Seismic Intensity 0

At 5:46 a.m. on January 17, 1995, the Great Hanshin Earthquake struck, and the Kansai region was shaken to its core. Some six hundred kilometers away, the N Prefecture Police Headquarters experienced its own silent "earthquake" that same morning. A call came in that no one answered, and an inexplicable chill rose in the heart of the Chief. Then, without warning, Kōri Yoshihito—the chief of the Police Affairs Division, who held personnel power in his hands—vanished. To the senior police brass led by the Chief, this disappearance was more unsettling than the distant quake. Kōri was trusted by his superiors and privy to a great many secrets. Why had he disappeared without a trace? Was he caught up in a case, or was there another explanation? A rumored third party, a car abandoned by the roadside, the murky circumstances of a prefectural assembly election four years earlier, a tale of bribery that could never be spoken aloud—seemingly unrelated clues surfaced one after another. Yet the anxious senior officers of the N Prefecture Police did not join forces to seek the truth. Calm on the surface, each calculating in private, clutching their own piece of the puzzle, they engaged in a quiet but breathtaking contest of concealment and probing. Hideo Yokoyama advances the story hour by hour through multiple perspectives, letting readers see how power structures devour human nature amid the silence and scheming of an organization. The title "Seismic Intensity 0" carries a double meaning: it is the faintest level on the meteorological intensity scale, imperceptible to ordinary people, and it also alludes to this "personnel earthquake" inside the police force—unnoticed by outsiders, yet earth-shattering to those involved.