Overview
I've read it. Here are the summary and my thoughts.
Summary
- A young doctor at Tououdou Hospital, Morikawa-kun, commits a hit-and-run. He tries to cover it up by changing the victim's clothes and disposing of the body.
- Anadou (wife) sees the body and mistakenly thinks her husband is dead. Confused? You'd better brace yourself. This story is full of mentally unstable psychiatric patients.
- Anadou (husband) tries to clear up the misunderstanding, but it’s inconvenient for Morikawa-kun if he succeeds, so he schemes to drive Mr. Anadou to neurosis and distracts everyone from the Anadou couple by causing another bizarre incident at the hospital.
- Conveniently, patients like Aokawa (husband), Furuya (wife), and Takahashi (husband), who have easily exploitable conditions and backgrounds, arrive at the hospital.
- Aokawa (husband) is a suicidal man who often experiences delusions of disappearing objects. It’s just a misunderstanding. Morikawa-kun uses his condition to distort eyewitness testimonies.
- Furuya (wife) has a history of murder and hallucinates that she has split into two after seeing her husband walking with another woman. It’s just a misunderstanding. Morikawa-kun uses her condition to stir up a sensational incident, eventually leading to her murder.
- Takahashi (husband) becomes violent over his delusion that his wife has been replaced by someone else. It’s just a misunderstanding. Morikawa-kun worsens his condition and frames him for the murder of Furuya (wife).
- Moreover, Morikawa-kun frames the vice-director, Mr. Hamajima, as the perpetrator of these incidents.
- Hamajima's ex-wife, Ms. Zaike, easily believes Morikawa's deception, but Mr. Hamajima quickly uncovers the truth.
Thoughts
- It was a mystery novel filled with mentally unstable psychiatric patients. To explain what I mean by "mentally unstable psychiatric patients" in this novel, they are neurotic, obsessive-compulsive, mysteriously perfectionist, overly meticulous, yet create their evaluations solely based on their opinions, lack a third-person perspective, disregard others’ views, and neglect fact-checking. These characters cause trouble alone, inconvenience others, and are manipulated by the perpetrator.
- The "perpetrator" turns out to be Morikawa-kun, but is that really the truth? Mr. Hamajima points out, "As the attending physician, I would be the first suspect, but there is another person under the same circumstances," referring to Morikawa-kun. But that means both Mr. Hamajima and Morikawa-kun are equally likely suspects, right? Mr. Hamajima wants to hide his involvement in a suicide, and Morikawa-kun wants to hide his involvement in a traffic accident, both having equally plausible motives, don’t they?
- Nevertheless, the real pleasure of this novel lies in unraveling how each patient's delusions are manipulated.
- One thing remains a mystery to me… the comment made by Takahashi's niece, Kumi, which initiated Mr. Takahashi's symptoms. She was the first to claim that Mrs. Takahashi had been replaced by someone else, but this mystery remains unsolved, leaving a peculiar feeling of unresolved tension within me.
