I should have learnt from reading the previous book (about the Japanese art of flower arranging called ikebana) that Massey is capable of turning the least likely themes into decent settings for a mystery. But I still expected to be disappointed in a tale based around the comic art of manga. I wasn’t of course, I should really learn to trust Massey to make any aspect of Japanese culture interesting.

Once again there is a decent plot here though I didn’t think it was quite as well resolved as in other books in the series. The characters are mostly fleshed out realistic people; I was glad to see we didn’t have to have too much to do with Rei’s Japanese family in this book as they always seem to be quite stereotypical to me and take me out of the story.

In the end it was good to see Rei dealing with modern day culture rather than her usual antique culture. I’ll keep reading this series and try not to take too many preconceptions about the subject matter with me into future books!