The London Times calls Keigo Higashino “The Japanese Stieg Larsson”. He is one of the most popular mystery writers in Japan. Over two million copies of his books have been sold and many of them have been adapted into successful films.

The Devotion of Suspect X is the first English publication in a series to feature physicist and part-time sleuth Manabu Yukawa, translated from the Japanese by Alexander O. Smith. Yukawa has helped solve many cases for the police and has garnered the nickname of Professor Galileo, named after the famous scientist who supported Copernicus’s theory that the sun was the center of the universe and the Earth revolved around it.

Yasuko Hanaoka is a single mother with a daughter in high school. She divorced her abusive husband five years prior and currently works at a bento shop in town. Yasuko’s world is shaken up by the unexpected appearance of her ex-husband and she ends up killing him in self-defense.

Ishigami is a mathematical genius who currently works at a local high school. He has heard he scuffle and when he rings the doorbell after things quiet down to ask if he can help, he spots a body half-hidden underneath the kotatsu. He convinces Yasuko to let him help and says he will take care of everything, including disposing of the body.

Detective Kusanagi is called to investigate a crime scene along the Edogawa River along the Tokyo side, across from Chiba Prefecture. The body had been left on an embankment wrapped in a blue plastic tarp. The body was stripped of all clothes, the face was smashed and the fingers were burned so the police could not identify the body by dental records or fingerprints. The police also found an abandoned bicycle nearby It was fairly new and both of its tires were flat. The police found prints on the bicycle. They belonged to a man named Shinji Togashi...Yasuko Hanaoka’s ex-husband.

Yasuko becomes the number one suspect for the police but she has a rock solid alibi completely arranged by Ishigami. Ishigami’s elaborate scheme even fools the police. Detective Kusanagi cannot find any holes in Yasuko’s alibi and yet still feels something isn’t right about the case. He decides to ask advice from his physicist friend, Manabu Yukawa.

It turns out that Detective Kusanagi, Yukawa and Yasuko’s neighbor, Ishigami, all attended the same university around the same time. For reasons unknown to Detective Kusanagi, Yukawa focuses on his old friend and colleague Ishigami. Yunokawa is as brilliant as Ishigami and he’s interested in finding a flaw in Ishigami’s elaborate plan and helps the police in the process.

Keigo Higashino doesn’t make you think of who committed the crime but how the crime was committed. The ending may surprise and shock you. The story is more than just a simple whodunit, it is a story of human nature and what lengths a man is willing to take to protect what he cherishes the most even if that love is not reciprocated. Could you make that same sacrifice? ~Ernie Hoyt

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