Michiko, a journalist, receives an autobiographical manuscript from her sister Sakiko, who has apparently just committed suicide. They are both estranged daughters of ‘Fujiko the Killer’, a mass murderer currently appealing a death sentence. Wanting to publish the manuscript, Michiko interviews Fujiko in prison, and the story follows how Fujiko goes from being the abused child of a murdered family to becoming an abusive mother obsessed with her appearance, and a murderer herself. Raised through her teenage years by an aunt deeply involved with a religious cult, Fujiko finds her path also crossing that of the cult leader, a door-to-door cosmetics saleslady whose daughter was Fujiko’s first victim, and who, it turns out, has a connection with Fujiko going much further back. Ultimately we find that Fujiko is not the only killer at work here.