The Aosawa Murders Summary
Riku Onda

The Aosawa Murders Overview

In Riku Onda's The Aosawa Murders, a devastating crime occurs on a rainy day in a residential neighborhood in Japan. Makiko Saiga is only ten when she walks into her neighbor's party and finds a dozen people dead from a poisoned toast sent by a mysterious man in a yellow coat. A decade later, Makiko writes a novel about the poisoning called The Forgotten Festival. Twenty years after her novel comes out, an unnamed woman on the fringes of the case begins investigating the murders again, compiling a series of interviews, newspaper articles, and journal entries about the crime. The novel explores themes of wealth, assumptions, perspective, the transformative power of writing, and the intersection of crime and entertainment.