A young Tokyoite doctor accepts a post on a remote island south of Okinawa. When a highly contagious fatal disease breaks out, he has to choose between saving himself or saving others. [NP] A hormone-ridden teenage youth left alone with his young stepmother following his father's death is consumed with jealousy as her affections turn to another man. [NP] A journalist in search of answers travels from the metropolis to a bleak shore on the Japan Sea and eventually the furthest extreme of ice-bound Hokkaido, as he investigates the suicide of a young man. [NP] In a backstreet of the metropolis, a wily old detective follows his hunches to nail the murderer of a young prostitute. [NP] A conflict arises between two detectives investigating the shocking suicide of a 6-year-old child, the son of a young actress famed for her immoral behavior. Can it really be suicide, or is it murder? [NP] In this early collection of five short stories, Kyotaro Nishimura explores the criminal mind and what makes people do the unthinkable.