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I found this a pretty pleasant read, I didn't find it a chore to get to the end. I did find it had a lack of suspense.

Spoilers from here: Rather early on it's apparent that the narrator is going to be a murderer, so that doesn't come as a shock, and I think the author made the right decision to reveal that early on. The problem is, there is a bit of a lack of suspense as to who 'Charlie' is, the person that is seemingly following the narrator's rules for murders. For one thing, there are only really two, perhaps three possibilities, it could be the store's co-owner, his wife, the ex-cop or maybe Gwen Mulvey the FBI investigator. Again though there is a lack of suspense since it doesn't appear the narrator, or anyone he cares about is in particular danger. The murderer is copying his rules but not threatening him. The narrator is very briefly considered a possible suspect but has relatively strong alibis. What could have made this better was some chance that during the investigation he is found to be be guilty of the one murder he has committed. But that just isn't really on the cards at any point.

Finally there is the revelation at the end that the narrator actually killed his wife, but this just doesn't seem that revelatory. We already knew he was a murderer. With a final revelation that this note is actually a suicide note, but why is he killing himself? The two murders of which he is guilty (there is a third which he remembers but isn't sure is not a dream???) happened 5 years ago, so it's not any kind of remorse or feeling of guilt, he's only killing himself to avoid going to prison as when the police find out Marty has been the killer they will presumably connect the dots to his involvement in the Norman Chaney killing, though probably not his wife's. So he's killing himself to avoid going to prison, as a revelation, that is a pretty big meh for me.

Overall, not too badly written, but a pretty lacking plot makes this 'mystery' a bit run-of-the-mill.

For me this collection of novellas got more readable as went through them, so much so that I almost gave up on the book after the first one.

In general, there narration style is rather abstract with plot points being implied rather than told explicitly. Such that I found myself somewhat lost at times as to what was happening or even what time period was currently being discussed. This could of course be a result of the translation rather than the original text, I have no way of knowing, but suspect the translation is mostly fine.

The first story, 'Leaf storm' is difficult for me to follow. The 'leaf storm' apparently refers to the newcomers to the (fictional) town, who have come to work for the banana company that has recently come to town. But I don't know that from the story, but from looking it up externally. I'm not sure why the doctor is shunned by the town, some vague alluding to two incidents where the doctor refused people treatment, but the circumstances are too vague and it's never explicitly said that those incidents are why the town shuns the doctor. Nor is it clear to me why the grandfather of the tale feels obliged to first house and then bury the doctor. Overall I found myself a bit lost, and to be honest a bit bored. I'm not at all clear on the point of the story.

The second story "No one writes to the Colonel" is shorter, I may have found myself becoming a bit bored had it been longer. The point of the story is much clearer, and I think I would have had a firmer grasp on things if i had more (any) knowledge of Colombian history. Still, I found it a little difficult to know when and why things were happening.

The final story "Chronicles of a death foretold" was, for me, the best. I still found places where the narrative was unclear, I wasn't quite sure when certain things were happening, or the exact timeline of events, but it's much clearer here than in the other two stories. The narrator should have introduced themselves a bit better as I think I got lost by not quite understanding their place in the story.