A gemlike collection of short stories by Seicho Morimura, master of social suspense.
After a passionate encounter with her lover, a wife dies in her own car. The only clue is a voucher for a hotel dinner party prize, and her husband can do nothing but follow it in search of the truth... After leaving their company jobs, a couple in their forties run a small restaurant, but the manager they hire takes over and gradually devours their business, even setting his sights on the wife... Stray cats disappear one after another along a walking route, putting local residents on alert. Despite joining forces, they cannot catch the cat thief, until one resident's pet cat turns up at the scene of a locked-room murder, bringing a complex and mysterious chain of cause and effect to light... An elderly man who loves taking photographs is asked to take a picture of a couple. The instant he presses the shutter, he captures a seemingly happy man and woman, unaware that one of them is about to die and the other will become a suspect...
