Salvation of a Saint is a thriller, crime novel originally written in Japanese in 2008 and translated into English in 2012 by Alexander O. Smith. It is fast paced, original, mind blowing and great fun.
As in The Devotion of Suspect X we meet the same detective Kusanagi who is investigating the mysterious dead of Yoshitaka Mashiba, a wealthy business man. Mashiba is found dead by his lover at his department after drinking a cup of poisoned coffee. The wife had been away visiting her parents in another city and Kusanagi suspects the mistress. However, his assistant, Detective Kaoru Utsumi, suspects the wife. She has not proof to support her suspicion though, but she trusts her instincts. She also believes Kusanagi is falling for the widow. After a couple of days into the investigation and unable to find any clue as to how the poison got into the coffee, Utsumi calls Professor Manabu Yukawa (detective Galileo). (We had previously met Yukawa in The Devotion of Suspect X.) Yukawa agrees to help the police only because he is struck by Kusanagi’s situation. However the more Detective Galileo thinks about the problem the more he is convinced this is an impossible murder.
Opinion: I completely agree with the quote in the front cover of the book “You’ll want to finish it in a single night”. I couldn’t finish it in one night, because no time, but I did finish it in three nights. This is not a “whodunit” but a “howdunnit” kind of novel. That is, we are told about the murder and strong suspect at the beginning of the book. The story is about finding out how the crime was committed. The narrative is simple, easy to ready. The events flow full of details without overwhelming the reader. I loved how Higashino designed (or structured) the crime and how he gave us details in bits each satisfying gradually our need to know how the crime was committed. The ending was GREAT! In terms of characters, I liked Utsumi’s sharp mind and initiative and of course Detective Galileo’s deductive capabilities not to mention the way he played with the detectives giving them only half truths and keeping them waiting for more. The widow and the mistress were also were constructed, revealing fragility and mysterious auras. We change our minds all the time suspecting one or the other. Overall this is a good light detective novel but with an intricate puzzle to entertain the reader.
My edition 330 pages and was published by Minotaur books in 2012.
No comments:
Post a Comment