Miyuki Miyabe is a popular Japanese writer who successfully works in various genres (detective, science fiction and fantasy, historical adventure novel and literature for children and teenagers). Miyabe has published four dozen books, many of which have been awarded literary prizes and are translated into different languages. The writer has firmly established herself as the queen of the modern Japanese detective story. In the novel “Virtual Family,” Miyuki Miyabe immerses the reader in the world of Internet chats, which attract people of different ages and positions with the opportunity to be who they would like to be. While investigating the murder of an elderly employee, the police discover electronic messages on the victim’s computer, from which it follows that the deceased was a regular participant in a chat community, where he played the role of “dad” in a virtual “family.” In this role-playing game, his daughter's name was Kazumi - just like his daughter in real life. When the real Kazumi discovers her father's alternative life, illusion and reality collide in dramatic fashion.