This gets my vote for the best fiction book I read in 2022. What really impressed me, as a native of Chicago, was how well the city was represented. The author described how Aki would go to work at the Newberry Library or visit a friend working at the Curtiss Candy Company in Streeterville and the descriptions lined up with the landmarks I already knew. You could tell the author had done their research.

What I did not know was that there was the history of Japanese-Americans being forcibly relocated to Chicago after their release from internment camps. I knew how the American government forced Japanese immigrants and their American-born children into camps on the West Coast, but I didn't know that many of them resettled in Chicago when they weren't allowed to return to their homes. So this book taught me something new about my city.

The characters were well-developed, the mystery unraveled at a steady pace, and the ending was not at all what I expected. I probably read 95% of this in one shot because I could not put it down. A second book in the series is due to be published in 2023 and I look forward to the continuation of Aki's story.