Journalism of Courage
5 must-read books by Keigo Higashino, the master of Japanese mystery
As fans mourn the loss of Japan's bestselling crime novelist, we revisit the novels that made him a global phenomenon
Keigo Higashino, the bestselling Japanese crime novelist.
Readers across the world are mourning the death of Keigo Higashino, the bestselling Japanese crime novelist, at the age of 68. Over a four-decade career, he flipped the whodunit formula, indulging in a variety of well-done experiments from scientific ethics to psychological and supernatural territory.
For readers unfamiliar with his works, here are five novels that are a testament to his genius.
The Devotion of Suspect X (2005)
When a translation of the book released in the West in 2011, it put Japanese crime thrillers on the map, with critics hailing him as the next Stieg Larsson. In India, Jaane Jaan, the Hindi mystery thriller film directed by Sujoy Ghosh, starring Kareena Kapoor Khan, Jaideep Ahlawat and Vijay Varma, is based on the novel, which features a brilliant but reclusive math teacher who devises an airtight cover-up to protect his neighbor after she kills her abusive ex-husband, only to be pursued by his old friend, physicist-detective Manabu Yukawa (“Detective Galileo”). Higashino flips the traditional whodunit on its head by revealing the crime at the get go, with the readers wondering how it was done.
Malice (1996)
This one is a must read for fans of Police Detective Kyochiro Kaga. It is a must-read by virtue of being Higashino’s most acclaimed novels. It starts as expected with a murder. The victim is a novelist who has been killed a day before he was set to leave the country. His wife and his best friend are the primary suspects but they have an airtight alibi. The mystery seems unsolvable as his body is found in a locked room in a locked house. Once Kaga figures out who, he struggles to understand why, making it a tightly wound psychological puzzle, where readers must sift the truth from competing accounts.
Journey Under the Midnight Sun (1999)
This sprawling epic unfolds in Higashino’s birth town Osaka, where a man is found murdered in an abandoned building, Detective Sasagaki is assigned to the case, and keeps returning to two suspects: the taciturn son of the victim and the captivating daughter of the suspect. The case becomes Sasagaki’s white whale as he pursues the case for 20 years. It is also an exploration of how trauma and obsession ripple across a lifetime.
Keigo Higashino’s The Devotion of Suspect X (Japanese edition), Malice, Salvation of a Saint, and Naoko showcase the range of the author’s psychological thrillers, from locked-room mysteries to haunting explorations of identity and morality. (Amazon.in/Generated with AI)
Salvation of a Saint (2008)
Another must-read for Detective Galileo fans as their favourite detective finds himself embroiled with another impossible murder, a perfect crime, if you will. After a man is poisoned, the cops suspect his wife, who has an excellent motive, but they cannot place her on the scene as she is hundreds of miles away when the crime takes place. Brimming with twists and turns, the novel keeps readers on the edge of their seat.
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Naoko (1998)
This is a rather unsettling novel with supernational happenings at the heart of it, a far cry from his usual detective mysteries. A woman and her daughter find themselves in a bus mishap. The former dies–but, not really. Brace yourself, the woman’s memories and consciousness somehow embed themselves in her daughter. The woman’s husband, of course, finds himself in a sticky spot. The story won the Mystery Writers of Japan Award, and showcases Higashino’s emotional register outside the Galileo/Kaga series.
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