Continuing my exploration into Japanese crime fiction, thanks to Pushkin Vertigo taking on the project of bringing more titles into the English language.

My first impression was that this book is impressively meta: all the characters are named after famous mystery authors, the plot is an obvious twist on And Then There Were None, and the book opens with a scene where the chharacters are discussing if mystery novels should be more realistic or more entertaining puzzles for the reader. That should have given me a clue as to which type of mystery this story would lean towards, but I did not take the hint and subsequently got kind of annoyed at how contrived some of the characters' behaviors were... reader was warned, reader did not heed the signpost lol.

Overall I found the story entertaining and absolutely did not guess who the murderer was, so it was worth the read.