The least good book in the series so far, in my opinion. Even though the author is obviously inspired, I disliked how the main characters set upon each other in a quite vain attempt to re-ignite what was there in the beginning. As a side-note I must say this makes the next volume even better, as a breather of sorts.

If you haven’t read the previous volumes of Death Note, I’d really recommend that you do. Spoilers ahead!

A third Kira has appeared, complicating an already impossible case. L’s main suspects, Light and Misa, have already been subjected to confinement and the killings have gone on without them. Light has given up the Death Note, lost his memories of his actions as Kira, and is now on the task force to find Kira, even though he’s spending every minute handcuffed to L. As the task force closes in on the Yotsuba group and begins to eliminate suspects, Misa plays a vital roll in the investigation – one which leads to her learning about the Death Note, Rem, and the third Kira’s identity!

So the action slowed down considerably in the last volume. If you thought there was a lot of talking and speculation in previous Death Notes, you ain’t seen nothing yet! L is working overtime as he tries to discover the third Kira’s identity while also questioning Light and Misa and using their relationship to his advantage. Adding to this is Misa’s general silliness – even trapped in L’s headquarters, she’s only focused on dating Light.

In fact, the start of this volume is much more light-hearted (forgive the pun?) than previous ones. The drawing style, the dialogue, and the interactions between characters are brighter and somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Perhaps that’s because we don’t have to see Light grimacing and sneering all the time? Come to think of it, this really does show you a Light that’s uncorrupted and unaffected by the Death Note. He will occasionally acknowledge that he makes the most sense as a suspect, and it makes him nervous and angry that he could be capable of such actions. Even when he’s missing his memories of being Kira, I don’t really like Light, but this gives us a chance to see the sort of personality the Death Note can draw out.

So after all that complaining about how slow this volume is, I will say that the action picks up drastically about 3/4ths of the way through. You’ll definitely want to have the next volume on hand when you finish this one!