Exactly one year after a baffling series of murders and a theft, Kiyoshi Shimada finds himself at the isolated River Mill House alongside those who were there - can he deduce what really happened…?

This was a great puzzle, though I did figure some of it out - when you’ve read enough murder mysteries, certain suggestive clues will start to jump out at you, and that was the case here, though I did not manage to fit it all together.

But, while it was a clever solution, I wasn’t entirely sold on the set up of the story. What was the deal with 40-year-old Kiichi and his 19-year-old wife - she’s been kept holed up in this Mill House for a decade, but it was never quite clear to me exactly why. It was a bit…bizarre.

I also see what the author was doing with the flip-flipping between the past and present, and while the change in POV helped separate the two, ultimately I didn’t love it as a storytelling strategy.

A clever closed circle and locked room murder mystery puzzle with a slightly unconvincing set-up.