The Only Child

3.5 stars.

I thought this would be a 2-star, maaaaybe a 3-star read. The translation isn't a smooth one or very literary. There are a lot of repeated words in the descriptions.

That being said, I really quite liked the simplicity and the rather depressing conclusion.

The story follows a college professor who teaches criminal psych. One day, she is informed a serial killer in solitary wants to be interviewed by her. She has no clue why; she has never met him. So she has to unravel that mystery. Simultaneously, her husband gets custody of his daughter because a fire in her home killed her grandparents, who were her guardians. The fire began mysteriously.

The plot is fairly simple, even if the emotions and psychology of the characters is more complex, so I won't reveal anything else. Suffice to say that I enjoyed it far more than I anticipated and was satisfyingly unsatisfied by the depressing ending. I'd read more.