The Flawed Masterpiece
Synopsis
The Metropolitan Police Department's Special Cases Investigation Unit is a division dedicated to “unfinished crimes.” It brings together Japan's strangest detectives, who take on just one kind of case: crimes that seem meticulously planned but reveal a fatal flaw at the last moment.
New civil servant Ryusuke Nishikido passes the national exam and joins the National Police Agency, only to be assigned as an aide to a division nicknamed the “defective goods recycling center.” His partner is an eccentric detective known as the “crime connoisseur,” a genius obsessed with analyzing criminals' mistakes and convinced that every imperfect crime conceals a code to human nature.
In a locked-room murder, the killer forgets the size of the ceiling ventilation duct. In a copycat murder, the connection between the victim and the classic novel being imitated is tenuous at best. A perfect alibi falls apart because the killer wore shoes that had no business being seen on a rainy day.
“Crime is an art,” his partner often says. “But most criminals don't even make the beginner's level.”
“And our job,” Ryusuke writes in his report, “is to collect the defective works left behind by these failed artists and piece together the truth they never wanted us to see.”
But as Ryusuke grows accustomed to the logic behind these “flaws,” he begins to notice a problem: why do all these imperfect crimes seem to have been “taught” by the same person?
Theme: The Investigation Unit
