一人靜

by Tetsuya Honda, 譽田哲也, 劉子倩 (Translator)

只要能活下去，當然可以不擇手段。
這個世界不就是這樣的嗎？

警員A：一名少女，消失在那黑暗中……彼時，或許我還不知道，真正的黑暗究竟有多深。
警員B：一時之間，我不知該說什麼才好。心中只有不斷來回交錯的問號。
偵探C：靜加，妳果然還活著嗎？
警官D：究竟是哪裡出了錯、哪裡不對勁，我已經無法指摘。勉強要說的話，一切都不對勁、一切都脫軌了。
警員E：事情好像終於連起來了。雖然還無法想像最終會是怎樣，但的確已有某種輪廓模糊浮現。

〈闇一重〉、〈腐屍蝶〉、〈螢蜘蛛〉、〈死舞盃〉、〈罪時雨〉

看似毫不相關的五樁殺人事件背後，隱藏著一個安靜又神祕的少女……
伊東靜加，妳到底是什麼人物？

288 pages, Paperback

First published April 12, 2012

About the author

Associated Names:
* 誉田 哲也 (Japanese profile)
* ฮนดะ เท็ตสึยะ (Thai profile)

Reviews

[Mizuki · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy Tetsuya Honda's Reiko Himekawa series which is centered around a tough-as-nail female cop, and I think this series is one of the few hard boiled series that keeps improving itself as each book goes. However, this stand-alone book, Quiet, Alone (it's my rough translation, and the heroine's name means 'quietness' in Japanese) by the same author really doesn't work so well with me.

The concept of the story and the opening part is outstanding enough, though: a gangster is killed under mysterious condition, soon a suspect shows up and it turns out he is the one who stabbed the victim. Case closed, you think? Then you are wrong. As a curious cop digs deeper into the case, he soon realizes a young girl might be involved with the murder case.

So each of the short stories from within this book are related to this young girl, we follow the tracks she left behind from 13 years old to 31 years old, and she is always one step ahead from us and the cops.

The murder mysteries and the quest to reach for this young girl (later a young woman) and the revealing of her dark, twisted mind are rather exciting. However, I find the character's build-up very weak and inconsistent. We are told that due to the traumas she had endued in childhood, the young girl learnt to be cruel, cunning and merciless in order to survive, but we are later told that after she met a certain someone, her 9 years old half-sister, she got a 180 degree turn and now she is sacrificing herself on this certain someone's behalf? I am not convinced.

I have a feeling that Mr. Honda tried to create something similar to Journey Under the Midnight Sun, by Keigo Higashino (a melodrama novel which I consider to be only so-and-so), these two books have similar themes: abused victims turn revengeful and cruel, a beautiful woman who has a dark past, said beautiful young woman on a run from the police and her own past, leaving a trail of corpses and mysteries behind etc, but sadly he had failed.

PS: the book cover is so pretty!