Drawing material from Taiwan’s first random serial killer case, the novel A Sketch in Scarlet features both a woman serial killer and a woman scholar of criminal profiling who investigates the case. Aside from providing stark foils to one another, this construction allows author Karasumi to highlight the pressures and condemnation faced by all women, regardless of their social and economic backgrounds. This isn’t one of those murder cases that confounds readers with cunning criminal schemes; the investigation instead revolves around determining the mental state and motive of the murderer. When the female investigator squares off against the killer, she is not only solving a crime, she is confronting the limitations of her own predicament as a woman within the social milieu of 1980s Taiwan.