Keigo Higashino has been described as the “Japanese Stieg Larsson”, but his writing style is so unique that it defies comparison with the Swedish author and, indeed, most other modern crime writers.
Higashino’s protagonist, Detective Kaga, is polite, respectful and methodical in his investigative work. He’s about as far removed from the stereotypically flawed, anti-authoritarian, heavy-drinking, hard-bitten contemporary fictional cop as you can get; imagine a humble, Japanese version of Agatha Christie’s Poirot and you’ll start to get the picture.
In Malice, Kaga is investigating the murder of a best-selling novelist, Kunihiko Hidaka, who was killed in his home office the night before he and his wife were due to move to Vancouver. One of the last people to see Hidaka alive was his close friend Osamu Nonoguchi, who also discovered the body.
Kaga immediately recognises Nonoguchi as a former colleague from his teaching days. Now Nonoguchi is a children’s book author, although he hasn’t enjoyed the same success as the famous Hidaka, and early on the detective starts to doubt some of his statements regarding his friendship with the author and events on the day of the murder.
The clever narrative techniques adopted by Higashino keep the reader guessing as a cat and mouse game ensues and we are drawn deeper into a maze of complex relationships that date back to Hidaka and Nonoguchi’s school days. Alternating chapters are voiced by different characters: first there’s Nonoguchi’s own account of the murder, then the detective’s notes and, towards the end, transcripts of interviews with old acquaintances. But how to know whose story and recollection is true? That is the question.
The author doesn’t distract his readers with subplots, multiple location changes, graphic imagery, side stories about his investigator’s private life or threats of further death and destruction. Instead, this is a classic whodunit – and why did they do it – where each turn of a page feels like you are slowly unwrapping an intriguing puzzle to find the source of the malice of the book’s title.
A refreshingly original yet nonetheless absorbing thriller by the author of previous best-seller The Devotion of Suspect X.
Malice is published by Hachette Australia, $29.99.
