• The opening paragraphs are very precise and quantitative. They give us times, directions, and distances suggestive of a structured, routine lifestyle. The main character, Ishigami, has an attitude towards life characterized by mathematical precision and careful observation to detail. The dry and factual account of the directions to Ishigami's school tell us that he is a practical person who looks for the "quickest route" to achieving his goals. We are told simply and pointedly that he is a math teacher:

"He worked at the private high school just before the park. He was a teacher. He taught math."

• This simple and direct prose sums up Ishigami's personality using the "quickest route." It reflects a minimalist and pragmatic approach to living, one concerned with facts and logic. It is also indicative of a lack of hobbies, passions, and interests that would otherwise be typical of most people. For Ishigami, it is math that defines who he is.

• As Ishigami walks along the river bank on his way to school, he passes a series of shanties where homeless people live. The people whom Ishigami passes on his way to work are in various degrees of destitution - at one extreme there is an older man over sixty with a long ponytail for whom there exists no prospect of employment - he is unambiguously destitute; then there is another man around fifty, whom Ishigami has dubbed the "Can Man," who collects cans, wears nice clothes, owns a bicycle, and lives in the best location in the shantytown - while he is no doubt destitute, he lives at the "edge of the community," which corresponds figuratively to his marginal status as someone who is not totally destitute but rather enjoys some degree of status and can be said to be "successful" as a homeless person; then there is the "Engineer," so named because Ishigami has seen him reading a trade magazine, who continues to wear formal work clothing in the hopes of finding a job - he occupies a transitional state between mainstream society and total destitution; finally, on the margins of "mainstream" society, there is the widower who lives alone with her three dogs and who must "scrimp and save" in order to survive. This series of people represent a progression from extreme destitution at one end to what barely qualifies as belonging to the sphere of mainstream society at the other. This progression will provide an important parallel for the characters in the novel, particularly Ishigami and Yusako, as they too go through a similar series of stages that involves them becoming progressively worse off and destitute.

= The aforementioned series of progressively less destitute and progressively more socially acceptable characters ends quite fittingly with Yasuko, whom Ishigami sees not by accident but as a result of a purposeful detour that Ishigami makes for the express purpose of seeing her (The fact that she represents a "detour" for his usual routine is also significant in a figurative sense because her appearance in Ishigami's life will represent a symbolic detour that will change the whole course of his life in more ways than one). In the hierarchy of social outcasts introduced in the beginning, she ranks above the homeless and umemployed: she is a middle-aged divorcee and washed-up former nightclub hostess who lives with her daughter in an apartment next to Ishigami. Her divorcee status as well as her former profession underscore her status as a socially and economically marginalized person.

• This plays into a larger social commentary that Higashino makes in the novel, which is that of the economic destitution and social alienation that often lie at the root of much "anti-social" behavior. People in society are at the mercy of an inhumane and mechanistic system that has commodified social relations and reduced people to "cogs" in a giant machine, as the character Yukawa will later say. For example, Ishigami, as will learn later, is a man who once had aspiration of being a university professor and mathematics researcher but who has been forced by economic necessity to settle for a job as a high school teacher. The homeless "Engineer" epitomizes this phenomenon as well. Yasuko's ex-husband Togashi once enjoyed economic success but then lost his job and fell on hard times, causing him to resort to drinking and gambling and to become increasinly abusive. Yasuko herself is getting along in years and is considered too old to work at the nightclub, a somewhat disreputable profession to begin with, which is what ultimately why she decides to work in the lunch-box shop - that and the fact that she has a daughter to think of and wants to get away from her ex-husband. The characters exist against a backdrop of economic and social instability, and Higashino himself may have been influenced by his having lived through the recession that occurred in Japan after the economic bubble of the 1980s burst.

• The social alienation that results from living under such a precarious economic circumstances is evident in the many ways that the characters interact with each other. The widower whom Ishigami passes along the riverbank is alone and only has her dogs for company. Ishigami must force himself to greet her and comment on the weather. Ishigami and Yasuko live next to each other but hardly speak to each other. For Yasuko, Ishigami is compared to a "thin crack in her wall," which the narrator elaborates upon by saying how "she knew it was there, but she had never paid it much attention." Yasuko herself is given a job at the lunch-box shop and taken care of by her nightclub mama, Sanoko, as opposed to her real mother, of whom we know nothing. Yasuko had married Togashi, her second husband, because he was a regular customer at her club and, being foreign car salesman, was able to offer her a high-roller lifesetyle. He himself cheated his company out of money rather than working honestly. It is very telling that Yasuko's husband is just another customer and someone she meets through work, again underscoring the commodification of social relations that has become normalized in society (Ishigami himself, despite being Yasuko's neighbor, must purchase lunch boxes and become a customer in order to have any social interaction with Yasuko). Perhaps even most disturbing in this regard is Togashi's comment about Misato that "she'll be making good money in a few years. She'll make a fine woman someday." Even the homeless have status differences among each other, the "Can Man" being like a "village elder," as Ishigami describes him. These fragmented social relations are no doubt the by-product of a system that encourages greed and selfishness.

• Money is a key factor in accounting for people's motives in the novel. After his divorce with Yaskuo, Togashi continues to stalk Yasuko, ostensibly because he wants reconciliation, but mostly because he wants to guilt her into giving him hand-outs. Yasuko dreads Togashi's appearance in her life and is eager for him to leave, even willing to give money just to make him go away. She is hesitant to call the police because she signed her apartment lease without a cosigner who can guarantee her ability to pay the rent. Her housing situation is very precarious, and she is close to being homeless. If she were to call the police, it might make the landlord less disposed towards accommodating her. It is this fear that explains why she lets Togashi into her apartment.

• It is Misato who, compared to her mother, is less hindered by practical considerations relating to money matters who strikes Togashi on the head in the heat of the moment. She represents the pure and adulterated will to act, unencumbered by thoughts of what the landlord or neighbors will think about her actions. Throughout the novel she functions as a driver for many of Yusako's actions to help move the plot forward and prompt her mother to act more decisively. It is because she strikes Togashi on the head that Yusako will be forced to resort to drastic action in the next chapter.

• The chapter ends on with unexpected drama, and the reader is sucked in. The novel is characterized by brisk, fast-paced prose that keeps the reader engaged and eager to find out what happens next.