Who Is Tomomi 'Butterfly' Ishikawa?

Randomly picked up this book at Sun Books in Bangkok- 'The Three Lives of Tomomi Ishikawa' (2011), a debut novel by Benjamin Constable. No idea about the author or if it's on any bestseller list at all. After reading the summary and flipping through a few pages, I decided it's one of those books that I'd read and pass it on. After I was done with it, I left the book in a corner of the cafe I was at.

The author named the protagonist after himself. Benjamin Constable, an aspiring British-born writer living in Paris. With a good friend, Tomomi Ishikawa (or also known as 'Butterfly'), he gets through Parisian life all right so far. The book is a little difficult to get into. I struggled with the first few chapters because the story is a little disjointed as we jump straight into Tomomi’s last letter to Benjamin Constable before her supposed suicide, and Benjamin’s thoughts after that.

Tomomi's letter bequeathed her laptop to Benjamin. From thereon, it would be a series of letters and little clues to the next letter waiting to be discovered or handed over to him by various strangers. I probably felt as frustrated as Benjamin did as I go through the letters, the puzzlement, the running around Paris for five months before going to New York to chase the clues and continue the 'treasure hunt'. He randomly met Beatrice who helps him out, and suggests what readers would have wondered- Is Tomomi Ishikawa really dead? We would also learn of the relationship between Beatrice and Butterfly. The letters Butterfly wrote seem to also reveal her American childhood, the relationship between her and her parents, and her nanny, and also what she experienced while growing up. In these letters, apparently she has murdered five people.

Tomomi was depressed and kinda lost it, claiming suicide, sending her friend on an unwelcomed trip, claiming  that it would help him write his story. The story doesn't end in New York; it heads back to Paris to a chill end. We see how Tomomi has finally succumbed to the demons in her mind. She holds Benjamin captive in the catacombs for a few days, releases him, and finally, actually, kills herself by ingesting a poisoned sweet. This is a damn strange story. I don't know what to make of it. It's got an interesting plot and premise, but the delivery and pacing are annoying.

'I mean you told me you were dead and I haven't seen you for seven months or something. You left me a trail of clues leading me to stories where you said you'd killed people, and to the other side of the world where you'd constructed a crazy scheme to entertain me, and now I've followed you down here where you live like a hermit/ballet dancer/fugitive on yoghurt and water. You are stranger than fiction and seem mad like I've never seen you before. I can't work out why you would have done any of this.' 

'Oh God. Why is complicated. You never used to ask about why, that's what I liked about you. We spent whole evenings drinking and talking, but you never wanted to know reasons for things.' 

'Really?' 

'It's a rare and endearing quality.'