A wealthy Osaka family faces mysterious tragedies from 1906 to WWII in this historical murder mystery.

I found the story interesting and liked the historical setting, but I struggled to keep track of the characters. Some had similar or changing names which got confusing. There were moments that felt a bit repetitive, and while the mystery was engaging, the slow pace and lack of action left it feeling a bit flat overall.

I couldn't get through more than 14% if this one.
Unfortunately it was extremely slow paced and really difficult to follow.
We are given a list of characters and information about each one at the very start, but it was extensive!
I struggled to determine which view point each chapter was from and we spent a lot of time in the minute detail of certain scenes that I would forget the point of why we might be being told these things.

I would like to thank Net Galley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Before I get started in this review, I'm a huge fan of Honkaku mystery fiction and it was the main reason I requested this novel. I found this book incredibly difficult: I found the pacing to be slow and I found the different timepoints and different POVS difficult. They were not clearly stated so it was difficult to maintain the thread of the plot.

I guessed the murderer, which was always going to drop my rating but I just found the ending especially convoluted - like surpassing the enjoyment of Honkaku fiction.