By the end of Chapter Two of The Devotion of Suspect X, author Keigo Higashino has put the reader in the shoes of TV's Detective Columbo. It's an inverted detective story: we've seen a murder take place and we know who's committed it. Yasuko has killed her violent ex-husband Togashi. Neighbour Ishigami, a mathematical genius who keeps himself to himself has overheard the crime. He also happens to have a crush on Yasuko and offers to deal with the body and arrange things so that she will never be found guilty.The remainder of the story follows Detective Kusanagi's investigation and the help he receives from his brilliant physicist friend Yukawa, aka Detective Galileo.
Ishigami's genius is to have created a mystery which appears to have logical answers, but which the detective's instinct tells him are wrong. I too kept thinking, there must be more to the story than meets the eye. Indeed, the clues are there, but they are well hidden and I didn't work it out before the reveal. A very satisfying ending.
No comments:
Post a Comment