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Newcomer

Keigo Higashino is one of the primary authors I always recommend to those who like clever, classy, classic crime, and I was delighted to discover that he had a new one. In this, the newcomer of the title is Detective Kyoichiro Kaga of the Tokyo Police Department, who has just been transferred to a new precinct in the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo. (We previously saw this very astute police detective in Malice). Kaga is promptly assigned to the team investigating the murder of a woman, and his unorthodox ways viewed with suspicion by his new colleagues. There are a huge number of suspects, but the outcome involves a very moving family-related twist – this author is not only good with the crime plots, he really paints his characters well and makes you believe in their various relationships.

His other crime titles in English – despite occasional recurring detectives all are standalones – are The Devotion of Suspect X, Salvation of a Saint, Malice and A Midsummer’s Equation, and his Journey Under a Midnight Sun is a hugely interesting epic of two intertwined people’s lives that is crimey but not in the same Golden-Age-but-modern way.

Thalia Proctor