Ryôsei Tayama

On the night of a blackout at the new residential area, ‘Soil New Town’, the Suzushiros, a family of three who live in that ordinary town, suddenly vanish into thin air. A pillar of salt rising up to the ceiling is left behind in the room of their daughter, Miki. Coincidentally, a heap of salt as high as a school building appears in the junior high school’s yard…

At the top of that heap is the heart of a hamster. Dispatched to solve this bizarre case, Onoda Masako and Yokoi Mitsuo from the Kamikawa Precinct, are astonished by the strange pillar of salt. There is the head of the resident’s association whose daily routine is obsessive surveillance, a youth who has been missing ever since the case occurred and an old woman who had an unsavoury experience in this town in the past. In the course of their investigation, Onoda and Yokoi begin to peer through to the underlying demeanours of the town’s residents and realise that malice and madness lurks beneath this seemingly quiet town.