The second novel in one of the most beloved crime series of all time - more than 25 million copies of the Mikeneko Holmes books sold in Japan

Detective Katayama is leaving the force . . .

. . . eventually. But with his resignation letter gathering dust on his boss's desk, he is faced with a case that draws him back in. Two sisters murdered in the same room in the same apartment two years apart. One died almost peacefully, a smile on her face and a bullet in her heart, while the other was brutally strangled.

Curiously, there seems to be a connection with the cultural centre where his sister Harumi now works. Days before the second murder, someone signed up to every single course in the name of the victim of the first.

Normally Holmes can be relied on to drag in clues. Instead, she remains aloof, her feline face inscrutable, as if biding her time. But with the murders stacking up, what can she possibly be waiting for?

Translated from the Japanese by Haydn Trowell