A very weird book. Delightfully so. I will preface this that if you really loved Ring, this might not be the book for you. It re-contextualizes quite a bit and goes in extremely disparate and bizarre directions that if you are firmly a fan of j-horror spooky ghost stories: will NOT be your thing. If you, like me, love when an author is just putting anything in the book? This one has it all.

The biggest thing I noticed was how much more muscular Suzuki's writing is in this one. Ring was a well-plotted mystery, but it was written very utilitarian, whereas Spiral has much more descriptive language, incisive observations about the characters and their interactions, and one of his finest protagonists yet in Dr. Ando. The death of Ando's young son creates a very compelling figure to follow, as he is not so wrought with despair as to be non-functioning, but it colors a lot of his interactions with others and the decisions he makes. We follow his thought process closely, see him react with disgust at his own impulsive thoughts and his train of logic as he's solving the various puzzles throughout the book. While in Ring, I was captivated by the thrill of the mystery, Spiral gives me much more to chew on in regards to its protagonist.

I do think the beginning is much slower than Ring, though, and it wasn't until nearly 100 pages in that I found the big hook for the mystery. It's a sharp contrast to the instant hit of Ring: Tomoko dies after watching the tape, Asakawa begins the investigation. Spiral has a lot of, and I mean a lot of scientific discussions about genetics and DNA to the point it becomes borderline science fiction. The book takes many distinct diversions to make sure that the reader understands the differences between DNA and genes, how codons function and what the letters inscribed on them correspond to, and what those letters mean. I am by no means a smart man, so those passages required me to re-read them like I was in school again, desperately trying to comprehend my schoolwork.