Butter

Manako Kajii is a gourmet cook awaiting trial in a Tokyo detention house, accused of murdering lonely businessmen she allegedly lured in with her home cooking. She has shut out the press and turns away every visitor, so when Rika Machida, a journalist, sends her a letter asking for her beef stew recipe, Kajii cannot resist replying. Rika is the only woman in her newsroom, spends her nights at the office, and seldom eats anything more elaborate than ramen.

As Rika visits Kajii again and again, their meetings turn into a cooking masterclass more than an interview. Rika had hoped the exchange would soften the hardened prisoner and open her up for a story, but she begins to wonder whether she is the one being changed. Each meal seems to stir something within her, and she starts to suspect that she and Kajii share more than she expected.

The novel draws on the real case of the "Konkatsu Killer," a con artist and serial killer. Asako Yuzuki uses that story to explore misogyny, obsession, romance and the pleasures of food in Japan, presenting a tense, unsettling portrait of two women bound together over a table.