Natsuo Kirino reinterprets a very common plot in world literature - the story of the relationship between a torturer and a victim. “A Chronicle of Cruelty” is an allusion, first of all, to Fowles’ “The Collector” and, further, to Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and the myth of Hades and Persephone. Narumi Koumi is a famous writer. Long ago, a quarter of a century ago, she experienced a tragedy that ruined her own life and the lives of her loved ones - she was kidnapped and spent a whole year in captivity. She tries to forget this story, but day after day she replays it in her head. Doubts that not everything is as simple as it may seem haunt her. And then a letter arrives from the kidnapper - he writes that he has not forgiven her. How is she, the victim, to blame before her tormentor?