Review by Karl Verhoven

Manhole provides a strange brew. It’s ostensibly a tale of police detectives Ken Mizoguchi and Nao Inoue hunting down what after Manhole 1 they know to be a maverick scientific dabbler who’s unleashed a transmissible parasite. “This guy commits crimes for ideological reasons. I don’t really know what his motives are”, says Mizoguchi, but readers do. The crime procedural, though, simultaneously hits horrific peaks as the results of infection are stomach-turningly laid out. Tetsuya Tsutsui spares no thought for those of delicate sensibilities in his portrayals. The title comes from the small area beneath the ground where the perpetrator experimented on living people. This volume’s opening chapter ups the stakes via introducing a second victim.

For the middle section of his three part story Tsutsui again enthrals and surprises. What appeared an isolated incident escalates, and with the disease carrier a mosquito, slowing down the spread is unlikely. Tsutsui has researched his subject well, and uses the limitations and weaknesses of mosquitos to serve his plot in smart ways. They react badly to certain sounds, for instance.

After the opening chapter, more so than in Manhole 1, Tsutsui keeps his focus on the police and uses Inoue as the reader’s viewpoint, sometimes seen recoiling in horror at what she witnesses. They, and by extension readers know what’s going on, but the wider public don’t. By the end of the volume, though, the perpetrator has returned to witness events, and ominously mentions the second part of his plan can proceed.

That’s a matter for Manhole 3 and it’s unlikely any reader of the first two volumes won’t want to be around for the conclusion.