's bizarre 1996 tale "The Apprentice" (reviewed here last February).
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