Higashino is a bestselling Japanese writer, whose expertise is in labyrinthine and absolutely exquisite plots. His is the first name I would recommend of any currently active detective fiction writer. He is a superb addition to the canon.īENGALURU: Regular readers of this page would know that I am a fan of Keigo Higashino. Kyoichiro Kaga is no Manabu Yukawa, and that is just fine by me. Higashino, though, makes Kaga impressive. Doggedness and perseverance, great traits though they are for a real-life detective, do not often translate well to literature. In this first story of Inspector Kaga’s that I read, the protagonists steal the show with their ingenuity and their ruthlessness, and lead Kaga down the wrong path more than once – but Kaga doesn't let go. The jagdhund is ungainly, neither super fast nor super strong, but once he catches the trail of his target, he will not let go. Kaga is, as Frederick Forsyth will put it, a ‘jagdhund’, the African hunting dog. Kaga is a smart man, but that smartness never threatens the realms of genius or even spectacular brilliance. Were Nonoguchi and Hidaka really friends? Was Hidaka a cruel, devious man? Is there a criminal who is almost desperate to get caught? Why? In his determined, painstaking way, Kaga peels away the layers of the most ingenious and most satisfying of ‘whydunits’.

Kaga starts his investigation, and nothing seems as they initially appear. Years ago, the detective, then a teacher, used to teach at a school where the suspect Nonoguchi was also a teacher. Inspector Kyoichiro Kaga arrives at the scene to investigate the murder.

Indeed, this entire narrative was written down by him, and later found among his writings by the police. Or at least that’s what Nonoguchi’s narration suggests. She comes by and together they enter the house to see that Hidaka is dead. Panicking, he calls Hidaka’s wife, Rie, at the hotel. Nonoguchi leaves immediately, and as he approaches Hidaka’s house, he finds it locked. A few hours later, in the middle of a meeting with his publisher, he is interrupted by a phone call from his friend, who summons Nonoguchi to his house. After that, he would leave his house and stay the night in the hotel where his wife is staying for the night.Īfter meeting Hidaka, Nonoguchi returns to his house. After meeting Nonoguchi, Hidaka is planning to complete a short story that he has promised to a magazine before he leaves for Canada.

Hidaka would be relocating from Japan to Canada with his wife the very next day, and he decides to meet his friend before he is leaving. Nonoguchi describes a recent meeting he had with his childhood friend and wildly successful writer, Kunihiko Hidaka. The story starts with a narration by Osamu Nonoguchi, a struggling writer of children’s fiction.

Malice by Keigo Higashino