Kenichiro Thomson

A reclusive writer of detective stories, Oe Shundei, has gone missing, leaving behind a suspicious trail of blackmailing letters to a former lover. Another detective novelist, his rival, is the only one who can find him. A sequence of macabre and appalling events follows.

A super-criminal - as deadly as she is beautiful - wagers all in an epic battle with a master detective, Akechi Kogoro. No trick is too elaborate, no disguise too fantastic as the two perfectly matched antagonists take turns to outwit each other.

It's just before New Year, and Frank, an overweight American tourist, has hired Kenji to take him on a guided tour of Tokyo's red light district.

As Frank's behaviour becomes increasingly unsettling, Kenji begins to entertain a horrible suspicion: his client may in fact have murderous intentions.

Although Kenji is far from innocent himself, he unwillingly descends into the troubling waters of Frank's mind, from which only his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Jun, can possibly save him.